Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Robert Reeves (1912-1945) was a pulp writer/novelist who died young, just as his series character Cellini Smith, an L.A. private eye, was taking off. This is the first Cellini Smith novel, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1943 as a hardback. It was repirinted, possible a little condensed, by "Thrilling Mystery Novel"Magazine in january 1946, which is the source of this text. Smith, starting out and doing no business at all, is hired by the residents of a Hooverville hobo jungle to investigate the murder of one of their own. Having nothing else to do, and despite the tiny fee, he takes it on, w

CELLINI SMITH, DETECTIVE

Robert Reeves

1912-1945

Houghton Mifflin 1943

This text from "Thrilling Mystery Novel" January 1946

Contents

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14

Chapter 15

_______________

Chapter 1

DAWN came to the Luxembourg Gardens reluctantly. And for good reason.

Even in the soft, gray light there could already be seen the Gardens' anatomy of rubble, ash-heaps, tin cans, all the useless and unwanted castoffs of a metropolis with their pungent and offensive odors. The very name Luxembourg Gardens was the product of its inhabitants' sardonic wit, for this was one of those hobo jungles tolerated by the police on the rim of most large cities.

The homes of these modern, mechanized nomads were located deep in the center of the Gardens. The word Sunkist was stenciled on many walls of the queer, squat structures, for they were built mostly of orange crates and the roofs were weird patterns of patched blankets.

Somewhere a clock chimed the half-hour between five and six and at last something stirred. It was a stoop-shouldered old man carrying a stick, with a pointed nail on the tip, and a burlap bag hitched over his back. He stumbled over debris, eyes trained to the earth, and every so often the nail impaled something and transferred it to the bag. The work he did made not the faintest difference, yet there he was every morning. Who he was, why he appeared every day at that particular place, and who paid him was one of those mysteries that nobody ever bothers to solve. Why he did not come stabbing with the pointed nail at a time when the light was better and when the sun would warm his old bones, was a problem that interested none.

The old man shuffled along, muttering to himself, when something he saw stopped him short. It was a man lying on the ground, spread-eagled on his back, a felt hat tilted over the face. The old man's mutterings became shriller as he contemplated the intruder with irritation.

"Stewbum... Whiskey... Drunk."

More indignant and fouler words followed. Unusual debris that could not be transferred by the pointed nail into the burlap bag always angered the old man.

He passed on, but retraced his steps as an idea occurred to him. He extended one of his feet in measurement against the sole of the intruder's. The size wasn't too far wrong. Bag and stick were dropped. Aged, trembling fingers undid the laces with caution, unaware that the intruder was no sleeping drunk but a lifeless corpse.

Soon, the old man sported a pair of gray, perforated suede shoes on his feet. His lips smacked with satisfaction, he picked up the tools of his trade and, leaving his own midnight-mission shoes by the figure, resumed the stabbing, erratic routine over the terrain of the Luxembourg Gardens.

The gray spread and the first yellow streaks of a rising sun were discernible before a poorly dressed man cut across the Gardens with rapid, purposive steps. He strode by the figure lying on the ground and his steps faltered only for an instant as he recognized Opportunity's rare knock. His hand reached down, swept off the hat covering the man's face, and transferred it to his own head. Then he resumed his beeline for the free sinkers and coffee at the Salvation, the richer by one pale brown kelly.

Now it was light enough to distinguish two approaching men, still some yards away. They came, probably, from the Skidrow section of town. The chimes of the clock, heralding a new, sunny, Southern California day, had come from that direction. Down that way could be seen the tall office buildings, the Union Station, a slaughterhouse, and the Hall of Justice.

One of the approaching men, a small, tightly knit one, was saying: "Curly, take it from me that stocks are sucker stuff. Even the preferred issues. The only thing to do is to sock your dough away in annuities."

Curly nodded thoughtfully. He was bald and, like his smaller companion, clad in the ill-assorted hand-me-downs that hobos accumulate.

"I guess you're right, Wart. But I still like the idea of first mortgages on business property. It's—"

His words trailed off as he noticed the body on the ground.

"Look, Wart, a lush." They walked over and grunted as they recognized it. The little Wart said:

"That's Danny Meade!"

"It sure is. And they cribbed his duds." They stared down at Danny Meade's youthful, petulant face.

"Of course, them expensive duds he wears is worth taking," Curly added. "Uh huh," said Wart. "And he always carries too much dough to be sleeping off a jag out here."

The two hobos looked at each other as the identical temptation presented itself. Further words were unnecessary. Wart kneeled, carefully slipped his hand inside Danny Meade's jacket, and felt for the pocket.

Suddenly, he leaped back and stared at the stain on his hand.

"Holy mother of hell," said Wart softly. "That's blood."

"It ain't ketchup," concurred Curly.

The two hobos discussed Danny Meade's good points as they stripped necktie and alligator belt off the body and assured themselves that nothing further of value remained on it.

Curly got rid of the piece of twine that held up his pants, girdled his waist with the belt, then stuck two grimy fingers deep into his cheeks and emitted a shrill series of whistles. The notes cut through the early morning like a call to arms.

IT WAS not long before hobos began to appear from the orange-crate houses. They usually slept in their clothes. Relief showed through the stubble on their faces when they discovered that the clarion did not mean a police raid. They hurried over to Curly and Wart and the questions on their lips remained unspoken when they saw it. They crowded the body, gazing down at their dead companion with sleep-heavy eyes.

There were a few mumbled, pointless curses, but the majority knew that you can't argue with the dead. They scratched at their underwear and said that it was tough. Poor Danny was kind of young to get it. He should have known better than to try sleeping off a binge in the open. You've got to be on the road a long time to stand that kind of wear...

The Monk pushed into the center. He was a former road-circuit preacher of ambiguous denomination. His figure was tall, his face a hawk's, the hands were horny and powerful, and the eyes a zealot's. He stabbed a knuckled finger at the dead Danny Meade.

"Sinner! You have your reward!"

"Cut the mularky for now, Monk." It was Dusty who spoke, the leader of the hobos and Mayor of the Luxembourg Gardens. He was in his early forties, with shrewd, sharp features— the shrewdness of any man capable of living a lifetime without doing an ounce of work.

The Monk grabbed Dusty by the shoulders.

"You're dead yourself! All of us. The living dead!"

He stalked off. Dusty wiped the spittle from his face.

"Where's the Kid?''

"He ain't here," replied a mule-eared hobo called Link.

"Fine. It wouldn't do him any good to see his side-kick stiff. Let's get Danny inside."

Curly shouted a whistle of warning.

"Don't touch nothing till the shams get here."

"Shams?"

Wart couldn't resist a touch of the dramatic. By way of reply, he reached down and flung wide the dead man's jacket.

As if from one man, there was a hissing intake of breath when they saw the crimson spread over the shirt. Faces became taut and hard, and tendons stood out on necks as rage grew in them. This was more than death; it was murder. The portentous silence was broken by a warning sound from Curly.

"It's the Kid." A boy, hardly more than seventeen or eighteen years of age, broke through the circle.

"What's going..."

The words died on his lips as he sighted the inert form on the dirt,

"Danny!"

"Easy does it," said Dusty.

The Kid's fingers felt over his own face and lips and came to rest on his neck where they tightened as if trying to choke himself.

"Danny!"

"I told you to take it easy," Dusty cautioned again. As Mayor of the hobos he didn't relish the idea of having to repeat an order. "Danny! Danny! Danny!"

The Kid kept calling to his murdered friend more loudly and stridently each time. Soon, it became a meaningless shriek of hysteria.

In a tired voice, Dusty said: "That's all we need now."

He stepped in, his shoulder and arm moving in a graceful arc, the Kid's head snapped back, and he slumped to the ground.

The hobos disregarded the unconscious boy. Their minds were dominated by two questions. Why was Danny Meade murdered and by whom?

A man called Pogo, because of a peculiar bouncing gait, arrived with a ragged sheet and covered the body.

"What do we do now?" It was Link who spoke.

"I guess we gotta call the cops." Dusty sounded reluctant.

The knights of the road squirmed uncomfortably. One of the basic axioms that ruled their life was always to avoid the police. It seemed strange actually to go seeking them.

"Why don't we just let somebody else find Danny?" asked one in khaki pants. "Why ask for trouble?"

The Kid was sitting up by now, somewhat embarrassed by his display of hysteria. His voice was still a little wild as he said: "You're damned right we're asking for trouble! All we can get. I'm not going to see Danny rot here just because you don't like cops."

"Easy, Kid," said Dusty, "or I'll clip you again. Sure we'll call the cops. We got to."

Khaki-Pants and three others waved to their fellow tramps and began walking away. Dusty called:

"Where you going?"

"To the yards," replied Khaki-Pants, "and we're hopping the first rattler out. We ain't gonna get our prints took. Not with our records we ain't."

"No one leaves till we find out who shot Danny Meade," said the Mayor of the Luxembourg Gardens. His voice contained no hint of threat. Khaki-Pants and the other three turned, without hesitation, and made for one of the teetering shacks. They knew it was safer to fight the law of the land than the law of their kind. The Mayor nodded approvingly and set out for the Hall of Justice with long, easy strides.

DUSTY returned some twenty minutes later in a glory of sirens and speeding department cars. He crossed the Gardens toward the sheeted body with a big man at his side and others of the squad behind. When they reached the body, one of them uncovered it and the big man said, to no one in particular:

"I'm Ira Haenigson, Detective-Sergeant of Homicide."

He was in sight of fifty, heavy with sloping shoulders, and was comfortably padded with fat. He was usually benign and kindly— but that fooled nobody.

The department men set about their tasks with casual efficiency. Haenigson carefully picked his way over the rubbish and viewed the body from all sides.

He said: "Roll her over."

The body was turned, face down, and now they could see another wound in the nape of the neck. Ira Haenigson scanned the faces of the hobos and took in the Luxembourg Gardens.

"One of you?" he asked.

Dusty nodded.

"He's been roading it only about six months. The Kid here knew him best."

The detective-sergeant's eyebrows arched toward the boy.

"Let's have it, son." The Kid's face was white and his hands could be seen trembling inside the pockets of his greasy windbreaker.

"Danny Meade come from the East. I picked him up in Virginia. He was pretty green then and I showed him the ropes. He said his old man had dough, but he was sick of hanging around home. Both of us was coming out here, so we stuck together. We rolled in a couple of months ago."

"Mmm." Haenigson tugged at his lower lip. "That's not much, son."

"Danny never told much of anything about himself."

"And what about you?" asked the Homicide man. "You're kind of young to be bumming around on the loose. What's your pedigree?"

The Kid's mouth clamped tight. There was an instant of hesitation, then, without warning, he whirled and raced for the far end of the Gardens.

A beefy cop standing by Haenigson asked: "Want him?"

"Not now, Boggs. Pick him up in the afternoon and bring him around."

A medical examiner who had been prodding the body stood up and said: "It looks like he got it some time last night."

"Where was he shot first?" asked Ira Haenigson. "In the heart or the neck?"

The medico shrugged. "We'll find out when we steam him open. It's funny, though. He was shot by something, but those holes are too long and narrow. Who ever heard of rectangular bullets?"

Haenigson looked disinterested.

"Who killed the poor slob?" he asked. The tramps said nothing. The cop named Boggs went around taking down names and when he was finished Ira Haenigson repeated the question.

Dusty said bitterly: "If we knew that, you'd have two bodies here instead of one."

"Why are his shoes off?"

"Those ain't his," responded Wart. "His got stolen."

"Uh huh."

The Homicide man kneeled to feel the dead man's clothes. Though they had seen much wear, they were of excellent material and tailoring.

"How is it that a bum like this wears such good clothes?"

"He was no bum," Link said sharply. "He was an honest-to-God tramp like the rest of us."

There was a chorus of agreement from the hobos. "He couldn't be no bum," added another triumphantly, "because he was a college man."

"A member of the peerage, I'm sure," murmured Haenigson.

Dusty pointed to a young man who had just joined their group.

"Ask the Professor. He'll tell you." Unlike the others, the Professor was well groomed, well-clothed, and looked as if he'd taken a bath recently.

"I'm certain Danny Meade attended a university at some time," he said.

Ira Haenigson eyed him. "Your clothes are pretty good, too."

The Professor fingered his horn-rimmed glasses nervously. "Oh, I'm not one of them. I'm just doing research on the hobo as a social and ethnographic phenomenon for my doctorate."

"He's studyin' us," said Dusty with a hint of pride.

"That's just ducky," approved the Homicide man. "Now, you ethnographic, phenomena, stick around because I'll probably want to see some of you this afternoon."

He nodded to a couple of men who had arrived with the meat wagon and they set the body on a stretcher.

"Ain't you going to look around here first?" asked Dusty.

The detective-sergeant nodded sagely. "You mean I should look for clues, don't you? With a microscope." His voice became sympathetic. "Listen, boys, I understand how you feel about it. We feel pretty much the same way but for different reasons. We don't like a killer loose but you can't expect us to upset the whole department on account of a crumb getting himself knocked off."

"You mean you won't do anything about it?" Dusty's voice was hard.

"Of course, my friend. I couldn't stop the normal department routine if I wanted to. But remember I only have two hands."

The hobos pressed in closer.

Pogo snarled: "Copper, you wouldn't do anything for us if you was an octopus."

Boggs moved in front of the Homicide man, shielding him from the aroused tramps.

Reasonably, as if trying to understand the detective-sergeant's position, Dusty said: "Couldn't you just kind of start working on this like other cases and maybe you'll be able to solve it very easily?"

The hobos were a compact, threatening mass by now.

Ira Haenigson sighed. He said: "Boggs, solve the murder."

BOGGS reached out and grabbed the first shirt front he could reach. It was Link. He slapped the hobo heavily over the face and asked:

"Did you kill Daniel Meade?" Without waiting for reply, Boggs continued to slap the face, sending it back and forth, as though the unlucky tramp were watching a tennis match. "Come on! Don't deny it! Did you kill him?"

Finally, Boggs released the man. "I guess he's innocent," he said cheerfully. "Should I solve some more?"

"Never mind," said the Mayor heavily. "We changed our mind. You're right."

Ira Haenigson nodded. "I thought you'd see it my way. That was just to get the idea out of your head that you can shove us around. I suppose you think I'm a heel."

"Damn right." It came from most of the hobos.

"Sure," said Ira Haenigson with sudden bitterness. "It's because I know what I'm up against and you don't. So we'll have an autopsy. So what? So the coroner's jury will announce in a couple of days that Daniel Meade came to his death from revolver wounds in neck and heart fired with homicidal intent by person or persons unknown. It'll sound beautiful. So this sleazy killing is dumped in my lap like six others. Then what? Then I run my kineta off and maybe solve four or five of the most important and I get dressed down because I didn't make the days longer to solve the sixth and I'm still only a sergeant!"

He turned and lumbered off, followed by the stretcher-bearers and department experts.

The Monk stared after the body of Danny Meade as it was borne away.

"Go," he thundered, "and sin with the archangels."

Curly hitched up Danny Meade's alligator belt and said: "You got no call to talk of the dead that way, Monk."

"You preach to me? You! You swear, drink, wench, and if I didn't have love for my Maker I'd stick your dirty head in a bucket."

Dusty upended a box and sat down.

"What'll we do?" he asked.

The tramps knew what he meant. Link shook his head. His face was still red from the slapping.

"Nothing we can do. They ain't going out of their way to find out who killed Danny."

"Where's Jeff Davis?" asked another. "Jeff could tell us what to do."

But none of them seemed to know what part of the country Jeff Davis was roaming at the moment.

"Well, we ain't going to let this thing poop out and do nothing about it," said Dusty authoritatively. "An unsolved killing would be a bad precedent."

The tramps were with him.

"First," continued the Mayor, "somebody's gotta tell Danny's woman about this."

"I will inform Chloe of his death," announced the Monk.

"O.K., but I don't want no complaints. Every time you comfort a chippie you make passes."

"I have prayed to overcome that weakness." The Monk ran fingers through his matted hair and left for Main Street.

"Now"— Dusty looked around— "anybody know who killed Danny or why?" Shoulders shrugged and heads shook negatively.

Pogo voiced their thoughts. "We all got plenty ideas, but that don't do us no good unless we can be sure. If the shams don't help us we—"

"We need someone with nerve," cut in Wart softly. "Someone who can find out what Alex Bornaman was bothering with a bo like Danny for."

The hobos looked uncomfortable. There weren't any volunteers.

Dusty asked: "Have you got that kind of nerve, Wart?"

Wart shook his head decisively. "I don't think any of us would want to mess, around Alex. Anyway, we need someone from the outside because the murderer might be one of us."

"How about the Professor?" asked Link.

They laughed loudly, glad to relax the tension. The idea of the Professor talking up to Bornaman was really funny.

"Thank you, gentlemen," said the Professor, "but I wouldn't want to become involved. If you don't mind, I'll just stay on the sidelines and observe your antics."

"Sure," agreed Dusty, "stick to your books, Prof. You got the muscles in your head."

"What you people should do is hire a detective," suggested the Professor.

The hobos blinked twice, then grunted approval as the idea took hold. A peeper was just what they needed! The hell with the shams. They'd never do anything anyway outside of strong-arming them. They'd get their own dick and find the killer and God help the guy when they found him. Then they remembered that a detective needed money and that quieted them.

"Why don't you go out and get jobs?" suggested the Professor timidly.

The tramps broke into boisterous laughter at the very thought. The Professor took out a small pad and made a note on it. Dusty took off his peaked cap and put it on the ground.

"All right," he said, "let's have your dough. All of it."

The Professor tossed a dollar bill into the cap with the air of making a scientific experiment, but nobody else moved.

"Come on," barked Dusty. "Fork over. You, Link, had eighty cents last night. What did you do with it? And, Curly, you been buying smelly muck for your hair. Throw that mazuma in here instead."

"You can't do that to me," complained Curly. "I need hair tonics. How do you expect it to grow out again?"

"The hell with your hair!" roared Dusty. "We need a dick to find out who killed Danny. And how about you, Pogo? You been saving up dough for those mail-order meat-choppers. Let's have it. If we don't clear this up the road won't be safe no more for the Hobos of America."

Reluctantly, they dug into their musty, verminous clothing and shelled out.

Chapter 2

CELLINI SMITH fished for the right key and opened the door to his office. He slammed it shut with unnecessary violence and sat down at his desk. He could see the morning's mail where it had been dropped through the door slot and he could make out three envelopes.

Electricity, telephone, rent.

There was one missing. The outfit that delivered the spring water had probably given him up as an uncollectible account.

His eyes narrowed, his brows puckered, and his mouth twisted in a scowl. It was a tight-skinned, sharply boned face of a man in his early thirties. The ears were flat and small, the jaw angular, and the shrewd eyes widely set. It was a hard face, one that scowled easily and one that seemed glad of the fact.

He put a cigarette between his lips and pulled the smoke deep into his lungs as he again wondered what he was doing here.

By all logic, all reason, he should have closed the office a long time ago. Being a private operative no longer had its fascination and things were getting worse, not better. Clients were as scarce as raisins in an orphanage pudding and the phone hadn't sounded for weeks.

He stood up and crossed to a door giving into an adjoining office that housed a Venetian-blind business. A girl sat behind the desk, her legs draped over the top in all their nylon length. Her hair and jewelry were imitation platinum, her figure the real thing.

"Did I get any calls, Sadie?" asked Cellini.

"Yeah," said Sadie in a Billingsgate voice, "your phone's been ringing all morning but I wouldn't answer it."

"I pay you to take care of it What's the matter?"

Sadie shifted a wad of gum to her other cheek. "You mean you're supposed to pay me but I didn't get anything this week."

"That's right," admitted Cellini ruefully. "How about me paying off in a different way?"

She straightened up. "What?"

"Sure. I'm willing to tail any of your boy friends to see if they're cheating on you with their wives."

Sadie relaxed. "Oh. At first I thought you meant something different. I thought you was suggesting."

Cellini selected a five-dollar bill from his wallet. There were just four more of them left. He handed her the money and said: "You have delusions of grandeur, girlie. I would date a Ubangi first."

The door to Cellini's office opened and he returned and sat down at his desk. He eyed his visitor with disappointment. Nobody with a grin like that could be a client The newcomer talked rapidly as he zipped open a briefcase.

"Mr. Smith, I take it? May I congratulate you on being a lucky man, one of the few fortunate ones chosen by us? My firm has decided to increase your business by a hundred per cent. We sell neon signs. Flickering, alternating, flowing. All kinds."

"I've got the Indian sign on me already."

The salesman laughed heartily. He placed a sheet before Cellini. "Here sir, is a rough idea for a sign we could hang outside your window. It would be discernible at a hundred fifty yards even with a prevailing seven per seat fog."

Despite himself, Cellini became interested.

"The first line," continued the salesman, "will say, Cellini Smith— Private Operative in red neon. Under that, there will be a big eye in blue and under that the legend. We Never Sleep. Get it? The eye. It's always watching. And all for the negligible sum of two hundred and eighty dollars."

Cellini considered it.

"Suppose the eye blinks?" he asked. "How much would that cost?"

The salesman tapped his teeth with a pencil. "Well, that would up the figure slightly, but it's a good idea. Do you mind if I ring my office and check on it?"

He pulled the phone over and lifted the receiver.

"Say, there's no dial tone." Cellini shot a malevolent glance toward Sadie's adjoining office. He said: "I guess it's been cut off."

"That's too bad. Something must be wrong. You should notify the phone company."

"Nothing's wrong. I just didn't pay the bill."

THE salesman leaped up. "Sir, do you take me for a fool? Asking how much extra it would cost if the eye blinked, and you can't even pay your phone bill!"

"It's only fair to tell you," said Cellini gently, "that I'm feeling low. I'm looking for a fight." He stood up. He was under six feet but the shoulders were pitted, the limbs hard, and the body moved easily and lightly. He suddenly shouted: "Get out!"

The salesman said, "Mercy," grabbed his briefcase, collided with another man who was entering, and fled. Cellini took in his newest visitor and his mouth twisted in the crooked, winning smile that was characteristic of him.

The newcomer had a three-day beard and his mal-assorted clothing seemed to be held together by nothing better than good intentions.

"A panhandler is just what I need," said Cellini. He found a twenty-five-cent piece in his pocket and tossed it. The newcomer deftly caught the coin, slipped it inside the safety of his high shoes and said:

"You got me wrong. I ain't panhandling. I'm on the market for a dick. I'm a client."

"Excuse me," said Cellini suspiciously.

"Sit down, Mr.—"

"The name's Dusty." Dusty selected the most likely butt from Cellini's ash tray, lighted it and sat down. "Are you a college man?" he asked.

"Yes." Cellini frowned. "What is this— a rib?"

"Nope. You'd be surprised how few of the peepers in this town ever smelled the inside of a college."

