PAST MASTERS

EIGHTEEN

2020

Contents

1: The Missing Q.C.s/ John Oxenham

2: The Croucher / Gwyn Evans (novelette)

3: The Obscure Move / Wadsworth Camp

4: Cricket's Last Hop / C. S. Montanye

5: Hoodwinked / C. S. Montanye

6: Frozen Stiff / C. S. Montanye

7: Wings For An Angel / C. S. Montanye (novelette)

8: Opals Are Unlucky / C. S. Montanye

9: Stag Party / Charles G Booth (long novelette)

_____________________

1: The Missing Q.C.s

John Oxenham

(William Arthur Dunkerley 1852-1941)

The Harmsworth Monthly Pictorial Magazine Nov/Dec 1898

THE GREAT DOORWAY of the Law Courts resembled the entrance to a gigantic bee-hive, with the bees swarming round and furtively working their way in against the out-coming stream.

A black swarm of drones lined both sides of the Strand as far as Temple Bar on the one hand, and St. Clement’s Danes on the other, and kept close speculative and commentative watch on all comers. Carriages and hansoms dashed up, and their occupants sprang out and plunged into the ingoing throng. Barristers in wigs and gowns were reduced to the level of ordinary folk, and had to elbow it with the rest.

Now and again the stalwart guardians of the inner doors brought down their stony official gaze to the level of the crowd, pushed open the swinging valves with great show of deference and obsequious touch of helmet, and ushered in one or other of the great leaders of the Bar. Then the whisper buzzed round that that was Mr. Peacock, Q.C., that Sir Charles Dossall, that the Attorney- General, and so on.

The smaller men flaunted themselves in wigs and gowns, and ridiculous bibs and tuckers, and faces of infinite gravity and importance. These greater stars, in ordinary attire, passed on serenely to their robing-rooms, and strove to appear unconscious of the eyes that were upon them.

From the crowd kicking its heels against the kerb-stones in the Strand, to the crowd already mopping its beady brow on the back benches of Court No. 99, all was excited expectancy.

It was a great case. A world-wide reputation was at stake. For five whole days all the world had been ringing with the report of it. When the Court adjourned the previous night, the curtain fell on a most dramatic situation, and public excitement was at fever-heat.

The evening papers had procured new letters of the most bulgy and striking character for their contents bills, regardless of expense. The New York papers cabled out verbatim reports, and came out with head-lines which ran down half a column. The Petit Journal, in Paris, had actually given the case two whole columns.

The Attorney-General, Sir Revel Revell, and a brilliant array of Q.C.’s represented the plaintiff; Sir Charles Dossall, Mr. Peacock, Q.C., and various juniors, were fighting the defendant’s case, and fighting it magnificently.

The plaintiff was a man whose name was a household word, from one point of view or another, throughout the world. Charges of the gravest character— charges of financial fraud of the worst description— had been made against him, and here he was at last in the box, to the intense surprise of many, driven thereto by the forces majeures of the situation— nominally the accuser, actually the accused— fighting for his life and all that made that life worth the living.

The betting in the clubs had been five to two against his appearing, from which one might gather that among his fellows, at all events, he was already prejudged and condemned.

But here he was, pale and still, with a face like a flint; and only the pulse in his temple showing those nearest to him the intensity of his emotions. His eyes never flinched; his very jaw was motionless, and gave no indication of the tight-clenched teeth within ; only that little throbbing pulse in the white temple showed what was going on inside.

Throughout the whole of the previous day Sir Charles had subjected the plaintiff to the searching fire of his keen cross-examination— an art of which he was the acknowledged master —and on the whole the witness had stood it fairly well.

Towards the close, however, Sir Charles suddenly developed a new line—tentatively, as it seemed to some of the Bar who were following with closest attention every word and expression, both of counsel and and finally he launched at the man in the box one question which paled his cheek, and shook him as he stood and clenched his fingers white in their grip on the sides of the witness-box, and caused the perspiring spectators to hold their breath for the answer, and flung the Bar into a high fever of excitement.

The heavy, fetid atmosphere of the court crystallised into an electric silence, and startled the very judges into a sudden assumption of wide-eyed attention.

The silence was accentuated, rather than broken, by an occasional cold, sharp word from Sir Charles as the witness attempted to fence with the pitiless question.

But Sir Charles would have none of it; with him there was no evasion. His point faced his victim remorselessly; he held him to it as a master of the duello holds his opponent at the point of his blade and provokes the answering thrust or delivers the death-blow.

The plaintiff relapsed into stony silence: the spectators waited open-mouthed, all a-bristle with excitement; the Court waited. Sir Charles waited, launching his questions now and again, short and sharp as revolver-shots, every unanswered question carrying to every mind present all the conviction of the damnatory answer Sir Charles required, every shot going home to the heart of that great reputation.

It was pitiful, pitiless; but it was magnificent and tragic. It was like watching a stately castle in flames. It had all the horrible piquancy of an execution.

“Answer me, sir,” at length said Sir Charles, in tones of steel. “If I keep you here all night I will have the answer to my question.”

And at length the answer came— broken and faltering.

An answer that produced a special hieroglyphic on each of the judges’ notes, that blanched the face of the Attorney-General with angry dismay, that set the spectators and the Bar quivering with impatience for the next.

Then Sir Charles quietly gathered together his few notes and intimated that if it pleased their lordships he would continue his cross-examination of the witness on the morrow, and the crowded court hummed with excitement like a harried hive whence the honey has been snatched, and slowly, very slowly, the audience trickled out into the street. And the impatient mob outside took up the news and buzzed it along, and stood in knots discussing it, and devouring the few words in the evening papers which already, by means of six-inch-letter contents bills, announced “Startling Admissions by the Plaintiff,” and were selling for six times their usual price as fast as the boys could hand them out.

It was a point boldly taken and admirably made, and did Sir Charles’s well-known dramatic instincts credit. The excitement next morning was greater than ever. The entrance to the Law Courts was no longer a bee-hive, it was an ant-hill swarming with ants fighting for standing room in Court No. 99. And on every tongue and in every eye was the question—

“Will the plaintiff face Sir Charles again?”

“Will he toe the line?”

“Will he come up to the scratch?”

“Has he bolted?”

A sigh, compounded of satisfaction at sight of him and admiration of his pluck, went round as the unhappy personage in question stalked gloomily into court and took his seat by his counsel, with the set white face of one preparing for the rack, and for the worst.

“He’s a good plucked one, he is,” was the opinion of the gallery.

“His ideas of right and wrong may be somewhat off colour, but he’s got nerve, anyhow,” said the body of the court.

“Cool devil,” said the Junior Bar.

And they all settled themselves comfortably for the enjoyment of a morning’s vivisection.

It seemed as though the judges were never coming. They strained even the judicial privilege of latitude in the matter of punctuality. But at last their door opened. The usher bustled in, fiddled round the Chief Justice’s desk with a finishing touch, flung back the curtains with a noisy rattle, and in they came, settled into their seats after the usual formalities, and the great case got under way again.

The public, satisfied that the plaintiff was there, had missed the fact that one of the most important personages in the anticipated entertainment had not yet arrived. All their thoughts and fears had been concentrated on the victim. They had not noticed that his executioner was absent.

Mr. Peacock, Q.C., fidgeted nervously, settled his wig, unsettled his bib, pulled round the lapel of his gown on one side, then on the other, and then hung despairingly on to it with both hands, and swung round every half-minute to eye the dooi with a face in which surprise, annoyance, and perplexity were equally blended. The judges waited, glancing in surprise at the vacant seat on the counsel’s bench; and at last Mr. Peacock rose, red and nervous, bowed to the Lord Chief Justice, and said—

“M’ lud— yourludships— er— er— might I request— er— er— few minutes’ delay— er— er— Sir Charles has not yet arrived, m’ lud— er— er— no idea of the reason. I have sent down to his chambers— er— er— most extraordinary, m’ lud.”

The Lord Chief Justice bowed suavely.

“I hope nothing has happened to Sir Charles. We will await the return of your messenger, Mr. Peacock.”

“I thank you, m’ lud.”

Mr. Peacock bowed gratefully and sat down, the personification of annoyance and perplexity. The judges turned in their seats to discuss the latest society scandal. The members of the Bar joked and growled. The spectators whispered. Mr. Peacock, Q.C., fidgeted nervously, one eye on the clock and one on the door.

At last the curtains round the door were agitated, and Mr. Peacock’s clerk appeared heated and panting, his face charged with importance. He was accompanied by an elderly man whom many recognised as Sir Charles Dossall’s confidential clerk.

A short whispered conversation took place between the three, and then Mr. Peacock rose with a look of amazement on his face.

“M’ lud, your ludships, I fear we must— er— claim the indulgence of the Court. What has happened to Sir Charles I cannot say. I learn that he— er— went out last night after a lengthy sitting with myself, and has not since been seen or heard of. Sir Charles’s clerk is here” (Sir Charles’s clerk bowed, but was covered with confusion when he found that no one took any notice of him), “and informs me that he has been to Sir Charles’s house and found Lady Dossall in— er— er— an agony of apprehension as to what can have become of him. Perhaps your ludships would advise me what to do under the circumstances.”

The judges conferred together. The Bar indulged in jokes of various shades at Sir Charles’s expense. The public sat eager and curious, awaiting developments.

The Lord Chief Justice spoke at last.

“With the consent of the other side, Mr. Peacock, we will adjourn till to-morrow, when we hope Sir Charles may be able to be present.”

The Attorney-General rose, and said, blandly—

“Under the circumstances, my lord, we consent to the adjournment. I trust I may be permitted to join in the hope that nothing untoward has happened to my esteemed friend Sir Charles, and that he will be able to be with us to-morrow.”

The crowd poured out, excitedly discussing the situation. Mr. Peacock conferred with his juniors and some fellow Q.C.’s, with the result that five minutes later a dozen hansoms were speeding in various directions, all having the same end in view— the discovery of the missing leader.

“Well, Charlie, what do you make of it?” asked the Attorney-General, slipping his arm through that of Charlie Dallas, one of Ins juniors in the case, as they left the court together.

“Hanged if I know what to make of it, Sir Revel. What do you think yourself?”

“There are a hundred possible explanations, my boy, but probably the hundred-and-first will prove the correct one. We shall probably know to-morrow— by the way, Millicent is expecting you up tonight. She asked me to tell you to come early.”

Next morning Court 99 was again crowded to suffocation.

The papers had given no explanation and no information of importance. In the first place, they had none to give; in the second place, one might almost have imagined, from their very brief reference to the subject, that word had been passed round to touch as lightly on the subject as possible.

Word had been conveyed to the judges that nothing had yet been heard of Sir Charles, but they felt it necessary to give Mr. Peacock the opportunity of proceeding in the absence of his leader, if he chose to avail himself of it.

But when the Lord Chief Justice, on entering, glanced at the counsel’s bench, he saw, to his surprise, that Mr. Peacock himself had not yet put in an appearance.

This was going too far, and he made the clerk call the case.

Then came a pause. The clerk might call, but there was no Sir Charles, and no Mr. Peacock.

Mr. Vincent Coyle, Q.C., a young Irish barrister who had taken silk only six months before, seemed to be in sole charge of the defence.

After a brief reference to his papers, the Lord Chief Justice bowed graciously to Mr. Coyle and asked, with gentle irony—”Shall we proceed, Mr. Coyle?”

Mr. Coyle had been on pins and needles for many minutes past, and now he sprang to his feet.

“M’lud, your ludships, I do not know what to make of it at ahl “—in his nervousness he had almost added a second “ at ahl,” but managed to bite it off just in time. “Sir Charles has not, as your lordship is aware, turned up— er— I mean— come home— er— reappeared yet. But what has become of Mr. Peacock—I cannot—”

At this juncture Mr. Peacock’s clerk came elbowing through the throng about the door, and made his way towards Mr. Coyle.

Mr. Coyle’s eye brightened, and he looked hopefully in the rear of the clerk for signs of Mr.

Peacock. But the curtain had fallen over the door, the ruffled crowd had closed up again, and every eye was fixed on the heated and self-conscious clerk.

“Have I your lordship’s indulgence for one moment?” asked Mr. Coyle, and bent to speak angrily to the clerk.

“Where the dickens is Mr. Peacock, Simmonds? Surely, when he knew Sir Charles was not here, he might have made a point of being in time. Here am I, left―"

“Mr. Peacock went out last night, and has not come back, Mr. Coyle. He has not been home, and we can get no news of him.”

“The devil!” burst audibly from Mr. Vincent Coyle’s lips, as he sank limply into his seat and gazed bewilderedly first at the clerk and then at the Bench. Then, with a rake at his wig, he struggled up on to his feet, looked helplessly at their lordships, and said—

“M’luds, Mr. Peacock disappeared last night, and no trace can they find of him.”

And then he sat down again, and drummed with his fingers on the desk as though to signify that he gave the matter up as a very bad job. There it was, and they were at liberty to make the best of it.

Even their lordships seemed staggered; they retired to confer together. The eyes and ears of the public were strained to bursting point.

A sense of intense nervous excitement filled the court. The more frivolous members of the Junior Bar attempted to work it off with a few ill-timed jokes.

“Peacock’s funked it.”

“Never would have thought it of old Pea.”

“If it had been the Attorney-General, now,” said one irreverent, “one could have understood it.”

“Coyle, me bhoy, you have yourself watched,” said another; “you’re the next on the string.”

The public, too, found voice, and, waiving even the ceremony of introduction, discussed the singular situation every man with his neighbour, and strange, wild ideas were wafted about.

The judges entered again, and settled in their places with all the ruffled stateliness of sitting hens suddenly disturbed while on business.

“You are not prepared to go on, Mr. Coyle?”

“I am not, m’ lud,” said Mr. Coyle with gloomy emphasis.

His lordship bowed to the Attorney-General, who rose with a sweeping swirl of his gown.

“My lord, we might, I presume, claim a verdict, as our opponents are still unprepared to proceed with their case. But, personally, I should much regret taking a course which, while perfectly legal, might not be considered by the world at large as satisfying the course of justice. We leave the matter entirely in your lordship’s hands.”

“That is very right and proper, Mr. Attorney, and under the circumstances I see nothing for it but to adjourn again. We will take the case this day week.”

“If you please, my lord.”

The Attorney-General sat down, but sprang up like a highly ornamental Jack-in-the-box.

“One other matter may I mention, my lord? Rumours and whispers reach my ears, even in this court, to the effect that my client knows something about or is in some way responsible for the mysterious absence of Sir Charles Dossall and Mr. Peacock. May I state to your lordships most emphatically, if indeed any such assurance is necessary, that my client is as much in the dark in this matter as your lordships’ own selves?”

“Your assurances are quite unnecessary, Mr. Attorney, and,” added his lordship, standing, and speaking with additional impressiveness from that fact, “let me say that should it be proved that anyone whatsoever has been in this matter endeavouring to defeat the course of justice the penalty will be commensurate with the enormity of the offence.”

Their lordships retired, and the crowd burst out along the passages and into the streets almost before the curtain had dropped on the tail of the last judicial gown, and every tongue wagged its freest. Now indeed busy pens were plied. The matter could no longer be covered up. The papers were full of the mysterious disappearances, and speculation, suggestion, and rumour had full play.

THREE DAYS later Dallas and his friend Godfrey Cox were idly knocking the balls about in the tennis ground in the Temple Gardens. It was an off day with them. They had many off days in the summer weather. The tennis courts by the river offered infinitely greater attractions than the courts across the way.

Sauntering down the path towards them came Vincent Coyle, in wig and gown as usual. His friends said Vincent wore his wig on all possible occasions for purely personal reasons. In fact, these friendly enemies, of whom, being a hot-headed Irishman, he had many, averred that he wore his wig in the nature of a disguise, and for the purpose of escaping for a time from the embarrassment of the shock of fiery red hair which was his most startling outward characteristic. Some of them even asserted that Vincent’s wig was built to order especially low over the ears and deep in the neck for this very purpose.

“Well, Coyle, what is the news?” queried Dallas. “Any word yet of the missing men?”

“Div’l a word,” said Coyle, cheerily. “What’s come of those two men passes mortal comprehension.” “No attempt on you yet?” asked Cox.

“Not one, faith,” said Coyle, who, when off duty, sustained his patriotism by a villainous cultivation of the brogue. “But sayriously, bhoys, it’s no matter for joking, this. I was up seeing Lady Dossall yestherday, and the poor thing is almost demented.”

“Good chance for you, Coyle,” said Cox, “if Sir Charles should unfortunately never reappear. They say she’s very pretty.”

“Very pretty and very young, and in great disthress,” replied Vincent, soberly. “What do you suppose is at the bottom of it, Dallas? Is it murder, or kidnapping, or what?”

“I’m utterly at sea, Coyle, and so is Scotland Yard. I was up at the House last night with Sir Revel. He came out with the Home Secretary, and they both seemed worried to death. In both cases the procedure seems to have been much the same. Both men had got home for the night. Both started out again, leaving word they would be back shortly, and not a trace of them is found.”

“What took them out again?”

“Can’t say. In Sir Charles’s case I believe a letter was handed in, and presumably he went out in answer to it. Whether Peacock received one also we have not yet learnt.”

Just then there drove rapidly up the central drive a victoria drawn by a handsome pair of bays.

Dallas started, then leaped the railing, and hurried towards it. The carriage stopped as the coachman recognised him.

A delicately gloved hand was stretched out towards him, and a lovely face with a cloud upon it greeted him.

“Oh, Charley, how glad I am to see you! I didn’t know what on earth to do or where to go, now I had got here.”

“Why, Milly, what’s up? What brought you here? You didn’t come for a game of tennis in that costume?”

“Oh, Charley, we’re in such trouble. Mother’s worrying to death. Father went out suddenly last night, leaving word he would be back in a short time, and he’s never come back yet.”

“What?” almost yelled Dallas. “Sir Revel, too? Why, I was with him at the House at eleven last night.”

“Yes, it was after he came in. Oh, Charley, what is it? What is wrong?”

“Nothing, dear— at least, I hope not. You were going to Sir Revel’s chambers to inquire. Wait here. I will run round, and be back in five minutes.”

He came back with a heavier heart than he had known for many a day.

“Sir Revel is not in, Milly. You did quite right in coming; but drive back home now, dear, and I will call round later, and bring your father with me, I hope. Tell Lady Revel not to worry; a public man’s time is not quite his own, you know.”

“Oh, I am so glad I met you, Charley! Do bring him home early, or mother will worry herself sick. Good-bye.”

Dallas raised his hat, and the bays dashed away.

He stood for a second with the radiance of her presence still in his eyes; then his face shut down into a heavy frown, and he strode back to his friends.

“Lucky Charles,” said Cox, as he approached. “But why arrange meetings in the open air? I understood Papa Revel was quite agreeable, and that everything was all cut, and dried, and signed, sealed, and delivered, bar the actual ceremony. Why, Dallas, what’s wrong?”

“Sir Revel has disappeared; he went out suddenly last night, and has never returned.”

Coyle tore off his wig, and rushed like a meteor away under the arches towards his chambers.

“Really, Charley?”

“Really, Cox. Millicent came down here to see if her father was at his chambers. Good heaven! what is the meaning of it all?”

And now indeed the newspapers had things all their own way. It would, perhaps, be too much to say that the word-spinners of the Press revelled in the mystery, but they certainly made much of it. They built Pyramids and Sphinxes with the flimsiest of bricks, containing the smallest possible amount of straw, and they did well out of it. As for the newsboys, they reaped such a harvest that they would willingly have sacrificed every Q.C. in the land to keep up the excitement.

When late that night one small fiend ran up the Strand, yelling, “Dis’pearance of ‘Torney-Gen’ral!” and holding a poster like this in front of him—

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

OF THE

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

he sold out his whole stock at sixpence each before he reached Wellington Street, and anathematised his want of faith in human nature which had prevented him from laying in a double supply.

This was the climax. The Attorney-General was to have delivered a great speech in the House that night. He had disappeared in the wake of Mr. Peacock and Sir Charles Dossall.

What did it all mean? That was the question the whole country— and the whole world— was asking.

What did it mean?

Charles Dallas had a hard time of it. He haunted Scotland Yard for information of the missing men, but Scotland Yard had no information to give— forbore even to cover up its want of success with the usual air of mystery, and confessed itself absolutely in fault. The rest of the time was passed in cudgelling his own brains and his friends’ for possible solutions of the mystery, and in calling at Cadogan Place to keep Lady Revel and Millicent posted as to the latest moment up to which no news had arrived.

Lady Revel received him each time with fresh outbursts of grief. Millicent welcomed him with reproachful wonder, and plainly showed that she expected him to produce Sir Revel without fail on his next visit. She even once went the length of indulging in the uttermost extreme of feminine reproach—” I can not understand it, Charley. Nothing seems to be being done. Oh, if I were a man!”

“But, Milly dear, nothing can be done. There is not a shred of a clue to work upon.”

“I don’t want shreds of clues. I want my father!”

Dallas grew hollow-eyed and haggard.

Between the devil and the deep sea, as typified by the misery at Cadogan Place and the unfathomable mystery which was clouding all their lives, he had a very bad time of it indeed.

His nights were sleepless, and his days full of worry.

Meanwhile, the public were amazed and indignant. That three prominent men could disappear from their midst, as though the earth had opened and swallowed them up, and no one be even arrested for it, was altogether too much.

The police were perplexed and wrathful; and headquarters only put up with Dallas, and his sometimes overheated words (this would be on his return from an unusually unpleasant quarter of an hour in Cadogan Place), because they knew him, and liked him, and understood his trouble.

One afternoon he was walking rapidly along the Embankment towards New Scotland Yard— his second visit that day— when from an open carriage, driving rapidly towards him, a young man waved a cheery salute with his glove. Dallas’s gloomy eyes were fixed on vacancy, and did not catch the signal. In a moment the carriage whirled round, and shot up alongside of him.

“Dallas?”

Charley turned and looked vacantly at the occupant of the carriage for a moment; then, recognising him, he warmly grasped the outstretched hand.

“Why, Jellicoe, is it you?”

“Very much so, my boy. Where are you going? Jump in, and I’ll take you there.”

Dallas hesitated, then stepped in.

“Where to?”

“Scotland Yard, please,” and the carriage rolled on.

“And why to Scotland Yard, if one may ask without nosing into a professional secret? Going to give yourself up? What’s it for?”

“No secret, Jellicoe; I half live at Scotland Yard at present.”

“May I ask why? It never struck me as a particularly attractive caravanserai.”

“Why, man alive! don’t you know that Sir Revel Revel?”

“Oh, I know all about Sir Revel.”

“You do?” shouted Charley.

“All about his disappearance, I mean. Don’t get excited, my boy—you nearly made the horses bolt that time! What has Sir Revel got to do with you?

“Why— oh, of course, you don’t know— it’s so long since I’ve seen you. Well, you see, I am engaged to Sir Revel’s daughter, and you can understand that the family is in a terrible way about this matter, and they seem to think— well— hang it!— every time I call, and that’s at least once a day— twice some days— I feel as though it was my fault that Sir Revel had not been found.”

“I understand; nasty position— very. Shall I tell you something else, Dallas?”

“Yes, what?”

“The next to disappear— or to break down, at all events— will be Charles Dallas. Man, you look terrible! You must stop it. You can’t stand the strain.” He had been examining his friend with a keen professional eye.

“Yes, I feel fairly played out,” said Dallas, sinking wearily back on the cushions.

The carriage drove up to Scotland Yard.

Dallas sprang out, and stretched out his hand to say good-bye.

“No,” said Jellicoe, “I’ll wait. I’m going to prescribe for you.”

Dallas was back in a couple of minutes. “No news?” said Jellicoe. “Well, jump in, my boy, we’ll have a spin round the park— it’ll do you good, and I want to talk to you.”

Dallas stepped in, and they were whirled away.

“Now, look here, Dallas,” said Jellicoe, “I speak with authority. Do you know what I am?”

Dallas shook his head gloomily. “Well, since we met last— it must be a year, at least— I have made a big move. You know I always had a taste for the investigation of brain diseases?”

Dallas nodded, and the shadow of a smile flickered on his face at the recollection of certain episodes at Oxford.

“Yes, I see you remember. Well, I pursued the same lines of study with some success, taking my degree. That, too, you know. But what you don’t know is this: A year ago these investigations of mine brought me into contact with, and finally into very close intimacy with, Dyne— Sir James Dyne, the great specialist— and he finally made me an offer to join him in his work: and here I am. Now, for the moment, I am your medical adviser, and I say you have got to drop this business and get away, or you will pay for it in a way you won’t like.”

“I know, Jellicoe; you are quite right. But I simply can’t go until this matter is put right.”

“Well, my boy, be warned. You are heading straight for a complete break-up. Let us talk of something else.”

Jellicoe did his best to get his friend away from himself for a time, but found it hard work.

“Come and dine with me to-night, Dallas, and then we’ll go round and see Toole or Irving, or whatever you like best.”

“Dear boy, I really couldn’t. I’m completely in the dumps.”

“I’m going to get you out before it is too late. Look here, now: To-morrow night the Most Worshipful Company of Apothecaries gives its annual grand feed. It is a most amusing experience; I want you to come with me— it will do you good.”

“It is very good of you, Jellicoe; but really, old man, I—"

“Nonsense, my boy. How will it help matters if you go in for a bad attack of brain fever? I tell you you have got to let up and go slow, or I won’t answer for consequences.”

He looked so serious that Dallas felt shaken, and finally, with somewhat of an ill grace, he promised Jellicoe to join him the following night.

THE WORSHIPFUL Company and its guests were working steadily and stolidly through the ponderous menus, and Jellicoe was in the highest of spirits, rattling away as though diseases of the brain existed not, and mentally patting himself on the back at the slightly less gloomy expression on his friend’s face.

The dinner was half done when the vacant chair on Dallas’s left hand was suddenly filled by a late arrival, who nodded genially to Jellicoe as he took his seat, and to apparently half the occupants of the room as he unfolded his napkin.

He ate little, drank nothing but Burgundy, and was puffing his cigar among the first. Then Jellicoe leaned across Dallas, and said to the new comer—

“Sir James, permit me to introduce my old college chum, Charles Dallas, of the Junior Bar; Dallas, this is Sir James Dyne.”

Dallas turned and encountered a pair of keen dark eves shining out of a wonderfully handsome, clear-cut, clean-shaven face, crowned with a mass of silky white hair.

“We have met before, Mr. Dallas,” said the old man, bowing.

“Indeed, Sir James, I do not remember having had that pleasure.”

“You were acting junior to Sir Revel Revell in Regina v. Pauld, were you not?”

“I was; I remember now,” with a smile. “You have a keen eye, Sir James. If the judges only had as good a memory for juniors as you have”

“Yes, a keen eye and a keen memory are two of the essentials of my special branch of the profession. I am seventy-two, Mr. Dallas, but I do not forget much which I wish to remember.”

The great specialist sipped his coffee, and continued—

“Sir Revel and I had a warm bout that day. I see you think he came off best, but he was absolutely wrong, Mr. Dallas, absolutely wrong, though he won his case.”

Here they became aware that “ Sir James Dyne— Sir James Dyne “ was being loudly called upon to respond to some toast, and he rose to his feet. “Gentlemen!” Then in an aside to Jellicoe, “What on earth is the toast, Jellicoe?”

Jellicoe, almost suffocating with laughter, told him, and the old man launched into a speech that convulsed the room, made the tears run down the cheeks of the Worshipful Masters and Wardens, and left them rosy red and limply happy.

As he sat down he lit another cigar, and turned to Dallas.

“Excuse the interruption, Mr. Dallas. And now what is your theory of this mysterious disappearance of Sir Charles Dossall, Mr. Peacock, and Sir Revel?”

“That question was on the tip of my tongue to ask you, Sir James.”

A humorous twinkle came into the keen dark eye. “Well, like everybody else, except the police, I suppose, I have my theory too, and, do you know, I think it will prove to be the right one.” He beamed confidentially towards the young man, drew out his watch, half unintentionally as it seemed, and sprang up suddenly as he caught sight of the time. “Will you pardon my running away? I have an appointment which I shall barely manage to keep. Come down and see me at my place,

Mr. Dallas, at Barwood. I shall be delighted. Any Sunday you can spare the time. I dine at seven, sharp. Good-bye! Good-bye, Jellicoe!” and he was gone.

“Amusing old cuss, isn’t he?” said Jellicoe, who had got past reverence point. “If he asks you down to his place, you go, Dallas; it will take you out of yourself, my boy. He has a wonderful establishment down there. I tackle the consultative and theoretical part of the business; Sir James handles the actual and desperate cases. For downright out-and-out mad loonies there never was a man like him.”

“Do you often go down there?”

“Me? Never; if I can help it. It is interesting and all that, but one has to see so much of it that when I get the chance of an hour or two off, I get as far away from it as possible.”

Next evening, Dallas received the following:—

My dear Mr. Dallas,—

I trust that you will believe me when I say that when I referred last night to Sir Revel Revell I had not the remotest idea that the matter was of more than ordinary interest to you; but I have since learned of your close connection with Sir Revel’s family, and I am annoyed to think that any heedless words of mine may have added to the pain which this strange matter must be causing you.

Pray accept my sincerest sympathy; and to show that you bear an old man no ill will, come down on Sunday and enliven my solitary table. Seven sharp. The carriage shall meet you at North Barwood Station by the 6.20 from Waterloo.

Sincerely yours,

James Dyne.

With the remembrance of Sir James’s last words at the dinner still ringing in his ears, Dallas wrote accepting the invitation.

A fifteen-minutes’ spin in the train, a rapid fifteen-minutes’ drive through lovely lonely country lanes, prematurely darkened by the threatening of a storm, a panting halt while heavy iron gates were unlocked, a rapid passage up a long tree-lined approach, and Dallas was silently received by an ancient servitor in black silk stockings, with silky white hair, who handed his hat and coat to one of two stalwart footmen, and bowed the visitor into a small handsomely furnished room, half reception-room, half library.

As far as he could judge, the house seemed a very large one. The thing that struck him most was the absolute quiet, and the exquisite taste displayed in ill the appointments. Everything was rich and solid, and in perfect accord with Sir James Dyne’s own impressive personality.

Sir James joined him almost instantly, and gave him warm greeting. “It was really very good of you to take pity on an old man’s loneliness, Mr. Dallas—in the face of such a storm too,” as a crash of thunder shook the house.

The low hum of a deep-toned gong rolled along the passages, and Sir James said, gaily—

“Let us to table at once. Everything here goes by clockwork, and if I am behind time the cook goes on sending up the courses, and I am the sufferer.”

It was an admirable dinner, rendered doubly so by the old doctor’s wonderful flow of anecdote and reminiscence. He knew something about everybody, and mostly to their detriment— that is, from the professional standpoint. Dallas found himself wondering at last if he himself were quite sane, or at all events whether, beyond himself and his host, there were any absolutely sane persons in existence.

The doctor evolved the theory that ninety-nine men out of a hundred are insane upon at least one subject, and that the way to cure them is, not by immuring them in asylums, but by a surgical operation which should deaden their susceptibilities upon the subject in question.

“Why you, yourself, Mr. Dallas, probably have some subject which touches you to the quick when you brood upon it. ‘It makes you mad to think of it’— how commonly the expression is used; it is only a colloquialism, of course, but there is the germ of truth in it, as there is the germ of madness in every brain. Circumstances in some cases hatch out the germ, and so men go mad”— and so on and so on.

Of the Bar, Sir James seemed to hold no very high opinion. He proves satisfactorily to himself, that the Master of the Rolls was distinctly unsound in his upper strata, that at least two of the Lords Justices of Appeal were decided monomaniacs, and that the Lord Chief Justice was not far short of a drivelling idiot.

It was intensely amusing, and extremely interesting; for the doctor was a very clever man, and seemed to be exerting himself to the utmost in his guest’s behalf.

Dallas had tried several times to bring round the conversation to the subject nearest his heart at the moment. But it was not till they were enjoying the after-dinner cigar that he succeeded in firing his question squarely into the doctor’s batteries.

“Well now, Sir James, I want your theory as to the missing men. Where are they, and how did they get there?”

“Well, my dear boy,” he said, slowly, “that question has exercised my mind in common with the rest of the world, and my theory is that they have been kidnapped.”

“But, doctor! kidnapped in this nineteenth century?”

“Yes, I acknowledge all the difficulties of the case, but it seems to me the only possible explanation.”

“But how?— why?— by whom?”

“Ah! that opens up a very wide field. How?— the means would not be difficult to a determined man, The two latter questions hang together— answer the one and you solve the other. For instance, your client in the case had every reason to wish to stifle any further cross-examination by Sir Charles―"

“Yes; but he would hardly have made away with his own leader.”

“That, of course, seems a difficulty— unless it were done as a blind.”

Just then, the storm, which had been raging all through the dinner, culminated in one terrific crash, which caused both men to take their cigars from their mouths and hold their breath.

“Jove!” said the doctor, “that was heavy and close.” He seemed restless. He got up and went to the window, and was met by a blinding flash.

“I think you must let me offer you a bed, Mr. Dallas; I couldn’t think of letting you turn out in weather like this. Is there any necessity for your being back in town to-night— any early engagements for tomorrow?”

“None, doctor; but I wouldn’t like to impose myself on you to that extent.”

“Tut, tut; it is I who am under the obligation.” He touched a button sunk in the floor under the table with his foot, and the old butler appeared.

“Oswald, have a room prepared for Mr. Dallas; he will stay the night.”

The old man bowed and withdrew.

“An invaluable man that,” said the doctor; “he has never spoken a word in his life. A clever fellow too. He was my coachman for over twenty years, and has been for twenty years my butler. I have often thought what an advantage it would be if there were a special race like that. No, he is not deaf, as you see; only dumb— born so.”

The doctor was pacing the room restlessly, and the thunder was still rolling and crashing overhead.

“You will have to excuse me for a time, Mr. Dallas. A storm like this always has a bad effect on my patients. I shall make my nightly rounds earlier than usual, as I may be wanted— or stay,” he said; “suppose you come with me— it will be an experience for you.”

Dallas had no great inclination for the experience, but the doctor urged: “You may pick up some ideas that may come in useful in your profession some time. Never miss the opportunity of gaining novel experiences.”

And Dallas went.

They crossed the hall, where the two stalwart footmen were dozing in big easy basket chairs, passed through a heavy door at the farther end with a tight-fitting green-baize-covered door behind it, down a long passage, through another big door, which the doctor opened with a pass key, into the working part of the establishment.

Here all was solid and grim. The extraordinary quiet of the doctor’s house did not exist here. The sounds, strange and weird, were not obtrusively loud, they were muffled; but they were there, and Dallas began to wish he had remained behind.

They were passing a door, when the inmate commenced beating a furious tattoo on it with his fists. The occupants of some of the other rooms followed the example, and the corridor re-echoed with the muffled thunder.

A flame of anger flashed across the doctor’s face. He dashed open the trap of the door where the noise had started, and said, angrily: “Silence!— at once!— or I will send for the strait waistcoat.”

Dallas caught a glimpse of a man’s face at the wicket, peering forth with wild, straining eyes, and he had an impression of a shaven, convict-like head.

With a thrill that shook him to his base, and left his knees a-trembling, Dallas recognised that the face was familiar to him. A light of responsive recognition flamed up into the wild eyes, and he could have sworn that the being inside was shouting his own name, when the doctor shot the wicket to with an angry oath.

“A bad case,” he said, “a very bad case.”

“Who in heaven’s name was it ?” was the question pounding in Dallas’s brain. “Who was it?—who was it?” The face was familiar, though, somehow, different. His brain was whirling confusedly after the answer to this riddle, when Sir James inserted his key into a door and flung it open.

“This is one of our punishment rooms, Mr. Dallas,” he said, coolly. “You don’t associate so much padding with a cell, do you?”

The doctor had entered, after touching an electric-light switch outside, and now stood in the centre of the padded room, looking round with an air of complacent approval.

“You couldn’t hurt yourself here, however much you tried.”

Dallas stepped inside, and looked round. Every inch of the walls and door and floor was thickly padded; it felt dreadfully oppressive. His brain was still painfully throbbing in its futile search for the connecting link between that face at the wicket and the someone in the outside world with whom he was acquainted. Who was it? Who in heaven’s name was it? His brain felt like bursting.

Suddenly he was aware that Sir James was addressing him. Something peculiar in the old man’s tone sent another shock through him. He looked up.

“Put it on, Mr. Dallas— put it on.” The old man was holding out to him a strange-looking garment made of strong canvas.

“Why, doctor, what is it?”

“Put— it— on,— Mr. Dallas! Do you hear me? Put —it— on— at once, or I will send for the keepers.”

Dallas looked up with amazement; the fine old face was working with fury; the devil himself was gleaming out of the keen dark eyes. “Put—it—on!” he said again, with a snarl. “Put— it— on, confound you, put—it—on!”

Then, in a flash, Dallas recognised two things.

The face at the wicket of that other room was the face of Sir Charles Dossall; and the old man in front of him, stamping in fury, was, for the time being, as mad as any of his own patients.

“Dossall! It was Sir Charles Dossall!” sprang to Dallas’s lips, and then the doctor dashed at him. He stumbled, and in a moment Dallas slipped out of the room and slammed to the door, which closed with a vicious snap.

Dallas leaned panting against it. What was the meaning of it all? It was beyond him; but he must see Sir Charles again, if indeed it were really he. He listened at the door he was leaning against, but heard no sound; then he stole along to the door from which the face had peered, and slipped back the wicket. A face appeared there, but not the face he expected— not Sir Charles Dossall’s— he had gone to the wrong door; but, good heavens! this was a face he knew better still, and the voice was the voice of Sir Revel Revell, and it said, “Dallas— Charley Dallas— thank God for the sight of you. Get me out of this? What in heaven’s name is the meaning of it all?”

Before he could reply the door at the end of the corridor opened silently, and the old man Oswald appeared. He came noiselessly along, looking about questioningly for Sir James. Dallas closed the trap, and leaned for a moment against the wall to recover his balance. His heart was pounding like a sledge-hammer, and the blood surging up into his brain made him reel.

The old man came close up to him, his head and neck shaking threateningly from side to side, his deep-set eyes rolling, and his pent-house brows twitching in questioning, while a low guttural gurgle came from his throat.

Dallas braced himself up with an effort, and said as nonchalantly as he could, “Sir James is attending to his one of his patients. I am going back to the house,” and he strolled slowly away, curbing as best he could the mad impulse to dash through the door and out into the night.

He dared not turn round to look, but felt the old man’s weird eyes following him. When he closed the door behind him on that hideous corridor, he felt as though he had awakened from a nightmare.

Then another fear confronted him— How was he to get out of the house? Those two big footmen in their basket chairs on either side of the hall were no merely spectacular adjuncts to the establishment, he could well imagine.

To enter on Sir James Dyne’s invitation was one thing, to get out without his permission would probably prove a very different matter.

Dallas was quick-witted, however. He faced the difficulty, formed his plan, and acted on it at once. He saw at a glance that there was no chance of breaking out through the iron ribs of the conservatory. He walked quietly up to the door leading to the house, then dashed through it, and through the passage beyond, shouting, “Help! Help! Quick— help! “—through the double doors, into the big hall. As he expected, the two footmen had sprung out of their chairs, and were ready for emergencies.

Dallas checked himself in the middle of the hall, and turned to rush back the way he had come, shouting excitedly, “ Come on— quick— the Doctor is being murdered.” The two men sprang forward and followed him. They saw him dash through the door into the conservatory, and almost fell over his prostrate body as they thrust through after him.

“Never mind me,” he yelled, “ go on— quick— you’ll be too late.”

Then in a moment, as they sped on, he was back in the passage in the hall— fumbling at the lock of the great front door. But it defied all his efforts. He dashed into the small waiting-room. There was no time to unfasten the window. The men might be back in a moment. He seized a chair, dashed it twice against the glass, scrambled through, losing flesh and clothing in his passage, and dropped into a rose-bush, with a fervent “Thank God.”

The rain beat down on his hot head, and he was grateful. He had escaped from hell, and the cooling drops were as the water of life to him.

Now to get out of the grounds, and back to London with the least possible delay. He sped down the avenue. No good trying the great iron gates; he knew they were kept locked. When he saw the lodge looming in front he turned off into the shrubbery, and forced his way through— drenched to the skin by the showers he shook down— till a high stone wall barred his way.

“Sure to be glass on top,” he said to himself. He slipped out of his coat, and, holding it by the tails, flung the collar over the top of the wall. At the third throw it caught, and, with the slight assistance it gave, he hauled himself up. He got over at last, badly cut about the knees and hands, and dropped into the road, dragging the remains of the coat after him.

Then he settled down into a steady run for the station— remembered that the last train had probably gone, and that in any case he would almost certainly be stopped as an escaped lunatic if he presented himself there—and turned off into the fields in the direction of the copper-coloured glow in the sky, and the distant roar, which represented London.

As he scrambled through the hedge a distant clang smote on his ears. It was the opening and closing of the iron gates of the lodge. He crouched low and endeavoured to stifle his quick panting. He heard the rapid pad of feet on the road, and in a minute two stalwart forms darted past in the direction of the station. He waited till they were out of hearing, then struck a bee-line for the coppery glow, through hedge and ditch, over field and furrow. What with mud and blood, and rain, and clothes in rags, he felt himself an awful object; but every step brought him nearer London, and brought rescue one step nearer to his friends.

At last, panting painfully, and thoroughly used up, he stumbled on to a high road. It ran the right way, and he followed it. He trudged and ran, and trudged again to recover breath. He seemed to have been on the go for hours, and doubted at last if his strength would hold out.

In time he came to scattered villas— then shops— and at last, thank heaven, a hansom rolling sleepily home to its suburban stable.

Dallas hailed it. The driver hesitated, and when he saw the dilapidated object before him he whipped up his tired horse and continued his homeward journey.

“Stop, man!” thundered Dallas, with all his remaining strength. “It’s a matter of life and death, and here’s a sovereign; another if you land me at Scotland Yard within half an hour.”

The man backed up to the outstretched coin, took it, bit it, fumbled for a match, lighted it under his cape, examined the coin, and flung open the doors with—

“Right y’are, guv’nor! Yer a rummy looking lot, but quids is quids. Where’s the corpse?”

Dallas tumbled in, and they rumbled away.

The horse was worn out, and it was close on midnight when it stumbled up reeking like a lime-kiln to the door of Scotland Yard. Dallas flung up the other sovereign and limped up the steps.

A couple of stalwart policemen confronted him.

“I want the Commissioner, quick ! don’t stand ramping about here. Take me up at once, and send up some brandy; I’m going to faint.”

A sergeant beckoned to one of his men, who took Dallas’s other arm, and between them they led him off upstairs.

He did faint before they reached the top, and when he came to he found himself lying in the Chief Commissioner’s own armchair, with the taste of brandy in his mouth.

Sir Edward was regarding him with a somewhat quizzical smile.

“Well, Mr. Dallas, has the Junior Bar been dining out? What is this strange story the sergeant hints at?”

Dallas held out his torn hands and pointed to the wounds in his lacerated knees, and, looking steadily into the Chief Commissioner’s face, said quietly—

“The Junior Bar doesn’t run to this extreme even in its most hilarious moments, Sir Edward.

“Do you know Sir James Dyne’s house at Barwood?” he continued.

The Chief Commissioner nodded with an accession of interest.

“I got these wounds in escaping from the house two hours ago. In a padded cell there you will find Sir Revel Revell; in another, Sir Charles Dossall; probably Peacock is in another. It was touch and go that I am not in another.”

The Commissioner had started from his seat in amazement, and was eyeing him keenly from below his knitted brows.

“This is an astounding story, Mr. Dallas.”

“It is more than astounding; it’s true. I want a search warrant; I want a dozen picked men, and I want to get back as quick as we can go.”

The Commissioner touched a bell. Kerr the sergeant came in.

“A dozen of your best mounted men to be ready in five minutes, Kerr. I shall go myself. Order a spare horse for Mr. Dallas.

“Now just a question or two, Mr. Dallas. How came you at Sir James Dyne’s?”

“He invited me to dinner.” And he briefly told his story.

The Commissioner was evidently much exercised.

“How did you open the front door?” he asked, suddenly.

“I didn’t; I smashed a window with a chair and tumbled through it.”

“Which window?”

“Small room on right of hall.” The Commissioner nodded.

“How did you pass the lodge?” he asked.

“I didn’t try; I clambered over the wall. Hence the cuts. You seem to be acquainted with the place, Sir Edward.”

“I dined there with Sir James last night, Mr. Dallas, and he took pride in pointing out the strength of his defences.”

“Did he invite you to accompany him on his rounds?”

“He did, and I declined to go.”

“Oh! I went!” said Dallas, feelingly.

Dallas borrowed a sergeant’s cap and cape, and the cavalcade set off at a round trot for Barwood.

Of the rapid dash through muddy streets and still more muddy country roads Dallas remembered nothing beyond a feeling of intense weariness and of desperate anxiety. Grit or instinct kept him in the saddle, however, and it was only when the panting party drew rein at the lodge gates at Barwood that he fell forward on his horse’s neck, completely used up.

Of the subsequent operations— of the strategy needed to effect an entrance into the stronghold, of the breaking in of cell doors amid the shrieks and moans of the inmates, of the discovery of Sir James dancing a wild dance of death on poor old Oswald’s body on the floor of the padded room—he heard and saw nothing.

His next recollection was of lying on a sofa in the dining-room, and of the murmur of conversation arising from a small group of men sitting round a table on which were food and wine. The Chief Commissioner he knew— the others puzzled him. Their faces seemed familiar, but their heads were clean shaven, and each face wore a strange, pinched, anxious look, which he had never seen there before. Their costumes, too, were curious. On the whole, he decided that they were convicts. He raised himself on his elbow to examine them more closely, and they came forward to overwhelm him with thanks almost too deep for utterance— Sir Revel, Sir Charles, and Mr. Peacock.

Nothing more is necessary to complete this record of a strange episode than the account of their adventures by the three principal actors therein.

Sir Charles Dossall’s statement was as follows:—

After leaving the courts on the evening of July 14, Mr. Peacock, Q.C., who held a brief with me in a certain case, dined with me at my house.

After dinner, we had a lengthy discussion on certain points arising out of the case, and Mr. Peacock left about eleven p.m.

Fifteen minutes later a letter was handed in to me, which ran thus:—

Dear Sir Charles,—

We regret exceedingly to trouble you at this time of night, but our client is here at our offices, and has been here for some hours, in a state of frantic excitement, respecting the new line of defence you have developed in the last question of your cross-examination to-night. She insists on an interview, and makes some very remarkable statements. She absolutely declines to stir out of this office till she has seen you.

We have no option but to comply with her request, and beg of you to favour us with your presence for a few minutes.

We send our senior’s brougham with this, to save you as much inconvenience as possible. Again apologising for the annoyance.

We remain, dear Sir Charles,

Yours obediently,

George & George,

Sir Charles Dossall. per H. G.

This was written on plain note paper, and bore the marks of extreme haste, but no suspicion as to its genuineness ever entered my head. I put on coat and hat, told the footman I would be back shortly, and left the house.

A brougham stood a few paces off, an elderly footman closed the door on me as I entered, and we drove off.

The night was warm, the brougham was oppressive. I tried to open the windows— first one, then the other— but they seemed to have got jammed. Then I remember no more till I found myself in a padded room, with my head shaved.

One of the birds ensnared, the capture of the others was easy.

The letter to Mr. Peacock arrived by the last postal delivery at night, and ran as follows:—

My dear Peacock,—

I am in a terrible mess; you can help me out. For old friendship’s sake come to me. At eleven o’clock to-night a brougham will be waiting for you at the corner of Russell Square. To make sure you are right, say the single word ‘Charles’ to the driver, and he will touch his hat . three times. This must seem to you very melodramatic— even childish, perhaps. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable under the circumstances:

Come to me without fail, I beg of you.

Charles Dossall.

“I went,” said Mr. Peacock. “I entered the brougham; and after that the record of Sir Charles’s experiences is identical with my own.”

With simply the necessary alterations, the letter which Sir Revel received, also by the last post, was identical with Mr. Peacock’s. It also purported to come from Sir Charles.

An examination of the carriage showed that the windows and doors were absolutely unmovable from the inside, and that a simple but ingenious contrivance in the roof enabled the driver at any moment to drop upon the rider’s face a chloroformed cloth.

All Sir James Dyne’s patients, except the three Q.C.’s, seemed genuinely mad. Whether they were so when first they passed through the doors of Barwood will never be known.

___________________

2: The Croucher

Gwyn Evans

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 31 Oct 1936

Gwynfil Arthur Evans (1901-1940) was born in Portmadoc, North Wales. He was an author and journalist. Most of his novels feature 'Sexton Blake', a detective modelled on Sherlock Holmes.

SIR RICHARD GILBERT, the Chief Commissioner, sat at his desk in the austerely furnished room at Scotland Yard, and gazed absently through the window at the efforts of a fussy tug to negotiate Westminster Bridge.

He was a slim, wiry man, with a greying imperial beard and grizzled hair, and almost dandified figure with his braided morning coat and faultlessly creased trousers. He toyed with a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez that dangled from a silken cord about his cravat, and sighed a little. It would be a wrench to leave this familiar room, and to relinquish the duty of controlling the greatest police organisation in the world. But the die had been cast, and in a few hours he would have to welcome his successor to the post of commissioner. A tap sounded at the door, and a uniformed policeman entered.

"The morning papers, sir," he said, depositing a bundle on the desk.

"Thank you, Bowers," said. Sir Richard, in his dry, impersonal tones. He smiled wryly as the door closed.

No need to look at the newspapers to see what they contained. He had handed in his resignation to the Home Secretary the previous night. The banner head of the Daily Clarion seemed to smite him like a blow between the eyes:

SCOTLAND YARD

COMMISSIONER

TO RESIGN!

It was the sensational climax to a Sensational press campaign which had had its repercussions in Parliament itself. Sir Richard pursed his lips as he read the thinly veiled triumph in the Daily Clarion's leading article at the news, and the eulogy of his successor General Sir Martin Dale.

"Oh, well," the Commissioner shrugged, if the public wanted a scapegoat, his shoulders were wide enough to bear the blame even of the Croucher's misdeeds, for, of course, it was the activities of that elusive criminal that originated the whole affair.

It was not until the tragic and untimely death of Lady Howard that the storm had burst, and the name of that enigmatic crook, the Croucher, achieved the fearsome notoriety of Jack the Ripper himself.

True, at Scotland Yard they had long known Croucher's existence— and that was about all even the argus-eyed C.I.D. knew of man responsible for the alarming increase in cocaine traffic, not only in the West End, but throughout the country.

Through the "Noses' Gate," a discreet little portal which admitted shabby, furtive men into Police H.Q. when daylight waned, meagre formation trickled about "The Man Higher Up", as the Croucher was first known in the underworld. But the information was very vague and unreliable, and when sifted and tabulated would scarcely have covered the surface of a postage stamp.

Not even "Sheeny MacGuire," most knowledgeable of "noses," had been able to sniff out the slightest clue to the Croucher's identity. It was Lady Pamela's death from an overdose of cocaine that brought matters to a climax, for, in addition to being an earl's daughter, she had been a member of the Daily Clarion staff. She had a clever, mordant pen, and her bright paragraphs of Society gossip were a popular feature of that go-ahead newspaper. Her sudden end came near to shocking that most unshockable of thoroughfares— Fleet Street.

Young Maynard, the Clarion's star crime reporter, started the wave of indignation which was to sweep. the country by a bitter attack on Scotland Yard. He had been a friend of the dead girl. He could write brilliantly, and had his own peculiar methods of learning what went on in the underworld independently of the police. He exposed the alarming growth of the dope traffic, the gradual but unmistakable increase in the number of unsolved crimes, and mercilessly criticised the C.I.D. It was he who nicknamed the hidden figure behind the cocaine smugglers the Croucher, and pointed out that the dope-sniffer was as familiar a figure in Mayfair society as in the dingy all-night cafes of the Tottenham Court Road and Chinatown.

The Croucher Strikes

BACKED by the vast resources of the Daily Clarion, the campaign grew. The public became uneasy as that newspaper, with damning effect, printed daily a list of unsolved crimes side by side with trivial cases which failed because of the policeman's uncorroborated evidence. The clamour grew for a general tightening-up at Scotland Yard. Questions were asked in Parliament, and after an interview with the Home Secretary, Sir Richard Gilbert handed in his resignation.

He had spent his life in the service of his country. For many years he had served with distinction abroad in India before being appointed head of the C.I.D. He was by no means a popular man, but he was respected. At Scotland Yard the general attitude of his staff can be summarised in the schoolboy's definition of his headmaster: "He's a beast— but he's a just beast!"

"And now, I suppose," he murmured half-aloud, as he folded the Daily Clarion, "the press is satisfied until they get some other stunt."

He pressed the ivory bell-push on his desk, and a few moments later a tall, well-built young man entered. He had a frank, almost ingenuous expression on his smooth, pink face that was oddly boyish, his blue eyes had a twinkle of humour, but his chin was resolute and his lips betrayed firmness and decision behind his mask of flippancy.

"Ah, New!" said Sir Richard. "Are there any further developments in the Whitechapel area?"

Detective-Inspector Nicholas New shook his head.

"Nothing further, sir. Berry pulled in Larry Lennox. Found about half a kilo of dope on him; but where he got it and how, the Squidge only knows!"

"The what!" snapped Sir Richard irritably.

"The Squidge, sir. An engaging creature of my own invention. It is closely related to other strange beasts who made their appearance during the war. Maybe you've heard of the Wowser, sir? The Squidge is a sort of second cousin, twice removed."

"Are you mad, New?" gasped the scandalised Commissioner. "What the deuce d'ye mean by quoting nonsensical gibberish to me?"

"You asked me what a Squidge was, sir," said Nicholas New patiently. "I— er— endeavoured to explain."

"Don't talk nonsense!" snapped the other irritably. "You are far too facetious, New. I wish you would―" He broke off suddenly as a tap sounded on the door, then said crisply, "Come in!"

A bronzed, soldierly-looking man, with a close-clipped grey moustache, and clad in an inconspicuous lounge suit, entered, and bowed rather formally. The retiring Commissioner rose to his feet.

"Good morning, General! Pray, come in! He made a gesture that embraced the austerely furnished room that overlooked the Thames. It was an airy, workmanlike place, with a roll-top desk, half a dozen comfortable chairs, a telephone, and a three-valve wireless set near the bookcase.

"Inspector New. This is your new Commissioner, General Sir Martin Dale."

Nicholas New's eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Hallo, Uncle Bimbo!" he said. "Two policemen in the family, eh? Aunt Araminta'll have galloping hysterics!"

"New!" thundered the scandalised Sir Richard. "How dare you have the infernal impudence to―"

"It's only Nick's nonsense," broke in General Dale, with a chuckle. "I— er— ahem— have the misfortune to be his uncle. My sister's boy," he exclaimed.

"God bless my soul!" gasped Sir Richard. "How long have you been in the force. New?"

"Since the Armistice, Sir," replied Nick. "I'm afraid the family have never quite forgiven me for becoming a policeman. They'll blame me now for having a bad influence on Uncle Bim, I suppose," he added.

"But this is astonishing," said Sir Richard. "I know your promotion has been rapid and well deserved, but―" He flung up his hand in a helpless gesture. Inspector New winked at his uncle, who turned to Sir Richard.

"I understand from the Home Secretary that your— er— resignation does not take effect till the end of the month, and you have suggested you will be pleased to remain and show me the ropes."

"That is so," said Sir Richard, rather stiffly. "In the circumstances, as I pointed out to the Home Secretary, it would hardly be fair to you. General, to expect you to take over immediately."

"H is exceedingly kind of you," said General Dale. "I am a soldier, and there are bound to be very many points in connection with my new job on which only you could advise me."

Sir Richard bowed. "I shall be most happy to co-operate," he remarked, cordially, and Inspector New saw that the two men, being gentlemen, had tactfully avoided that rather awkward problem of their future relationship.

"Perhaps, as a preliminary," said Sir Richard briskly, "I had better show you round the building and introduce "

There was a knock on the door, and a policeman entered with a letter.

"By express messenger, sir," he announced, handing it to the retiring commissioner. With a murmured apology, Sir Richard tore open the envelope, and scanned its contents through his pince-nez.

"Er— no reply, Bowers." he said to the hovering policeman.

As soon as the door had closed, he turned to Nick with a perplexed expression. "What the deuce d'ye make of that— eh?" he demanded.

Nick took the document. It was neatly typed on a sheet of yellow notepaper, and ran as follows:—

Commiserations, Commissioner, but resignation, like patriotism, is not enough. Scotland Yard is getting uncomfortably warm. I must remove a few of the more meddlesome ones to discourage the others, I never warn twice. Sheeny MacGuire died very suddenly at 3 am. this morning, you will be sorry to learn. He knew too much. You and others are on my list.

The Croucher.

At the corner of the sheet was a roughly drawn picture of a crouching man with a dagger upraised to strike.

Nicholas New whistled softly. "It's certainly a remarkable document, sir," he announced. "May I examine it further?"

"You don't think it can be genuine, New?" asked Sir Richard. "It sounds absurdly melodramatic to me. What do you say. General?"

"Egad!" said the General. "I'm dashed hazy about the whole business. The Press have been screeching about the Croucher for weeks, but―"

B-bring!

The 'phone bell tinkled sharply, and Sir Richard raised the receiver. He listened for a few moments, then his face became very grave.

"Very good, Berry; I'll send New along at once," he said. He turned to Nick. "That was Berry, of E Division, speaking," he announced. "The man MacGuire was found stabbed twenty minutes ago in Stonewall Street, Pimlico."

The Sinister Mr Sin

"I'M AFRAID Sheeny was an unpleasant fellow, and got what was coming to him," remarked Nicholas New to his charming companion later in the day.

"I dislike 'noses'— except when they are set on a fair feminine countenance," he added gallantly.

"Don't be personal. Mr New," said Miss Dorothy Somerville. hurriedly opening her vanity case, and dabbing a powder puff on her delightfully audacious nose. She took a half-coquettish glance at her reflection in the little oval mirror, and pushed back a rebellious curl beneath the brim of her tight-fitting cloche hat. Her tailored suit, though simple and of an inconspicuous black, had a subtle effect of enhancing the gracefulness of her slim figure. She was, Nick considered, judicially, far too pretty to have anything to do with the police, and yet this shingled, sophisticated young woman, had held a secretarial post at Scotland Yard for two years. She came daily into contact with the seamy side of London life, and still maintained not only a sense of humour, but a demure innocence of outlook that was a source of continual surprise to the C.I.D. man.