"Brother," said Cellini flatly, "this isn't a charitable institution. I have no time to mess around dishing out free work or even free advice."

"You'll be compensated," Dusty assured him airily. "Don't worry about us. We're sound that way. You can look us up in Dun and Mainstreet. Do you think maybe you've got a diploma or something to prove you went to college?"

"I said I did. Why?"

"Danny went to one and it don't make sense to hire a peeper dumber than he was to find out who killed him."

"I see. A murder case. How'd you pick on me?"

"We're just reaching the S's in the phone book."

"I get it. None of the others would touch it!"

"There was one dick who wanted it. He was in the L's, I think, but he only got to his junior year."

"What about that compensation business?" reminded Cellini.

In a businesslike tone, Dusty said: "We collected a retainer to the amount of twenty-six dollars and ninety-four cents and maybe more any time you can catch us."

Cellini began to laugh. Dusty reached for the ash tray again and Cellini said: "Take them all."

"Thanks." Dusty emptied the tray, butts and ashes, into his jacket pocket.

"I can see why you're having trouble finding an operative."

"Maybe it don't sound like much dough to you," said Dusty, "but it needed a lot of panhandling to get it together. The boys are sitting on it at the Gardens because nobody trusts each other."

"What do you expect me to do for it?"

Dusty's sooted face became even darker.

"We found Danny Meade yesterday. Murdered. We're going to get the guy who did it. Maybe we play things mean, but it's according to our rules. Us hobos couldn't live and get along if we didn't have our laws. Jeff Davis said that at our last congress, and he was right. One of the laws is against a bo getting murdered without a chance to fight back. Besides, we liked Danny. He had the makings of a fine tramp. We want his killer."

"What about the police?" asked Cellini.

"They ain't losing no sleep over it. They said as much yesterday morning when they carted Danny away."

Cellini stared at the envelopes lying under the mail slot. Well, why not? It would be better than sitting in the office, nursing a whiskey bottle and waiting for the disconnected phone to ring.

"All right," he said slowly. "It's a deal."

"Fine." Dusty sounded relieved. "Maybe I should tell you it won't be all roses. Danny used to hang around with some guys who weren't raised on mothers' milk."

Cellini laughed. "My God! Working for a bunch of bums!"

"We ain't bums," said Dusty with dignity. "We're hobos. A hobo sustains the idea of a guild whereas a bum—"

"Make mine whole wheat," Cellini said. He stood up. "Let's go."

They began to walk out when Cellini suddenly reached for Dusty, bunched his shirt front and pulled him close.

"What's got into you?" asked Dusty.

Cellini said: "Come across with that two bits I gave you."

CELLINI SMITH strode down a vaulted lobby in the Hall of Justice with a lighter step and the scowl on his face absent. The phone bill was paid and he had a job. Chicken feed, perhaps, but the job would keep him busy. And there was something else.

He had just come up from the morgue where he had seen Daniel Meade's body just before it was carted off to some funeral parlor for burial. In his eye, he could still see the face, untouched by the autopsy. Even in death, it was a handsome, winning face that had about it that nebulous quality known as breeding. He imagined that Meade had been amusing, quick-witted, and always ready to borrow money though rarely tempted to repay it.

But what had interested Cellini even more were the hands. True, they were chapped, blistered, and calloused. But they were the hands of one who had lived his twenty-seven or eight years without much heavy work. Cellini could imagine those hands around a tennis racket— never a spade. And in Cellini's mind was the thought that if Danny Meade could afford not to work in life, his family could certainly afford to pay a detective over his death.

If the family could be found.

Cellini reached the end of the lobby. He pushed past a swinging gate and opened a door with gilt lettering that read: F. Ludlow— County Coroner.

Old man Ludlow sat, in shirtsleeves, at a rolltop desk, absently feeding the sparrows on his window ledge. He observed Cellini's entrance out of the comer of one eye and said philosophically:

"Nature must have cursed me with a mean streak. Smith has just walked in here for a friendly visit with good old Ludlow. But a little worm tells me that Smith is really a leech— that he wants information from good old Ludlow."

"It's about Daniel Meade," said Cellini. "Found yesterday."

"Meade? I'll be glad to tell you all about him. I'm the coroner and I'm a very important guy. I'm going to hold an inquest into Meade's death and my jury will decide that John Doe killed him, so right away the police will go out and arrest James Jones. That's how important I am. My opinions count."

"Have you the murder weapon?"

"An important guy like the coroner has everything." He opened a large manila envelope in front of him, took out two small objects and tossed them to Cellini. They were small round pieces of metal made of lead and shaped like a five-cent piece. The edges had been filed down to a hairline keenness, and they were covered with a dark stain. Blood.

"Those are Exhibit A," said Ludlow. "The police always let good old Ludlow put labels on things. He's important, he is."

"You mean Daniel Meade was killed with these? I thought he was mayhemmed with a gun."

"One of those," said Ludlow with vast martyrdom, "entered Meade's heart. And if I had medical training I could say that the other entered his neck, penetrating the sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle. But I got no education."

Cellini Smith picked up a heavy rubber band from the coroner's desk. He wound it like a slingshot around two fingers, placed one of the slugs in the rubber pocket and let fly at a paneled wall. The razor-sharp slug buried deep into the plywood, the outer edge barely showing.

Cellini pried it loose with a penknife and returned the two items that comprised Exhibit A to the coroner.

"So Meade was killed by a slingshot," murmured Cellini. "Let's see the rest of the stuff found on his body."

Ludlow pushed over the manila envelope and Cellini emptied it on the desk. Matches, a mostly smoked cigar, two handkerchiefs curiously clean for a tramp, a spool of thread with a needle stuck in it, six cents, and a dime-store wallet.

Cellini examined the latter to find it empty. Its seams had been ripped and the inside pockets tom open. Cellini asked:

"Did the cops tear this wallet apart?"

The coroner shrugged.

"What else have you got on Meade?"

Ludlow pointed. "Try that corner."

Cellini went over and found a bundle of clothes. The suit was streaked with dirt, but that was to be expected if the body had lain on the ground for several hours. Underwear was clean and bore no laundry marks. The suit was of a twill weave and bespoke of taste in the buyer.

Old man Ludlow suddenly became helpful.

"Those vestments will be shipped East after the inquest to try and trace the buyer. But we mustn't get excited. It's nothing but routine."

Cellini barely listened. He was examining numerous small leather pockets hidden away inside the jacket and trousers. Cellini counted eighteen of these small pouches.

They were all empty. He stood up and said: "Thanks, Frank."

Old man Ludlow began to roll a cigarette. "Thanks, he tells me. As if that would buy a drink. Ordinarily, you'd think a leech like you would slip me five bucks, especially if he ever wants my help again; especially if he don't want me to tell Homicide he was snooping around here."

"I just paid my phone bill, you grafting antique, and I only have a fin left."

"But good old Ludlow only wants dough to fix up his wall because Smith shot things into it and ruined it with his penknife."

Cellini swore, took the lone five-spot out of his wallet and tossed it on the desk. Ludlow picked up the bill and began fanning himself. He said: "Sometimes I wish I was dead, too."

QUICKLY, Cellini went up three flights, moved down the south wing, found the office he wanted, and entered.

Ira Haenigson, Detective-Sergeant of Homicide, looked up and said: "Oh, it's you."

"How's the best police department money can buy?" Cellini sat into the only other chair, the sun streaming on him from an unshaded window. "I'm here about Daniel Meade."

The Homicide man's brows furrowed.

"Meade. I heard that name before."

"He was killed at those big, empty grounds near Jefferson. It's called the Luxembourg Gardens by the boys."

"I remember now. In fact it's my case." The desk trembled from the detective-sergeant's silent laughter. "So that's what you've come down to. I always said you'd wind up with the bums."

Cellini stood up to leave. But the Homicide man motioned to him to remain. "Sit down, Smith. This is just about your speed. In fact, I think it's nice of you to chase after the wino who killed a jitney moocher. It'll save me jackass work. So what'll it be?"

"Let's have all you know."

"This Meade," said Ira Haenigson, "was killed by a couple of slugs probably fired from one of those slingshots. The slugs were filed down and they cut through the guy like cheese."

"Any other mark of violence?"

"None." Ira Haenigson fished a sheet from under the desk blotter and consulted it. "Around twenty-five, five-eleven in height, and one seventy-two in weight. Well-fed and looks like one of those guys from middle class families that want to get out and see real life in the raw."

"When did he cash in?" asked Cellini.

"Yesterday. The medico says between three and four a.m. Half-hour either way to be safe."

"Any ideas on why he was killed?"

The Homicide man shrugged. "Who knows with trash like that? I spent a lot of time yesterday smelling Meade's pals. A few of them are on the blotter, but nothing big time. You can get all the dope from Meade's sidekick, a good boy who acts suspicious because he thinks it's fun. He wants to be a detective."

"What about Meade's women?" asked Cellini.

"They were just about his speed. He used to run around with a dame called Chloe. A strip tease down at the burlycue. The Kid can tell you about that because he has a woman there too. That's about all. Watch a baby called the Monk. He's as odd as Dick's hatband. That kind kill."

"All right." Cellini started for the door when the Homicide man's voice arrested him again.

"Just a tip, Smith. There were a lot of little pockets inside Danny Meade's clothing. If you can find out what was in those leather pockets you might have something."

Chapter 3

SMITH cut the asthmatic Plymouth into the curb and stopped. He looked at the shacks a quarter-mile away, in the center of the vast, empty lots.

"So that's your Hooverville."

Dusty took his feet off the dashboard. "Yep. This is as close as we can get."

They stepped out of the car and, with a piece of chalk, Dusty drew a small triangle atop one of the fenders.

"What's that for?" asked Cellini.

"Don't you want your tires to be here when you get back?"

They began picking their way through the rubble. Cellini said: "There were a lot of little pockets sewed into the lining of Meade's clothes. What do you think he carried in them?"

Dusty shrugged.

"Us guys have to travel light and we can always use pockets. Maybe the gazooney knows about them."

"What's a gazooney?"

"A young tramp. The Kid."

"I see. Do you think Meade could have carried small slugs in those pockets?"

"Huh?"

"Forget it," said Cellini.

Dusty pointed to the spot where Meade's body had been found and they passed by it and came to one of the shacks where the hobos were waiting. Dusty introduced Cellini Smith and they examined him with no little interest. Under the watchful eyes of all, the twenty-six dollars and ninety-four cents was counted into his hands with painstaking care. Even as Cellini dumped the large fistful of small change into a pocket, he sensed the change in the men.

They had paid out hard-begged money and they wanted results. Curly voiced their thoughts.

"You're hired now, Smith, and we ain't taking no brush-off from you like from the cops. We want you to do some fast thinking for us." Curly tapped his bald head. "Real fast, Smith. That's our orders. You're working for us now."

The rest of the hobos nodded. Cellini put a cigarette between his lips, lit it, and flicked the match toward them. A treacherous bunch, he thought.

"In a pig's eye," he finally said. "The dough is only a retainer, and I want more. As for the rest, get this: I m running the show or I'm getting out of it right now."

Dusty spoke up hastily. "I hired you, Smith, and I'm Mayor here and I say you're sticking. You find out who killed Danny. That's the most important."

"Then don't waste my time by showing me the hair on your chest. Where's that gazooney or whatever he is?"

Dusty indicated the Kid who sat on an oil can, staring somberly ahead of him.

"Did Danny Meade ever carry valuable things on him?" Cellini asked of the Kid. "

Not that I know of," the boy responded.

"Has anyone seen a slingshot around here?"

No one had.

"All right," said Cellini. "As I get it, Meade was found dead yesterday morning by one of you. That was Sunday. I want to know what he did from Saturday noon on."

After a brief silence, Wart said: "I saw Danny grabbing off a free lunch at Clinton's cafeteria."

"How did he rate a free lunch there?" asked Cellini.

"After you eat at Clinton's they don't make you pay if you tell them you didn't like the food. Everybody knows that." "I didn't. What did he do next?"

"He spent the afternoon in the park," Pogo contributed. "Pershing Square. The one by Olive and Hill. He used to go there and talk to friends."

The undersized Wart picked it up. "I know that Danny got back here around five, worked the ant hills, had a bite with me, and then went down to Skidrow."

"Danny Meade worked what?" asked Cellini suspiciously.

"The ant hills. You know. When your duds get lousy, you take them off and stick them on an ant hill and they drive out the fleas. After that, you just shake the ants off. Anyway, Danny finished that and left around seven—"

"Wait a minute," interrupted Cellini. "Did Meade always go in for that kind of delousing?"

"I seen him do it a couple of times." The Kid said: "The first time he tried It was in Louisiana. A jungle outside of Shreveport." Cellini frowned. Those inside pockets in Meade's clothing were meant to carry something valuable. Yet, when no farther on his trip to the West Coast than Louisiana, Meade was not afraid to toss his duds over an ant heap. It could mean only that he had gotten rid of whatever those pockets had contained.

"Go on," he finally said.

"I lost sight of Danny when he left for Skidrow," replied Wart. The Kid picked it up again. "I met Danny a little after seven. We went to a dive and had a few glasses of wine."

"Which dive?" asked Cellini.

"The Waterhole. Then—" The Kid hesitated.

FOR the first time, the Monk spoke.

"Tell him," he thundered at the Kid. "Tell him that Daniel Meade and I had a fight at the Waterhole!"

Cellini said: "Suppose you tell me. What was it about?"

"There is always cause to hit a sinner," the preacher replied. "Daniel Meade wallowed in the fleshpots of Babylon."

"I see. You're a one-man society for the elimination of sinners. Where were you when Meade was killed?"

"From midnight till morning I slept at the Majestic."

"What's the Majestic?" Link answered for the Monk.

"That's an all-night grind house on Main. Nice and warm, too," he added, "if you got the dime for admission."

Cellini said to the Monk: "How come you know Meade wasn't killed before midnight?"

The Monk's fists clenched, but he did not speak. Cellini turned to the Kid again. "And what happened after that?"

"Danny was killed after midnight because me and him hung around the Waterhole till after one and then we went over to the burlesque house."

"That, I take it, is the fleshpot of Babylon," said Cellini. "Which one? The Follies?"

"No, the Paree. We didn't go to see the show. We waited backstage for a couple of girls."

The Kid looked steadily at Cellini. "And I'm telling you right now not to get any wrong ideas about those girls."

"I won't," promised Cellini. "What girls?"

"They've got nothing to do with this," the boy said.

"He has a right to know," Dusty cut in. "Danny's woman was Chloe, the star strip at the Paree, and the Kid messes around one of the heads from the line. Her name is Hollis Raine."

"What did you do after that?" asked Cellini.

"The four of us went up to Chloe's apartment," the Kid said. "We had a few drinks and Danny left and I took Hollis home. That was the last time I saw Danny alive."

"Did anyone else see Danny after that?"

No one volunteered further information and Cellini said: "O.K. for now. Let's break it up."

The hobos started moving away. An old, distinguished-looking man in a seedy, oxford-gray outfit appeared in their midst. He looked like a Southern Colonel and sported a broom handle as if it was the finest malacca walking-stick.

Dusty said, "Hello, Pop," but the rest of the hobos pointedly turned their backs to him.

"I've heard that Danny was killed." Pop had a resonant voice. "I wondered if there was anything I could do to help."

"Thanks, Pop, but there's nothing," said Dusty. Then he added with pride: "We hired Cellini Smith. He's a detective."

"How could you help?" Cellini asked Pop.

The old man fingered his frayed Ascot. "Hardly much, I'm afraid, Mr. Smith. It's simply that Danny used to drop over to see me whenever he desired information or a grammatical conversation."

"What sort of information?"

"Just general." Pop's watery eyes were evasive. "For example, questions on mining since he knew I was once a geologist, and questions on how one can secure twenty thousand dollars."

Cellini grunted. "Were you able to answer that one?"

"No."

"How come you're poison to this bunch, Pop?"

"I'm an outcast," said the old man. "They feel I deserted them because I have a steady job now. About that twenty thousand dollars Danny wanted. I did suggest something to him."

"Yes?" prompted Cellini.

Pop's mouth opened, then, as he changed his mind, he turned and strode away, swinging his improvised cane.

Cellini Smith shrugged and walked to the spot where Meade's body had been found. He wondered if it would be worth searching the vicinity for more of those metal slugs. But the ground was well trampled and there was little likelihood that the police had missed anything.

"Have you found something of interest?"

Cellini looked behind to find that it was the Professor speaking.

"Why?" he countered. The Professor adjusted his glasses nervously. "Merely curiosity. I'm here to learn things."

"Do you live with these bums?"

"Yes. It's easier to study them in their habitat."

"That bag of holy bones— the Monk— does he always go around hitting sinners?"

"Not usually," replied the Professor.

"Then why did Danny Meade rate special attention?"

"That's an interesting point, Mr. Smith. I'm covering it in my thesis in a chapter on the physical aspiration of the hobo. It seems that Meade had a sweetheart and—"

"Chloe?"

"Yes. The Monk claimed that her relationship with Danny was sinful, but I strongly suspect that the Monk himself has more than just an itinerant preacher's regard for her."

Cellini noticed the Professor's hands. They were unlike those of the hobos or of Danny Meade. The fingers had seen work— but of a different sort. Paging the leaves of an encyclopedia, punching typewriter keys, clasping a pencil. Like the murdered youth's they had not seen heavy work, but there the similarity ended. Cellini said:

"You're an intelligent man. If not that, you're at least educated and your purpose here is to watch. How do you size up all this?"

"I've been here six weeks, Mr. Smith, and I simply don't."

"How do you get along with them?"

"It was difficult at first." The Professor warmed to his topic. "I'd offer a quarter to one of them to get me a sandwich. To put it mildly, they'd refuse, but later on, when they knew me better, they'd run errands for nothing. They short-change me, but they never accept a tip. It's a peculiar perversity, a curious independence, that makes them feel it is more dignified to steal than to accept a tip."

"How did you and Meade get along?" cut in Cellini.

"Indifferently. You wouldn't understand, but he disagreed with me on certain anthropological ideas I base my—"

"Never mind. I've studied that stuff myself. Meade was killed between two-thirty and four-thirty early yesterday morning. Do you happen to remember where you were at that time?"

WITHOUT resentment, the Professor pointed to one of the shacks.

"In there. I have a Coleman lamp and I was writing up some notes until four."

"Could I see those notes?"

"I mailed them to my home in a registered envelope this morning. I do that every two or three days lest I lose them."

"Where is your home?"

"San Francisco."

A hobo approached. Cellini identified him from his bouncing gait as the one called Pogo.

"When you're through here, Smith," he said, "the boys would like to see you."

"I'm through now."

The two of them headed for the shacks. Pogo started talking quietly, from the side of his mouth.

"Don't look at me, Smith. Look straight ahead. I want to tell you something and the boys would kill me if they found out. But I liked Danny and if you promise to keep it under your hat I'll tell you."

Everyone seemed to like Meade. Even these hobos who had strict standards in that respect.

"Let's have it," said Cellini.

"Maybe it don't mean nothing, but I saw Hollis Raine, the Kid's girl, around here about the time Meade was killed. I was pulling in late and I was a little high, but I'm pretty sure it was her. What would she be doing here at that time?"

Cellini wondered the same thing but didn't speak, for they had reached the others.

Dusty said: "Smith, we've been figuring that maybe you'd like to return five bucks of that dough we gave you, to buy flowers for Danny's funeral this afternoon."

Cellini didn't bother to laugh.

"Where's the funeral?"

"At Laustig's Burial Parlor. But we need flowers."

"How could you afford to keep Meade out of the county plot?"

"It's on time," said Dusty. "We made a small down payment, but we haven't the time to swipe flowers and if you lend us—"

He broke off as he sighted two men approaching. They were spear-headed and broad-shouldered, scarcely needing the padding in each shoulder of the weirdly patterned sport coats. They walked with athletic ease and no effort had been made to conceal the bulges under the armpit of each.

Cellini didn't have to look twice to know them as a pair of hoods who would kill at cut-rate prices.

"Those are the guys I told you about," whispered Dusty, "that weren't raised on any mother's milk. The one on the right is monickered Dado and the other is Vanzy."

The Mayor sounded scared. The twin gorillas arrived in their midst.

"Did I hear you make a remark?" Vanzy asked Dusty.

"No."

"No what?"

"No, sir."

The hoods beamed like children.

"Boys," announced Dado, "the chief says he'll make a gift because Danny Meade was such a good friend of his. He knows you guys are from hunger so he's buying Danny a high-class casket. Do you like that?"

The hobos stared sullenly at the ground, saying nothing, and Dado repeated the question. A few admitted they liked it.

"Swell," said Dusty not too heartily. "You'll get all kinds of fine caskets at Laustig's burial joint."

"Those cheap overcoats?" scoffed Vanzy. "Nothing doing. The chief already got one and it's a beaut. Wait till you see it."

The Monk pushed into the center.

"You!" he thundered at the gorillas. "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Repent before it is late!"

Dado patted his bulging shoulder holster.

"This is my religion, Monk."

Cellini took in the frightened faces of the tramps. He asked: "How come these comic-strip Capones have everybody buffaloed?"

"The man knows us," said Dado cheerfully. "Maybe he remembers us as a borscht-circuit vaudeville team before we went dishonest"

"Dado and Vanzy," supplemented Vanzy reminiscently. "Acrobatics and comedy. We wowed 'em— and starved." Dado snapped his fingers. "This guy must be Cellini Smith, the peeper these crumbs hired to find out about the killing."

"Well, well, a detective," mused the other. "Glad to meet you, Smith." He tendered his hand. Cellini accepted it suspiciously, then suddenly leaped back as a shock stabbed through his arm. The two former acrobats started laughing as Vanzy exhibited a small hand battery concealed in his palm. Cellini's fists clenched.

"Another thing, Smith. Make your cheesy two bits out of this murder but stay out of our way. Remember that."

Vanzy's hand was inside his jacket and his words had a curious quality through the laughter that still held him. Abruptly, the ex-vaudeville team turned and walked away. Cellini's eyes narrowed, and riveted on the broad backs.

"Who's their boss?" he asked through tight lips. "

Who would you go to," countered Dusty, "if you wanted a gat or a silencer or a submachine gun?"

"Alex Bornaman," said Cellini.

"That's right, Smith. They strong-arm for Bornaman. So maybe now you feel like backing out."

LAUSTIG'S Burial Parlor looked like a congress of the Hobos of America. Laustig himself, a worried, thin-lipped individual in black alpaca, roamed about nervously, keeping an eye on expensive urns and getting muddy shoes off red plush. The closed coffin, a modest box, lay on the catafalque in the center of the room. There wore some twenty tramps present, scratching themselves and talking in hushed tones as they waited developments.

Cellini Smith's interest centered on the two women who were present. The small one, whom Cellini guessed to be Hollis Raine, sat talking with the Kid in a corner. She was a blonde by persuasion with an eye-arresting, airflow figure. Even from where Cellini sat, he could gather her penetrating perfume.

But Cellini was more interested in the tall, ebony-haired one. She, he guessed, was Chloe, the Paree's star strip and the late Danny Meade's woman. She moved with that casual unconsciousness of her slim, pliant body that is the ultimate in consciousness. The face was oval, high-cheeked, and the skin promised to be soft and smooth to the touch.

Cellini gazed at her and frowned as she struck some chord in his memory.

With an expression of faint annoyance, she approached the hard-backed settee and sat down next to Cellini. She said:

"Mr. Smith, I don't like to be stared at without being paid for it." Her voice was not disappointing.

"How come you know me?" he countered.

"Dusty told me about you. If you want to question me about Danny, then do so, but if you just want to look at me please buy a ticket to the Paree."

He nodded.

"I'll do both. When can I question you?"

"After tonight's show, Mr. Smith. Incidentally, should I bring along the gun with which I shot Danny?"

"He wasn't shot with a gun."

Chloe's black eyes searched him questioningly. He had to remind himself that she was an actress. Before she could speak, Dusty came up with the saturnine Laustig in tow.

Dusty said: "Chloe, you're shelling out for Danny's tombstone, so we want your O.K. on the epitaph."

She shrugged.

"I'm sure your taste will be excellent."

Laustig consulted a pad from his pocket. "I suggest this for the inscription. 'He was too promising a flower to bloom upon this earth.' "

"I like the other one," said Dusty. " 'Not changed but glorified.' That has dignity."

Chloe passed a hand over her brow. She seemed tired. "Anything will do, Dusty."

Cellini was thinking that his original estimate of Danny Meade hadn't been far wrong. Chloe wasn't the type to go for any lice-infested hobo. There might be something to the idea that Meade's family had money.

They heard a rumble and saw a half-ton Chewy truck backine into the driveway. A moment later, Dado and Vanzy entered through the back door. The ebullient spirits of the two hoods were not dampened by the burial parlor.

"OJC., crumbs," said Dado. "We got the chiefs present. Clear out while we bring it in. We want it to be a surprise."

Laustig rebelled.

"Clear out! I'll have you know this is my parlor. I do not think it ethical to supply a casket from some other house when I sell them, but I cannot prevent it. However, when you order me out of my own place that is too much!"

Vanzy pulled his hands out of his pockets. A pair of blue-steel knuckles were around the right fist.

"Should I hit him?" he asked dreamily.

"No." It was Chloe who said it, and it caused the former vaudevillians to relax immediately.

Interesting, thought Cellini. One word from the strip and that pair simmered down. Chloe rose from the settee and went into the anteroom, the others crowding behind. The door was slammed shut by one of the hoods.

Dusty split a cigarette four ways and said: "This is one hell of a funeral."

"Yeah," agreed Curly. "It's a lousy sendoff for Danny. Anyway, I don't get it. How come a tightwad like Alex Bornaman shells out for a present like this?" Behind them, Dado threw open the door.

"You can come in and look now. We made the transfer."

They filed back into the burial parlor. Despite Curly's opinion of Bornaman's prodigality, the casket was a silver-trimmed ornate affair and had obviously been expensive. The hobos made pleased comments and the two gorillas beamed.

Laustig cleared his throat. "Well," he said somberly, "I think we can get on with the sermon. If someone would like to say a few words first—"

"I would!" The Monk's angular form pushed through to the center. "We are gathered here to weep for that body lying inside that casket, but I warn you to weep not for him but for yourselves!"

The hobos were solemn and strove to conceal their emotion by clearing throats and shuffling feet.

Cellini Smith decided he could gain nothing by staying longer. He had learned enough, he thought, for he was as certain as a pile driver that the body of Danny Meade was not in that silver-trimmed casket before them.

Chapter 4

AT A LATE lunch, Cellini Smith reviewed what alibis he had been able to get. Danny Meade had had a few drinks with Chloe, the Kid and Hollis, and had returned to the Luxembourg Gardens to be murdered.

Thus, the lush Chloe was alone, with no witnesses, and the Kid was supposed to be walking his girl home. However, if Pogo spoke the truth and if he had no axe to grind, then Hollis Raine was hanging around the Luxembourg Gardens shortly after the Kid had walked her home.

The Monk claimed he had bedded down at an all-night picture house on Main Street called the Majestic and the rest of the tramps were supposed to be asleep in the shacks. Excepting Pogo, who was spying on Hollis Raine.

Nor was the Professor asleep. He was writing notes he couldn't produce a day later. And Alex Bornaman's pair of comics, Dado and Vanzy, still had to be fitted into the picture.

The lunch finished, Cellini phoned his office. However, he could not get Sadie to answer the rings and he headed for the Paree.

Blowups of a carelessly draped Chloe dominated the display in front of the house. He asked the peach-blonde cashier in the ticket booth where he might find the Paree's owner and was directed up a flight of steps inside the lobby.

Cellini pushed past the glazed-glass door and found himself in a narrow anteroom. A closed door, labeled Mr. Rapp— Private, led to the inner sanctum. A card propped on a desk in a corner read: Beautiful girls wanted. There was no secretary behind the desk. The only other furniture in the drab, unswept room was a row of meeting chairs against one wall. Four girls sat waiting, their faces blank through thick layers of cosmetics.

Cellini chose a chair, fished for a cigarette, then offered one to each of the waiting women. They accepted the smokes silently, watching him with calculating eyes.

One, with slate-gray eyes, finally blew a cloud of smoke at him and asked: "You comic?"

"I used to pun in my youth," replied Cellini cautiously.

Slate-Eyes snorted smoke through her nostrils.

"You ain't no Bozo Snyder, mister— not with a line like that"

A girl came out of the inner office, Mr. Rapp called, "Next," and the one nearest the door rose wearily and went inside, closing the door behind her. Cellini asked: "Do you know this Chloe who strips here?"

"Uh-huh," said Slate-Eyes.

"What do you think of her?"

"What's there to think? Anybody can do a bump and a grind."

A girl sitting next to Slate-Eyes with Fu Manchu fingernails said languidly: "You know damn well Chloe is tops."

Slate-Eyes bared her teeth. Cellini intervened hastily: "Easy does it, girls. Tell me about Chloe's boy friends."

Slate-Eyes didn't bother to answer and the other said: "What's it to you, bub?"

The girl exited from the inner office and another got off the chair, pulled down her girdle, and went inside to be interviewed by Mr. Rapp.

Cellini refused to be thrown off the track.

"I heard Chloe ran around with a tramp named Danny Meade."

Slate-Eyes remarked that all men were tramps but the other said: "Chloe is staked out. She never ran around."

Cellini stared at her artificial lashes. "How come?"

"Ask her yourself."

The door to the inner office opened again and she went inside.

Slate-Eyes said: "You'd think she made the cover of See the way she acts, but I know her. She's a bar-girl down at the Waterhole. Rolls every lush who gets inside."

Cellini remembered. The Waterhole was the dive visited by Danny Meade the night before the murder, the joint where he'd had a fight with the Monk.

The B-girl finished her interview and Slate-Eyes entered the inner office.

Cellini lit another cigarette and tried to make sense out of what he'd learned.

Why did a B-girl at the Waterhole, one of Meade's hangouts, claim that Chloe was staked out? And Danny Meade? It's one thing for a tramp to find two bits and take in a burlesque, but quite another for him to go around with the star strip.

SLATE-EYES came out and left.

The voice called, "Next," and Cellini went inside. The rotund, baldish Mr. Rapp, owner of the Paree Burlesque, seemed small behind the huge desk and mammoth cigar. He indicated a chair and remarked:

"I got plenty men. They don't worry me. It's getting girls that don't look like army camouflage."

"My name is Cellini Smith and I'm a detective. It's about the murder of Danny Meade."

"Good." The cigar bobbed up and down.

"Why do you think it good?"

"It's refreshing to see someone bothering about a bum's death. When was he killed?"

"Early Sunday. Around three."

"Even if I would have wanted to kill Danny I couldn't," said Mr. Rapp triumphantly. "I was sleeping by then."

The obvious alibi for such a time, thought Cellini. But hadn't the burlesque owner been a little overeager in offering it?

He asked: "Did you know Meade well?"

"Well?" Mr. Rapp considered the point. "He used to hang around a lot backstage and I liked him. A handsome, wild boy, but he never let on much about himself."

"Do you know who killed him?"

"Please, Mr. Smith, no rhetorical questions. I'm increasing my line to twenty-four girls and I got enough troubles."

"What about Chloe and Meade? They make a peculiar deuce."

Mr. Rapp shrugged. "He had more to him than you think."

"But he was a tramp."

"I once loved a woman who bathed in buttermilk, Mr. Smith. You can never tell about those things. Danny was handsome. If he had no money that only shows Chloe is no gold-digger. Lots of those tramps are charming. Except the Monk. There's a man that belongs in a padded cell. Once a month he takes in my show, enjoys it, and after he runs on the stage, rips up the scenery and says we're damned."

"What about Chloe? Where'd she come from?"

"I don't know. She said she did a bubble act or something back East, but I didn't need that to know she was box office. She's class. As good as Corio any day."

"I can't place her," said Cellini, "but I know I've run across her before."

The door jerked open and Hollis Raine stamped in. The Kid's girl was flushed with anger and her small fists were clenched. Cellini surmised that the words on her lips were of the four-letter variety, but they remained unuttered as she caught sight of him.

"Oh," said Hollis Raine weakly. "You're here."

"That's right," replied Cellini Smith pleasantly. "How'd the funeral end up?"

"Not up. Down. Six feet down." Her voice was antagonistic.

"Yes, Hollis?" asked Mr. Rapp. "You wanted something?"

Without taking her eyes off Cellini, Hollis Raine said, "Some other time," turned and walked out.

Mr. Rapp shook his head back and forth.

"It's a shame. That nice boy. I don't know what he sees in Hollis."

"You mean the Kid?"

"Yes. Such a young boy to be going around with a girl like that. She was doing a belly dance at the County Fair when I picked her up. She's been bothering me because she thinks she's another Chloe and she wants me to give her a chance at a strip number."

"I see. Did you have much to do with Meade?"

"No. Not after he tried to borrow twenty thousand dollars."

"Ah," Cellini sounded satisfied. "That must have been a habit with Meade. Did he tell you what he wanted it for?"

"He said he'd tell me only after I loaned it to him."

"Did you lend it?"

A gust of laughter blew the cigar out of Mr. Rapp's mouth. "Maybe in the old days, but not any more. Now, I'm looking for a couple to get married on stage while they do a strip tease. That's how bad business is."

"Did Danny Meade ever tell you where he came from?"

"No, but maybe he told something to Chloe or the Kid."

"I'll cheek with them. Then you have no idea why Meade was killed or by whom?"

"I'm sorry, I have not." Cellini stood up. "I guess I'll leave."

Mr. Rapp said: "Since you're a detective, Mr. Smith, maybe you can tell me why anybody would want to steal money from us."

"I can figure out a few good reasons."

"No, no. Not real money. Stage money. Metal slugs. Some dope broke into our prop room and stole a handful of the stuff."

AS HE descended the steps and headed around the corner toward Spring for his car, Cellini Smith was in a thoughtful mood. He no longer doubted that Mr. Rapp's Paree fitted somewhere into the murder jigsaw. The theft of slugs from the backstage prop room was too convenient a coincidence.

A coupe pulled up alongside Cellini. It was his own car and Dado and Vanzy were seated inside it.

"Surprise," said Dado. "We got tired waiting, so we started cruising around after you."

"How did you start it without the keys?"

"We know lots of tricks like that," supplied Vanzy. "We once had a magician in our act. He made things disappear."

"Things like bodies?"

The hoods exchanged glances. They stepped from the car. Vanzy slipped his hand through Cellini's arm and nodded toward a near-by building on Spring Street.

"Somebody wants to have a spot of tea with you, brother."

Cellini replied: "It happens I want that tea— but without lumps— so let's go. You don't want to keep Alex waiting."

The apartment of Alex Bornaman, munitions salesman for the mobsters, looked like a men's smoker. From the paneled ceiling to the deep leather chairs, the completely unfeminine room was dedicated only to solid comfort. On an occasional table, could be seen a variety of revolvers and automatics, samples of Bornaman's business.

Alex himself was playing a nickel slot machine built into an oval bar in one comer. He was tall and thin, almost frail, and the face was curiously reserved for such a man. Cellini studied the notorious character with interest. A power of the Capone or Luciano caliber, his shrewdness had enabled him to last beyond his allotted time.

Dado cleared his throat. "We brought the clue-snifter, Chief. Cellini Smith."

Alex Bornaman looked up but did not stop playing the slot machine.

"I'm glad you were able to come, Mr. Smith. Is that first name of yours really on the level?"

Cellini ignored the question. "I'll come whenever you want, only keep those Joe Millers away from me. And tell them to leave my car alone."

"Apropos of leaving things alone," said Alex Bornaman, "that's why I wanted to see you. It's about the murder of Daniel Meade."

Alex bent over the machine and picked off three successive rows of lights. "Please understand me. I realize you make your living as a private operative so I'll let you work on Danny Meade all you want, provided you don't kick up too much dust and provided you don't solve it."

Cellini shrugged. "How about me asking a few questions?"

"You don't understand, Mr. Smith. Too much asking is what I intend to avoid. It's become an epidemic. I found out that another detective was asking about Meade in the park today."

This was news to Cellini. "You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure."

"Do you know what time Meade was murdered?"

Alex Bornaman nodded as he bent over the machine.

"Do you mind telling me what alibi you've rigged up?"

"I do mind."

"Good enough. Nobody has ever called you Diamond Jim Bornaman, so how come you're buying expensive caskets?"

"Chief," interrupted Vanzy, "this guy has the idea that Danny Meade wasn't buried today."

The sound of some psalm singing could be heard from the building's basement. Bornaman said: "I've changed my mind, Mr. Smith. I'm no longer warning you to stay out of my way. I'll put you out of my way."

There was no mistaking the meaning.

"When do you think you'll try it?" asked Cellini.

"It would be foolish to tell you. It'll be more interesting to make you wait and squirm."

"All right, Alex. Since you've decided what to do with me, perhaps you wouldn't mind saying what Danny Meade did with that twenty grand you loaned him."

A bell rang in the machine and registered ten games.

Alex Bornaman beamed. "Isn't that swell?"

"It's just ducky," said Cellini. He walked out to the distant accompaniment of psalm singing.

DESPITE the threat to put him out of the way, he left with a feeling of satisfaction, for Alex Bornaman had been playing the slot machine not with nickels but with slugs. Cellini returned to the car, got his gun— a flat thirty-eight automatic— from the glove compartment and slipped it into his pocket.

He paused to consider his next move when somebody hailed him. He recognized the undersized Wart.

"Dusty sent me," explained the hobo. "He wants you to drop over and see Uncle Max. Max heard we were after Danny's killer and he says he knows something that might help."

"I'll drop around and see him. Can you tell me where that hobo that looks like a mint julep works? I think he's called Pop."

"That's no hobo," said Wart bitterly. He pointed to a place a few doors below the mission. "That's where he's scabbing."

"Thanks."

Cellini left Wart and crossed Fourth, down Main, till he readied a small pawnshop. The pawnbroker greeted Cellini.

"Did you want to see me?" asked Cellini.

"About Danny Meade," replied Uncle Max, "that nice bum. When I heard you were hired I thought maybe you should know that—"

"That Meade tried to borrow twenty thousand bucks from you," interrupted Cellini. "Did you give it to him?"

"No," said the avuncular Max, "but I gave him the address of a good psychiatrist."

"Why should Danny Meade pick on you, a stranger, for a request like that?"

"I knew him for a few weeks before that. He was in here with the Kid— you know the Kid?—and hocked something."

Cellini sighed. "Let me see what Meade hocked."

"Sure, Cellini, sure."

The pawnbroker went behind a partition and returned with an object that he laid on the counter. It was a small charm made of gold and representing some elf-like figure.

"I told Danny I didn't want it if it was hot," said Uncle Max, "but he claimed he didn't steal it. Even then I checked to see if it was on the department lists before I took it over."

"What did you give Meade for it?"

"Sixty dollars."

"It seems to be worth more," commented Cellini.

"Sure," agreed Uncle Max. "But I can't afford to pay for work, only for the gold in it."

"If it's such good work is there any way to trace it?"

The pawnbroker studied the talisman.

"Not many people in this country can do this kind of thing," he finally said. "Two at the outside, and if it's not them then it's the work of some European goldsmith."

"Who are those two?"

"The Jellin Brothers in Chicago and Peasley in New York."

"Take a chance with those two outfits," said Cellini, "and send them wires describing the thing. Find out if they made it and, if so, for whom."

Uncle Max agreed to do so. Cellini tried a few more questions, then left to search for Pop.

He found Pop, as distinguished as ever with a withered carnation in his lapel and a cane at his feet, sitting on a lecture platform in an abandoned butcher shop. A motley crowd circled the platform as a spieler harangued them. The spieler was encased in a green, checkered suit and his discourse was on Drink and Whiskey, the Bane of Humanity. He pointed to Pop as a terrible example of the ravages of strong drink and Pop nodded in sad agreement. The patent drink-cure surrounding the spieler went at ten cents the bottle.

Cellini caught Pop's eye and beckoned. The aristocratic hobo stepped off the platform and followed Cellini outside.

"I'd like more information on Meade," said Cellini. "When he asked where he could get twenty grand you told me you suggested something. How about telling me what it was?"

Pop shook his head and flicked one of the many specks of dirt off his lapel. "I'm sorry, Mr. Smith. My life may not be worth much, but it's the only one I have."

"All right. I've just heard that another detective thinks it worth while to ask questions on Meade. Do you know why?"

"I can't help you there, either, Mr. Smith."

"Then about that twenty grand, Pop. I'll put it this way. When Danny Meade came to you did you tell him that the only person who had that much money in these parts was Alex Bornaman?"

Pop thought a moment, then said:

"Yes."

Chapter 5

THOUGH he was hungry, Cellini Smith gave scant attention to the breaded veal. He was worried. He had hoped to garner a few soft dollars, investigating a simple homicide with a minimum effort. But the thing was more complex than he had imagined, complex and more untidy. For every question answered, two rose to take its place. And all for $26.94!

The thought of money reminded Cellini that it was Bornaman who gave or loaned twenty thousand dollars to Meade. Why? If that talisman that Meade had pawned at Uncle Max's was any indication, then those little pockets hidden away inside of Danny's clothing had contained more of the same. How did a hobo come to carry such valuable ice? And, if so, what had happened to it? Then there was the other detective who, Bornaman claimed, was asking questions about Meade. Alex himself might have hired him which would explain why he was so unenthusiastic about Cellini's investigations.

Still, that did not explain why Alex Bornaman should want Meade's body or, if he did not want it, why he'd bought an expensive casket for it.

Cellini shoved aside his plate with irritation. He left the restaurant and walked over to the Paree Burlesque. At the box office he bought an eighty-three-cent ticket for one of the loges. In the lobby he caught sight of Ira Haenigson.

"How'd you like the show?"

The detective-sergeant chuckled. "Just a routine trip, Smith. I came to see Danny's head. How about you? Have you caught sight of a dollar yet?"

"Twenty thousand of them, but don't let it worry you."

"It won't," said Haenigson.

However, he frowned as Cellini passed by him and entered the theatre.

There were eight men in the box and Cellini found himself a seat next to the rail in the last row. He was sitting almost on top of stage right, but there was little to see, for it was intermission.

The house was rather full for a Monday night and the patronage predominantly male. Noisy males, at that. A couple of candy butchers were working the aisles with candies, soft drinks and smokes. And towering over the railing behind the last row in the orchestra was the unmistakable, loose-jointed frame of the Monk. That enemy of sin had come to see the show.

The six-piece band took the down beat, house lights dimmed out and the foots and balcony spots came in. A slick M.C. in greasy dinner jacket appeared, introduced himself as the Master of Cemeteries and announced that the show She Strips to Conquer was about to unfold.

The curtain rolled up, and a chorus of some two dozen girls came out and danced in defiance to the music. It was the last show for the night and they were a tired, bedraggled bunch.

Cellini looked down and spotted the spurious blonde tangle belonging to Hollis Raine, the Kid's girl, right in the first row. The chorus finished its turn, the M.C. said, "I'll be back in a flash with the flesh," and gave way to a comedian called the Ghost.

The Ghost, a baggy-trousered runt, sang a ditty and then the M.C. came out to straight for him. A girl in bathing suit joined the skit and the lines became smuttier and less funny and the laughter grew louder. From the orchestra, two peculiarly raucous voices bellowed their delight.

No smile crossed Cellini's face. There was something too familiar about those voices. He peered down into the audience, searching by the inadequate lights of the spots as they crisscrossed the stage. Then, in the third row center, Cellini saw them. It was Dado and Vanzy.

But were they taking in the show, or had they trailed him there?

A couple, garbed in moth-ravaged leopardskins, took to the stage to do some interpretive dancing and executed a few corny buck steps. When the specialty was over, the M.C. announced:

"Now, La Petite Filet Mignon! Beverly Allen!! That shivering bundle of jello!"

Beverly Allen appeared, the orchestra ran off the Black-and-Tan Fantasie, and the strip ran off the few yards of muslin around her with the traditional accompaniment of grinds and bumps.

When neither applause nor whistling could inveigle Beverly onto the stage for further denuding, the curtain rose on a boudoir set in "gay" Paris.

The laughter of Dado and Vanzy dominated the audience. The chorus came on again, against a Turkish harem backdrop, with the Ghost as Sultan. When it was mercifully over, there was an orchestral fanfare and the M.C. announced: "Chloe!"

The audience yelled welcome.

"That dynamo of burlesque, that ginger-headed ball of fire," he went on with a fine disregard for Chloe's black hair, "that tonic for all that ails you."

From the vantage point of the box, Cellini could see Chloe talking to Hollis Raine in the wings as she waited for the applause to subside. Amber spots came on, the orchestra hit up Mood Indigo, and Chloe moved down the stage, suddenly stumbling.

She quickly righted herself and went into a slow, rhythmic dance. Cellini frowned. Had Chloe stumbled on the train of her dress, or had Hollis Raine deliberately tripped her as she went by?

Chloe's dance was hardly more than a gentle sway to the beat of the drums. She peeled with a languid boredom, as if in the privacy of her home. Cellini leaned over the box rail and called:

"What's coming off here, Chloe?" She looked up and he thought he detected a faint smile of recognition. By now the two saxophones were going to town on Mood Indigo and most of the long length of Chloe's cream-skinned body was revealed. She reached down and slipped off the garter from one of her mesh-stockinged legs and hurled it into the audience. There was a miniature riot as the males scrabbled for the token.