They were dining now— an alfresco meal at a small Spanish cafe in Soho. There was no orchestra, the clientele, like the menu, was pleasantly varied, and the alcove, in which their table was set, was discreetly, but not too discreetly, screened from the rest of the diners.

"Scotland Yard seems to be getting it in the neck," announced Dorothy. "That horrid young man on the Daily Clarion ought to be ashamed of himself."

"Who, Billy Maynard?" asked Nicholas. "Not he. He's hard-boiled. Miss Somerville. Detectives and newspaper men were born without a sense of shame."

"Don't talk nonsense," said Dorothy.

"But I always do." pleaded Nicholas. "Do you know that the longer I live in this wicked world, the more I realise that nonsense is the greatest thing in life."

"Precisely what do you mean?'" she asked, with an adorable pout. "I know you're always quoting absurd limericks and inventing all sorts of preposterous animals, like that silly Oogle you mentioned this morning."

"Ah! The Oogle!" said Nicholas solemnly. "A well-meaning, but rather ineffectual beast, I am afraid."

He began to quote solemnly:

"The Ooogle does abhor a snark,

and often the nights are dark—"

"Oh, stop, do!" pleaded the girl. "I really think you're crazy at times, Mr New."

"My dear girl. I'm perfectly serious. Nonsense is the one thing to keep me sane in this sordid profession of mine. I like to talk nonsense sometimes. For instance, it's all nonsense that a delightful girl like you should be earning your living in the dull and sordid surroundings of Scotland Yard, when you ought―"

"Please don't!" she broke in hurriedly. "I love the work, the hours are short, the salary is adequate, and I— er— have compensations."

She glanced through her very long eyelashes at Nick, and that peculiar young man felt oddly embarrassed.

Nicholas New's strange personality was an enigma to his friends. No one quite knew whether to take him seriously or not. When, after the Armistice, he had been demobbed, a mere stripling of twenty, after two years' war service in the R.A.F.. he announced to his scandalised family that he intended to join the Police force.

"But that's all nonsense!" said his mother, Lady New, widow of that distinguished diplomat. Sir Brian New.

"Precisely," Nicholas had agreed blandly. "That's why I'm doing it."

He served two years as a uniformed constable on his beat, and the smart capture of Wally the Dip and his satellites attracted the attention of his superiors, who transferred him to the plain clothes branch of the C.I.D. Nick's promotion was rapid. His methods were terribly unorthodox— but he got away with it.

It was at the 99 Club that Nicholas New first heard of the Croucher. That engaging man, "Gold Brick" Brady, let fall a few casual remarks that a big noise was "spreading the snow" thick and heavy. From him it was Nick gleaned that all the little "snowmen" of Limehouse and the Tottenham Court Road, mainly comprising Chinks and half-breed waiters, had all suddenly become affluent— and not only affluent, but cocksure. Even when the Flying Squad pulled in a dozen or more of such old hands at the game of dope-peddling as Limehouse Lil, "Shanty" Harris and "Snitcher" Marks, they gleaned little of the source from which they obtained the deadly white drug.

Nick also learned that the "Blackers" were growing active again― active and aggressive, and that was a bad sign, for the blackmailing gangs of the West End are the most difficult of all criminals to round up. Despite the repeated assurances of the press and police that the victims' names would not be disclosed in open court, scores of highly-placed people hesitated to come forward and give evidence, and preferred to pay hush money to the Blackers. Some were driven to the coward's way out of their troubles as the demands of the blackmailers became intolerable, and the increasing number of suicides supported the "Clarion's" theory that a colossus of crime had entered the lists in the never-ending battle between the police and the underworld.

Inspector New in his own whimsical fashion, made discreet and strictly illegal inquiries among his crook friends, but not even the friendliest informer could be prevailed upon to "came across" with any information against the Croucher.

And now Sheeny MacGuire, that most reliable and best hated of noses, was dead― murdered, undoubtedly, because he knew, or suspected, the  Croucher's identity.

There was no clue. His body had been found by a policeman behind an advertisement hoarding on a plot of waste ground in Pimlico. He had been stabbed to the heart. There was no trace of a weapon. Not a scrap of paper or a coin in the dead man's pockets.

Sheeny MacGuire had not been a particularly pleasant person in life. In death, Nick recalled with a slight shiver, he was repellent. He had seen dead rats that reminded him of Sheeny as he saw him last on the mortuary slab.

"Don't look round!" whispered Dorothy Somerville. "Somebody seems to be watching you very closely. A Chinaman."

Nick New proffered his cigarette case. The girl took one, and as he held a match to its tip he slowly swivelled round. His action was perfectly natural, and for a fleeting moment his eyes rested on the occupant of the next table. It was a Chinese.

The man's smooth, hairless face was as yellow as a lemon, the slanting sloe eyes watched Nicholas and the girl impassively, He was dressed in a perfectly-fitting dress suit. Nick noted that the cigarette he held between his slim, saffron fingers was black. It was an odd, incongruous detail that appealed to his love of the bizarre.

"Queer," he murmured, pouring out a glass of wine. "He may, or may not be, interested in us. One is always inclined to think that all Chinese are inscrutable and sinister. Ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, and all that! But that's nonsense, and so I'm inclined to believe it," he added.

"You're incorrigible, Mr New," said Dorothy. "Tell me, do you really think that the Croucher exists, or is he simply a product of the fertile imagination of the Clarion reporter?"

"Of course he exists," said Nick seriously. "If we only had Sheeny's murder to go on, I might be inclined to doubt it. A nark endeavours to make the best of two possible worlds— the Under and the Over— and generally ends in the next," he added dryly. "A score of people might have stabbed Sheeny, but that letter this morning shows that the Croucher is getting nervous or vain. Both attributes are dangerous in a criminal. But don't let's talk shop, my dear."

He glanced at his watch. It was 9.45.

"What about a spot of dancing? The Eclair Club is handy."

She shook her head and glanced at her neat tailor-made suit.

"I don't think so. I have a busy day tomorrow," she reminded him. "Sir Richard wants me to type out those divisional reports for your uncle. Besides," she added, with a smile, "it's very bad for discipline, Mr New, for a detective inspector to be seen dancing in a night club with his typist."

She drew on her small suede gloves with an air of finality. He knew it was hopeless to argue with her. Miss Somerville had a will of her own.

He called for the bill, and noticed with the tail of his eye that the Chinaman was also leaving.

"Thank you for a very charming evening," she said. "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the— er— wisest woman," she misquoted gaily.

"One of these days," threatened Nick, "we'll celebrate in earnest—"

"Celebrate?" she echoed, puzzled.

"The Croucher's capture," said Nick, as he donned his overcoat.

The Chinaman brushed past him with a murmur of apology, while Nick dealt with the hovering waiter.

"Shall I get you a taxi?" he asked.

"Thanks, no. The bus goes right by my door," she said.

Nick escorted her to the corner and watched her board it She waved to him gaily, and was swallowed up in the maelstrom of traffic. Nick thrust his hands in his overcoat pocket a disappointed man. An hour or two's dancing at the Eclair would have topped off the evening nicely, but beyond dining with him on one or two occasions the independent Miss Somerville did not encourage a more intimate relationship.

"A pity," mused Nick. She was an extraordinarily capable and attractive girl. There was a curious reserve about her, however, at times that intrigued him.

He glimpsed a wiry, ferret-faced little man hovering uncertainly at the tail of the crowd boarding a West-bound bus, and his blue eyes hardened.

"Well! Well! Shifty!" he murmured pleasantly, as his muscular hand shot out and grasped the little man's arm. "Fancy meeting you here! And only just out of prison, too! Dear, dear, how indiscreet!"

"Shifty" Lee, one of the cleverest pickpockets who ever worked the bus queues, turned with a snarl.

"Leggo my arm, you big stiff! I tell you—"

"Tut! Tut!" said Nicholas gently. He signalled to a burly red-faced man, who strolled over from the shadow of a theatre canopy.

"A present for you, Willis," he said, handing over the squirming little pickpocket. "Pull him in."

He began to hum softly a chorus tune from the latest revue, but broke off suddenly as his fingers encountered an envelope in his pocket. He drew it out, and saw that it was addressed to himself in typescript. With a puzzled frown he tore open the envelope and read the brief, laconic message. It contained three words:

You are next!

And it was signed The Croucher. Nick whistled. He was certain the message was not in his overcoat pocket when he entered the restaurant. That meant that he was being tailed, and the envelope must have been slipped there during the past eight minutes. Suddenly he recalled the Chinaman who had passed him in the restaurant.

"My gosh!" said Nicholas New. "I wonder!"

He thrust the note into his breast pocket, and stood for a moment or two irresolutely on the kerb, watching the stream of traffic at the corner of Piccadilly Circus, the centre of the world.

Ablaze with light, its sky signs shot heavenward cascades of coloured fire. Above the theatres thousands of electric bulbs winked and glowed like monster fireflies, while from Shaftesbury Avenue poured the ever-moving kaleidoscopic crowd of theatreland. Expensive limousines purred feline and catlike at the exits, a hawker in rags stood in the gutter holding out a tray of bootlaces. A young man with a thin, emaciated face, held aloft a banner foretelling the wrath to come.

Contrast— tragedy— comedy. The night life of the world's metropolis. All these were familiar to Nicholas New. Suddenly he started forward.

In a momentary jam of the traffic he glimpsed a luxurious grey car, rakishly cut and built for speed, judging by the greyhound trace of her streamlined body. Lounging in the tonneau was an elegant figure in a silk-lined opera cloak with a jewelled order ornamenting his stiff shirt-front on a gash of moire silk. It was the mysterious Chinaman, and as Nick gazed at him his yellow face relaxed into a mocking smile, and he waved a kid-gloved hand. Heedless of the traffic, the detective dashed toward the car, but at that moment the temporary jam cleared, and the grey car shot forward like an arrow from a bow. Nick memorised the number-plate, and looked vainly for a taxi to take in pursuit. By the time he had hailed one the grey car and its mysterious occupant had vanished.

"Scotland Yard— quick!" said Nicholas New.

Down the Haymarket, into Trafalgar Square and through Whitehall the taxi threaded its way with what seemed maddening slowness. Nick fumed impatiently. He wanted to verify that number-plate. Outside the grim barrack-like building at the end of Whitehall the taxi drew up and Nick hurriedly alighted. Even as he stepped under the archway of Scotland Yard a tell, elegant figure emerged.

"Ah, Inspector New," cooed a musical, rather sibilant voice. "This is indeed fortunate. I was about to leave a written message for you. As it is, I can deliver it in person."

With difficulty Nick repressed a start of astonishment, for confronting him was the Chinaman, his slant eyes held a gleam of mockery, and his smile was bland, revealing a perfect set of white, even teeth.

"Indeed!" snapped the detective. "Who the deuce are you, sir? I've seen you before twice tonight," he added.

"Allow me to present my card," returned the other in impeccable English. From a small case, which he seemed to have produced from nowhere with the ease of a professional illusionist, he brought out a thin strip of white silk. It was of gossamer-like texture, and bore characters both in Chinese and English. In the sickly blue glare of the police lamp over the arch Nick read the latter superscription which ran:

Professor Li Sin, D.Sc.

University of Pekin.

Nick looked up at him, but the Chinaman's yellow, hairless face was a mask of impassivity. "You'd better come along inside with me— er— professor," he said grimly.

"Thank you, I would prefer not to," replied the other urbanely. "I have rather an urgent appointment."

"I don't know what your game is," snapped. Nick. "You come along in and answer a few questions."

"I think not" said the other. "My name is Sin— not Savidge. The message I wished to deliver to you is very brief. Beware of the Croucher!"

Almost before Nick realised it, the man had climbed into his grey limousine and had gone.

The House Of Larry

INSPECTOR Nicholas New was an equable man. He very seldom lost his temper, but the calm effrontery of the bland Chinaman, who called himself by the somewhat sinister name of Professor Li Sin, nettled him. He frowned irritably, and barely acknowledged the salute of the policeman on gate duty as he entered Scotland Yard.

"Get me this number verified," he snapped. "What did that Chink want?"

"I couldn't say, sir. He simply asked if you were in. When I told him you were out, he said something about leaving a message— and then you turned up."

"Huh!" said Nick. "Hurry the Traffic Department. I want that number badly."

He mounted the steps towards his room, his footsteps echoing hollowly down the dim-lit corridors.

Most of the CI.D. were off duty. He switched on the light, unlocked his desk and pulled out the depositions concerning the murder of Sheeny MacGuire. There was very little indeed in the way of clues to go upon. Sheeny, being an informer, was despised by the police, and hated by the criminal fraternity. A dozen men might have murdered him— but that letter from the Croucher was significant.

He pulled out the last note of warning he had received that night, and compared it with the note received by the Commissioner. Both had evidently been typed by the same machine— a portable Underwood. There was the same malformation of the letter "r," and the slight eccentricity of alignment. He placed them both in a buff envelope and sealed it.

"I'll let Brownlow have a go at 'em," he murmured. "But I'm not .very sanguine."

Inspector Brownlow was in charge of the finger-print department, and had also an encyclopaedic knowledge of typewriters.

The phone bell rang suddenly, and Nick lifted the receiver. He recognised the voice of Bill Maynard, of the Daily Clarion.

"What is it?" he demanded. "No. Nothing fresh about Sheeny. What's that?"

He listened intently to the disjointed information that came over the wires.

"You've had a letter from the Croucher, you say?" he demanded.

"Sure," snapped the journalist. "Came by district messenger an hour back. It doesn't frighten me. Matter of fact, I'm running a facsimile of it in tomorrow's rag. And listen, I've got a promising clue. A letter reached me this morning from a joint in Shadwell. It's very vague, but the writer hints he knows something about the Croucher."

"Who wrote it?" demanded the Yard man.

"It's signed simply— 'One Who Knows.' Illiterate beast, I should imagine; but I'm following it up. I thought maybe if you've any information we could trade."

"Hold 'em," snapped Nicholas. "I'll call for you in half an hour at the office."

"Good egg," said Maynard, and rang off.

Nick opened the drawer of his desk and slipped an automatic into his hip pocket. Things were moving.

He knew and liked Bill Maynard that alert young reporter on the Daily Clarion. The newspaperman's knowledge of crime and criminals was almost academic. A good crime man on a great daily has very often more knowledge of crooks and their methods than the average detective, and Maynard's knowledge of the dubious night haunts of London was extensive and peculiar. Nick lit a cigarette and fell to studying the queer visiting card of Professor Li Sin. Who was he? Was he an agent of the Croucher's? He might even be the Croucher himself.

That was the maddening thing about that mysterious criminal. Everyone had heard of him, but nobody apparently knew whether he was white, yellow, or black. For that matter the Croucher might be a woman, thought Nick bitterly.

He glanced across the room towards Dorothy Somerville's desk, neat, tidy, like herself, with one or two fastidious feminine touches the bowl of roses, and the coloured penholders that brightened up the drabness of the office. A knock sounded at the door and the policeman entered.

"Traffic can't trace that number, sir. Sergeant Miles says he'll have another comb through the supplementary list tomorrow."

Nick swore softly.

"All right, constable. I'm off! Switch out the light and lock up, will you? Goodnight!"

He jammed on his grey felt hat, patted his hip pocket, and took his leave. His taxi was still waiting within the Yard, and ten minutes later he was at the tall, imposing building of the Daily Clarion, in Fleet Street.

From the bowels of the building came the hum of the rotary machines beginning the run of the country edition. He sent in his card to Maynard, and three minutes later that dynamic young man came into the waiting-room. He was burly and broad-shouldered and some inches shorter than Nick.

"What's all this about Shadwell?" demanded the Yard man.

"I've got both letters here," said Maynard, producing them. One, Nick noted, was typed on a sheet of yellow notepaper similar to those already at the Yard, and the other was a misspelt scrawl, written on what seemed to be a leaflet torn out of a penny notebook. The first was brief and satiric:

Maynard, you've meddled too long. You'll join Sheeny and Gilbert in a long silence. The Croucher.

Beneath the typescript was the roughly drawn figure of a crouching man, dagger ominously upraised.

"Pleasant little fellow, ain't he?" demanded Maynard, with a grin. "How does Sir Richard take it?"

Nicholas New shrugged. "I don't think he quite knows what to make of it.  He's naturally sore with you and the rag, y'know. You certainly piled it in good and hard against us."

"Pamela Howard was my pal, New," said Maynard quietly. "Something had to be done. I don't bear any personal animosity towards any of you at the Yard— it's your methods I condemn."

"Cut the cackle," said Nick. "Let's see the other note."

He took the unsavoury looking sheet of paper It was grimy and dog-eared, and the following message was scrawled in pencil;—

Dear Sir, — I no somethink about the Crowcher, but daresn't be sene comin to your offis or the Yard. If you will call tomorer nite at No. 4 Bakewell Street, Shadwell, at midnite, I can tell you somethink. Ask for Larry the One Who Nose.

"H'm!" said the detective, examining the envelope. "Posted last night in Commercial Road, written by a man. Not very illuminating, is it?"

The newspaper man shrugged. "It's worth trying, anyhow. Like, to come? I've got the old bus outside."

"Of course, I'm coming," said Nicholas New. ' It s probably a trap of some sort — but we'll risk that."

Together they entered Maynard's weather-beaten roadster, and headed eastward. It was nearly midnight, and the traffic roar had died down a little as they bowled along through Aldgate and Commercial Road.

"Got your gat?" Nicholas jerked out as they neared the malodorous dockside of Shadwell.

Maynard grinned.

"Yes. Do you want to see the licence?" he said cynically.

"Bakewell Street's somewhere around here, I believe. Old Heng Lee used to have a chop suey joint at the corner of it, I believe, before it was raided for puck-a-poo and chandu."

They found it at last, a narrow, gloomy street of such depressing uniformity that it looked like the dreary corridor of a gaol. They parked the car in the shadow of a ramshackle warehouse. A husky looking dock labourer, with a bristly chin and a coarse, drink-sodden face, glanced at them suspiciously from an open doorway.

"Keep an eye on yer car for yer, Mister?" he asked, expectorating into the garbage strewn gutter.

"Keep exactly where you are, my friend!" said Nicholas significantly. The other quailed beneath the steely glitter in the detective's eyes.

"What about it, Maynard?" he added. "Which of us'll tackle the 'One Who Knows'? One of us ought to stay outside, I reckon― in case," he added significantly.

"Toss for it," laughed the newspaper man. Heads, I go."

He spun a coin, and a tail showed uppermost in his palm.

"Right-ho. I'll stroll around. If you're not out in ten minutes," said Maynard, "I'll do the needful."

Nick's face was very grim and purposeful as he strolled down Bakewell Street. One or two lights glimmered in the windows, but mostly the street was shrouded in darkness. A dark mist was rising from the river, and the hoot of a steamer's siren floated mournfully through the fog. The detective halted before the paint-blistered door of No. 4, behind the fanlight of which flickered a gas-jet. He knocked gently, for loud rat-tats are apt to scare the inhabitants of Shadwell's salubrious neighbourhood.

Not a sound came from the dark, dilapidated house. Nick scratched his chin, and knocked a second time— somewhat louder. The door swung soundlessly open, and his hand spring to his hip. Every nerve in his body was tense as he peered ahead into the gloom of the corridor.

He flashed on his electric torch. Save for a rickety chair, the hallway was deserted. Wallpaper peeled grotesquely from the walls, one piece flapped like a large and loathsome bat in the current of the night breeze. Beyond loomed a pair of dingy purple curtains, and to the right wound a carpetless stair.

"Queer," murmured the Yard man. He glanced at his watch. It was a little after midnight. Was this a trap? His fingers closed on the butt of his automatic, and he advanced cautiously along the hallway. Suddenly from behind the curtains came a feeble groan, hollow and sepulchral, followed by a fit of coughing.

"Hullo there!" snapped the Yard man, striding forward. "What's the trouble?"

There was no reply, save from a long shuddering sigh.

Gripping his gun, Nick wrenched back the curtains. The rays of his torch revealed a frowsy bedroom, meanly furnished with a bed in the corner, on which lay the limp body of man. He lay face upward on the dingy bed-clothes, his face was contorted with agony, and from toe rent in his torn jacket there welled a crimson stream of blood.

"Heavens!" gasped Nicholas New, striding over to the bed. "He's done for!"

He propped his arms under the man's shoulders, and gently lifted his head from the pillow. The man's swarthy face was wet with sweat. He seemed to be a half-breed, and he gasped painfully, fighting for breath.

"Are you Larry?" demanded Nick. "Brace up, man; tell me what's happened."

The man turned, two glazing eyes towards I detective.

"I'm Larry. Larry the Wop," he croaked hoarsely. "He got me, the cuss, got me―"

A terrible fit of coughing tore from his emaciated chest, and the crimson stream widened.

"Quick!" snapped Nicholas New. "Who is the Croucher? Tell me. Don't be afraid!"

"The Croucher," gasped the dying man painfully. "The Croucher is―"

A bubbling scream of horror welled from his ashen lips as his gaze turned towards the window.

"Look! Look! That face, that ghastly―" he shrilled, pointing a shaky finger at the dirty window-pane. Nick swung round. From the swelling mists of fog he glimpsed a smooth, hairless face,  mocking, sardonic. It was the face of the mysterious Mr. Sin. He raced across the room, and, with an effort, flung open the sash.

CRACK! Crack!

His automatic spoke twice. A low, mocking laugh seemed to float from the depths of the dark river mist.

Larry the Wop, mouthing painfully, strove to speak. Nick bent low to bear his whispered words.

"The Croucher is―" he gasped, and suddenly a convulsive shudder ran through his limbs, and the death rattle sounded hideously in his scrawny throat The One Who Knew had carried his secret to the grave.

For a moment or two, Nick gazed down at the body. He felt slightly sick with the suddenness of it all, but his first reaction was one of rage against that bland and smiling Celestial who called himself Li Sin.

He clambered over the window-sill, and dropped, lithe as a cat into the garbage-strewn, asphalted courtyard, and flashed his torch through the murk. There was no sign of the Chinaman, but a door, creaking wheezily on its hinges, gave access to a narrow alley-way, down which the detective sped. It debouched on the dilapidated warehouse where Maynard had parked his car.

Gasping painfully for breath, Nicholas New was just in time to see a high-powered limousine driven at frantic haste through the fog, its yellow headlights glaring like monstrous cat's eyes. Then, from the tonneau of the car, two vicious tongues of flame shot out, and the next instant Bill Maynard, pacing the opposite pavement, clutched convulsively at his chest, then slumped head forward to the ground without a cry.

Nick ground out an oath between tight-clenched teeth. Lungs almost bursting, he raced after the death car, but it was a hopeless task. From his pocket he drew out a police whistle, and blew three long, urgent blasts, then turned to where, on the pavement, sprawled the limp, lifeless body of the newspaperman.

Reverently, Nick turned over Maynard's body. One quick, cursory glance showed that he had been shot through the heart. In the rays of the detective's torch, the dead man's face held a faint surprised expression.

His death must have been practically instantaneous, thought Nick, as he lowered the body to the dank pavement. Then, suddenly, a gust of fury seized Nicholas New, stark, berserker rage, that shook him as a mighty wind shakes a sapling. He forgot his years of training to repress emotion in times of crisis. A fierce, insensate fury against toe foul and cowardly murderer who had shot down his friend, Maynard, in cold blood suffused his being.

"By ――," he swore. "I'll get the Croucher if it's the last thing I do in this world! Bill, old man," he added, and his voice was husky, "I'll see you are avenged!"

From toe gloom ahead came toe sound of heavy, running footsteps, and a moment later two uniformed policemen emerged from file fog.

"What's all this?" demanded one, a grizzled sergeant, suspiciously.

"Murder!" rasped Nicholas New. "Quick, one of you, get the ambulance! There are two more victims to be added to the Croucher's list!"

"The Croucher!" whispered the sergeant; then, suddenly recognising Nick, saluted smartly.

"Where's the other chap, sir?"

"Round the corner," answered the detective curtly. "Chap itemed Larry the Wop. Know him at all?"

"Phew!" whistled toe sergeant. "So Larry's got it. It was coming to him a long time. He's one of Brilliant tang's runners."

"He was," corrected Nick significantly. "His running days are over now, poor chap!"

Clients Of Mr Ambrose Ertz

MISS DOROTHY Somerville came down the step of her quiet little flat in the quiet, little street off the King's Road, Chelsea, at exactly 8.30 a.m, and, following her invariable custom, bought a copy of the Daily Clarion at the bus stop opposite the Town Hall. Save for a subtle air of refinement about her carriage, and the quiet distinction of her neat dove-grey costume, there was little to distinguish her from a score of other City-bound girl clerks and typists who boarded the No 11 bus. She opened her paper cursorily enough, and suddenly a blaze of headlines met her gaze:

CLARION REPORTER MURDERED!

£5,000 REWARD FOR CAPTURE OF THE CROUCHER!

Dorothy gasped as she read the news of the dastardly crime in Shadwell the previous night. Hitherto she had been inclined to think that the Croucher was a partly mythical crook, who existed mainly in the fertile imagination of the Clarion's reporter, but now, as she read the stark account of the murder of  Bill Maynard, a little tremor of fear seized her. It was only too horribly true. The report in the newspaper was meagre enough, but she thrilled a little as toe head she significant sentence:

"Detective Inspector Nicholas New, who is in charge of the case, and was actually present when the dastardly crime was committed, is in possession of a valuable due to the identity of this master criminal who is evidently bent on inaugurating a reign of terror against society."

It was with rising impatience that she continued the journey from Victoria to Westminster, and at Parliament Square she alighted eagerly and hurried through the drab courtyard of Scotland Yard with a good deal of suppressed excitement.

Nick was already at his desk when she arrived. He looked up wearily as she entered, and a queer little pang shot through her as she noticed how careworn and haggard his usually cheerful face appeared. He flashed her a little smile of greeting.

"Well, Miss Somerville. The Croucher's sprung at last with a vengeance," he remarked. "Two in one night, and if I hadn't been lucky I'd have been a third!"

"Oh, don't! It's too ghastly to think of it, Mr New!" said Dorothy, taking off her coat and hat, and seating herself at her desk. "And to think I spoke so horribly about poor Mr Maynard last night. Is— is there any clue at all to the Croucher?"

Nick shrugged. "A dozen, but they have all to be sifted and sorted," he announced. "Bowers is working on the notes for finger-prints. Leeson's got the drag-net out for all cars; I'm covering the dives. We'll get him, never fear. I wish you'd type these depositions as soon as possible. Miss Somerville," he added. "I've got to report to the Commissioner. Tough luck on my poor uncle taking over at this time; fortunately, Sir Richard's there to help him."

He rose to his feet and laid a mass of closely written reports on her desk.

She noticed the tired strain in his eyes, and the grimness about his lips. This was a different Nicholas from the gay, inconsequential quoter of nonsense of last evening's little dinner party.

Nick tapped at the door of the Commissioner's room. His uncle was pacing restlessly upon and down the rug, hands clasped behind his back, while Sir Richard was giving instructions to Inspector Myers, of the Flying Squad.

"Pull them all in if they can give no satisfactory account of themselves," he was saying. "Someone's bound to know the Croucher's haunts. He cannot possibly work without accomplices. This reward the Clarion's offering will help, of course — Ah, New," he added, turning to Nick. "Find anything further about this man, Larry the Wop?"

"I did. Sir. He's been in twice for dope peddling— years back. Used to work for the Chink, Brilliant Ling, we deported. I wouldn't be surprised if Ling's not slipped into the country again, and is hacked by a cleverer rogue than himself."

"It's feasible, of course," said Sir Richard, tugging at his imperial. "Poor Maynard's murder will raise a cyclone of criticism against us now, of course, so we'll have to strain every nerve to get the Croucher. This is particularly unfortunate for you, General," he added, "to have to deal with two spectacular murders on your very first day of office."

"Confound it, yes!" fumed the General. "Fortunately, I have your valuable advice, but I almost wish I hadn't allowed the Home Secretary to persuade me to take on the post. Damme, sir!" he added explosively. "Judging by what I've seen of Scotland Yard's inner organisation, this Croucher chappie hasn't a snowball's chance in Hades. The public simply don't know— they're misled by cheap newspaper criticism of the finest police force in the world. Just because we don't catch a criminal red-handed, or in a few hours, they seem to think the whole organisation ought to be scrapped— and staffed, I suppose, by a lot of Fleet Street pen pushers!" he added bitterly.

Nick smiled. "Fm following up toe Brilliant Ling lead, sir," he announced. "There was very little indeed to go on in Larry's bedroom. He had only inhabited the place a week, The divisional surgeon reports that he must have been stabbed half an hour before my arrival. May I have a free hand?"

"Of course," said Sir Richard. "And, by the way, Myers" — he turned to the Flying Squad chief — "it'd be as well to raid the Tottenham Court Road clubs in addition to the East End joints."

"Very good ,sir; I'll instruct Winslow in toe matter," replied Myers. "I was wondering if―"

The 'phone bell shrilled sharply, and Sir Richard lifted the receiver. As he listened his face contorted with rage.

"What's that?" he snapped. "A bomb! Good gad! The murderous scoundrel will stop at nothing! Of course. I'll be along at once."

He turned to the others, and his voice shook a little.

"A bomb exploded in my flat ten minutes ago, gentlemen," he said quietly. "If I hadn't left half an hour earlier than usual this morning, the Croucher would have fulfilled his threat!"

He sank into a chair, and his face was pale and twitching. "Great Scott!" ejaculated Nicholas New. "Are there any casualties, sir?"

"None, fortunately, according to the sergeant on duty," replied the other. "My man, Hynes, was out shopping, but my study and dining room are completely wrecked."

Rick felt sorry for his old chief; the stern martinet he had known had suddenly become strangely old and feeble.

"Egad, Gilbert!" snapped the general. "This is damnable! The murderous villain must have an organised gang. I suppose I'm the next on his list!"

Sir Richard rose to his feet, slightly more composed now. "Myers, I'll come with you in a tender to see the extent of the damage," he announced. "He'll try again, of course," he added. "Please heaven, that'll be his undoing. Criminals nearly always over-reach themselves in toe end!"

BEDFORD ROW, that eminently respectable thoroughfare off the Gray's Inn Road, housed a no more respectable-looking tenant than Mr Ambrose Ertz, whose neat brass plate outside the door of his mellow Georgian house bore simply his name and nothing more. Yet there was a distinctly legal atmosphere about the tall fronted house, through the windows of which one glimpsed neat, japanned deedboxes, ledgers, high, old-fashioned desks at which two seedy, but also very respectable looking old gentlemen sat industriously copying deeds on parchment in writing rivalling exquisite copper plate. A severely lawyer-like street, disdaining change and ostentation is Bedford Row, and one that appealed strongly to the quiet, unassuming nature of Mr Ambrose Ertz.

He sat at the desk of his modestly furnished inner office, a middle-aged man inclined to embonpoint. He was dressed in a rather old-fashioned frock coat, and wore a black cravat with his pointed linen collar that gave him a faintly Georgian appearance that harmonised with his surroundings. His greying hair was brushed smoothly back from the forehead, and his plump, well-kept fingers drummed a tattoo on the desk before him. He affected a monocle with a tortoise-shell rim, and this he screwed into his eye ere scanning an afternoon edition of the Evening News. He clucked his tongue in disapproval as he read.

"Dear me! How shocking!" he murmured. "What will toe Croucher do next? Bombing the Scotland Yard Commissioner's house indeed. Dreadful! Dreadful!"

Something in the account of the Croucher's latest outrage seemed to amuse Mr Ertz, for his eyes twinkled as he pushed the ivory bell-push on his desk.

A thin, stoop-shouldered man well past , middle age entered the room. He was dressed in rusty black, his cadaverous face was as yellow as the parchment he ornamented with his beautiful copper plate. He looked exactly what he wasn't, a studious, rather dull lawyer's clerk.

"Ah, Stephens!" said Mr Ertz, with a smile. "Have you finished that letter?"

"I have," said Stephens. "And a darn good job I made of it, chief, if you ask me."

The geniality vanished from the eyes of Mr Ertz. "I didn't ask you!" he snapped. "And drop that tone during business hours. Let's see the note."

Stephens pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr Ertz, who scanned it narrowly through his monocle. "You won't find any fault with that if you was to use a microscope," said Stephens, baring his yellow teeth with a grin. "That'll get Mr Nosey New and―"

"That'll do, you fool!" snarled Ertz, and his face twisted into an ugly grimace. "Do you want to toe the T piece at eight on a chilly morning?"

A flicker of fear shone for a moment in the sunken eyes of Mr "Phoney" Stephens, ex-engraver, and now one of the cleverest forgers in Europe. He stood in awe of his employer, the enigmatic Mr Ertz, who knew so much of his dubious past.

"Sorry chief," he mumbled. "By the way, Hanlon's waiting to see you."

"Send him in," snapped Ertz.

Stephens shuffled out of the room, and Mr Ertz's ill-humour vanished as suddenly as it appeared. He gazed round the austere lawyerlike office and surveyed the dusty japanned brief boxes on the shelves with approval. Scotland Yard would have given a good deal to know the contents of those boxes.

Mr Ertz had inhabited that quiet house in Bedford Row for many years— his neighbours, both dry-as-dust solicitors, whenever they bothered their heads about anything other than torts, deed and conveyances, thought Mr Ertz a very sound, dependable member of the legal profession. In a sense they were right. The criminal confraternity found Mr Ertz very sound and dependable— as a fence. His clientele was not extensive, but it was peculiar, very peculiar, as the newcomer who now entered, attested. He was a ferret-eyed man with reddish hair and a snub freckled nose.

"Come in, Hanlon," said Mr Ertz. "Have you fixed it with Brilliant?"

"Sure, chief," said Red Hanlon, with the peculiar lip movement of the old lag. "Everything's fixed. But, lumme, ain't the Croucher puttin' it over; he's put the fear o' death in―"

"Shut up, hang you!" snarled Ertz. "Remember what happened to the last man who talked too much."

Mr Ertz closed his soft hand in a slow, relentless gesture, and Hanlon's face paled suddenly. He changed the subject hurriedly.

"Brilliant has the room all set," he announced. "The dam busies and flatties are combing out every joint in Limehouse, boss— they've pulled in Mike the Whizz an'―"

"Police activities do not worry me, Hanlon," said Mr Ertz coldly. "Remember — at midnight, the girl's room must be ready at the house of Brilliant Ling."

"Midnight it is chief," said Red Hanlon, and his loose tips curled into a lascivious leer.

"Give this to Stephens as you go out," snapped Ertz. "Tell him to have it delivered on the stroke of six p.m."

He handed the folded note to the red-haired crook and dismissed him with an airy wave of his plump hand. For a few moments he gazed into vacancy. There was a peculiar expression in his cold, strangely light eyes, a reptilian glitter that was not pleasant to contemplate. Then, as if impelled by a sudden decision, he lifted a small house telephone that stood on his desk, and murmured a few words into the receiver.

The Man In Black

"PARDON ME, my dear Ertz," cooed a soft voice at his elbow. "It is quite unnecessary to inform me. I rely as much on telepathy as telephony."

With an oath Mr Ertz swung round in his swivel chair, and found himself gazing at the bland, unruffled figure of Professor Li Sin.

The Chinaman was dressed in his usual impeccable fashion, between his lemon-hued fingers he held a black, rice-paper cigarette.

"Gosh! You— you startled me," gasped Ertz. "I— I was just going to let you know that all's set for the big kill."

"I know," said Mr Sin blandly. "It is work of sheer supererogation on your part, my dear Ertz. I, however, appreciate your zeal, while deprecating your impetuosity. It was surely an error to tell the rather obvious Mr Hanlon to call. He is dangerous— he drinks too much."

Mr Ertz, who inspired so much terror in others, found great difficulty in controlling his trembling fingers, and winced beneath the cold reproof of the man from Pekin.

NICK NEW had a comfortable bachelor flat just off Trafalgar Square. He found it central and convenient for Scotland Yard, and shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon he restored a little of his customary serenity of outlook with a long, luxurious soak in his tub and a light but appetising lunch.

He had been on his feet for nearly thirty six hours, and, after accompanying the Commissioner to the scene of the damage at his place in Elmsmere Square, and helping Myers restore a little order out of the chaos of the wrecked rooms, Nick felt entitled to an hour or two's rest.

The Croucher's latest outrage might have had serious consequences had the bomb exploded earlier. Both Sir Richard's study and dining-room had been completely wrecked by the force of the explosion. Amidst the debris of splintered furniture, gaping walls and shattered windows, Myers had found pieces of twisted steel and an enamel dial, which indicated that a time-bomb of some kind had been hidden somewhere within the house.

Sir Richard's man had been rigorously cross-examined, but he could supply little or no information. Indeed, his one reiterated statement was one of joy that he was out shopping when the sanguinary bomb went off. The Commissioner himself, in a towering rage, had decamped for his club, a funereal building in Piccadilly, leaving, as Nick misquoted to Miss Somerville, "the world to darkness and to me."

The Flying Squad had excelled itself, however. Into its all-embracing net had been dragged all the queer fish that infest the polluted streams of the underworld. But one and all, from pickpocket to con. man, stoutly denied all knowledge of the Croucher.

Meanwhile, Fleet Street was in a ferment. Every half-hour special editions of the great national dailies appeared, each with its own garbled and fantastic account of the latest developments. It was with a sigh of genuine relief that Nick reached the sanctuary of his flat, there to ponder on the baffling problem.

He lit his after-luncheon pipe, and considered every aspect of the case, since he had received that laconic warning, "You're next," the previous night Maynard had been murdered obviously because the Croucher feared that the newspaper man knew too much. Sheeny MacGuire and Larry the Wop shared his fate for the same reason.

There remained only Sir Richard and himself to be accounted for.

If the Commissioner had followed his usual habit of leaving his house at 9.30 a.m., he would certainly have perished in the explosion. Again and again in Nick's mind rose the memory of that saffron-tinted incorruptible. Mr Li Sin, of Pekin. Who was he? Why had he warned him against the Croucher? Was it sheer bravado on the man's part that visit to Scotland Yard? Nick was frankly out of his depth.

The uncanny reticence of even the most loquacious nark was attributable either to the fact that they tod not know anything at all about the Croucher, or that they were scared to death of his vengeance. In any case, it seemed hopeless to expect any results from that angle unless the Clarion's offer of £5,000 would result in avarice overcoming fear. Nick recalled the Gutteridge case in that connection, and it gave him a few crumbs of comfort. If only one of the crooks caught in the Flying Squad drag-net could be induced to speak.

The phone bell tinkled sharply and interrupted his reverie. He lifted the receiver, and stiffened suddenly as he recognised the suave, cool voice of Professor Li Sin.

"Is that you, Mr New?" purred the Chinaman.

"It is," snapped Nick. "What the deuce do you want? I want you very badly, incidentally."

"Come and find me, my dear sir," was the mocking reply. I'm— er-sorry I missed you last night," he added.

Nick swore softly under his breath, but he managed to control his voice.

"The regret is mutual, I assure you." he replied. "What do you want?"

"I want you to take great care of yourself, Mr New, and, incidentally, of your Commissioner. The Croucher does not fail twice, you know. Unless the Flying Squad ceases its rather strenuous activities, I shall be compelled to— er— take very drastic measures indeed. They are seriously embarrassing me. That is all."

There was a faint click. The Chinaman had rung off. Feverishly Nick called up the exchange, and found, as he suspected, that the call was from a public call-box in Piccadilly. He swore roundly and seized his hat— then abandoning his first impulse, strode into his dressing-room. Peeling off his dressing-gown, he surveyed himself critically in the mirror, then opened a drawer of his dressing-table and produced various items necessary to the art of disguise.

"Limehouse Louie's the only hope," said Detective-Inspector Nicholas New cryptically. "If I can't get wise to the Croucher that way—nobody on earth can."

"WHERE THE deuce is New?" snapped Sir Richard Gilbert irritably, as Miss Dorothy Somerville entered the big, airy room in Scotland Yard shortly after five p.m. "I told him to report to me by four o'clock. Myers has discovered a very promising lead from the Yellow Harlequin Cafe."

"I could not say, Sir Richard," replied the girl quietly. "I believe he went home to change at two; he hasn't communicated since."

She placed a heap of neatly typed depositions on toe desk, and stood rather hesitantly beneath her chiefs scrutiny. Sir Richard's eye rested in frank approval on the girl's trim figure. She coloured faintly under his gaze, and, clearing his throat, Sir Richard pulled irritably at his greying beard.

He was nervous and restless. The Croucher affair was getting on his nerves. Usually coldly practical, Dorothy saw that that bomb outrage that morning had shaken him considerably. She was not very keen on Sir Richard, but she thought that the press attacks on his regime were uncalled for. After all, he had spent years at Scotland Yard, and received little credit for the many reforms he had instituted. She remembered little acts of kindnesses on his part to her when, raw and inexperienced, she had first joined the staff at Police H.Q., but she disliked his disconcerting fashion of gazing at her In that peculiar speculative fashion.

"Is— is there any further news of the Croucher, sir?" she ventured. "That horrible affair this morning seems to show he's terribly in earnest―"

Sir Richard's eyes lightened a little. "Bless my soul," he remarked, "are you worrying about me? I have a personal bodyguard of plain-clothes men, my dear young lady— and as for this scoundrel, the Croucher, I have every hope of pulling him in within the next twenty-four hours. Myers has a splendid clue that he is following up. Er— send Inspector New to me immediately he arrives," he added.

Dorothy nodded and withdrew quietly.

"Egad, my nephew's chosen a darned pretty secretary," chuckled the general, who was deep in a bewildering maze of traffic returns;

Sir Richard nodded absently. He was distinctly jealous of Inspector New.

"Your nephew is a remarkable young man, General, but I do wish his methods were a trifle more orthodox. It's very bad for discipline the way he mixes so intimately with the criminal fraternity. A little fraternisation is, of course, essential, but I am afraid he over-does it."

MEANWHILE, Mr Ambrose Ertz, that eminently respectable tenant of Bedford Row, was filled with a pleasurable feeling of anticipation as he glanced at the ormolu clock on his desk. In a few minutes the note to which Mr "Phony" Stephens had devoted so much time and skill would be delivered at Scotland Yard, and Mr Ertz awaited developments with keen interest.

There was absolutely no risk, of course. Nothing that the versatile Mr Ertz tackled ever had a risky element, at least, to himself. To others maybe— but no dossier of misdeeds, no hint of suspicion concerning himself were extant at police headquarters.

Very few people indeed knew Mr Ertz's real profession— those who did were silent, for the shadow of the gallows is a great deterrent to the squeaker.

He pressed a bell on his desk, and the cadaverous Stephens entered.

"You and Martin stay until the girl has arrived, then vanish," he said. "Understand?"

Stephens grinned evilly. "Sure, chief. And does New get his?"

"Mind your own business!" snarled Ertz.

Stephens rubbed his bristly chin, and his shifty eyes shot a look of hatred at his employer. "I see there's five thousand quid out for info' about the Croucher, chief," he said, quietly. "It's a big sum for a tiny scrap of―"

He broke off, appalled at the sudden look of tigerish ferocity in the other's face, and backed away hastily.

"What's that?" snarled Ertz. Gone was his suavity, gone his respectability. He was brute beast. His eyes glowed with an unholy light, and his lips writhed back from his too-white teeth in a wolfish snarl.

"You think you can squeal on the Croucher, eh?" he demanded, and his voice was shrill with passion. "You— you— sewer-rat! Let me tell you that no man alive has ever hinted that he'd squeal on the Croucher— and lived. You've signed your death-warrant, Stephens."

"No— no— chief!" gasped the terror-stricken crook. "For 'Eaven's sake. I— I didn't meant it. I— I couldn't squeal if I wanted to. As Heaven's my witness, I don't even know who the Croucher is."

Ertz stared at the cowed wretch and laughed softly. His rage passed with almost startling suddenness.

"Your ignorance is indeed bliss, Stephens. Knowledge would mean a particularly unpleasant death, my friend. Go!"

He pointed towards, the door, and the trembling crook slunk out like a whipped cur.

"A LETTER for you, Miss Somerville." Dorothy looked up from her typewriter as s young constable entered the room, an envelope gripped in his ham-like hand. She smiled her thanks charmingly, causing a distinct flutter in the constabulary breast and glanced at the superscription. She recognised the hand-writing, and flushed a little, then, woman-like, felt oddly resentful that the sight of that familiar scrawl should react so strangely upon her. The note had evidently been delivered by District Messenger, and was addressed from Bedford Row. The message was brief, but explicit:—

Dear Miss Somerville, [it ran].

Please bring copies of depositions A and B to the above address by 6.30 p.m. I believe I am at last on the Croucher's trail— curiously enough, through a woman not even remotely connected with the underworld.

She will not speak, however, except in the presence of her solicitor, Mr Ertz, and must be very tactfully handled. You being the embodiment of that virtue, your presence is both desirable and essential.

Sincerely,

Nicholas New.

Dorothy smiled at the odd mixture of formality and friendship in the note, which was typical of the relationship between her and Nicholas New. She glanced at her wrist watch. It was five minutes past six. She generally finished work at 6 p.m. except on special occasions. It was quite evident that Nicholas needed her presence urgently at the lawyer's office. It was not the first occasion she had been present when the police in the course of their duties had to question a female witness.

She felt a queer thrill of excitement at the thought that at long last Nick had found a clue to the Croucher's identity, and wondered who the woman was that was not even connected with crime. It was certainly an intriguing situation, she mused, as she snapped the lock of her little attaché case and added a few deft touches to her toilet.

Dorothy hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she would leave word indicating her movements. This precaution appeared to her rather unnecessary, as she was acting on the direct instructions of Inspector New, who she would meet in so short a time.

She hailed a taxi in Whitehall, down which leather-lunged newsvendors ran bawling, Croucher Latest," and felt a pleasurable sense of superiority at being admitted behind the scenes of this sensational drama.

The taxi turned into Grays Inn Road and deposited her outside No. 7a, Bedford Row. She noted its atmosphere of aloof respectability and lawyer-like mustiness. She dismissed the cab and entered the outer office. An ancient clerk in shabby black, who looked as if he had stepped out of Dickens, shuffled towards her, quill pen behind his ear.

"Miss Somerville?" he ventured, with an old-world bow. Dorothy nodded.

"Mr New is waiting for me, I believe?" she remarked.

"He is in with Mr Ertz and his client," said Stephens. "Won't you step this way?"

He lifted the flap of the counter and led the way towards a green baize door, and knocked.

"Come in!' called Mr Ambrose Ertz.

"Miss Somerville," announced Stephens, as he held open the door. Dorothy entered, and found herself in a cosy, workmanlike room and facing a rather portly, pink-faced gentleman clad in clothes of rather old-fashioned cut. Mr Ertz rose to his feet and smiled. Subconsciously, Dorothy noted his teeth were rather too large and too white.

"Ah! The— er— young lady from Scotland Yard." said Mr Ertz. "Won't you sit down? Inspector New and my client are expected at any moment."

He waved, his hand towards a leather-locked chair, and surveyed Dorothy appraisingly through his monocle.

"Pray pardon my presumption," he purred. "But you are a most attractive young lady to be connected with the police force."

Dorothy stiffened. Her first impression of Mr Ertz had not been exactly favourable, but now she felt she thoroughly disliked the man. He was too suave, too smooth. She checked the retort that rose to her lips, and hurriedly changed the subject.

"I understood from inspector New that he was waiting for me here," she said coldly.

Mr Ertz nodded and gave an oily chuckle. "Quite right. That's what I meant you to understand, my dear Miss Somerville."

Dorothy felt her heart thumping uncomfortably, but she kept her head and tried to still the feeling of alarm that startled her.

"I— I fail to understand what you mean, sir," she said. "I had a letter from Inspector New―"

"You did not, my dear little police lady," broke in Ertz, and his eyes narrowed. "You had a letter purporting to come from dear Nicholas— a different matter."

Dorothy leaped to her feet. Panic gripped her.

"You — you mean it was a forgery."

"Precisely," was the reply. "But do not blame yourself unduly, that letter was forged by the greatest expert since the late lamented Jim the Penman."

"Then — then this is a trap!" gasped Dorothy, glancing round wildly. Ambrose Ertz rose to his feet, and the expression on his face was ugly.

"Now, my dear girl, be sensible!" he said. "I wanted you here for a particular reason."

With a panther-like step he strode towards her.

"Let me go at once!" hissed the girl. "If you touch me, you beast, I'll―" She screamed as she felt his soft, pudgy hands close on her arms.

"Scream away, young lady," cried Ertz. "This office is soundproof. Beyond that door are plates of steel. You have no possibility of escape. The very taxi that brought you here was a fake."

Dorothy felt a sickly wave of nausea sweep over her as she struggled in his grip. His hot breath fanned her cheeks, his curiously light eyes were ablaze with passion. She wrenched one arm desperately from his clammy clutch, and struck with all her might at his pink, fleshy face. He staggered back and spat out an oath.

"By ――, you little spitfire! I'll make you pay for that! I'll―"

"Keep back, you beast!" she cried, and her fingers closed on a heavy leaden paper-weight on the desk. A wild surge of exultation flooded her veins as she raised the missile. She wanted to pound that flabby face. Ertz saw the look in her eyes, and cowered back, but it was only for a moment or so. Suddenly he sprang forward with surprising agility for one of his bulk.

Crash!

The heavy paper-weight missed his temple by a fraction of an inch, and smashed a framed photograph on the wall. He laughed exultantly and, sick with horror, Dorothy felt the grasp of his strong hands as his arms closed around her. She was trembling in every limb, and a prayer rose from her ashen lips.

"Don't! Don't!" she screamed.

"Scream away, my pretty one!" he mocked. "There is no one to hear. No one to come to your rescue―"

Clang!

Even as he spoke a steel shutter opened in the wall at the rear of his desk, and framed in the aperture was a black-garbed figure, his face completely hidden by a mask, in his hand a blue-nosed automatic.

"Ooh!" sobbed Ertz, and his face was the colour of death. "The Croucher!"

"Exactly!" said a soft, sibilant voice. "Mr Ambrose Ertz, you seem to have exceeded your instructions. You will at once beg this young lady's pardon on your knees!"

Dorothy stared at that sinister, crouching figure in the aperture. He was completely covered by a black velvet cloak, and through the slits in his mask his eyes glittered balefully, and the hand that held the gun was like a yellow daw. That much she saw, and suddenly a queer red mist swam before her eyes, and she slumped forward to the floor into blank and blessed unconsciousness.

A Shock For Shifty Lee

MR "SHIFTY" LEE, that resourceful pickpocket, had a grievance which he loudly and luridly aired through the grille of his cell to the quite unresponsive back of the phlegmatic turnkey at Bovine Street Police Court. In the first place the unsympathetic magistrate had remanded him in custody "under the act" simply on the uncorroborated word of Detective Willis, despite Shifty's almost passionate plea that he was simply waiting for a bus for Swiss Cottage the previous night in order to get home to his sick aunt.

Shifty's record, however, was far too well known to the police, and they passed polite but sceptical remarks even about the existence of the little pickpocket's ailing relative. But Shifty's chief grievance was against Detective Inspector Nicholas New, "Nosey" New as he was called in crookdom.

Nick's action in arresting him the previous night meant not only that ne would forfeit the three months remission he had earned— for he was just out of Pentonville on ticket of leave-but, what was worse, earn him an additional half stretch for "loitering with intent."

Shifty's heart was sore at the injustice of it all, and what made matters worse was that this had been the one occasion in his life he had stood near a bus queue, not to pick pockets, but to do exactly the reverse. He sat down on the hard, wooden bench of his cell and groaned.

For some reason or other Bovine Street station was extraordinarily full, and the Black Maria to convey him to Brixton was long overdue. As an old campaigner, Shifty infinitely preferred the cell amenities of a real "jug" to the stark discomfort of a police station "cooler."

He tugged at his scrubby moustache, then bounded towards the grille of his cell door. "Hi, Beefy!" he bawled down the corridor. "Wot abaht my mouthpiece? S'welp me if I don't 'ave this case taken to the 'Ouse of Lords."

There was a shuffling sound from the far end of the corridor, the jingle of keys, and there hove into Shifty's restricted view the burly figure of Warder Higgins grasping by the arm a tattered-looking derelict of repellent aspect.

"Shut up, Shifty! 'Ere's a little playmate for you till Maria comes," reproved the warder, unlocking the cell door. "In you get, Louie. If you want to see a doctor, wait till, you get to Brixton."

The newcomer, an unwholesome, pasty-faced looking specimen of humanity, clad in a suit of nondescript garments that were green with age, slumped on to the bench, and held his head in his filthy, talon-like hand. He was quivering and shaking from head to foot, and Shifty turned truculently to the warder.

" 'Ere! Watcher mean Puttin me in with a dope fiend? I'm a 'igh-class dip, I am, Beefy! I'll write to the 'Ome Secretary about it I'll―"

Clang!

The cell door successfully cut short his harangue, and Shifty eyed his cell mate with acute disfavour. The other lifted up his head and stared with lack-lustre eyes at the little pickpocket. His twitching lips and rapidly dilating nostrils were the tell-tale marks of the cocaine sniffer, and Shifty gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Crikey! If it ain't Limehouse Louie!" he remarked. " 'Ere, Lou', doncher remember me at 'Ginger' Martin's joint 'bout six munce back? You was all lit up and standin' drinks all round."

"Eh?" said the other, in a dazed fashion. "I seem to know your face, mate. What's your name?"

"I'm Shifty Lee," said the pickpocket, with an odd assumption of pride. "Gosh! But you ain't 'arf got the willies, Louie! What they run yer for— snow? It's a blame silly game now the Yard's all out fer the Croucher."

It was significant that even in the privacy of the cell the little crook lowered his voice to a whisper as he mentioned the master crook's name.

"Ssh!" gasped the other. "The Flying Squad's cleared us all up. Ginger's raided; they pulled in Wong Foo. They got me 'arf an hour back— got me afore I'd time to sum a shot to steady me nerves."

" 'Oo pulled yer?" demanded Shifty, with professional interest.

"Nosey New. May his eyes rot and his tongue wither!" snarled the other venomously. "I'll be a full stretch this time. Shifty, an no error," he added, passing a shaking hand over his bristly chin.

" 'E knocked me 'orf, too, the big stiff!" growled the pickpocket. "Knocked me orf. Think of it! The only night I wasn't workin'. Nosey pinches me! An' for what?" he asked dramatically.

"Spite," spat out Louie, laconically.

"Lemme tell you," said Shifty, full of his grievance. "Ever ere of Red. 'Anlon? 'Es one of the 'igh ups. Well, Red comes to me an' tells me to tail Nosey. We was at Luigi's cafe, in Soho. and Red ses as 'ow Nosey New was dining with a skirt in the Spanish restaurant. 'You're the best dip in London— them were Red's exac' words to me. 'There's a tenner for yer if yer slips this envelope into Nosey's pocket inside ten minutes.' "

Shifty paused dramatically, and his companion showed his yellow teeth in a mirthless grin.

"Well, wot 'appened?" he demanded.

"Why, it was as easy as falling orf a log," replied Shifty. "I tailed Nosey New. Saw 'im see 'is gal to a bus, and slipped the envelope in 'is pocket. Red paid me five quid dahn, and I was to get the other 'arf later. That's where I was a fool. Feeling bucked like, I sorter 'ustled an old geezer that looked as if 'e 'ad a nice gold kettle on 'im, when Nosey spots me, an' in that sarky way 'e 'as arsts me wot I'm a-doing of. There's a flattie 'andy —and 'ere I am," concluded Shifty lugubriously.

"Strewth!" said the other. "Wot's Red's game?"

"Blowed if I know. They say 'e's mixed up in the Croucher lay; but me, I lay off that stuff. Ain't you with the Croucher crowd, Louie? Someone told me as you was?"

"The Croucher?" echoed Limehouse Louie. "Blimey, no! Wisht I was! 'Ee pays 'is runners well. I reckon ole Wong Foo's one of is agents: but 'e's such a wily cuss nobody kin tell. Sides, look at the bloomin' Croucher, nobody knows oo 'e is. Some say 'e's a Chink. I 'eard old Brilliant Ling's slipped back from China, and 'e's the Croucher; but nobody's sure, not even Mr Know-All Nosey. 'Oo's Red 'Anlon's fence now— old Kemmy Marks?" he added inconsequently.

"Kemmy!" echoed Shifty, with a short laugh. "Stow it! I tell you, Red's on the up and up; none of old Mark's prices for 'im. 'E's got a crook mouthpiece 'e was tellin' me; 'e was a bit lit up larst night, and swankin'. Queer name it was, Not one of the reglers. Sounded like a sneeze or a dawg growlin'. Grrch or Bertz or somethink. Anyway," added the little crook bitterly, "Mr Bloomin' Red 'Anlon owes me a fiver, and I kin see a stretch at the bloomin' 'Ville a-staring me in the fice just for carrying bloomin' love letters from 'im to Nosey New!"

Limehouse Louie's pasty face began to switch alarmingly, queer, gurgling sounds came from his throat. He clutched Shifty's arm with his claw-like hands and gasped painfully.

"Oh, gosh! They're coming. Shifty!" His teeth chattered violently, and his frame was racked by convulsive shudders.

"'Ere, brace up, Louie!" gasped the pickpocket. "You've got a touch of the 'orrors, that's what!"

"For ――'s sake fetch the doc," shrilled the other. "I must 'ave a shot. My nerves are raw. They're burnin' me alive—"

Flecks of foam appeared round his. writhing lips, and Shifty, who knew a little of the fiendish agony endured by the dope fiend, suddenly deprived of the drug his tortured system craves, leapt for the bell push.

"Hi, Beefy!" he roared through the grille. "This chap's going bats! Quick, fetch the doc."

The burly warder quickened his pace and unlocked the cell door. He cast one glance at the writhing figure on the bench, then rapped out sternly: "Stow it! Stop that screamin', d'y'ear."

"Fetch the doc. for the luvva Heaven!" moaned the quivering, pitiful figure clinging convulsively to the turnkey's sleeve. Warder Higgins grasped the writhing Louie in his arms as though he had been a child. Another warder appeared on the scene, much to Shifty's disgust, for that wily crook had edged near the open door.

"Come on now, Louie! Pull yerself together!" mumbled the warder. "You're better alone, I reckon. I'll send for the doc."

He half-dragged, half-carried him out of the cell, and the last glimpse Shifty had of Limehouse Louie was kicking and struggling in the warder's arms down the dreary, cell corridor.

The warder flung open the inspector's room and saluted.