Chloe slipped off the other pink garter and tossed it up to Cellini. He caught it deftly with one hand. Another flurry of clothing down to the G-string and Chloe left the stage.

The chorus came on and Cellini lost interest. He leaned back, idly snapping the garter, when a thought electrified him. The elastic of the garter could make an ideal slingshot with the rosette as the pocket for the missile. He picked up a chewing-gum wrapper and pressed it into a tight ball. Then he placed the wad inside the rosette, wound the garter around two fingers and let go at one of the chorines on stage.

There was a surprised yelp from the girl as the paper hit its mark. Cellini said:

"Hooray!"

Things were beginning to fill out. Slugs were stolen from the theatre's prop room, and these wide, elastic garters with rosettes set in them were perfect slingshot material.

Cellini's neighbor tapped him on the shoulder.

"Friend, somebody wants to see you."

An usherette, grimly tight-lipped, stood at the entrance of the box, arms akimbo. Cellini rose and stumbled out.

"What's the idea of throwing things at the girls?" Her voice was strident. "Where do you think you are?"

Cellini patted her cheek.

"Why didn't we meet before I got a piano?" He carefully picked his way down the steps.

SLOWLY, Cellini Smith circled the block several times. His eyes followed any closed vehicle that passed and every so often he looked behind him. The presence of the two hoods in the burlesque house reminded him only too vividly of Alex Bornaman's threat.

However, if Dado and Vanzy had seen him being thrown out of the theatre, they had not bothered to follow. Cellini turned into the narrow alley that led to the backstage entrance of the Paree Sitting on a box in front of the stage door was the Kid.

"Hello, liar," said Cellini. The boy's face flushed, but he made no denial.

"I guess I am a liar but Danny Meade was my friend and I see no reason to throw dirt at him when he can't answer."

"What are you doing here, Kid?"

"I'm waiting to walk Hollis home."

"The way you claim you did the night Meade was killed?"

"That's exactly what I claim."

"All right. I'll see you later. Try to remember by then what Danny was carrying in those pockets inside his clothes, because I've seen one of the items that he hocked at Max's."

Cellini passed through the stage door, mounted the small flight of iron stairs and found himself backstage. The last show had still a half-hour to go and the girls sat around resting swollen feet and Klieg eyes. Those of the crew who weren't working the curtains or switchboard were squatting over a hand of gin rummy. As Cellini observed the scene, a harassed Mr. Rapp accosted him.

"I should hire a detective myself."

"What's the matter?"

"First those slugs were stolen from my prop room and just before, some bum started throwing paper at my girls."

"I was in the audience and I didn't notice."

"Really, Mr. Smith? How did you like the show?"

"I've seen better casts on broken legs." Cellini paused, then added, "I saw the Kid in the alley. Is he always around here?"

"Isn't it terrible, Mr. Smith? That boy should be in school instead of going out with Hollis Raine."

"A burlesque dame is plenty of schooling."

"I don't like the implication," flared Mr. Rapp. "About a dozen of my girls are decently married. Another half-dozen support their families."

"Sure. I saw the halos over them. All I want to know is why you disapprove of the Kid and Hollis?"

"Because she's older than he is and they're too crazy in love to realize what a lousy match they make."

"Where's Chloe's dressing room?"

The burlesque operator indicated a door offstage left. She was the only member of the cast to rate a room to herself. Cellini walked over, knocked, and when there was no answer pushed through. The star was not present in the boxlike and somewhat dingy room.

Cellini closed the door and began a leisurely examination. There was the usual wide mirror over the makeup table, surrounded by bulbs, and also a full-length mirror paneled into the door. Boxes, containing several gross of variously colored garters, which Chloe threw to the audience in every act, were stacked in one comer.

Seven pegs, one for each day of the week, were set into the wall, and a pair of garters for each performance of the week circled them. There remained one pair for Chloe's final performance that night. In one corner, lay a single garter.

Cellini kicked at the lemon-tinted garter. Chloe would hardly be likely to throw only one of her garters out to the males, so what had happened to its mate? Was it the one that had been fashioned into a slingshot to kill Danny Meade?

Cellini scanned the dressing table, then dropped on all fours, searching comers, among boxes and inside the wardrobe for the missing garter. He slipped his hand between dressing table and wall, felt a small piece of metal and flipped it out. It was a small, round slug and, excepting for the unfiled edge, it was a duplicate of the one that had been shot into Danny Meade.

The door opened and he stood up to face Chloe. A simple dressing gown was draped over her shoulders and he was pleasantly surprised to find that makeup had been sparingly applied.

Again he had the certainty of having seen her before.

"How do you do, Mr. Smith? Is the floor well made?"

"I was only looking for evidence to prove you're a murderess."

"Have you succeeded?"

"Perhaps."

He held up the slug for her to see. She stood where she was, without coming closer.

"Isn't that the sort of thing that killed Danny?"

"How do you know?" he countered.

"This afternoon I was in to see Mr. Haenigson, to find out what was being done about Danny, and he told me."

"I don't suppose you know how this came to be hidden behind your makeup table?"

"Of course not."

"All right, but that's not what I came here for. I'd like to have a talk with you."

"We'll have to make it after the show, Mr. Smith. I'm due to go on in a few minutes and I have to dress."

He nodded and started out. At the door he turned.

"By the way, thanks for throwing me the garter."

He indicated the lone garter that still lay on the floor. "Any idea where the mate to that one is?"

"Not the faintest." He left, still wishing he knew where he'd seen her before.

The M.C. was warbling on stage and the chorus waited for their last number. Cellini sighted Hollis Raine and went up to her.

"I saw the Kid outside," he said. "He's waiting for you."

"Thanks."

"You like the Kid, don't you?"

"I don't like him. I love him and we're going to marry. The sooner everybody believes that and lets us alone, the happier we'll be."

"Simmer down, Hollis. I'm just interested in getting the truth out of the Kid to find out what this is all about. He says he walked you home the night Danny was killed. What did you do after that?"

"I went to bed."

"Didn't you go to the Luxembourg Gardens?"

She regarded him as if he was crazy. "I've never been there in my life. What would I be doing among those bums?"

"I wouldn't know. Is Rapp going to give you a chance to strip?"

"You think you're funny, Smith, but I'm as good as—"

"As Chloe?"

"Any Main Street hooker would be as good as Chloe."

"Would you mind taking the knife out of my back, Mr. Smith?" asked Chloe who had come up in time to hear the last sentence.

"Your back's doing fine," said Cellini. "It's just a little professional jealousy. Hollis here has been watching your technique and she thinks she can outstrip her instructor."

Without warning, Chloe slapped Hollis Raine squarely over the face.

Cellini jumped between the two women as Hollis, her claws spread, sprang for Chloe.

"That's a reminder never to trip me again," said Chloe.

Hollis Raine did not deny it. Cellini could feel her hot, straining breath and it took all his strength to hold her back. Then it had been no accident. There had to be something deeper behind it than a desire to spoil Chloe's act, than mere professional jealousy.

Several of the girls closed in, siding either with Chloe or Hollis.

Mr. Rapp hurried over and grabbed at Hollis. "Why can't I have a civilized burlesque?"

Hollis Raine shook herself free and walked away. Ira Haenigson appeared from somewhere in the wings and asked: "Yes, what is going on?"

"Nothing to do with you," snapped Chloe. The Homicide man put a friendly hand on her shoulder.

"Girlie, I only—" He stopped as he noticed Chloe. She had suddenly begun to tremble. The lips were drawn taut in a white, terrified face. One of the chorines put a protecting arm around Chloe.

"Take your mitts off her, you ape," she hissed. Haenigson's hand dropped from Chloe and he gaped at the chorine.

"And who are you?"

"I'm Jewel Sprattley. I just said to keep your hands off Chloe."

Haenigson turned to Chloe. "I just came around because you begged me to do something about the killing of that bum. Well, the hell with it! I'm through with you lunatics. I'm letting department routine handle it and if you don't like it you can write a letter to the commissioner."

He stamped out. Cellini had barely listened to Haenigson's tirade. He was watching Chloe with intent interest.

As soon as Haenigson had released his hold on Chloe, she stopped trembling and was again her usual, poised self. At last Cellini understood. He knew now why she had been such a thorn in his memory. Outside, in the pit, the band took the downbeat for Lament to Love. The stage manager snapped his fingers at Chloe.

"O.K. They're hungry."

Chloe smoothed out the wrinkles in her gown and walked over, awaiting her cue. Mr. Rapp mopped his forehead resignedly and beckoned to Cellini.

"Come. I'll show you the prop room where the slugs were stolen."

"I'll look at it after when nobody's around."

"You make too much of it, Mr. Smith. I've figured out why the robber stole those things. He could use the slugs to make telephone calls."

"You're probably right."

Cellini strolled away to the tormentor and looked out as Chloe shook off clothes and wound up her act. As she passed by Cellini, he could make out a fine red line, probably a knife slash, that cut across her left hip.

There was an orchestral fanfare and the chorus trooped on for the finale. The audience was already going up the aisle and soon the asbestos dropped, lights were killed, and the cast headed for dressing rooms.

After the stage hands had gone, Cellini walked over to the prop room. It was a small enclosure made of insecure latticework and within it were stacked all the wide varieties of hand props that could conceivably be needed for any show.

The door, also a lattice affair, was fitted with a cheap padlock, and Cellini noted that the hasp behind the lock had been pried loose. Here, realized Cellini, was a definite clue. This theft of slugs shortly before the murder could not be mere coincidence. The murderer either worked in the Paree or had deliberately directed suspicion toward the burlesque house.

Cellini returned to the stage. It had been cleaned of scenery, in accordance with fire regulations, and the asbestos rolled up again. Only a pilot light remained burning and the house was strangely silent and forbidding with the rows of dark, empty seats up front. He remembered Alex Bornaman's threat. It was bad business to forget that while puttering around in an empty theatre.

He turned to leave when he heard a distant snap and something whizzed by his ears.

The missile hit a steel switchbox, bounced back, and rolled to Cellini's feet. It was one of those slugs, its edges sharpened to a murderous keenness. Cellini heard another snap and dropped to the floor. He heard the slug bury into some piece of wood uncomfortably near.

The murderer was some place out there, in those rows of seats. The flat automatic was in Cellini's hand now, but he could see nothing to shoot at. In front of him was darkness, and he alone stood out clearly in the light of the single overhead bulb.

"I see you, Bornaman!" he shouted. "I see every yellow inch of your hide!"

Only the silence answered. His arm circled and sent the gun crashing at the pilot light. Now, it was dark but for a distant gleam behind the scenery, leading to the dressing rooms.

"You had your chance, Bornaman! Now it's my turn! I'm coming for you!"

Again only silence and darkness for reply.

Cellini waited, vainly, hoping his enemy would give away his position. He heard steps on the offstage stairway. He looked toward the dim light and was in time to see Alex Bornaman crossing toward Chloe's dressing room. A queer sensation tingled down Cellini's body.

The killer out there in the theatre was not Alex Bornaman. There had to be still another who wanted him dead.

He felt his way ahead, searching for the spot where the gun had fallen. The killer must have seen him going to the prop room and had decided that he was dangerous.

It was dangerous. It was something, to know that the murderer had tried to conceal the link between the burlesque house and Danny Meade's death. But Cellini's satisfaction was short-lived.

Suddenly, a yellow shaft of light cut through the theatre and centered on him. One of the balcony spots. The murderer was not in the orchestra but at a safe distance up in the projection booth. Cellini could now see his gun near-by. He dashed to pick it up as a slug hissed down from the balcony, missing him. He ran down the runway, leaped into the center aisle and dove flat on his stomach into the fourth row.

He felt something moist and warm on his left forearm and swore. A slug had neatly sliced through his suit and shirt and nicked his arm.

The amber spot kept hovering above the seats, waiting for him to show himself. He rolled back coatsleeve and shirt and bound the cut on his arm with a handkerchief.

Muted laughter could be heard from one of the backstage dressing rooms. Possibly Chloe enjoying Alex Bornaman's macabre humor. Cellini bellied his way, under the seats, down the row to the opposite aisle. He rolled over and tentatively stuck out a shoe. The shaft of light pounced on it like a cat on a mouse and again there was that faint whine and dull thud. A couple of inches from the place where his shoe had been, a slug lay buried deep in the red plush carpeting of the aisle.

"The damned Nimrod," muttered Cellini.

The sound of his voice made him wonder if that questioning light would be attracted by noise. He lowered one of the wooden seats and slammed it back with a bang. Immediately, the round pencil of light pounced on the spot and he knew that in back of the light a slingshot was being held taut, ready to let go at the first sign of him. He remembered Chloe's garter in his pocket and took it out. He placed a coin inside, it, drew back the elastic and let go. It smashed against a seat at the far end of the row. As the yellow beam swung to the far side, chasing after the sound, Cellini jumped into the aisle, darted up it a few rows and then he was underneath the balcony.

He raced for the lobby and cut up the stairway. Behind him, the spotlight clicked off.

The killer knew that he was no longer the hunter but the hunted. Cellini reached the balcony, dashed up the small flights toward its last row and paused. Two iron ladders, one at each end, led up to the projection booth. He decided to take the one nearest and began crawling up the rungs, gun in hand.

He reached the small platform outside the door and tried the knob. It was locked. He put the muzzle of the automatic to the lock, pulled the trigger, and broke into the booth.

There was no one inside but he was in time to see the door at the far end of the booth slam shut. His quarry was already worming his way down the rungs of the other ladder.

He made for the door, but it had been locked from the outside. He ran back to the other side and slid down the ladder's railing, then stopped. He could hear no sound to pursue. The killer had escaped.

Chapter 6

CELLINI SMITH cursed the red carpeting which had served to deaden the footfalls of the fleeing killer. He began to descend from the balcony to the orchestra, wondering if Alex Bornaman was still visiting Chloe.

The fact that that munitions purveyor to the underworld was backstage while a slingshot in the balcony was playing tag with Cellini, proved but little. It might have been one of Alex's henchmen, Dado or Vanzy, who had worked the spotlight and shot those sharpened slugs.

Cellini reached the runway circling the band pit and vaulted onto it. From the still-dark stage, he could hear Mr. Rapp's querulous voice.

"What's going on here? I heard a gun shoot."

It was the shot with which Cellini had broken the lock on the projection booth. He replied: "A bulb broke."

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Smith. Where's the pilot light?"

"That's the bulb that broke."

Mr. Rapp threw a switch and light flooded the stage. "What happened to your arm?"

The blood had seeped from the slicing cut in Cellini's forearm and stained his coatsleeve. He tightened the knot in the handkerchief that bound it.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"About eleven years. Why?"

The burlesque owner was being too simple or too clever. His alibi covering the time of Danny Meade's murder was that he had been asleep. Not very good. Cellini reached over and patted the pockets of his jacket. "What are you trying to do, Mr. Smith?"

"I'm just looking for a slingshot."

"Are you crazy?"

"Me, crazy? I'm being used as a target range for a slingshot and I have the most prominent racketeer in town gunning for me, all for a retainer of twenty-six dollars and ninety-four cents! How could I be crazy?"

Cellini made for the stage door. The chorines were still in the dressing rooms. He looked at his watch and was surprised to find that barely ten minutes had elapsed since that first disk of sharpened metal had hurtled down at him.

The Kid still sat in the alley behind the Paree, waiting for Hollis Raine. Cellini asked:

"Has Alex Bornaman left yet?"

"He went out a couple of minutes ago."

It had been a quick visit. He must have had something definite to tell Chloe.

"Well, Kid, has your memory improved?"

The boy swallowed heavily. "Since you already know, I might as well tell you. I didn't want to let on before because I was afraid Danny might have stolen the stuff."

"What stuff? Start at the beginning."

"I'm talking about the ice Danny carried when we met."

"Where was this?"

"In a jungle outside Lynchburg, Virginia. We hit it off together from the beginning. He had class and he was smart, but he didn't even know the first thing about getting a free feed."

"If he had a lot of rocks on him," reminded Cellini, "he didn't have to go in for panhandling."

"He didn't tell anybody he had them," said the Kid. "I only found out about it after Jed Collins stole the stuff. Jed Collins is a hobo, but one of the Ramblers. He's not a Hobo of America like us at the Gardens. Anyway, he slugged Danny one night and swiped the jewelry from him. They were worth a lot of dough."

"And I suppose Jed Collins missed a few of the lesser items like the one Danny Meade hocked here. Go on."

"There's not much after Collins stole the stuff. We just trailed him. Danny liked being a bo more and more and when we got to Nashville he had himself tattooed. We kept trailing Jed Collins till we lost him around the Panhandle." "Did you ever catch up to Collins?"

"No. He stayed away from Jeff Davis's boys, and his friends wouldn't give any dope on him so Danny and me came on to L.A."

"What did Meade want here?"

"He wouldn't let on. He just said it was something big and that I'd be in it with him."

There it was again. Something big. It seemed, to Cellini, that whenever he considered throwing this case over, a bucket of gold would show up at the end of the rainbow.

Cellini asked: "Did Meade tell you what that 'something big' was about?"

"No. He wouldn't even say where he got that ice."

"Do you think it had anything to do with mining?"

"Mining?"

"Forget it. The Monk took in the show here tonight. Did you happen to see him hanging around after it was over?"

The Kid merely shook his head.

"Let's drop it. Hollis ought to be along soon. By the way, do you know why she'd want to go around tripping Chloe?"

"Why the hell don't you lay off her?" flared the Kid. "Look." He fumbled inside his jacket and produced a paper. It was a marriage license for the Kid and Hollis Raine.

"Congratulations," said Cellini, not too sincerely. "After you walked Hollis Raine home on the night of the murder, are you sure she didn't go down to the Luxembourg Gardens on her own?"

The Kid's mouth opened wide. Hastily, Cellini said: "I know. Your fiancée can do no wrong. Still, someone saw her at the Gardens. If you're going to marry her how come you're still living down there?"

"Hollis wants me to move out," said the boy sullenly, "but I wouldn't do it on her dough. I'm going to get a job first."

"I hear you want to be a dick, and compete with me."

"Just a cop," retorted the Kid, "and it's not funny."

Hollis Raine had come out of the stage door. Her makeup had been removed and reapplied. She wasn't bad in her way, Cellini conceded, but he wondered what a youngster like the Kid saw in her.

IT WAS another half-hour and most of the burlesque troop had departed before Chloe put in her appearance. The glossy, lamp-black hair was coiled under a green turban. The dress was high-necked and long-sleeved. It was a complete reversal of the woman who had been twisting her stomach muscles to the beat of Mood Indigo a short while before.

"Would you mind walking, Mr. Smith?"

They left the alley and started down Main Street. He asked:

"Have you been having any more fights with Hollis Raine?"

"No. She's learned her lesson. She wants to be a strip and I suppose she's jealous of me. Her trouble is that her body has gone to her head."

"Is that all she has against you?"

"What else would there be?" countered Chloe.

"I don't know, but there's a chance that Hollis Raine saw Danny Meade murdered. A tramp called Pogo told me that she was hanging around the Luxembourg Gardens during that time."

"What would that have to do with me?"

"She might have seen you killing Meade. As you know, I found a slug in your dressing room, similar to the ones that killed Meade. The slingshot that fired them was probably fashioned from one of your garters. There's one on the floor of your dressing room for which there is no mate."

"How refreshing!"

"What is?"

"To find a man who knows so little about women's garters. I doubt if the elastic is strong enough to hurl a missile with sufficient force to dent a soapsud."

They stopped by a curb, waiting for traffic to pass, and Chloe opened her purse. As she took out her cigarette case, an envelope fluttered to the ground.

She pointed to it. "Look, Mr. Smith, a clue. Don't miss it."

"Thank you." He picked it up and examined it by the light of a street lamp. It was a plain white envelope and inside it was a single sheet of paper with a few typewritten lines on it.

Keep your trap shut and your zippers open or you'll be a sorry dame in the morgue.

It was unsigned. Cellini returned it and they continued down the block. He asked:

"When did you get this?"

"Today. It was inside my makeup box. I suppose it has some connection with Danny's death. That much is obvious."

"Is it? It might have nothing to do with this killing but the other one you were mixed up with."

There was no response and they walked for several minutes before Chloe finally broke the silence.

"I was wondering if you knew about that killing when I saw you sizing up the cut across my hip."

"It wasn't that," said Cellini. "I caught on by the way you shook when Haenigson touched you. I remembered then that you were on trial for the murder of your husband a few years ago, back in Philadelphia. You must certainly hate cops."

"Only if they touch me. After I was arrested, that's all I seemed to feel. The hands of policemen."

"I remember the trial only vaguely. What happened?"

She shrugged. "A drunken husband. No divorce, but constant terrorizing. One day he came at me with a broken bottle and slashed my hip and I shot him."

"That sounds like self-defense. Why did it become such a notorious trial?"

"District attorneys are elected and I have looks. So I stood trial and if I moved my arm or walked to the stand the D.A. claimed I was swaying the jury by my sex. The papers took up the cry of Sex versus Justice and I was acquitted only because I had such a solid case."

"And after?"

"My money was gone and I was too notorious to be even a salesgirl. I changed my name and cashed in on nudity. I suppose you blame me."

"Why should I? It's your skin."

"I undressed a dozen times before a jury because, miraculously, they never remembered the cut on my hip or other marks of beatings. After that I minded nothing. I started with a balloon act in a Chicago night spot."

Cellini nodded. He said: "I've heard there's another detective who's been showing interest in Meade. Did you hire him?"

"No."

"Did Alex Bornaman?"

"How should I know?"

"He visited you backstage tonight."

She didn't reply. He thought of telling her his suspicion that Meade wasn't buried in Bornaman's casket, but decided against it. Instead, he said: "I still can't see someone like you going for a tramp. Living in the Gardens!"

"It wouldn't be so absurd if you knew him. He had charm, intelligence, and he was a woman's man."

"I suppose your alibi is that since you liked him you couldn't have killed him."

"I couldn't have killed him because I wasn't there. I walked down here."

"I thought the Kid and Hollis left you at your apartment."

"Yes, but after they left I walked down here and took a taxi back home."

And the Plaza wasn't too far from the Gardens, he thought.

"Dressing up your alibi like this was a mistake," he said. "It would have been smarter to stick to the story of staying home. Why do you want me to believe that you walked down here and then took a taxi home again?"

"Only because it's the truth. I take a walk every night after the show and then I go home and take a bath. I find it restful. The night of the murder I didn't have time for my walk on account of my visitors, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I went out after."

"Did Danny go with you on the walk?"

"I told you he had left."

"I still can't get over your taste in men."

"I might admit he wasn't the only man in my life."

Though he knew, he asked: "What other man was there?"

"Alex Bornaman," she replied without hesitation.

There it was. That was why Bornaman's hood had been quieted in the funeral parlor by a single word from her. He said:

"You're quite a neurotic, aren't you, Chloe? You don't mind visiting the police to ask their help on the murder, but you throw a fit if they touch you. You have a great contempt for stripping, but it's not a healthy contempt and after every night's work you have to bathe, you—"

"I'm going home now," she interrupted. "All right. Can I keep that threatening note you received? I'd like to find out who wrote it."

A slight laugh escaped her.

"You mean you can't guess after reading that remark about my peeling? It was written by Hollis Raine, of course."

Chapter 7

IN MAIN Street, Cellini Smith retraced his steps toward his car. It was time to get down to the Luxembourg Gardens and make a report to his clients, but as he again reached the Majestic he paused. It would be worth checking the Monk's story that he had been sleeping in the picture house the night of the killing.

The Monk was around the Paree enough to learn how to handle the spotlights. The lobby displays of the all-night grind house had not been changed for months. A large sign claimed that the place was ventilated— an important sales point for bums who sought a warm night's sleep.

Cellini paid the dime admission and entered. The picture house had one center aisle, with a sharp, downward slope, and the figures slouched in the seats to either side gave scant attention to the ancient, cracked film on the screen. Here and there, a snore sounded.

Cellini worked his way into a row on the left side and sat down between two figures. Both of them stirred resentfully as they were awakened.

"Watch where you're going," hissed one. Cellini could barely make out the faces of the two tramps.

"This is a high-class flop house," he said conversationally. "Shut up and go to sleep," replied one of them.

Politeness, Cellini surmised, was a waste. Bluntly, he asked:

"Do either of you know the Monk?"

The question wasn't joyously received.

"We're Ramblers on this side, bud, and we have no truck with any garbage-hound from that outfit."

It was interesting information, thought Cellini. The members of the Rambling Hobo Fellowship frequented one side of the theatre and those from the Hobos of America the other. He remembered that the Kid had said that Collins was a Rambler.

He asked: "Do you know a hobo named Jed Collins?"

One of the tramps leaned over and spoke to the other.

"Say, this must be one of those guys who chased Jed cross-country."

Before Cellini could move, two hands, like bands of steel, closed over his wrists, pinning them to the arm rests.

"You'd better let up," said Cellini. A couple of patrons yelled for quiet.

The hands tightened on Cellini's wrists as he tried to twist his arms. He thought of calling out, but realized that he was surrounded by Ramblers. Cellini let his arms relax and said in an undertone:

"You've got me wrong. It was Danny Meade and the Kid who chased Jed Collins because Collins stole some stuff belonging—" The hands had loosened their grip on the relaxed wrists and Cellini suddenly twisted his arms away and jammed an elbow into each stomach.

"Easy," said Cellini. "I've got a gun in my hand."

The Ramblers didn't move. Cellini stood up, turned around so as to face them and squeezed out of the aisle. This time he chose an aisle seat on the right seat. He could barely make out his neighbor, a seedy, middle-aged man. Again, Cellini plunged into it.

"Do you know the Monk?"

"Yeah," said the neighbor. "He's a holy "That's the ticket. If you spend your nights here maybe you know if the Monk was here last Saturday night."

"What about it?" He squinted suspiciously at Cellini. "I'm trying to check an alibi. I want to be sure he spent Saturday night here."

The neighbor lost interest in the conversation and stared at the screen. Cellini grabbed the man's arm.

"You've seen that picture ten times. The Monk says he spent Saturday night here. Did he?"

"Sure. He come in around nine o'clock."

"He couldn't have been here till after midnight!"

"Sure, sure. I meant nine bells like on a ship. I'm an old sailor. You know, a tar."

"I know," said Cellini. "I also know that the maximum number of bells on a ship is eight."

It was a hopeless business. He stood up and left.

Tooling his car to the rim of the Luxembourg Gardens, Cellini Smith wondered how he could manage to see Pogo privately. It was that tramp's word against Hollis Raine's that she was hanging around the Gardens during the time of the murder. It was also possible that Pogo had seen the actual murder taking place and had not dared to admit it.

A figure stepped from behind a tree and approached the car. It was the Kid.

"I'm glad you're here, Smith. I figured you'd park on this side and I was waiting—"

The Kid sounded excited.

Cellini said: "Cool down a second, then tell me what happened."

The boy took a deep breath.

"I'll show you."

They walked across rubbish piles away from the glowing fires of the hobo encampment. The Kid said: "After I left you I walked Hollis home. Then I came back this way and when I started across the Gardens I saw a couple of men by that pile of old barrels. At least they looked like men."

"What do you mean, Kid? Didn't they have on pants?"

"I can't be sure of anything. It looked queer and I didn't go over to see what they were doing until after they left."

THEY reached the mound of broken beer barrels and the Kid stopped, shoved aside some boxes, then kneeled down and scooped up handfuls of loose dirt. Then he lit a match, cupping the flame, and held it low.

Cellini could see a dirty rag spread a few inches below the surface of the ground. He pulled back a comer of the cloth and found himself looking into the lifeless face of Pogo.

"After they left," the Kid said, "I looked around and saw the ground was loose. I put that rag over his face."

Cellini scooped some more dirt away from the shallow grave. There, over Pogo's heart was an oblong wound where the slug had entered.

Cellini replaced the dirt and set the debris over the grave.

"Have you told anybody about this?"

"No. I didn't know what you wanted."

"Good. Keep it under your hat. It's too late to help Pogo and if he isn't found for a couple of days we might catch the killer off-guard."

The boy's mouth opened.

"Don't start asking questions now, Kid. Pogo was killed because the murderer was afraid he saw him chopping down Danny Meade. Now, get back to your friends. I'll follow in a couple of minutes and make believe you haven't seen me."

The Kid left and Cellini waited several minutes before putting in his appearance at the hobo encampment. They were grouped around two boards, having a late snack.

Dusty indicated a vacant box.

"Park it," said the Mayor.

Cellini sat down. "Where did you get the eats?"

"We sweep out a bakery every day," supplied Dusty, "and they give us their second-day rolls and cakes."

From Dusty near-by, to the Kid at the far end, Cellini could feel the unblinking eyes on him.

"Well," said Cellini, "after the first day I find I don't know four important things. Who killed Danny Meade and with what motive, where Danny came from and why he came here."

"What did you find out for our dough?" demanded a tramp.

"He was murdered by two of these fired from a slingshot." Cellini held up the slug he had found in Chloe's dressing room and it passed from hand to hand. The slug came back.

"There was nothing of importance on the body," Cellini continued. "The wallet had been ripped apart as if there was something special the killer sought. In the pockets there were a few odds and ends and six cents."

"Then the motive wasn't robbery," stated Link.

"At one time Meade did carry a lot of valuable ice, but it was stolen from him by one Jed Collins."

"Them lousy Rambling Hobos," barked Wart.

"That's the one. I'd like to get a line on him." "We'll get him," said the Mayor with assurance. "While you're checking on Jed Collins, see if it's true that there's been another detective asking questions about Danny. Probably does most of his asking in the park."

Dusty promised. He found a whole cigarette in his pocket, divided it with his neighbors. Cellini said: "What I'd like most to know is why Danny Meade came to L.A. It probably has something to do with the twenty thousand dollars he kept trying to borrow."

Curly whistled in admiration.

"That's big-time panhandling. Did he get it?"

"I think so. From Alex Bornaman."

The hobos looked doubtful. Alex, claimed one of them, wouldn't give a smile without collateral.

"If he's so tight," said Cellini, "why did he buy Danny Meade an expensive casket? And what did those two gag boys of his, Dado and Vanzy, do with the original casket? There's no trade-in value on caskets. Why was everyone sent out of the parlor when they switched coffins?" He paused for effect before continuing.

"Danny Meade was not buried today in that casket supplied by Bornaman."

The reception of Cellini's statement was vociferous. Few believed it.

Cellini stood up. He was tired and did not relish arguing the point. But the hobos were in no asking mood. They appropriated the crumbs of the meal and separated for the various shacks.

Cellini turned and strode off toward his He looked up and down the street. There was no coupe. Straight ahead of him he could see the still-burning fires in the center of Luxembourg Gardens and he could not have made any mistake.

He had left the car at this spot and it wasn't here now. It was stolen. He stood on the sidewalk, trying to decide what to do. He wiped his dry, sweatless forehead with a handkerchief and, after a while, set across Main toward the trolley terminal on Hill.

The long, jogging trolley journey to West Hollywood served only to madden him further and it was not till three-thirty in the morning that he stood in front of his apartment. He searched for the keys.

They too were stolen. He tried to remember when they could have been lifted from his pocket but had no idea. He checked and found that, nothing else was missing. He went out and around the apartment building's service alley, stopping below his window.

Fortunately, he rented a ground floor rear apartment. He hoisted himself onto the window ledge and tried to pry up the window but found it locked. He unlaced a shoe, and shattered a section of the pane with the heel. Then he reached in, sprang the latch and pushed up the window.

Later, he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wishing he could get to sleep, but images and thoughts crept into his mind. He could still see Pogo's face in the soft dirt, dead because he knew too much.

Then there was Chloe, with her queer, toadstool mentality. Her poisonous quality interested Cellini as did her womanhood. And what of that other detective? Was he too interested in mining or in the twenty grand Alex Bornaman had loaned Danny Meade?

Slowly, Cellini grew aware of a low, scraping noise. A key was being slipped into the front door look.

He found his gun on the night table, slipped from bed and, padding silently to the door, flattened himself against the wall. The key turned and the door pushed in. When it was three-quarters open, Cellini flipped the light switch.

Dusty stood in the doorway, Cellini's key chain in his hand, a sheepish smile on his face. "So you lifted my keys. Did you also take my car?"

Dusty edged backward, nodding affirmatively. Cellini dropped the gun. "All right," he said coldly, "you'll never pull anything like that on me again."

He leaped forward and jerked the Mayor into the room.

"Wait a second, Smith! I had to take the car. Kid, for God's sake, get him to lay off!"

The Kid appeared at the open door.

"Cool down, Smith. Come here and look at this first."

Cellini released Dusty. He said, "I'm not through with you yet," and went out to the hallway.

On the floor was a long, rectangular object covered by a blanket Dusty pushed it into the room, closing the door. He whipped the blanket off the object. It was the ornate, silver-trimmed casket that Alex Bornaman had supplied for Danny Meade's funeral.

"Get it?" asked Dusty. "When you told us that you didn't think that Danny was buried in this, the Kid and me wanted to check. We had to do it on the Q.T. and we had to have a car. We got the spades from the tool shed in the park and—"

Cellini went into the kitchenette and returned with a table knife. Using it as a screw driver, he worked on the soil-encrusted casket.

Ten minutes later he stepped back. Dusty pushed up the lid. Inside it was nothing but several lengths of four-by-six-inch pieces of fir to weight the box and tacked to one of the strips of lumber was a note. It read simply:

Away for the haunting season.

Dado and Vanzy, it seemed, could never resist a gag.

Chapter 8

CELLINI SMITH awoke shortly before nine after a few uneasy hours of sleep, He lighted a cigarette and t leaned back on the pillow, staring with red-rimmed eyes at the casket in the corner. It was untenanted all right, and it was certain that Alex Bornaman was the cause of the eviction.

But why? If anything of value had remained on Meade's corpse then certainly the police or the mortician would have made the discovery before Bornaman kidnapped the body.

Cellini flicked the cigarette through the broken window and climbed out of bed. He dressed, went out to his car, and a short while later he was breakfasting over a morning newspaper.

Two items caught his interest. The first was a page one sub-headline:

Petty Crime Wave Sweeps City.

Under it was the story of a wide series of purse snatchings, theft of pennies from news stands, and the rolling of drunks. The second item merited only a few lines. It reported, merely, that vandals had stolen a casket from a local cemetery during the night.

Cellini put aside the paper, had another coffee, and went up to his office. He sat behind his desk, wishing he could afford the neon sign with the blinking eye. It would bring in business. He pulled over the phone and dialed police headquarters.

When he was connected with Ira Haenigson, he found the Homicide man to be in a sensitive mood

"Smith, you don't rate co-operation with us on anything and if it's about that tramp it goes double. I go out of my way to help and you see the kind of treatment that Godiva hands me." "Chloe had her reasons," said Cellini, "but I just called to point out an item you might have missed in today's papers."

"Spill it."

"It's about some grave-robbing that took place at a cemetery last night. It's the same cemetery where Meade took a long-term lease yesterday. My guess is that it was his body that was stolen."

"Why would anybody want that bum's body?"

"I'd like to know why myself, Haenigson, but I think the person who did it was Alex Bornaman."

The long pause was followed by a gust of laughter.

"Lie down with an ice pack, Smith. The next time you get an idea like that I'll turn you over to Narcotics."

The phone clicked off. Cellini replaced the receiver slowly. He heard a voice call his name. It was Sadie, secretary to the Venetian blind business next door and guardian of his phone provided she received her weekly five dollars.

He crossed to the communicating door and entered the adjoining office. She was exactly as he had seen her the day before: a box of candies on her right, a magazine on her left, and her legs stretched luxuriously over the desk top in the full knowledge of their photogenic worth. She said:

"From now on you pay my salary ahead. I don't give credit to guys who go to hock shops."

"Sadie, you're a glory to double-talk. What's the beef?"

"You been getting calls from Max's pawnshop on Main Street all morning. He said you should go and see him."

"Thanks. Doesn't your boss mind you giving this place that homey touch?"

She tittered.

"Fuzzy's all right."

"I'm sure he is." He returned to his office, locked the door and went downstairs.

MOST of the hobos were at the Luxembourg Gardens, neglecting their panhandling and their various duties that passed for work. They were crowding around Dusty.

Cellini's eyes strayed to the spot at the far end where Pogo lay buried.

One body found and one lost. Not a good exchange. He thought he saw the Professor watch him curiously.

"What's new?" he asked.

"A couple of things," replied the Mayor. "For instance, we decided to advance you another retainer."

"Fine. How much is it this time?"

"Oh, about seventy-six dollars and three cents," said Dusty carelessly.

Under the watchful eyes of all, Dusty took a paper bag from his pocket and counted the sum into Cellini's hands. Cellini folded the bills into his wallet and distributed the change in his pockets.

"Where did you get this?"

Dusty said: "Maybe later we'll give you more. In the meantime, this ought to—"

"All right," interrupted Cellini. "I'm not asking questions, but the next time I ask for dough I don't want to read about a wave of purse snatchings and lush rollings the day after. Get it?"

Dusty got it and the Professor, who circulated like a bloodhound, made more notes for his doctorate on the hobo as an ethnographic phenomenon. Cellini remembered the Professor's claim that he had sent home the notes he was typing, during Meade's murder, by registered mail and said: "Do you request a return receipt when you mail out your notes?"

The Professor shook his head, but before he was able to speak the Monk planted himself in front of Cellini.

"You take money sinfully got," intoned the self-appointed preacher. "I warn you to leave the dead in their graves."

"For you to take out?" asked Cellini, thinking that the Monk's statement could allude to both Pogo and Meade.

The bushy brows frowned.

"You speak in parables, atheist, and you distrust your fellow men. You have been spying on my movements at the Majestic."

"Just trying to check your alibi for the murder, Monk. I also saw you at the Paree burlesque last night."

"I will always fight that lecherous hell-hole."

"You seemed to enjoy the fight. By the way, can you work spotlights like the ones in the Paree's projection booth?"

The Monk stepped nearer to Cellini and the frown deepened.

The baldheaded Curly said: "Sure. The Monk used to put on holy roller shows with spotlights and everything when he was a tent preacher. Didn't you, Monk?"

The Monk whirled, grabbed Curly with one hand and began smashing blows at his face with the other huge paw. Wart tried to grab hold of the flailing arm but was driven back by a kick in his side.

Cellini took the automatic from his pocket and rapped smartly on the Monk's head with the barrel. The giant preacher crumpled to the ground.

Cellini looked down speculatively at the unconscious man. The Monk's sudden fury, when Curly supplied the information that he knew how to handle spots, was no sure indication of guilt. Perhaps he had been a witness to the attack on Cellini in the Paree and had a natural unwillingness to become involved. Perhaps.

The Monk certainly had   Perhaps. The Monk certainly had a good grapevine to have found out so quickly that he tried checking that alibi at the Majestic. Cellini looked up to find that he was hemmed in by the hobos on all sides. Link lunged for the automatic he held loosely in his hand and twisted it out.

Cellini thought of taking it back, but knew that they would then attack in a pack. He said, instead:

"Let's have it, Link."

"Not before we learn you that you can't come in and start slugging us. Nobody can."

Cellini understood. He had violated the code of the road. The Monk was one of them, and while it was one thing for a hobo to attack a second, it was quite another for an outsider to try it.

Rapidly, Cellini said, "Listen, you morons, I'm here only to find out who killed Meade. For two-bits I'd throw over the whole business, so you'd better—"

Cellini heard a movement behind him and he ducked low as a fist whizzed by his ear. He lunged for the automatic in Link's hand and missed. Over the melee he thought he could hear the Kid's voice yelling at them to stop and the Professor shouting that they weren't being sporting.

Hard fingers gripped at Cellini and he began to fight what he knew were hopeless odds. Cellini's fists shot out wildly, connecting with something each time, but he was hemmed in too closely for the punches to have any telling power behind them.

Then, suddenly, miraculously, he found himself hitting at air. The hobos had fallen back. Boggs, the youthful assistant to Detective Sergeant Haenigson, was swinging his revolver in an arc.

"Get back before I pinch the lot of you!"

The hobos spread out and Boggs holstered his weapon. Cellini ran fingers over his face and body. He could feel swellings but no blood.

He said: "This is one of the few times I've been glad to see a cop."

"What's going on here?" demanded Boggs. The hobos didn't bother to reply.

The Kid went over to Cellini.

"Did you get hurt?" he asked anxiously. "It's O.K., Kid." He saw his automatic lying on the ground and returned it to his pocket. The Monk stood up dazedly and one of the tramps helped him to a near-by shack.

Boggs again asked what it was all about.

"Just a massage for my arthritis," replied Cellini. "What did you want here?"

"Sergeant Haenigson told me to get you. A prowl car's waiting. Come on."

"It'll hold. Wait for me and I'll follow you in my bus."

After some hesitation, Boggs turned and set off across the Luxembourg Gardens.

Cellini faced the hobos, a hand on the gun in his pocket. "Well, what's the score?"

Dusty spoke up. "Like before. You got off easy, but maybe you learned your lesson. After this, if you have a beef about us, say so but don't start anything. We can take care of our own."

"I still want to know the score."

"Find Danny's killer!" the Kid shouted almost hysterically. "Why don't you let Smith do his job? You're working against him all the time, as if you don't want the murderer found."

The Kid was good. Even when excited, he spoke of Meade's killer, and gave no hint of Pogo.

"All right, Kid," calmed Dusty. The Mayor turned to Cellini. "It's like before. Do your job, but only on a strict business basis. Make your reports and we'll help you if we can, but no friendship. Get on your way. That cop's waiting."

"Strictly business," reminded Cellini. "Don't try to tell me what to do. Did you find out about that other dick in the park who's been asking questions about Danny?"

Curly spoke up. "I checked. It's a dick all right. A little guy with yellow shoes and his name is Burke."

"What does he want?"

"He wouldn't give out. He's a cagey guy."

The air was formal and hostile. Cellini felt like throwing over the job, but knew that it would only give them satisfaction. Besides, that other detective Alex Bornaman had spoken of was no myth and it was important to find out who was paying him before bowing out of the case.

Link snapped his fingers.

"We forgot to tell him about that guy who stole the ice from Danny."

"Jed Collins?" asked Cellini.

"That's right. A couple of the boys saw him. He's hanging around the park, flashing a lot of dough."

"I want to have a quiet talk with him later."

Cellini cut across the Gardens for his car and the waiting cop. BOGGS herded Cellini Smith down the hallway, followed him into Ira Haenigson's office and sat down directly behind him. It looked like an informal arrest.

Haenigson leaned back in his swivel chair.

"Glad you had the time to drop around, Smith." He didn't sound glad. "I'd like to continue our telephone conversation of this morning about that grave-robbing at the cemetery."

"You didn't seem very interested when I called you."

"I didn't, didn't I?" The Homicide man worked a matchstick around the concha of his ear. "Of course that was before a couple of things happened. You have an apartment at a place on Melrose. Your maid went in to clean your room this morning and found a coffin there. She screamed and fainted. Then the landlady ran in and saw the box and she screamed and fainted. Then the police were called—"

"And they screamed and fainted," interrupted Cellini. "Let's have it without the fanfare."

Ira Haenigson finished getting the wax out of the ear and started on the other.

"There's not much more. The woman in the next apartment said you came in early this morning and that you broke the window in your place. The point is I don't like it, Smith."

"What are you talking about? I called you this morning and you'd have no part of me."

"What do you expect? You give me that folderol about reading it in the papers when you had the casket in your room all along, when you were the one who stole it."

"It was in my room but I didn't steal it."

"Sure. Danny Meade carried it there. But I want to know how come the body changed into a few pieces of lumber."

"So do I, Haenigson. When I phoned you I was going to tell you I had the casket, but you never gave me the chance. Somebody stole the keys to my apartment yesterday and when I went home the coffin was there."

"Your keys were stolen. Very convenient."

"Why the hell do you think that window was broken, you tub of lard?" flared Cellini. "That's how I got into the room."

From behind, Boggs tapped Cellini on the shoulder and said: "Be more respectful to the Sergeant."

"The mother instinct in Boggs," commented Ira Haenigson. "I'll grant that circumstantial evidence points to your room key being lifted. Go on from there."

Cellini slowly lit a cigarette and decided to tell Haenigson what was necessary. After all, he could use the help of the big, deceptively gentle cop.

Rapidly, he outlined Dado and Vanzy's legerdemain with the caskets and a few of the pertinent facts.

Finally, Ira Haenigson said: "You make a beautiful case of it, Smith, except for one thing. Why should a big-timer like Alex Bornaman snatch the body of a bum?"

"I don't know," Cellini admitted. "That's one of four questions about Bornaman that, has me bothered."

"What are the other questions?"

"The second is why he should try to scare me off the case and tell me I'd better not solve the murder."

"Did he do that?"

"With the help of his two gag men, Dado and Vanzy. The third question is why Bornaman should lend that self-same bum twenty thousand dollars."

"Are you sure of that?" Haenigson was suddenly attentive.

"That's my guess."

"Oh." The detective-sergeant relaxed. "You'd take another guess if you knew Alex's reputation. He's a one-man committee to prevent the buffalo from disappearing. The buffalo on the nickel. And your fourth question?"