"Louie seems in a deuce, of a bad way, sor " he announced: "Better let the doc. see him."

"Right, Higgins!" said the inspector sharply, with. a glance of disgust at the shivering derelict. "Leave him here for a moment, and I'll get Murgatroyd to examine him."

"Very good, sor!"

Higgins saluted and withdrew, and when the door had closed Shifty's late cells companion shook himself like a dog, sat up straight and grinned at Inspector Rawlins.

"Good morning, Rawlins," he remarked casually. I'm sorry to have to play tricks on my comrades of the force. Could you spare me a cigarette?"

Rawlins frowned, stared hard at his captive, then grinned his appreciation of the splendid make-up.

"By heck, New, you're playing a dangerous game! You'll get it . in the neck one of these days. You know it's strictly illegal―"

"Rot!" said Detective Inspector Nicholas New, blandly waving aside objection. "It isn't the first or the last time I've assumed the identity of Limehouse Louie. Besides, the Commissioner's given me a free hand. All's fair when one is up against the Croucher. I had a hunch and it came off. By the way," he added, "when Shifty comes up again on Thursday, don't press the charge. Indirectly he's given me a lead to the Croucher, but he's safer here until I've pulled in that murderous brute."

"Good gosh! Does Shifty know who the Croucher is?" gasped the astounded Rawlins.

"He hasn't the vaguest idea," laughed Nick. "That's the nonsensical part of it! Knowing nothing himself he's put me wise to a good deal."

House Of Brilliant Ling

DOROTHY SOMERVIILE'S first sensation on regaining consciousness was one of deadly nausea. Her temples throbbed dully, her. mouth was parched and dry and she felt she had not even the physical energy to open her eyelids. She lay for a few moments quite still, striving to collect her scattered senses into some coherency.

She had, she remembered, called at Bedford Row in response to an urgent letter from Nicholas New, and after that― She shivered involuntarily. Was it all a nightmare? Ertz with his white, flashing teeth that reminded her of tombstones. That dark, sinister figure who had appeared so dramatically, seemingly from nowhere. Surely it was all a dream!

She opened her eyes and gasped with incredulous amazement at her surroundings. She found herself lying on a long, low divan of orange silk, her head resting on soft swansdown cushions, but it was the exotic luxury of the room itself that bewildered her.

Each wall of the room from floor to ceiling was curtained with silken black hangings, embroidered with writhing dragons of gold brocade. From the ceiling hung a pendant bowl of some transparent rose-colored stone, shedding a diffused and soft light on the beautifully lacquered red and black Chinese furniture. At her side, on an exquisitely wrought table of bronze arid silver, reposed a gold-topped carafe and a bowl of fruit— purple grapes, peaches, apricots, and near by a silver filigree cigarette-box.

She struggled into a sitting position, and clasped her throbbing temples.

"Where am I?" she gasped painfully. "I seem to remember minting in that awful man's office in Bedford Row, and then―"

"Pray do not be alarmed, my dear young lady," cooed a soft, mellifluous voice from seemingly mid-air. "I assure you that the obnoxious Mr Ertz has— er— been drastically dealt with. You are doubtless feeling rather bewildered at the moment but in due course you shall be enlightened."

Dorothy leaped to her feet.

"Who are you?" she gasped. By what right do you hold me here? Let me go at once." She stamped a small and imperious toot. The calm suavity of that disembodied voice maddened her.

She looked around wildly. There was no sign of a human being within sight. She dashed at the curtains and drew them aside, to be met by a blank black wall.

"You coward!" she said contemptuously. 'You dare not show your, face! Come out of your hiding-place!"

"At the appointed time, my dear Miss Somerville," said the mocking voice. "May I, however, assure you that escape is quite impossible. There is only one exit to this room, and that is guarded night and day. Also in case you imagine that you are still at Bedford Row, let me hasten to correct that misapprehension. You are miles from that eminently respectable neighbourhood, and you were in fact conveyed from, Mr. Ertz's office in a state of coma induced by the judicious use of a hypodermic needle— hence, doubtless the slight touch of nausea you are experiencing—"

"You cowardly brute!" broke in Dorothy vehemently. "Do you really Imagine you'll get away with it? Why, Scotland Yard already know that I left for Bedford Row, and once Inspector New gets busy―"

"A brave bluff, my dear," chuckled the unseen. "Unfortunately, it won't work. As for the egregious Mr New, he will shortly be solving the greatest of all mysteries— what happens after death?"

The diabolic chuckle which followed chilled the blood in Dorothy's veins. Her head reeled at the horror of it all. She was alone, helpless, at the mercy of that utterly ruthless criminal, the Croucher.

She sank down on the divan, weak and trembling in every limb, then suddenly she lifted her determined little chin. She would not allow this mocking, invisible scoundrel to gloat or to see that she was afraid. She helped herself to a cigarette from the filigree box and lit it, controlling the tremor in her slim fingers by an effort of will.

"That's right, young lady. Take it philosophically," laughed the unseen watcher. "I give you my word that nothing on that table has been tampered with, and you may eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow New dies!"

There was a faint click. It seemed to come from above the red lacquer cabinet, then silence— chill with the menace of death.

THE UNDERWORLD was ablaze with rumours that grew and spread like a forest fire, from the dingy little foreign clubs and drinking dens of Soho, from the gaily-lit haunts of the con. men in the West End, to the frowsy joints of Shadwell and Limehouse, the news of the devastating raids made by the Flying Squad spread panic among the various crook gangs.

Yet one man alone was quite unperturbed about tidings of the wholesale round-up of many notorious dens, both in the East and West End off the metropolis. That man was the Croucher, whose brilliant brain had organised one of the most dangerous and ruthless criminal confederations that had ever menaced society. Only three men in London knew the real identity of the man responsible for the wave of crime that had recently swept over the metropolis— and those three men lived in deadly fear of their leader. They themselves were murderers and expert crooks, each was an accomplished gang organiser, and not one had ever been in the hands of the police, yet, compared to the Croucher himself, they were mere tyros in crime. It was a significant fact that despite every effort made by the Flying Squad, not one single member of the inner circle of the Croucher's organisation had been caught, a fact which the master crook took pains to impress upon his lieutenants at their bizarre headquarters the night following Bill Maynard's murder.

It was a queer assembly, in a queer rendezvous. In the maze of streets beyond Blackfriars Bridge narrow, evil-smelling, hemmed in by gaunt and gigantic warehouse that make the Surrey side of the river hideous, the Croucher's headquarters lay unseen and unsuspected. It had the double advantage of having at least ten different means of ingress, including one cunningly hidden between the piles of a crumbling jetty, long since abandoned by the owners of the derelict grain warehouse that frowned desolately down on the Thames.

Not even the River Rats, as the Thames Police are known at Scotland Yard and the underworld alike, suspected that the boarded and shuttered building standing so forlornly cheek by jowl with a busy contractor's yard and an abandoned and crumbling church, was the H.Q. of the Croucher's organisation.

It was here that Brilliant Ling returned secretly after his deportation to China and plied again his evil trade of smuggling that soul-destroying drug— cocaine. Few people ever penetrated the house of Brilliant Ling save those who knew the password. Fewer people knew the river exit. Some who passed through came back strangely altered, some who went through never came back. The warehouse was honeycombed with passages, and it is typical of the Croucher's thoroughness that the seemingly busy contractor's yard abutting the derelict building was his property, and the workmen had nearly all gleaned their building experience on the grim breakwater at Portland and the grimmer quarries of Dartmoor.

Six men in evening dress sat round a horseshoe-shaped table in a bare, vaulted room within the skeleton shell of the warehouse. Each one was masked, each one was a murderer, but only three knew the Croucher's identify. The rest were content not to know, for knowledge might have meant death.

"You're jumpy tonight, Ertz," drawled a bullet-headed man with a strong American accent. "What's bitten you?"

Mr Ambrose Ertz shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing. Touch of nerves, I reckon." From his waistcoat pocket he pulled out a small oval gold case rather like a woman's vanity box. He carefully emptied a few crystals of white powder on the back of his hand, and inhaled it gratefully. His eyes glittered feverishly behind the slits of his mask.

"Stephens needs fixing," he announced, significantly. "That five thousand's rankling."

"What of it?" laughed the American. "Phoney's too durned scared of his hide to try anything for five grand. What do you say, Duval?"

The man addressed, a grey-haired Frenchman, and, incidentally, proprietor of one of the most popular restaurants in the West End, smiled beneath the rim of his mask.

"Leave him to the Croucher," he said quietly.

"Yes. Leave everything to me," laughed a. voice from the: doorway, and the velvet-garbed figure of the Croucher, his face completely covered by the folds of his sable mask, strode into the room.

"My friends," he said, seating himself at the head of the table, "very soon we will have London at our mercy, and we can proceed with the plans I outlined to you. The police are already demoralised. The removal of that gadfly, Maynard, has given the Press something to think about Tonight, Sir Richard Gilbert and Mr Nicholas New will also be removed, and then—"

Very slowly he closed his claw-like hand.

"Eh bien!" drawled Duval. "And meanwhile?"

"Meanwhile," said the Croucher, and his baleful eyes turned full upon Ambrose Ertz, "a little disciplinary action must be taken against friend Ertz here. I am afraid he forgot the respect due to a lady in whom I am—very— interested."

The last three words were slowly emphasised, and Ertz shivered with fear as he read death in the eyes that glittered so evilly behind the Croucher's mask.

Kemmy, The Fence

"IT'S ALL nonsense, of course, but because it's nonsense I believe it!"

Nick New, seated at his desk at Scotland Yard, stared sombrely at three strips of metal that lay on the blotting-pad before him.

It was nearly 9 p.m.

Six hours had elapsed since he had discarded the unsavoury role of Limehouse Louie― a role he had often assumed when in the East End during the preliminary skirmish of Scotland Yard's warfare against the Croucher before that arch crook had actually come into the limelight.

Nick had spent a strenuous afternoon. His methods of procedure, as the commissioner had remarked, were appallingly unorthodox, but Nick cared little so long as they worked. It was an axiom of his, and he had proved it on countless occasions, that life was infinitely ahead of fiction in providing bizarre problems. The old proverb that "truth is stranger than fiction," Nick amplified— truth is harder to believe than fiction, for fiction is a product of the human mind, and therefore congenial to it, whereas life is always incalculable. He had, in his odd fashion, rejected, for no earthly reason except that it was a plausible theory at the enigmatic Li Sin had slipped the Croucher's ominous warning in his pocket. That left two persons, excluding the waiter at the restaurant who might have done it. Miss Somerville— or Shifty Lee.  On the face of it each alternative was nonsensical; but Nick took a chance, and by taking it immediately obtained a different orientation towards the case.

Red Hanlon was in point Nick's whimsical brain was attracted to the man whose name sounded like a sneeze. The nonsensical element in that fact appealed to him, and he spent a pleasant but unprofitable half-hour with a telephone directory searching for a lawyer whose cognomen might apply. He tried a dozen with little result and in disgust joined Meadows, who was making a detailed report of the outrage at the commissioner's flat.

Sir Richard himself had long since departed for his very exclusive club, and General Dale was dining with a member of the Government— so Nick's hands were untrammelled. The actual notes on the yellow writing-paper which the Croucher affected yielded very little information in the way of finger-prints. Not even the expert, Inspector Barlow, could identify the half-dozen smudged whorls which the camera revealed. Beyond the fact that the warnings were all typed on an Underwood portable machine, and that the paper was of German origin, and supplied in large quantities to the leading stationers, Barlow could say nothing with certitude.

Nick himself had interviewed the assistant at the District Messenger office in Southampton Row, but he failed to recall the appearance of the. person who paid far the message. The tangible clues in the detective's possession were pitifully meagre— the number— untraced— of Li Sin's motor car; the fact that Red Hanlon was in some way, unspecified, connected with fixe Croucher; and the three strips of bent metal which he had discovered among the debris of Sir Richard's flat after the bomb outrage.

Nick picked them up from his blotting-pad, and his eyes narrowed. Fantastic and improbable though his theory was, there was that streak of oddity in his character that impelled him to reject the obvious and concentrate on the subtle. For a moment or two he examined the strips through a magnifying glass, then his lips set in a firm, decisive line as he swept them into the drawer of his desk and locked it.

"And now for Mr Red Hanlon," he murmured, patting his hip pocket, where his automatic bulged comfortingly.

The 'phone bell tinkled as he donned his grey felt hat, and with a frown of annoyance he lifted the receiver.

"Is that Inspector New?" demanded a suave voice— one that Nick had heard before. A vein throbbed dully in his forehead as he recognised it, but his tone was quite impersonal as he answered:

"Sure! What can I do for you?"

"Your activities, my dear New," drawled the voice, "are causing me serious embarrassment I must ask you to refrain from these wholesale panic measures which the Flying Squad are conducting, otherwise the consequences will be very serious."

"Indeed?" laughed Nick.

"So you are feeling the draught— er— Professor Li Sin?"

He sensed rather than heard the sudden gasp of astonishment at the other end of the wire.

"Your crude methods must cease, Mr New, otherwise the very charming Miss Somerville will undergo a very unpleasant ordeal―"

"What! You yellow hound!" snarled Nick. "If any harm comes to that young lady, by heavens, I'll kill you with my own hands!"

"How very interesting," mocked Li Sin. "At the moment Miss Somerville is quite safe in my care, but―"

He paused significantly, and a gust of rage swept over Nicholas New. Dorothy in the hands of this scheming, yellow scoundrel. It was unthinkable. The man was bluffing. With difficulty he controlled himself.

"Listen, Li Sin," he hissed into the receiver, "I'm going to get you, if I have to tear London to tatters to find you. As for Miss Somerville, I'll have a treble guard put over her night and day―"

A dry, mocking laugh twanged in the telephone. "You have an English proverb, I believe, which runs: 'It is useless to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted.' Miss Somerville is very well guarded, indeed— by me. She has been a prisoner since six p.m. That, my dear sir, is for your information and necessary action, as the civil service so felicitously phrase it."

For a moment or two Nicholas New was quite speechless. He was stunned by the appalling fact. Dorothy in the hands of the Croucher!

His face was white and strained as he mechanically clicked the receiver . to recall exchange, and found, as he expected, that the call had come through from a public call-box in the Blackfriars district. He pressed a bell-push on his desk and gave curt orders to his sergeant.

"I'm off to Kemmy Marks to trace Red Hanlon," he announced. "The Croucher's got Miss Somerville."

"What!" gasped the astounded sergeant, then fell back hastily at the "blazing fury in his superior's eyes as he. strode out of the room. " 'Eaven 'elp Red— and the Croucher!" he muttered piously.

Nick hailed a taxi at the corner of Westminster Bridge. His brain was chaotic. The one fact that hammered incessantly was that Dorothy was in deadly danger. It came over him with a suddenness that was startling, that he loved her. It was the first time he had ever put the thought into words, and to Nicholas, who had always treated the opposite sex with a kind of gay camaraderie, this sudden revelation was disturbing. He ached to hold the girl in his arms, to smash through all the barriers that kept her from him. A fierce primeval passion possessed him; he lusted to fight and pound his way through to her side and claim her as his mate by right of conquest.

He laughed discordantly.

"Love is the greatest nonsense in the world," he muttered as the taxi bowled along the Embankment, the lights gleaming in the darkness like a necklace of amber beads. It was significant that the 'phone call had come through from Blackfriars, for in that district, just beyond the Ring, was the hangout of Kemmy Marks, who was ostensibly a marine store dealer, but in reality a fence and receiver of stolen property.

According to Shifty, Red Hanlon had dispensed with Kemmy's services in favour of the lawyer whose name was like a sneeze, but that. Nick argued, was no reason why Kemmy couldn't put him wise to Red's new hangout. The more he considered the matter the more promising it seemed. If Red had quarrelled with the old Jew, Kemmy might quite conceivably open up. He dismissed the taxi at the entrance of the Boxing Ring and plunged into a rabbit warren of alleyways.

The houses, mean, brick-built slums, were in the last stages of squalor and dilapidation. Some of the passages were as dark as tunnels, and at the end of one court that rejoiced in the name of Angel's Rents, Nick New halted.

Ramshackle houses, unlit by any comfortable gleam of yellow, were huddled together, like evil hags; from a nearby court came the shrill chatter of guttersnipes at play, and the strident voice of some nagging harridan. His hand sneaked stealthily to his hip as he crossed over towards a frowsy-looking shop. The windows were so grimed with filth that it was impossible to see. into the interior. Over the lintel, in faded yellow lettering, was the name, "K. Marks," and in the transom a sickly gas jet flickered.

The Yard man rapped sharply on the rusty knocker, and was rewarded by the sound of shuffling footsteps.

"Whoth's there?" quavered a voice through the silt in the letter-box. "Go avay. Bithneth ith over for the day."

"Open up, Kemmy!" rapped Nick sternly. "It's me. You'd better open quickly, or I'll smash the door in!"

Two bleary eyes surveyed him through the slit; then, as if reassured, Kemmy heaved a wheezing sigh.

"Oh, Mithter New! 'Ow you frightened me!" he mumbled.

There was a little rattle of chains, the squeak of a protesting bolt, and Kemmy revealed himself in all his hideousness.

He was a bent, incredibly dirty old man, with a ragged, matted beard, a nose like a predatory beak, and red-rimmed, bleary eyes, which now blinked suspiciously at Nick.

"Come on inside!" snapped the detective brusquely, leading the way to the filthy little living-room behind the shop. "It depends on how you answer, Kemmy, how I'm going to treat you."

"Vy, vot do you mean, Mithter New?" demanded Kemmy Marks, with a feigned innocence that was ludicrous in the circumstances.

Nick New wasted no time on formalities.

"When did you quarrel with Red Hanlon?" he snapped.

"Red Hanlon?" echoed the fence. "I'm afraid I don't know vot you're talking about, Mr New."

Nick's hand shot out and his fingers gripped the other's scrawny throat in a throttling grip.

"Listen, Kemmy," he rasped. "I'll choke the life out of your filthy carcass if you don't come across. The verdict'll be justifiable insecticide," he added with grim humour.

"Oh, merthy, merthy!" gasped the wretched Kemmy. "I— I'll tell you anything you want to know within reathon, mithter New." Nick released his grip, and Kemmy collapsed into a rickety chair. The detective dusted his fingers delicately with his handkerchief and rapped out sharply:

"Where does Red Hanlon hang out?"

Kemmy licked his lips furtively, his red-rimmed eyes dropped beneath Nick's steady stare.

"I ain't seen him for three months, honeth, I ain't," he whined. "The dirty tyke let me down over a deal an―"

"Never mind that. Who's Red working with now?"

Kemmy glanced suspiciously over his shoulder, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "They thay he'th running with the Croucher," he announced. "Don t athk me who lie ith, Mithter New, becauthe I don't know―nobody knows."

"H'm!" said Nick thoughtfully. "Has Red pulled any jobs lately? Don't be squeamish, Kemmy," he added. "You've squealed enough in your time!"

The fence leaned forward, his mean little eyes malevolent with hatred. "Red's running around with a girl— she'th sthraight— a barmaid at the Goath's Head down Frame Road way. Thath's all I know— and thath's the whole truth, Mithter New, th'welp me!"

"Ah, said Nick, and a triumphant glint came into his eyes. "Red's got a girl, has he? I know the Goat's Head. Doesn't Bruiser Patterson keep the place?"

Kemmy Marks nodded eagerly as the detective rose to his feet.

"For the love of Mike, don't tell Red you've theen me, Mithter New." he pleaded, laying a skinny claw on Nick's sleeve. The detective shook him off with a gesture of disgust.

"Watch your step, Kemmy," he said significantly. "I'll be around this way again very soon. No, you needn't bother to see me to the door— I can find my way out!"

Kemmy Marks cursed in his matted beard as the door closed behind his unwelcome visitor. "Nothy beatht!" he snarled. "I hops the Croucher geth him!"

Meanwhile Nick had quickened his pace. The fact that. Red was keen on a girl— and a straight girl at that, if Kemmy was to be believed— was at least a tangible link to his whereabouts. His nose wrinkled in disgust as he plunged into the malodorous squalor of the streets that fronted the riverside.

The Goat's Head at Frame Street was a public-house of some reputation among the dockers and water-front men, in that its licensee was an ex-welter-weight champion― one Bruiser Patterson. The police had little complaint to make about the place, for the burly landlord ruled his tough customers by the strength of his strong right arm, and woe betide anyone who started any funny business at the Goat's Head.

Frame Street was about ten minutes' walk away from Kemmy's shop, and it was nearly quarter to ten when the detective reached the blazing lights of the tawdry-looking gin palace at the corner. He walked quickly into the four ale bar with his hands in his pockets. It was crowded, and a babble of voices rose from every corner of the room. The marble counter was sloppy with unwiped beer-stains. A pert-looking barmaid with bobbed, peroxided hair, and a shrill, cantankerous voice dispensed tankards to a crowd of seedy bar loungers. From the saloon came the raucous strains of an electric piano blaring a Tin Pan Alley tune.

Nick ordered a whisky and soda, and manoeuvred his way to a seat in the corner, where he glanced covertly at the bar occupants. The clientele of the Goat's Head was like Nick's whisky, badly mixed. Hulking dock labourers, weedy wharf rats, one or two lascars from docked vessels, and. in the corner, a slant-eyed celestial placidly eating, potato crisps. From behind the bar the gigantic-torso of Bruiser Patterson loomed threateningly as he roared to a hilarious group of sailors in the corner, "Nah then! Less noise there, you lot!"

Suddenly Nick's keen eves narrowed, and his nerves tingled with excitement. At the other end of the long bar counter, screened by a pot of ferns, was a red-haired, ferret-faced-man deep in conversation with a plump and rather good-looking barmaid. It was Red Hanlon! Nick glanced at the clock. It wanted a few minutes to closing time, and hastily he formed a plan of action.

On the table beside him someone had left a copy of the Evening News. He opened it, and pretended to be immersed in its contents, though one eye watched Red's movements like a hawk.

"Nah, then Milly," roared the landlord. "Stop that chin-wagging, there's customers waitin' to be served!"

Nick noticed Hanlon swear under his breath and hastily gulp down his drink. The barmaid, flashed him an apologetic smile, showing the glint of a gold tooth. Hanlon muttered a curt "Good-night," and slouched out of the bar.

Unobtrusive as a shadow, Nick followed in his wake. He had two courses open to him. One was to tackle Red point-blank— in which case it would undoubtedly mean a fight— the other was to shadow the crook in the hope that he would glean some information about Dorothy. While there were many points in favour of the first course— and it would have given Nick, in his present mood, an unholy joy to pound Red Hanlon's face into a pulp― it by no means followed that Red would give him any information.

Accordingly. Nick, with a skill born of long practice as a shadower, tailed the unsuspecting crook through the maze of criss-cross streets that led to the water-front Red slouched along at a fairly rapid pace. He was not drunk, but his gait was unsteady. Once or twice he tripped and swore luridly as he neared the house of Brilliant Ling.

Nick was frankly puzzled about the man's objective as he plunged deeper into the narrow alleyways, so puzzled that he did not notice a dark figure detach itself from the shadows of a neighbouring timber yard and signal with a peculiar motion of his hands to the other side of the narrow street― Nick, still intent on his quarry, failed to notice half a dozen dim, shadowy forms converging upon him, until an incautious movement Behind him caused him to wheel round suddenly. He glimpsed a yellow hairless face, a clenched hand that held something bright and glittering, and, quick as the dart of a snake, Nick's list shot straight for the other's jaw.

Crack!

Like the sound of mallet on wood, his bunched knuckles slammed home. He laughed exultantly as he heard the other's howl of pain, but his triumph was short-lived. Even as he turned to square up to his attackers his legs were suddenly jerked from under him, and then it came without hint or warning— a sudden staggering, numbing blow full on his temple that paralysed his limbs instantly. Nick's senses reeled beneath the impact, ft sent a great blinding whiteness shooting across his eyes. He was conscious of being almost smothered by sweaty, glistening bodies— there seemed to be myriads of them pressing the life out of him. He groaned and tried to Lash out, but found he hadn't the strength. He felt himself sinking into a deep pit of darkness— then consciousness left him, as if one had snapped out a switch.

The Secret Of Li Sin

NICK CAME to with a cracking headache an hour later, though he had lost all sense of time when the first glimmer of consciousness came. He felt as though his head was tied tightly by strands of red-hot wire, and for some seconds he did not move. He found himself in a complete and oppressive darkness, and put out a shaking hand that seemed constricted somehow, to touch a cold, slimy wall From afar off he could hear a faint drip, drip, and to his hypersensitive nerves it sounded like the drip of blood.

Gradually his brain started to function. He found himself lying on what seemed to be a filthy straw palliasse. Something squeaked in the darkness, and two jewelled eyes watched him unwinkingly. He shuddered as his hand came Into contact with something warm, loathsome— and wriggling. Rats. The cellar was full of them. Desperately he struggled to his feet— only to realise that his legs were pinioned, and he laughed discordantly as something jingled al his wrists. He had been handcuffed with his own bracelets!

Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps that seemed to be descending a stone stair-way. Whoever it was, he was approaching cautiously a step at a time. The footsteps grew louder, and a little later there was a rasp of a key in the lock and the door began to open slowly. A second later Nick was almost blinded by a ray from an electric torch that cut through the darkness like a sword.

"Ah! You have recovered consciousness, Mr New?" said a voice that Nick had not heard before. "That is excellent."

"Who are you?" snarled Nick. "And where am I?"

"Ah! True to type." said the newcomer. "They call you 'Nosey' affectionately at the Yard, I understand; your thirst for knowledge shall be slaked very soon!"

Nick struggled up to a sitting position, and in the rays of the torch made out three figures— each one was garbed in evening dress, and a black domino masked their faces.

"What have you done to Miss Somerville, you— villains?" he demanded wrathfully. "By heck! If you've harmed a hair of her head. I'll―"

"Miss Somerville is quite safe, my dear sir. She has a charming room, plenty to eat and drink— in fact, everything she wants except her liberty, and that, unfortunately, she cannot obtain until— er— certain formalities are completed."

Nick groaned helplessly as he gazed at his manacled wrists. What his immediate fate was to be he did not much care, but he writhed at the thought of Dorothy alone and helpless in the hands of the Croucher.

"I suppose you know that all three of you'll hang!" he said, with an ugly little smile. "You'll take a very short walk at 8 o'clock one morning, my friends — and none of you'll ever come back from that walk. A good, clean wind will whistle between your and the earth―"

"Drop that, dash you!" snarled Ambrose Ertz with a threatening gesture. His nerves were all on edge. It was only the news of Nick's dramatic capture that had saved him from the Croucher's wrath. Three of the outside guard of Ling's house had noticed Nick shadowing the unsuspecting Hanlon, and acted.

Although he did not know it the detective was now actually in a cellar of the Croucher's headquarter, having been brought there while still unconscious by two of Ling's dope runners through the maze of passages that honeycombed the place.

"Better drag him upstairs, Ertz," said Duval. "The Croucher's keyed up tonight."

"Ah!" said Nick. "So you are the missing link, Ertz. I've searched for you with the painstaking devotion of a Darwin, and rejoice to note you're almost human."

"Funny, aren't you?" snarled Ertz. "You'll laugh the other side of your face when the Croucher's finished with you."

"Ertz— Ertz. It really does sound like a sneeze," said Nick. "Good theme for a nonsense rhyme, too. There's a curious creature called Ertz, who bluffs and bamboozles and blurts―"

Smack! Ertz's open hand caught Nick full on the mouth.

"Stop that!" he snarled, stung by the detective's maddening coolness. Nick's eyes blazed, but he kept his temper. "I'll remember that blow, Ertz," he said quietly, "when I'm not hampered by these." He jingled the steel handcuffs significantly.

"Are you going to come quietly? I believe that is the formula you use." asked Duval, with an exaggerated bow. "The Croucher is very anxious to see you."

"And I also reciprocate," said Nick, with a grim smile. "Please lead the way, gentlemen. My steps are somewhat restricted," he added, with a glance at the rope which barely enabled him to walk.

"It's not far, buddy," drawled the third man, who had hitherto remained silent. Nick noticed the American accent, and his head whirled as he rose to his feet. What fantastic fate was in store for him? Above all, how and where was Dorothy?

The dank stone stairs were climbed In silence. To Nick's ears came the sound of muffled hammering, and it grew louder as they advanced along a vaulted corridor. Suddenly Ertz paused before a large wooden door and inserted a key in the lock. It swung soundlessly open on well-oiled hinges, and Nick found himself half pushed and half dragged into a high, vaulted room lit by a sputtering arc-lamp

The whole room was bare of furniture save for a horse-shoe shaped table, at which sat three masked men, immobile as statues. There was something sinister about the very bareness of that vaulted room, and the harsh light from the arc irradiated the scene with a chill, bluish glare. Nick hardly knew what to expect the Croucher's headquarters to be like. He was half-prepared for luxury, even for squalor, but this bare austere room, devoid of all comfort, was like some monstrously enlarged prison cell. Suddenly one of the masked figures rose to his feet. Nick noted that he alone was garbed in a black velvet cloak, and his heart quickened its beat.

The Croucher at last!

For fully half a minute no one spoke. Ertz, Duval and Roscoe. the American, sat down in silence. Nick stood, manacled hands in front of him. gazing steadily at the motionless figure of the Croucher. Then suddenly the tension was broken.

"You have given me a great deal of trouble. Mr New," said the Croucher quietly, in his curiously sibilant voice. "People who annoy me do not do so for long," he added. "Mr Maynard, of the Daily Clarion, annoyed me: he is dead. Sheeny MacGuire might have annoyed me: he also is dead. Larry the Wop, poor fool thought he could identify me; he also died under that delusion.

"As for you. Mr Nicholas New— tell me frankly what my fate would be. assuming our present roles were reversed, and I was your captive."

"You would be hanged by the neck until you were dead," said Nicholas New calmly, "and I doubt if the Lord would have mercy on your black soul!"

The Croucher laughed mockingly.

"Very well, Mr New. Such frankness merits a reward. Voila!"

He reached forward and pressed a switch in the hall. Instantly a doorway to the right sprang open, revealing a small room about twelve feet square. The room was quite devoid of furniture, and Nick saw there was something curiously familiar about the bare, whitewashed walls, the two upright beams spanned by one crossbar. from which dangled a hempen rope. There was a steel lever jutting from the floor.

"My God! The gallows!" he gasped.

"Precisely," laughed the Croucher. "An exact replica of the execution-shed at Pentonville. You, my dear New. shall have the honour of being its first victim. There are many more that will follow you in the near future."

With a prodigious effort of will, Nick managed to restrain himself. He had a wild, insensate idea of hurling himself, manacled as he was, and battering the life out of the suave, cold-blooded villain, but realised that the struggle would be worse than useless.

"Then literally as well as metaphorically you live in the shadow of the gallows, he remarked flippantly. "Do you seriously imagine that you are going to hang me— as you yourself will be hanged one day?"

He turned to the Croucher.

"I do not imagine," was the reply. "I know. Ten minutes from now, Nicholas New, the quick-lime will be searing the flesh from your bones. Have you any message you would like to convey to Miss Somerville? She is within call and quite comfortable, so do not worry on her behalf."

"You darned scoundrel!" Nicholas's pent-up rage burst out. He hurled himself forward, bound as he was, but Ertz and Duval seized him ere he could reach the master-crook. Quivering with passion, Nick turned to the Croucher and said thickly:—

"It's— it's — usual to grant one boon to the condemned. May I see her for two minutes? I— I have something particularly want to tell her before―"

He broke off hastily as his eye fell on the sinister, dangling noose.

"It is a reasonable request." said the Croucher slowly, "You may certainly speak to her— and see her, but in my presence."

So saying, he signalled to one of the masked men and whispered a few words too low for Nick to catch.

"Of course, Mr New," he resumed, when the man had gone, "you have only yourself to blame for this distressing finish to a very promising career. You know too much. You cannot say you have not been warned to cease your activities against my organisation."

"I am afraid it is too late to proceed with '-n j first contemplated— namely, to ask you to join us."

"Join you!" said Nicholas, and his voice was icy with contempt. "I'd sooner hang-there." He pointed to the dangling noose.

"Quite," said the Croucher dryly. "You shall. Meanwhile, of course, I may say I have a very great regard for Miss Somerville—"

He broke off suddenly as the door opened and Dorothy, accompanied by the masked man, entered the room. The girl's face was wan and pale, dark circles showed beneath her eyes, and she gave an involuntary cry as she recognised Nick. He made a half-step towards her, but was checked by the Croucher.

"Oh, Nick! They've got you, too!" she gasped huskily. His pulses thrilled at her use of his Christian name. How desperately he longed for her, and how ironic the situation! Even in his present plight the sense of the bizarre influenced him.

"Keep a stiff upper lip, dear," he said quietly. "It — it'll work out right in the end, you know," he added lamely.

"You— you— wanted to tell me something particularly," said Dorothy quietly. She ignored the others completely. It was as if they did not exist. Nick read the message in her eyes, which were wet with tears, and, reading it, felt that death somehow would be easier now he knew.

"And I, too, Dorothy," he said very quietly.

The Croucher chuckled satirically. "Very affecting indeed! It's a pity young Maynard isn't here to chronicle the latest romance of Scotland Yard— but one of very short duration," he added with a sneer.

"You always were fond of melodrama, my dear Croucher," broke in a cool voice. "Perhaps this will appeal to you. Put 'em up. They both spit death!"

Nick's jaw gaped open. As if by magic, two squat, vicious-looking automatics had appeared in the hands of the masked man who had brought down Dorothy from the Lacquer Room. And the hands were yellow! One gun pointed at the Croucher's heart; the other covered his dumbfounded accomplices.

For a second or two no one spoke, then a strangled snarl tore from the Croucher's throat.

"Li Sin! You yellow scum! Have you gone mad?" he demanded harshly.

"On the contrary, I am perfectly sane. If you don't elevate your hands before I count three, I shoot to kill," he said, with slow, sibilant emphasis.

"You cursed, double-crossing Chink!" broke out Ertz, with a vile oath. "I'll―"

CRACK!

Calmly, imperturbably, Li Sin fired as the maddened man rushed towards him. With a squeal of agony Ertz cowered back, holding a shattered wrist.

"Back, you dogs!" rasped the Chinaman. "Miss Somerville, if you will kindly slip your hand into my waistcoat pocket you will find the key to Inspector New's handcuffs— and quite probably another small automatic."

Like one in a daze, Dorothy stared at the speaker. Her brain was reeling at the suddenness of this unexpected denouement. Nick's urgent voice impelled her forward, however.

"Hurry, darling!" he pleaded.

Feverishly she groped in the Chinaman's pocket. He stood there, calm, imperturbable as a statue, while the chill menace of his guns cowed the others into immobility. Her fingers fumbled nervously as she tried to insert the key into the handcuffs. Nick smiled reassuringly at her. There was a slick click and his hands were free.

The Rats Of The River

SHE THRUST a small, nickel-plated gun into his hand, and Nick's heart leap exultantly.

"And now, you murderous fiend," he ejaculated, turning to face the masked master-crook. "Let's see your ugly mug!"

Hampered as he was by his still pinioned legs, Nick approached the Croucher, who backed away hastily, arms upraised from the menacing purpose in the detective's face.

"Keep back, curse you!" snarled the Croucher, "Ertz, Duval, you spineless fools, why don't you rush 'em?"

"They have too wholesome a regard for their own skins," chuckled the imperturbable Li Sin.

Nick's left hand shot out like a darting snake, straight for the Croucher's face. He tore off the sinister black domino.

A scream rose involuntarily from Dorothy Somerville's lips. She recognised in the sputtering glare of the mercury lamp the hate-distorted features of Sir Richard Gilbert, the retiring Commissioner for Scotland Yard!

For one split second she saw it, and then suddenly there was a loud explosion, followed by the crash of breaking glass, then a holocaust of roaring darkness.

The next few minutes were like a glimpse of inferno to the girl. Vicious tongues of flame spat through the darkness, followed by the staccato crack of automatic. She heard the clang of an iron shutter, the sound of men struggling furiously, their breath coming in frenzied gasps. She stumbled blindly to keep out of the way of the scuffling figures that blundered against her, and shuddered as she heard the sickening sound of a revolver butt smashing against a skull.

"Nick! Oh, Nick!" she gasped. "Where are you?"

"This way, darling! Stay by me," said a voice from the gloom, and a firm, strong arm circled her waist.

Her body seemed to grow suddenly limp. She was hardly conscious, and allowed herself to be half-dragged, half-carried away from the struggling melee in the centre of that vast and vault-like room.

"Lights! Curse you! Where are the lights?" she heard a hoarse voice bellow!

CRASH!

Someone had blundered into the horseshoe table, and a man cursed luridly. Something whistled unpleasantly close to Dorothy's ear and phutted viciously into the wall just above her head.

"Don't worry, dear," said a voice soothingly. "I've got you safe— at last!"

She struggled violently as she felt the man's arm tighten around her.

"You're not Nick!" she screamed. "Help. Nick! Help!"

She sickened as she felt the hot breath of the man fanning her cheeks, and fought like a wild-cat to escape from his embrace. Her nails scored his bearded face in a vicious-scratch that drew blood, but the Croucher laughed exultantly.

"In here, my little spitfire!" he said hoarsely. "The gallows can be an exit to life, as well as death!"

She was powerless. Struggle as she might, she realised that her strength was ebbing away. Dimly she realised that the sound of the fight in the vaulted room had grown fainter. Hope died, and with it consciousness.

Faintly from behind the steel door of the execution-room came the hoarse voice of Nicholas New calling the girl by her name. The Croucher's sensual lips parted in a vulpine snarl as he gently lowered the girl on to the gallows some distance away from the fatal trap. His strange eyes glowed in the darkness like those of a beast of prey as he fumbled for the lever. He pressed hard upon it, and the hinged doors fell soundlessly on well-oiled hinges.

From below came the sluggish, oily lap of the river. The Croucher groped in his pocket for a torch, and snapped it on. Hastily but methodically he uncoiled the ominous noose that dangled from the crossbar of the gallows and bound it around the girl's waist He placed two fingers to his lips and blew a soft, peculiar whistle. From the murky depths below it was answered, and he bared his teeth into- a mirthless grin. Evidently the outer guard on the rotting jetty that fronted the river were not aware of the melee upstairs. It was all to the good.

"Pietro!" he called softly. "Pietro! Quick, the launch!"

Far below he heard the sudden scurry of footsteps, and into the circle of his torch a squat, evil-visaged figure shambled. It was Pietro, the outer guard to the riverside exit of the house of Brilliant Ling. Only in cases of grave emergency had the Croucher ever used that exit so cunningly hidden from the keen eyes of the Thames Police.

"Quick— the launch!" he hissed. Hurry, you fool! Tell Mathers to stand by for an extra passenger— a woman!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" croaked the other hoarsely. "There's had trouble in Lych Street. The Flying Squad is―"

"Curse the Flying Squad!" snarled the Croucher. "Stand by for the girl."

Gently he lowered Dorothy s unconscious body through the dark aperture above the river. A ladder led from die jetty below to the foot of the improvised gallows. Pietro, accompanied by another man, lifted their still inanimate burden, and the Croucher heaved a sigh of relief as he heard the subdued chug-chug of the motor lunch.

He was just about to descend the ladder when there came a thunderous knocking at the steel shutter that separated the room of death from the vaulted chamber.

"Knock away, you fool!" grinned the Croucher. "It'll take you half an hour to batter down that door."

Hand over hand he lowered himself down until he reached the improvised jetty built right beneath the gaunt and apparently derelict warehouse. He- stood in the shadows, an evil, Satanic figure, with his long black cloak flapping about him like the wings of a monstrous bat, whilst Pietro and Mathers carried Dorothy into the waiting launch.

It was characteristic of the man that, even when the closely guarded secret of his amazing double life had been so dramatically revealed, and the hounds of the law were hot on his heels, his actions were calm and unhurried. He issued orders curtly to his henchmen, and it was proof of his utter callousness and ruthlessness that spared no thought to his five lieutenants, nor cared whether they were alive or dead.

Meanwhile, Nicholas New, with a gash in his temple and a cold, smouldering fury in his heart, pounded vainly with the butt of his empty automatic on the steel door of the execution chamber. Events had happened with such bewildering rapidity in the past five minutes that he scarcely realised what he was doing. Since the sputtering arc-lamp had exploded into a myriad of fragments he had been fighting literally and metaphorically in the dark. It was not until later that he was to learn that the Croucher had been prepared for every emergency, and that when the master-crook cowered back in apparent fear when Nick tore off his mask, it was to reach for the switch in the wall which would automatically blow up the lamp.

Hobbled as he was, Nick had been hampered in the general melee that followed abrupt change from dazzling light into complete darkness. He had fallen sprawling over a chair, and gashed his temple against the concrete floor. When he had regained his breath it was to find, pandemonium raging around him. He lashed out indiscriminately with his fists, and felt a fierce joy as his knuckles slammed home into the writhing bodies of his opponents. Dorothy's scream for help turned him into a raving tornado of fury. He kicked and smashed his way in her direction, only to realise with a sob of despair that the Croucher had succeeded in slamming down the steel shutter, and that the girl was gone.

Li Sin, meanwhile, that cool and enigmatic individual, had not been idle. He seemed to have the peculiar feline quality that went with his cat-like gait of being able to see in the dark. As Duval blundered towards him in a mad rush of blind fury, he calmly reversed his gun and smashed down the butt on his skull. Duval fell like a log. Ertz, with his crippled arm, moaned feebly in the corner. All the fight had gone out of him. Nick himself had accounted for Roscoe with his first savage onslaught, and the American blissfully oblivious of everything, sprawled free downward on the floor. Of the fifth man, Brilliant Ling, there was no trace. That wily Oriental had no stomach for a fight at such close range and had taken a hurried refuge in the passage that led to the Lacquer Room in which Dorothy had been kept prisoner.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Nick pounded a hail of blows on the, steel doors of the execution-chamber, and bellowed to Li Sin to bring a light. Calmly and imperturbably the Chinaman switched on his electric torch and approached Nick. Not a trace of emotion or excitement appeared on his lemon-hued features.

"I'm afraid it will take some time to batter that down, my dear inspector," he drawled. "In the meantime, it would be as well to attend to our prisoners."

"But I tell you the Croucher's got Miss Somerville," groaned Nick. "Is there any exit this way?"

The Celestial shrugged. "I believe it leads to the river. As, however, I took the precaution of having a police cordon drawn round the place, I doubt if he'll get very far."

Nick New stared in astonishment at the Oriental.

"In heaven's name, who are you?" he demanded.

"I have already introduced myself once. Inspector. Professor Li Sin, one-time chief of police in Pekin— at present attached for special duty at the Home Office."

"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" ejaculated Nick blankly. "And I once thought you were the Croucher!"

The Chinaman laughed softly. His eyes were inscrutable. "Later, I will explain," he remarked. "Meanwhile, I think I hear our friend Meadows, of the Flying Squad. His arrival is most propitious."

There was a clatter d footsteps in the corridor, and a moment later what seemed like an avalanche of blue-clad figures surged into the vaulted room, headed by the burly, bull necked Meadows. Nick smiled wanly at Meadows's blank astonishment when his gaze fell on the scene of the holocaust. Duval lay spreadeagled at the foot of the table. Near him Roscoe groaned hollowly while Ertz whimpered in the corner, holding his splintered wrist. "Pull 'em all in, Bill!" said Nick.

"They're a mixed bag but I'm sorry the Croucher isn't among 'em."

Meadows whistled.

"Great Mike! It seems to have been a fierce scrap while it lasted," he ejaculated. "Where's the Croucher got to?"

"I don't know," announced Nicholas New grimly. "But I'm not letting up till I've got him— dead or alive."

A HUNCHED, squat figure in glistening oilskins gripped the wheel of the Croucher's speedy motor launch, the Yellow Queen. Heading downstream, her slim nose sheared the waters of the turgid Thames like a knife. The night was pitch-dark. Black as the belly of a wolf, and, like a wolf himself, the Croucher sat in the cabin, his smouldering eyes watching the slim figure of the girl on the tiny bunk. A vein throbbed dully in his white smooth forehead. It was the one sign of emotion he showed— but the strain of the past half-hour was beginning to tell, Ahead of them lay the Pool of London, the Tower Bridge loomed massive In the dank river mist, and beyond, if his luck held, lay the open sea.

The Croucher's dim fingers beat a tattoo on his knee, a devil's tattoo of impatience— and suspense. No-one knew better than Sir Richard Gilbert, ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, how well the London river was patrolled by the Thames police, known by crooks and colleagues alike as the River Rats. If he was to get through at all, he would have to rely upon bluff.

His thin lips pursed thoughtfully. Did anyone but Nicholas New and that yellow traitor, Li Sin, know that the Commissioner and the Croucher were one and the same person? He had guarded the secret well, he reflected. Placing that bomb in his own flat had been a masterpiece of ingenuity. The threatening letters, too, had all been part of his scheme to hamper and terrorise the police, to confuse the issues, and keep their attention away from himself. He smiled reminiscently. The Daily Clarion's demand for a clean-up at Scotland Yard was certainly justified, but not even the acute Maynard had suggested the real truth; that the chief of the London police was also hand-in-glove with the chief crooks of the underworld.

But now the mask was off! It was bound to happen eventually, of course, he mused. His resignation was a mere prelude to the future he had planned for himself three, years ago. Nicholas New had merely accelerated the issue; that was all. His brooding eyes studied the girl who lay on. the bunk, and he stroked his beard complacently.

Once at sea, his yacht, the Spindrift, would carry him to freedom and to luxury in that South American State of Torridor— from which there was no extradition. He had planned well and cunningly. Not for him the beggarly pension of a retiring civil servant. Well over half a million pounds, the proceeds of blackmail and dope-running, lay to his credit under another name in an American bank.

Dorothy Somerville, as if conscious of his brooding gaze, stirred uneasily, and her eyelids fluttered open. For a moment or two she lay there quiescent, then, with a half-strangled scream, she sat up.

"Better, my dear?" said the Croucher, reaching for a silver-topped decanter on the table of his luxuriously furnished cabin. Dorothy passed a trembling hand over her throbbing head, and stared at him wide-eyed.

"Sir Richard!" she gasped. "Where am I? What am I doing here?"

The throb of the engines, the snort of the Yellow Queen's bow as she cleaved her way through the Pool bewildered her. Then, in a flash, she remembered. It was fantastic, incredible, but true!

Sir Richard, her chief, was the Croucher!

"We are going on a long voyage, little girl," he said, with a slow, meaning smile. "Far away from the sordid routine of Scotland Yard. I am taking you to a land of lotus-eaters and luxury, a land drenched with sunshine, for you were created for love and laughter and life, and not for the soulless routine of the Civil Service.

"Stop!" Dorothy's eyes blazed. She sprang to her feet, and her little hands clenched until the knuckles shone white in the subdued light of the cabin.

"You are mad!" she breathed. "That is the only explanation. Keep your filthy hands away from me!" she added, with a shiver, as he loomed over her.

"If you don't give orders to stop this boat, I swear I shall throw myself overboard. I would sooner drown than— than breathe the same air as you, you cold-blooded fiend!"

Sir Richard Gilbert laughed softly. "Try, my dear. The door of the cabin is locked and bolted. The key is in my pocket. The skipper and mate are my creatures body and soul."

Dorothy dashed herself frenziedly against the door of the cabin, and gave a groan of despair. It was only too terribly true!

"Now, don't be a foolish little girl," he said in a voice that was like a purr. "I would not harm a hair of your head. I love you, Dorothy, have loved you ever since the day you first brightened the dinginess of Scotland Yard with your presence. Do you realise what it means to be loved by a man like me?"

A fanatical light blazed in his eyes, a proof of his monomania, and Dorothy shuddered.

"A traitor, a murderer!" she gasped. "Keep away from me, you beast!"

With an abrupt change of manner the Croucher sat down and pressed the lean tips of his fingers together.

"A genius, my dear, a man with too vast a brain, too soaring an ambition to be content to be a mere glorified policeman. The Clarion, poor fools, berated me for incompetence— they little dreamed that I know more of crime and criminals than any man alive. I was monarch of all I surveyed— both at Scotland Yard and in the underworld. I know the secret of a hundred unsolved mysteries. I have levied toll on the rich and on the poor, on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

"But now I am tired. I want rest— and love. I want you, Dorothy, and by heaven you shall learn what love can mean. I am not a young, hot-headed stripling, but a man, mature, who can offer you all that a woman craves—"

He broke off suddenly as a thunderous rat-tat-tat sounded at the cabin door. With an exclamation of annoyance he pulled aside a small latched spy-hole and saw the cold, piggy eyes of Pietro.

"What is it?" he snarled. "Can't you get more speed out of this dashed tub? It will be dawn soon, and we must make the Spindrift by―"

"Police boat overhauling us, chief. The engine's missing badly. Mathers is in a blue funk," grumbled the other.

The Croucher swore below his breath.

"I'll deal with the River Rats. Tell that fool to slow down."

He unlocked the cabin door. A scurry of spray and dark river mist swirled into the cabin.

"Stay there!" he jerked over his shoulder to Dorothy. He slammed the door shut and locked it, and went on deck. The spume from the bow wave dashed coldly into his face. The ugly hulk of a tramp loomed to the starboard, and the chug chug of a Thames police, boat grew louder as a dark shape overhauled them. The Croucher's lips set grimly as his keen ears heard the irregular beat of the Yellow Queen's engines. Hang the luck! He could easily have outstripped the police boat if that fool Mathers had done his job properly.

"Ahoy there!" bawled a voice through a megaphone. "Launch ahoy!"

"Reverse the engines!" snapped the Croucher. There was only one thing for it. Bluff. Pietro brought the boat to a rolling halt, and the black, pantherine shape of the T.P. boat creamed alongside.

"What the devil d'you want?" snapped the Croucher.

"I am the Commissioner of Police, and have reason to believe that—"

Crash!

There was a splintering sound of glass, and something fell into the Thames with a loud splash. A second later Dorothy Somerville's voice screamed for help.

The Croucher ripped out an oath. Dash the girl! She must have smashed the porthole with a decanter or something. His eyes blazed with fury.

"The game's up, Croucher!" bawled a voice through the megaphone. "Heave to, or by gosh I'll shoot you where you stand!"

Like lightning the crook's hand darted for his hip. He could make out a dark figure at the tiller, and, taking careful aim, he fired.

Crash! The man at the stern collapsed without a cry. Instantly a fusillade of shots rang out from the police boat, and the Croucher darted for cover behind the engine room just as Pietro fell with a bullet through his lungs.

A black shape hovered for an instant on the gunwale of the police boat, which had nosed imperceptibly nearer the Yellow Queen, then, with an almost soundless splash, slipped into the water.

The Croucher on the port side of the launch did not see the swimmer approaching. His one thought now was revenge— revenge against the girl who had spoiled his plans. The thin dividing line between reason and madness had snapped, and it was a madman lusting to kill that raced down into the cabin and leapt with scrabbling fingers for the throat of the white-faced girl.

"Curse you!" he rasped, in a queer high-pitched voice. "I might have known! I'm going to kill you, you vixen. If I cannot have you, no one else shall!" Dorothy screamed as she felt those talon-like hands about her throat, but they dug relentlessly into the soft, white flesh. Flecks of foam appeared at the Croucher's writhing lips. He felt a fierce pleasure in watching the horror and death fear in the girl's beautiful eyes. "For— all— men— kill— the thing they love!" he panted breathlessly.

"And the thing they hate, too!" snarled a voice from the doorway, and Nicholas New, dripping, but exultant, hurled himself like a tiger on the murderer.

So great was his impetus and so sudden his appearance that the Croucher was taken utterly unawares. Nick's left fist shot out with the shattering force of a battering ram, and the Croucher's head snicked back with a queer little jerk. His fingers relaxed, and suddenly he collapsed on the floor like a pole-axed ox. His head moved in a strangely helpless fashion as he crashed like a flower on a broken stalk. Nick gazed at him for a moment, and his face was white. He was just in time to catch Dorothy as she swayed toward him. She clung to him convulsively, and buried her face against his sodden coat.

"Oh, Nick! My dear, my dear!" she breathed. "I— I knew somehow you'd come."

Nicholas said nothing. His lips were otherwise engaged

Epilogue

"You are old, Uncle Bimbo,

the young man averred.

But your brain is uncommonly bright.

And yet you incessantly give me the bird.

Do you think in the circs, it is right?"

Detective-Inspector Nicholas New smiled across the dinner table at his uncle, General Sir Martin Dale, the new Scotland Yard Commissioner, as he misquoted one of his favourite nonsense rhymes. General Dale's eyes twinkled.

"He's perfectly incorrigible, Miss Somerville," he remarked. "This nonsense stuff will be the death of him."

"It nearly was— once," said Nick, growing suddenly grave. "If it hadn't been for Professor Li Sin here."

Dorothy, a radiant figure in evening dress, smiled shyly at the bland, inscrutable Chinaman, who held one of his eccentric black rice paper cigarettes in his saffron fingers.

A week had elapsed since the Croucher's end— a week of sensation unparalleled in the history of Fleet Street. A week of hurriedly summoned Cabinet meetings, of almost hourly conferences at Scotland Yard, since it was announced to an astounded world that the master criminal who had terrorised London was the one-time head of the Metropolitan Police. Much to Nick's relief little fuss had been made at the inquest on the body of the Croucher. The coroner, by arrangement with the Home Office, brought in a purely formal verdict of "Death by misadventure."

Only Nick knew that the blow he had struck that wild night on the Yellow Queen was a blow aimed to kill and rid the world of a monster of iniquity. The Daily Clarion, of course, claimed its due share of the credit for exposing the scandal, and General Dale wisely allowed them to have the fullest information about the circumstances and of his plans for the future. The dinner tonight at the Hotel Splendide was by way of celebration of the new regime at police headquarters. Public confidence had been restored by the Home Secretary's frank statement in the House, and the four people who had been mainly responsible for the round-up of the Croucher's gang, and the smashing of one of the most dangerous organisations that ever menaced society, were now seated in a private room of the hotel overlooking the river on which the grim drama had been played to its close.

Nick, looking very handsome in his evening kit, gazed with frank adoration at Dorothy, while his uncle glanced meaningly at Li Sin.

"I find, inspector," drawled the Chinaman, "your methods, though unorthodox, have had a singular element of success. I found it absorbingly interesting to compare how you and myself both arrived at the same conclusion.

Nick recalled his eyes from Dorothy's superb profile with a start.

"You certainly fooled me, professor. How the dickens was I to know that Uncle Bim here had advised the Home Secretary to give you a free hand?"

The Chinaman shrugged. "In the first place, my dear fellow, it had been obvious for months that the Croucher was no ordinary crook. It was also obvious that some leakage of information came from police headquarters. When young Maynard's press campaign started the Cabinet were naturally perturbed, and a successor to Sir Richard Gilbert was looked for. Not, of course, that anyone suspected him of being the Croucher, but simply because they thought a new man at the head might restore public confidence. They sent for your uncle, who, as you know, has had a distinguished career in the Far East as a political officer. He very kindly brought to their notice my unworthy name, as he was convinced that the recrudescence of the dope traffic was of Oriental origin."

Li Sin paused and studied the glowing end of his cigarette. "I have had nearly a lifetime's experience of narcotic smugglers and their ways in the East," he resumed. "When it was mooted that I should be given a free hand to attempt to discover the ringleader of the gang, I accepted the offer for your uncle's sake. He and I were old friends in Pekin.

"It was easier for an Oriental like myself to join the gang than a European." Li Sin smiled. "My ways were certainly dark and devious," he said in his calm, level voice. "But I don't think my tricks were vain. Mr New. Very early on I realised that the Croucher was constantly in touch with some official in Scotland Yard. This, of course, was long before your uncle's appointment. By devious methods I managed finally to ingratiate myself into the confidence of Mr Ambrose Ertz. He took it for granted that I was as crooked as he was, and I allowed him to cherish that delusion."

Li Sin paused and lit another of his black cigarettes.

"I suspected everyone, my dear fellow, including yourself. Not, may I add. of being the Croucher, but of supplying advance information to him. When, however, your investigations crossed mine. I was seriously embarrassed. At all costs I had to keep up my role and establish confidence with the gang, and your wholesale arrests of minor agents of my own were hampering me considerably."

"I'm sorry," confessed Nick. "If I'd known you were working with us, of course―"

" You'd naturally have told your chief, Sir Gilbert," broke in General Dale. "It was essential that Li Sin should have a free hand until he had irrefutable proof of the Croucher's identity." "

"What were you doing at Larry the Wop's the night poor Maynard was killed?" Nick demanded.

"I was there on the same errand as yourself— to find out that Croucher's identity. Remember, only Ertz, Duval and Brilliant Ling knew it. He held them in the hollow of his hand. I arrived there three minutes after you and saw through the window that he was done for. One of Ertz's gang of minor crooks must have killed him, but it was the Croucher himself that shot poor Maynard and tried to shoot you. He boasted of it afterward. That bomb he placed in his own flat to divert suspicion. Had no attempt been made on his own life, naturally, my dear New, you would have thought it odd, not to say nonsensical."

"And yet," broke in Nick with a laugh, "that's were he over-reached himself. I told you that in nine cases out of ten I reject the plausible and accept the seemingly impossible. Searching Sir Richard's flat I found in the debris some strips and the battered frame of a portable typewriter. The type keys were by some queer freak undamaged, and, curiously, certain letters corresponded exactly to the malformed 'r' and the choked 'e' that were so noticeable in the Croucher's warnings. Immediately— because it seemed so nonsensical that my respected chief should be the Croucher— I believed it. I assure you, my dear Li Sin, one gets extraordinarily refreshing results by my methods."

"A pity, my dear fellow, you did not believe me when I rang you up to put your mind at rest about Miss Somerville. I told you she was perfectly safe in my hands. I could not be more explicit on the phone, but really, your thorough round-ups of my stool pigeons and informers were very embarrassing. As a matter of fact, I arrived at Mr Ertz's office just when that estimable gentleman was— er— making himself unpleasant. I accordingly impersonated the Croucher and myself took her to his headquarters while unconscious— so that no harm would come to her. I dared not lake her to the Yard, however, or the Croucher would have suspected. She was under my care the whole time, but the moment was not propitious for the final coup. I wanted the whole gang, and it was a distinct shock to me to find you there. You followed Red Hanlon's trail, I suppose. The Croucher was uneasy about Hanlon, but, of course, never suspected me."

Li Sin's sloe black eyes narrowed.

"But then, no crook ever does," broke in General Dale, with a laugh. "That's why you make such a darned good detective, Li Sin."

Nicholas New laughed. "What do you think, Dorothy?"

The girl smiled. "I must admit I was horribly scared of you at first, professor. You— you looked so sinister."

"A distinct asset to a detective, my dear Miss Somerville," laughed the Chinaman.

General Dale cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. "Bless my soul. It's almost nine o'clock. Nick, my boy, I've promised to take the professor to your aunt's reception. He'll be bored to tears, of course, but you know what Aunt Araminta is."

Nick grimaced a little. "Count Dorothy and me out, sir. We're going to shake a nimble foot at a night club later— that is, if there are any left unraided under your new regime."

Dorothy's eyes danced with mischief. In their depths Nick saw a new light, one that had not been there before that night of peril in the house of Brilliant Ling. He had no need to ask her if she loved him. Inspector Nicholas knew!

___________________

3: The Obscure Move

Wadsworth Camp

Adventure May 1915

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January 1943

Wadsworth Camp (1879-1936) was an American author born in Philadelphia; he died in Florida. In addition to mystery novels he wrote short stories and books of military interest.

HIS FRIENDS have never understood why Morgan, one of the best of private detectives, gave up the excitements of the trail for the stupid dignity of office management. Morgan, naturally, didn’t care to talk about it at first. Time is a good carpenter, however, and Morgan feels now that he may safely stand on the record. Here it is:

TO BEGIN WITH, Morgan was an odd one. If you had questioned him about the deductive method he would have laughed good-naturedly. It is equally certain that the mention of psychological analysis would have sent him to the dictionary for a clue. Common-sense and a sense of humour were his own stock in trade. His specialty was the smooth crook who keeps the money of the carelessly avaricious in circulation. Consequently he wore expensive clothing himself. He smoked large, fragrant cigars of Havana. When on the road— which was nine tenths of the time in those days— he frequented only the most luxurious hotels. Furthermore, he was fast acquiring an appearance of rotund prosperity quite out of key with the best-loved traditions of the stealthy profession. Still, as has been said, he was one of the most successful in that business.

Therefore, when the Duncan Investment Company closed its doors it was not surprising that the victims should have carried their resentment from the formal optimism of police headquarters to Morgan’s agency.

Duncan, they explained, had fled with large sums which he had persuaded them to invest through a trifling lure of from fifty to a hundred per cent. They were law-abiding citizens none the less, and they felt it their duty to society to see that Duncan, who had taken so much, should also receive what was judicially owing to him.

Morgan lighted a fresh perfecto.

“Rest easy,” he told his clients. “I’ll place Mr. Duncan in an iron cage where you can poke your fingers at him all you like.”

After the sheep had flocked out, he gazed about his comfortable office, filled his pockets with cigars, locked his cellarette, and set forth on his adventures.

Morgan took the customary precautions in case the confidence man had his heart set on Canada or a trip abroad. But Duncan was too wary to thrust his head in the lion’s jaw through any such first-offense methods. Instead he revealed the attributes of an eel, squirming, dodging, and once or twice nearly slipping across the Mexican border. The stout, good-natured detective, however, seemed to possess a special intuition. Time and again he made Duncan turn on his tracks. Then a very natural thing happened. When the chase got too hot, Duncan, who had been born and raised in Florida, sought ground which would be far more familiar to him than to his pursuer. Yet Morgan, entering Florida, was reminiscent of nothing so much as a fat, grinning cat, approaching the holeless corner into which he has driven his mouse.

When the police channels had run dry, the detective called on that peculiar intuition of his and bothered the lumber, turpentine, and phosphate men until he had located the fugitive in a timber camp far in the wilderness. Morgan was justly proud. Few men, if they had studied Duncan’s record, would have dreamed of looking for him in the vicinity of manual labour.

Morgan’s work had chiefly lain in comfort-furnished cities, but, by rail, by boat, by springless wagon, he bravely followed the trail. One crisp morning he reached his destination— a group of tiny, unpainted cabins clustered about a sawmill and a commissary.

With a look of high achievement lighting his face, Morgan shook the camp superintendent’s hand.

“Peary and Amundsen and Doctor Cook have nothing on me,” he said. “Just remind me to jot down my latitude and longitude so people’ll believe I’ve really been here.”

The superintendent stared.

“And it’s inhabited!” Morgan went on with awe in his voice. “I’ll write a book, and maybe get decorated by the Swiss— or the Swedes, is it? Well, I made my dash on your word.”

“How come you to suspect he was here?” the superintendent asked.

Morgan’s voice fell.

“Perhaps a fortune teller saw it in the cards.”

He laughed.

“What you laughing at?” the superintendent asked suspiciously.

“The idea of Beau Duncan’s living here! Which may be his stylish bungalow?”

“His quarters, you mean? The shanty yonder with the busted window light.”

“And some of the best hotels have stopped paying dividends since he left town. The lobster palaces are all in heliotrope for him. Where’s old Beau Brummel Duncan now? At the golf club or leading a black-face cotillion?”

“Naw,” the superintendent said. “I allow he’s doing an honest day’s work on the skidder. That’s about three miles from here.”

“The president of your company told me you were a deputy sheriff.”

The superintendent proudly displayed his badge.

“Maybe it puts us in the same criminal class with Duncan,” Morgan said, “but we’re paid to work. Let’s make a bluff, anyway.”

The superintendent led two raw-boned little horses from the corral. He considered Morgan’s portly person with a thoughtful eye, then brought a soap box from the commissariat. Morgan mounted to the soap box and thence to the saddle. He settled himself gingerly.

“Don’t you worry if you ever run out of razors,” he advised. “You might take a chance on Dobbin’s backbone. I’ve tried every means of locomotion on this case except aviating, and if Dobbin gallops it will be that or coming in two. I think animals are fond of you. Use your influence. Don’t let this one overdo himself on my account.”

Proceeding cautiously, they followed the lumber tramway until they came to an open space where a donkey engine was noisily loading logs on a string of flat cars. At first Morgan thought the workers about the engine were all negroes, but finally he realized that, except for dirt and grime, one of them was white.

“According to the description that ought to be my affinity,” he said.

They dismounted and left the horses loose, as they had shown no exceptional aggressiveness, to crop the wiry grass. Morgan followed the superintendent in a wide and casual circle toward the donkey engine. The superintendent, as though he were showing off the activities of the clearing to an interested stranger, frequently stopped to point with broad gestures in one direction or another.

“Better cut that stuff,” Morgan warned. “Remember, Duncan isn’t any stage crook. He has real brains.”

Duncan, in fact, had already turned from his work. He leaned on his log hook, staring at the detective. Then he carefully placed the hook on a flat car, thrust his hands in his pockets, and loafed in the direction of the horses.

Morgan and the superintendent quickened their pace. Evidently that was sufficient proof for Duncan, for, with a yell, he threw pretence aside, vaulted a log, and broke into a run.

Morgan started heavily after him, but Duncan was younger, slenderer, and much better conditioned. By the time Morgan had reached his horse and had clambered to the saddle in apparent defiance of the laws of gravity, Duncan was already well away on a sandy track which entered the woods at a right angle to the tramway.

When duty beckoned no chances were too great for Morgan. He set his teeth as he urged his horse to a gallop. Swaying from side to side or bobbing up and down with surprised little grunts, he clutched impulsively at the animal’s mane and went in pursuit.

The track wound into the virgin forest. Almost immediately the landscape seemed to conspire lawlessly for the protection of the fugitive. The trees thickened. A dense underbrush sprang up. A growth of saplings cluttered the soil between the trunks. Morgan’s horse was a self-centred brute. In worming his quick way among the saplings, he allowed only for his emaciated body. Consequently, the detective had to look out for his own too-solid person. What with lifting one fat leg or the other to escape bruises and fractures against the eager saplings, and what with ducking beneath overhanging branches to avoid being brushed from the saddle, he must have presented the appearance of a grotesque jumping-jack answering to eccentric strings.

Duncan clearly received this impression, for the last Morgan saw of him the other was going through a black, shallow stream, his hand upraised in a mocking and undignified farewell. And the last Morgan heard of him was laughter — urestrained, joyous, insulting.

But Morgan plodded ahead, hoping that the hummock would soon give way to open forest land where he might wear the fugitive down. The underbrush, however, closed more riotously about him. There were many stagnant pools which obscured and finally obliterated Duncan’s trail. Morgan brought his horse to a halt. He half fell from his saddle. He looked about him, for once at a loss.

Yellow slash pine, towering with forbidding indifference in all directions, spread their green-plumed tops in a roof so thick that the sun could force its way through only at long intervals. Scrub palmettos, like huge caterpillars, squirmed along the ground and thrust green tentacles upward from their ends. Here and there one reared its body higher than horse and man. Stunted maple and gum fought for life in the perpetual twilight, and in the wettest places thick-boled cypresses raised their ghastly frames, strung with moss that had the appearance of matted hair. The ground was soggy underfoot, and the air was hot, damp, and full of decay.

Morgan whistled.

“This,” he mused, “is somewhat more of a place than that panorama of hades I paid ten cents to see in Coney Island last summer. Besides, it’s several stations farther from Times Square.”

He took off his hat, drew an immaculate linen handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped his heated brow. There was no virtue in stubbornness now. Duncan had undoubtedly given him the slip for the present. His best scheme was to return to the lumber camp, where he could arrange to watch the outlets of the forest.

He mounted with considerable difficulty and some strategy, then turned his horse’s head. But the many stagnant pools had confused his own trail as thoroughly as they had Duncan’s. When the sun set he made a wry face and acknowledged he was lost.

The prospect of spending the night in the swamp was very annoying to one of Morgan’s habits. Since his lungs were perfectly sound he had never interested himself in all this talk about outdoor sleeping, but he was ready to back at odds the fact that it couldn’t be done either comfortably or beneficially here. The ground was too wet for one thing, and, for another, it was probably friendly to snakes. He had a wholesome respect for snakes. Yet he was certain his raw-boned horse couldn’t support him all night. He had already examined him several times to see if his back was sagging.

He tumbled to the ground again, tied the horse to a sapling, and walked to a fallen log. After he had thoroughly searched the neighbourhood for reptiles, he sat down and munched some of the sweet chocolate he always carried for emergencies. Then he lighted a red-banded Havana. His heart sank at the recollection that his pocket carried only two more of those luxuries. Ah, well, they would last until the next morning, when he would certainly be back at the camp.

While he smoked, the drowsy wood life of the warm day melted into a new note as the melancholy creatures of night awoke. Morgan shivered. He had never cared for the country. The only birds whose music he understood fluttered along Broadway or in and out of the Tombs.

He sprang upright at a rustling in the grass behind the log. Snakes, he was sure! He lamented his lack of experience with country jobs, but he remembered reading somewhere that hunters build fires as a protection against such rural denizens as lions and tigers. It might work with snakes. He gathered a pile of sticks and started a meagre blaze. Afterward he lay down, but rest was not easy in the swamp. An owl declaimed its dismal periods nearby; a whippoorwill called disconsolately; a high-pitched, vibrant outcry brought him erect, every nerve alert, his hand on his revolver; some heavy body crashed past; always he imagined furtive rustlings in the grass about him. A case had once taken him to the opera. He had slept through Gotterdammerung,” but that was a soporific compared with this.

It began to rain. He saw his fire diminish and die. He fancied the rustlings were closer, and he had no idea what hunters did when their fires went out. He lifted his feet. He hugged his knees. In this unprofessional attitude he spent the remainder of the night without sleep.

When the gray dawn came he looked in vain for his horse. The broken bridle dangled eloquently from the sapling.

Chilled to the bone and wet, Morgan set out, determined to make Duncan pay in some way for this night just past. He imagined the confidence man, at the end of a multiplicity of adventures, completely at his mercy— even on his knees, begging for mercy. What he wouldn’t say to Duncan then!

Or, if Duncan resisted, what he wouldn’t do to Duncan! These pleasant thoughts served to pass the time, but they brought him no nearer the edge of the swamp. When night fell his weariness overcame his fear of snakes and he slept.

By rare good luck he shot a wild turkey the next morning and managed to broil it over a smouldering fire. Near the fire he stayed all day, for it still rained and he felt rheumatic.

Another night came, and another day of rain. He lost track of time. The feeling that he had spent most of his life in the swamp depressed him. As a matter of fact, it was the fifth day when the storm finally ceased.

Morgan, sitting in the warm, bland sunlight, took stock of himself. The prosperous, well-dressed detective who had entered the swamp had become a mass of discomforts to which rags clung. He was undecided as to whether the rheumatism or his lack of tobacco hurt the more. He had only two cartridges left, and from past experience he knew they might not bring him a single morsel. It behooved him to get on his feet and escape from this hole, rheumatism or no rheumatism.

With the sun shining he could be reasonably sure he was keeping to a straight fine. But the swamp was evidently interminable. His lack of success pricked his anger against Duncan. He swore aloud.

“Let me get my hands on that slick article who let me in for this! Just let me see him! Just let me get within striking distance!”

It was about this time that he turned pale and leaned weakly against a tree. He had heard a man shout.

As he opened his lips he wondered if the rain, the cold, the long disuse had affected his voice. Would it respond to his will at this vital moment? It was more than a shout. It was a roar that left his throat. And from somewhere a voice answered, triumphantly, hysterically.

Almost immediately Morgan saw a man running toward him, splashing through pools, waving his arms, crying out incoherently. Morgan straightened and began running, too, in the direction of this figure so like a scarecrow. It was a human being. It meant companionship, conversation, a touch of the world again. Heaven knew he needed all that!

Then Morgan saw that it was Duncan. At the same moment Duncan saw that it was Morgan.

Duncan sprang behind a tree. He thrust his arms out in frantic gestures. Morgan drew his revolver. He walked steadily forward.

“Duncan, my dear, it’s struck twelve. Come on out now and take your medicine.”

“Gently! Gently!” Duncan called. “I give you fair warning!”

Morgan walked faster.

“Fire away. I’ll take my chances.”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Duncan said. “I haven’t a gun. Do you think I would harm a hair of your head if I had? I have a better weapon than that. Come any closer and I’ll run like the devil.”

Morgan stopped. Vengeance was in his heart, but he permitted himself a glimpse at the reverse of the picture.

“Duncan! For God’s sake, don’t do that!”

“Then you’ll listen to reason.”

Morgan smiled again.

“It’s a bluff, Duncan. Maybe you can run like Bryan, but you haven’t the nerve.”

“Be reasonable or you’ll see,” Duncan threatened. “I’m a human being. So are you, I take it.”

Morgan’s smile broadened.

“Don’t be foolish with other people’s money and bet on it.”

Duncan pulled at the torn fringe of his short sleeves. He shifted his feet.

“Suppose I surrendered?” he asked. “Where would you find a policeman or a patrol wagon? Could you get me out of here?”

“I can’t seem to find a taxi for myself,” Morgan replied. “But I’ll land you in the cooler yet.”

“If we live,” Duncan said, “and nothing happens, and all goes well, and deus volens―”

“Don’t swear in a foreign tongue,” Morgan answered.

“Let’s confer on the main problem,” Duncan proposed. “If you don’t agree I’ll run and leave you alone. I don’t believe you’re very good company for yourself just now.”

“As far as that’s concerned,” Morgan grinned, “if I were you I’d hate myself by this time.”

“So I do, and I want a truce,” Duncan blurted out.

Morgan sighed.

“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll mark this place, and when we’re through you can go play Indian again.”

Duncan stepped out. His hair was heavy and tangled. The thick black growth on his face made his eyes seem very large, white, and hungry.

“If I had had you along,” Morgan said, “I needn’t have been afraid of the snakes.”

Duncan came straight to him and put his hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t know how good it is to see you, Morgan. I’ve been denied even the companionship of my horse. He got bogged.”

Morgan’s voice was a little husky as he asked:  “Say, you don’t happen to have a cigar hidden away on your clothes?”

“No, but I retain the essentials.”

He produced a large sack of cheap flake tobacco and a package of cigarette papers.

“I never smoked those puff rolls,” Morgan said disappointedly. “I couldn’t roll one of them if it would get me out of this swamp.”

“Permit me to roll it for you,” Duncan offered.

And he did it, deftly and lovingly, and passed it to the detective. Then he rolled one for himself, and they sat on a log, shoulders touching, while they smoked contentedly.

“So you’re Bob Morgan!” Duncan said. “The famous Morgan! I must confess your present state isn’t up to your reputation. You might at least have brought a few necessities in with you.”

Morgan glanced at the soiled, tattered figure.

“Beau,” he said, “believe me, you’re not up to it. If you come any more of that easy money talk on me I’ll scream for help.”

They both spoke in soft, silky, wondering voices, as though admiring the unaccustomed sounds; and at Morgan’s words they burst into high-pitched laughter that was so terrifying in their ears it ceased immediately.

“Glad to meet you, Duncan,” Morgan said gruffly. “But I don’t want to tap any wires or buy any green goods. Let that be understood.”

Duncan shook his head.

“Morgan,” he announced, “there is something radically wrong with us.”

“Better patent that discovery.”

Duncan shook his head again.

“No,” he continued. “We’re not living up to tradition.”

“I’m scarcely living at all,” Morgan said.

“For a detective and a fugitive,” Duncan declared, “we show extraordinary good sense. Romantically speaking, we should be at each other’s throats.”

“Cut it, and prepare me another whiff of joy.”

But Duncan good-humouredly refused to manufacture any more cigarettes until Morgan had consented to some working arrangement.

The decision to join forces until they had found a way out of the swamp, if the thing could be done, was a matter of a moment. That the chase should recommence once they were out was also agreed to at once. They divided only on the start the detective should give the criminal. Morgan offered half an hour, and Duncan demanded half a day. Morgan wanted to smoke. Duncan was hungry. Morgan produced from his pocket a few small bones to which tiny shreds of meat still clung, and these he kept prominently in view while the other carelessly dangled the paper and the tobacco bag in his fingers. They began to compromise.

By the time they had settled on an hour and a half the sun was down. They made camp. Duncan proved himself more adept than Morgan at building fires. When he had a pile of brushwood blazing he went in search of certain edible roots on which he had largely subsisted for the last few days. He brought some of these back and shared them with the detective.

The gobbling of wild turkeys awoke them at dawn, and they crept to a clump of palmettos at the foot of a dead cypress. As the sky lightened behind the gibbet-like branches, a row of birds appeared in silhouette. Morgan rested his arm against a palmetto trunk, aimed, and brought one of the birds down.

Duncan patted him on the back.

“You would have made a fortune conducting a shooting gallery, Morgan.”

“Yeh. And if I live to tell about that shot up north, I’ll feel like a liar and everybody’ll know I’m one.”

The turkey solved the food problem for the present, and, as long as the sun shone, they knew their chances for speedy escape were good. But the clouds turned black again in the afternoon, and a dismal downpour commenced.

“Doesn’t it do anything but rain in this hole?” Morgan grieved.

“We are below the snow line,” Duncan explained. “I suggest camping here before we start walking in circles.”

They made a fire and by the last daylight gathered a heap of wood.

Duncan regretted their lack of a pack of cards to pass the time. This gave Morgan a thought.

“You don’t happen by any crazy chance to play chess, Duncan?”

“I know something more than the moves.”

“Three cheers,” Morgan cried.

He felt in his pocket and brought forth a small pocket chess board.

“When I’m traveling alone I often irritate myself working problems on this. I was using it on the train only a thousand years or so ago.”

They moved closer to the fire, tossed for sides, arranged the markers, and in a few minutes their minds were far away from the swamp and their plight.

They were well matched. Morgan, who had the white pieces, opened with a brilliant, puzzling attack on the king’s side; but Duncan, with confidence and forethought, combined his forces in a flawless defense. As they recognized each other’s ability they took more time for their moves. Morgan would lean forward, pursing his lips, studious lines showing on his forehead, while Duncan, eyes intent on the board, would roll a couple of cigarettes, pass one to his opponent, reach out his hand to the fire, and offer a burning brand for a light. It was very exciting. Perhaps they saw in the game a symbol of their relations— detective against criminal, and both most excellent players. It was very late when Morgan unmasked his rooks and trapped Duncan’s knight on the king’s line.

Duncan leaned back.

“You play a strong game, Morgan.”

The detective was pleased by his victory.

“You’re pretty good practice for me, Beau,” he conceded. “But you ought to have left that pawn of mine alone. It was a gold brick. Oh! Excuse me for talking shop. Hello! It’s still raining.”

The storm ceased the next day for only a few minutes. They did not travel far, because Morgan complained of what he called his growing pains.

That night they played chess again. Duncan won.

“A game apiece,” Morgan said. “To-morrow night’ll be the rubber. Waterloo won’t be jack stones to what I’ll do to you.”

But Morgan was in no condition to walk the next day. He lay by the smouldering fire, inclined to complain.

“Another twenty-four hours and you’ll be all right,” Duncan said cheerfully.

“I’ll never be all right again,” Morgan lamented.

Duncan dried enough sticks and moss at the fire to make a crude bed. He lifted Morgan from the wet ground, then prepared a soup of turkey bones and roots in the detective’s drinking cup. Morgan drank it with relish, but his ailments occupied his mind to the exclusion of chess. So Duncan sat at his side, watching the fire and trying to keep up his spirits.

The last clouds sailed away in the morning. The cold, wet weather was routed. But Morgan’s vocabulary was not sufficiently large to let him walk far at a time. After several attempts he gave up and lay down, groaning.

“Poor old Morgan,” Duncan said, leaning sympathetically over him.

“Go to the corner and send in an ambulance call,” Morgan answered with a grimace. “Then bid me farewell before it begins to pour again. If you hang around for me we’ll both die of water on the brain.”

Duncan patted his shoulder.

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t get delirious— Bob.”

For some time Morgan frowned at the fire.

“Beau,” he said at last, “I mean it. I haven’t got the build for a millstone. Besides, I can’t be under obligations. I can’t let pleasure interfere with business. If you get out do me just two favours. Send a posse in for me and wire the office to get another man after you as quick as lightning.”

“My position is very simple,” Duncan answered. “I wouldn’t leave you if you offered me title to all the real estate in this swamp.”

Morgan grinned.

“Since you’re talking shop, Beau, you may be a Southern cavalier and me a Yankee born, but I never took fifty per cent, and I see ten suckers in my business any day where you see one.”

“No use trying to get me mad, Bobbie. I’m too selfish to leave you and face this cheerless world alone.”

“Well, just remember, Beau, I’ll get you. As sure as the whole world’s gone to grass and water, I’ll get you.”

“I admire ambition,” Duncan said. “I regret that I can not encourage it. But the problem need not trouble us at present. Let me make you comfortable, then I’ll roll you another cigarette.”

He carried Morgan to a sunny spot, and gave his limbs a thorough, hard massage. Afterward the detective struggled up and began to walk in a crouching position. Duncan cut a stout stick for him. He took his arm and helped him all he could.

“You’re sure full of sand, Bob,” he said.

Without answering, Morgan walked on. Now and then he would pause, but always, after a few minutes’ rest, he would start forward again. By and by his figure crouched less and his steps grew longer.

He was exhausted when they made camp, but the worst of his pains had left him, and it was he who proposed after supper that they play the rubber game.

“I’m an awful object to think about,” he explained. “Men have gone nutty over less. I’ve got to get my mind off myself. Besides, I’d like to know who’s the better man. If I hadn’t lost sight of one thing last time there wouldn’t have been anything to it.”

The game was slow. Each was determined to win, so each took as long as he pleased for his moves. Morgan, when he could scarcely keep his eyes open, suggested that they postpone the finish until the next evening.

“I guess I’m trained a little fine,” he said. “I don’t want to make a slip.”

“It looks like a draw to me,” Duncan answered.

“It looked as though I’d get out of this swamp the day I came in, but didI? Study the board. I can see more than one way to slip over a knock-out.”

Duncan laughed.

“I’m afraid you’ll never win this game.”

“I’ve got to and I will,” Morgan said. “I’ll bet you three pine trees and a case of swamp water— magnums!”

He folded the board, returned it to his pocket, lay down, and was fast asleep in a twinkling.

They were off by the time the sun had slipped its first long shadows through the swamp. Morgan was convalescent. He walked steadily onward, resting one hand on Duncan’s shoulder. They talked of the unfinished game which had assumed colossal proportions in their dwarfed minds. But that rubber was destined never to be finished. It was a little after noon when Morgan said in a hushed voice:

“Beau, wait a minute.”

“What’s the matter?” Duncan whispered as he stopped.

“This darned swamp’s thinning.”

“It had occurred to me,” Duncan agreed. “I was afraid to speak of it.”

“Look at those palmetto clumps,” Morgan went on excitedly. “They’re not as high or as thick. There isn’t as much water. Beau, old boy, I believe we’re going to get out!”

“There’s certainly higher ground ahead,” Duncan answered. “Come on, Bobbie.”

“Beau! Think of the food and the cigars!”

“Oh, you won’t have any taste for decent tobacco,” Duncan said carelessly.

Morgan made a wry face and rubbed his knee.

“And this rich food isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Rich food for the idle rich!”

They struggled through the last of the underbrush and stepped into the open pine forest. There was hard soil or sand beneath their feet. About them the sun laid warm, caressing fingers of light. Insects droned, and birds sang joyously. Before long they came to trees scarred by turpentiners, and later to a wood road.

They paused and stood awkwardly for a few minutes without words. The road— narrow, twisting, and overgrown— screamed of civilization, of populous cities, and of marts noisy with commerce.

“We’ve discovered America,” Morgan said.

“Yes,” replied Duncan. In a moment he added: “I believe you agreed to give me an hour and a half. Therefore, I will resume my travels.”

Morgan looked at him with an air of childish wonder.

“So I did,” he answered dreamily — “an hour and a half!”

He pulled his wits together.

“Cross my heart, I’ll stay where I am for an hour and a half after I lose sight of you,”

“Quite satisfactory,” Duncan said.

“Before you go,” Morgan began uncomfortably, “I’d like to hand you a few words of thanks on this auspicious occasion.”

“There’s no question of thanks,” Duncan protested politely. “Undoubtedly we were mutually helpful.”

Morgan extended his hand.

“Beau, good-bye.”

He essayed a little humour.

“That is— so long. It won’t be many days before we meet again. I am looking forward to it.”

Duncan took the detective’s hand.

“This is an eternal farewell. In some ways I regret it. Good-bye, Bob. You’re sure you can navigate until you come to a house?”

“Sure. I’ll steer into the first drydock I see and have them light a fire under me.”

Their hands dropped. Duncan hesitated. Finally he put his fingers in his pocket, pulled out tobacco and paper, and rolled a cigarette. He handed it to Morgan, who mechanically placed it between his lips. Duncan divided the tobacco. He gave a part of it with several papers to Morgan. Then he turned and strode off through the woods.

Morgan sat down. He watched the tall, gaunt figure about which ragged clothing flapped until it was out of sight. Very soon he became restless. He took the paper and tobacco and tried to make a cigarette, but his fingers were clumsy. The flakes spilled, and the thin, slippery paper tore. As his desire to smoke even this distasteful makeshift increased, the picture of Duncan’s deft manipulation came into his fancy and lingered.

He opened the chess board to study the unfinished game. His line of attack was perfectly clear in his mind now. As move by move its beauties unfolded he chuckled quietly. Duncan was helpless. Suddenly his chuckling ceased. There was one obscure move that Duncan might have offered in reply. It would have spoiled the entire combination. Yet it was the advancing of a pawn on the extreme flank, and its immediate significance appeared of minor importance.

“Duncan wasn’t wise to it,” he told himself.

And after a moment:

“Could Duncan have been hep?”

He puzzled over the board for a long time. He arose and paced back and forth.

“He might have forced a draw with that move,” he mused, “or even a winning attack. I’ve got to know what he would have done. I’ll ask him when I nab him.”

He took out his watch. Duncan had been gone two hours.

Morgan didn’t follow the route Duncan had taken. The memory of his lonely wanderings kept him in the road which brought him before dark to a turpentine camp. He accepted the foreman’s hospitality for the night.

He set out early the next morning with the foreman’s horse and buggy which he was to send back from the nearest railroad station, five hours away. The road was long and monotonous, but he sat at his ease, smoking bad cigars which he had bought at the camp, and singing snatches of popular songs in praise of his release from muscular effort.

His thoughts of Duncan centred about the uncompleted game of chess.

While he was confident that Duncan’s capture was only a matter of time, he refused to bother his head with definite plans until he reached the railroad.

These few hours, this long journey, were a vacation from mental and physical labour— an excursion in contentment.

The appearance of the country had not altered when the shriek of a locomotive whistle warned him his ride was nearly ended. He touched the whip to his horse for the first time and was soon on the right of way. He saw the glittering lines of steel, a rough section house, and a water tank; but in front of him the woods were as thick as those he had just left. He pulled up, thoroughly puzzled, for he had expected to find a station at this crossing.

Suddenly his curiosity died. His indolent figure stiffened. His hand went to his coat pocket where the revolver with its single remaining cartridge lay. A filthy man in rags was trying to conceal himself behind one of the insufficient tank supports.

Morgan stepped from the buggy, levelling his revolver.

“Duncan,” he said, “I warned you it was ‘so long.’ ”

“It’s Morgan, of all the world,” Duncan answered, but his smile was sickly. “If that train had only stopped I’d have missed this pleasant reunion.”

“You ought to be grateful. Nice people are waiting to weep on your neck up North. Come on out and let’s hurry home.”

“Not so fast, Morgan. I can easily get away from you. But I confess to a strong desire to finish that game. Suppose for that purpose we arrange another truce.”

“We’ll finish it on the train,” Morgan answered with a grin. “I’ve got you beaten so many ways I blush to think of it.”

“Have you?” Duncan asked slyly. “How about that pawn? I win!”

Morgan’s mouth opened. His revolver arm dropped.

“You never saw that―”

Duncan sprang from behind his post, and bounded across the right of way for the woods.

Morgan raised his arm again.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!”

But Duncan ran the faster. The muzzle of Morgan’s revolver was pointed at the fugitive’s back. He had brought down wild turkeys. The result was certain.

Then his arm swayed gently to one side. The movement seemed almost involuntary. He pulled the trigger. He sped his last cartridge into the heart of an innocent pine tree.

He thrust the gun in his pocket and started in pursuit. When he reached the edge of the woods Duncan had disappeared. Morgan sank to the ground. He rubbed his knees ruefully. He shook his head. He shrugged his shoulders. Sitting there in a heap he lighted one of his vile cigars.

“That blasted rheumatism!” he moaned. “That blasted rheumatism! It must have jumped to my gun arm. I’ll have to report sick. I’m not worth a hill of beans at this business as I am. I wonder if I’ve got anything besides rheumatism.”

As he blew the stinging smoke from his nostrils he smiled reminiscently.

_____________________

Yes, a light romance from the author of hard boiled crime... Note the magazine it was published in!

4: Cricket's Last Hop

C S Montanye

Cupid’s Diary, August 9, 1927

CONSTANCE’S room was forty steps downthe hall. Cricket Hamilton counted each one. Sometimes her older sister locked the door from the inside but when Cricket turned the knob it opened and she marched into a room made fragrant by a fresh sea breeze and the more alluring scent of perfume.

“I wish,” Constance said from the vanity,with all the dignity of the four years of herseniorship, “you’d knock before you come bursting in here.”

“Never knock— always boost!” Cricket chirped blithely. “For goodness’ sake don’t be anold maid before your time, Connie. Where do you hide the almond paste now? I’ll eat a piece while I curl up here on the window seat for a moment ortwo.”She drew herself up on the bright chintz cushions, tilted her head back and rested an elbow on the sill where the morning sun lay so warm and golden.

Constance continued with her dressing and Cricket gave her an envious glance.Her sister was so radiant, perfect— to Cricket’s way of thinking. All gold and snow. Her complexion, the statuesque lines of her lithe figure.

Cricket stole a surreptitious glance at herself in one of the triple mirrors of the vanity and sighed dolefully.

She was ever so small. She saw the tousled darkness of her curly head, her little, pointed face, her dark blue eyes, like violets hiding in purple shadows but the eyes were set slightly a slant and her red lips were restless. She felt, secretly, she could never hope to compare with the brilliant, candle-flame of her older sister.

“Just what did you want to see me about?”Constance inquired, between the pats of a powder puff.

“I want to know,” Cricket said directly,“what the big idea is.”

“Idea?”

“Why you’re breaking another date with that nice Hal Pierce. This makes the third one in seven days. It isn’t fair to Hal, Connie, and you know it. Imagine dashing off to go crabbing with Gerald Evarts and leaving Hal behind. Why it’s laughable. Particularly when you stop to figure that Jerry Evarts is a crab himself!”

Constance, slipping on a coat sweater of a color that blended perfectly with the yellow luster of her hair, swung around.

“What right have you to criticize me?” Constance asked furiously. “The idea! I never heard of anything so utterly preposterous! You  with all your admirers—with the way you’ve treated dozens of poor defenseless fellows—having the audacity to march in here and call meto account.”

“I can’t help it,” Cricket informed her grimly.“I think Hal is a peach and I think you’re dizzy to chuck him aside for Jerry. Fair play has always been my watchword, I’m not speaking for myself.I’m thinking only of Pierce.”

A slow, thoughtful smile haunted her sister’s down-curved lips. She leisurely selected a small felt hat with a feather in it and pulled it rakishly on before she let her serene eyes drift over to the window seat.

“Are you sure you’re speaking only for Hal?”she inquired amiably. “It seems to me you’ve been rallying to his support for some time now. Rather strange, don’t you think, in view of the fact Hal Pierce is a comparative stranger here at Wildbracken?”

To her annoyance Cricket felt a warm tide ofcolor creep into her suntanned cheeks. She stared defiantly back, unable to grasp the proper words or to find them in the quick confusion that beset her. It always seemed to be that way, too. Constance with her cool, aloof poise and her ready retorts. And herself—making such a valiant start but retreating in such disorder once her sister’s verbal guns were trained upon her.

“I do like Hal. If I didn’t like him I wouldn’t stand up for him. I like him and I hate to see him mistreated.”

Constance inspected herself in the three mirrors, leaned to knot the buckskin lace of her sport oxford and laughed under her breath.

“I must say that you have courage when you try to call the turn. You— nicknamed that silly Cricket because you’re so constantly hopping around. You with more broken dates and broken hearts in one short summer than I could achieve in a decade. You with every Tom, Dick and Harry in tow! If that isn’t an over abundance of courage will you kindly tell me what is?”

The accusation and Constance’s withering way of putting it made Cricket wince. It was all too true. She had played the summer role of seashore siren, singing a Lorelei for any pair of masculine ears to hear and heed. She had been the Cricket—hopping carelessly about, making a little fool of herself with her light-hearted nonsense. And, now that she reflected, she did have a nerve to say what she had said to Constance. At least, her sister had never lost her poise.

“You’re in love with this Hal Pierce,”Constance remarked coolly. “I know the symptoms.”

The hot color in Cricket’s face deepened. She stretched out her beige silk legs, lowered the touseled crown of her head and looked at the tips of her slippers. What her sister had said echoed in her ears. Was she in love with the mistreated Hal Pierce or had her warm, sympathetic nature tricked her?

That was the trouble. So long as shecould remember the underdog had always aroused her keenest solicitation.

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Connie. Why, I’ve hardly spoken twelve words to Hal.”

Constance laughed again and turned towardthe door. From the drive below came the crunching sound of fat balloon tires, the mellow notes of the European fish-horn Gerald Evarts had placed on the dash of his open touring car. Cricket glanced out and made a grimace. Gerald was fat and fatuous, an egotistical youth she personally could not bear.

“You needn’t waste any sympathy on Hal,”Constance remarked from the doorway. “And if you should bump into him you don’t have to go into explanations. I’ve told Mary what to say and— that will be sufficient. By-by. Try to keep out of mischief.”

The door shut. A moment later the tires crunched again on the driveway below.

“Date breaker!” Cricket said between set teeth. She jumped up and went over to the vanity. Constance always hid her candy under her French handkerchief case.

Cricket helped herself to abonbon, chewed it pensively and listened. There was no one at home except Grandma Hamilton who was probably dozing in the sun-room below. Duncan Hamilton, Senior, was in town on business and her mother had gone to a luncheon and bridge. The house seemed curiously quiet.

Cricket carried the candy box back to the bright window seat and meditated.

Why, she asked herself, should she think of Hal Pierce at all? Why had the sight of him oddly disturbed her? He was a quiet, methodical sort of  a person, and, as long as she remembered, Cricket had always liked her cavaliers to be peppy and on the go. Probably, she reflected, that was why there was some reason for Constance’s accusation.

The summers had been exciting spans for her. There was a lot of zest in having a half dozen affairs at the same time and trying to keep each from coming into contact with the other. It had been rather pleasant to have been made love to in a dozen different ways. And it had been stimulating to enjoy popularity. What did it matter that when the summer waned she went back to town heart whole and fancy free again?

Summers, Cricket had always told herself, were made for happy-go-lucky romances. But did she care for Hal Pierce? On the face of it the assumption was absurd. How could anyone care for someone they didn’t really know? Besides, she and Hal had nothing in common. He was studying to be an architect and he was as staid as a man of forty. The more she thought of it the more bitter toward Constance she felt.

“Anyway,” Cricket assured herself, “I’ve never made an appointment and heartlessly broken it.”

Sometime later she went down on the broad veranda. Out through the trees the sea was an agate mirror. Far in the distance the Long Island Sound was fringed with a vague, opposite shoreline. Cricket curled up in one corner of the gliding porch swing and closed her eyes. Bees hummed and the vagabond breezes sang a soothing lullaby.

“I beg your pardon—”

The words seemed to steal through the enchanted glades of slumber. Cricket heard them as if from miles away.

“I beg your pardon—”

She opened her eyes, closed them, openedthem again and sat up with a quick, confused start. A youth balanced himself against the rail near the porch steps. He was a tall, well built individual with closely-cropped sandy hair, a whimsical mouth and a pair of expressive brown eyes. He wore tan tweed and fingered a blackened pipe. More to the point Cricket felt his steady gaze amusedly on her.

She ran a slim hand through the tangle of her curls, lowered her feet hastily and flashed a smile across at him.

“Sleeping beauty and the beast,” he said, in a low, pleasant voice. “Sorry to disturb you but I’ve been ringing for the last ten minutes without any reply.”

“I guess Mary is in the garage,” Cricket explained.

“But where’s Constance?” Hal Pierce asked.“I had a date to play eighteen holes of golf with her this afternoon.”

Cricket thought hard. The faithful Mary had her instructions but when Mary was around Tom, one of the chauffeurs, time lost its importance for her and instructions were forgotten.

“Connie stood you up,” Cricket told him inthe next breath. “You might as well know it now as any other time. She’s gone crabbing with Jerry Evarts and she won’t be back until five or six o’clock. No use procrastinating. I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately. She never used to belike this.”

Hal’s attractive face grew shadowed for an instant. Then it cleared and he nodded.

“I get you. Another busted date to hang on the calendar. Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m getting sort of acclimated as it were. I only came over to ask something more important than golf. Too hot for that anyway. I was wondering if Constancewould like to go over to Blinky Corbin’s birthday party tomorrow night.”

“I can answer that for you,” Cricket declared slowly. “She can’t. At least, she’s going down to the Seafoam Club with Jerry. I heard her telephone him.”

HAL cupped his disreputable pipe in one hand and considered it with narrowed eyes. He was the best looking thing. For no good reason Cricket knew an inner stirring. Impulsively she leaned forward, her dark blue eyes intent and serious upon him.

“Tell you what. If you want somebody to go over to Blinky’s, I’ll be glad to take the job.”

Hal looked up quickly.“You?” It was plain he thought she was jesting. “You’re not serious, of course?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Well, for one thing Corbin’s birthday party is apt to be rather tame. I don’t mind admitting Constance has told me things. As I understand it you don’t like peaceful, pokey parties. Besides,think of what people would say.”“What do I care what people say! Let themsay on and on and the more they say the more I’llgive them to talk about. Gossips!”“Just the same,” Hal went on in hisprovokingly slow fashion, “I wouldn’t want it toget around—that you had caught one ofConstance’s discarded suitors on the rebound—that it was the best you could do. That sort ofthing.”“I’ve stood worse than that,” Cricket laughedcoldly. “Don’t consider me. I’ve weathereddozens of storms before.”“I’m afraid it’s no go,” Hal informed her.“It’s nice of you to volunteer but—”A bright lance of sunshine had crept throughthe pickets in the rail and lay in a burnishedpuddle at Cricket’s feet.“I’d like awfully to go with you,” she saidhesitantly. “Look here. Let’s put our cards face upon the table. You take me and I won’t even listento any talk that goes around. You weren’t engagedto Connie so you could hardly be spoken of as adiscarded suitor or a jilted sweetheart. If you don’twant to take me simply say so and it’ll be all right.Personally, I can understand your reasons forrefusal. I’m not a prize beauty, you know.”The youth at the rail smiled. Cricket liked theway it lighted up his rather serious but good-looking face. Like a lamp being kindled in a dimcathedral, she thought. He stuffed the pipe in ajacket, crossed to the swing and sat down on itsedge.“That’s a dear. Sweet of you to suggest it.See here.” He twisted around and appraised hergravely. “You can’t be the much vaunted heart-breaker of Wildbracken. You’re really not halfwhat I’ve been told you are—”

“I’m afraid I am,” Cricket confessed softly.“But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t turn over a new leaf. The trouble with me is that I’m a younger sister. A younger sister always tries to outdo an older one. I’ve been handicapped by Connie’s four years and I’m trying to make up for lost time. I have done a lot of silly things. I can’t say I’m sorry for them because they were harmless but I guess now it’s about time I cut them out. You take me over to Blinky’s and I’ll throw a pail of water on the flaming youth thing. I won’t cut up or raise the dickens. That’s a promise.”

He laughed under his breath.

“All right. Suppose I wander over around eight o’clock. Are you going to tell Constance?”

“I’ll say I’m going to tell her! At eight then. I’ll be ready. If you don’t want to come up you can whistle from the drive. Whistle twice and I’ll come dashing out. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” he promised, taking himself off.

AS the night was warm and clear the Corbins had elected to hold their affair outdoors. Lanterns had been strung from tree to tree and a couple of busy carpenters had laid a wooden platform for both dancing and the five-piece orchestra that had been hired in Bridgeport.

Cricket Hamilton, dancing with Hal Pierce, looked the crowd over retrospectively. They were all people she knew— friends of the last three summers. She wondered if they were talking about her escort, for it was true that Hal Pierce had given Constance something of a rush duringthe past month. But she didn’t care. She had never cared about opinion and she felt a deep satisfaction and contentment.

Hal looked splendid in his white flannel trousers and dinner coat. So much nicer and more interesting than the boys she had trailed around with through the hot July days and the first August nights. Constant repartee, practical joking and the fling of high spirits were all very well at times but no one could exist, Cricket assured herself, on a continual diet of hilarity. Life was a serious thing at times. And there was something about Hal that was so solid and substantial it made her think of the Rock of Gibraltar, pictured on the life insurance calendar Mary had hung over the white stove in her well-ordered kitchen. He was an excellent dancer too. College proms had done much for his stepping aroundability.

Cricket, who adored dancing, had little difficulty in following his tricky leads. When she was foisted off on her host she felt a twinge of disappointment.

Linky Corbin was a perpetually grinning youth who looked at the world through enormous, tortoise-rimmed spectacles. He was the only son and heir of the man who had developed Wildbracken and he had been pampered and petted and idolized to such an extent that he made Cricket think of Jerry Evarts. Only Blinky had a graceless sense of boisterous humor that she had found inspiring in the past when her spirits lagged and she felt so enervated and low that she could have, by her own admission, walked under a well on stilts.

Blinky whirled her off into a fox-trot with careless clumsiness.

“Behold the young prince in the full glory of his twenty-second year! Stop in when you get chance and look the gifts over, Cricket. I’ve hauled in so many pipes and boxes of cigarettes that I’ll resemble a smoked herring before Labor Day. And don’t fail to notice the shirt studs that are blinding me with their brilliancy. Genuine platinum and real diamonds. The governorpresented them to me as a token of his esteem and affection. Nothing to it, eh?”

“Nifty,” Cricket replied, trying to keep him from tramping on her silken ankles. “Now ifsomebody had only given you a course in dancing the evening would have been perfect, wouldn’t it, Blinky, dear?”

He grinned vapidly down at her.

“Still harping on the old foot and ankle stuff? Have a heart. And you might tell me something. What’s the idea of coming here with Hal? I thought Constance had her talons on him.”

“You’re always thinking something and you don’t want to do that. Some day some bright idea will have a head-on collision with some othertwenty-dollar thought and then you’ll be in anawful jam, Blinky, old dear.”

“But isn’t it a fact?”

“Isn’t what a fact?”

“That Hal has been rushing Constance.”

“You’ll have to ask her,” Cricket said sweetly. “Don’t let’s delve into personalities and questions. It sort of takes your mind off your dancing and that’ll never, never do.”

“You know,” he said suddenly, “I’m fond of you myself. You’re the zippiest girl that eve rcame down to this benighted seashore resort. We’ve had a lot of fun in the past. This summer I haven’t had much of a chance to see you, but the season isn’t over yet. How about a lot of dates?”

Cricket raised her eyes and smiled dreamily.

“I don’t think you’d want to make them or have me keep ‘em, Blinky. I’ll tell you why if you prepare yourself for a shock—”

“You’re engaged!”

“No, not yet. This is worse. I’ve decided to soft pedal all my clowning and cut out the capers. No more turning corners at seventy miles an hour or being the life and death of every party. I’ve reformed. I mean, I’m about to reform.”

“You— what a chance!” Blinky scoffed. “Just as well expect a fish to quit swimming.”

“Well, I’ve always been a fish— a poor one— and I mean every word I say whether you think so or not.”

It was plain that he didn’t. He continued grinning and making humorous comments until the dance ended. Then he caught Cricket’s wrist and gave her an intense look.“Meet me after the next chase on the upper porch. I’ve a lot of things I want to tell you. Game, Cricket?”

“We’ll see,” she murmured, knowing perfectly well she had no intention of fulfilling the request.

IT was her dance with Hal Pierce. She found him near a cluster of lanterns and sauntered leisurely up, making a revolver of her thumb and forefinger and covering him with it adroitly.

“Ours, I believe, Mr. Pierce.”

“I’ve been wondering if you’d rather sit it out—”

Something flared up within Cricket.

“You can read my mind like an open book, Hal, dear. I know the very place. Put your rubber-heels in motion and follow me.”

She led the way across the light-stained turf, passing a huge, mysterious, canvas-covered object that was at least fifty feet long. It reposed in the semi-gloom near the house. Cricket gave it only a casual look as she continued on in and up to the balcony. It was a very nice balcony. A grass rug crackled under foot. Wicker furniture loomed up ghostly and somewhere close at hand a bird in an ornamental lacquered cage made quiet sounds. A battalion of tall trees was a screen through which the moonlight filtered wanly. A match flared for Hal’s cigarette. He dropped down beside her and they listened to the music that laughed its way up from the festival of the lanterns below them.

I gotta baby

Oh, whatta baby—

I gotta baby now...

It was a silly sort of melody but it had a haunting lilt to it. Cricket hummed the tune under her breath. She looked over at Hal. He sat immovable, his presence marked by the glowing eye of his cigarette. A breeze began to sigh in the ivy that climbed to the balcony and in the house a soft-footed servant moved past them. Came the tinkle of glasses, ice being chipped and the creak of a tea-cart.

Cricket snuggled further back in the cretonne depths of her wicker chair. The silence between them was like a burning wall. She stared across at Hal. Her mind was full of strange, sweet thoughts and her heart hurt with an odd longing. Again the questions of yesterday came swing up in a solid phalanx.If she really intended to cut out the old days and the old ways she must really be in love. Or was it just a touch of her old summer moon infatuation?

She and Hal were so entirely differentbut then true love never distinguished betweentemperaments or personalities. It simply camewithout rhyme or reason.“Why don’t you say something?”

Hal stirred.

“It’s pleasant just to sit here and listen to the music and smoke in the dark and to know you’re near.”

Again the burning wall between them.

“Do you really mean that?” Cricket asked in a strained voice.

“Mean what?”

“That you like to have me near you?”

“Why, yes— of course.” He purposely seemed to overlook the husky significance of her question. “Why shouldn’t I? You’re a nice child even if you have been raising the dickens all over the lot.”

“Are you in love with Constance?” Cricket asked after another pause, one not half as satisfactory as the first had been.

“I don’t know,” Hal replied crisply. “That isn’t exactly the truth. I do know but I won’t make any admissions. Constance is so different. And I—” he laughed, “—I haven’t the chance of the celebrated snowball.”

“I could be like Constance— if I wanted— if I tried.”

He snapped the remnants of his cigarette away.

“Why don’t you try?” Cricket opened and closed her hands quickly.

“Principally because I haven’t any good reason. If somebody liked me a lot and wanted me to calm down and put on the high hat— I’d do it. Only they’d have to like me heaps.”

She sensed rather than saw Hal get up and move toward her. Down below the orchestra was playing an encore by popular demand. Once more the foolish, empty melody came to them.

I gotta baby

Oh, whatta baby—

I gotta baby now...

Cricket felt Hal leaning to her. A tiny sense of suffocation aroused by the quick clamor of her heart frightened her with its sweetness and poignancy. She dared not move lest the dream born of the dark and their closeness flee away.

“Would you do it for me?”

His own voice was not entirely steady. With an effort Cricket forced a response. “But you don’t like me heaps, Hal!”

“If— I did?”

The darkness seemed alive with the fragrant memories of romance that had lived in the same murmuring witchery of other nights. Cricket closed her eyes. This, she assured herself, was nothing like her other “affairs.” No one had ever stirred her so or awakened something that had slumbered heavily and deeply within her heart. This was no light, careless summertime flirtation which, like the kisses that went with it, would be only half-remembered in a week.

“But you don’t.” She spoke in a tremulous, uncertain tone. “Do you?” something made her whisper.

He was so close that the black silk of his dinner coat lapels was a shade darker than the encompassing gloom.

“I— I should tell you something, Cricket. But— I can’t. Don’t ask. Something—”

He stopped speaking abruptly. Somehow in the darkness Cricket found his hands and closed her own over them. Was it bold to wish to cling to him? Was it wrong to touch him? It was futile to attempt aloofness with the hurt longing in her  heart and the strange, sweet thought that kept on singing in her mind.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t wish to. Only let me tell you this, Hal... only this... I don’t know how it was. That first time I saw you— when Constance brought you up from the Club. It might—”

“That wasn’t the first time,” he interrupted. “I saw you days before then.”

“W-where?”

“On the beach one morning. You were,” he explained precisely, “standing on your hands with your feet pointed to the high heavens.”

Cricket remembered all of a sudden.

“Were you there?” she gasped. “We were playing circus in our bathing suits and I— as usual—was giving an impression of Toto the clown. What did you think? Were you shocked horribly at such conduct?

Hal didn’t answer for a minute but she felt his fingers move beneath her own. She had the impression he was on the verge of a confession, that he wanted to blurt out what he had started to say before he had cheeked himself.

“It doesn’t matter—what I thought then. It— it’s what I think now and now—”

Cricket knew he was going to kiss her seconds before he took her in his arms. She gave him the sweetness of her lips joyously, sinking into his embrace with a deep sigh of content. Her arms went naturally about his broad shoulders and the wonder of it filled her with a silent awe.

I gotta baby

Oh, whatta baby—

I gotta baby now...

Out of the magic haze that enfolded them Cricket eventually spoke:

“As long as I live I’ll remember that foolish, foolish song— just as we’re hearing it now. Sweetheart, you must love me! Oh, you don’t have to worry a bit. I’ll never stand on my hands and point my feet at the sky again. I— when you kissed me I grew up all of a sudden— like that! And I’ll be terribly sensible and everything because I know you want me to be.”

His breath was warm in the soft hollows of her neck where he had laid his last kiss. Again he leaned, one hand wandering the tousled tangle of her dark curls. Simultaneously from the house came the rush of impetuous feet and voices.

“On to the balcony!”

“Put out your hand— you’re going around a curve!”

“Curses! There’s somebody out there!”

It was shattered beyond all repair. A quartette of girls and young men tumbled out to take possession of the balcony.

In some fashion Cricket found herself downstairs. The magic of the kisses in the dark lingered, weaving a web about her. There was a little crowd grouped about the canvas-covered object they had passed. Cricket saw a florid gentleman making some sort of an address and  glimpsed Blinky Corbin hovering expectantly at his elbow.

Then, and she and Hal had hardly joined the group, the Corbin gardener began stripping away the canvas wrappings and a murmur sounded.

“I say, Uncle Ed— what a birthday present this is!”

Cricket crowded closer, standing on tiptoe. Revealed was the sharp mahogany prow of a cruising motorboat, a low-built, rakish affair with bright brass trimmings. To her own surprise she read the plates on either side of the bow and deciphered her own name— Cricket.

Then, and what a part this same craft was destined to play in her life, unknown and unguessed, she found Corbin beside her and heard his explanation.

“I told Uncle Ed if I ever got hold of a decent boat I’d name her after you ...I had no idea he would even remember it.... I want you to christen her for me, Cricket....”

She said something vague and turned to Hal, but he wasn’t beside her and after an instant her searching eyes glimpsed him down near the platform where the musicians were taking their intermission.

“Don’t forget, Cricket.”

“No, I won’t.”

She escaped and started down the lawn but Hal wasn’t waiting. As she started after him he continued on through the opening in the boxwood hedge and vanished in the night outside.

Cricket stopped and looked after him.

“Like  a  dream,”  she  heard  herself whispering.

IN the clear summer sunshine the episode on the Corbin balcony took varied forms which puzzled Cricket greatly. To begin with, the suddenness of it was disconcerting. Two short days past she had told Constance honestly that it was ridiculous to imagine she was in love with Hal when she had hardly spoken twelve words to him. And it had been ridiculous because then she had not really known or suspected. There was a great gulf between liking a person and loving him.

Then, too, remembrance made Cricket’s frown thoughtful. Hal had played the role of tender lover but there had been something strangely lacking in the drama. Other youths in the past, those who had fascinated her for the moment, had made love a great deal more completely. The very things Hal left unsaid loomed up in the form of curious question marks. If he really loved her and if he was her last adventure and she his, why hadn’t he spoken of an engagement, of their combined futures? Why had he quite suddenly decided not to tell her that which must have been of importance? What lay behind the quick up-flare that had made her creep so eagerly into the shelter of his arms and give him the tempting sweetness of her mouth? Was it, Cricket wondered, inspired merely by the glamor of the starlit darkness, their closeness and her forwardness? She was wistfully pretty, she had a naïve charm and she invariably appealed to young Romeos. Hal might be different in appearance and mannerism but under his staid veneer he was the same courtier at the Fête of Love who tried to reach out and clasp to him his ardent dreams. Had he forgotten now?

A week elapsed without incident. Constance, sharing the greater portion of her time with Jerry Evarts, made no further reference to the one she had treated so thoughtlessly. Hal came over twice during the week to take Cricket to the country club for a round of golf. On both occasions she knew a shadowy sense of irritation. Hal appeared to have gone into a morose decline. He was preoccupied, taciturn and moody. Cricket looking forward to being with him, was furious after their second twosome.

“Might as well have been playing by myself,” she thought. “I wonder if he regrets those kisses— if he still is crazy about Connie. Love’s a funny proposition.”

She grew more resentful when she passed up two parties that promised an explosion of her old exuberance. Secretly, she knew that if she started out with the old crowd and there were high jinks she would have to rid herself of the resentment by clowning again. And she had promised herself that there would be no more monkey shines.

TOWARD the end of the second week an occurrence transpired to change many things. When Cricket came up from the beach at Wildbracken she found Hal lingering on the veranda steps with Constance. Both seemed a trifle uneasy at her sudden appearance. Cricket swung out of her Shantung beach robe and considered them narrowly.

“Well, stop over when you’re in this neighborhood again,” her sister said to Hal.

“You’d better get downstairs in the shower room,” she added to Cricket before she vanished through the front door.

“Looking for me?”

Hal’s gaze wavered before her own.

“I just stopped in,” he said laconically.

“Then,” Cricket resumed, “you weren’t looking for me.”

“I told you I just dropped in.”

“You dropped in to see Connie,” she said in a tensely vibrant voice. “Let’s get this thing straightened out. You’re sorry about the other night. I can see that. Well, I’m sorry too for that matter. So let’s forget it. I don’t blame you for wanting to make up with Connie. She’s so— so wonderful and I’m so—”

“Cricket! You don’t understand.”

“That’s the trouble— I do understand. What do you think I don’t understand?”

Once more Hal started to say something, shut his lips resolutely and gave her a hurt look. She ignored it, dull anger creeping through her stealthily.

“I thought you did like me— a little bit.” Her tone was melancholy and tearful. “And I’ve been trying so hard to be worthy of you.”

“Cricket!” He came down the last two of the porch steps but she evaded him, backing to the edge of the walk where the shrubbery bulked.

“Don’t! I think you’re contemptible! Kissing me and loving some one else all the time! Never you mind. It takes two to make a contract and bind a bargain!”

“Will you let me tell you something?” he said, so desperately that for an uncertain moment she was undecided. “I can’t tell you here. Meet me tonight— later. There’s a bridge at the club. We’ll have the whole veranda to ourselves—”

Cricket laughed.

“Oh, will we? Well, I’m very sorry but I’m christening my namesake tonight. Blinky’s new motorboat. Anything you want to tell me can be said here and now. You don’t have to wait until tonight to think up something plausible. Say it and let me hear it.”

There was a shadow across his handsome face. Cricket waited— a minute— two— three. She ended the silence with another jeering snatch of laughter.

“You can’t for the reason that you haven’t anything to say. Now,” she whirled around, “I’m going down to change, so you needn’t detain me any longer.”

BLINKY CORBIN had said something about christening  the  mahogany  speed  boat.

Enough to give Cricket an excuse to go over after dinner. The other Cricket reposed in the inlet where the terraces ended and was securely moored to a damp wharf. Blinky, who had a half dozen in for dinner, hailed Cricket’s arrival with gusto.

“Just in time, youngster. I’d almost decided we’d have to have an understudy to break a bottle of champagne over the boat’s bow. I really thought,” he continued confidentially, “you’d been living up to what you told me the night of my birthday party. I mean, about cutting out all the zippy stuff and settling down to a life of knitting needles, tabby cats and rheumatics. You know the others, I guess.”