"Where Chloe fits in. Before she became Meade's girl she was Bornaman's, so it's just possible that Alex was sufficiently jealous of Meade to do a little killing."

"In fact so jealous," murmured Haenigson, "that he loaned him twenty thousand dollars. Smith, to put it delicately, you are in a fog. Don't believe what that Chloe tells you anyway because a twist that'd tie up with a bum can't be any good. That's why I'm sorry to see that boy tangle up with that burlesque dame."

"The Kid? I'd be sorry for Hollis Raine rather than him. That would-be cop is much too cagey."

"Lay off the Kid. Since you've been a little frank with me I'll tell you what worries the Kid. He confided in me. He told me he escaped from a reformatory back East and he's scared he'll be hauled back. He's a little wild but O.K. I let him know my business is homicide and I know nothing about that reformatory."

"That explains why he wouldn't give out about himself. But what'll you do about Alex Bornaman? Aren't you pulling him in for questioning?"

"Not on your evidence, Smith. When I pull him in it'll be for good."

"How about getting a few of your men to check what he did with Meade's body?"

"No dice," said the detective-sergeant curtly. "I told you I don't believe your story."

"So be it." Cellini stood up to leave.

"As for that casket in your room," was Haenigson's parting shot, "either get into it, or get it out of there."

Cellini left, well aware that Ira Haenigson would try to find Meade's corpse— if not at Bornaman's apartment, then at places he thought more likely.

Chapter 9

POP was no longer a "terrible example," the spieler informed Cellini Smith. While a sufficient number of bottles of drink-cure had been sold with him as the object lesson, he had refused to put liquor stains on his clothes to create a more realistic picture, so he had been fired.

Cellini secured Pop's home number and left. He found the address on a street off Main. It proved to be an old tenement worthy of New York's East Side. He knocked on several doors before Pop finally appeared at the right one. The room was crowded with worm-ravaged furniture. Tallboy, dressers, table and frail chairs on one side, and on the other, two brass beds separated by a bed-sheet curtain. The aged Pop brightened.

"Come in, Mr. Smith." He indicated a tall, elderly woman who dusted furniture.

"My sister Bella."

"I'd like some more information on Danny Meade."

"Certainly."

"You told me that Meade came to you with questions on mining. Why should he pick on you for a thing like that?"

"He knew I had been a geologist and mining engineer. He was interested in ores. Tungsten for instance."

"Doesn't that stuff come from China?"

"Mostly." Pop drew on his memory. "It's imported in the form of wolframite, which is a tungstate of iron and manganese. It's a strategic metal used in hardening steel and the manufacture of tools."

"Suppose Meade had connections in China and borrowed twenty thousand dollars with the idea of importing the stuff. Would that make sense?"

"None whatsoever, Mr. Smith. He was interested in the American forms of tungsten."

"Tell me about those."

"Two similar ores occur in this country. One is called hubnerite. The other variety is scheelite. Most of Danny's queries were about hubnerite."

"Are there any hubnerite mines here in California?"

"No, but I've heard there are vast, untapped natural resources in the Death Valley region."

At last things were beginning to make sense to Cellini. Here then was reason why Meade had wished to come to California. He was interested in valuable tungsten deposits and had come West seeking information on it. It hardly seemed like something that could occasion murder but, Cellini knew, at this time a good tungsten mine had more practical value than a gold mine. Discovery of a large deposit of that essential mineral would mean a fortune. Cellini stood up. Pop clasped his hands.

"Thank you for dropping in and reviving old memories, Mr. Smith."

"It's all right. Let me give you a couple of bucks to tide things over."

Pop's watery eyes grew stern.

"Sir, I know you meant that kindly so we'll drop it. Nobody gives me money."

"Excuse me."

"However," continued Pop, "if you wish to lend me a few dollars then we can discuss it."

Cellini decided it was time to go to the park and see what the hobos were doing about Jed Collins, but first he wanted to talk to the Kid.

He stopped by the Luxembourg Gardens and was informed that the Kid had gone to visit Hollis Raine. He drove around to the Union Station and entered the men's lavatory. He walked to the back where there were small ten-cent cubicles that supplied washbasin and towel for the convenience of the traveler.

Quietly, he walked by the doors and finally stopped at one. The lock showed that it was vacant but inside he could hear water splashing. He dropped a dime into the slot and entered. The Kid whirled from the washbasin.

"So you crawl under the door," said Cellini.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"I heard you left to visit your girl and I remembered you looked dirty, so I figured out where you'd go to clean up. I want to know why you didn't tell me how interested Danny Meade was in mining and tungsten."

The Kid frowned. "He never said much about it to me and I figured it wasn't important."

"From now on let me decide what's important or I might put in a report you're wanted in a reformatory back East."

The Kid's jaw trembled and his wet face whitened.

"Listen, Smith, I'm not going back there."

"Then hurry up. We'll go to the park and you'll point out Jed Collins. You can visit the girl friend later."

The Kid wiped his face and put on shirt and jacket. They went out to the car and Cellini pointed it toward the park.

"I'm sorry about the boys trying to beat up on you before," said the Kid. "I hope you'll keep working for us."

"I figure that if Bornaman could give Meade twenty thousand bucks I can give him a few days of my time. Besides, another operative named Burke is on the case and that spells dough. And..."

"And what?" prompted the Kid.

Cellini didn't reply but his unexpressed thought concerned Chloe. Second only to his desire for a decent retainer was his wish to find out if she had killed a lover in addition to a husband.

"What'll we do about Pogo?"

"Pogo? Another hot, sunny day like this and Haenigson will know he's out there without leaving the Hall of Justice."

Cellini pulled to the curb. The park covered a few square blocks in the center of the city. They entered the park and the Kid grabbed Cellini's arm.

"Over there. That's Collins."

JED COLLINS was a stooped, scrubby-looking man. His shirt was a yellow sport creation and his blue suit had a herringbone pattern that no herring would have been caught wearing. Jed Collins was in the chips. Collins was demonstrating, to an admiring tramp, how to clip the end off a fat cigar.

The Kid said: "Hello, Collins. I've been hoping I'd run into you again."

Jed Collins jerked backward as if a hangman's trap had been sprung under him.

"Hello, Kid."

"You knew damned well I'd catch up with you some time, Collins."

Jed Collins caught at the boy's sleeve. "Listen, Kid, I know what you're thinking. I didn't steal that stuff from Danny. You're just blaming me because I walked out that same night to hop a rattler South."

Cellini asked: "Who told you that Meade was robbed? I thought that outside the Kid, Danny Meade didn't tell anybody that the stuff was stolen."

Sweat began to course down Collins' face from under the pale-blue fedora.

"Another thing," said Cellini. "Where'd you get the dough for these duds?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"I think you'd better let me do the asking, Jed."

Jed Collins tried to shake off his fright "You got nothing on me," he snapped. "I'm getting out of here."

The Kid held up his hand and waved. Collins started down the path, then stopped flat-footed.

Three hobos were strolling toward them. Collins turned around. He could see two others closing in on him from that way. Jed Collins was a trembling, scared mess now. He seemed to want to run but the best he could manage was a slow, erratic lope. He cut across the lawn, toward the main exit, Cellini and the Kid flanking him.

Pleasantly, Cellini said: "It's no use, Collins. You might as well be reasonable and answer a few of my questions. These boys are a little too well organized to try to buck them."

"He won't get off by being reasonable," snarled the Kid. "He'll learn he can't jump one of us."

Jed Collins walked on, saying nothing. His lips were bluish and the sweat trickled down the sides of his nose. He reached the main entrance and walked by the hobos stationed there. They made no attempt to stop him but turned and began to follow. Jed Collins walked up the street toward a roadster parked by the curb. It was a flashy job done in maroon. Dusty lolled behind the wheel.

"Hello, Jed," said the Mayor of the Luxembourg Gardens. "Get out of my car."

Collins' voice was hoarse.

"Your car? Pretty classy. Where'd you get it?"

"He don't want to say," put in the Kid.

"That will all be attended to," said Dusty cheerfully. "Climb in and give me the key."

They were now completely surrounded by the hobos.

Like an automaton, with no will of his own, Collins got into the roadster and handed over the car keys to Dusty. Others stepped into the rumble seat or on the running-boards and they moved away.

"I'll go back with you to the Gardens," the Kid said. "I want to see him get it."

"Fine," agreed Cellini, "but I'm making a stop first."

A thin, little man who had watched the proceedings came up. Cellini recognized him. It was Burke, the detective who was showing interest in Danny Meade's death and who was a leg-man for the Los Angeles branch of one of the large coast-to-coast agencies.

"Hello, Smith. What you doing around here?"

"This and that," replied Cellini vaguely. "And you?"

"Oh, you know," said the small peeper.

The two dicks regarded each other cagily, unwilling to be the first to unlimber with information. Finally, Burke asked:

"You working on a job around here, Smith?"

"Maybe," shrugged Cellini. "You keeping busy?"

"Nothing important," said Burke, and Cellini knew it was important. "By the way," continued the little man, nodding toward the Kid, "what's your friend's name? How about introducing me?"

"What's in a name?" countered Cellini.

"Lots of things," said Burke enigmatically. "Now if he was called Rockefeller, I'd treat him one way. On the other hand, I'd treat him a second way if, for instance, his first name was Danny."

Cellini considered it.

"That's an interesting way of looking at things. It's a long view."

"Sure. Well, Smith, guess I'll toddle along. Thanks for the dope."

"O.K., Burke. Glad to help you out."

So Burke was looking for someone whose first name was Danny.

CELLINI SMITH headed the coupe back toward Main Street. The Kid huddled low in the seat, watching Cellini from the corner of his eye. Finally, he asked: "Do you think we'll ever find out who killed Danny and Pogo?"

"I don't know, Kid. I'd first like to find out what happened to Meade's body and why Bornaman took it."

"Maybe," suggested the Kid, "Chloe could tell you."

"How did Danny Meade meet Chloe?"

"It was at the Waterhole."

"Isn't that the same gin-joint on Main where Danny was beat up by the Monk the night he was killed?"

The Kid nodded. "Yeah. Danny heard it's a burlesque crowd hangout so he went there to meet her."

"That makes sense for a change. That Meade asked to meet Chloe. He probably heard she was Alex Bornaman's mistress and figured the easiest way to get at him and borrow twenty G's was through her."

Cellini pulled over to the curb in front of Max's pawnshop.

"I made ten calls to you!" said Uncle Max the moment Cellini entered. "And it takes that woman in your office an hour to answer the phone. She gave me a message for you. She says the police department has been trying to get hold of you the last two hours."

"All right. Have you found out anything?"

"And how," said Max. He took out the small talisman that Meade had hocked there some weeks before.

"I was able to find out who made this. The Peasley people in New York wired me this morning that it was their work. A good job too."

"Who did they originally make it for?"

Uncle Max consulted a piece of paper. "The name is Daniel Jackson. A New York address. Here it is."

Cellini Smith expelled his breath with a hissing sound.

"Thanks, Max. Here's something for your trouble." He dropped a couple of bills on the counter. He didn't mind spending money now. He could see an expense account over the horizon.

He returned to the car, a picture of complete satisfaction, and set it in motion.

The Kid eyed him obliquely and finally asked: "Something happen?"

"You'll find out." Cellini stopped and entered a telegraph office. He strode over to a wall phone, dialed the police department, and asked for Ira Haenigson.

"What did you want?" asked Cellini when he had his connection.

"Listen, Smith," said the detective-sergeant with heat, "I'm busy enough without wasting time on that bum's death. That damned cemetery has been on my neck to get their coffin back. Get it over to them quick."

"I'll do something about it when I go home tonight."

"You do something about it now," yelled the Homicide man.

"Tut, tut, Haenigson. It's no use getting mad at me, because you'll have to change your tune by this time tomorrow."

"You're up to something, Smith."

"It's nothing," said Cellini blandly. "I'm just going to wash my hands so you won't mind eating out of them by tomorrow."

He pronged the receiver before the detective-sergeant could reply, went over to the desk and wrote out a wire. It was addressed to Daniel Jackson, Senior, and read:

DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON WAS MURDERED HERE IN LOS ANGELES EARLY SUNDAY MORNING BY UNKNOWN PERSON. AM WORKING ON CASE TO CLARIFY YOUR SON'S DEATH AND IF YOU WISH ME TO CONTINUE PLEASE CONFIRM BY RETURN WIRE.

Under it, Cellini signed his name and address.

IT WAS dusk and the tramps were already preparing dinner when Cellini Smith reached the Luxembourg Gardens. Most of them were there, though the Monk was not in sight. From one of the shacks, Cellini could hear the sound of a typewriter. It was probably the Professor again typing up notes which he couldn't produce a day later.

The hobos were stiffly formal. Cellini was now regarded as a necessary evil and any pretense toward friendliness was gone. Without preface, Dusty demanded: "Did you send the cops here?"

"No. What did they want?"

"They raided the place and we don't like it."

Cellini shifted so that his back was against a fire.

"They were probably hunting Meade's body," he said.

"Then you did send them here."

Cellini sighed. "All right. I sent them, but if that makes you boys feel tough, then think twice. What did they find?"

"Nothing," replied Dusty. "You know damned well we took the coffin over to your house and you opened it."

Ira Haenigson was being tricky, Cellini thought. He probably had a dozen men combing the town for Meade's corpse, searching everywhere, no doubt, but at Alex Bornaman's. Bornaman would have to be attended to by himself.

He realized that Link was yelling at him and said: "Start from the beginning."

"Finish your job," shouted Link. "Pogo has already run out on us."

Cellini tried to look surprised. "Really? How did that happen?"

"Leave Pogo to us. We'll get him back, but all of us want to get out of here, so why don't you do something? Dusty ain't allowing none of us to leave town till you clean up this thing."

Others of the hobos chimed their agreement and Cellini moved over a few feet to keep a better eye on them.

He said: "I have found out something today that should start things popping soon. I found out who Meade was and where he came from and that's something his murderer probably didn't want known."

Cellini watched the various reactions carefully. As nearly as he could tell, the reactions were normal. Most of the hobos thought it more important to know who killed Danny than where he came from.

Dusty turned to Cellini. "Go on."

"That's all the information I'm giving out," said Cellini. "How about Jed Collins?"

"Like the Monk would put it, he's seen the light and he'll tell you anything you want," Dusty said.

Cellini was shown into one of the shacks. It was low-roofed, with only the bare ground for flooring, and was lit by a petroleum lamp. Two canvas cots stood side by side, but Collins had not been allowed to use either. He lay on crumpled pieces of newspaper like a sick dog in a pound. Jed Collins was no longer anyone's idea of the well-tailored bum.

That yellow sport shirt was now mostly dyed red and the suit was ripped with calculated vandalism. The hair was matted, and blood still seeped from the sockets of broken teeth. One eye was entirely closed, the other a mere slit. Dusty said: "Go ahead. Ask him what you want. He'll talk."

Cellini stepped closer to Jed Collins. "Did you steal the ice that Meade was carrying on him?"

A meaningless whimper escaped the hobo's puffed, split lips.

"Yes." The word came out with effort.

"How did you find out he carried it?"

"One night in jungle. Saw stuff bulge under clothing. Small pockets inside."

"What did you do with the stuff?"

"Hock shops. Bought car and clothing. Rest in bank."

"Then the stuff wasn't hot?"

Collins's flesh-raw face moved negatively.

Cellini said: "I have an idea that Danny Meade carried something else besides the rocks, something he considered valuable. Didn't you get hold of that, too?"

Again the negative shake.

"Then one more thing. Meade was killed early Sunday morning. Where were you then?"

"Nevada."

"That's right," nodded Dusty. "We checked. He only pulled in last night."

"What did he have on him by way of dough?"

"A couple of hundred bucks and a key to a safe-deposit box."

"Hold on to all of it," cautioned Cellini, "because I know whose it is."

He walked out quickly, glad to get away. It was already dark, and Cellini Smith felt hungry. But dinner could wait as could the casket in his room. At the moment it was more important to try and find the body that had been in that coffin.

He drove to the Spring Street building where Alex Bornaman had his apartment and parked. He pushed through the door and mounted the flight of stairs to find Chloe standing in front of Bornaman's door.

"Hello, Cellini," said the burlesque strip. "I was afraid Dado and Vanzy were coming up with more jokes."

"What are you doing here, Chloe?"

"I wanted Alex to buy me dinner and to discuss something."

"Is it the same thing he discussed when he visited you backstage last night?"

"What makes you think he visited me last night?" Then she laughed. "I forgot you saw him so it's no use denying it. Would you like to buy me dinner?"

"Isn't Alex Bornaman at home?"

"No. Are you sure you don't want to feed the poor man's Venus?"

"I'd like to very much, Chloe, but I haven't the time. Where's Bornaman?"

"I don't know. The Waterhole perhaps."

"I keep hearing about that dive. Does Bornaman always hang out there?"

"Quite often. It's next to the Paree and it used to be a convenient place to transact business while he waited for me."

"Thanks."

They started walking down the stairs. He said: "About that threatening note you showed me and which you claim came from Hollis Raine. Are you sure you didn't write it to yourself?"

Her mouth formed a thin crescent of a smile. "Why do you think I might have murdered Danny Meade?"

They had reached the sidewalk.

"You're no stranger to killing, and you must have known that Meade was interested in mining— hubnerite ore in particular— yet you never mentioned it to me."

"Cellini, you must like me a lot to be so worried over my possible guilt."

Despite himself, he laughed. "Are you back in Bornaman's fold?"

"I haven't decided yet." She shrugged. "I suppose it'll be either you or him. It's not too important."

He stared at her curiously.

"Doesn't it make any difference to you at all?"

"Not especially. By the way, your guess was correct, Alex and I have been discussing hubnerite mines."

Before he could frame another question, she was moving across the street with the grace of a tango dancer.

He entered his car and drove to a steak house for dinner. He felt that he was beginning to see a glimmer of light in the thing, but he also felt tired and confined himself to speculations on how large a neon sign to put outside his office window.

When he reached his apartment after dinner the casket was still there, but the pieces of lumber that had been put inside to weight it, were now lying on the floor. His every muscle stiffened as he saw the lengths of fir. He knew what they meant. He went to the casket and raised the lid.

Inside it lay the corpse of Danny Meade.

Chapter 10

HE STARED at the body for a long time. It was the same face he had seen at the morgue and now he leaned over to examine the tattoos designs, on each arm, the Kid had told him about. The corpse wore shoes and trousers but from belt up it was nude.

That then, thought Cellini, was the reason why Dado and Vanzy had stolen the body for Bornaman. Alex wanted something concealed in Danny Meade's jacket or shirt. But that didn't make sense either, for Meade wasn't buried in the clothes in which he had been murdered. Homicide was holding on to it to try to identify the body and a new cheap suit had been bought for the interment.

After a while Cellini gave it up. He took a final look at the face and the slit-like wound where the metal slug had entered the heart, and lowered the lid. He left his apartment and on the way downtown again stopped by his office to see if there were any messages.

A telegram lay on his desk. It was signed Daniel Jackson, Sr., and read:

AM SHOCKED AND HORRIFIED BY YOUR INFORMATION CONCERNING MURDER OF MY SON WHO DISAPPEARED FROM HOME SOME TIME AGO. WILL FLY TO L.A. TOMORROW. AM NOTIFYING AUTHORITIES AND REQUEST YOU CONTINUE YOUR INVESTIGATIONS TO TRACE PERPETRATOR OF THIS FOUL CRIME. MONEY NO OBJECT.

The last sentence about the money looked good. Cellini returned to his car, luxuriating in the thought that now he might not only get a neon sign but perhaps even a full-time secretary.

A half-hour later he again parked on Main. He found the Waterhole to be a typical Skidrow winery, patronized by Main Street derelicts. On a platform in the back, a couple of girls in leis, grass skirts, and with guitars sang Harlem music.

B-girls, who were not discouraged by numerous municipal ordinances outlawing them, cluttered the bar, urging men to buy them pink concoctions that passed for cocktails.

Alex Bornaman was not there, but his two henchmen, Dado and Vanzy, occupied a front table with a couple of blondes. Cellini walked over to the former vaudevillians.

"How do you do?" he said tentatively.

Dado prodded his partner. "He wants to know how we're doing."

"He's up to something," hissed Vanzy, aping a moving-picture gangster. "Well, we ain't talking, see?"

The two chippies giggled and Cellini remarked: "What you need is a new gag. Where's Bornaman?"

"He flew to San Francisco to see his dying mother," said Dado.

Cellini sat down between Vanzy and one of the girls. Vanzy turned to the blonde on his right.

"This is a detective. He finds out things."

"That's right," said Cellini. "Things like the body of Danny Meade in my room."

"My but you scare us."

"You'll be plenty scared," snapped Cellini. "Meade was murdered and if one of you did it you're headed for a fall."

Dado dug his partner in the ribs. "It's you for the hot seat, kid," he mocked.

"No," cried Vanzy. "Don't torment me!"

Laughter engulfed them.

Cellini ordered a drink. When it arrived he sipped it and said absently:

"I've been finding out interesting things. I've found out that tungsten is pretty rare in this country and that a hubnerite mine would be a valuable find."

"Go on." It was the hood, not the frustrated comic, speaking in Vanzy.

The chippies' giggles ceased abruptly. Cellini decided that he might as well spring it.

"I wonder," he said, "why Meade's body was nude from the waist up when you dumped him at my apartment tonight."

The hoods didn't speak.

"No difference," Cellini went on. "It'll be easier for Danny Meade's father to identify him that way."

Cellini took the wire from Daniel Jackson, Sr., out of his pocket and read it aloud.

The silence became heavy and ominous in the midst of all the noise around them. Dado suddenly lunged for the telegram that Cellini held in his hand. Cellini had expected some such move. He jerked his hand away and straight-armed the hood backward with the other.

Now it was also quiet and silent at the tables around them. For a long moment, the hoods sized Cellini with cool, calculating eyes, then, as if with one mind, turned and walked out.

Immediately, the customary noises of the honky-tonk returned. Cellini elbowed his way to the bar and had another drink.

There was no question of it now. The last thing Alex Bornaman wanted was to have Meade's identity revealed. But that still did not explain what Alex had wanted with the corpse, why it was returned semi-nude.

He walked out of the door carefully, watching for some ambush by Dado and Vanzy. However, they were not there. They had no doubt first run to make their report to Alex Bornaman.

Cellini Smith glanced at his watch as he walked down the block and turned into the side alley of the Paree Burlesque. Though late, the last show was still on and he'd have a chance to speak to Chloe and to corner Hollis Raine about that threatening note she had sent to the star strip.

As if from nowhere, a form hurtled toward Cellini. Instinctively, he sidestepped and managed to avoid the first onrush. As he whirled, he found that Dado and Vanzy were not his attackers.