Cricket did. Eileen Rainess. “Red” Thomas, who was an ex-Cornell coxswain, Stanley Barrow with his high, chuckling laugh, Delphia Dragnell, as petite and colorful as a fashion illustration— others who visited Wildbracken briefly and who lived in a world that was hilarious and inconsequential.

The  ceremony  proceeded  with  mock impressiveness. They all trooped solemnly down to the wharf, the Corbin butler bringing up the rear with a silver bucket from which protruded the golden neck of a bottle of ginger ale.

“Now Horace,” Blinky told the servant, “stand here. The rest of you form in a semi-circle. Say, I wonder if we haven’t got some skyrockets or something up at the house. We ought to put a little pep into these baptismal rites. Somebody go and dig up some noise-makers.”

The matter was attended to presently and in a shrieking bedlam of laughter and noise made by some ancient New Year’s Eve souvenirs and lighted by fireworks stored in the cellar after a jubilant Fourth of July, Cricket smashed the gilt-foiled bottle Horace presented her with over the rakish bow of the motorboat.

“All aboard now!” Blinky shouted. “Pile up wherever you can find some room and I’ll show you how this baby can travel!”

Cricket found herself wedged in the stern, the noise-makers rattling above the silky drone of the deep-throated motor.

“Fastest thing that ever hit these waters,” Blinky exulted, when the mooring line was cast off and they were out of the inlet and into the sea. “Hang on now while I make her step!”

“You ought to use it to run out to the rum boats,” Thomas suggested. “Pick up a lot of spare change bringing stuff in.”

“There’s a schooner about four miles out,” the Dragnell girl cut in. “Jerry Evarts said she anchored out there early this week. You can see her through binoculars faintly on a very clear day.”

“Let’s go out and look her over,” Eileen Rainess said impetuously. “I’ve never seen a real rum boat!”

“Say, that’s an idea,” Cricket heard some one else chime in. “Think of those poor men out there with no company to call on them except the kind they don’t want to see. Must be a terrible existence. Water, water everywhere and the case goods on the decks!”

THE last of the sunset, lengthened by the Daylight Savings system, was smouldering out in the western sky. Beyond, the darkening sea lay dim and sinister. A chilly wind created by the forward flight of the speed boat made Cricket shiver under the thinly knit sweater she had pulled over her silken dress. It blew her tousled curls across her little pointed face and it served to remind her that the summer was slowly but surely marching its bright hosts into the grim castle of the season that stood ahead of them.

In the general enthusiasm stirred up by Blinky Corbin’s immediate agreement to run out to the pirate vessel and look her over, Cricket felt a little sad. Hal and the balcony and the music below them and her singing heart and his kiss on her lips—

With a start she realized exactly how much she had changed. Last week, last month, this would have been a lark, a high adventure with just a bit of danger to give it a piquant flavor. She would have been making as much noise as any of the others about her, lifting her voice in the chorus of voices. Yesterday, last week—

The sea slipped past them, an ominous green-black. Thousands of miles away a huge circular moon tore itself from the clinging couch of the ocean and began a weary climb into the vault of the heavens. Lights unveiled themselves briefly— red, yellow and green. The windblown echoes of a siren drifted back to them and a searchlight sliced the horizon like a steel sword in the hands of a temple dancer.

Every once in a while the swing of the sea showered them with its fine, stinging spray. On such occasions there was a great scrambling and medley of laughter. The throaty pant of the powerful engine deepened to a bee-like hum. Cricket, hunched in the stern where she rubbed one arm that had gone to sleep from the pressure of Delphia Dragnell beside her, found herself wishing she had never allowed herself to be pushed aboard. How much better, she decided, to have gone down to the club with Hal Pierce— to have listened to whatever he wanted to tell her—

The eerie twang of a ukelele sounded. Stanley Barrow unleashed a powerful baritone in a gay, empty tune the others promptly caught up.

I gotta baby

Oh, whatta baby—

I gotta baby now...

Within Cricket something stirred and started. She closed her eyes involuntarily. The glamor of that one night came back to her across the restless waste of waters. It was a sacrilege to sing that one song of all other songs— a taunting reproach in itself.

On her inner vision she saw Hal in the gloom. The moonlight filtered through the screen of trees, not half as colorful as the swaying lanterns on the lawn. He had snapped his cigarette away— he had come to her— she had found his hands in the darkness— she was giving him her lips—

“Ahoy, mates! Hard on the starboard bow! There she blows!”

The uke was plunged into silence. There was a craning of necks. Thomas jumped up so quickly he nearly went overboard. Cricket peered ahead with the rest and then, after a moment of eyestrain, saw the object toward which they hastened.

A three-masted schooner stood out in sharp silhouette against the silver ring of the moon. It resembled an etching. Stark against the empty sky, alone and isolated in the giant hand of the sea, each spar stood out in bold relief. And yet its very solitude gave it an appearance of evil— an indefinable air that Cricket couldn’t find an exact term for. Blinky Corbin cut down the speed.

“Get your calling cards ready, girls and boys. We’ll go aboard and see what a real rum skipper looks like in all his dubious glory. What ho!”

“We’ll do nothing of the sort!” Delphia Dragnell exclaimed. “If you have any regard for me, Blinky, you’ll turn around and take us home.”

“Somebody’s getting extremely chilly feet,” Blinky laughed. “Who wanted to come out here anyway?”

“Now we’re out and have seen it,” Eileen Rainess put in quickly, “you can run us back.”

“What do you say, Red?”

“Makes no never mind to me. If the girls want a mast for a souvenir, break out a saw and I’ll oblige.”

The Cricket had come nearly upon the motionless schooner. The sea lapped against its low-riding flanks and its waist was very deep. Blinky gave the automobile wheel a turn and the speed boat, under reduced power, glided alongside while those on it appraised the nefarious vessel with curious intentness.

Cricket was glad they had reached their destination. Now they would turn about and go back to Wildbracken. Solemnly she registered an emphatic vow, half raising her right hand to stress it.

“Never again!” she whispered to herself.

Hard astern and almost under the lee counter, Stanley Barrow lifted his deep voice.

“Ahoy, the schooner!”

There was no answer, no sign of life or activity on the deck above them. They drifted around the barnacled rudder-post, made out the name Agnes Merriweather—Jamaica and edged along the port rail again Barrow facetiously raised his voice and this time with reward. Suddenly out of the wind-sighing silence above them a coarse, rude voice snarled a reply.

“What you want?”

A head appeared at the rail. Cricket saw a knitted stocking cap with a tassel on it and then the most villainous face she had ever beheld off the photoplay screen. In the moonlight the face was swarthy, hoop-earrings dangled from the mans’ ears, his mouth was a toothless gash and his huge, bulbous nose divided a pair of small, deep-set, piercing eyes. Delphia Dragnell gasped audibly. Red Thomas laughed gustily.

“Wow, there’s the real thing for you! Hey, Funny Face, where’s your skipper? We want his autograph.”

The man rested thick arms on the rail and scowled ferociously.

“You’ll get something else if you don’t shove off!” he retorted. “Something you don’t expect!”

“Is that any way to treat callers?” Barrow asked with hurt indignation. We’d like to come aboard and see how you conduct your business.”

“I’ll show you!”

He disappeared and out of the brief pause Eileen Rainess spoke tremulously.

“Do you suppose he’s going to get a gangplank? I wish you would start back, Blinky. I’m frightened simply stiff.”

Thomas’ voice sounded in quick alarm. “Look out—”

The warning came in time. The man on the schooner had come back to the rail. Cricket saw his thick arms uplifted and glimpsed the object supported in his hands. Came a swish as Blinky accelerated the motor and over their heads shot an empty cask that struck the water with a great splash.

“Ill-mannered beggar!” The speed boat leapt forward. “Good thing you noticed he was about to pitch barrels at us, Red. Guess we’d better get back home.”

Relief crept through Cricket but it was relief that lingered only momentarily for they had hardly turned tail on the rum boat when Barrow gave vent to an exclamation.

“Look back, Blinky! What the dickens—”

FROM somewhere out of the plain of the sea drifted the staccato drumfire of another engine. Cricket turned and glanced back over her shoulder. A possible half mile distant she was able to distinguish the outline of a cruising boat somewhat longer than their own craft. On its wireless mast hung two red and a white and yellow light. And, as she peered across the path of the moon, a searchlight was suddenly brought into play and began to inquisitively seek them out.

“Government scow!” Corbin flung at them. “She’s been prowling off there watching the schooner. Probably thinks we stood by to load up.”

On the heels of his statement came the sharp blast of the other boat’s siren. It was a weird, unearthly wail that made Cricket’s heart sink.

“Better wait and let them give us a clean bill of health,” she heard Red advising Blinky.

“Not a chance! They might jug us on general principles. Can’t tell about these Revenue birds. Nix! We’ll go right on about our business and race them in.”

“They might fire if we don’t come about!” Barrow stated in a strained, husky tone.

“Let ‘em!”

Blinky threw the throttle over and once more the stinging spray came aboard. They dashed in toward the distant shore, the searchlight groping for them like an avid, ghostly hand. Still the siren commanded their stopping but Cricket saw they had gained in their flight.

She hunched over to avoid as much of the spray shipped as possible and she felt very, very low. What a climax to a silly evening! Suppose they were trapped and cornered? Suppose they were lined up, arrested and marched off to the jail? They were all representatives of socially prominent families at Wildbracken and the affair would make a stir in the newspapers.

Hal Pierce, Cricket reflected miserably, would read the sensational details. If he wasn’t lost to her now he would be then for what man could care for a criminal, a law-breaker? Terror, aroused by the thought of Hal, cooled her hot, turbulent blood. She looked back again and found the pursuing craft hanging with grim resolution to their foamy wake.

“More speed, Blinky!” she implored.

“Don’t worry!” Corbin’s assurance was

delivered cheerfully. “We’ll lose her when we get inshore!”

Minutes, tense and melodramatic, were marked off by Cricket’s racing pulses. Last week, last month the chase would have had a terrific kick in it. Eileen’s panic-stricken face and Delphia Dragnell’s whimpering pleas for greater haste would have filled her with amusement. But tonight things were different. The eyes of Hal rode beside her. In fancy he leaned to her and his expression, as she mentally visualized it, was one of sadness.

“She’s faster than I imagined. We’ll have a job to slip her up.”

Another look showed Cricket that slowly but surely they were being overtaken. Yet the welcoming lights of the Wildbracken beach were not far distant. They were near shoal water and among the tiny islands that dotted the coast. Instead of making for the inlet Blinky began twisting a precarious way in and around the islands. It was a ruse to outwit their pursuer but instead of working to their advantage it brought the other still closer to them.

“No go!” Stanley Barrow groaned. “Put out your little wrists and get ready for the Government jewelry, children!”

“We simply can’t be arrested!” Eileen Harness wailed. “I’m only on probation now. If my dad hears about this it’ll be all up with me!”

“Same here,” Delphia Dragnell confessed tearfully. “I’ve made and broken a hundred promises. This will be the end of a perfect day for me!”

CRICKET only half heard their excited comments. Of a sudden a brilliant idea came to her. Arrest! Notoriety! Scandal! And— Hal! They were not out a great distance from the shore. Probably a quarter of a mile at best. What was to prevent her diving overboard and swimming for it? Often she had swam out to the islands and thought nothing of it. And what she wore would never hamper her.

She cast one look back, they had circled the final island and were about to double on their tracks. Coming around, Cricket saw the ominous red, white and yellow lights dangerously near. Delphia Dragnell was standing, crouching forward. The others were intent upon the open water before them. No one was paying the least attention to her and Cricket saw that it was indubitably her one and only opportunity. She left the drenched wicker chair and clambered over onto the smooth mahogany stern. It was the height of folly to risk a dive where the propeller churned, so she faced the shore, braced herself and leaped from the side— overboard and into the cold embrace of the night waters.

Cricket used her powerful overhand stroke and picked out a distant landing spot. There was just enough moonlight to illumine the way. After her first immersion she trod water and listened. Remote sounds signified both boats were over on the far side of the last island. She smiled faintly and struck quickly out for the shore.

When she lowered her feet presently Cricket felt shifting sand beneath them. She waded in, mounted the beach and came directly upon the roadway that skirted it. Her bump of locality told her she had come in two miles or so beyond her house. She shivered, stooping to sqeeze salt water from her slinky silken skirt and then was half blinded by the headlights of a motor car that swung around a curve in the road.

“Keep moving!” Cricket said under her breath. “This is one night when I don’t want a lift. One night when I’ll walk home from the party all by my lonesome!”

But her request remained ungranted. The car stopped, the lights still upon her, some one climbed out and before she could move or turn to dart away, a shadowy figure had come down the beach. There was an interlude of perhaps ten seconds.

Then Hal Pierce’s voice sounded close beside her.

“Why, Cricket, you’re all wet!”

SHE tried to laugh but made a failure of it. The swim in had been made for the sole purpose of concealing the evening’s episode from the very person who now confronted her. “Oh, what’s the use? Take me home, Hal, before I’m a solid block of ice and you’ll have to get a pair of tongs to move me. I’ve pulled another bone and I’m sorry and cold and miserable and everything!”

“Poor Cricket!”

His arm, warm and comforting, slipped around her waist. She gave a start of real amazement.

“What! You can still sympathize? Hal, the only reason I jumped off the Cricket was to escape being arrested and what you would think. Listen. I’ll unfold the whole dizzy narrative in return for a ride home.”

On the way up to the car and when she was in the front seat Cricket briefly explained in detail. Hal said nothing until she had finished. Then, in the dim light of the instrument board, he turned his good-looking face toward her, threw back his head and laughed. It was boisterous laughter that shook the roof of the car and Cricket’s restless red lips parted.

“I’m sure,” she cried stiffly, “I don’t see anything so very funny about it!”

“Naturally you wouldn’t. Two red, a white and a yellow light? Also a searchlight? You’ve been deceived, Cricket. That was no Government chaser after you.”

“How—”

“How do I know? I’ll tell you. The boat pursuing you happened to be the South Wind, the sixty-five foot cruiser Jerry Evarts is entering in the regatta on Labor Day. She just came up from Shippan Point this afternoon. Jerry and Constance and Mrs. Evarts and some others were trying her out. I was on board just before they left and I saw the lights and the siren and all the rest. In fact, Jerry said he was going out beyond the schooner which, as it happens, isn’t a rum boat after all. It’s just an auxiliary with a set of engines that broke down out there. Jerry probably was signaling for you to stop so he could race you in or do something equally as tricky.”

CRICKET blinked. Once more the grotesque side of it assailed her. She looked at her

sweater, shrinking visibly and she looked into Hal’s face and shook her head sadly.

“Please take me home like a dear. I can’t stand much more of this. Everything’s topsy-turvy and I don’t know whether I’m standing on my head or my feet.”

“As you were that morning when I first saw you.” Instead of putting the car in motion, Hal took her little cold hand in his. “I want to tell you something. I’ve tried it twice but was cut off both times. Cricket, honesty compels me to own up and tell the truth. You’ve been framed, to use an inelegant expression.”

“Framed?”

“I mean I’ve never been in love with Constance. It was you from the very first moment when I saw you down on the beach with your toes directed at the clouds. You and nobody else, Cricket!”

“B-but—”

“Then Jerry introduced me to your sister. I didn’t make any secret of it. I’d fallen in love with you and I didn’t care who knew it. I guess Connie took pity on me. Anyway, she told me your reputation, how many hearts you had shattered gayly, how many summertime romances you had figured in—”

“Connie would tell you that,” Cricket breathed. “Go on. I might as well hear the rest of it.”

“Consider my feelings. I loved you but I didn’t know you. Oh, I imagined myself in love before. This time it was the real thing and I didn’t want to muff it. I wanted to make absolutely sure there would be no slip-up and Constance very kindly agreed to help. She told me what a sympathetic nature you have and how you always champion the poor, lowly underdog. She said if I’d pretend to be one of her suitors, mistreated and neglected, you’d be sure to take an immediate interest. It worked out exactly according to specifications.”

Cricket said nothing when he halted but her heart had begun to sing again.

“What else?” she asked weakly.

“That night at Blinky’s party. I was on the point of blurting it out, telling you. But I was checked. Then the other day when Constance and I were on the veranda steps and you came along. She’d just been telling me she was sure you cared in the right way and that you’d cut out your— your hopping around. I was about to tell you then but something made me suppress it. I had to be sure of  you— sure  this  wasn’t  any  light,  inconsequential affair that would be forgotten when you left Wildbracken. Cricket, now I’m certain— positive at last!”

“Why—why should you be, Hal?”

“If you didn’t care that way,” he told her, “you wouldn’t have bothered to dive off Blinky’s boat and risk going to Davey Jones’ locker. You wouldn’t have done that and you know it. Cricket, look up at me.”

HE lifted her gaze, the old longing ache creeping craftily through her.

“I am looking, Hal.”

“I love you, Cricket.”

“And I,” she faltered, “love you. That’s been the whole trouble right along. I started loving you days ago and I’m going to keep on loving you when there are silver threads among the gold—”

He took her other hand and folded the fingers back.

“I want you to be my little Cricket on our little hearth. Later, we’ll discuss the most important date in the world’s history, where we’ll honeymoon and all that. First—”

His kiss found her lips and she let her damp tousled head droop to his shoulder. Some time elapsed before she opened her dreamy eyes and stirred.

“A stern chase and a long one, a night’s swim, a waiting sweetheart and a proposal of marriage.” Cricket smiled into his eyes. “You know, dearest, a thing of this kind happens only once.... Once in a blue moon!”

_________________

5: Hoodwinked

C. S. Montanye

Detective Story, April 30, 1919

"BIG BILL” WAYLIE had fallen upon evil days. Once a celebrated and daring cracksman, known as one of the most skillful malefactors of his time, age, combined with ten enervating years spent in a black cell in the State penitentiary, had taken their toll of him. Not only had his hand lost its cunning, but his sharp wits, his nerve and confidence, too, had gone from him.

Big Bill had degenerated into a gray-haired, unkempt, shiftless, and slovenly bum. A Bowery lodging house was his home when he possessed the price of a bunk; otherwise he slept along the East River docks when the weather was warm, or in an alley, on a pavement heated by a First Avenue baker’s oven, during cold spells.

He picked up a precarious livelihood, begging, resorting to petty thievery when opportunity was his; occasionally selling information regarding the handling and use of “soup,” to some crook with aspirations toward safe-blowing. Whatever money he stole, begged, or earned, he promptly squandered in booze purchased in the numerous “blind tigers” of the underworld.

Big Bill lived among the dreams of his past. He never wearied of recounting his exploits to small groups of loafers who listened in respectful silence. It was at such moments that his bent frame straightened, his faded eyes kindled, and his shaking hands grew steady. These, also, were the intervals when he felt like a dethroned king, one who had known the heights before he had sunk into the mire of the depths.

On a cold November evening Big Bill shuffled aimlessly down the Bowery. A keen easterly wind off the river stung him with its chilly fingers, the disreputable old suit he wore affording scant protection. His worn cap was pulled low over his eyes, the collar of his coat was turned up about his thin neck, and his hands were plunged deep into ragged, holeful pockets. It was a night that sent people hurrying to the kindly glow of stove or radiator, but Big Bill, warmed by his own inner glow, gave no heed to the elements. Some kind-hearted woman had handed him a quarter while he loafed about Cooper Square. He was making haste for the underground taproom of one “Whisky Jake” to spend it, as he always disposed of similar gifts.

At Canal Street he went west, turning into a retail clothing store. This establishment was the main entrance to the den of Whisky Jake, the illicit saloon keeper paying the clothing merchant’s monthly rent in return for permission that allowed his clients to obtain entrance through the store.

In the shop Big Bill walked directly to the rear, opened a door, and stepped into a shallow vestibule backed off with another door. This, too, opened quickly. He descended a rusty flight of iron stairs, arriving in a damp, cold courtyard, the encompassing brick walls of which were broken only by small cellar openings no better than dark, miserable rabbit-warrens. With a familiarity inspired by long association and frequent visits, Big Bill turned into one of these apertures and went down, a number of slippery steps, coming upon a stout door, which, when opened, admitted him into a spacious barroom, blue with the smoke fog made by countless pipes and odoriferous cigarettes. Although the hour was still early Whisky Jake’s customers had assembled to warm themselves about a radiant coal stove, set back at some little distance from the long, wet bar. Opposite to this bar were a number of small tables and chairs, relics of a “back room” famous for its crimes.

To one of these tables Big Bill advanced, throwing himself into a chair, feeling in the reeking air only a grateful, invigorating heat. A waiter with a flattened nose and twisted ear took his order, brought his drink, and left him to his meditations. Big Bill fished the stub of a cigar from a coat pocket, kindled it, and prepared to enjoy to the fullest the sybaritic comfort his twenty-five cents would purchase for him.

His glass at length empty, he glanced idly about, seeking a familiar face, but finding not one. At an adjoining table two evil-faced youths in caps and sweaters conversed together in guarded tones, over foaming schooners of flaccid beer. Their table was set in close to the wall where it jutted off at an angle, and this wall, Big Bill came to know, acted as a natural sounding board, throwing fragments of the conversation of the two to his cars as he discarded the well-smoked butt of the cigar and closed his eyes sleepily.

Presently there intruded upon Big Bill’s ruminations fragments and scraps of conversation; then whole sentences as he found himself listening.

“I got it direct from ‘Spug’ Wales,” the first youth said. “It’s a cinch, I’m tellin’ you! It’s just like we breezed up to the front door and found it wide open.”

The other interrupted him with a curt laugh.

“In the pig’s eye! Spug Wales ain’t handin’ out stuff like this for any cheap dip to grab ahold of and use! This stuff is either phoney or he dished it out for a reason.”

The first speaker laughed coldly.

“Yeah? But Spug was ginned— soused to the ears! When he run into me he thought I was ‘Sam the Peddler,’ and he was so full of talk it run outa him like water. Of course I didn’t get the whole thing at one helpin’. It took time to pump it out, but I got all I wanted. How about it, do you wanna take the job of watchin’ Spug while I do the trick, for a quarter of the rake-off, or shall I get some one else?”

The second youth consumed the balance of his beer and wiped the back of his hands across his lips.

“I’ll stick if he’s really pickled, but nix if he ain’t. That guy’s bad when he gets goin’.”

“All you have to do is to keep an eye onto him and see he don’t send no one up there.”

Big Bill, listening attentively, head thrust forward on his chest, eyes still closed, sensed the quick glance the first speaker shot about the room.

“Here’s the dope,” the first youth went on, his voice so low Big Bill had to strain his ears to catch what he said. “The maid at the house is to pick up the stuff and turn it over to the bird Spug sends up to cop it. She’s to be ready any time after ten o’clock tonight, when she gets the signal on the basement doorbell. Now, here’s what cinches it to me. The maid ain’t wise to who Spug is sendin’. But she don’t care. The arrangement is she’s to pick up the sparklers, turn them over to Spug’s man, and he’s to hand her fifty per cent of his share. Get me?”

The other nodded. “Sure. I watch Spug, you buzz the bell, and she kicks in with the stones! Er— where did you say the place was at?”

Big Bill still remained motionless, but he tingled with an, odd anticipation—an anticipation not unlike that which he had known in the old days when he soaped a safe door prior to touching off a charge of soup.

“The layout,” explained the first speaker, “is uptown. The number is nine hundred and eighty West Eighty-fifth Street. There can’t be no mis-take, because Spug had it wrote down on a piece of paper and showed it to me twice.”

The second youth muttered something unintelligible.

“It’s nine o’clock now,” the other continued. “The way I’m goin’ up won’t take over twenty minutes. If I leave at ten sharp I’ll be in time. Now, listen; let me hand you the dope on what you’re to do with Spug.”

A burst of maudlin laughter silenced the words, but Big Bill had heard enough. Imitating perfectly a man awakening from light alcoholic slumbers, he rubbed his eyes, yawned prodigiously, and shambled to the door, through which he passed with never a backward glance.

Three minutes later he emerged into Canal Street and walked west toward the subway. Overhead, in the cold, inaccessible vault of the heavens, frosty stars glittered, sweeping in brilliant squadrons; the air from the river had become colder; it stung Big Bill like a two-edged sword. But again he gave no heed to it. His mind was on fire with the immensity of what he had overheard; old and senile as he had become, he was still able to comprehend the ingenuity of the scheme the conspirators spoke together of. The man, Spug Wales, was in league with a maid employed in an upper West Side residence, This maid was to steal something— jewels quite evidently, if the word “sparklers” was to be construed correctly— which was to be turned over to an agent of Wales, via the basement door.

Big Bill felt he understood perfectly, There was only one thing— he did not know the prearranged signal that was to summon the maid. As he plunged into a subway kiosk, thankful ten cents still remained to him from the gift of Cooper Square, he frowned at the thought of the signal, temporarily putting it from his mind.

He was aware that, if he was to supersede the two of the barroom, no time was to be wasted. A half hour at best was his headway, and he in-tended to make the most of it.

Purchasing a ticket, he scrambled aboard a lighted train that came thundering into the station. He took up a position on the platform as the cars twisted away through subterranean depths, his mind working with a rapidity it had not known since those days when, a prowler of the night, he had stolen forth on similar errands of evil.

As the train rushed through the blackness of its walled passage Big Bill gave himself up to rose-colored dreams, dreams of the future that would be his once he came into possession of his plunder. He would put the metropolis behind him. He would drift to the sunny south lands, where in the languor of lazy days he would pass the remaining years of his life, in undisturbed peace and plenty. Far from this Gargantuan, raucous-voiced city, with its freezing breath, he would settle back and—

The arrival of the train at the station where he must alight abruptly snapped the glittering thread of his ruminations. He left the car hurriedly, glanced at the subway clock, and was reassured when he saw it still lacked some ten minutes of ten o’clock.

Making his way to the street level, Big Bill stepped out upon upper Broadway. Here the avenue stretched quietly north and south, gloomy save for its tall arc lights at fixed intervals. The moon, sardonic and malformed, was hidden behind a thick cloud blanket. Even the chilly stars seemed to have lost their bright reflection.

Walking south a block, Big Bill turned into Eighty-fifth Street, scanning the house numbers as he shuffled past them, hands again deep in his pockets. The side street was silent and deserted, puddled and maculated with the yellow shine of the street lamps.

He found nine hundred and eighty to be a four-storied brownstone dwelling on the southerly side of the block. Its pretentious Colonial doorway, its Marie Antoinette lace panels, in the darkened windows, bespoke wealth and affluence, and Big Bill drank in these visible signs with an eager glance.

Too wary to linger, and with fifteen minutes still to be disposed of, he continued on to Riverside Drive, blowing his breath into his blue hands and shrinking back from fresh onslaughts of the night wind. He had no watch, and, in lieu of it, he paced off the minutes, walking quickly, vigorously, to restore his circulation.

The time dragged slowly, so slowly that he made his way to the avenue again to consult a clock in a drug-store window. The hands pointed to five minutes past the hour.

He retraced his steps to Eighty-fifth Street, dealing now with the problem of the unknown bell signal. Mentally he decided to ring it in some fantastical manner. If not opened by the maid herself, he could inform whosoever appeared that he wished to converse with that employee of the establishment who knew Mr. Wales. Whether or not this would cast suspicion on the maid, Big Bill cared little.

Reaching the areaway he turned into it, shooting a quick glance down the street, advancing to the latticed gate, peering for the bell in the impenetrable darkness. His fingers stole out to press the button, but as they did so he suddenly stiffened, turning his head to the street, finding a subtle menace in the low, whining purr of a motor, which, wheeling in from the Drive below, slackened speed sufficiently to allow a youth in cap and sweater to swing from tonneau to pavement.

With a muttered curse Big Bill drew swiftly back into the heart of the shadows, huddling against the brownstone walls, shielding the betraying white blur of his face in his coat.

The silken song of the motor died away in the distance. The one who had swung clear of it plunged down into the areaway, hurrying to the gate, flashing for an instant only the white eye of an electric torch, that he might discover the whereabouts of the bell.

Big Bill cursed with silent vehemence. The momentary glimmer had revealed only too plainly the face of the first speaker at Whisky Jake’s.

Laying a finger against the bell the newcomer rang it jerkily and waited. A long interval elapsed. Again he blared out the summons impatiently, and this time, after a minute or two, an inner door opened with extreme caution and a figure fluttered to the latticed gate.

“From Spug Wales,” the youth in the sweater whispered sibilantly. “Hurry it up, sister! There’s a bull on the avenue who looks ready to poke his nose this way at any moment!”

Out of the gloom came the soft sound of a girl’s voice.

“But— but that wasn’t the signal!”

Big Bill heard a careless laugh. “Wasn’t it? Well, try and give it yourself with a pair of frozen mitts. But come on— less of the chatter! I got to get back to Spug before eleven if he’s to make the fence of Philadelphia Mike’s. Come through or don’t— only hurry up about it.”

The gate latch clicked softly, the sound of paper rustled. “Give him this,” the girl said, “and tell him to remember his promise.”

Another interval elapsed. Then both gate and inner door shut soundlessly.

Big Bill fell hot anger stab him. Was he to stand idly aside while the youth made off with his ill-gotten gains? Big Bill thrilled with a rage that shook him like a leaf in a wind current. Since he had taken up his stand close to the walls, he had felt something preying under foot, something loose and heavy. Bending, his exploring fingers closed over the object. A surge of happiness shot through him. He straightened up, holding in one hand a thick, narrow piece of the cement flooring, a formidable weapon. In a trice he sprang across the areaway, summoning all of his strength, hurled himself upon the youth in sweater and cap, and brought down the stone slab on the other’s head with a swift and vicious stroke.

His victim fell without a sound, sinking limply to the ground, a paper package he had held falling from his opening fingers. Snatching this up, Big Bill gave vent to a savage chuckle of exultation, and hurried from the archway to the wind-swept Drive.

A song of triumph rose within him. The booty was irretrievably his by right of conquest; all the dreams he had dreamed could have their fulfillment; he had conquered just as he always had conquered in the dead days of the past!

Thirty minutes later, in a deserted section of the Drive, he stepped close to a friendly arc light and drew his prize from beneath his ragged coat. It rattled pleasantly as, with shaking fingers, fingers he made no attempt to steady, he ripped away its paper covering, revealing an ordinary candy box. With trembling eagerness Big Bill removed the lid and peered in, to step back with an inarticulate cry of rage and dismay.

The box contained a number of clothespins and a scrap of paper, on which had been hastily scribbled a few words:

SPUG, WALES: I couldn’t get up the courage to make the swipe. I guess I ain’t got nerve enough to be a crook. SUSIE THE MAID.

________________

6: Frozen Stiff

C. S. Montanye

Popular Detective Mar 1947

A HUMID heat haze hung over Manhattan like a damp blanket. Dave McClain, the big Homicide dick, was moist from collar to brogan. Mac liked summer. In the sprint for the favorite season Derby, he played the warm months across the board, straight, place and show.

But there was such a thing as too much of the same. Anyway, he liked to take his Turkish baths with his clothes off.

Mac was cussing under his breath when the prowl car that jolted him up to East 24th Street slid in among a bunch of kids playing softball, and curbed in front of a long, very white building with opalescent green-glass windows.

McClain got a gander of the neat sign over the main entrance and felt cooler right away.

“The Metropolitan Ice Cream Company!” he said to Sergeant Creedy, at the wheel of the patrol car. “And me without a spoon!” He opened the door. “Oh, well, I've got a tongue.”

Creedy grinned and McClain went on and into the white building. So far there wasn't any crowd around it. That meant the patrolman-on-duty's flash hadn't been noised around the neighborhood. In fact, Captain Fred Mullin, the Homicide Bureau's chief, had handed it to Mac fresh as an eggplant on the vine.

Just inside the door, McClain met the cop who had done the telephoning. A nice-looking, ex-soldier rookie with a shine on his shoes and a crease in his trousers. His name was Anderson and he seemed a trifle disturbed.

This way,” he said to the incoming McClain. “Downstairs.”

“Let's have it in words of one syllable, officer.” Mac always treated rookies with deference and respect. A long time ago he'd been one himself.

Anderson waited for McClain, who happened to be the champion ash scatterer of the department, to get a cigar between his teeth and a match lighted.

“The manager of this plant,” he explained, “George Ettinger by name, called me in a few minutes ago. They found somebody in one of the freezers— dead. Ettinger's down there now waiting for you.”

The big dick ran a finger around his wet collar and sucked on his cigar.

“Freezer, eh? I could use some of that stuff right now.”

A white tiled corridor at the foot of some marble stairs, took them to the far end of the basement. Indirect lighting seemed to add to the coolness of the lower region.

Anderson hurried along briskly. Mac followed leisurely, his big, flat feet slapping down on the tiles like a hand on a masher's face. It was about twenty minutes after nine A.M. Eastern Humid Time, and in the rooms he passed he heard sounds of matutinal activity. The grind of machinery, voices, the hiss of running water.

A turn in the corridor, another short flight of stairs down and Mac found himself in the vicinity of the freezer rooms. It was here that the company stored its merchandise. Through narrow, frost-touched windows, McLain saw pyramids of neat gallon cardboard cylinders.

A door to one of the rooms was open. Just outside it the man Anderson had mentioned was pacing nervously up and down.

George Ettinger was a stocky, stolid little man. He had all the appearance of a typical office worker. He was clean and precise, but agitated.

“Twelve years,” he said, when McClain shifted his cigar and introduced himself. “Twelve years I've worked here and nothing like this has ever happened before. A dead man in Freezer B! Not only dead, but a total stranger! It doesn't make sense. It's—it's ridiculous!”

Frigid air gushed out of the open door. It hit Mac like an Arctic blast, making him sneeze. He chewed vigorously on the cigar between his lips.

“Alex, one of our foremen, opened this freezer preparatory to having a truck loaded,” Ettinger went on. “He found the body. He reported to me, and I sent one of the clerks for this policeman.” He nodded toward Anderson.

“What's the temp in there?”

Ettinger looked at a thermometer near the narrow window.

“Seventeen— now. We keep the freezers at zero. I had this one shut off as soon as Alex came to me.”

Mac made a grimace. “I'm strictly a straw hat, palm-leaf-fan guy. Got a coat?”

There wasn't any coat so the big dick turned up his collar, took a fresh drag on his weed and shivered a way inside.

The dead man lay just inside the door. A young chap, dark and good-looking. He wore a shepherd plaid flannel suit, a yellow shirt open at the throat, a brown scarf. Staring down at him, McClain thought he looked familiar.

He straightened, tried to control his chattering teeth and glanced around the freezer. The frozen stiff's struggles to get out had been terrible. He had burned up a couple of books of matches, ripping pieces of cardboard from the ice cream cylinders in a desperate attempt to make a fire. His footprints were all over the floor, in the sprinkling of sawdust covering it.

Evidently he had run up and down in a futile attempt to keep his circulation going, to stay alive. His posture now was one of contracted action, legs drawn up under him, arms hugging his sides as if to hold at bay the deadly cold that had struck him down.

With chilly fingers Mac picked up a silver cigarette lighter, looked at the inscription on one of its frosted sides— “To Tommy from June”— and put it in his pocket. He shifted his gaze back to the figure on the floor. A hoar frost rimmed the black hair. No use to go through his pockets for identification. The shepherd plaid jacket was like concrete, frozen to him.

McClain backed out of the freezer, sure he'd have pneumonia by morning. That old devil Humidity was as welcome as a paycheck. He wouldn't complain about it again— if he lived to be sixty-five which, at the moment, he doubted.

“Tell me about the setup here.” He got his voice back to normal and his teeth under control. He stabbed a thumb at doors at the end of the passage. “Locked at night?”

George Ettinger nodded. “Yes, securely locked. We have a night watchman on duty also.”

“Then nobody could get in here?”

“Unless they were an employee, with a key.”

“What about this freezer?” Mac asked. “That locks from the outside? Let's see the mechanism.”

Ettinger explained that the tremendous door did lock automatically from the outside when shut. He pointed to a red electric light bulb over it and a sound box, explaining that it was a safety device which, by pressing a button in the freezing room, would set off a loud buzz signal as well as a flashing light.

“It also connects with the office upstairs,” Ettinger said. “All our employees know how to get out if they're locked in. In all my twelve years here we've never had an accident.”

“I'd like to talk to the night watchman,” McClain said. “First, I'll use your phone— and a hooker of rye if you happen to have one lying around loose. Cold? You could put a rib roast on me and it would keep until next winter!”

Twenty minutes later “Doc” Baggott, the medical examiner, came in with Captain Mullin's trained staff of photographers and print experts. Mac, who had punished six fingers of borrowed Old Plantation, felt better when he met them.

“It's all yours, Doc,” he told Baggott. “One frozen stiff. Right this way.”

OUT in the super-heat of the big town, McClain wandered slowly away from First Avenue, heading toward the nearest uptown bus line.

The face of the man who had been on the floor of Freezer B haunted him. He changed his mind suddenly about the Times Square district, hopped a cab to Centre Street and gave the rogues' gallery a gander.

Half an hour later he turned up what he wanted. He was seldom wrong about faces, and the one that had looked familiar came up as belonging to Tommy Franz, a former hoofer, a small-time grifter and petty shakedown artist. Franz had ground out two-and-a-half at the Ossining address and had finished his parole bit some two months previous. McClain studied the photographs and nodded sagely.

“Knew I'd seen that handsome mush somewhere before,” he told Devlin, the officer in charge of the pictures. “You remember Tommy the Tapper. Used to dance on a table at the Rainbow's End. Hagen picked him up for working a squeeze play on a cloak-and-suiter from out of town. Tommy had the visitor's leather, full of green, in a hip pocket, along with his flash. He got the bend for that. The case was plenty hot but you can't say that much for Tommy—now. Or,” he added, thinking of the Bible, “maybe I'm wrong!”

Captain Fred Mullin glanced up from a neatly typed coroner's report when Mac took his cigar into the head of Homicide's office a while later.

“I got an identification for you,” Mullin said.

“Don't need it.” Mac flopped in a chair and rolled his nickel perfecto from the corner of his mouth to the other. “Tommy Franz. I didn't need an ice pick to get it, either. Looks like a gang catch-up from here. Same old stuff. But he wasn't bumped, he was frozen to death!”

Mullin, dead-panned and fishy-eyed, nodded.

“So the medico says. Not a mark on him anywhere. Just dragged in there and left to congeal. What did you find out?”

“Not a heck of a lot.” McClain shrugged. “Somebody with an in to the ice cream joint unlocked the outside doors with a company key. New angle, Chief. Don't bother to sap 'em or shoot 'em. Too crude and rough. Toss 'em in with the vanilla and strawberry and let them harden gradually. No fuss, no muss, no dishpan hands.”

Mullin didn't crack a smile. Instead, he tossed over Tommy Franz's driving license.

“That's his home address. Check on it.”

The number was in the upper Thirties, near Lexington. Mac was surprised to find the address tallied with a very modern, expensive apartment house. A place with a bronze canopy and a doorman to run out and whistle for taxis. There was a lot of chi-chi in the lobby, gaudied-up elevator operators and a decorative telephone-switchboard siren with enough mascara to blacken the reputation of any wayward spouse.

He ankled over to the Bell System Lorelei and tossed her a smile.

“I'm busy tonight,” the girl said, before he opened his mouth. “Besides I don't make dates with strangers.”

“Lean on a wrong number and relax, sister.” Mac draped his big frame over the top of the switchboard. “Blondes!” he scoffed. “A nickel a quart. Tell me about the Franz outfit.”

The girl colored slightly. Her stiff, long lashes fluttered like the wings of a bird. She averted her gaze, but he saw that she was breathing a little harder. Evidently the good-looking Tommy boy hadn't been exactly a stranger.

“I don't know what you mean—”

McClain's smile faded.

“Look, sister. Don't put on the brakes— yet. Unless you want me to Camba you down to Headquarters for a workout.” He flashed his badge. “Simply answer a few questions— simply. Then you'll keep your pretty pan out of the tabloids.”

That brought information.

FRANZ, and wife, had an apartment on the sixth floor. They had been occupants of the building for three months. Lately, Franz had been getting a lot of telephone calls from a man named Dockery. The telephone operator remembered the name because he always asked whether or not Mrs. Franz was home before being connected.

She added a few more particulars. They didn't seem important. McClain unwound himself from the board and straightened.

“Mrs. Franz upstairs now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don't bother to announce me. What's the apartment number or letter? I'll go right up.”

He pressed a bell on the sixth floor. From the looks of the layout he expected at least a butler to answer his summons. Instead, he heard the sloppy slap-slap of heelless slippers on the other side of the door and then an unfriendly feminine voice.

“Who is it?” it asked.

“Police business. Open up.” Mac made it sound professionally concise.

The one inside hesitated, as if thinking it over. Finally a latch clicked and the door opened on a burglar chain. One large brown eye peered out at him.

Mac held up his badge. He dusted some cigar ashes from his lapel and took off his hat when, with obvious reluctance, the girl slid the chain and opened the door for him to enter.

“You're Mrs. Franz?”

“Yes.”

“I'll talk to you in the living room. Or the parlor. Or whatever you call it in this neighborhood.”

She said nothing, pushing back a length of drapery and letting him go into a large, attractively appointed room whose awninged windows were open to the street. All the furniture had crisp slipcovers, the rugs had been sent to the cleaners and the waxed floors were like mirrors underfoot.

Mac sat down on a deep divan and looked at Mrs. Franz. She had a figure like a Power's model. The brown eyes were wide-set with plenty of thinking room between them. Hair the same color swept her shoulders like an autumn blaze, highlighted and russet-tinted. She was too tall to be cute, but vastly attractive in a filmy housecoat sashed in at the waist.

Her legs were slender and stockingless, shapely and made to order for the high-arched feet in the expensive slippers she wore.

McClain looked her over with a connoisseur's approval. Smooth-looking doll. But definitely not upper class. There was a hardness to her curved mouth, a wisdom to her glance and a certain sophistication that seemed to tell him she knew all the answers, or most of them. He hadn't ever seen her before to the best of his knowledge and belief.

“It's— about Tommy?”

She asked the question quietly, almost positively. Mac frowned. He didn't like breaking news of the kind he had to deliver. Yet, somehow, he had the feeling Mrs. Franz was going to take it without tears or hysterics.

“He's dead. He was found this morning in a freezer room at the Metropolitan Ice Cream Company's plant on East Twenty-Fourth Street. Maybe you can give me some help so I can run down the ones responsible for his demise.”

She took it as he had suspected she would. Straight up and with hardly a change of expression. The brown eyes narrowed slightly, but only slightly, and she did draw in a quick breath, but otherwise you could have been talking about the weather.

“So he's dead.” There was a hushed note of finality in her tone. To McClain it sounded almost like, “Oh, well, one of those things.”

He gave her a sharp look. Her gaze was across the room, away from him, but he had a pretty good idea that between the widely spaced brown eyes the motor of her mind was running top speed.

“Any notions?”

She shook her head.

“No,” she answered.

“Tell me about him— and you.”

The big dick settled further back on the divan. What she told him wasn't too enlightening. She had married Tommy Franz four months before, in Chicago. Her name had been June Wrexler. For a time she had worked with Benny Grosso's Amphitheatre in the Windy Town. She had helped to stage, and had taken part in, the elaborate floor shows that made Grosso's night resort known from coast-to-coast.

“You knew Tommy was an ex-con?”

Mac asked it casually. She shook her head, but he felt she was lying.

“I— I didn't know much about him, I've never known much about him,” she said, her voice quickening.

Mac waved a careless hand at the room's swank appointments.

“A hayloft like this costs dough. Tommy never did an honest day's work in his life. Where—”

“It's my money,” she interrupted, abruptly and almost belligerently. “My uncle was Steve Kelly, the Oregon lumber man. He kicked off a year ago. I got two hundred and fifty G's as my share of his two million dollar estate.”

Mac's brows went up. “When did you sail into all that sugar? I mean, you've had the dough for a year?”

“No, only since February.”

McClain looked at his watch. Time was slipping by and he wasn't getting anywhere. He asked more questions, about Tommy Franz, but there was no score. She wasn't evasive, she sounded frank enough, but she had a way of ducking issues that left the department's champ cigar-champer hanging in midair.

“Okay. Thanks.” Mac got up. “We'll need you again. You'll be around?”

“I understand you can't even rent a hotel room.” She smiled faintly.

“By the way,” Mac said, as she followed him out to the foyer. “Any idea where I can find a guy called Dockery?”

She shook her head.

“Never heard of him. Who is he?”

“That,” Mac answered, “is the tin auto in the crackerjack. That's what I've got to find out.”

HE TOOK the elevator downstairs and gumheeled around to the switchboard again. This time the queen of the corded plugs didn't look quite so suspicious.

“Forget something?”

“This party you called Dockery. Did he ever leave a phone number? Did he ever stop here? Did you ever get a look at him?”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “He never came in, but he did leave a number. Why?”

“I want that number,” Mac told her. “Get it.”

“Hey, wait a minute.” She looked startled. “I'll have to go back through my call book for the last three weeks. Then I'm not sure—”

“Find that number. When you've got it, call Headquarters and ask for me. Don't flop on this one, sister. It's a matter of life— and death!”

Back at the Metropolitan Ice Cream Company, McClain found Ettinger in a state.

“This is terrible!” The neat little office manager looked very upset. “All that publicity in the paper! Our dealers are calling up— wanting to cancel their orders. Who wants to eat ice cream that's been in a room with a dead man? It— it's perfectly gruesome!”

“I don't see why— he didn't eat any. Look. How about that night watchman? Did you get him for me?” Mac asked.

Ettinger shook his head.

“No, and it's most unusual. Mike wasn't in his room. I sent the messenger over to bring him back. His landlady said he hadn't returned this morning. The first time in nearly seven years. I don't know what to make of it.”

“You'll hear from me again,” McClain said, and went on downtown.

Toward five o'clock he had a complete report on the former June Wrexler. The Chicago police had had a talk with Benny Grosso and other of the girl's acquaintances. Mac found that what she had told him that morning was, in the main, true. She had inherited two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the estate of the late Steve Kelly after he had shouted his last “Timber!” She had married Tommy the Tapper a short time after she had cached the legacy.

And she had worked for Grosso, diligently and constructively.

McClain pushed the report aside and rested his number twelves on the desktop. He yawned and shook his head, feeling in his vest pocket for a stogie.

A heck of a tough case. A guy shoved in a freezer and turned into an icicle. No clues. Nothing to work on. A good-looking girl for a wife, with two hundred and fifty grand in her kit and not much remorse in her heart. No angles to hang a pail on. Nobody to bring in and grill.

“Telephone for you, bloodhound,” a cop called into the squad room, pointing McClain out.

The big dick's languor vanished at the sound of the voice that came over the wire.

“Is this the gentleman who was up at the apartment this morning? Well, I found the number you wanted. Believe me, I'm going to bill the city for overtime. I had to go back and look through all the books and—”

“Yeah, I know, sister. You wore your pretty head to the bone. Let's have the number.”

He jotted it down, repeated it to make sure and tucked the pencil away.

“I owe you a mink coat. Call me up the first snowy day and remind me. Thanks, sister.”

The number was in the Bryant exchange. McLain checked on it. It came up as the private wire belonging to someone telephone-booked as Myron Kinsey with an address on West Forty- Ninth Street.

Mac was reaching for his hat when Captain Mullin looked in and gave him a nod.

“The watchman up at the ice cream plant's missing,” Mullin said, when they were out in the corridor. Mac told him he knew all about it and the captain's cold, pale eyes narrowed. “What have you got? What was the motive? You chalked it as a gang rub. Who have you got on the hook?”

“I'll let you know presently,” McClain said, dropping the stub of his cold cigar and buttoning his coat. “Right now I'm as hot as a lunchroom griddle. There's a crack in the clouds and I'm crawling through it. See you later. Stay on your toes and you won't run down at the heels!”

THE Times Square area, when he subwayed north, was beginning to put on its incandescent jewelry. The daylong humidity still lingered. But not enough to dampen the spirits of the merrymakers bound for the plush-lined eating places and the temples of drama and melody.

Mac shuffled along with the crowd from Forty- second to Forty-ninth. He might have drawn a blank on the telephone number “Dockery” had left with the switchboard operator for Tommy Franz to call. A mighty slim lead, McClain knew.

Still, in his years at Homicide, he had cracked cases equally as tough with openers equally as weak. Sometimes, the frailest of straws turned out to be steel girders in the structure of crime and violence.

The address of the telephone subscriber listed as “Myron Kinsey” was that of a ten-story, narrow brick edifice called the Sunderland Annex. Mac couldn't see what the building annexed. On either side of it were two down-at-heels rooming houses. He went in and found it was one of those self- service layouts.

Unlike June Franz's apartment house, no liveried hirelings lined up to make an avenue of palms for the caller to walk down.

A tenants' list wired to the elevator grille put Mac in the know. There was a Kinsey on the third étage. He punched a button in the elevator and got out at floor three. But the bell he rang, at the right door, didn't bring anybody to answer it. Mac put an ear against the door. The silence inside was uproarious.

Mullin was strict in his orders about breaking and entering without a search warrant. McClain shrugged. He usually stayed with the department's rules and regulations, but sometimes there were exceptions. This was one of them.

Making sure he wasn't observed, he fished out a series of three skeleton keys and went to work on the lock. It took him ten minutes before he was able to get the latch half sprung. Then he had to use the big blade on his horn-handled penknife to complete the job. McClain pushed the door open and stepped into feathery gloom.

He listened again, straining his oversized ears. Reassured, he quietly pulled up the shades, turning on plenty of moonlight and giving him a chance to see what kind of a place he was in.

Two rooms and bath. No kitchenette. The bedroom was off the living room into which he had stepped directly. Typical furnished apartment stuff. Neither good nor bad, just adequate and average. The bedroom drew him like a homing pigeon to its nest. He closed that door, saw the shades were drawn and the windows shut, despite the outside warmth, and risked a light. He turned on a small bureau lamp and for a minute or two appraised the room thoughtfully.

A closet caught his attention. Mac slouched over to it and rifled through the suits hanging on wooden hangers from a center bar. Then he squatted and looked over the shoes that were on a tilted shelf a few inches above the floor. He examined those with all the care of a Massachusetts bootmaker, hauling one pair out and running the point of his penknife around the extension soles. He was looking for sawdust— but found nothing except sticky globules of shoe wax-paste.

He put the shoes back.

The next instant his shoulders stiffened. For a big man Mac moved with all the rapid grace of a ballet dancer. He clicked off the bureau light and inched the bedroom door open, as from the other room he heard the jingle of keys, the scrape of metal in the lock and then the creak of the hall door opening.

“Wait'll I make a light,” a heavy voice said. “That maid's been in again and left the shades up. There!”

Yellow illumination filled the living room. Through the crack in the door Mac saw three men. They were all of a type, dressed in what he called “boardwalk” clothes. Lightweight sports jackets and contrasting pastel trousers. Brown and white buck shoes. Shirts open at the throat, and scarves in lieu of ties. Two wore Panamas, the third was hatless.

McClain was interested. He recognized two of the trio. One, a slender chap with a pointed chin, an oddly white nose and a weary expression, was “Plush” Parson, alias Sidney Green, a con with a couple of turns to his credit. He sucked on a brown paper cigarette, dropping down on a sofa with a tired sigh.

The second man Mac placed as Ned Wilson, a chiseler who had once specialized in passing phony checks and lifting luggage from hotel baggage rooms. Wilson's eyes, bright and shallow, were like a lizard's. He was the one without a hat. His hair, thick and wavy, grew back in a wedge-shaped peak from a very narrow forehead.

The third man, the one McClain didn't know, was big and blond, with a pleasant pink complexion and chilling blue eyes. His smooth, hairless cheeks looked like polished apples. There was a dimple at the left corner of his mouth; as if someone had stuck a finger into his face and made the impression.

“Well, here we are,” Wilson said. “Right behind the ball numbered eight— where we were at this time last night. You and your gilt- edged schemes that cook for months and pay off in a burned pot!”

His tone was full of harsh contempt. The big blond man smiled unpleasantly.

“Yeah? How did I know Tommy was going to yellow on us? You heard what he said, you know what he promised.”

“Sure, sure.” Farson yawned. “That's water down the sink now. Speaking of water how about something wet, Sam?”

The big blond man nodded. “In a minute.” He looked at Wilson. “Get rid of your gripe, Ned. Because we're splitting tonight and I don't want you throwing out your private bellyache. We've all got a pair of kills on the record, so shut up and try and forget the whole thing.”

“That Wrexler dame!” Plush Parson said under his breath. “She's the one who ought to be cut down! If she'd done her share I'd be at Suffolk Downs now— on the airy front porch of one of the summer hotels!”

Wilson slapped back with a few sarcastic comments while McClain's mouth tightened. He had the motive Mullin had asked about. He had that cold. Tommy the Tapper had crossed the three up. But why? What was the angle?

His mind ticked with thoughts and ideas. Suddenly he believed he had the answer. It came like a flash of inspirational light, born from something Parson had dropped. Mac, listening intently, nodded to himself. That must be it. That was it!

They had bribed the night watchman at the ice cream works to open up when they drove the good- looking Franz down the ramp the trucks used. Then they had silenced the watchman, taken him away in the same car and disposed of him somewhere. Now they were talking about a split-up, an exit.

As quietly as possible Mac opened one of the bedroom windows. Their arguing voices covered what slight sounds he made. He got the window wide and reached for a chair. Mac eased that out and let it go.

Quickly, in order, he tossed out what glassware was on the bureau, a couple of other items and, wheeling, snapped back to the inched-wide door.

He yanked out his gun at the same time he crossed the threshold, barging in on the three like a bulldozer with the throttle fully open.

“Hoist!” McClain's throaty tone was vibrant with menace. “This is a pinch, boys! Don't do anything I wouldn't like because this cannon goes off easy!”

The crash of the furniture and the glassware breaking on the sidewalk below had taken the three halfway across the room towards the windows. They stopped en route, piling up on each other and turning with surprising speed. Mac fired one shot into the ceiling for effect and headed toward them.

For a split-second he thought he was in. He had an idea the lifted hands meant a fast surrender. Afterwards he told himself he should have known better. The lizard-eyed Wilson, stepping swiftly around Plush Parson pushed the weary young man in Mac's direction and reached for his own rod.

McClain squeezed the trigger again. But he was off-balance and missed. The big blond man had his gun out in a flash and was using it. In a crossfire of lead, Mac dove for the protection of the sofa. How he reached it without being punctured was one of the major miracles of the times.

He got behind it as the wall above him spurted plaster in all directions. He banged away from that ambuscade, getting in a couple of lucky shots. One must have hit the big blond man because he yelped with pain. Another got Parson who fell heavily. But Number Three, in a manner reminiscent of a football fullback hurdling the line from the one-yard stripe for a touchdown, came over the top of the sofa and landed on him like a falling roof.

McClain tried his own face on the parquet floor for fit. The gun bounced out of his hand. Wilson, on his back, began to pound away at Mac's head with a heavy brass candlestick he had caught up before he made his couch-clearing lunge.

The big dick was no novice at tight corner brawling. The first thump of the candlestick, missing his noggin but registering on one shoulder, sent a stab of paralyzing pain through him. By sheer strength, he got his face off the floor and twisted around. Wilson's head was close to his. The man was hissing curses in a desperately timed frenzy of attack.

Mac saw his target and jabbed a finger in Wilson's eye.

He knew the effect and acted accordingly. Wilson screamed and stopped hammering with the candlestick. McClain had him by the throat in the next breath. He heaved the couch aside with the thrust of a leg and staggered to his feet, dragging Wilson to his knees.

The pockmarked wall steadied him. Mac put his back to it and forced more pressure into his ham- like hands. Wilson began to gurgle and then stopped. Mac, seeing signs of further activity on the part of the big blond man, tossed Wilson out of his way and made for the apple-cheeked assassin.

HE WAS systematically bruising the smooth pink cheeks when the hall door thudded open after a turn of the superintendent's passkey. A mob of curious tenants, people drawn from the street and an authoritative young patrolman spilled into the battleground.

Mac let the blondie sag to the carpet and caressed his knuckles. He tried a grin and found his voice with an effort. The pain in his shoulder had turned to a numb ache, but that was all right. A hundred percent better than a split skull.

“Headquarters, friends!” He hauled his badge out before the patrolman could go to work on him with a nightstick. “These three scalpers are wanted for murder! Help me pick up their toys and someone call Centre Street!”

Everything was in order when Captain Mullin arrived with a flock of plainclothesmen.

“The big lad is Sam Dockery, also tagged Myron Kinsey, formerly of Chicago,” McClain explained. “He's the top guy of the outfit— the one who figured he'd give murder a new twist when he found the ice cream company's night watchman was an old pal cooling off there after a hot career. The watchman's body is in some vacant lot. The other two pushed Tommy Franz into the freezer last night.”

“Why?” Mullin asked. “What was the motive?”

Mac rubbed his shoulder gingerly. He'd have to eat with one hand for a long time to come.

“Dough, naturally. The dame's coin. It hit me all at once— like the furniture I tossed out the window to attract attention. The Tapper, when Dockery learned about June Wrexler's legacy and sent Franz after her, had his instructions. One, to make matrimony. Two, to help himself to a slice of the lettuce and divvy with the boys. Easy as that!”

“I don't get it,” Mullin said.

“Neither did they!” McClain chuckled. “That was what hoisted Tommy's number. The dame had the dough sewed up in a trust fund before the altar walk was finished and Tommy couldn't get a dime of it. There was nothing to divvy. But these three didn't believe it. They had the idea he was crossing them and had walked out on his promise.”

“And so,” Captain Fred Mullin added, light beginning to dawn, “they thought he'd ratted, and they decided to even up.”

Dave McClain nodded.

________________

A Johnny Castle novelette

7: Wings For An Angel

C. S. Montanye

Thrilling Detective, February, 1948

1: Like a Snake Bite

I DOZED next to Libby Hart in one of the upholstered stage boxes. Lib was at her polished best, sleek as a yard of silk, gorgeous as the dames you meet in dreams. I decided I wouldn’t trade her for any of the starry-eyed babes romping around the stage of the St. Regis Theater, even with the glamorous Swan Millard thrown in. It was a full dress rehearsal of a limb-and-look opera tagged, “Let’s Have Music!” which was to open that night. Libby had had a fling at designing the costumes.

Mrs. Hart’s favorite daughter had more jobs than an employment agency. Every time I looked around she was doing something else to pay her room rent. This latest grind was right up her side street. I had only to glance in Lib’s direction to see the shine in her dark eyes and the excitement that parted curved lips roses could have learned something from. She was loving every minute of it!

The opus was being produced by a party entitled Lee Brand. With my inside connections, I knew that Brand didn’t have a hot dime of his own on the line. The entire production had been bankrolled by no less than Augustus Gusman, a little guy with a pointed head who, among other things, was a member of the bar, with a law office on lower Broadway.

GUS had a reputation that needed fumigation. His law practise made shysters look like reputable citizens. Gusman specialized in second-story-down clients— those a floor lower than the underworld. Crooks, bigamists, murderers, extortionists and others of the same mixed breed, paid through the nasal appendage for an Augustus Gusman defense. But he didn’t always win. Now and then he found a jury waterproofed to his tears. Several of Gus’s most important customers had been ticketed for the death house up the shining Hudson.

Now, Libby had informed me, Gusman’s principal interest, outside of that which the bank wrote in his book, was Swan Millard. Because of a combustible admiration for the honey-haired Miss Millard, Gusman, according to my heartbeat, had upped an even hundred grand to present Swan to the public in a swoon of elegant costumes, scenery and melody.

The thought was running through my head when the Millard chick, wrapped in an ermine bathrobe, seated herself on a platinum-plated chaise to tonsil something about those early Monday a morning blues. A whistle shrilled and the director stopped the proceedings.

“Just a minute. You’ll have to move that settee down stage. The lighting’s wrong. Cut that purple spot and give us a clear amber. The folks who pay six-sixty want to see what the star looks like. Let’s try it again.”

I looked at Libby. She looked at me.

“Isn’t she lovely, Johnny?”

“So is a beef stew. I missed lunch. How about tearing across the thoroughfare and dipping into a trough?”

“Food?” Libby wrinkled her nose. “How can you be so unaesthetic? Your mind should be full of beauty at a time like this.”

“It isn’t my mind,” I told her. “It’s my stomach.”

I could have added that spending a sunny afternoon in a Broadway playhouse wasn’t part of my contract with the Orbit. That sheet paid the general overhead for sports reporting. Instead of the St. Regis, I should have been over at Pompton Lakes watching “Silent Sammy” Smith get ready for his slam festival at Madison Square the following Friday eve. The quiet socker was in the feature event there, a so far three-to-five favorite over his opponent.

But Libby had cooed in my good ear. She had said something about wanting me to see what clever costumes she had dreamed up. Accordingly, instead of Sammy’s training camp, I was staked out at the music temple, having passed up the noon hour feed bag to be on hand for the rehearsal.

“It will be a hit, won’t it, Johnny?” Libby whispered, while Swan reached high for a cadenza.

“I wouldn’t bet any of my dough,” I told her. “Ask Louie Springer.”

“Who’s he?”

“The paper’s first string dramatic critic. Louie,” I explained, “bats a thousand in the theater league. He can pick ‘em out of a hat— yours or mine.”

“It’s got to click,” Libby breathed. “With all of Mr. Gusman’s money at stake—”

“Let’s order one, with mushrooms!” I began to drool. “Look honey. I’ve seen an act and a half, and it’s strictly high class. But after all an appetite’s an appetite and—”

The lights went on and I broke off. The whistle shrilled again. This time the director didn’t like the way the orchestra handled the reprise on Swan’s melancholia set to music. He gave the company a ten-minute breather and went into a huddle with the band leader. I had just about talked Libby into a quick pastrami when I got a flash of a little chorine breaking out of the ranks and bobbing and weaving in the direction of our box.

Her name was Bunny Dunlap. Before she had gone in for uplifting the American stage, Bunny, oddly enough, had manipulated plugs in one of the Orbit’s switchboards. Louie Springer had noticed her one day dealing out wrong numbers and decided she should have another line. So here she was in the new musical and steering straight for me.

“Mr. Castle! I thought it was you from the time I first saw you!” Bunny dropped anchor. I could feel Libby stiffen, but I didn’t pay much attention. Bunny had a letter in her hand and the kid seemed as nervous and excited as a two-dollar race track bettor with a ticket on a hundred-to-one shot.

Bunny’s lips twitched, her blue eyes had a funny, strained look in them and she seemed to be making an effort to keep from shaking off the half-yard of tulle she wore. I noticed she looked back over her shoulder before she leaned confidentially over the plush edge of the box.

“Mr. Castle! Would you do me a big favor— for old time’s sake? Would you keep this letter for me, until later on?”

Before I could say yes or say no she had shoved the envelope she carried into my hand and was sliding apprehensively away.

“Well,” I heard Libby exclaim, “I like that! ‘For old time’s sake.’ How old, and what kind of time?”

The envelope was blank. It had been recently sealed. There was still some moisture on the edge of the gummed flap. I put it in my side pocket, wondering what it was all about.

“Johnny!” Libby opened up again. “You’re not listening. You said something about a sandwich.”

“Come on.”

I STARTED to get up, but sat down suddenly as the lobby doors in the back of the playhouse burst open and in walked the local police force. At least, from the box, it looked like the entire Department. As a matter of fact it was mostly Captain Fred Mullin of Homicide, flanked on one side by Detective Larry Hartley and on the other by Ed Wheeler, who recently had been made a lieutenant!

I stared, for I had not realized that Mullin and his pals were patrons of the arts. The way they busted in and the march down to the footlights, however, had a strange but familiar significance.

More than once in the past I had come to grips with Captain Mullin. Mostly in matters of murder. The head of Homicide’s opinion of me wouldn’t have made family reading. My opinion of him couldn’t have been broadcast, either. In fact it had always been a case of hate at first glimpse. For both of us.

I gripped the edge of the box, looking and listening. I heard Libby Hart’s sigh. I knew what was going through her mind. She was saying to herself, “Here it is again!”

Mullin stopped at the orchestra pit and lifted a hand that looked like a boiled ham.

“Who’s the head man around here?” he bellowed, in a voice any actor would have envied. Before he was answered, he continued, “Nobody leaves this here theayter! I’ve got men at all the exits! Nobody moves until I say so— understand?”

In the silence that followed you could have heard a penny drop from a Scotchman’s pocket.

Swan Millard broke the quiet. The honey-locked soprano walked down to the footlights, shaded her eyes with a graceful hand and made Mullin the target for her look.

“What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded.

Mullin’s jaws sagged. Evidently the full majesty of his position hadn’t registered with the charm number peering at him. He glanced at Hartley. He glanced at Lieutenant Wheeler. Then he began to bristle.

“What’s the meaning of it, she says?” he roared. “Murder in one of the dressing rooms and she asks questions!”

I bobbed up like a cork. Libby made a grab to hold me. I slipped past her Fatal Apple nail polish and slid out of the box like a quarter horse leaving the stall gate.

“Johnny!” Libby demanded. “Come back!” But it was an unfulfilled request, one of the few she ever made, too. The word “murder” always had a curious effect on me. Something like being bitten by a snake!

2: Empty Pocket

CAPTAIN MULLIN might have had the exits at the St. Regis blocked. But there wasn’t a cop at the baize door that led from the dark aisle outside the box directly to the stage. That door swung shut behind me. I almost collided with a stack of scenery piled twenty feet high. I went around the painted canvas, reaching the backdrop without interference.

The entire company of “Let’s Have Music!” had congregated downstage. Even the scene shifters were listening to what Mullin was dealing out. Which left the way clear for me to go up the fireproof stairs leading to the tiers of dressing rooms. But if there were no members of the law to check me on stage, there were plenty at the first landing.

Harrigan, six feet of authority with a badge to back it up, met me at the top of the stairs.

“Just a minute, sonny. Where do you think you’re going?”

I knew Harrigan, not well, but too well. A former member of the Riot Squad, he had gone from there to the Bomb Detail and finally into the sheltering arms of Homicide. A couple of times I had steered him on the proper way to lay bets on ice hockey tournaments. So that he could collect.

Harrigan recognized me the next minute. Some of his scorch fizzed out. The big mitt he was about to shove in my face dropped to waist level.

“Hello, Johnny,” he grunted.

“One side, pal. Where’s the corpse?”

I tried to make it sound light and entertaining. Harrigan looked doubtful. Then he must have remembered the sticks and blades would soon be back at the Garden. He nodded surreptitiously at a dressing room a little way down the tier.

It had a gold star on the door. That meant it was Swan Millard’s dugout.

“In there. Make it fast. Mullin’ll be around here any minute.”

I didn’t need a second invitation. Two other plainclothes men gave me dubious glances, but didn’t throw in a stop.

I opened the door of the dressing room and walked in on— death!

The victim lay up against the north wall of the room. He was draped out along the surbase. He still wore his hat and a pained expression.

There might have been a reason for that. A large circle of gore had welled out on the canary yellow of the room’s rug, dyeing it a deep and sullen red.

For a minute the hat kept me from getting a good look. I moved in closer, not touching anything but letting the lights around the triple mirrors of a make-up table supply an unobstructed view.

My second glance brought identification. It hit me all at once, fast and hard. I knew the party pushed up against the wall. So did a lot of other people— characters like Nick Rowen, “Sandy,” The Finger, Clifford, Harry Clark Shaffer, bad men Gus Gusman had wept for in the past.

But Gusman was a dead fox now!

I stared briefly at his thin, pinched, sallow face. It was clay gray. I looked at his prominent Adam’s apple, jutting out from his pipestem neck like a hot leather in a pickpocket’s coat. I let my eyes roam down over his slight, narrow figure and end up at his forty dollar English brogues. They must have been size 5A and were shined up like a drunk’s nose.

I took it all in, Harrigan a foot behind me, breathing through his mouth. “You know this gent, Johnny?”

“Don’t you?” Harrigan scratched his head. “He looks kind of familiar. But the skimmer throws me. I dasn’t touch until Doc Brunner steps in. But the expression on your pan says something.”

“I’ll swap you.” I turned around. “Tell me what you know and I’ll furnish the identification.”

Harrigan nodded.

He said that about forty minutes before some anonymous somebody had telephoned Headquarters with the tip-off. It sounded authentic, and the main building had radioed one of the district’s prowl cars. They took a look and then Mullin summoned his flock and trekked north. All that while I had dozed beside the luscious Libby, listening to music and the rumble of my unfed stomach!

“He used to be Augustus Gusman,” I told Harrigan, and the other’s ears bent in my direction. “Fond memories of jumped bail bonds, damp handkerchiefs, loopholes and phony alibis.”

Harrigan’s mouth opened. “Yeah? I knew I’d seen him somewhere! Well, I’ll be—”

He didn’t finish.

Out on the tier I heard Mullin coming along, flat feet and voice. He bustled in, squinted at me and went as red as a Times Square traffic light.

“Who let you in?” Mullin barked. “It’s okay, Captain,” Harrigan hastened to interpose. “We just got an identification from him.”

Mullin glared. His cold, granite-gray eyes, full of dislike and venom, stabbed me like a couple of stilettos. He stuck out his hand-hewn jaw, trying to think up something nasty enough to say. Then what Harrigan had mentioned began to penetrate.

“Who is he?” The Captain asked it grudgingly.

When I tossed off the name and business, Mullin narrowed his eyes and screwed his mouth into a twisted leer.

“Gus Gusman, eh? I never saw him with his hat on before. And without teardrops on that thing he called a face. What did you kill him for, Castle?”

“Strictly for laughs.” I wanted to make it sound humorous. “You know me—a murder a day. Anything for a gag.”

“Yeah?” Mullin uncorked the bottle. “I’m sick and tired of finding you every time somebody gets dumped! You know something. Being a comic won’t help you any. I’ve a good mind to take you downtown and lay a hunk of hose on you!”

“Unfortunately,” I told him, “I’ve got an atomic alibi. I came here with a lady and I’ve been sitting in full view of a hundred people since I arrived, in a stage box out front. Put your hose away, Captain. Remember, I represent the power of the press. I might add that I’m here in my official reportorial capacity.”

That should have stopped him, but didn’t.

“Yeah?” Mullin encored. “Since when does murder come under the heading of athletic amusements?”

I didn’t have to answer that one. The next minute Brunner, bag in hand, blew in and went to work.

I retired to the tier outside for a cigarette and the medical examiner’s findings. It wasn’t hard to hear the conversation in the dressing room from where I stood.

“Dead about an hour,” Doc Brunner announced, after awhile. “Probably a thirty-eight. Through the jugular. Death was instantaneous. Or should have been. The lead’s still in there. I’ll have to go fishing later.”

He added something about sending the basket up and left.

I still stuck around. Gusman was good for a front page spread. But before I tuned in on the office, and Bill Jamison who took care of the Violence Department for the Orbit, I was anxious to pick up some side lights that might help Bill.

Not much developed, however. What I did learn was that Mitzi, Swan Millard’s maid, opening the dressing room door had stumbled in on Gusman and promptly fainted. A scene shifter had seen her and was administering first aid when the two cops in the prowl car had barged in. But, according to my information, neither the scene shifter nor anyone else at the St. Regis had supplied the tip-off to Headquarters!

I brooded over that.

Maybe the murderer? Possibly the killer, after leaving the playhouse? Some gun with a warped sense of sardonic humor, handing the cops the place?

Captain Mullin went into his act. It was all routine. The patter never changed. A quiz program that consumed valuable time and usually turned up little or nothing of any importance. But that was the way he operated and nobody could alter his stereotyped methods. Yet, oddly enough, Mullin usually bulled his way through to a successful case break. It took time, a lot of ponderous thought and a maximum of luck, but I had to give him his due. In his old-fashioned club-swinging, beat-’em down, bludgeoning manner Mullin crashed through eventually.

His Department had a pretty fair average of solutions to its credit. Though how they were arrived at, the fishy-eyed head man couldn’t have told you himself.

Years were still hanging out when the Captain happened to catch a glimpse of me. He broke off his interview to come out on the tier.

“You still around, Castle?”

He pulled out a watch some brass works had spent days putting together. He held it up and pointed a stubby finger at it.

“You’ve got three minutes to get the heck outta here— unless you want to be taken in for obstructing justice. What’ll it be?”

“Watch your blood pressure, Captain,” I murmured, and headed for the stairs.

Down on the stage I remembered Libby. I went through the baize door, but the box we’d sat in was empty. Mullin’s men had herded the principals and chorus of “Let’s Have Music!” over to one side of the theater, where they could be taken up and interviewed in turn.

I looked over there for a sign of Lib, didn’t get one, and steered for the lobby doors.

Five minutes later I was in a corner drug store’s telephone booth with Jamison on the other end of the line. Then I started for the office, walking slowly and thoughtfully.

Who had exterminated Gus Gusman? Maybe the Millard rib? She had had plenty of chance, in between costume changes. Undoubtedly she had plenty of reasons, too, even though the shyster had played angel and thousand-granded the show for her. If the glamorous Swan was innocent, then who had done it?

Something hit me like a safe dropped out of a top floor window. I’d completely forgotten the cute little Bunny Dunlap, her shakes, and the letter she had given me to keep for her. All of a sudden I came out of a coma.

Bunny’s agitation, the way she had looked back over her shoulder, the speed with which she had eased the envelope to me. From where I stood it began to smell like the little Dunlap babe had been meddling with murder— Gusman’s order for a pair of feathery wings!

Quickly I slid a hand down toward my side coat pocket where I had stuck the chorine’s envelope for safe-keeping. My cigarettes were there, so were my keys. And three books of matches.

But no envelope. That was gone— definitely and completely— like Gusman’s last breath!

Yes, the envelope was gone, but— where?

It wasn’t likely it had fallen out of my pocket. Had one of the cops lifted it in the dressing room of death? That wasn’t much good, either. But if it hadn’t dropped out, and if the law hadn’t helped themselves to it, how had it gone?

It came like a zigzag of lightning. I remembered my dream girl stiffening beside me when Bunny had approached the box. I recalled the way Libby had fastened her inquisitive, dark eyes on the envelope. I remembered how she had watched me pocket it, in the right side pocket, the one next to her chair.

Libby! That, I told myself, must be it. She had done the light-finger work!

At the Orbit, I found Jamison had already left for the St. Regis. There was a lot of stuff on my desk marked “urgent.”

I swept it into a top drawer I and did some hard, fast thinking. That envelope, with whatever it contained, was important. Perhaps Miss Hart didn’t realize how much so. Perhaps Libby, in a touch of jealousy, had torn it up and thrown it to the winds. The thought was horrible.

I reached for the desk telephone. That brought the dulcet tones of Beth Wheaton, the Sarah Bernhardt of the Bell System, gurgling in my ear.

“Yes?”

“Beth, do you remember Bunny Dunlap? The gal who used to sit out there beside you, making the same kind of mistakes you do?”

“Wolf!” Beth said.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where she lives?”

“Wolf!” she repeated.

“Because,” I went on, “Miss Dunlap’s in a jam, or the reasonable facsimile of one. I’ve got to see her— and soon— or maybe the police will arrive first.”

“Oh, it’s that way.” There was a minute’s delay. “Why don’t you try Personnel. They’ll have her address on file.

“This is lame brain day.” I said. “Thanks for the cue.”

3: Callers

UPON the third floor, I got what I wanted. That came out as “Bonita Dunlap, Telephone Operator,” with an address in the West Seventies. I took a copy of it, tried Libby at her boarding house, found she wasn’t there, and decided to make a personal call on the Dunlap chick, after a fast sandwich.

The address tallied with the number on the double glass front doors of a narrow, mediocre apartment house not too far from Central Park. I supposed that Bunny lived there with her parents, probably supporting them in a style to which they had become accustomed. And there wasn’t much chance that she had moved since she had exchanged telephone numbers for song numbers. In rural Manhattan people didn’t move, because there was no place to move to.

I found her name easily enough and rode a self-service elevator to the sixth floor. I rang the bell of Apartment 6F.

I got immediate service. The door was opened— not by Bunny’s wrinkled mother. Nor by a snowy-haired father. Instead, I looked into a pair of long-lashed, violet eyes. They belonged to a cute little trick with corn-yellow hair, a streamlined figure and a pair of stems made to order for climbing bus steps.

“Miss Dunlap home yet?”

The violet eyes gave me quite a play. A lipsticked mouth went into a turned-up-at-the corners smile.

“No, she isn’t. Friend of hers?”

“For years. She used to work on the same paper with me.”

“Oh, the Orbit.” The cute trick registered interest. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. If you’ll let me come in and wait for Bunny, I’ll give you a copy of my autobiography.”

“Sure.” She held the door wide. “Any friend of Bunny’s is a friend of mine. We share this rathole together. My name’s Della Roberts.”

I followed her into a cheaply furnished living room that looked as if it I hadn’t been dusted since the Great Flood. Articles of intimate apparel were strewn carelessly about. A pair of nylons were drying, pinned to the lower slat of a Venetian blind. Della Roberts pushed some lingerie aside and made room for me on a sofa that sagged in the middle.

“I don’t know what time Bunny’ll be in,”  she said. “She’s rehearsing with the new show at the St. Regis.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Sometimes she meets her boy friend when she gets through. You know, Joey Andra. He dances at the Silver Drum. Personally, I can’t figure what Bunny sees in him. I know when he was running around with me—”

She went on, and on. About Joey Andra. About the uneven course of true love. About the two-timing proclivities of the Broadway male. I listened, thinking. I had more than a deep-seated hunch that Bunny Dunlap knew something about Gus Gusman’s murder. And I had a feeling that the letter she had so hastily asked me to safeguard for her had something to do with the shyster’s pass-out.

What? The more I thought of it, the more confused and complex it became. But one thing was sure. I had to see Bunny and before too long. Della suddenly remembered her manners and went to open a couple of cans of beer. She found an old box of pretzels somewhere, blew the dust off and got real chummy. We were toasting each other in foam when the doorbell hummed. The yellow-top pursed her red lipsticked mouth.

“That isn’t Bunny— unless she’s lost her key. Wait’ll I go see.” Her heels clicked on the hall floor boards. The lock snapped back and from where I sat on the disconsolate couch I had a triangular view of two callers at the door. Both men.

“No, she hasn’t got in yet,” Della Roberts was saying. “You friends of hers?”

“Known her for years,” one of the pair said. “Mind if we come in and take a look around?”

He followed that up with a push past Della. I set my tankard down as they drifted in. They didn’t look good, either of them. The one who had spoken was a lanky, red-haired man. He puffed on a pipe, curved like a bathing beauty. He had a blank, composed face, deep-set eyes without warmth or light and a creased, protruding chin.

He wore a pale tan gabardine suit that fit without a wrinkle. He looked at me and at about that time I began to register. I’d seen him somewhere before. I had a feeling that he was familiar. I couldn’t rest a finger on it, but intuition told me he was somebody who had been in the public eye at a time not too far distant.

His companion was slim and dark, a young man slight as a girl. I noticed his small, delicate hands, velvety eyes and hard little mouth. His black hair was brushed up in a series of tight waves and he smelled of lilac. He was in blue, a red carnation in his lapel. He looked unhealthy, stealthy and sinister despite his build and smallness.

“My name’s Fain,” the red-haired man said. “My pal’s Eddie Beam. We had a date with Miss Dunlap that she didn’t keep. We thought maybe she’d come home.”

“Isn’t that funny?” Della said it to them but kept looking at me. “This gentleman’s waiting for her, too. I wonder where she went.”

“Who’s ‘this gentleman?’ ” Fain cut in. “Oh, I forgot to introduce you.” Della laughed, a trifle nervously. There was something in Fain’s voice like a sudden frostbite.

“This is Mr. Castle. He’s a newspaper man. He’s on the Orbit.”

Fain’s cold eyes rested on me.

“A reporter?” He turned his head and spoke to the little guy.

“Coincidence, Eddie.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, out of his hard little mouth.”

Fain frowned. He took the pipe from between his teeth, stirred its hot ashes with a toothpick and focused his gaze on Della. It was obvious he had thought she might have been stalling about Bunny not being home. Finding me there, waiting, had apparently reassured him. But not with any degree of pleasure.

The frown bit deeper into his forehead and mouth.

“Where can we locate her?”

“Well,” Della said, “as I was telling Mr. Castle, she probably met Joey Andra somewhere. She didn’t say anything to me.”

“Andra?” Eddie Beam interrupted softly. “Isn’t he the luggie who hoofs at the Silver Drum?”

“Yes, but—”

“Okay, Len,” Beam interrupted again. “Let’s shove. I know where Andra stops off. Let’s talk to him.”

The red-headed man hesitated. For a couple of seconds I didn’t think he was going to take Beam’s advice. I had an idea he was going to sit down and wait, too. He puffed on his pipe, stared at Della, then at me.

“All right,” he said then, abruptly.

The door closed behind them.

Somehow I felt quick relief. Their type was familiar. The kind that gunned without asking too many questions. What did they want with Bunny Dunlap? And where had I seen the one who called himself Fain? The two inquiries merged into one large interrogation point when Della came back from the front door.

“Say,” she said, a bit huskily, “how did you like that pair? The way the big one looked at me gave me shivers. Where does Bunny pick up these characters?”

“I think,” I told her, “I’ll be running along.” Della’s lipsticked mouth opened.

“You’re not powdering, Mr. Castle? Just when we’re getting acquainted. There’s plenty more beer and, like I said, I haven’t a thing to do tonight.”

“Unfortunately,” I said, “I have. When Bunny comes in tell her to call me at the office. This is important.”

Downstairs I grabbed a taxi and headed for the paper. All the way along Broadway my brain buzzed. I couldn’t get Fain’s face out of my mind. The cab was almost even with the Winter Garden when recollection hit me— suddenly and all at once. I felt my nerves crawl. For a minute I wondered if I were wrong. I hoped I was wrong— but I wasn’t. Fifteen minutes after I was in the Orbit’s morgue, and had the file I wanted open before me, I began to understand why Augustus Gusman had been permanently removed from the Rialto scene.

Fain’s true identity came up with that understanding. Two and two made a perfect four, but it ended there.

What Bunny Dunlap had to do with the late Mr. Gusman’s demise and why the red-haired, lanky man and his miniature companion were so anxious to see her, were still matters for a crystal ball gazer to angle out. Either way, Fain’s interest in the little chorine wasn’t good. I put the file away and got back to my desk in time to hear the phone on it ringing.

“For you, Mr. Castle,” Beth Wheaton said.

“A lady. At least she sounds like one.”

“Put her on.” For an instant I thought it might be Libby Hart. Libby boiling because I had walked out on her at the theater. Libby in flames because I was messing around with murder again. Instead, the somewhat strained voice of Bunny Dunlap came over the wire:

“Mr. Castle? Della says you were up here and that you want to see me. I want to see you, too, as soon as possible. Can you come right up?”

“Wait a minute.” I thought I’d play it smart. “How about you meeting me—at Chester Ward’s place, on the Square? In twenty minutes.” She said she would and rang off. The idea of Captain Mullin flashed through my mind. I toyed with it, then shrugged it aside. Mullin would fit in later, after I heard what Bunny had to say. At least, that was the way I figured it.

Ward’s place was a block and half north of the Capitol on Longacre Square. Ostensibly an eatery specializing in sea-food, the second floor of the place was laid out in a series of private rooms. Folks with lost-week-end ideas could coax any number of bottles along up there in the strictest privacy. People who wanted to stage dice games or revel in romance had a green light and no interference. Business deals were often consummated in the little tuckaways.

The last time I’d been on the second floor was to sit in on a session where the manager of a certain promising welterweight haggled with the promoter of a Newark auditorium concerning the gate cut he’d receive if his boy went to war with some local set-up. The thing had finally been arranged to everyone’s satisfaction except that of the socker himself. Sitting there, the leather pusher had watched his profits go down like the mercury in a Minnesota winter.

There was no sign of Bunny Dunlap in the big square foyer-waiting room. The clock told me I was five minutes early. I got hold of Chester, a hard-bitten man with a tight, worried face. He needed his usual shave and listened.

“Private room? Meeting a doll? I should send her right up when she comes?”

Ward grinned crookedly. “You’re leaving yourself wide open, kid.”

“You mean Miss Hart?”

“What else?”

“It isn’t what you think,” I told him. “This concerns the law.”

“Sure, sure.” Ward winked and turned me over to one of his plug-ugly waiters. “Fix Mr. Castle up with some privacy and tell me the number of the room.”

Both private supper rooms on either side of the cubicle I was ushered into were as empty as a beggar’s palm. The waiter turned on lights.

“Scotch or rye?” he asked, and eased himself a way. I lighted a cigarette and sat down.

The information I had dug up at the office made headlines in my mind. But I couldn’t turn a wheel until I talked to Bunny. I tried to fit her into the murder picture. I couldn’t get her in focus. And yet—

Just about then there was a light tap on the door. I opened it and the little chorine slithered in. Behind her followed the waiter with a bottle, and a carbonated water set-up. He left his tray on the table and departed after a look at Bunny’s ankles. She took off a not-too-bad reefer, fuzzed her hair up with her fingers, took the drink I put together as if she needed it badly, and slumped down in the other chair.

4: Blue Steel

SECOND floor business was picking up. I heard the door of the room on the left side of us open and close, a murmur of voices, but I didn’t pay any attention. I stared hard at Bunny’s piquant face, at her frightened eyes, and noticed the way she clutched her glass. As if it might get away from her.

“It’s your cue, honey,” I said to her. “What’s it all about?”

I said it quietly. She made her gaze level with mine. Instead of answering she asked her own question.

“Where’s the envelope I gave you at the theater, Mr. Castle?”

“Let’s hear about it before we go into that.” I lit a cigarette for her. “Tell me about Gusman. What happened in Swan Millard’s dressing room during your costume changes?”

She shuddered, took a long drag out of the glass and hunched herself together in the chair. I knew that under her make-up she was as white as plaster.

“It was terrible! I— I’m afraid! He saw me coming out of Swan’s room. The little guy, the one that smelled of lilacs!”

“Start from the beginning. You were in the star’s dressing room?”

She nodded.

“Right after the New Orleans number. Swan stayed on for the scene that followed. She asked me if I’d get her shawl and bring it down. It was on the back of a chair. I said I would.”

She stopped and her mouth trembled. There was only ice in her glass. I poured, saying: “So you went to her dressing room to get the shawl. Gusman was there— on the floor— dead?”

“No, he was walking around. He seemed awfully sore about something. He asked me what I wanted. I had just started to tell him when there was a knock on the door. Gusman pushed me into a closet and shut the door. At least, he tried to shut it. But it didn’t close entirely. One of Swan’s costumes was in the way. There was a crack about three inches wide that I could look through.” She got a grip on herself, or maybe what I had put in her glass bolstered her, and went on.

“Two men came in. One was tall. He had red hair. He was smoking a pipe. The other”—Bunny’s eyes widened— “was little. He wore a blue suit and he stood near the closet. That’s when I smelled the lilacs. He— he—”

I gave her a minute before I said, “What happened?”

“The red-headed man pulled a gun out from under his coat. Gusman started to talk to him. I heard him say ‘Now, let’s act sensible about this, Nick,’ and the red-headed man said, ‘Sensible? Don’t make me laugh, you crooked rat’!”

Gusman want on talking. He was all excited and I couldn’t hear everything he said. But it didn’t make any difference. The red-headed man just stood there, pointing the gun at him and I saw it had a silencer on it. The little one kept saying, ‘Don’t let him box you in, Nick. Wind it up and let’s blow.’ ”

“So Nick let Gusman have it?”

Bunny gulped and nodded. “It was terrible! I saw the whole thing! Right before my eyes! I’ll never be able to forget it! It’s haunted me ever since. I know I won’t get a wink of sleep tonight!”

“What about the envelope? What’s that got to do with it?”

She gave me a wild look.

“They both went out of the dressing room after they killed Mr. Gusman. I thought I was going to faint. But I didn’t. I guess I was too scared. I waited— it seemed like a hundred years but it must have been only a couple of minutes. Then I grabbed Swan’s shawl and went out on the corridor. The little one who had been in the room was at the head of the stairs. He was standing there, half in the shadows, looking back. He saw me. He took a good look before he ran down the stairs.”

She broke off again. I started a refill, but she shook her head. “And that envelope?”

“I thought sure they’d mow me down, too. The minute I reached the stage. I— I didn’t know what to do. Then I got an idea. I hurried up to my own dressing room. I got a sheet of paper and an envelope. I wrote down ‘A red-haired man named Nick just killed Gusman. I saw it through a crack in the closet door of Swan Millard’s dressing room.’ I put that in the envelope and sealed it. I figured they might knock me off with the silenced gun, but they wouldn’t get away with it. I figured that when I didn’t come back and ask you for the envelope, you’d open it and read it.”

She added more details, but I hardly heard them. So that was what was in the envelope! That was what Miss Hart must have lifted from my right side pocket.

“What’ll I do?” Bunny asked, her voice tight and unnatural. I looked at my watch. “I think we’ll both take a ride down to Headquarters. This is a problem for better minds than ours. Captain Mullin can grapple with it. Let’s go.”

It sounded all right, and the timing was good, but it wasn’t to be as easy as all that.

While I was talking I heard the door of the adjoining room open and close. Then the knob turned on our door and that opened. I swung around.

In time to see we had visitors.

A red-haired man and a small guy in a blue suit who brought in a breath of lilac time.

Somehow, the little runt didn’t seem very important. Not a quarter as much as the hooded, blue steel gun that shone dully against Nick’s light suit.

“Shut the door, Eddie,” he said, from a mouth that hardly moved. “I don’t want anybody to hear what goes on! Or,” he added, “off!”

The noise Bunny made in her throat sounded like water running down a stopped-up drain. I saw her crouch back in her chair, but it was only an impression. Because I couldn’t take my eyes from the sudden death in the red-haired man’s hand. A chill began to pack my spine in ice. My scalp tingled. Cold sweat dampened my hands and forehead. I felt an emptiness crawling around the pit of my stomach. And it didn’t come from a lack of food this time.

At that moment I realized how right Libby had always been. Murder and sports reporting didn’t mix. In the past I’d been lucky. Now, from general appearances, I’d stuck my neck out once too often, and too far! If I needed any proof of that, I got it the next instant.

“Len,” as Beam called him, or “Nick” as the late Augustus Gusman had labeled him, walked over and planted himself in front of me.

“Where’s the envelope the babe gave you, Castle?”

It took another second for the light to filter in. I got it.

The pair had tailed Bunny Dunlap down to Ward’s. Then they had walked upstairs, following her and tabbing the room she had gone into. They had ducked into the one adjoining— I remembered hearing the door close— and laid ears against the thin partition. As easy as that! The nose of Nick’s shooter began to press into me. The chill got chillier. He said it again, the quiet note in his voice making it sound doubly menacing:

“Hand it over!”

“I haven’t got it.”

My voice had a tremolo in it that put it an octave higher than usual. Nick’s colorless eyes flickered in Beam’s direction.

“Give him a frisk, Eddie.” The small, delicate hands went over me with expert precision. Eddie didn’t miss an inch. But, as he dumped my personal belongings on the table, and didn’t come across what he was sent after, the velvety eyes narrowed.

“No envelope, Len.”

“What did you do with it, Castle?”

The gun jarred harder.

“Talk!”

“I lost it.”

Nick probably expected something better than that. The blunt statement stopped him for a minute. He looked from me to Bunny and over to his partner. Then he laughed.

“He lost it, Eddie. Just like that! He lost the letter that can put me on sparks! It’s floating around loose.”

Eddie stood off and took time out to light a cigarette.

“Let me hold this lighter under his chin and I’ll get the truth out of him!” Nick turned the idea over in his mind. I winked away some sweat. Finally Nick shook his head.

“I’ve got a better plan. Look, the car’s around the side street. We’ll take these two across town and work ‘em out privately. Too many people around here, no elbow room. Besides,” he added. “I’ve got a date in a half-hour.”

The little lug with the small, hard mouth and the wavy hair, looked disappointed. He shrugged, and exhaled smoke.

“Down the back way?” he asked.

“Yes. You handle the dame. I’ll take charge of this party.”

Nick addressed his next remark to me. “We’re going downstairs, Castle. Don’t get notions. I’ll be right behind you and this lead spreader works just as good from a pocket.”

Eddie went over to Bunny. He moved with a sinuous grace. She got up. In the terrified glance she gave me was a lot of regret for the box she had put me in. I tried to smile reassuringly. It must have been a ghoulish grimace, the kind of facial contortion featured by one on the way to the gallows.

Eddie took a look up and down the corridor. He gave Nick the nod and we started out and down the rear stairs.

They had been put there during the festive prohibition era for the convenience of patrons who didn’t want to meet the local police force socially. They were just as good now as they had been then— for Nick’s purpose.

He escorted me across several feet of pavement and into a snappy sedan parked at the curb. People were passing. They didn’t pay any attention to me or I to them. I had Nick’s pocket on my mind and what was in it. I sat down between Bunny and Nick.

There was a third man at the wheel. A quiet, efficient character who seemed to know exactly what was wanted. The minute Nick pulled the door shut the car started.

We crossed Broadway. Hoodlum Avenue was a riot of lights, noise and traffic. I caught a glimpse of the Astor, the Globe, the Times Building. They never looked better. Like illustrations for a fantastic tale that would never be told again.

“So you lost the letter?” Nick murmured, musingly. “I suppose it fell out of your pocket— right into a copper’s big paw.”

“I don’t know where I lost it.”

Eddie Beam, silently meditative on one of the pulled-down rear seats, jerked his head up.

“Say,” he exclaimed. “I got a flash of Castle at the rehearsal, before we went up to the dressing room. He was in a box with a dame. Maybe he passed the letter to her!”

“What dame?” Nick asked sarcastically. “There’s a lot of ‘em in this town.”

Beam leaned forward. “That’s not too tough. I know a hundred people who know Castle. Any of them can tell us who he chases around with regularly.”

The empty feeling spread. Things seemed to be going from worse to much worse. Now, if the little gunman had his way, Libby would be dragged in to add to the merriment. And Libby, all unknowingly, would probably spill at Beam’s first question! The girl was smart at everything but murder.

The car went as far as Lexington, up that avenue for a dozen blocks and then so east again. It delved into a neighborhood where poverty and riches rubbed elbows. Cheap tenements stood a sneer away from lofty layouts crowned with penthouses.

Finally the sedan, slowing, stopped before a three-story, remodeled job that had a modernistic facade and a neat areaway filled with rows of geraniums. From the exterior the place might have been a high-class club. But it wasn’t.

The driver got out of the car. He went up the front stairs and rang the bell. I saw the door open. The conversation didn’t last long. The driver came back. Nick said,

“Okay?” and the other said, “Okay.”

The gun came out of Nick’s pocket.

“All right, Castle. Step down. We’re calling on a lady. Don’t forget your manners. After you, friend.” Bunny, who had sat frozen all the way over from Ward’s place, went up the stairs after us, Beam bringing up the rear. A small girl in a maid’s outfit stood at the door. We filed past her, Nick pushing the gun under his coat so she wouldn’t see it. We went on back to a rear room, the maid hurrying forward to switch on the lights.

“I’ll tell her you’re here,” she said, and slid on past.

6: Glass For Ashes

THE room we went into was the type they picture in half-buck magazines devoted to the decorating trade. It was done in Napoleonic blue and red. Pickled pine had been tossed around with a prodigal hand. Over the mantel of an unused fireplace a pair of expensive Chinese vases caught and reflected the indirect lighting. The cream-colored rug underfoot was moss-soft and ankle deep. The furniture, modernistic as the outside of the house, was upholstered in coffee-colored leather. Brass nail studding glinted. So did a lot of crystal ornaments on some picture window shelves. Likewise the gun Nick kept trained on me.

“Sit down, Miss Dunlap. You too, Castle.” Nick played a host with sardonic graciousness. “Help yourself to some furniture and relax.”

Bunny stole a look at me. Her eyes were like jewels, bright and feverish. I dropped into a chromium-armed chair, trying to think and getting more muddled by the minute.

Whose place was this? Who had the maid gone to get? I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Steps sounded on the stairs, in the hall, on the cream-colored rug. Steps made by bright red backless slippers strapped around curved white ankles.

Swan Millard entered the room and pulled the door shut behind her!

She stood there, one hand on the ornamental knob, her crimson housecoat accenting every curve and contour of her slim, perfect figure, while her gaze, questioning and puzzled, swept over Bunny and me.

“I don’t think I understand.” Her voice was low and quiet.

I thought that I did. But I was wrong again. Nick spoke without moving from the spot opposite me.

“This is clean-up night, honey. We’re rubbing the chalk off the blackboard. We’ve got one name erased. There’s a couple of others to follow.”

Swan Millard’s hand dropped from the knob. Her expression changed swiftly. The lids went down over her eyes. Her curved red lips tightened to a scarlet streak.

“What are you talking about? You must be drunk!”

Nick chuckled. “I haven’t touched a drop in years. Pass that. Who was at the rehearsal this afternoon with Castle?”

“Don’t answer that, Miss Millard,” I said, and got the heel of Nick’s left hand in the side of my face. Bunny choked out a muffled cry. Swan walked further into the room. I could see her begin to stiffen, to draw into herself.

“I don’t know any of Mr. Castle’s friends or who he was with at the theater.” She made it sound disinterested and I could see she was a better actress than I had thought she was. “See what you can do, Eddie,” Nick directed, casually. The little runt smiled and reached. His small hand went around Swan’s wrist. He bent it back and then sideward. He did it smoothly, effortlessly, and nothing ever worked better. The red lips opened, but Eddie’s other hand, clamping over them, muffled the scream that would have emerged.

“Her name is Hart—Libby Hart!” The words came when Eddie pulled his hand away.

“Where does she live?”

I sat and listened while Swan Millard went the rest of the way. Nick dealt out some instructions. She sat down at a table beside a telephone. Numbly I watched her dial a number. Usually, when I called Libby, she was never home. But the honey-haired beauty hit the jackpot at the first try.

“Miss Hart?... This is Swan Millard. Could you come up to my house tonight, now?... Yes, there’s something important I want to talk over with you.... Fine. . . Thank you.” She pronged the telephone.

Nick nodded. “Much obliged.” His tone turned velvety smooth. “Now, baby, before she gets here we’ll take care of something else— you!”

The blue-steel gun moved from me toward her. Nick’s hand rose a few inches, his finger closing over the trigger.

Bunny’s gasped exclamation sounded like paper tearing. Eddie Beam did a repeat, grabbing her wrist and clapping his left hand over her mouth. Swan, the gun on her, promptly fainted. At least, from where I sat it was a perfect imitation of a faint. Maybe she was acting again. I didn’t know, and I didn’t wait to find out. I was gun-clear. Beam was busy with Bunny and on a pickled pine stand beside the chromium-armed chair was a wedge of crystal used as an ashtray.

I caught it up and let it go— straight at Nick!

No big league pitcher ever put more on the ball. It had to be good, and it had to be a third strike! It was. The point of the big hunk of glass caromed off the back of Nick’s skull with a bone-cracking thud. He dropped the gun and staggered forward, half falling over the slumped figure of Swan.

Eddie let Bunny go and drew. The two shots he angled at me would have made a perfect score if I hadn’t ducked down to snatch for the hooded gun that had done the job on Gusman. The quick leanover saved my life. Temporarily, at least, I thought. Twin lead slugs hissed past, inches above me.

I got Nick’s cannon. It was off safety and ready for use. I squeezed the trigger, blazing away at Eddie Beam as if he were the side of a barn.

I missed as completely as he had!

Bunny was screaming at the top of her lungs. I saw Nick was coming out of it. I had the fantastic idea he was wiping blood away from the back of his red head while he stood shaking it like a horse, trying to clear it. The little gunman had dived in behind a tall secretary for cover. My next shot splintered its grilled bulge front. Glass broke in a tinkling shower.

I heard Beam yelp like a run-over dog. I banged away again in the same general direction, dropping down behind a leather-lined sofa.

No more shots came from the direction of the secretary, but something else dropped over the top of the sofa and fell on me like a load of coal.

Nick!

His arm got a throat-hold. It shut my breath off like the turn of a faucet. His other hand ripped down my arm and fastened over the gun. Groggy though he must have been, Gusman’s killer still had enough power to make it child’s play. He wrenched the rod out of my fingers. The nose of it dug into my side.

All the fleeting thoughts commonly attributed to those about to sink for the third time rushed chronologically through my brain. Thoughts of the Orbit, the pretty pieces I dreamed up about competitive sports. Thoughts of Libby. How lovely she was, how nice she always smelled, how soft and warm her lips were. Thoughts that included Captain Fred Mullin. Mullin, fishy-eyed and ice cold, saying, “Served him right! I told him it was only a question of time, the nosy such-and-such!”

Other thoughts, clear-cut and distinct. Principally, one of a darkly robed gentleman who carried a large scythe and shook an admonishing finger at me.

I tried to remember a quick prayer to murmur on the way out. Then, before Nick could squeeze the trigger, he let the gun and my neck go the same moment.

Air, piped down to my lungs, sent a roaring noise into my ears. I remember sitting down on the cream-colored carpet and pushing Nick’s legs off. I remember staring at him, wondering if he’d had a stroke or something, trying to figure why his eyes were shut and why he was lying with his face pressed to the rug.

It took another minute or two to get Bunny into the proper perspective. Bunny standing a little way off, the crystal ashtray in her good right hand, a fresh smear of Nick’s claret on one of its other points.

“I— I guess I’ve killed him!” she said, her teeth chattering like the castanets in a Latin band.

I began to get up. Then, as I was on one knee, the door with the ornamental knob opened and the dulcet tones of Lieutenant Ed Wheeler zephyred in:

“Get your hands up! This house is surrounded!”

He stalked in, gun in hand, followed by Hartley and several gentlemen in civilian garb, all armed and prepared for any eventuality.

WHEELER pulled himself up short. He looked at the unconscious Swan. At Eddie Beam, whose legs were protruding from behind the shattered secretary. At the recumbent figure of the red-headed Nick, at the paralyzed Bunny, and then at me.

“A one-man army, Castle! What do we need your gal friend’s call for? We tail you all evening, you shake us and then she throws in a set of directions. But why— when you can knock ‘em over with your bare hands?”

I got all the way up.

“There’s the one who liquidated Gusman in the dressing room at the St. Regis.” I pointed a shaky finger at Nick. “There’s his helper, behind the cabinet. You’d better find the smelling salts for Mrs. Gusman. I think she needs them. The faint’s on the level....”

I rode Bunny home in a taxi about an hour later and turned her over to the gilt-top Della in 6F. Then I got hold of Libby and shared a table with her at the Silver Drum, just as Joey Andra sprang out to tie the patrons up with his Ray Bolger imitations.

Outside of being a little pale, Libby was enchanting in something new and something blue she had designed for herself in between costume plates for “Let’s Have Music!”

“Mrs. Gusman?” she led off with. “Part of the production price, no doubt.”

The double Scotch was good, even if it wasn’t Scotch.

“The only trouble was she used to be Nick’s heart in the sweet long ago. Nick Rowen, that is, to give him his baptismal monicker.”

“Rowen?” Lib wrinkled her tip-tilted nose. “Isn’t he the character who handled that Wall Street stock swindle some years back?”

“A hundred grand caper. Correct. The same one Mr. Gusman wept for, but dried his eyes after the jury sent Rowen away for a long stretch. Why not? He was keeping the hundred G’s safe for his red-headed client— also the client’s heart interest. A real daily double that paid off in round numbers.”

“Or round holes!” Libby put in. “You knew Rowen?”

“Even under the blanket of the Len Fain he’s been using since he got out of stir. Enough to send me to the morgue at the office to hunt up some old pictures of him and refresh my mind about his going away party. It just goes to show you that when you’re in the penitentiary you brood and brood. Then when you come out you’re all set to do something to put you back— in the death house this time. Funny world, isn’t it?”

“A scream.” Libby shuddered discreetly. “What happens to the hundred grand now?”

I looked at her quizzically. Surely, she couldn’t be as naive as that.

“That dough, darling,” I said, “helped pay your fee for designing those handsome costumes. That was the angel money that bought Gusman’s wings. He took the money— and the gal!”

She nodded. Joey Andra was doing a whirlwind finish. I waited until he was off and the lights were up.

“Just for your information,” I went on, “Eddie Beam, the small punk Rowen got friendly with behind, not in front of the bars, will recover from my not-so-good target practise. So that’s about all except I should really do something to show my appreciation for our splendid Police Department.”

Libby laughed. There wasn’t any amusement in it.

“What do you mean, splendid, Johnny? It’s terrible. Your friend Mullin ought to be impeached or something. I opened that note the girl gave you, read what she had written and telephoned Captain Mullin at five minutes after four. And look at all the time it took before they caught up with you!”

The band was playing a tune that reminded me of something I’d heard before. Or was it that all tunes are more or less alike? This one reminded me of a tune Broadway hadn’t heard yet. Something about Monday morning blues. Something Swan Millard had sung in an ermine robe, in a purple spot, on a platinum-plated chaise.

“Serves you right for opening my mail!” I said. “That’s one thing I didn’t think you were— jealous.”

Libby’s dark eyes flashed.

“Get another letter from a cute little blonde and see how I perform, Johnny!” she warned.

______________

8: Opals Are Unlucky

C. S. Montanye

Thrilling Detective Jan 1946

THE basement of the Hotel Richfield, ten steps east of Times Square, was not the most cheerful place on a Monday morning when the weather was as gray as the suit Dave McClain wore. Even with music, Mac decided, it wouldn't have given him any appetite. The big detective, one of the mainstays of the well known Homicide Squad, flatfooted it down a cement- paved aisle after the hostelry's manager.

“A bus boy found him,” the manager was saying. “About three quarters of an hour ago. I called in the cop at the corner. He said to telephone to Headquarters.”

Dave McClain shifted the cigar he wore as a face decoration from one side of his mouth to the other. Champion weed killer of the Department, Mac felt undressed without his Sumatra wrapper. He didn't like early Monday morning murders and he didn't like the gloomy, odoriferous nether regions of this third-rate hotel to which Captain Mullin had dispatched him.

He passed the hotel's boiler room, a recess where garbage from the kitchens was stored before removal, an empty laundry and a hole in the wall where a tailor did business.

Coming around a turn in the passage, Mac saw three or four people gathered in front of a closed steel door. A couple of frowsy cleaning women, a bellhop and one of the furnace men were there. The manager waved them away with a curt word and, with a dramatic flourish, opened the door.

“In here, officer.”

McClain, who didn't like to be called “officer” because it reminded him too much of his pavement pounding days and fallen arches, looked at the group.

“Who found him?”

“Eddie,” the bellhop said. “He's upstairs.”

“Get him down.”

The manager opened the door. The big detective saw a storeroom for the supplies which kept the Richfield functioning. Shelves were filled with plumbing parts, wires and electrical replacements, tools and gadgets for bathrooms. But Mac didn't pay any attention to them. His keen gaze darted directly to the figure of a man who was lying sprawled out on the floor of the room.

He was medium-sized, fairly well dressed, with dark, slicked down hair. Death, McClain observed, had resulted from a short length of what looked like piano wire which was neatly wrapped around his throat.

Mac shifted his stogie again. He had seen the handiwork of the Grim Reaper so many times that hazarding a guess as to how long the man had been out of this world was a pretty safe conjecture. From the looks of it, Mac figured about four hours.

He made a mental note of that in case “Doc” Bronson, the Homicide's medical examiner, cared to make a small bet before going to work.

“Guest of the— place?” Mac hesitated on the last word. He had almost said “dump.”

The manager shook his head. “Never saw him before.”

Mac bent over the body. His expert, exploring fingers dipped into the inner coat pocket. They came out with some letters and a leather billfold. McClain held what he found to the shine of a dangling electric light bulb.

“Albert Cooper,” he read. “Room Ninety- three, Pentland Building.”

“That's just around the corner,” the manager said, as if surprised.

“Yeah, so I've heard.”

Mac frowned thoughtfully. Resting his weight on both feet, he rubbed his lantern jaw. There seemed to be a slight powdering of something on the shoulders of the murdered man's jacket. And it wasn't dandruff.

McClain took a pinch of it, put it on the palm of one of his ham hands, rubbed it gently with his thumb and finally blew it off. The manager watched, as if expecting to see McClain produce a rabbit or an unfolded American flag.

“What was that?”

“Dunno.” Mac shrugged carelessly. He added, musingly, “Funny position that stiff's in. Kind of jammed together. Notice it?”

“No, I hadn't. But now that you speak of it, it is rather strange.”

“Eddie's here, Mr. Thurlow,” the bell hop said from the door.

McClain gave the body a final glance and shut the steel door after he and the manager went out of the room. Eddie, the bus boy, looked scared. He was an unprepossessing youth, rather sallow and definitely a candidate for liver injections. He licked his lips nervously when Mac gave him a searching glance.

“Give, kid.”

“I came down here around nine o'clock. Charlie, he's the chef's assistant, wanted a hand suction pump on account of one of the sinks being clogged up. I opened the door, turned on the light and saw him!”

He stopped and gave a reasonable facsimile of a shudder.

“What struck you as odd about the corpse?” McClain said. “Or weren't you struck?”

Eddie got what he was driving at and licked his lips again.

“You mean the way he was lying? Like he was folded up, all pushed together.”

Mac nodded. “That's all, folks. The detective turned to the manager.

“The medical examiner ought to be around any minute with the camera boys. Photo finish.

That's all, for the time being. I'll wait down here. You get 'em an Indian guide so they can find me when they show up.”

“This is terrible!” The manager was fussing now. “This is going to give the hotel a bad name. A murder in our basement, and not even one of our guests!”

He shook his head and left. Mac looked at his cigar and found it needed a match.

“'Bad name,'“ he murmured to himself. “The man's a comic and doesn't realize it.”

Mac waited until everybody had gone, and then walked out of the hotel.

As the manager had said, the Pentland Building was around the corner on Broadway. An elderly edifice given over principally to the theatrical clan in all its various branches, McClain stood in the lobby and looked at the tenants' directory. It wasn't hard to find the name of Albert Cooper. The white lettering against the black background corresponded with the room number on the letters which were in Cooper's coat pocket.

Mac took an elevator to the ninth floor. He opened the door of Room Number 93. It was one of those dime-sized offices scarcely larger than a telephone booth. There were two desks in it, a surprisingly large safe, a typewriter and a telephone.

A GIRL sat at one of the desks, deep in the pages of a penny-a-day library best seller. Mac had to cough to drag her out of the plot. She looked up with a start, carefully dog-cared her page and reluctantly shut the book.

“Mr. Cooper isn't in,” she said. “He won't be back until three-thirty.”

“Want to bet?” Mac palmed his badge and let her look. The girl's blue eyes widened.

“Police! What's the trouble?”

“Relax, sister. I'm not after the boss. I'm looking for the party or parties who did some piano tuning on him. Just a few questions and then you can go back to your literature, if you still have a mind to.”

“You don't mean something's happened to him?”

“Your boss won't pay you off this week,” McClain said cheerfully. He told her what had been discovered down in Hotel Richfield's basement.

He let the news sink in, waited until the girl got her breath back. Then, taking a chair, he draped his big frame loosely in it and went to work.

Her name was Myrtle Gray. She lived in Flatbush. That was fairly obvious. She had worked for Cooper for three months. Cooper, as she explained, was a jewelry broker. That meant that he was the middle man in transactions for his Broadway clientele. Cooper bought and sold on commission. Mac knew the grift.

When actors were in the chips they went for the glitter. Broke, they had to unload. That was where Cooper figured. He sold the stuff. Or, as Myrtle explained, he bought it for them when they were making dough. Cooper attended pawnbrokers' auctions and also did a brisk trade in pawn tickets. Mac digested the information and bit the end off of a fresh panatella.

“So far, so bad. Any enemies that you know of in the three months you've been grinding for him?”

“Sure,” Myrtle said brightly. “Nearly everybody who did business with him hated him. Mr. Cooper was a chiseler. He told me, when I came to work for him, he'd give me a raise when I'd been here three weeks. The only raise I ever got was in the elevator.”

McClain let that go and puffed on the clublike cigar.

“Who'd want to knock him off, sister?”' he inquired, in his casual, quiet way. “That's your double or nothing question for today.”

“Well, it might have been on account of the Lawlor opals,” Myrtle murmured, “I mean, they are the best stuff he's handled since I've been around.” She put a lot of lipstick into her smile. “Didn't you always hear that opals were unlucky?”

Mac's attention grew sharper. “Lawlor opals? Tell me all about 'em, sister. Start at the beginning and don't miss a comma or semi-colon along the way.”

THAT WAS shortly before noon. An hour later McClain left the self-service lift in an apartment building close to West End Avenue in the early Eighties, and rang the bell of a door toward the end of the fifth floor corridor.

Despite the after-twelve hour, the girl who opened the door and glanced warily out looked as if she had just gotten up. An amazing housecoat, sleek and shimmering, accented her willowy curves and set off her pink-and-white complexion and platinum hair. She had a couple of sloe-brown eyes behind lashes that seemed almost to brush her chin and the smallest feet Mac had ever seen off a doll, shod with bright red wedgies.

“Miss Flower?” McClain asked. “Miss Clemence Flower? Headquarters business. If it's all right with you, I'd like to come in and set for a spell.”

He backed that up with the badge. The blonde did about what Myrtle had a while earlier. She told him to come in. So Mac took his brogan out of the door and ankled into a charming living room with an oblique view of the Hudson River in the distance.

“You knew a party named Cooper?” he led off with. “He's been rubbed so don't let's lose any time. You tell me everything you know about him and don't get absent minded.”

“I'd be glad to help you.”

“I was told that Cooper was handling a string of opals for you. That's why I'm here. No opals were found on the body and none were in his safe at the office. Take it from there.”

THE sloe-brown eyes widened. The chin- dusting lashes swept up swiftly. A mouth, coral-colored and bow-shaped, parted to reveal the glint of teeth radio commercials went into ecstasies about. Clemence Flower looked both startled and shaken.

“I— I gave Al the necklace to sell for me. He said he had someone interested. He said he could get me ten thousand dollars. They were the Lawlor opals.”

“Yeah, I know.”

McClain could have told her that he knew all about Tommy Lawlor, Broadway playboy, spendthrift and man about sixty. Lawlor's penchant for stage favorites was a legend along Lovers' Lane. His romances were hectic while they lasted and usually wound up with a payoff gift from some Fifth Avenue jewel emporium. So, while a heart might be broken, a throat, wrist or finger was in perfect condition to wear a necklace, a bracelet or ring. Such, Mac surmised, had been the case with the girl on the divan across from him.

Now, Mac knew, Tommy Lawlor wasn't around any more. One night the previous winter, after looking on wine well if not wisely, the wealthy cut-up had stepped out on his penthouse terrace for a breath of air. Apparently forgetting where the bronze railing ended, he had finished his career twenty-six stories below. Which, the big detective recalled, had sent a lot of frail but lovely young ladies back behind the footlights.

“Tommy gave me the opals for my last birthday,” Clemence Flower explained with considerable agitation. “He got them out of his safe-deposit box. They had belonged to his grandmother, he told me. They came from Amsterdam originally. That's in Holland.”

“Is that right?” Mac dropped one knee over the other. “I thought it was an avenue.”

“I hardly ever wore the opals. They were so valuable. In fact, Tommy took them and had the clasp fixed. But even then I was afraid, on account of them being worth so much. What's the use of having jewelry you're afraid to wear?”

“So you decided to sell them. When did you give them to Cooper?”

“Two days ago. He came up here and got them.”

“Anybody outside of Cooper know that you let him have them?”

The smooth, alabaster forehead wrinkled in thought.

“Only Marge,” she said finally. “She's the girl at the beauty shop, the Vanity Box, over on Broadway.”

“Marge what?” “Burns. I think I mentioned them to her the last time I got a facial. That was Friday.”

McClain looked around for an ashtray. He found one in the form of a silver duck and dipped his long white ash in it.

“Any insurance?”

The brown eyes grew troubled. “No, not now.” He heard the breath she drew. “Tommy took out a policy when he first gave them to me. After he— he died, I let it lapse. That's why I'm so anxious to get them back. You will try?”

Mac climbed to his oversized feet. “That's what I always do, sister—try. I'll let you know if hear anything.”

He shook his head when he was in the elevator, going down. Dames were a mystery. He could solve cases but not women. The girl he had just left, for instance. Not a word about Al Cooper's unfortunate demise. Only the monetary value of the unlucky opals, the fact they weren't insured. Which, probably meant that if they weren't recovered, the little blonde would have to start hoofing again.

Mac shrugged. To blazes with the dames! He had a killer to smoke out, a murderer to find. Opals ran a bad second to that important fact. And, he told himself, he'd better get busy without delay if he expected to turn up results.

He was never much for brilliant deduction and flashy dramatics. From the first day he had become a cop, and then a plain-clothes man, McClain's progress had been slow and unspectacular. Yet, at the payoff, he was usually in the money.