It was the tall, gaunt form of the Monk. Even as Cellini backed and circled cautiously, a question flashed through his mind. Was the Monk going after him because he had knocked him out that afternoon or because he had heard that Cellini was about to reveal Meade's true identity? Was it vengeance or a murderer trying to cover his tracks?

The Monk leaped forward like a catapulting plane. His fist caught Cellini's temple with a glancing blow, but it sent Cellini crashing into the side of the building with surprising force. By the light of the lamp over the stage door, Cellini could see that the Monk's fist curled around a rock.

The Monk advanced.

"It's God's will," he announced and hit Cellini with the rock-clenched fist.

The blow caught the dodging Cellini on a shoulder and sent him sliding to the ground. He saw the Monk bend over him. He lashed upward with his feet, catching the Monk in the pit of the stomach. The Monk sat down heavily on the ground. Cellini stood up, took the automatic from his pocket and ordered the preacher to stand up.

The Monk did so, slowly, holding hands to stomach.

"What's the idea?" asked Cellini.

"You show disbelief in me." The preacher spoke with an effort. "You had to ascertain I was at the Majestic that night. You thought I lied."

"I only tried to ascertain, Monk, and you're probably still lying. Suppose you cut out the fancy English and dish out with some coherent explanations."

"You think I was behind the spotlight that was turned on you at the Paree." The glowing, deep-set eyes were riveted on the automatic. Suddenly, he whirled and sprinted down the alley.

A FIGURE appeared from the surrounding shadows and grabbed Cellini's gun arm.

"Don't shoot at him!" It was the student of the hobos, the Professor.

"I was just trying to scare him," said Cellini. "It would be dumb to kill someone I might want."

"You'd want him?" The Professor appeared surprised. "What motive would the Monk have had to kill Danny?"

"A good one. His Majestic alibi can't be checked and he gets homicidal when he learns I tried to check it. He beat up on Danny Meade at the Waterhole the night of the killing. It might have been jealousy because he was chasing after Chloe himself. Besides, he's a crackpot."

"Forget it."

Cellini decided that the Professor would need looking into later. He walked by him, pushed through the stage door, and mounted the half-flight of steps to stage level. There, a sight met his eyes that stopped him in his tracks. In the center of a buzzing group that included the Kid and Mr. Rapp, Chloe and Hollis Raine were kissing.

The Kid sighted Cellini, grabbed his arm and dragged him to the others. "We did it! We're married!"

"Aren't you under age?"

"I'm just eighteen and Hollis is twenty and—"

"All right, Kid. Congratulations."

Could the Kid be so naive as not to realize that his bride was probably twenty for the past six years?

Hollis threw her arms around Cellini, spreading a film of powder over his suit, and her lips brushed his cheek. The stage manager called places for the chorus. Hollis left to join the line, the band in the pit took the beat, and the chorus pranced on stage.

Cellini walked over to Chloe, who watched him with a sardonic smile on her face.

"My heart is flooded with goodness to see that there will be a younger generation of hobos," she said. "I'm throwing a party for the newlyweds after tonight's show. Will you come?"

"Yes, but I hardly expected you to be sentimental over Hollis's marriage. I thought you'd be asking her about that note you claim she wrote you."

"It's not a matter of sentimentality but of breeding. At any rate, Cellini, let's not accuse her of murder tonight."

Her fingertips touched the welt that had been raised on his temple by the Monk.

"I don't blame you for not understanding me, because breeding is a matter of reticence and a reticent detective would be a sorry paradox. As example, I'm curious to know if that bruise was caused by Alex, but I have the breeding not to ask."

A sudden conviction hit him as an absolute fact.

"Chloe," he stated, "if you didn't kill Meade, you know who did."

She smiled and headed for her dressing room. He wandered over to the wings and watched the show.

Mr. Rapp came over to Cellini's side. The burlesque owner chewed an unlit cigar.

"Maybe it won't come out so bad."

"What won't?"

"The Kid marrying Hollis. It's funny though, I give Hollis a swell wedding present and what do you think? She throws it back in my face! I tell her she can have her wish to be a strip tease."

"And she turned it down?" Cellini was surprised. "Sure. She don't want it now she's married. She says she hates the racket. After all the pestering the last three days to get me to give her a chance."

"Wait a second." Cellini was still puzzled. "You mean this yen to be a strip started only three days ago?"

"That's right. Sunday night she first mentioned it."

Cellini pulled at the lobe of an ear. It was early Sunday morning that Danny Meade was murdered, and it was Sunday night that Hollis Raine first demanded that Rapp give her a chance to peel. Coincidence?

Cellini sighed, gave it up, and headed for Chloe's dressing room. He knocked on the door and entered on Chloe's response.

She was dressed for her last performance, a blue fabric draped around her form, and she sat before the mirror, touching up her face. The "Tuesday" peg set into the wall on which the pairs of garters were looped was now empty and he noted that the lone, lemon-tinted garter still lay on the floor. He pointed to the garter.

"Have you found its mate yet?"

"No, but then I haven't looked for it."

"I suppose you know why I ask."

Chloe nodded into the mirror.

"You think it was fashioned into the slingshot used to kill Danny, but I told you the elastic wasn't strong enough."

"That doesn't mean the garter couldn't have been reinforced with more elastic or rubber." He paused briefly.

"Did you know that Meade went to the Waterhole expressly to meet you?" She was using a lipstick brush but nodded.

SHE put down the brush. "He wanted me to introduce him to Alex. Incidentally, Dado and Vanzy seemed very excited about something. They were here a short while ago, looking for Alex."

"What are you getting at, Chloe?"

"If Dado and Vanzy were looking for Alex over here, then obviously they had been unable to find him at his apartment."

Cellini frowned. "You wouldn't be beyond sending me into a trap."

"Of course, but I know you'll take that chance. Here." She opened a drawer in the dressing table and tossed over a key.

"Alex once gave me that. It's to his place." He turned it over in his mind.

"I'd like to know when you last used this."

"Or when I'll use it again," she added. "Remember to come to my party for the Kid and Hollis."

Cellini Smith hugged the wall as he ascended the dimly fit stairway. He reached the first flight and waited by the door to Alex Bornaman's apartment for some minutes. When he heard nothing, he inserted the key and stepped inside, closing the door.

He remembered that the living room faced Spring Street and pulled the drapes. Then he snapped on a floor lamp. Tentatively, he pawed through the drawers of a desk and then some pictures on a side table caught his eye. He walked over and examined them.

They were photographs of Danny Meade.

They were flash pictures of the nude body, taken from the waist up. There were three different poses, with their negatives. One was a front view, the arms folded over the stomach, the tattoos plainly visible, and the other two were closeups of each arm, of each tattoo design.

That of course was why Alex Bornaman stole the body. The tattoos!

They meant something, some coded message that Bornaman had to have. Was this why Danny Meade had been murdered? Meade had left New York carrying some highly important message, so important that he chose to evade notice or pursuit by following the trail of the hobos from jungle to jungle. But was that sound? Meade's father was wealthy and the boy could have flown or come to the West Coast any way he wished.

Whatever the reason, Meade did travel by hobo jungle and when Jed Collins stole the jewelry he realized that the message might have been stolen just as easily. Therefore, he had it tattooed into his arms. That was the message sought by the murderer, when he ripped apart Meade's wallet, hunting for some hidden pocket.

He was in luck, decided Cellini. If this was any indication, the rest of Bornaman's apartment deserved a thorough going-over. His mind was changed by the sound of heavy steps coming up the stairway.

Perhaps they'd pass by. He snapped off the lights, stuffed the pictures with their negatives inside his shirt and waited. But they did not pass. The heavy treads stopped in front of the apartment and he could hear the voices of two men. Cellini tried to remember the geography of the room.

There was only one place to hide. He squeezed rapidly around a deep leather sofa that nearly hugged the wall and crouched low as a key turned in the lock. The lights were switched on and Cellini could now readily identify the voices.

They belonged to Dado and Vanzy.

"The boss isn't back yet." It was Vanzy's voice.

"Maybe we should try the Turkish baths."

"The hell with it," said the other ex-vaudevillian. "Let's wait for him here."

"What if that peeper tells the shams about Meade?"

Crouched low, the automatic in his hand, Cellini wondered what it was they were afraid he'd tell the police.

Dado refused to worry. "I'm thirsty," he announced.

They went into the kitchen to mix drinks. This was the opportunity Cellini had hoped for. He tiptoed out of his hiding place. From the kitchen he could hear one of them asking for cigarettes.

With not a second to spare, he managed to crowd behind the sofa again as Vanzy returned to the living room. Cellini could hear him head for the teakwood cigarette humidor on an occasional table. Then there was a sudden silence accentuated by the tinkle of ice from the kitchen.

"Come here." Vanzy's voice sounded off-key. Dado came from the kitchen.

"What is it?"

"The pictures. Didn't we leave them there?"

Cellini pressed lower. Dado said:

"Sure. They were right on that table."

After a long pause, Vanzy said: "Smith. He was here. We should have dusted him off when we had the chance."

Cellini could hear a burst of activity. There was no need for the hoods to say more. They knew whom they were after and what they wanted. There were two snaps as if the loading in automatics was being checked, then the door slammed shut and there was a rapid descent of steps.

Cellini left his hiding place and went quickly into the hall. He began to go down when his mistake dawned on him.

His car was downstairs, right in front of the building!

The hoods hadn't noticed the coupe when coming up, but now, suspicions aroused, they couldn't miss it. They would realize that he was still in the building.

Cellini peered down the dark hallway. Then he heard hinges protest as the downstairs door was opened again. Dado and Vanzy hadn't missed the coupe. They were coming up after him.

Chapter 11

THAT pair of ex-vaudevillians were not doing any act now. Cellini knew with uncomfortable certainty that they were coming up with every intention to kill him.

Cellini buttoned his jacket tightly. He wanted neither the photographs of the tattoo designs nor their negatives to slip out of his shirt. Cellini pushed down the safety of the automatic and paused uncertainly.

Should he return to Bornaman's apartment or was it wiser to hug the shadows of the hallway?

The steps were coming nearer. He moved silently down the hallway, circled the newel and gingerly tried a few steps. They creaked and he stood still, not daring to go higher. Now, he could hear Dado and Vanzy stopping in front of the apartment door for a whispered consultation.

Cellini continued up the stairway.

One of the steps gave under his weight and creaked.

There was a shout. "He's here!"

Cellini rushed headlong upward. Dado and Vanzy made after him. Cellini rounded the bend at the half-flight and took the stairs three at a time. There was a shot and wood splintered off the railing in front of him.

Without pause, he blindly pumped two bullets over his shoulder. They must have been fairly close, for now the pursuit was less hurried. Apartment doors remained wisely shut. Cellini had never before realized how tall a six-story building could be.

He reached the top and found a fireproof door blocking his way. The key was in the lock. He went out on the roof and locked the door behind him.

Rapidly, he circled the roof. In front and back, nothing but a sheer drop of six flights. Each side was flanked by four-story buildings. Dado and Vanzy had already reached the metal door. He could hear them trying the knob. He looked around, espied two cupolas.

He ran over and looked inside one. They were old-fashioned dumb-waiters, one for the front apartments and the other servicing the rear. Here was a way out if the fireproof door would only hold another minute!

Quickly, Cellini crossed to the dumb-waiter for the rear apartments. He didn't want Dado and Vanzy to be waiting for him in Bornaman's apartment when he went by there.

The dumb-waiter wasn't tied. He began to pull on the rope as heavy shoulders battered against the fireproof door. The dumb-waiter, a large, insecure-looking box, came up. Cellini hurled the can inside it over to the other cupola and climbed in. He wedged himself inside, knees touching chin, and pulled the door shut. He began to let up on the rope carefully, lest it run away with him.

From the roof he could hear a shot as the impatient hoods put a bullet through the lock. The pulleys screeched weirdly as he went down past the small doors. He neared the first-floor apartment, hoping the place would be empty. But before he could draw level with the door, the dumb-waiter halted, suspended between two flights.

Dado and Vanzy had found the cupola and were trying to haul him up. Cellini held on to the rope and pulled at it with all his strength but the combined efforts of the hoods was slowly inching him up again.

Desperately, he hunted in his clothes with one hand, looking for his pocketknife.

He found it, pulled the blade open with his teeth and slashed at a rope. The strands parted, plunging the dumb- waiter down the one flight into the basement. For long moments, Cellini crouched inside the box, stunned and unmoving. When finally he took inventory, he found that the short drop had shaken him up and that he had hurt his head against the roof of the box on the rebound.

He pushed open the door in front of him and crawled out into the basement. Then he heard voices demanding to know what had caused the racket and he remembered that it was the mission that occupied the basement.

GINGERLY, he picked his way among the shadowy forms lying on mattresses on the floor, not answering the curses leveled at him as he stepped on an arm or leg.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" asked a sleepy voice barring his way.

"Outside," replied Cellini.

"This ain't the Ritz. Once you get a flop for the night you stay."

There was little time to lose.

Cellini let go blindly and felt his fist sink into the other's stomach. Then he slipped back the bolt and ran up the few steps to the sidewalk. The hoods were not visible. He slid behind the wheel of his car and started off in second...

Cellini Smith sat impatiently in the booth. It was hardly after midnight, vet a full minute of telephone rings had failed to rouse Ira Haenigson. At long last, however, the receiver was lifted and the yawning voice of the detective sergeant said:

"It better be something important."

"It is, Haenigson."

"Listen, Smith." exploded the Homicide man, "I told yon I'm sick and tired of that bum's murder. What—"

"I want you to send out a hurry-call to pick up Alex Bornaman's two strong-arms. Dado and Vanzy."

"Why should I do that?"

"They're gunning for me and they mean it. They're taking the town apart right this moment looking for me. They caught me prowling Bornaman's apartment."

"That's quite an admission. Smith. What did you find in Bornaman's apartment?"

"Nothing."

"You found nothing but Dado and Vanzy are out gunning for you." Haenigson delivered a polite laugh. "First you break the law by burgling a man's house, then you lie to me, then you come running to me for help. No dice. In fact, I will personally inform Alex Bornaman you cased his place, and if he wants to make trouble for you on it, I'll be glad to oblige!"

Cellini swore.

"Maybe there's another thing you're willing to do, you public servant. I've found Meade's body and I want you to put a guard over it before Dado and Vanzy steal it again."

This made a deeper impression.

"Where is it, Smith?"

"Back in the coffin in my room."

"I'll be there in a half-hour and you be there, too."

Cellini said, "The housekeeper will let you into my apartment," and put up the receiver.

Cellini didn't move from the phone booth. Haenigson was no fool. He knew that Danny Meade's body had been stolen for no idle reason and would probably stare at it the rest of the night, trying to discover why it had been disturbed from its coffin. And that was exactly what Cellini wanted, for he feared that Dado and Vanzy might again try to get at the body to re-photograph the tattoos.

Reminded of the pictures, Cellini took them from his shirt. Again, he studied them, trying to divine their hidden meaning. The design on the right arm was of a ship riding in turbulent waters. The code, Cellini imagined, was concealed in the waves, for within the lines that made them up he could make out a series of evenly spaced dots that seemed to have no part in the larger design.

The tattoo on the left arm appeared to be equally innocuous. A picture of a Scottie dog. Here, too, in the dog's coat, appeared at regular intervals a series of small dots— horizontal, vertical, angled, but always too regular to have been accidental.

With a penknife, he cut the designs out of the pictures, labeled which belonged to the right and which to the left arm, then placed them inside his shoe. Cellini tore the rest of the pictures and negatives into small, meaningless shreds and went out to his coupe.

There was still work to do and the party Chloe was giving for the newly-married Kid and Hollis Raine was no doubt in full swing.

By the time Cellini Smith arrived, the party was not only in full swing, but also in full drink. Burlesque performers, friends of Hollis, and the hobo fraternity representing the Kid crowded Chloe's largish apartment. The distinguished-looking Pop, decked out in Ascot tie and with broomstick cane, munched a cream-cheese sandwich.

Somebody wedged a drink between Cellini's fingers, but the center of attraction, the Kid and his bride, were being plied with drink and were enjoying it. The Professor sat on a chair and one of the less sober chorines sat on his lap. In a corner, the Monk sermonized himself with the slow, carefully chosen words of the drunk. He saw Cellini and steered an erratic course to his side.

Cellini tensed expectantly. However, the hand that the Monk clamped on his shoulder was friendly.

"Infidel, I forgive you."

"Thanks," said Cellini dryly. He disentangled himself from the arm. "How about letting me in on a secret, Monk? Just tell me what pictures were playing at the Majestic when Meade was killed?"

"Man cannot be killed. He is only transmuted from base clay to spirit."

The Monk removed the glass of whiskey from Cellini's hand and downed it. His bushy brows twisted in a wink. "I know why you wanted to know if I was behind the spotlight."

"Why?"

"Because he who turned the lights on you transmuted Daniel Meade."

"How do you know?"

"I watched from the shadows."

OR FROM behind the spots, thought Cellini. The Monk wasn't quite as drunk as he liked to appear and Cellini moved away in search of Chloe. He couldn't sight her and found himself by Pop.

"Grabbing a free feed, Pop?"

"Free, sir?" The old man drew himself up. "Don't I lend my presence to the gathering?"

"So you do," mollified Cellini. He noticed a damp stain showing through the old man's jacket pocket and pointed to it.

Pop hastily pulled a sandwich from his pocket.

"Confound it! I was taking it home for my dog."

Then he smiled wryly. "Of course. You've been to my home and know I have no dog. But I have a sister."

The party began to hit high.

The Ghost, comedian for the Paree, became gallant and tried drinking rye out of a chorine's slipper. However, he neglected first to remove the chorine's foot and was kicked in the face for his pains.

The girl on the Professor's lap snatched off his glasses.

"Lasses," she claimed in a sing-song, "don't receive passes from men sporting glasses."

"Give it back!" The student of the hobos spoke sharply, forgetting his usual professorial dignity. The girl pouted and held the glasses tantalizingly out of his reach. He lunged and the tortoise-shell frame snapped. Furiously, he straight-armed her away and she tripped to the floor.

Cellini still couldn't find Chloe. The Kid edged himself away from his circle of congratulators, to Cellini's side.

"How you doing, Kid?"

"Fine. Swell bunch of guys. They won't let me and Hollis get away." Nervously, he hunted for a cigarette.

"You want something, Kid. What is it?"

"To tell you the truth, Smith, I'm a little scared. I haven't told Hollis about that reformatory and I'm scared you might want to send me back before I even have a fighting chance."

"Forget it," reassured Cellini. "Haenigson is forgetting it and so am I as long as you tend to your knitting. Where's Chloe?"

"She's around. In the kitchen or some place inside."

"Hollis is waving at you. You'd better get back."

"All right."

But the Kid paused. "Smith, you're really white. Take a tip and watch the boys. And you better watch Dado and Vanzy too. They were here before, looking for you."

He left. Cellini wondered how soon Dado and Vanzy would be back again. He went out to the apartment door and bolted it from the inside so that the hoods couldn't walk in on him cold. He returned to the apartment and approached the Professor who was putting more thoughts into his notebook.

"Too bad about your glasses," said Cellini.

"I have another pair. I'm ashamed I let my temper get away with me. The girl was merely being ebullient."

"How come you're able to write notes without your glasses?"

"My eyes aren't really bad. Just a slight astigmatism."

"Sure. I'd still like to see those notes you were writing when Meade was murdered."

"I told—"

"I remember," interrupted Cellini. "You mailed them in a registered envelope to your home in San Francisco and there's no one there to send them back. Well, suppose you get some friend of yours to send the envelope back intact."

"Of course, but it may take some time."

Cellini turned away. He went to the table that was serving as a bar and mixed a drink. He saw Chloe coming from the hall that led to the rest of the apartment and went to meet her. He had the impression that the Paree's star strip was relieved to see him.

"May I have the key?" she asked abruptly. "The one you gave me to Bornaman's joint?"

"Of course."

Cellini tendered the key he had used to get into Alex Bornaman's apartment. She took it and, without speaking, went down the hall toward the bedroom. Cellini wondered what urgency was preventing Chloe from playing hostess, why she was so relieved to get back the key she had given him.

Cellini thought he had the answer. Dado and Vanzy had found Alex Bornaman and had told him of Cellini's entry into his apartment and he might have guessed that Chloe had supplied the key. Cellini went down the hall and entered the bedroom without knocking. His answer had been correct.

Chloe and Alex Bornaman sat on the edge of the bed, facing each other, in earnest conversation.

"Will you leave us, dear?" Bornaman seemed to use "dear" from habit rather than affection.

"I'd rather not," she replied.

Cellini's eyes followed her admiringly as she walked over to a chair by the window and sat down. Not many women would have had the nerve to stand up to the racketeer. And he took it. Cellini chose a settee and waited.

"I only sell guns," said Alex Bornaman. "I don't carry them, so you can take your hand away from your pocket."

"I only look trusting," countered Cellini. "I'm not really."

"You went through my apartment tonight." Bornaman stated it as a fact.

"Did you see me, Alex?"

"No, but there's no sense denying it. I first want to know if Chloe supplied the key with which you entered."

Cellini said: "I wasn't in your apartment, Alex, and if I would have been I could have picked the lock."

"Don't take me for a child, Mr. Smith. Where are the pictures?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The pictures of the tattoo marks on Meade's body."

CELLINI asked: "What kind of code is there hidden in those tattoos, Alex?"

"Then you have stolen them?"

"Sure, but why are you so worried?"

"Because I've invested twenty thousand dollars in them."

"Suppose I told you that I know what they mean?"

"Do you?" Alex Bornaman tried to sound uninterested.

He stood up. "I do. Are you going out to prime Dado and Vanzy?"

"Yes," said Bornaman evenly. "I intend getting those pictures back. I promised once to put you out of the way, but I didn't think there was any hurry about it. Now there is."

Cellini shrugged his indifference but inwardly regretted telling Bornaman that he knew the message in the tattoos. He said: "Don't you think that if you try anything, Chloe would tell the police about this conversation?"

"It would never occur to her to tell them a word."

Cellini looked at the strip and knew that it was so.

Alex Bornaman nodded to Chloe and walked out. Chloe worked her toes out of the shoes and lay down on the bed.

"Do you really know what those tattoos mean?"

"Yes," said Cellini, "but I have to crack the code before it will do me any good, and Bornaman seems to be afraid of that."

"He's not afraid of anything. He just means to prevent it."

"He likes you a lot."

She yawned. "It's getting mixed up. He likes me, you probably like me, I like both of you, and Alex thinks I like only him. It will be interesting to see what happens. I'll be as disturbed over your death as I can be over anything, Cellini. Alex meant it before about having you killed."

Cellini was aware of that. The thing was speeding toward a showdown and something had to be done.

Now, Dado and Vanzy would currycomb the town in earnest and it was important to get at them before they got at him. He needed help, thought Cellini, and remembered his clients, the hobos.