HE STOPPED in a corner drugstore and telephoned the Hotel Richfield. The substance that had been on the shoulders of Cooper's coat was sharp in his mind when he asked for the manager.

“One more question,” McClain said. “How about your laundry? When I passed it this morning it seemed to be closed. Don't you operate it?”

“Not for the last few months. Too hard to get help. We send all our stuff out.”

“Where?” “White Star Laundry.” “Thanks.”

McClain hung up and ambled out to the avenue.

It was still gray and cheerless, the kind of a day that called for some elbow bending. Mac found a tavern without the aid of a map, propped himself up against damp mahogany and thirstily watched the barman comb the fluffy head off some tall, brown October ale.

While he sampled it Mac thought about opals and a platinum-haired babe who wore red wedgies and smelled like her name. He remembered the dead man in the hotel basement's storeroom and thought about Tommy Lawlor.

Finally, with a shrug, he went out and took the subway to the Bronx.

Myrtle had obligingly supplied the address of her defunct employer. Mac found Cooper had lived in the south half of a two-family house. The north portion was empty, a rather surprising fact in lieu of the housing shortage. McClain walked around the place leisurely, sucking on a cigar.

He tried the cellar door and found it was open. He went down into semi-gloom. A short flight of stairs led him up to another door. That, too, proved to be unlocked and the big detective stepped into a small but complete kitchen.

From there he went through a constricted dining room, across a hall and into the living room. Mac stood in the doorway and rolled his cigar between his lips. The room looked as if the Marines had used flame-throwers to establish a beachhead there. Furniture was upturned, pictures knocked down and one set of curtains well trampled underfoot. McClain stared thoughtfully at the damage for a long minute before he turned away and let himself out.

Back at Headquarters, he wandered into his chief's office to see what, if anything, had turned up on the Cooper kill. Captain Mullin, stocky, fishy-eyed and tough as rawhide, flung him a questioning stare.

“Where have you been all day?” “Around.” Mac slumped in a chair near the desk. “What have you got on Cooper?”

“Nothing. What have you got?” Mullin's voice sounded like a couple of pieces of sandpaper being rubbed together.

“I know where he was killed,” Mac murmured. “I know how he got into the Hotel Richfield's storeroom, I know the motive and I've got a fair idea where I can reach the party who twisted the wire around his gullet.”

Mullin stared harder. “Yeah? Then why don't you do something about it?”

“All in good time, chief.” McClain yawned. “You know me, slow but sure. Like an elephant. Takes awhile to get underway but when it starts moving nothing stops it.” He straightened up. “If you don't mind, I'll use your phone.”

Mullin pushed it over and, after a glance at his watch, Mac called his house.

“Hello, Francie. Dave. Look. Tell the old lady I won't be home for supper.”

“Passing up your peanuts,” Mullin said sarcastically.

McClain got up. “Guess I'll go out and round up this wire-twister. By the way, chief. The party who composed that remark about opals being unlucky—”

“What about him?”

“Nothing, except I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't right.”

MAC, figuring the Vanity Box Beauty Shop would probably close at six, barged into it at ten of. It was a place of pleasant aromas and busy girls. A woman with spectacles, who seemed to be presiding over the cash register, gave him an inquiring look. Mac half expected her to make some crack about whether he wanted a permanent or a shampoo. But she didn't.

“What can I do for you?” she asked. “I want to see Miss Burns. Personal.”

“Miss Burns left at five-thirty.”

“What's her home address?”

The eyes behind the spectacles roamed appraisingly over him.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

For the third time that day Mac produced his credentials. A glance at the badge was enough to supply him with an address hastily jotted down on a slip of pad paper. McClain thanked her and shoved off.

His next stop was in the Sixties, a shabby apartment house hemmed in between Columbus Avenue on one border and Eighth on the other. He consulted names in battered mailboxes, trudged up to the second floor and worked his knuckles out on a door when he couldn't find a bell.

It opened and the smell of something frying wafted out to him. McClain looked down into the upturned face of a girl who was about as big as Myrtle and with a figure something along the order of Clemence Flower, only not so streamlined.

“I'm busy,” she mapped. “Besides, I've got a vacuum cleaner, I don't need any brushes and I haven't time to read books or magazines.”

“You've got time to talk to me, honey,” Mac informed her. “Either me or the District Attorney. Punch the ticket the way you want it.”

He brushed her aside and walked into a tawdry, furnished living-dining room. The frying was taking place in an adjoining kitchenette. Mac turned the light down under the pan and swung around to meet a pair of indignant hazel eyes.

“You've got a nerve,” the girl said. “What do you mean by busting in here?”

“Sit down and relax.” Mac waved one of his packing house hands in the direction of a lumpy divan. “I'm a cop and I want to split some conversation with you. You know Miss Flower. Friday she told you about some opals her ex-boy friend had given her. You passed the information on to somebody else, didn't you?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” But Mac saw that she knew, all right. In the places where her rouge wasn't, color faded swiftly out of her face. Her fingers began to flutter like wind-stirred leaves. Her mouth opened as if to make quickened breathing easier.

Glancing around, McClain saw a card table in the rear of the room set for two. Knives, forks, glasses and paper napkins. He put his hat down on top of a radio cabinet and helped himself to the middle seat on the divan.

“Okay, Margie. Speak your piece like a good little girl and I won't have to take you downtown. Got a fellow you're keeping steady company with? Maybe you spilled to him. And maybe”— Mac spoke as it he were weighing each word— “he's working for the White Star Laundry?”

The girl stifled an exclamation, her widening eyes peering at him in blank amazement. McClain watched her narrowly. He never knew how dames would react and this rib looked like she knew most of the answers.

“Who told you?” she asked.

Before Mac could answer there was a tap on the door. Marge Burns wheeled around, choking on another exclamation. McClain crossed his legs and shoved out his number elevens, denting the mangy carpet with his heels. The knock was repeated.

“Open up,” Mac suggested.

She hesitated another minute. McClain got up quickly, passed her and opened the door himself. Outside, a tall lanky young man with a hard, wise face peered at him, obviously puzzled.

“Come on in,” Mac invited. “Don't stand out there when dinner's almost ready.”

THE lanky young man came slowly into the room. McClain shut the door behind him and shifted his cigar.

“Who's this man, Marge?” Suspicion made his voice tight and terse. “What's he doing here?”

“He says he's a cop, Joe. He says he's going to take me downtown unless I talk!” She wrenched the words out in a thin, squeezed tone.

“Talk about what?”

“Opals, a party named Al Cooper and how he came to be in a jammed-up position in the Hotel Richfield's store room,” Mac said. “You're Joe. You must be the fellow who works for the White Star Laundry. Right?”

Joe didn't answer. His narrowing gaze focused on the beauty shop operator, but Mac felt he didn't need an answer. Joe was sure that Marge had already handed out the information. His heavy-lidded gaze was full of accusation.

“So you talked,” Joe said, in the same tight voice.

“I didn't tell him a thing! He did all the gabbing. Honest, Joe, I never said a word! He answered all his own questions.”

“Habit of mine,” Mac murmured. “This doll told you what a little blondie called Clemence Flower told her. About how she was giving a mug named Cooper a ten grand string of opals to sell for her and so forth. That gave you ideas. Not good ones, but a blueprint showing you the way to some quick coin.”

Marge Burns pressed a hand over her heart. Hands in his pocket, Joe looked at McClain with a sneer.

“Got it all figured. What else?”

“Not much. You dropped up at Cooper's place in the Bronx last night. What did you tell him— that Miss Flower had mentioned he had the Lawlor opals, that you were interested in buying them and, if it was okay, you'd run up and take a look? Something like that. Anyway, you whaled Cooper down, strangled him with a hunk of wire.”

“Joe!”

Joe paid no attention to the girl's throaty cry. The sneer bit deeper into his face. Rocking gently back and forth on his heels, he stared at the detective.

“Just like that,” Joe said. “Maybe you didn't intend to kill him. Maybe Cooper got suspicious. Anyway, you had a battle and wound up by strangling him. How to get rid of him? I figure you lugged the body downtown in your car. Then you got a bright idea. Why not jam Cooper into one of the empty wicker laundry baskets you had to drop off at the Hotel Richfield this morning? Why not dump him when you got there. A swell idea, Joe. Only you ought to have taken a whiskbroom along, to brush the wicker particles and dust off Cooper's coat. Because, from his folded up posture and the wicker dust, you'll land in the death chair!”

Joe's hand slid out of his pocket. It held a long handled, ivory-sided knife. The touch of a button and its blade, razor-thin, darted out like a serpent's tongue to rest a half inch below the top button of McClain's vest.

Marge screamed softly. Mac obligingly raised his hands and Joe laughed under his breath.

“Smart cop! Got it all lined up, just the way it happened. How about the end? You haven't said anything about the way I'm carving you up, like a Thanksgiving turkey. Go ahead, mention that.”

“Joe!”

“Get inside and pack a bag, Marge.” Joe spoke without turning his head or moving his glittering eyes from McClain's expressionless face. “We'll have to lam after I finish with this monkey. And you'd better not look. It's apt to be messy.”

Standing there, McClain knew he was face to face with a crack-brained killer. He had been in similar spots before. That afternoon he had told Captain Mullin he moved like a placid pachyderm. But there was nothing slow or ponderous about the way the McClain mind functioned in that moment of danger.

RESTING his weight on his left foot, the big detective raised his right a few inches from the floor. His gaze stayed locked with Joe's. What he was about to do had to be accomplished with swift and certain dexterity or the carpet would be crimson with blood. His!

McClain brought the foot down with all of his one hundred and ninety-seven pounds in its driving force. It crashed on Joe's instep with the bone-crushing impact of a dropped safe. His would-be carver backed with a strangled scream of agony. Mac, ducking nimbly to one side, left- hooked him and grabbed for the shiv with his other hand.

Twisting the knife out of Joe's opening fingers, McClain tore into him with savage ferocity. He was getting a little out of practise in these slugging festivals of late. But he brought himself up to date when he mashed Joe's teeth in with a straight left to the mouth. It needed only a right hook to the button to drop Al Cooper's murderer in his tracks.

Mac picked up the knife, closed it and bent over Joe, searching his pockets quickly. Then he glanced at the stricken Marge.

“Do me a favor. Pick up that phone and get me Police Headquarters. Ask for Homicide, Captain Mullin.”

Some two hours later, McClain, off duty and on his way home, headed for the nearest subway entrance. A half hour earlier he had stopped in to see an old friend of his, a gem expert connected with one of the largest Fifth Avenue shops.

Now, as he reached the corner and saw the traffic light against him, McClain stopped. One of his big hands came out of his pocket. Crunched in its palm was a string of opals. Mac held them to the street light and grinned faintly. Then, leaning down, he tossed them accurately down the sewer opening in the gutter beneath his large, flat feet.

“He must have made the switch when he had the clasp changed,” Mac thought. “Smart playboy, even if he did step off a balcony. Yeah, I guess opals are unlucky— even phonies!”

_______________

9: Stag Party

Charles G Booth

1896-1949

Black Mask, Nov 1933

1

STIRRING HIS COFFEE McFee— Blue Shield Detective Agency— thought he had seen the girl somewhere. She had dull red hair. She had a subtle red mouth and experienced eyes with green lights in them. That was plenty. But over her provocative beauty, lay a hard sophistication as brightly polished as new nickel.

McFee said, “You ought to be in pictures.”

“I’ve been in pictures.” Her voice was husky. “That’s where you’ve seen me.”

“No, it isn’t,” McFee said. “Sit down. Coffee?”

“Black.”

The girl let herself drop into the chair on the other side of the table. Her wrap fell back. She wore an evening gown of jade green velvet and a necklace of square-cut emeralds. Her eyes were guarded but urgent; desperate, perhaps.

Abruptly, she asked, “Do I look like a fool?”

“I dunno what a fool looks like.” McFee finished his apple pie, sugared his coffee. His movements, the flow of his words, the level staring of his V-thatched, somber eyes were as precisely balanced as the timing of a clock. The girl was restlessly tapping the table pedestal with a green satin pump when McFee asked: Some’dy tell you I was here?”

“Jules—at the door. He’s been with Cato’s ever since I can remember.”

A waiter came, drew the booth curtains, went away. McFee gave the girl a cigarette. A flame came into each of her eyes and she began to pelt him with little hard bullets of words.

“I am Irene Mayo. Ranee Damon and I were dining here one night and Ranee pointed you out. He said, ‘That’s McFee, the Blue Shield operative.’ Jules told us you often dropped in for coffee around midnight—”

McFee muttered, “Coffee and Cato’s apple pie.”

“Yes. That’s what Jules told us. And Ranee said, ‘Irene, if you ever run into a jam get McFee.’ So I knew if you were here—”

“What sort of jam you in?”

“I don’t know.” The girl stared at the ruddy vitality of McFee, shivered. “Ranee and I left my apartment—the St. Regis—around eleven. We were going to the Cockatoo for supper and some dancing, but we didn’t get there.”

“Pretty close,” McFee said.

She nodded. “Ranee had just turned into Carter, from Second, when he saw Sam Mel-rose—”

“That’s funny,” McFee said. He tapped a newspaper beside his coffee cup. “The Trib says Melrose is aboard Larry Knudson’s yacht. Has been all week.”

Irene Mayo flared out, “That’s what Ranee said. That’s why he went after him. Melrose has been evading the Grand Jury ever since they opened up that Shelldon scandal. Ranee said they couldn’t serve him.”

“I dunno that indicting him’ll do any good,” McFee muttered, frowning. “Sam took the town over when Gaylord rubbed out, and he’s got his hooks in deep. Damon saw Melrose and went after him, you said—”

“Into the Gaiety Theatre. Ranee parked on Second. The house was dark—after eleven—”

McFee cut in, “Melrose owns the Gaiety now.”

“Ranee told me. He said he’d be back in fifteen minutes—less, maybe. But he had to see Melrose.” The girl’s green eyes dilated a little. “I waited an hour and fifteen minutes. He didn’t come back. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went to the lobby doors. They were locked. The box office was locked. I could see into the theatre. It was dark.”

McFee said, “You tried the alley fire exits?”

“I didn’t think of those. But why would Ranee—”

The girl stared at McFee with terrified eyes. “Nothing can have happened—I mean, Melrose wouldn’t dare—”

“I dunno, Sam Melrose—”

McFee saw the girl’s red mouth lose its subtlety in the sharp twitching of the lip muscles. He stood up. “Put that coffee under your belt and stay here till I come back.”

2

MCFEE CROSSED Third and went down Carter. A late street car rumbled somewhere along Brant, but the town was quiet. He walked fast for half a block.

Cato’s had been at Third and Carter when the town was young and the Gaiety Theatre had billed Martin Thomas in Othello and William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes. That had been before business moved west and the corner had gone pawn shop and fire sale, and buttoned itself on to Chinatown. Second and Carter’s had been McFee’s nursery. Cato’s hadn’t moved because Signor Cato and Papa Dubois had known the value of tradition to the restaurant business, and because M. Papoulas, the present proprietor, also knew it. But Cato’s had kept its head up. The Gaiety had gone burleycue.

McFee tried the lobby doors. They were tight. The interior of the theatre was black. Light from the street seeped into the lobby. On the walls were life-sized tinted photographs of the girls. A legend under one of them said Mabel Leclair. She Knocked ‘Em Cold on Broadway.

An alley separated the Gaiety Building from the Palace Hotel at Second. The Gaiety had two exit doors in the north side of the alley. On the south side the Palace had a service entrance. Instead of turning into the alley, McFee went to where Maggie O’Day had her ten-by-four hole-in-the-wall in the hotel building. She was putting her stock away. McFee bought a pack of cigarettes.

He said, “Seen Sam Melrose lately, Maggie?”

She was a little dark witch of a woman with rouged cheek bones and tragic purple-brown eyes. Like McFee and the Gaiety girls, she belonged to the picture. Always had. In the Gaiety’s Olga Nethersole-melodrama days, she had played minor parts. That had been about the time the late Senator Gaylord was coming into power. Things had happened, and she had gone to singing in Sullivan’s saloon on Second, until a street car accident had crippled her hip. Now she leaned on a crutch in her hole-in-the-wall and shook dice with the dicks and the Gaiety girls. Midnight or later she rolled herself home in a wheel chair she kept in the Gaiety alley.

“Sam’s getting up in the world,” the old woman answered.

“See him go into the Gaiety a while back?”

“Sam go into the Gaiety—” The old woman’s voice thinned into silence. She stared at McFee. “It wasn’t Sam I saw … It wasn’t Sam—” And then, vehemently, “I can’t be seeing everybody….”

McFee said gently, “You better go home, Maggie.”

He turned into the Gaiety alley, barked his shin against Maggie O’Day’s wheel chair. He tried the nearer exit door. It was unbolted. The door creaked as McFee pulled on it. He slipped inside.

The darkness fell all around McFee. It had a hot, smothering touch. It plucked at his eyeballs. He chewed a cigarette, listened. Vague murmurings were audible. The sort of noises that haunt old theatres. Dead voices…. Sara Kendleton, Martin Thomas, Mrs. Fiske, Edwin South. But that sort of thing didn’t touch McFee. He knew the Gaiety for the rattletrap barn it was and waited, his hat on the back of his head and his ears wide open.

Suddenly he was on his toes.

The sound coming towards him was a human sound. It came down the side aisle from the stage end. It was a rustling sound, like dead leaves in a wind; then it identified itself as the slow slurring of a body dragging exhaustedly over a flat surface. Against a wall. Over a floor. It stopped. The taut quietness that followed throttled McFee. A groan flowed through the darkness, a low strangling cough. The slurring sound was resumed. It was closer now, but there was a bitter-end exhaustion in it.

McFee, chewing his cigarette, felt at the gun and the flashlight in his pocket. He took three steps forward, his arms spread wide.

The man pitched forward and fell against his chest.

McFee slid him down to the floor of the aisle. The man’s chest was wet. He felt a warm stickiness on his hands. He made light, spread it over the man’s face. It was Ranee Damon. His eyes were wide open, fixed in horror; his lips were bloodless. McFee felt at the heart.

Damon was dead.

McFee muttered, “He’s been a while dying.”

The hole was in the chest. A good deal of blood had flowed.

Damon was around thirty, a dark, debonair lad with straight hair as black as Maggie O’Day’s had once been. His bright eloquence, the bold ardor of his restless eyes, had stepped him along. The late Senator Gaylord (Senator by courtesy) had placed him in the District Attorney’s office. Damon had become a key man. You had to figure on him. But his mouth was lax.

“The boys’ll have to plant a new in-man,” McFee said. He sniffed the odor of gin. “Party, I guess.” And then, “Well, well! Rubbed out doing his little stunt!”

McFee had lifted Damon’s left arm. The fingers clutched a tangle of five-century notes. Ten of them.

A trail of blood spots on the aisle floor led backstage. The wall was smeared where Damon had fought his way agonizingly along it. McFee followed the sign, back of the boxes, up a short stair, through a door into the backstage. A dingy curtain shut him off from the house. He stood under the drops, among a bedroom set, and waved his light. Damon had crawled across the stage into the wing, where a final resurgence of life lifted him up.

Entering the dressing room from which Damon had come, McFee saw high, fly-blown walls that pictured the evolution of the burley-cue girl. He had appreciated it on previous occasions. A quart bottle of gin, two-thirds empty, stood on a rickety dressing table, two glasses beside it. He did not touch them. A table lamp lay on the floor, broken. Dancing costumes lay about. A rug was turned up.

Make-up material had been swept off the dressing table—powder, crimson grease paint, lipstick, eyebrow buffer. The tube of grease paint had been stepped on by someone, burst open. The stuff smeared the floor. It looked like coagulated blood.

Near the door lay a .32 automatic pistol. One shell had been ejected.

McFee went back to the aisle.

Irene Mayo was kneeling beside the body.

3

MCFEE SAID, “I’m sorry, sister.”

The cold beam of his torch made her eyes look enormous in her white, drawn face. Her mouth quivered. She pressed her hand against it, stifled a sob. But after a moment she said dully, “He would have been governor some day.”

McFee answered moodily, “Damon had the makings.” He stared down into the girl’s uplifted eyes, at the purple shadows beneath them. The emeralds at her throat blazed coldly. He added, “If it’s in a man’s blood you can’t stop him.”

“Unless you kill him.” The girl spoke passionately. “It’s in me, too, but there’s more than that in me. If it’s the last thing I do—”

McFee cut in, “You saw Melrose?”

“No—” The girl hesitated, her eyes hardening. “But Ranee saw him. Ranee said—” Her eyes fell apprehensively. “I don’t understand about that money—”

“Were you in love with Damon?”

“I don’t know.” She spoke slowly. “I liked him. He took me around a lot. He was a dear— yes, I did love him!” She rocked distractedly, said in a frenzy, “I’ll spend every dollar I have to get Melrose.”

“Good kid.”

“Are you with me, McFee?”

Instead of replying, McFee put out his flash, said softly, “There’s someone in the house.”

The girl stood up, moved close to him, her wrap drawn tightly around her body. Her breath fanned McFee’s cheeks. Neither of them moved. McFee pushed the girl flat against the wall.

“Stay here,” he whispered.

“McFee—”

“Easy, sister.”

McFee took off his shoes. He felt for his gun, went up the sloping aisle on the balls of his feet. A rustling sound became audible, quieted. He reached the top of the aisle, turned, felt his way towards the foyer. McFee sniffed. Perfume. Thick, too. He grinned, put away his gun. A door was on his right—the manager’s office. He turned into the room.

McFee stopped. Someone was breathing heavily. He heard a sob—suppressed. A floor board creaked. McFee thought he located the woman. He took three steps forward, his arms wide apart, as when he had gone to meet Ranee Damon. Caught the glitter of a necklace. As he flung one arm around the woman’s neck, he slammed the other against her mouth and shut off her scream. She fought, but McFee held her.

He said softly, “One yip and I’ll blow you in two.”

The woman became quiet. McFee removed his hand.

“Lemme go, McFee,” she said huskily.

“Leclair—swell! Anyb’dy else on the party?”

“Ranee Damon—” The woman leaned on McFee’s arm. “Oh, my God!” she wept. “Damon—that’s all—”

Mabel Leclair’s blond beauty was unconfined and too abundant. The petulant immaturity of her features ran at odds with the hardness in her round blue eyes. She presented a scanty negligee effect.

McFee asked, “That kind of a party?”

The woman’s hands and negligee were bloody. She looked down at them and went sick. McFee directed the light into her eyes. “Sit down,” he said. She fell moaning into a chair.

McFee snapped a desk lamp switch. The room contained a shabby desk, chairs, a safe, a water cooler and a couch. The dingy walls were a photograph album burleycue theme.

From the door Irene Mayo cried out, “She killed him—”

“I did not!” the Leclair woman screamed, and jumped up. “What you doing here? What’d I kill him for? We were having a party—oh—” The blood on her hands sickened her again. She wiped them on her negligee. She thrust her hands behind her back, shut her eyes, rocked her head. “Get me a drink,” she whimpered, and fell into the chair.

“You had plenty, sister. What kind of party?”

“Just a party, McFee.” She tried to smile wisely. “Ranee dropped in to see me—”

Irene Mayo cut in, “That’s a lie!”

“You think so?” The Leclair woman spoke wickedly. “Kid, I never seen the buttercup I couldn’t pick. And I’ve picked ‘em from Broadway west.”

McFee said harshly, “Got anything to say before I call the cops?”

“Wait a minute, Handsome.” The woman’s eyes took fright again, but she seemed to be listening, too. “Lemme tell you. Ranee was drinking some. Not much. I hadn’t touched it. Honest, McFee—well, mebbe I had a coupla quick ones, but I wasn’t lit. I’m telling you, McFee. I was standing in front of the dressing table. Ranee was standing beside me, next to the couch. He heard some’dy on the stage. The door was open—the backstage was dark. Ranee turned around. And that’s when he got it. Right in the chest. I saw the flash—that’s all. McFee, I’m telling you! He spun round—kind of. I caught him—” The woman shuddered, shut her eyes.

“Yes?” said McFee.

“He was bleeding—” She wrung her hands. “He slid out of my arms—slow. I thought he’d never drop. The look in his eyes knocked me cuckoo. I fainted. When I came to—” She covered her face.

“When you came to—”

“It was dark. We’d busted the lamp, falling. McFee, he wasn’t dead. He was groaning somewhere. I lit a match. He’d dragged himself out backstage. He wouldn’t quit crawling. I was scared to switch on the lights—” McFee’s cold eyes alarmed the woman. She reiterated desperately. “I’m giving you the straight of it. Ranee and me—”

“What you here for?”

“To phone the cops.”

“Did you phone ‘em?”

“No. You came in. I was scared stiff. I thought it might be Ranee’s murderer coming back—”

“Phone anyb’dy?”

“No.” The woman stared at McFee, the listening look in her eyes. “I didn’t phone anybody.”

McFee said, “You’re a liar.” He picked up the desk telephone. The receiver was moist. Leclair stared at McFee. “Who’d you call?”

“Go roll your hoop.”

Irene Mayo leaned against the wall, a little to the left of the door. Her eyes were tragic and scornful. McFee was about to unhook the telephone when she gestured warningly.

In the foyer a man said, “Put that telephone down, McFee.”

Mabel Leclair laughed.

4

THE MAN MOVED into the lane of light that flowed out of the office. It was Joe Metz, who ran the Spanish Shawl Club, a Melrose enterprise. McFee threw a glance at the red-headed girl. She seemed to understand what was in his mind.

McFee flung the telephone at the desk lamp. Glass shattered. The room went dark. Leclair screamed. McFee dropped behind the desk.

Joe Metz called, “You birds cover those exits. Smoke him, if you have to … McFee!”

The latter, feeling around for the telephone, said, “Speaking.”

“I’ve got three of the boys with me. Nice boys. Boys you’ve played ball with—” Metz was inside the room now. “They don’t wanna hurt you—”

McFee answered, “You’ll have me crying pretty soon.” Prone on his stomach, he found the instrument, put the receiver to his ear, his lips to the mouthpiece. “Tell me some more, Joe.”

Central did not respond.

Mabel Leclair ejaculated, “He’s got the telephone, Joe!”

“That’s all right,” Metz drawled. “I’ve cut the wire. How about sitting in a little game, McFee?”

“Speak your piece,” McFee said, and then: “I got a gun on the door.”

“Handsome, it’s this way,” Metz said. “Sam Melrose has named the next district attorney— Claude Dietrich. Now the Gaiety’s a Melrose house and Sam don’t want a deputy district attorney dying in it two months before election. So we gotta get Damon away. But that’s not the half of it.” Metz spoke with a careful spacing of his words. “Damon was in a position to get Sam something he hadda have, election coming on. So Sam turned Blondy loose on the boy—Sam has more swell ideas than a tabloid editor. Damon was a nut for the frills. He fell for Leclair like a bucket of bricks. Blondy makes a deal with Damon. The boy’s taken money before. Taking five grand from Blondy is duck soup—”

McFee said, “Five grand for what?”

“Oh, some photographs, an affidavit, a letter Melrose wrote, a coupla cancelled checks, some testimony from a lad that died—the usual junk.”

“Grand Jury file on the Shelldon blow-off?” McFee asked.

“That’s right—you’re a good guy, McFee. The Grand Jury turned it over to the D.A. Melrose thought it ought to disappear.”

“Lemme see,” McFee said. “There’s a murder tied up with the indictment, isn’t there?”

“Sam’ll beat that. But you know how it is, election coming on.”

“Well, I haven’t got it.”

“Now, look here, McFee, you aren’t in any shape to stand off me and the boys. Melrose wants that Grand Jury indictment.”

McFee had begun to creep noiselessly towards Metz and the door. “Who give you the notion that I got it?”

Metz said coldly, “You gotta have it—or know where it is. Damon had the money and the Shelldon file in his hands when that .32 bumped him. He flopped into Blondy’s arms. She threw a faint—” Metz interrupted himself to say, “There’s places where women is swell, but a jam like that ain’t one of’em.”

The Leclair woman cried, “You got your nerve! After what I been through—”

Metz laughed. “I’ve said there are places where women is swell.” He proceeded swiftly. “When Blondy woke up Damon had the five grand in his fist, but the file was gone. She give me a bell at the Shawl. McFee, you got that Shelldon file, or you know where it is. Better play ball.”

McFee said softly, “I’m covering you, Joe.” And then, “You mean, I killed Damon?”

Metz answered carefully, “Damon don’t count now. He isn’t going to be found here. It don’t matter who killed him. There’s plenty boys Melrose can plant when Dietrich is in. If you killed Damon, swell! You know your business. But you better not try bucking Melrose.”

McFee moved some more.

He was in a spot. If Metz was bluffing, a Melrose heel had killed Damon, and the Melrose crowd had the Shelldon file. That would mean McFee knew too much and must become casualty No. 2. If Metz was not bluffing, he probably was convinced McFee had done the job and copped the file. Bad, too. And it left the question: Who shot Damon?

McFee asked, “Where’s Melrose?”

“Aboard Larry Knudson’s yacht,” Metz answered smoothly.

McFee crept forward again.

The Leclair woman shrilled, “Joe! He’s coming at you—”

5

RISING STRAIGHT from his heels, a little to the right of Metz, McFee threw his left to where he thought the man’s chin was, landed. Metz’ head snapped back. The rest of him followed it. His gun spat flame. McFee steamed past. Metz cracked against the foyer wall.

Metz howled, “Watch those fire exits!”

“Lights!” another man yelled. “Where the hell—”

The Leclair woman screamed, “Backstage—” and then, “Look out for that redheaded tramp—”

McFee ran towards the north side aisle. McFee knew what he was doing. The switch was in the front of the house, off the backstage, north side. He was depending on the red-headed girl. They had a reasonable chance with the house dark—none if the lights came on.

Someone collided with an aisle seat. McFee jumped the man, struck bone with the nose of his gun. The man fell among the seats. He groaned, then shouted faintly, “Over here, you birds—”

Metz yelled, “The other aisle! Gun him, if he jumps an exit— Some’dy find that damned light room—”

McFee found it. Hadn’t he been a Gaiety usher when he was a kid? There were steel switch boxes on a wall. The master switch box was largest. He plucked out a couple of fuses. They heard him. They drummed after him. Sets snapped back as someone crossed the house.

McFee cleared the switch room door, a flash beam jumped up the stage stair, pranced around in the wing.

A man howled, “Now we got the—”

Leclair screamed. “That red-headed witch—”

McFee ducked across the backstage. The light lost him. A door hinge creaked, and he knew what was troubling Leclair. Very swell!

But the others didn’t hear Leclair. They didn’t hear the red-headed girl opening the exit door. Somebody monkeyed in the switch room, but the house stayed dark. A couple of men collided in the backstage. McFee wasn’t one of them. The light jack-rabbited around the wall, shied at McFee. He chased towards the south wing. A shot came after him.

Metz yelled, “Jump him, Tony—”

The flash beam plucked Tony Starke out of the north wing. Starke had been a pretty fair heavy, and he owned a gymnasium. He looked tremendous. McFee twisted sidewise and leaned on the canvas drop that shut the backstage off from the house. The canvas was rotten old. It ripped with a thin scream, spraying dust, as McFee fell through it.

Art Kline was on the runway that fronted the orchestra. Pretty nearly as big as Starke, Kline bounced for Joe Metz, at the Spanish Shawl and was famous for his hands. He had broken a man’s neck with them. Kline pulled a fast jump over the orchestra and landed on top of McFee. They milled for a moment. Then Metz, coming through the ripped curtain, collided with them, and all three pitched into the orchestra, McFee on top.

Kline conked his head, but it didn’t do him any harm. He and Metz held McFee. Metz yelled for the flashlight. They milled some more, bone thudding on bone; then a door opened and they rolled down a short stair under the stage and hit a wall. The place smelled of stale beer and fried onions.

Leclair shrilled, “That red-headed tramp’s gone for the coppers. I’m telling you—”

McFee was getting plenty now. The flash beam came. Monty Welch brought it. Welch was five feet four. He dealt blackjack at the Spanish Shawl and knew when every cop in the city paid his next mortgage installment. Tony Starke rolled in with him, sat on McFee’s head.

Metz went through McFee’s clothes, then said, “What you done with that Shelldon file?”

McFee said nothing. He didn’t like it under Tony Starke’s two hundred and twenty, but he still was figuring on the red-headed girl. The coppers could make it in three minutes flat—if they wanted to.

Monty Welch said in his whispering voice, “Gimme a cigarette and a match, Art. I’ll open his trap—”

The Leclair woman showed up then. Tony Starke put the light on her. She wore an ermine coat pulled tight around her body. Leclair had brought the coat from Broadway. Somebody said she had traded a couple of letters for it. She said very quietly, “McFee’s red-headed friend went for the cops while you birds was playing tag-”

Metz blurted, “What’s that?”

“I been telling you—the tramp that was with him—”

Metz said huskily, “We got to get outta this.” He sucked in his cheeks. His bulbous temples were wet and gleaming. “We take McFee. McFee’ll talk later. Monty, you jam your gun in his kidneys. Hand it to him if he squawks. Tony, Art, carry Damon. I’ll drive.”

Kline and Starke hoisted McFee to his feet. Welch’s gun made him step fast. They drummed up the stair. They climbed out of the orchestra, paraded up the center aisle, cut across to the south aisle by the seventh row. It was like a scene from an old Gaiety play.

As they clattered into the side aisle, a police siren wailed somewhere down Carter Street.

Metz said tersely, “We go through the Palace. Monty, fan that light—” And then, as Welch spread the beam on the aisle floor, “Cripes!”

They forgot McFee. His toe sent the flash whizzing out of Welch’s hand. It shattered against the wall and darkness buried them. McFee sank back into the seat right behind him.

Metz howled, “Some’dy’s been here—”

“I fell over him when I came in,” Starke sobbed.

“Grab McFee—”

But the coppers were hammering on the foyer door, and they hadn’t time to look for McFee, Metz said, “Scram!” They jumped through the fire exit, pushed through the Palace service door. Sam Melrose had taken over the Palace along with the Gaiety.

The coppers were coming down the alley.

McFee crawled out of a seat and spread his hands on the aisle floor, where he had left Damon’s body. It wasn’t there.

McFee leaned against the wall. He rolled a match in his ear. “That’s funny,” he said.

6

MCFEE FELT a draft on his face. A man carefully let himself into the house. Two other men were behind him. The first man, Pete Hurley, of the homicide squad, spread a flash beam over the aisle floor. Hurley’s hard hat sat on the back of his square head and he jiggled a cold cigarette between pouchy lips.

Hurley said bitterly, “Hello, Handsome.”

“You got a pip this time.” McFee sucked on a loose tooth, felt his jaw. “Tell one of your boys to fix a light. Here’s a coupla fuses.”

One of the men took the fuses, went away.

“Some’dy belled the desk and yelled ‘Murder at the Gaiety,’ “ Hurley said querulously. He added cautiously, “Ranee Damon. What’s the dope?”

“Sweet,” McFee answered, and stood up. “A box full of medals for Some’dy, and nob’dy wanting to wear ‘em.” Wobbling, he put on his shoes. “Gimme a cigarette, Beautiful.”

“I ain’t looking for medals,” Hurley said harshly. “Medals ain’t safe in this town. Where’s Damon?”

“Damon’s dead. He went away. Ask Mel-rose’s boys.”

“Melrose’s boys?”

“Joe Metz, Art Kline, Monty Welch, Tony Starke. It was good while it lasted.” McFee lighted a cigarette, then spread out his hand. Lights began to go on. Hurley stared at McFee with his bitter, button eyes. McFee added presently, “Irene Mayo brought you boys.”

“Who’s this Mayo queen?”

“A nice little number. She’s been in pictures. Likes to pull strings. She wanted Damon to be governor.”

“You got that Shelldon file?”

“I didn’t kill Damon, mister.”

Hurley didn’t look at McFee, as he said slowly, “The birds that shot Damon musta got away with him. You say Melrose’s boys didn’t take him away, so they didn’t shoot him. That’s reasonable ain’t it?” He forced his uneasy, hostile eyes up to McFee’s cold grin. “I said, that’s reasonable, ain’t it?”

“Anything’s reasonable that’s got to be,” McFee answered.

Hurley’s tone was sullen as he proceeded, “Melrose’s boys is out then. How about that redheaded number. I mean—”

“You mean, did she carry Damon out in her stocking? No, Buttercup, she didn’t. And if she didn’t she couldn’t have rubbed him out. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

Hurley’s cigarette became still. “Mebbe there’ll be a coupla medals in this after all—”

McFee said, “You can always sell ‘em for hardware.”

Hurley spread light upon the wet smear Damon’s body had left. Sign indicated that the body had been dragged to the fire exit and out into the alley. There the sign ended.

Inside again, Hurley asked McFee, “Why don’t that red-headed dame come back?”

“I guess she’d had plenty. You’ll find her at the St. Regis.” He added dryly, “Melrose’ll tell you where to find Leclair.”

“I’ll find Leclair.” And then, impressively, “Melrose is aboard Knudson’s yacht.”

Hurley followed the blood drop down the aisle. Here and there on the drab wall were imprints of Damon’s wet, red hands. They leaped at the eye. They implied a frantic striving, a dreadful frustration. The two dicks tailed Hurley, McFee trailed the three of them, chewing the end of his cigarette. They crossed the backstage, shoved into the dressing room.

Hurley looked the automatic over, put it down. He looked at the glasses and gin bottle, at the upset table lamp, at the squashed tube of crimson grease paint.

“Some’dy better change his shoes,” Hurley muttered.

McFee said casually, “Leclair’s shoes looked clean.”

Hurley stared sourly at the picture album around the walls. “Burleycue ain’t what she was. You need a pair of field glasses to see the jittering toothpicks that prance on the boards nowadays.” Turning to one of his men he said, “Harry, go give Littner a bell. Tell him he’d better slide over. Tell him—” Hurley slanted his eyes at McFee. “Tell him we are in a spot.”

Littner was Captain of Detectives.

Hurley chalked crosses on the floor, near the dressing table and close to the couch, to indicate where he and McFee thought Damon and Leclair had stood, when the shot was fired.

Littner and the Chief came first; then Larrabee, the District Attorney, and Atwell, a deputy coroner. Larrabee said it was too bad about Damon. Pretty nearly everybody said it was too bad and something ought to be done. When Larrabee heard about the Grand Jury Shelldon file he went white around the gills, and shut up. Larrabee was half and half about most things. He had Bright’s Disease. That was why he wasn’t going to run again. The camera boys stood up their flashlight set. The fingerprint lads prowled around with their brushes and powders. A flock of dicks were detailed to do this and that. Littner turned the pistol over to Walter Griggs, the ballistic expert. The newshawks came.

The Chief said to Littner, “Melrose is gonna be damn good and sore.”

“He ought to be damn good and glad some’dy else lifted Damon,” Littner muttered.

“You figure he needs an out?”

Littner said cautiously, “Melrose is aboard Knudson’s yacht, isn’t he?”

Littner ought to have been Chief of Police.

After a while, McFee said to Hurley, “I guess I’ll go finish my coffee.”

7

MCFEE WALKED up Carter to Third, stood there a minute, rolling a match in his ear. The block between Second and Third was full of police and county cars, but the rest of the town looked empty. It was three-fifteen. McFee had been in the Gaiety about two and a half hours. He saw a coupe parked half a block down Third and walked towards it.

Irene Mayo sat behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette. Her eyes were feverish. Her white face was posed above the deep fur of her wrap like a flower in a vase. She said huskily, “I thought you’d come.”

“It takes a while,” McFee answered. He got in beside her. “Thanks for giving the cops a bell.”

“Did they hurt you?” She looked intently at him.

“Some’dy sat on my head.”

The red-headed girl let in the clutch. They made a couple of right-hand turns then a left.

McFee said, “Damon sold out, didn’t he, sister?”

“Yes—” The word tore itself from Irene Mayo’s lips. Her knuckles tightened on the wheel. “That blonde woman—”

“Hadn’t it in him, I guess,” McFee muttered.

She said in a brittle voice, “He could have been governor. I had what he needed … I could have given him—” She shivered, pressed her hand to her throat. “I don’t blame Ranee. A man is just so much—no more. But Melrose—Sam Melrose—” She uttered the name as if it poisoned her mouth. “Melrose knew how to break Ranee. And he had Ranee shot because he wasn’t sure—” She stared straight ahead, her eyes as hard as bright new coins. “I’ll make Sam Melrose wish he hadn’t come to this town if it kills me to do it.”

They drove some more.

“Some’dy took Damon’s body away,” McFee said.

“What did you say?”

McFee told her about it. “Damon must have been taken after you got away. There was a five minute interval before the cops came.”

“What do the police think?”

“It isn’t what they think—this is Melrose’s town. They take the position that Melrose didn’t have Damon blinked because it wasn’t his boys carted Damon’s body away. They say that means some’dy else killed Damon.”

“Don’t you see?” Her tone was stinging, vicious. “Those Melrose men had Ranee taken while you were talking to that Leclair woman. When the police came, and they couldn’t take you with them, they pretended Ranee had vanished. They knew you’d tell the police. They knew the police—Melrose’s police!—would use it for an ‘out.’ McFee—” She gripped his arm, her face terribly white, “you must see that! You don’t believe what the police are only pretending to believe?”

They made a right-hand turn.

McFee put a cigarette in his mouth, said quietly, “Sister, you better lemme take the wheel. There’s a car tailing us. They’ll have more power than we have.”

“They can’t run us down.”

“They can do anything in this town. And they will, if they think I got what they want. Slide over.”

The girl said cooly, “Have you got what they want, McFee?”

A pair of white eyes grew large in the rear view mirror, McFee laid one hand on the wheel, slid the other around the girl’s hips. His toe lifted her foot from the gas pedal. McFee said harshly, “Don’t be a fool—this is serious.” She yielded then and glided over his lap.

McFee jumped the car forward. It was a handy little bus, but it didn’t have the steam. McFee made a left hand turn and they hit a through boulevard. The tail car showed its lights again. The lights grew bigger. A milk truck rattled past.

McFee let the coupe out, but the white eyes swelled.

McFee said, “This is your coupe?”

“Ranee’s.”

“Where’s your house?”

“Avalon. Eighteen hundred block. Avalon’s about a mile beyond the next boulevard stop.”

McFee looked at the girl out of slanted eyes. “I got a hunch they’re out to wreck us. I know those birds. If they ride us down, it’ll be as soon as we quit the boulevard.”

Irene Mayo said passionately, “I don’t know what they want, but nothing will make me believe Melrose didn’t have Ranee killed.”

They approached the cross boulevard, doing fifty or so. The neon lights of an all-night filling station blazed on the opposite corner.

“I’d like to stand those lads on their heads,” McFee muttered. He grinned, but his somber eyes were calculating as they looked at the girl. “I got a hunch. How much you good for, sister?”

“As much as you are.”

He laughed a little. “Maybe we could get away, but I doubt it. If we waited somewhere, and phoned for a police bodyguard, they’d jump us before the cops could find us. I don’t know but what we hadn’t better try to stand ‘em on their heads.”

The girl said nothing. McFee ran the car up to the filling station oil pumps. Behind them, the brakes of the pursuing car made a high wailing sound and the car—a rakish black sedan— rocked to a standstill. It had not crossed the intersection.

“What’s the street this side of Avalon?”

“Hawthorne.”

“Trees on it?”

“Yes.”

To the white-uniformed, freckle-faced lad who came running up, McFee said, “Gimme a five-gallon can of crankcase oil—Eastern. Step on it.” McFee took out a jacknife, opened a blade. The lad reappeared, lugging the can of oil. McFee placed it on the seat, between himself and the red-headed girl. “Throw in five gallons of gas.” He added to the girl, “Just to fool those birds,” and drove his knife blade into the top of the can. Ripping around the edge, he muttered, “This is going to be dirty.”

The girl’s eyes became spheres of green light.

Oil slopped onto McFee’s clothing, over the girl’s wrap. The lad came back, McFee threw ten dollars at him.

“Keep the change, kid. And do this—” McFee impaled him with an oily forefinger. “Hop your telephone. Call police headquarters. Tell ‘em, there’s an accident on Hawthorne, north of Grand. Tell ‘em to send a riot squad. Tell ‘em McFee told you.”

The boy blurted, “Anybody hurt?”

“There’s going to be,” McFee said as he jumped the car into the boulevard.

They hit fifty. The sedan behind them zoomed across the intersection, then settled down to tailing the coop from two blocks back.

Irene Mayo said tersely. “Avalon—three blocks.”

McFee dropped to thirty. The car behind picked up. McFee made the right hand turn at Hawthorne. The street was narrow, a black tunnel of peppers and eucalypti.

McFee drove half a block, dropping to fifteen. He shifted off the crown of the street. He placed the red-headed girl’s right hand on top of the wheel. She stared at him, her mouth a red gash in her white face. McFee bent back the top of the can. He caught the ragged edge nearest him with his left hand, thrust his right under the bottom of the can. The lights behind made a wide arc as the sedan swung crazily into Hawthorne.

Before the lights had quite straightened out, McFee heaved the can over the wheel and dumped the oil onto the crown of the road.

The oil ran in every direction. McFee flung the can into the trees. The sedan came roaring down Hawthorne, huge and devastating behind its tremendous lights. McFee shot the coupe ahead. He abruptly turned into a private driveway, shut off the lights.

The brakes of the big sedan screamed. The car staggered, ploughed towards the wet smear that oozed towards either curb of the narrow street. Someone in the car shouted thickly, hysterically.

The locked wheels of the sedan skidded into the oil.

McFee and Irene Mayo saw a big sedan slide sidewise on tortured rubber. Twice the car cut a complete circle at terrible speed, its lights slicing the darkness; then it leaped the opposite curb and snapped off a street light standard. Glass shattered. A wheel flew somewhere. The huge car lifted itself in a final spasm and fell on its side.

McFee said softly, “Very swell.”

8

WINDOWS WERE going up as McFee backed into Hawthorne. He turned on his lights. Somebody yelled at him. At the corner, he made a left hand turn; then a right hand at Avalon. He drove two blocks, and saw the St. Regis, a green light over its entrance, at the next corner. It was a fairly exclusive, small, three-story house with garages. He drove into an open garage.

“Not bad.” He laughed and looked at the girl. She was leaning against his shoulder, very white. “Oh,” said McFee. “Well.”

He took out the ignition key. There were five keys on a ring. Sliding out of the coupe, he lifted the girl into his arms and carried her around to the front entrance. No one was about. The trees in the parking threw long shadows after him. A police siren wailed somewhere.

The letter-box directory indicated that Miss Mayo’s apartment was No. 305. He carried her upstairs, reminded of an Olga Nethersole play he had seen at the Gaiety years ago. Heavy, wine-colored carpet covered the stairs and halls. Some potted palms stood around and looked at him.

At No. 305, McFee tried three of the keys before he got the door open. A little light from the corridor came in with McFee—enough for him to see a divan in the middle of the living room into which the small entrance hall opened. He laid the girl on it, snapped a floor lamp switch. The room had dim lights, soft rugs, lots of pillows, some books and a couple of pictures. A swell little shack for a lad to hang up his hat in.

One of the girl’s green snakeskin slippers had become unbuckled. It fell off. McFee saw a long manila envelope fastened to the lining of her wrap with a safety pin. He chewed his knuckle, then unpinned the envelope. “Shelldon File” was pencilled on its upper left-hand corner. The envelope was sealed. McFee stared hard at the girl. Her eyelashes rested on the shadows beneath her eyes. Slitting the top of the envelope, he looked into it. His expression became astonished. He smiled crookedly and put the envelope inside his waistcoat.

In the kitchen McFee got a glass of water. When he came back the girl was sitting up.

“How’s it coming?” he asked.

“Nicely.” Her eyes were amused but a little cold. “You must have done a gorgeous Sappho.” She looked at her hands, at her wrap and gown. “That oil made a horrible mess. Do you suppose they are hurt?”

“You can give the hospital a bell in ten minutes.”

She laughed uneasily. “Make yourself comfortable while I get into something else.”

McFee was in a mess himself. He lit a cigarette. He began to walk up and down.

An ornamental mirror hung on the wall opposite the bedroom door. The girl had not closed the door and he saw her reflection in the mirror. She stood beside a table, a framed photograph clasped in her hands. Her expression and attitude were tragic and adoring. She pressed the photograph to her lips, held it there. Her slender body drooped. She put the photograph down but continued to stare at it, her fingers pressed against her mouth. The photograph was of Ranee Damon.

Irene Mayo slipped out of her green gown, when she reappeared some minutes later her eyes were subtle and untragic, and she wore lounging pajamas of green silk with a flowing red sash. She dropped onto the divan and laid her red head against a green pillow.

“You’d better use the bathroom, McFee,” she told him.

The bathroom was finished in green and white tile and much nickel. He used a monogrammed hand towel on his oil splashed clothes. He washed his hands and face and combed his hair. Stared at his automatic meditatively, then stood it on its nose in his right hand coat pocket.

When McFee showed himself again, Irene Mayo had a bottle of gin and a couple of glasses on a small table.

“Straight is all I can do.”

“You couldn’t do better.”

McFee sat down on the girl’s left. The liquor made a gurgling sound. She poured until McFee said “yes,” which wasn’t immediately.

As he occupied himself with the glass, a blunt object jammed his ribs. He finished the liquor.

The girl said coldly, “Your own gun.”

McFee asked, “What do you want?”

“That envelope.” Her eyes were cold, too. “McFee, I went through Ranee’s pockets just before you came back and found me kneeling beside him. He had the Shelldon file. I took it. You have it. I want it back.”

“What you want it for?”

“That’s my business.”

“Maybe I want it too.”

“Don’t be a fool.” Her cheek bones began to burn. “I’ll kill you if you don’t give me that file.”

“What’d the coppers say to that?”

“I’d tell them you wouldn’t go home.”

McFee smiled charmingly and unbuttoned his waistcoat. Still smiling, he handed her the envelope and said, “You better look at the catch.”

Suspicious, she jumped up, backed to the other side of the room, still covering him with the .38, and shook the envelope. Sheets of folded paper slid out, fluttered onto the floor. They were blank.

The girl said furiously, “McFee, I’ll give you just three seconds—”

“Use your bean,” McFee said harshly. “You saw me unpin that envelope. You know where I been since—the kitchen, the bathroom. I haven’t got anything in my clothes. “If you like, I’ll take ‘em off. Some’dy’s give you the run-around.”

She stared at him, the cold fury in her eyes turning to mortification. “I didn’t look—I took it for granted— What an idiot you must think me!” she wept. And then, stamping angrily, “How do you explain this?”

McFee said, “I can think of a coupla answers.” He helped himself appreciatively to the gin. “Number One: Leclair’s putting the buzz on Melrose. She killed Damon, picked the meat out of the envelope, and left those blanks behind. Number Two: Damon had showed Leclair the file, but was trying to sell her the blanks.” McFee set his glass down. “Here’s another one: Mr. X, as the book writers call him, shot Damon and worked the switch. Don’t ask me why. There’s only one answer, sister.”

“And Sam Melrose knows it!” Irene Mayo declared passionately.

She came towards McFee, her red sash swaying as she walked. Laughing a little, she sat down beside him, handed him the pistol. McFee took the cartridge clip out of his coat pocket, opened the magazine, shot the clip home. He set the safety.

Irene Mayo said, “Oh! You knew what I would do? You are clever—”

“Just an agency dick trying to get along,” McFee answered softly.

She laid her head on the green pillow, her red mouth smiling.

“I didn’t mean to,” she murmured. And then, “Is your wife home, McFee?”

“Visiting her sister,” he said.

After a while, McFee went away.

Down below McFee hopped the taxi he had called from Irene Mayo’s apartment. He told the man to take him to the Manchester Arms, on Gerard Street. It was daylight.

At the Manchester, McFee paid the fare and went into the house, feeling for his keys. They were gone. “Metz!” he muttered, and explored his other pockets. Some letters and a note book he had had were gone. “I owe those lads a couple,” he muttered.

McFee got a spare key off the building superintendent and walked up to his apartment on the fourth floor. He let himself into the entrance hall and pushed into the living room.

Joe Metz sat in a chair in front of the door. He had a .38 in his hand.

Metz said, “Hello, McFee.”

McFee stood quite still. Metz’s left cheek was strapped in adhesive tape from eye to mouth. His bulbous forehead was wet. Art Kline came out of the bathroom in his shirt sleeves. He was swart and squat, a barrel of a man. His nose and right forearm were plastered. The door behind McFee closed. Steel prodded his kidneys.

“Don’t make any break, sap,” said whispering Monty Welch.

McFee answered, “I thought I put you lads on ice.”

“You bust Tony Starke’s neck,” Metz said.

Welch drove McFee forward. Metz stood up. The whites of his eyes showed. Art Kline shuffled across the room. He carried his hands as if they were paws. His eyes were fixed, reddish, minute.

Metz said, “Sit down.”

McFee stared at the empty chair. It had wide wings. The three closed in upon him.

“Sit down, McFee.”

The latter whirled quietly and crashed his right into Kline’s swart jaw. The blow made a dull chopping sound. Kline hit a sofa against the wall. If he’d had anything less than a horse shoe in his jaw he’d have stayed there, but as the other two jumped McFee he bounced up, shook his head, dived in. McFee took a beating before they slammed him down into the chair. He rocked a moment, then threw himself forward and up. They slammed him back.

Art Kline smashed him terrifically in the mouth. McFee fell against the back of the chair. Metz began to go swiftly, thoroughly, through his clothes.

He said harshly, “McFee, what you done with that Shelldon file? What we just handed you is pie crust to what you’ll get if you don’t play ball.”

“I haven’t got it,” McFee whispered.

Kline hit him again. McFee’s mouth became bloody. He sat very still.

Metz said, “What you holding out for, goat? This is Melrose’s town. You can’t buck Sam. Come through, or I’ll turn this coupla bear eaters loose.”

Sick and raging, McFee blurted, “You bat-eyed kite, d’you think I’d be sitting here if I had it? I’d be down at the Trib spilling a story to Roy Cruikshank that’d put you gophers in your holes.”

“Not if you were saving it until you thought you had enough to put the bell on Melrose.” Metz unfolded a handkerchief, wiped his wet forehead, said slowly, “McFee, you must have that file. And if you have it, you’re holding it with a notion of putting the bell on Sam. Nob’dy in this town’ll live long enough to do that— I mean it both ways. But Sam wants that indictment killed, election coming on. Ten grand, McFee?”

“Go paddle your drum.”

“Lemme work on him,” Art Kline said. An impediment in his speech gummed up his voice. “I owe him a couple for Tony.”

He went behind McFee’s chair. He laid his tremendous hands on the top of it, flexed his powerful fingers. Whispering Monty Welch sat on the right arm of the chair. His patent leather-shod diminutive feet swung clear of the floor. Welch placed a cigarette between his lips, ignited it with a gem-studded lighter.

McFee waited.

Metz said, “They got no use for dicks in heaven.”

McFee’s mouth twitched. There was sweat in his eyes, on his cheekbones. He suddenly threw himself out of the chair and at Metz. The latter smacked him lightly across the head with his gun. McFee wobbled, fell back.

Metz said, “I’m waiting.”

McFee did not answer. Welch dragged on his cigarette. The detached expression of his puckish face was unchanged as he held the red end a half inch from McFee’s cheek. McFee slowly lifted his head. Art Kline laughed and slapped adhesive tape over McFee’s mouth; then he caught McFee’s wrists and began to bend his arms over the back of the chair.

Metz said, “Blow your whistle when it’s plenty.”

McFee threw himself around in the chair, but the steam had gone out of him. Metz and Welch held his legs. Kline leaned heavily, enthusiastically, on his arms. A seam in McFee’s coat shoulder burst. His sinews cracked. His eyeballs came slowly out of their sockets.

Metz said, “Well?” anxiously.

McFee mumbled defiantly behind his taped lips.

“Funny about a guy’s arm,” Art Kline said.

To his downward pressure he added a side-wise motion. Welch drew his cigarette across McFee’s corded throat. McFee’s face turned green. His eyes rolled in a hot, white hate.

“This oughta do it,” Art Kline said.

Someone knocked at the door.

McFee fell sidewise in his chair, his arm limp. Welch squeezed out his cigarette. Metz held up a hand, his thin white face oddly disconcerted. The other two nodded slowly. The knocking set up a reverberation in the room.

A soprano voice said lazily, “This is Roy Cruikshank, McFee. Pete Hurley’s with me. The superintendent said you came in ten minutes ago. We are coming in with a pass key, if you don’t open up.” Placatingly, “Now be reasonable, Handsome—we got to get out the paper.” Pete Hurley added querulously, “I wanna talk to you about that wrecked sedan on Hawthorne. Open the door!”

McFee lifted his head. He clawed at his taped lips, raised up in his chair. Art Kline smacked him down again.

“One peep outta you—”

Metz’s agile eyes had been racing around the room. They jumped at Kline. “Cut that!” he said tersely. And then, in a loud voice, “I’m coming. We been in a little game.”

Metz’ eyes lighted on a tier of bookshelves. On the top shelf were some decks of cards and a box of poker chips. Beside the bookshelves stood a card table. Moving fast, Metz grabbed the table with one hand, cards and box of chips with the other. Monty Welch took them away from him.

“Set ‘em up,” Metz said.

In the kitchen on the sink were some glasses and a bottle of gin. Metz carried these into the living room. He placed them on the floor beside the card table, which Welch had set up in front of McFee’s chair. McFee stared at Metz ironically. Art Kline stood over him, bewildered. Metz carefully upset the card table, spilling chips and cards. He threw some money on the floor.

Outside, Hurley shouted, “McFee, I told you t’open the door!” and rattled the handle.

“Maybe he’s pulling his pants on,” Roy Cruikshank said patiently.

“Don’t get excited.” Metz spoke irritably. “I’m coming.” He ripped the tape off McFee’s lips. “Tell ‘em anything you please—it won’t stick. Not in this town, it won’t. We got all the alibis we need.” To the other two he said, “McFee and Art tangled over a pair of jacks, see? Art laid him out.”

Metz poured gin into a glass. He drank half of it, spilled the remainder on the carpet. He wiped his lips on a handkerchief and opened the door.

“Hello, Pete!” Metz said.

“Oh, it’s you!” Hurley’s bitter button eyes went tight in their sockets. He shoved past Metz, saying, “Where’s McFee?”

Roy Cruikshank tailed him into the living room. Cruikshank was a slouching pink lad in his thirties. He had an egg-shaped stomach, evangelical hands and cynical, indolent eyes.

“Party,” Cruikshank said lazily. “Well, well.”

Hurley’s hostile eyes made their calculations. Art Kline sat on the couch, nursing his jaw. Welch, leaning back in a chair near the table, squeezed five cards in his left hand, lighted a cigarette with his right. McFee’s face was a mess.

“What happened, Handsome?” Hurley muttered.

McFee smiled with bruised lips. “Ask Metz.”

“Art and McFee mixed over a pair of Jacks,” Metz said with annoyed distinctness. “McFee smacked Art. Art laid him out.”

“How long you been playing?”

“Half an hour.”

Hurley flared out, “The superintendent told Roy and me—”

“It don’t matter what the superintendent told you. McFee’s been here half an hour. Coupla days ago, out to the Shawl, McFee said, ‘Joe, why don’t you and the boys drop in for a session some time? If the missus and me are out you’ll find the key under the mat.’ There’s a lad for you! So we dropped in tonight—around two. We played rummy until McFee came.”

Hurley looked at Welch and Kline. “That right?”

“Check.”

“Me, too.” Kline rubbed his jaw. “That guy packs a cannon in his kick.”

Glinting amusement surfaced the dark violence in McFee’s eyes. Hurley put a cigarette in his mouth, jiggled it angrily. Reddening, he said, “You heard these boys, McFee?”

“Sure!” McFee answered. “Gimme a drink, some’dy.”

As Cruikshank handed McFee the glass a faint irritability stirred his cynical indolence. “Sure that’s all, McFee?”

“That’s all right now,” McFee answered deliberately.

But Hurley had a couple of kicks left. To Metz he said vehemently, “I want the how of this Gaiety business.”

“Some’dy phoned the Shawl,” Metz replied cautiously. “Who was it, Art?”

“I dunno.”

Metz waved his hand. “That’s how it is, Pete. Tough, though. Damon was a nice kid. And Melrose is going to be damn good and sore.”

Hurley suddenly became enraged. “You got your gall sitting there telling me—” He became inarticulate, his face a network of purple veins. “By God! This town—”

Metz asked quietly, “What you want to know, Pete?”

Hurley took out a handkerchief, wiped the palm of his hands, put it away. He said huskily, “I wanna know where you boys were between eleven and one.”

“I’ll tell you,” Metz said confidingly. “We were having a little supper in Sam Melrose’s rooms at the Shawl. Art, Monty, Tony, Max Beck, Fred Pope and me. Mabel Leclair put on a shimmy number. She left the Gaiety around eleven. One o’clock, Tony pulled out. He had a date. Art and Monty and me came here.” Metz added lazily, “Anything else, Pete?”

Hurley’s throat sounded dry as he said, “And that Leclair queen didn’t hand Ranee Damon five grand for the Shelldon file; and—”

“Why, Pete!”

“—You birds didn’t walk Damon away with a hole in his chest—”

Metz asked Welch and Kline seriously. “Either you boys got Damon in your pockets?” And then, “Who’s been giving you the run-around, Pete?”

Hurley glared at McFee. The latter said nothing. McFee’s eyes were hot and violent, but he smiled with his lips and Hurley pulled his own eyes back into his head.

“And you ain’t heard Tony Starke bust his neck in a smash on Hawthorne?”

“Gosh, no! How’d it happen?”

Hurley flared out disgustedly, “Mercy Hospital. He’ll live.”

Metz stood up. “We better go buy Tony a bouquet.” He put on his hat. He buttoned his waistcoat. Art Kline got into his coat and shook down his trousers. Monty Welch carefully smoothed down his hair. Metz smiled. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, McFee. We had a hot party.”

As they reached the door Hurley said sourly, “The vice detail raids the Shawl tonight. Slattery and his boys. Midnight.”

“Saturday’s a swell date to knock over a road-house doing our business—”

“We got to make a play, ain’t we? The Mayor’s coming.”

“Ohhh,” said Metz. “Hizoner. Well!”

They went away.

9

ROY CRUIKSHANK wrapped his evangelical hands around glassware and poured himself a drink. He set his hat on the back of his pink head. “Those lads were giving you the works, McFee?”

The latter jeered, “And why didn’t I tell Hurley about it?” He flexed his shoulder muscles, began to walk the floor. “Why didn’t I tell him those pansies tailed Mayo and me in that sedan to Hawthorne Street? Roy, I told Hurley plenty before I left the Gaiety.”

Hurley blew up. “I mighta called the wagon, sure. And Morry Lasker’d have had ‘em bailed out before I’d booked ‘em at the desk. If it had come to court—which ain’t likely— Metz and his lads’d have brought a sockful of alibis, and Lasker’d have given McFee the haw-haw for his tag-in-the-dark yarn. ‘Y’honor-gen’lemen-the-jury, the witness admits the only light in the theater was that of an electric torch. How could he positively have identified my clients—’ ” Hurley jiggled his cigarette. “The papers’d pan the cops and the D. A. for not making it stick. And me out airing my pants.”

The Tribune man crooned, “Now he’s getting sore.”

“Whatda you want for two hundred bucks a month? If I can crack the Melrose drag, fine. If I pull a dud I lose my badge. Lookit Frank Ward. Chased Melrose doing seventy and give him a ticket. Frank lost his job— and five kids.” Hurley jerked his hat over his eyes, stood up. “The Chief said to me, ‘Hurley, you’re a good copper. But don’t get too good.’ I ain’t going to.”

Hurley slammed the entrance door.

Putting a cigarette in the middle of his pink face, Roy Cruikshank said, “Hurley isn’t a bad guy.” He laughed from his belly up. “Tonight the vice detail raids Melrose’s Spanish Shawl. The Mayor goes along. Metz has rolled up the bar and there’s checkers in the gambling room. Hizoner drinks his lemonade and makes his little speech, entitled, Everything’s Rosy in Our Town. Some’dy ought to give us a new deal.”

McFee went into the bathroom. He swabbed his face with hot water, took a shower. He rubbed his shoulders with linament, got into clean pajamas, a bathrobe. He had a mouse under his left eye. His lips were bruised and broken. The hot violence still glinted on the surface of his eyes.

In the kitchen McFee prepared coffee, ham and eggs and flap-jacks; set the food on a tray with mess-gear. Cruikshank had righted the card table. He was dealing himself poker hands. “Boy!” said Cruikshank. They ate without talk, McFee believing in food first. Cruikshank was careless with his eggs. His neckties said so.

After they had cleaned up the tray, Cruikshank began to fool abstractedly with the cards. McFee suggested they cut for nickels. Cruikshank thought it a good idea until McFee had won around five dollars; then he muttered sourly, “I guess I’ve paid for my breakfast.”

McFee said abruptly, “Who’s the Trib backing for district attorney?”

“The Trib—” Cruikshank cut a ten-spade to McFee’s heart-queen. “What you got on those girls, damn your hide—” He shoved across a chip. “The Trib—oh, yeah. Why, Jim Hughes, I guess. Jim’s a good egg, and he’d give the county a break.”

“Jim isn’t bad,” McFee admitted, “but Luke Addams is better; Luke knows the political set-up. Jim’d have to learn too much.”

“Well, it don’t matter who the Trib backs. Melrose has written the ticket—Dietrich. The Mayor endorses Dietrich and it’s count ‘em and weep.”

McFee stacked chips. “Dietrich elected’ll throw the county Melrose.” He looked at Cruikshank, eyes cold. “That’ll give him the county, City Hall and police machines. Larrabee is soft, but he’s got church backing and while he’s D.A. he’s never been more than half Melrose’s man.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I’ll tell you.” McFee spoke harshly. “If Melrose’s heels had kept their hands off me this morning, I’d have kept mine in my pants pocket. But they didn’t.” His words made a bitter, drumming sound. “So I’m out to give Melrose a ride.”

“On what?”

“The Damon murder.”

“You think he or his heels killed Damon?”

McFee said softly, “Can I make it look that way, you mean?”

“You got the City Hall hook-up to beat.”

McFee shuffled the cards. “Littner might buy a ticket,” he muttered. “Littner ought to be chief.” He added thoughtfully. “Littner’s going to be Chief.” And then, “Roy, could you swing the Trib to Luke Addams, if you wanted to?”

“Mebbe.” Cruikshank rubbed his plump hands on his fat thighs. “But I don’t guess I want to. Jim Hughes—”

“Swell!” said McFee. “Roy, you owe me five- ten. I’ll cut you for it against Luke Addams for D.A. Five-ten isn’t high for a district attorney.”

Cruikshank grinned. “Cut ‘em first.”

McFee turned up a four-diamond.

“If I don’t beat that—” Cruikshank exulted.

But his cut was a trey-heart.

“McFee, you lucky stiff, I got a hunch you’re going to slam this across.”

McFee said, “You owe me five-ten, Roy.” He poured a couple of drinks. “To Luke Addams, the next D.A.”

Cruikshank went away.

At his telephone McFee dialed Dresden 5216. He said, “Hello, Luke … McFee. Pin this in your hat: You are to be District Attorney …” Luke Addams laughed. So did McFee.

Then he hung up and went to bed.

McFee got up around twelve and stood under the shower. His eye was bad, his lips were puffy, but he felt better. As he dressed, the telephone rang.

Irene Mayo was calling.

McFee said, “Oh, pretty good … a couple of the boys dropped in. Nothing much …” And then, “How about some lunch, sister? … Cato’s. Half an hour … Right.”

McFee stopped at his office, in the Strauss Building and looked over the mail his secretary had laid on his desk. Out of a white envelope— five-and-ten stock—fell a triangular shaped scrap of drug store paper. On it, in crude characters, was printed:

Sam Melrose got the Shelldon file, you bet.

He’s going to work on it.

MR. INSIDE.

McFee stared at the note. “Well,” he said finally, and went out.

At Cato’s Irene Mayo waited in the booth McFee usually occupied. She wore a green felt beret, a string of pearls and a knitted green silk suit with white cuffs. Her eyes were smudgy, feverish in her taut face. She smiled, with a slow, subtle curving of her red lips.

McFee said, “Pretty nice.”

“Not very nice,” she answered. “Does your eye hurt?”

McFee grinned. “You ought to see the other lad … I suppose you had callers?”

She nodded. “Captain Littner and Mr. Hurley. They stayed about an hour, but I couldn’t tell them anything they didn’t know.”

The red-headed girl ordered a roast. McFee said he was on a diet and took turtle soup, planked steak with mushrooms and apple pie. They talked a while. The girl presently fetched an envelope out of her vanity bag.

“That came this morning,” she said.

The envelope was a replica of the one McFee had received. He took a swallow of coffee and shook a scrap of drug store paper out of the envelope. The crude printing on it was familiar.

You tell McFee Melrose got the Shelldon file

at the Spanish Shawl.

MR. INSIDE.

The girl flared out, “Of course he’s got it. And that means he had Ranee shot. McFee—” She laid a cold hand on his, her eyes hot. “—I could kill Melrose—myself. It’s in me to do it. Ranee meant everything to me—I can’t tell you—”

McFee said, “The Governor’s lady.”

She turned white. She whipped up her fork as if she was going to throw it at him. After a long moment she said coldly, “You mean I didn’t love him—that I was just politically ambitious—”

“Oh, you loved him, sister.”

“McFee, you are horrid.” Tears started in her eyes. “But I don’t care what you think. He’d have got there. I could have made him. He had appeal—the public—”

“What about the Leclair woman?” McFee asked.

Irene Mayo answered stonily, “She didn’t count,” and made patterns on the table cloth with her fork. “I loved him, but—I shouldn’t have minded his blonde—much. A man is a man. Only the other thing really mattered—” The red-headed girl lifted her eyes to McFee’s. “I am exposing myself, McFee. I did want to be—the Governor’s lady. You’ll think me mercenary. I don’t care. I’d rather be that than dishonest. But Sam Melrose had to—” Her eyelids fell over the hate behind them, as she asked, “Who do you suppose ‘Mr. Inside’ is?”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Nothing makes sense.”

“What does he mean by that sentence in your note, ‘He’s going to work on it?’ “

“I been thinking about that,” McFee said. “If Melrose has that Shelldon file he could do one of two things with it: Burn it, or work it over. By work it over, I mean change, substitute, lose in part, cut out, then send the file back with its kick gone. But we still got a good one to answer—” McFee stirred his coffee. “If Melrose has the file, what’s he been chasing you and me all over the lot for?” He added after a moment. “The vice detail raids the Shawl tonight, by the way.”

This appeared to interest Irene Mayo tremendously, but she stared at McFee silently while he wiped mushroom gravy off his lips and buttered a biscuit. “You said the Shelldon scandal wasn’t big enough, in itself, to pull Melrose down, didn’t you?”

McFee nodded. “You know what happened, don’t you? Mike Shelldon was a big shot poker hound. Some’dy bumped him off in one of Melrose’s joints—Melrose, maybe—but there isn’t enough, if y’ask me.”

“Wouldn’t there be enough if it was definitely linked with the murder of Ranee?”

“Yes.”

“You just said the vice detail was going to raid the Shawl tonight. McFee—” She laid her hand on his. “—if Melrose has that file at the Shawl, and it should be found there— by the police—before witnesses—newspaper men—”

“Swell!” said McFee. “Some’dy’d have to do something then. But it isn’t going to be, sister—”

“You don’t know—” Her words came feverishly. “I’m not the sort of woman to sit down and wait. / can’t! I’ve got to do something myself. McFee, take me out to the Shawl tonight. It’s Saturday—there’ll be a crowd—”

“If Sam has that file out there, you don’t suppose it’s lying around loose—”

“Of course I don’t. But we might get a break. Things do break sometimes—unexpectedly. He knows what a gun is for, doesn’t he?” she said, a little wildly. “He threatened us—we can threaten him—and if the police and some newspaper men are there—” She stared at McFee. She was very pale. She held her napkin in a ball between her clasped hands. “Not afraid, are you?”

McFee had finished his apple pie, sugared his second coffee.

“Got a hunch?”

“Yes.”

“Well—” His eyes were amused. “Wrap yourself around that food and I’ll give you a bell tonight.”

“McFee, you are a darling!”

“That’s better than being Governor,” he said.

After he had taken Irene Mayo to her car, McFee walked back along Third, turned down Carter. Some people were staring vacantly at the Gaiety Theater. A sign in the lobby said; HOUSE CLOSED TODAY. Across the exit alley hung a theater ladder. A cop on guard said, “Hello, McFee.”

“Dirty job,” McFee replied. He noticed that Maggie O’Day’s hole-in-the-wall was shuttered. “That’s funny,” he muttered. “What happened to O’Day?”

“Search me,” the cop said. “I been around Second and Carter twenty years and I never seen that old girl shut up before.”

Rolling a match in his ear, McFee went down Second. He walked seven blocks and turned west on Finch, a street of ramshackle detached houses. Finch had been red light once; now it was colored. McFee stopped in front of a tall house with a crazy porch and a triangular wooden block at the curb. A pickaninny thumbed his nose at McFee.

McFee went along a broken cement walk to a drab side door. Two sloping boards with grooves in them led from the broken walk up to the door sill. McFee knocked. No one came. He was about to knock again when he sniffed the air. His eyes ran down the door. Folded newspaper showed between door bottom and sill. A keyhole was blocked. Moving fast, McFee pinched out his cigarette, picked up a piece of cement and shattered the window with it. He rammed the door with his shoulder. Lock and bolt gave and he fell into the room. A wave of combustible gas forced him back into the open, gagging.

A fat colored woman with a red handkerchief on her hair came up, running. She screamed.

McFee said, “Shut up. Go telephone the coppers.” The harsh fury in his tones spun her around, goggle-eyed.

McFee drew air deep down into his lungs and plunged into the gas-filled room. He shot up a window, hung his head outside, refilled his lungs. Facing inside he saw a gas heater, its cock wide open. Three cocks of a gas plate in one corner of the room were open. He shut off the gas flow and refreshed himself again.

Maggie O’Day lay in the middle of the floor. She lay on her side. Close against her was the wheel chair she had rolled herself home in for twenty years or more. But the last time she had come home she had come on her crutches.

Ranee Damon’s body was in the chair.

A rug tucked him into it. The five grand was still in his left hand. His right hung over the side of the chair, clutched in one of Maggie O’Day’s weather-beaten bony ones.

McFee bent over the woman. He felt at her heart, lifted an eyelid. “Tough,” he muttered. He went to the door and filled his lungs.

There were some rag rugs, a day bed, a couple of rocking chairs with antimacassars, a table, some framed pictures; near the gasplate was a wall cabinet. A door that led into the wall had been made tight with newspapers. Sheets of newspaper littered the floor.

A photograph of a large, fleshy, pallid man, still in his thirties, but already gross with high living, lay on the table. It was faded, had been taken perhaps thirty years before. The print had been torn in three, then carefully pieced together with adhesive tape.

McFee muttered, “The late Senator Gay-lord.” He chewed a knuckle, stared at the photograph, then looked at Damon and the woman. He said moodily, “Poor old girl!”

A bruise discolored Maggie O’Day’s left temple. One of her crutches lay on the floor, behind the wheel chair. McFee saw something else then. He saw a red smear some two inches long on a sheet of newspaper on the floor in front of the wheel chair. He picked up the sheet, his eyes fixed and cold.

The smear was crimson grease paint.

McFee inspected Damon’s shoes, the old woman’s shoes. Neither pair was daubed with grease paint.

Very softly McFee said, “Pretty!”

A couple of coppers came. An assistant coroner, named Ridley, came.

Presently, Ridley said, “The old girl’s been dead quite a while—ten or twelve hours. She cracked her head when she fell. It must have knocked her cold.”

“Maybe some’dy cracked her first,” McFee said.

“You mean, somebody else turned on the gas?”

10

A COUPLE of hours later, McFee talked with Captain Littner, Chief of the Homicide Squad, in Littner’s office, in police headquarters on Greer Street. Littner was a lean hairless man with an oval head and bleak eyes as clear as cold water. He had a political, a cautious mind.

“O’Day had a son,” Littner said. “Some thirty years ago. But nobody knew—I mean, nobody was sure—what became of him. There was a lot of talk. Gaylord—” Littner rubbed his chin, looked at McFee.

“Sure,” said McFee. “Gaylord. And now we got Melrose. You talked with Leclair yet?”

“Yes.”

“Did she mention alibis?”

“Nine of them.”

“Where’d you see her?”

“Melrose brought her in. He said he left the Scudder yacht late this morning.” Littner was amused. “He guessed we better close the Gaiety awhile. And anyhow, Leclair was opening a dance act at the Spanish Shawl tonight. He guessed he owed Leclair a statement to the police—oh, beans!” said Captain Littner gently. “What a town!”

“You ought to be Chief, Littner,” McFee said.

“Yes,” Littner answered carefully. “We traced that .32—the one killed Damon. It belonged to Joe Metz.”

McFee exclaimed, “Now, you don’t tell me!”

“Joe said he hadn’t much use of a .32 and he sold it to Damon in the Press Club, couple of weeks ago. Ranee wanted it for someone, Joe said. Joe’s got all the witnesses he needs—Carl Reder, Fred Pope, Wade Fiske. They say they saw Damon buy the gun, take it from Metz. Damon paid him fifteen dollars—” Littner smiled coldly. “Maybe he did.”

McFee said abstractedly, “Maybe he did, at that.” And then, “What do you think of this notion Damon’s murderer bumped off O’Day because the old girl saw him leave the Gaiety?”

“We have that smear of grease paint.”

“Grease paint isn’t easy to clean up,” McFee said, thoughtfully. “If it’s on cloth—any sort of fabric, I guess—it isn’t. Now if I’d killed some’dy and stepped in a mess of grease paint, I’d throw my shoes away.”

“Where’d you throw ‘em, McFee?”

“Well, I might throw ‘em in some’dy’s trash barrel. How’s that?”

“Not bad.” Littner made a note on a memorandum pad. “I’ll put a detail on trash collection.” He pulled his long jaw down. “McFee,” he asked, “what about that red-headed girl?”

“Nice little number.” McFee stood his hat on the back of his head. “A go-getter, and no better than she ought to be, maybe. Littner, if Leclair had dropped instead of Damon, I’d say Mayo could have done it. But she wanted Damon; she had a notion she could make him governor. Mayo wouldn’t have shot Damon.” Littner nodded, and McFee proceeded. “I got another idea. The vice detail’s going to knock over the Shawl tonight—twelve p.m. Melrose’ll be there— Metz, Leclair. The Mayor’s billed to tell a bedtime story. How about it, Mr. Littner?”

Captain Littner said, “Beans!” He opened a cupboard in his desk. “What’ll you have, McFee?”

“Rye,” said McFee. “The trouble with you, Littner, is you don’t wisecrack ‘em enough. Lookit the Chief now—” He took the glass Littner handed him, pushed his forehead up, pulled it down. “Littner,” he asked again, “how’d you like to be Chief?”

“The pay’s good.”

“You’d need plenty drag.”

“Yes.” Littner stared at McFee with a flicker of warmth in his eyes. “Yes, I’d need plenty of drag.”

“Luke Addams is going to be District Attorney,” McFee said. “We got to elect Luke first.”

“Luke’d be a big help,” Littner admitted.

McFee leaned close again. “Here’s a question: If that Shelldon file should happen to be found in the Spanish Shawl tonight, what’d the Shelldon-Damon tie-up do to the Melrose organization?”

“Everything,” Littner answered drily. “But it won’t be.”

McFee handed Littner the “Mr. Inside” notes. He told him where he’d got them and watched Littner over the end of his cigarette.

Littner said carefully, “Maybe I’ll drop in at the Shawl around twelve.” And then, “Help yourself.”

“Thanks,” said McFee.

It was five o’clock. McFee’s car was in a garage on Fourth. He walked up to Carter, crossed Second. The cop was still on duty in the Gaiety alley. One of the lobby doors of the theater was open. A man with wide ears and a thick neck came out.

McFee said, “Hello, Harrigan.”

“A swell dish you canaries handed me last night,” the house manager said sourly.

“Lookit the publicity,” McFee told him.

“What the hell! You pull a murder on me and the coppers close the house. I could have sold out at two bucks a seat if they’d give me a break.”

“Why’n’t you talk to Melrose?”

Harrigan muttered uneasily and put a cigar in his mouth. “Guess it ain’t my picnic.” McFee followed him towards the door and Harrigan said, “The show’s closed, mister.”

“There’s a couple of points I want to check up.”

“Go read a book.”

McFee said, “There ought to be money in this for the house. If I give you a slant on what happened you ought to be able to hang an act on it when the coppers give you the go-sign. It’d sell big.”

Harrigan looked at the end of his cigar. “A guy’s gotta be careful,” he mumbled; and then, “All right.”

The backstage was dark. In Leclair’s room, McFee turned on a wall bracket lamp. Light flowed out into the backstage. The couch stood against the wall. McFee stared at the crosses Hurley had chalked on the floor.

“Leclair was standing farthest from wall and couch,” McFee muttered. “Damon was close against the couch—”

Harrigan cut in obliquely, “Leclair was out to the Shawl when Damon—if it was Damon— rubbed out.”

“Oh, sure,” McFee said solemnly. “Joe Metz and the boys said so. It was just a couple of ghosts I saw. Well, Mr. and Mrs. X, then. Mr. X flopped into Mrs. X’s arms. They went down. Got a ball of string, Harrigan?”

The latter found string.

“Stand here,” McFee said, and Harrigan set his No. 10’s on the Mr. X cross. “Hold this against your chest.”

McFee gave Harrigan the loose end of the string. Unrolling the ball as he went, he walked some twenty feet into the backstage, stopped and held the ball of string chest high. He stood on the south edge of the lane of light. The darkness of the backstage partly concealed him.

“The bullet must have traveled pretty well along the line of the string,” McFee said. He added drily, “If there was any bullet—”

Slackening the line, McFee inspected a shallow horizontal groove, about an inch long, in the door jamb. The string had been level with the groove and about six inches to the right of it. McFee stared hard at the groove, twirled a match in his ear.

Backing up again, McFee said, “Put your dogs on the other cross.”

Harrigan did so and the string grazed the groove. McFee said, “Swell!” and threw the ball at Harrigan. “Buy yourself a drink on me.”

“Hey, wait a minute, fellah,” Harrigan yelled. “You got me on by toes. What’s the rest of it?”

McFee said, “Read it in the papers,” and went out.

At Cato’s, McFee ordered a Porterhouse steak smothered in onions. After his third coffee, he drove to his apartment. It was now eight o’clock. He looked up Irene Mayo’s number and dialed Spring 2341. There was no response. McFee waited a little, then hung up.

He walked around the room, glaring at the Evening Tribune. The Trib said two killings in twenty-four hours was plenty and something ought to be done. McFee made a ball of the sheet. He carried the breakfast tray in to the kitchen. He put away the card table and poured himself a drink. He tried Irene Mayo’s number again. No good.

McFee took a shower and got into his dinner clothes. He had wrecked four black ties when his telephone rang.

“Hello,” McFee said. No one answered. “Hello, there—McFee talking.”

He heard voices, vaguely familiar, but detached and distant and apparently not addressed to him. He embedded his ear in the receiver and waited, a fixed, hot look in his eyes.

The indistinct muttering continued until a voice suddenly cried, “You can’t keep me here! I know where we are. We are in a house on Butte Street—I saw the name—Butte Street. Butte Street!”

It was Irene Mayo’s voice that had ended on that desperate shrill note. Her voice had been thin and distant, but clear. McFee heard that muttering again.

And then, hysterically, “Don’t touch me! I haven’t got it—McFee—” A man laughed. A woman laughed.

McFee waited. His forehead was wet. He wiped it with a handkerchief. Gently replaced the receiver, and stood up. At his desk, McFee looked at a city map. He put a gun in his jacket pocket, and went down into the street.

As he got into his car, McFee said softly, “A house on Butte Street.”

11

MCFEE DROVE towards the foothills that threw a possessive arm around the town, on the north. Here the streets went up and down like stair carpets and lost themselves in tangles of oaks and eucalypti. This neighborhood had been built up years before, then forgotten while the town grew westward. Most of the residences were scattered, set in small acreage, and exclusively hedged about. Street lights were few.

Butte, a tag-end street, one block long, ended in a canyon. McFee drove up, then down the street. There were only three houses on it. Two were dark. The third, at the end of the street, was a secretive-looking, one-story, rambling, redwood place. A cypress hedge enclosed the grounds. A side window glowed.

McFee left his car at the corner, across the road from the street lamp, and walked back.

He went up a cinder driveway, saw a garage, half filled by a dark-colored sedan. The lighted side window shone dimly in the black expanse of house and mantling trees. Curtains screened the windows. McFee could not see into the room, but he heard voices.

He heard Joe Metz’ voice. He heard Joe Metz say, “Sister, we just begun to work on you—”

McFee found the back door locked. The house was built on the slope of the canyon. He saw a basement window on his left, below the level on which he stood. The light was on the other side of the house; the wind made a melancholy rustling in the trees. He came to a decision. Holding his soft felt hat against one of the small square panes of the cellar window, he struck the felt sharply with the nose of his gun. The brittle glass broke with a tinkling sound.

His arm inside the window, McFee found the hook. The window swung upward on hinges. McFee threw the beam of his flash inside the cellar room, let himself down into it. He saw a stair, went quietly up it, came to a door. It opened when he turned the handle and pushed against it. He left his shoes on the top step.

McFee found himself in a dark, square hall, redwood timbered. He heard voices, saw an open door with light somewhere beyond it. Through the door he entered a living room with a huge stone fireplace. The light and the voices came from a partly opened door, opposite the one through which he had just come.

As McFee approached this door, Monty Welch whispered, “Lemme at her, Joe—”

This room was the library. McFee saw Mabel Leclair in a black velvet gown, curled up on a divan, eating chocolates. Metz and Welch were bent over an arm chair in which Irene Mayo strained away from them in an attitude of terror. Joe Metz held her by the arm. Her eyes were enormous, frantic. She whimpered faintly. Her lips were taped. Welch burned a cigarette.

McFee said, “Quit that, Joe.”

Monty Welch must have heard McFee first. He spun on his heel, white violence bursting through his professional calm. As McFee said “Joe,” Welch fired from the pocket of his dinner jacket. He fired again, lurching toward McFee. The latter aimed, let go. Welch’s shoulder bunched up, he screamed and went down. He threshed about, buried his face in the carpet.

Metz stood erect, his hands at his sides. McFee went towards him. Metz did not move or speak. His bulbous forehead gleamed. His lip muscles twitched. McFee took a long stride, a short one, and struck Metz a terrible blow in the mouth. It made a crunching sound and Metz hit the carpet. McFee pulled the adhesive tape from Irene Mayo’s lips.

“McFee—” the red-headed girl sobbed. She rocked in the chair, began to rub her wrists.

“Sure,” McFee said. “Take it easy.”

Welch dragged himself across the floor. McFee toed his gun under the divan. Metz lay groaning. His mouth and the plaster strap on his cheek were a crimson mess. He held a handkerchief against it. Suddenly, he jerked out an automatic. McFee’s unshod toe caught his wrist before he could fire. The gun shattered the glass front of a bookcase. McFee raised Metz by his lapels and flung him onto the divan, alongside Mabel Leclair. The Leclair woman screamed and covered her face.

McFee searched all three of them for other weapons, found none.

“What give you the notion Miss Mayo had the Shelldon file, Joe?”

Metz blotted his wet lips, whispered, “She knows where it is—you, too—one of you—”

McFee cut in softly, “The gun killed Damon was yours, Joe.”

“I sold it to Damon.” Metz’ bruised lips distorted his speech. “The boys saw me hand it him. I told Littner—”

“How about Damon handing it to Leclair?”

The blonde woman opened her mouth, but as McFee looked at her she closed it again with a gasping sound. McFee proceeded. “You went to Miss Mayo’s apartment, I s’pose. That’s kidnapping. We’ll give Littner a bell.”

The telephone stood on the table. McFee backed towards it. Metz stared after him, his eyes haggard above the red-spotted handkerchief against his lips. The blonde woman wept. Holding his shoulder, Monty Welch struggled to a sitting position, his lips gray.

The telephone was a dial instrument. Several magazines had been inserted under the receiver, so that while the receiver was on the hook, the hook was up. McFee laughed a little and looked at the red-headed girl. She nodded, her eyes hot with hate. As McFee seized the telephone, she got control of herself and caught his arm.

“What’s on your mind, sister?”

“McFee, it’s our turn now.” She spoke feverishly. “These people aren’t important. Mel-rose—Sam Melrose is. He’s at the Shawl. The Leclair woman is opening a dance act there tonight. Well, she isn’t—”

“What’s that?”

Irene Mayo said deliberately, “Metz is going to phone Melrose that Leclair is too ill to appear. Shock—anything! And he’s going to tell Melrose her red-headed friend, Zella Vasquez, is on her way out to take Leclair’s place. Melrose— no one at the Spanish Shawl has seen me. If Metz telephones Melrose I’m coming he’ll accept me as Leclair’s friend. Why shouldn’t he?” Irene Mayo hammered on the table. “McFee, you’ve got to make Metz telephone him—”

“Swell!” McFee said.

“I won’t!” Metz shouted thickly. “By God, if you lay a hand on me—”

McFee jerked him up and shook him into a shivering silence. He walked him backwards, slammed him down beside the table.

He said, “Metz, since half-past one this morning, you’ve been rocking the cradle. It’s my turn now. Do as I tell you, or I’ll spatter you over that wall. Grab that phone and tell Melrose Leclair is sick. Tell him Zella Vasquez, her redheaded side kick, is on her way out. And make it stick!”

Metz’ Adam’s apple ran up and down his throat. He rubbed his wet palms together, pulled the telephone towards him. He dialed Thorn 99238. He had to do it twice and then, huskily, “Mr. Melrose—tell him Metz calling.”

McFee stuck his gun into the back of Metz’ neck. He didn’t say anything. Melrose helloed, and Metz began a pretty good job of doing as he had been told. When he weakened, McFee leaned on his gun and Metz picked up again. Melrose put some question about Zella Vasquez.

Metz answered carefully, “I dunno, Sam. Leclair says she’s good—that oughta be plenty—” The blonde woman made blasphemous noises but subsided when McFee looked at her. Metz proceeded, “She’s on her way, Sam …” Metz hung up. “What Melrose won’t do to you for this, mister—”

McFee gave Irene Mayo his gun, said, “Watch him,” and cut out a length of the telephone cord. He bound Metz’ hands and corded them to the straight back of the chair in which he sat. Metz did not resist. His ankles McFee fastened to the legs of the chair with Metz’ belt and a couple of handkerchiefs. Metz dripped sweat but said nothing. At the back of the house McFee found some clothesline. He sat Monty Welch on another straight backed chair and roped him to it. Welch had fainted. McFee slammed a third chair down in front of Mabel Leclair.

She screamed, “You ain’t going to tie me up-”

McFee cut in, “I’ll forget you’re a lady, if you don’t sit in that chair.”

“Forget it anyhow,” Irene Mayo said hotly.

As McFee was tying up the Leclair woman, she flared out, “Sam Melrose thinks you redheaded Shebas are particular arsenic.”

“He’s going to change his mind.”

“You couldn’t hold Ranee Damon.”

Vivid spots of color on her cheek bones, Irene Mayo slapped the blonde woman hard across the mouth, rocking her head backwards. Mabel Leclair went pale under her make-up, became inarticulate. The red-headed girl was throwing up the gun when McFee said, “That’s plenty, sister.”

McFee found a roll of adhesive tape on the table. He taped the lips of his prisoners. Metz he dragged into the hall, on the heels of his chair, and tumbled into a clothes closet. The door locked, he threw the key into the cellar and put on his shoes, he locked Monty Welch in the pantry; left Mabel Leclair in the library.

Irene Mayo said, “You do a good job, McFee.”

He nodded. “That telephone stunt was slick.”

She shuddered. “I was afraid you were out. They were getting some drinks. I knew it was the only chance— They thought I was shouting at them.”

McFee stared at her. He said slowly, “Think you can put over that Zella Vasquez number?”

She smiled. “I’ve known lots of men, McFee.”

“What you think you’re going to get out of it?”

“I told you at lunch. If Melrose has that Shell-don file—if I should find it—or the police—You said they were raiding the Shawl—” She clasped her hands, whispered huskily, “Perhaps I’m a fool, but I can’t help it. I can’t help feeling something’s going to break—”

McFee muttered, “Let’s get at it, then.”

A clock in the hall showed nine-five as they went out.

They walked down Butte Street to McFee’s car.

“I want to go home first,” the girl said.

McFee smiled one-sidedly, answered, “Right.”

At Irene Mayo’s apartment, McFee poured himself a drink. He took the glass over to the telephone and called Roy Cruikshank, at the Tribune office, then Littner at headquarters. Ringing off, he pushed his face up and set his glass down. Near the telephone stood a portable typewriter. McFee took a chair and slid paper under the roller. He wrote for about ten minutes, then read what he had written, and put the paper inside his jacket pocket.

Irene Mayo came prancing out of the bedroom. She wore a green silk blouse, a blue velvet bolero, a frothy red skirt and a green sash. She looked like a red-headed Carmen. Snapping her fingers, she fell into McFee’s arms. Her green eyes were veiled and humid.

McFee said, “Very nice,” and kissed her. “If Melrose don’t fall, I’ll go peddling fleas to a dog circus.”

It was nine-fifty. McFee drove fast. They took one of the beach boulevards, followed it a while, and turned north. Presently they made a west turn, then a northwest turn into a dirt road that ended in a grove of cypress trees. The trees were on a bluff high above a crashing beach, and garlands of red, green and blue lights hung against them. Crooked in the bright arm of the trees was a sprawling, dark-shingled building with gemlike windows. A horde of cars stood around. Music throbbed. People churned in a splatter of sound and color.

Irene Mayo said, “I’ll go in alone. You come back later—” She added lightly, “If you care to.”

McFee laughed and let her out. She ran under a canopy of colored lights and vanished through a door. An attendant ran towards McFee’s car, but McFee reversed and roared down the road. At the intersection he parked long enough to smoke a couple of cigarettes before he put the car around.

He entered the Spanish Shawl at eleven-five.

12

AT ONE END of the rowdy cafe floor a six-piece colored orchestra—Dutch Louie and his Pals— peddled hot music. The ebony lads looked livid and wet in the overhead yellow lights. A good crowd danced about. The closely regimented tables made a horseshoe about the patch of shining floor. Most of them were taken but Leo Ganns, the head waiter, found McFee one at the lower end of the room.

He ordered broiled lobster and coffee.

The music stopped and the floor emptied. McFee touched a match to a cigarette. The air was heavy with smoke and the odors of food. Some liquor was flowing. Two girls near McFee sat lopsided and very still. Dutch Louie began to shout through a megaphone in his mellow drawl. He ballyhooed one Zella Vasquez, red-headed Spanish dancer, who stood ‘em on their ears in Havana, Cuba. “Yessir, ladies and gem’men, an’ if you don’t think she’s got something you jest gotta have—”

Irene Mayo whirled onto the floor in her Spanish costume. Behind her came a dark, slick-looking number from the Argentine or Chicago, maybe. They did a fox trot, the ebony boys wailing “My Baby’s a Red-head-too.” After that, a tango. Then Irene Mayo went solo and turned in a sweet la jota Aragonese. As she frothed past McFee, her eyes bright with fever, rested on him without recognition. She threw herself into the dark number’s arms, and the crowd stamped. They did another tango. McFee dug into his lobster. The crowd howled for more and got the hat dance.

Sam Melrose came smiling onto the floor. He was an olive-skinned man with an uneven mouth and grizzled hair parted in the middle. His face was old, his forehead was corded by deep lines that never smoothed out. He was thirty-eight.

The hat dance finished, Irene Mayo pin-wheeled towards Melrose. He caught her in his arms, kissed her, and whirled her off through a door. The house yelled its throat dry, but the red-headed girl did not return. The slick-looking number took the bows.

McFee said, “Not bad,” and finished his coffee.

McFee strolled through a door which opened into a red-carpeted hall, pushed through a door in the wall opposite and joined half a dozen men drinking at a bar. The bar was a swivel arrangement that could be swung into the hall behind it on a couple of minutes’ notice.

The barkeep said, “What’ll you have, McFee?”

“Straight.” As the barkeep set up his goods, McFee asked, “Comp’ny tonight, Ed?”

“I dunno,” the man muttered.

McFee walked into the gaming room, which adjoined the bar. Roulette, black jack and craps were running. There were no windows in the room. The only entrance to it was from the bar. The games were at the lower end of the room, and it was possible to swing a false wall across the tables as quickly as the bar could be made to vanish. The device was superficial, but all the roadhouse ever had needed. Some twenty or thirty people were playing, their voices feverish and blurred. Now and then a word pattern emerged. “You pick ‘em—we pay ‘em … Get your money down … Six … point is six … twenty-one … throws a nine. Take your money …”

Art Kline stood near the crap dealer. He looked at McFee, flexed his shoulder muscles, looked away. It was twenty minutes of midnight.

Walking into the hall, McFee glanced down it to where Melrose had his rooms. A woman’s voice lifted hysterically for an instant above the harsh overtones of the Shawl. Art Kline stuck his head into the hall. When he saw McFee, he pulled it back. McFee smiled coldly, waited a minute, then went past the bar to a side door.

It was light outside. He walked to the rear of the building. Here it was dark. Trees threw tall shadows. Light came from a curtained window behind some shrubbery. McFee glanced around, then pushed through the shrubbery. It plucked at his face and throat. The window curtains did not quite meet and he was able to see into the room. He saw a soft, intimate room and a floor with a yellow parchment shade. Irene Mayo reclined in a plush upholstered chair beneath the lamp. Sam Melrose sat on an arm of the chair.

The red-headed girl laughed provocatively. Melrose bent towards her. She pushed him away, her fingers on his lips. They talked a while, Melrose leaning attentively over the girl. McFee heard her slightly hysterical laugh and Melrose’s bleak chuckle, but Dutch Louie and His Pals drowned out their conversation.

The room had three doors. One led into the hall, another opened into a small washroom, the third gave entrance from the business office. A red carpet covered the floor. An ornate flat-topped desk stood in one corner, a chair behind it, a cloak tree beside it. On the desk was a wire letter basket.

Melrose got up and went into the business office, closing the door behind him. Irene Mayo came sharply forward onto her feet. She stared at the closed door, an obsessed look on her face. She ran swiftly towards the ornate desk, bent over the wire basket. McFee saw a flat manila envelope in her hand, and muttered, “Swell!”

Someone behind him said, “We got you covered, McFee.”

13

MCFEE TURNED slowly, his palms tight against his thighs. Three men in dinner jackets stood on the other side of the shrubbery, guns in their hands. One of them was Art Kline. An ascetic-looking man with disillusioned eyes and a plume of gray hair on his white forehead had addressed McFee. This was Fred Pope, who ran the Red Jacket, a Melrose enterprise.

Their faces gleamed a little. Their shirt fronts stood up like slabs of stone.

Fred Pope said, “Sam wants to talk to you, McFee.”

“I had a notion he might.”

“Come outta that.”

McFee stepped into the triangular huddle the three men had made of their bodies. They took his gun away from him.

“Straight ahead,” Pope said. “No monkey business.”

A private door gave them access to the business office. There were comfortable chairs, a couple of mahogany desks, safe, telephone, and a filing cabinet. A desk lamp was lighted. The hall door opened and Sam Melrose entered, a cobwebby bottle in his hands.

When he saw McFee the lines that corded his forehead tightened until they looked like wires embedded in his skull. He set the bottle down, came towards McFee with quiet, quick steps. Fred Pope laughed, dropped into a chair. Kline and the other man laid their backs against the outer wall.

An electric clock on the filing cabinet indicated seven minutes of twelve.

Sam Melrose said, “McFee, I want that Grand Jury Shelldon file.”

“Don’t be a sap.”

“What do you mean?”

“You got it already, Sam.”

“McFee, you been handing my boys that line ever since they ran you down in the Gaiety this morning. I’m damn good and sick of it.” Melrose’s flat-surfaced eyes distended coldly. “But I’ll give you a break. You shoved your nose into my business—got what I paid money for. All right—come through with that file and we quit even. You walk outta here. You go home. You forget everything you figured on remembering. And you let my business alone after this. When I get this town like I want it I’ll throw some sugar your way. Where you put that file?”

McFee smiled, felt for a cigarette, put it in his mouth. He flipped a match at it. Anger puffed across Melrose’s eyes, subsided. The two hard-faced men started forward, but fell back at Melrose’s gesture.

The clock showed four minutes of twelve.

McFee said, “Lemme see, there’s a murder tied up with that Shelldon blow-off, isn’t there, Sam?”

“I can beat it.”

“What’s the idea, then?”

“It looks bad, election coming on. I want it outta the way.”

“Wait a minute, Sam. You got Leclair to make a deal with Damon. Damon is dead. His mother is dead. And the old lady didn’t turn on the gas—” McFee paused, considered the other indulgently. “Can you beat all that, Sam?”

Melrose cut in harshly, “My boys didn’t rub out Damon and his mother.”

“Well, you oughta know. If that Shelldon file don’t turn up at the wrong time, maybe the taxpayers’ll believe you. It’s funny what taxpayers’ll believe. But the Damon-O’Day murders and the Shelldon racket’d make a bad combination.” McFee laughed. “That Shelldon file’s getting pretty important, Sam.”

Melrose said, “Ten grand, McFee?”

“I haven’t got it.”

“Listen, mister—” The lines that corded Melrose’s frontal bone deepened again. “I dunno what you playing for, but if it’s to put the bell on me you got the wrong cat by the tail. I’m running this town. I’m gonna keep on running it. Nob’dy can get to first base unless I say so. McFee—” he prodded the latter in the chest, “—I want that Shelldon file. If you don’t come across my boys’ll walk you out and leave you some place.”

The clock said one minute of twelve.

Dragging on his cigarette, McFee muttered, “Well, I dunno—”

The telephone rang.

Melrose picked it up. He did not remove his eyes from McFee, as he said, “Melrose talking.” … And then, “Yes, Joe … Yes, what’s that? … McFee—That red-head—His sidekick—But you phoned—What? … A frame-up— … You dunno …” Melrose’s violent eyes impaled McFee. The latter stood stiffly, sweat on his temples. Melrose said coldly, “I got both of’em here—Oh, McFee’ll talk—”

Comprehendingly, Art Kline, Fred Pope and the other man crowded McFee. As Melrose rang off, he said, “Watch McFee!” and jumped toward his private room, jerked the door open. His eyes were hot when he faced around. “She musta heard—Fred, that redhead’s the Mayo woman. McFee brought her—a frame—Bring her back.”

As Fred Pope went away, Melrose said quietly, “What’s back of this Mayo woman coming here?”

“Some’dy’s been kidding you, Sam.”

“You gonna talk?”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Lemme work on him a while, Boss,” Art Kline said.

It was two minutes after twelve.

McFee shook the sweat out of his eyes. Dutch Louie and His Pals were tearing a staccato jazz out of their horns. The music swelled, filled the house with crashing sound. But McFee could hear the ticking of his watch, the pounding of his heart.

“Listen to the music, Sam,” he said.

Melrose shouted, “By God, McFee, if you won’t talk my boys’ll burn it out of your toes—”

McFee struck him in the mouth. As Melrose went backwards, Kline and the other men jumped in. They milled for a minute. McFee got home four or five good ones, but he was taking a beating when the music stopped. The house became completely quiet.

A police whistle shrilled out in the cafe room.

Melrose ejaculated, “The coppers! I forgot—” And then, “I’ll fix those birds—” He checked himself, said less positively, “Art, you stay here—”

McFee cut in softly, “You can’t do it.” Melrose glared at him, dabbed a cut lip with a handkerchief. “Sam, you are in a spot. Littner and Cruikshank are out there. You didn’t s’pose I’d walk in here without having my tail covered? I told Littner to look for me.”

“Lotta good that’ll do you,” Melrose said harshly. To his men, “Take McFee down the beach—the shack. Keep him there till I come.”

Art Kline stood behind McFee. “Get going, sap,” he said, in his gummed-up voice, and shoved metal into McFee’s back.

As McFee moved towards the side door, Littner entered.

Melrose’s eyes turned white. Kline and the other man stared at him, slid their guns away. Littner looked around with his cold water eyes, rubbed his long jaw.

“Hello, McFee,” he said. “Sam.”

“Littner,” McFee said.

“Argument?”

“No,” McFee answered. “Sam bit his lip. He was just going to open a bottle of bubbly.” McFee walked to the desk, picked up the bottle Melrose had placed there. It was moist and cold. “Seventy-six. Elegant.” He turned to Melrose. “Got a glass for Littner, Sam?”

Melrose stared at McFee, his flat eyes inflamed. He did not speak. A flood of sound, shot through with panic, filled the house. Women screamed, glassware shattered. Melrose wiped his mouth, felt at his throat, pulled in a long breath. Then he sullenly crossed to the filing cabinet and took three glasses, a corkscrew and a napkin out of the bottom drawer. McFee ceremoniously handed him the bottle. Melrose wiped the top of the bottle, wrapped the napkin around it. The cork popped. Melrose poured unsteadily.

McFee said, “To the next District Attorney.”

They drank.

Blood from Melrose’s cut lip turned the “seventy-six” pink. He muttered blasphemously, held the napkin against his mouth. McFee hung his arm over Melrose’s shoulders. A white heat played across the flat surfaces of Melrose’s eyes.

McFee asked, “You got the Mayor out there, Littner?”

“Yes.”

“Buy him a lemonade before you bring him in. Sam and I got business to do.” McFee slapped Melrose’s shoulder affectionately. “Five minutes, Littner.”

McFee linked his arm in Melrose’s. Melrose resisted him a moment, then let the other lead him towards the door of the inner room. Littner’s eyes followed them, faintly ironical. Art Kline and his companion glared angry bewilderment.

At the door, McFee said softly, “Tell your boys this is private, Sam.”

Melrose muttered, “That stands.”

McFee looked at Littner. “Maybe you better stick close. Some’dy might take a notion.” Littner nodded.

McFee shut the door.

Melrose’s face was yellow and wet. “What’s your proposition?”

14

THE ROOM had a secretive intimacy that affronted the uncomplicated McFee, but he marched his somber eyes around it. The washroom door stood ajar. It had been shut when McFee had looked in through the window. His eyes dwelt on it a moment. Then he dug out the “Mr. Inside” notes and handed them to Melrose. “Take a look at these.”

Melrose said thickly, “Would my boys have been tailing you all day, if I had that file here?”

“Sure you haven’t got it here, Sam?”

“What you mean?”

McFee said slowly, “Littner and Roy are here to look for it. It’ll make a swell story—if they find it in this room—A swell story, Sam—”

Comprehending, Melrose yelled, “You planted that file here! You and that redheaded tramp—What you done with it?” He dropped his hand into his jacket pocket. He pushed his face into McFee’s, said in a low tone, “You find that file quick, or take it in the belly.”

“Littner’s out there, Sam.”

Melrose breathed hard. He took his hand out of his pocket. He wiped sweat out of his eyes, rubbed his palms together. “I’ll bust you for this, McFee.” His eyes slid desperately around the room—chairs, desk, washroom, carpet.

McFee said, “Sit tight, Sam, or I’ll call Littner.”

Melrose began to walk the floor. He stopped abruptly, came to grips with himself. “Let ‘em find it,” he said huskily. “I can beat the rap.”

“Think so?” McFee chewed a finger nail. “Damon wasn’t so much, but O’Day was his mother. Nob’dy knew it until today. The old girl had about a million friends in this town and all of ‘em are beginning to feel sorry for her. You know what people are when they begin feeling sorry. Think you got enough drag to beat the Damon-O’Day-Shelldon combination?”

“My boys didn’t rub out Damon and O’Day.”

“This is politics, Sam.” McFee thumbed a match at a cigarette. “It isn’t what a lad does or don’t do—it’s what his public’ll stand for.”

“How d’ l know that file’s planted here?”

“Call Littner— you’ll know then.”

“You found out who killed Damon?”

McFee answered carefully, “Maybe.”

Melrose pulled up in front of McFee. “What you want?”

The racket on the cafe floor had dropped to a backlash of irritation and protest. A door opened. Littner spoke to someone. Joe Cruikshank’s soprano answered. The Mayor’s platform boom cut in.

McFee said, “Sam, you been running this town long enough. I’m going to take it away from you.”

“Yes?”

“The Mayor’s out there telling everybody what a good guy he is.” McFee spoke softly, pulled out the paper he had typewritten at Irene Mayo’s. “The Mayor’s your man. Your money elected him, keeps him in the City Hall. This is an unsigned indorsement of Luke Addams’ candidacy for District Attorney—”

“A lotta help that’ll give him.”

McFee said gently, “With the City Hall machine and the newspapers pulling for Addams we got a pretty good chance beating Dietrich. Addams in, we work for a new deal in the police hookup—Littner chief. But that’s future. Sam, you are going to tell Hizoner to put his John Henry to this declaration of independence, or I give Littner the go sign.” He smiled. “How ‘bout it?”

Melrose raged, “I will not!” But he was shaken. “I’ll see you—”

McFee cut in, “You want Littner to use his search warrant? This is politics. I’m telling you.”

Jerking at his wilted collar, Melrose walked to the window. McFee slanted his eyes at the washroom door. He kept them there until Melrose faced around.

“I can throw plenty sugar your way—”

McFee said, “You are going to need sugar, Sam.”

Melrose opened his mouth, shut it without saying anything, pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he dropped them, his eyes were crazy, and he came charging towards McFee with his hands clenched. Littner entered just then, a brown paper parcel under his arm. Roy Cruikshank was behind him. The Mayor boomed in the outer room. His handsome, silver head was visible for a moment before Cruikshank closed the door. Melrose shook his head, let his hands fall.

Littner sat down, laid the parcel on the floor beside him. He said nothing. His oval head, his cold water eyes said nothing. Cruikshank put a cigarette in his pink mouth, pulled his hat over his eyes and leaned against the wall.

“Do I get that file?” Melrose asked tonelessly.

McFee said, “Sorry. We got to have a guarantee the City Hall’ll root hard enough.” He added reluctantly, “But I’ll give you a break, Sam. I’ll show Littner who killed Damon and his mother.”

Melrose wet his lips. “All right.” McFee handed him the unsigned indorsement. He read it, turned it over, flared out, “None of my boys killed Damon. By God, McFee if this is another frame—”

McFee said, “I never framed anybody, Sam.”

As Melrose went out and shut the door behind him, the Mayor’s platform boom ceased. A low-toned, bitter argument began. Melrose’s voice whiplashed, “I’m still running this town, Mr. Mayor.”

McFee sat down. His eyes moved towards the washroom door, remained there a moment, came back. He wiped his face.

Littner said mildly, “Warm for the time of the year.”

“It’s some of that unusual weather,” Cruikshank muttered under his hat brim.

“Maybe Sam’ll buy us a highball,” McFee said. He laughed softly, looked at the cherubic Cruikshank, at the politically minded Littner. “Politics is funny. The lad who don’t have to put over more than a couple of dirty ones to pull three good members out the bag has a medal coming to him.”

“Some’dy ought to pin a medal on you, Handsome,” Cruikshank said.

“I’m not through with this town yet.”

Melrose came in then, a dull burn on either wet cheek bone. He handed McFee the indorsement, sat down and shelved his chin on his chest. He did not speak, did not look at McFee. The latter examined the signature. A clock ticked loudly somewhere. In the next room the Mayor was booming, “Luke Addams is a man in whom I have the greatest confidence. It will be a pleasure—” Dutch Louie and His Pals whipped into a jazz.

Parading his eyes around the room, McFee blinked at the washroom door, let them idle on the ornate desk. He went to the desk, bent over the wire basket and looked through the papers in it. He stood erect and stared at the end of his cigarette. A couple of overcoats hung on the cloak tree, near the desk. McFee put a hand inside one of them and brought forth a long manila envelope with “Shelldon” penciled in one corner. The envelope was open. He glanced into it.

Melrose lifted his head. Rage had contracted his eye pupils, ground them to points of bitter, fierce light. He did not speak.

McFee handed Cruikshank the Shelldon file and the Mayor’s indorsement. “Stick ‘em in the Tribune vault a while,” he said.

“Right,” Cruikshank muttered.

LITTNER GAVE McFee the brown paper parcel.

“No. 3 trash collection wagon brought them in,” he said.

“Very nice,” McFee answered. He sat down, the parcel on his knees. He looked at his watch. “Twelve-thirty-five. It’s just twenty-four hours since a lady came to see me, at Cato’s. She said the lad she was with, Ranee Damon, had gone into the Gaiety about an hour before. She said he’d followed Sam Melrose—”

Melrose ejaculated, “He did not. I was on Scudder’s yacht. I got all the alibis—” He stopped there, wiped his mouth on the napkin. “You birds got nothing on me.”

McFee proceeded softly, “The lady and I got into the Gaiety. Damon had been shot. He died. Some’dy had stepped on a tube of grease paint. Crimson. Smeared it around. Damon’s body walked out. I found it in Maggie O’Day’s. Maggie was his mother. She had rolled him home in her wheel chair. Maggie was dead— gas. But there was a bruise on her head. Maybe she fell. Maybe she was slugged. I found a smear of crimson grease paint on a newspaper on the floor. There was no grease paint on Maggie’s shoes or Damon’s. Very well. I figured this way: The party killed Damon stepped on the tube of grease paint, in the dark, bust it open, got all smeared up. Grease paint is bad. Maggie saw that party beating it out the Gaiety. The party followed Maggie home, to see how come. Maggie accused the party of murdering her son and got slugged— with her own crutch, maybe. The gas was to make it look like suicide— grief. The party’s shoe smeared the newspaper. The party didn’t know it, went away. Now grease paint is hard to clean off fabric goods, and when the party saw what’d happened to a nice pair of shoes it looked like a good idea to get rid of’em. Sounds easy. Only it isn’t. Littner’s men found ‘em at the city trash collection dump.”

McFee unrolled Littner’s brown paper parcel. A pair of green satin pumps fell out. He held one of them up. The sole, instep, and right side of the pump were smeared with crimson grease paint.

Melrose blurted, “That lets my boys out.”

McFee lighted a cigarette, looked at the match a while. “I said a lady came to see me at Cato’s. She was wearing green satin pumps— these pumps. When I took her home three hours later she was wearing green snakeskin slippers. She beat it out the Gaiety and phoned headquarters around 1:30. I picked her up on Third at 3:15— nearly two hours. That gave her plenty time to tail Maggie O’Day home, kill her, get back to the car, drive to her apartment— taking the Shelldon file with her— change her shoes, and get back to Third.”

McFee rolled a match in his ear. “But I couldn’t figure out why Irene Mayo killed Damon. Wasn’t she going to make him Governor, herself the Governor’s lady? So I went back to the Gaiety and ran a string along what looked like the bullet trajectory. There was a horizontal groove in the door jamb level with the line the bullet followed—”

A muffled, sobbing sound interrupted McFee and terminated in a wail of despair. McFee wiped his face and throat with a handkerchief. A bitter, silent moment went by.

McFee said deliberately, “Irene Mayo wrote those ‘Mr. Inside’ notes. She planted that Shelldon file here because Melrose’s blonde had taken Damon with five grand. She wasn’t with Damon last night. She tailed him down to the Gaiety. Melrose wasn’t there. Slick little number. She tried to pull a fast one at her apartment this morning with a ‘Shelldon’ envelope full of blanks. Said she’d found it on Damon while I was in Leclair’s room. Said it had fooled her. Well, she pretty near fooled me.” McFee stared gloomily at his cigarette. “Damon must have given her that gun— Metz’ gun. She didn’t intend to kill him—the lad she was going to make Governor. No. She fired at Leclair. Because Leclair was gumming up the works. You can’t figure women. The bullet ricocheted from the door jamb, took Damon—”

That tortured cry came again, McFee got up, walked towards the washroom door.

A pistol shot reverberated in the room.

McFee took three strides forward. The door leaned open. He caught the redheaded girl in his arms. He carried her to a chair, laid her in it. Littner, Melrose, Cruikshank stood around. People came rushing in, the Mayor booming …

McFee said, “I had a notion she’d do it.” And then, huskily, “I never was much of a lad for hanging a woman.”

End

Table of Contents

1: The Missing Q.C.s/ John Oxenham

2: The Croucher / Gwyn Evans (novelette)

3: The Obscure Move / Wadsworth Camp

4: Cricket's Last Hop / C. S. Montanye

5: Hoodwinked / C. S. Montanye

6: Frozen Stiff / C. S. Montanye

7: Wings For An Angel / C. S. Montanye (novelette)

8: Opals Are Unlucky / C. S. Montanye

9: Stag Party / Charles G Booth (long novelette)