"Coming out to your party?" he asked. She rolled over on her stomach.

"In a little while. I'd like to rest a bit first."

"All right." He was at the door when she called to him and he turned around to meet her curious smile.

"You'd like to know if I killed Danny, wouldn't you, Cellini?"

"Of course I would."

"If you decide I'm the murderess, Cellini, I'll make a wager with you."

"Let's hear."

"That you wouldn't turn me in to the police because I think you like me too much. Your conscience will probably figure out some dubious reason to justify the murder."

He said, "If the hubnerite mine that's behind it all is really valuable, then that's plenty of reason," and left the bedroom.

The party was beginning to peter out. Some of the girls had left already and the supply of liquor was at the vanishing point. Cellini saw the Mayor of the Luxembourg Gardens by the bar and took him to one side.

"Listen, Dusty, I know there's little love lost between your outfit and me."

"It ain't as bad as that, Smith." Cellini said: "I think I can get the answer to this murder in the morning, after the library opens, but I need help. Dado and Vanzy are gunning for me."

"What do you want us to do?"

"I can't run around town expecting a slug in my back any second, and I want your boys to round up Dado and Vanzy so's I can have a talk with them."

"I don't know if the boys would be willing."

"Those bums of yours will do what you ask. Tell them it's not for me but for Meade, and the quicker I clear it up the quicker you'll let them leave town."

The Mayor whistled sharply.

The hobos dropped or drank what they were doing and gathered around their leader. Rapidly, Dusty explained what he wanted. They were to spread out along Main Street and its environs, picking up their cronies en route, and flush out Dado and Vanzy. If they found the hoods they were to trail them and, if possible, corner them.

Without argument or resentment the hobos separated, each to the district or task allotted him by Dusty. The apartment was not so crowded now. Cellini could make out the Kid arguing with Hollis.

The boy was telling her that it was his duty to go and help, that he still had to know who killed his friend Danny. Finally, Hollis acquiesced and the Kid departed, promising to return shortly. Dusty paused before leaving.

"Where will you be, Smith?"

"I'll search on my own around Main. Leave any messages for me with the bartender at the Waterhole."

Dusty left.

Cellini was satisfied with developments. Why shouldn't the hobos be friendly? Their interests were the same and there was no reason why they shouldn't help him. They knew the ins and outs of Skidrow better than most.

Cellini thought of asking Chloe if Bornaman had any hideouts, and returned to her bedroom. The strip tease still lay on the bed, apparently asleep. Cellini was about to make a quiet exit when he noticed something around her neck. He looked closer.

It was a noose, rude but effective. A silk stocking was knotted tightly about her throat. And on the back of her head, in the parting of her hair, he could see a bruise.

Chapter 12

RAPIDLY, Cellini Smith ripped the stocking from around Chloe's neck and leaned over, searching for pulse and heart beat. Perhaps it was imagination, but he thought he detected a faint flutter of life.

He lifted her from the bed to the floor, rolled her on her stomach and, straddling her back, began to apply artificial respiration. She had first been knocked unconscious by a cold cream jar that lay on the bed, and then the stocking had been noosed around her throat. He began to shout, and when someone appeared at the door, he snapped over his shoulder:

"Call an ambulance. Tell them it's suffocation and to bring an oxygen tank."

A girl screamed, and the party-makers crowded around Cellini.

"Get the hell back! Open the windows."

He saw the Ghost's comic face. "You stand by the door and see that no one leaves."

He swayed back and forth over the prostrate form, fingers pressing gently, his movements as regular as a chronometer. There was only one likely answer. The guess that Chloe knew something, probably the identity of the murderer, was no longer guess but fact. More to the point, though, who could have assaulted her?

The bedroom, like the kitchen and bath, opened off the hall and was not directly connected with the living room. Alex Bornaman, even Dado and Vanzy, could have re-entered the apartment and gone directly into the bedroom with no one the wiser.

On the other hand, Dusty had been the center of attention as he had sent out the bums to hunt down Dado and Vanzy. Thus, any of those in the apartment, barring Dusty himself, could have slipped, unnoticed, into the bedroom for the necessary minute or two.

The wail of an ambulance's siren could be heard gaining volume and it was not long before an interne and driver arrived. The doctor wasted no words. He placed an oxygen cone over Chloe's face and took out a stethoscope.

Cellini went into the living room. He looked at his watch and found that it was nearing three in the morning. He sat down at the phone and dialed his own apartment. A policeman answered and supplied the information that Ira Haenigson had departed with Danny Meade's body a few minutes previously.

"Where can I get him?" asked Cellini. The detective-sergeant, the cop seemed to think, had probably gone downtown to headquarters. "And what are you doing there?"

"I'm posted to pull in Cellini Smith if he shows up."

Cellini wished him luck and hung up. Perhaps it hadn't been so wise not to follow Haenigson's instructions to go to his apartment, for now the Homicide man was out for blood.

The wedding celebrants were quiet and sobered, sitting in small, frightened groups. The hobos had gone in search of Dado and Vanzy and those who remained were mostly from the Paree.

Cellini suddenly realized that neither the Monk nor Mr. Rapp was there. There was small likelihood that they had joined the hobos in the hunt, so when had they left? Before or after the attack on Chloe? Pop also was missing.

Cellini tried speaking to a few of the performers but could get little satisfaction. They were tired and sleepy and suspicious. He decided that further questioning would net only lies. He noted their names, called the Ghost from his station at the outside door and told them they could leave. Only a few of the curious stayed on.

Hollis Raine sat listlessly in one comer and did not raise her head when Cellini approached.

"It's too bad the Kid took it in his mind to go chasing with the others," he said.

She looked up at him with hard-eyed hatred and spat out a single word.

"Tsk, tsk," said Cellini. "Traditionally, you should be a shy little thing. I heard Rapp offered you a job as a strip and you turned it down. How come?"

She did not answer, but asked instead:

"Who attacked Chloe?"

"Perhaps you, Hollis, but I'm not sure. There are a few things I haven't made up my mind about yet. For instance, I'd like to hear more about that threatening note you sent to Chloe."

The strain of the marriage, the drinks, her youthful husband's departure, the tragic outcome of the party all combined to snap something inside her. She leaped furiously at Cellini, pummeling, scratching, kicking, trying to sink the small, pointed teeth into his hands.

Cellini bobbed and dodged, trying to evade the carmine claws and pinion the arms. The door to the bedroom opened and Hollis Raine suddenly stopped straggling when she saw the interne.

"Well?" asked Cellini. "She's breathing regularly now and I've taken off the tank. She'll be all right, thanks to your prompt aid."

Cellini felt a surge of relief and gladness within him that he had not expected. A curious smile played across his features as it occurred to him that perhaps he was beginning to feel too strongly about her. A Main Street strip!

The interne had pad and pencil in hand and was asking questions for his police report. Cellini hesitated. He had the alternative of saying that it was some accident or, if he told the facts, of giving Ira Haenigson another handle against him for not immediately reporting the attempt on Chloe's life.

Finally, he decided on the truth. When the interne had filled in his form he said:

"That's about all. Keep her covered and let her have a good night's sleep and she'll be all right by tomorrow."

Cellini shook his head decisively. "Nothing doing. She has to go to the hospital. She's in danger here."

Cellini pulled out his wallet and handed over three tens. There were only a few singles left. He said: "Put that on her account for a while. Keep her in a private room and don't let her out till tomorrow."

The interne and driver returned to the bedroom to fetch Chloe. The telephone jangled and Cellini took it.

"Hello."

"Well, we caught up to them."

It was Dusty talking.

"Good. Where?"

"We had a brainstorm and went to Bornaman's flop. Dado and Vanzy weren't expecting us so we caught them cold. We'll hold on here if you want to see them."

"I'll say I do."

DUSTY and Wart waited on the landing outside of Alex Bornaman's apartment as Cellini Smith hurried up.

"We did our share, Smith," said the hobo Mayor, "now you do yours."

"Good. Where are they?"

"Inside. A couple of the boys are sitting on them."

Dusty shoved the door open. As Cellini crossed the threshold he could hear a warning shout from the Kid, but it was too late.

Alex Bornaman was there, and so were Dado and Vanzy, grinning widely, guns pointing at Cellini.

A couple of the hobos grabbed at the Kid and slapped him into silence while the rest waited for developments.

Dusty wagged a finger under Cellini's nose.

"We hire you to protect us and we stoop to all kind of things to get money to pay you and what gratitude do you show? You let us get killed off one by one. Well, we only hope you're next, and that Mr. Bornaman gives it to you where it hurts!"

There was the reason, of course. They had stumbled over Pogo's body. They blamed him for their comrade's death.

"You been nothing but grief to us. Right from the beginning. First Danny, now Pogo. We decided that you and your college diploma should get it. We'll show—"

"O.K., bums," interrupted Vanzy, "figure it out in dialect and we'll book you at the Orpheum. You can scram."

"And sit on the Kid for a couple of hours," the other hood added. "He'd stool to the cops."

Vanzy circled out of Cellini's range of vision and Cellini's body tensed, waiting momentarily for the splitting impact of a pistol barrel against his head. But instead a hand reached into his pocket and extracted the automatic.

The hobos began to file out.

Cellini's face was white, his muscles rigid. He spoke to Alex Bornaman who lolled on the davenport.

"You have my rod. Can I move now?"

An understanding smile crossed Bornaman's face.

"Surely." Without warning, Cellini pivoted on his heels and his fist catapulted flat into Dusty's face. The Mayor of the Luxembourg Gardens reeled back, lips split, blood bubbling from broken teeth.

The hobos surged forward but it required only one sharp word from Bornaman to halt them. They went out, dragging their battered Mayor, and the door closed.

"Well," asked Cellini, "what's the score?"

"A large one," replied Alex Bornaman. "What did you do with the pictures?" Bornaman no longer spoke in a polite, conversational tone. "

What pictures?"

Vanzy came forward and fingered through Cellini's clothing. Dado was in back and Cellini wondered how long it would take them to think of looking in his shoes. Vanzy stepped away.

"They're not on him, boss."

"What did you do with the pictures?" asked Bornaman.

Cellini looked back. Dado was there all right. It would be suicide to try to jump them. He decided to play his ace.

"There was an attempt to murder Chloe tonight."

Alex Bornaman sat up straight. There was no question of it, Cellini saw. The racketeer went for Chloe. "I don't like that kind of joke, Smith."

"Chloe didn't think it funny. Someone tried to strangle her after first knocking her unconscious."

"I didn't think you were that cheap, Smith, to try and get out of what's coming to you by hiding behind a woman's skirts."

"Why should I invent something that would be so easy to check? Why don't you phone General Hospital?"

Bornaman hesitated, then went to the phone and dialed. He was nervous and had to try three times before he was able to complete the connection. When he reached the night nurse on Chloe's floor he needed only a few words before he let the receiver drop.

"Who did it?"

Cellini shrugged. "Danny Meade's murderer."

Bornaman picked up his hat.

"Where are you going?"

"Down to the hospital."

"Don't let Chloe leave there unless she's under guard. And tell her I want to talk to her."

BORNAMAN regarded Cellini with astonishment. "Do you actually think you'll ever talk to anyone again?"

Cellini spoke rapidly, trying to keep calm.

"Listen, Alex, you have me now and if you're crazy enough to put me away I suppose you can, but you won't get away with it. All those hobos will know it was you and sooner or later one of them will talk. I'm sure the Kid will tell. And a lot of people at the party at Chloe's apartment knew I was coming here. You can't get away with it."

"You know damned well I'm not interested in whether anyone knows I killed you. I'll only be interested if anyone can prove it."

"What about Chloe? I'm probably your one chance to find out who attacked her and—"

"I'll take care of Chloe." Bornaman nodded to his henchmen and said: "Get those photographs."

Dado and Vanzy waited for the door to close on their boss and then began to ask Cellini for the pictures. They were in no hurry. They put their questions at one minute intervals and in the intervening time one or the other would let loose a lazy, sideswiping blow at Cellini. Like a cat with a mouse, they tried to prolong the fun. Cellini mopped a cut over his right eye, made by a gold band on Vanzy's index finger. He tried to stay cool.

"All right, boys," Cellini said with the appearance of surrender. "You can have them. I put them in the filing cabinet in my office."

The former vaudevillians looked at each other, hesitating. It was Dado who finally shook his head.

"He pulled that one out of the cheese box. After he hooked the pictures he went up to Chloe's party, and he never had a chance to go to his office."

Dado pulled a blackjack from his pocket. It had a braided strap on the end which he looped around his wrist. He flexed his wrist and flailed the air. The time had come to settle down to serious business. The sap in his hand circled swiftly. Cellini ducked, and felt the weapon caress his hair.

At the same instant, he reached back blindly and unexpectedly and managed to grab Vanzy's arm. He yanked forward, sending Vanzy into a collision with Dado. He hunched to lunge at them, but drew himself short. They lay on the ground, but a gun was in each hand. Dado and Vanzy stood up. Vaguely, Cellini wondered if Alex bought a pretty casket for everyone he had killed. He backed away as the hoods advanced. Then his back met the wall.

The guns were almost touching his chest when the doorbell sounded. Vanzy said:

"Send him away, whoever it is." Cellini could hear Dado's voice at the front door and then he heard a drawling basso that warmed the chill of his insides. It was a caller who could not be sent away so easily.

A moment later, Detective-Sergeant Ira Haenigson, flanked by a couple of his men, walked into the living room.

Cellini Smith never thought he'd be as glad to see the police dick as he was then. The Homicide man took in the situation with one shrewd glance. "The boys been ganging up because you prowled this place?"

"Just about," said Cellini. "You didn't get here too soon."

Haenigson turned to Dado and Vanzy. "Do you have a permit to carry firearms?"

The hoods shook heads negatively. Haenigson spoke to one of his men.

"File them away. Make it some quiet station and you can delay the booking, because I don't want their lawyers to exercise their democratic rights for a while yet."

The hoods objected as if with one voice.

"What are you—"

"I know," said the detective-sergeant. "We can't do that to you. But we are."

Cellini Smith waited till the door had closed behind Dado and Vanzy.

"Listen, Haenigson, I know you came here not to save my skin but to get it. Still I want to thank you."

"Forget it. I went chasing after you at Chloe's house and some drunk there told me you had a call from this place, so I moseyed over."

"Yes. I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to meet you at my house when you told me to, but I was busy. I figured you'd be tied up with Danny Meade's body and—"

"Forget it," said Haenigson grandly. "It was no bother."

Cellini eyed him suspiciously. The Homicide man didn't sound ironic. He seemed, in fact, nervous and determined to be affable.

"I phoned my home before, Haenigson, and found you had a cop posted to arrest me. What's changed your mind?"

"That's just a mistake. This other hobo getting killed made me realize you've been doing all the work on the case and I'm ashamed. I'd like to get in and help you."

Cellini lit a cigarette and sat down. "Haenigson, it's after four now and you've been chasing me all night and when you find me you begin spraying attar of roses. What's cooking?"

"Nothing at all." The detective-sergeant was uneasy. "By the way, I suppose you discovered who this Danny Meade's father is?"

"So that's it! You've heard from him!"

"Yes," said Haenigson unhappily. "When I went up to my office, I found a wire there from Daniel Jackson."

"And he threw the book at you for letting me do the job of identifying his son."

"That's about it. He's coming in tomorrow. Today, rather. This Jackson is pretty important. You'll have to sit down with me, Smith, and we'll review the whole case."

Cellini watched the smoke curl from his cigarette.

"So Jackson is pretty important. Does he happen, among other things, to go in for mining?"

"Yes."

Chapter 13

A SLIGHT, slurping noise that sounded like sewage passing under a manhole cover disturbed Cellini Smith's consciousness. He tried to banish it, but the sound persisted and finally he had to open his eyes.

Sadie, that proudly inefficient secretary to the Venetian blind business, was gazing down at him as he lay on his office couch. The slurping sound was the rhythmic mangling of a piece of gum in her mouth.

"It's time you came out of that drunken stupor," she said.

He yawned. "It's time you stopped judging others by yourself. What time is it?"

"Nearly eleven and look at the mess this place is."

She replaced the phone receiver on the switch hook which he had taken off to gain a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, and then buzzed around dusting furniture which hadn't been annoyed for weeks. He knuckled his eyes and watched her, marveling.

"All that for five bucks!"

She flitted about like an efficiency expert afraid of his job.

"What should I do about those pictures?"

"Pictures? Oh yes." She was pointing to the photographs of Danny Meade's tattoos that lay on the floor by the couch.

After he had parried Ira Haenigson's demands for information, he had come up to the office and studied those tattoos until six in the morning before dropping off to sleep. There was no question but that those small, regularly spaced dots inside the innocent design of the dog and ship conveyed some message. Nor did he doubt that the message concerned hubnerite mines, but in a code that hours of study couldn't break. Not until it was broken, Cellini knew, would he have a wedge strong enough to force Alex Bornaman to talk.

Cellini sat up. "All right, Sadie. I'm duly impressed, so you may cease your arduous labors."

"Here. This wire came for you a little while ago."

Cellini took the telegram from her hand. It was another wire from Daniel Jackson, Sr., and said merely:

AM ARRIVING THIS MORNING AND WISH TO SEE YOU. KEEP WORKING. YOU WILL BE AMPLY PAID.

After breakfasting, Cellini made his way to the Hall of Justice. He found Detective Sergeant Haenigson belatedly studying the reports on the murder of Danny Meade.

Cellini sat down and watched the Homicide man. Then he began to laugh humorlessly, mockingly. A red tinge spread over Haenigson's tired face.

"I know," he said bitterly. "Yesterday I wanted no part in the murder of a hobo called Danny Meade. Today he's Daniel Jackson, Jr., the son of a rich father, and I'm working myself silly on it."

"Have you heard from Jackson?"

"He came in this morning. I heard plenty from him."

"Where's he now?"

"In the morgue identifying the body. In about a half-hour he's going down to the place where his son was killed and he wants us to meet him there."

"Good. I want to see him."

"Listen, Smith, don't try to make me crawl."

Nervously, Ira Haenigson dug at his desk top with a pencil. He was in a bad way. "What do you know about Pogo, or whatever he's called?"

"Pogo was killed because he saw the murderer, or at least the murderer thought so. If he was on the level with me, he spotted Hollis Raine at the Gardens around the time Meade was getting his, but it's possible Pogo also saw someone else."

Cellini took the photographs of the tattoos from his pocket and tossed them across the desk.

"Send these down and get some photostatic copies made."

Haenigson's eyes widened. "So that's why you phenagled with the body."

"That's why Bornaman did. Meade had some message tattooed on his arms which Bornaman had to have. Get your bright boys to try to figure it out. Send it down for photostating now, because I want the originals back before I leave."

The detective-sergeant spoke into the phone and a messenger came up for the pictures.

"What do those tattoos mean, Smith?"

"I think they give the location of a mine, but I want to be sure before I shoot off on it."

"All right." But the Homicide man wouldn't let go. "It must be important if Meade didn't mind carrying it around for a lifetime."

"It was important enough for Alex Bornaman to invest twenty grand in it. Besides, Meade was afraid the message containing the mine location would be stolen, like the ice that Jed Collins lifted. Meade had to fix it so that it couldn't be taken or lost. You remember that Meade's wallet was ripped?"

"What about it? The killer was looking for money."

"You know better, Haenigson. If it was a case of robbery, the killer would simply have taken the whole wallet, or he would have emptied the money from it. He was hunting for something specific. The piece of paper on which was written the mine location. That's why he ripped the wallet apart, probably hoping to find it in the lining."

"You just said the location was tattooed on his arms."

"That's right but the killer didn't know. One motive for the crime was to get a piece of paper that didn't exist."

Haenigson fingered the file on the case and frowned.

"Maybe," he said doubtfully. "How about this Jed Collins who slugged Meade and lifted his jewelry?"

"He's definitely out," stated Cellini, "because he wasn't in town when Meade was killed. He couldn't even explain why Meade carried all those rocks. Why did he go to all that trouble salting it away is little pockets inside his clothing? If it wasn't hot, why didn't he hock it? What was he saving it for? And why was he traveling in hobo jungles when he could have come to town on the Super Chief?"

"Don't ask me," said Haenigson glumly. "If I don't answer those, only my job is at stake. That's all."

THE denizens of the Luxembourg Gardens were lunching on the odds and ends they had managed to forage that morning when Cellini Smith and Ira Haenigson arrived.

News traveled fast in their circle and they were evidently not surprised to find Cellini out of Bornaman's ungentle hands. Cellini knew that only the Homicide man's presence prevented them from starting something. The Kid's face lit up when he saw Cellini.

"Smith, I was glad to find out you weren't hurt by those gorillas."

"Thanks for trying to tip me off."

He still couldn't understand what the boy saw in Hollis Raine or she in him.

"I heard you were spliced, Kid," Haenigson put in. "My congratulations."

The Kid said he was very happy, and the rest said they were glad he was happy. The Kid further announced that the boys had intended throwing a bridal breakfast but that it had been called off out of respect for Pogo, and he further announced that he was starting at a job in the Valley the following Monday.

It was some minutes before Cellini managed to ask the Kid: "How come Hollis turned down Rapp's offer to be a strip?"

"Because that's no job for my wife, Smith. She's even quitting the chorus after I get my first pay check."

It sounded reasonable, Cellini had to admit, provided Pogo's assertion that Hollis was at the Gardens during Meade's murder was false, and provided it was not she who wrote that note to Chloe.

Sirens sounded as a couple of cars pulled up at the edge of the Luxembourg Gardens. It was Danny Meade's father with a police escort.

Ira Haenigson sighed and mopped the back of his neck with a handkerchief. When Daniel Jackson, Sr., was near enough for detailed inspection, Cellini found him to be what he had expected. A gray-haired, bullish figure. His bearing was aggressive and his voice would no doubt prove bluff and domineering. On his right was a stooped, harried person carrying a briefcase, no doubt his secretary, and trailing him on the left was Burke, the little operative who had been making inquiries around town about Danny Meade.

Daniel Jackson reached them and stopped short Then his eyes transfixed Ira Haenigson.

"Have you deigned to stop collecting graft long enough the last few hours to do something about my son's murder?"

The Homicide man flushed.

"We're working on it," he said unhappily.

"We? You mean Cellini Smith there, don't you? You are Smith, aren't you?"

"That's right."

"I wish to commend you for having the foresight to investigate this appalling crime while the police were engaged in passing out traffic citations."

"Suppose we crack the case before we start distributing the accolades."

"Eh? O yes. Now, Mr. Smith, outline everything you've discovered or surmised concerning the murder."

"I'm not yet prepared to tell everything."

There was a hiss from the shocked secretary. Daniel Jackson eyed Cellini sternly.

"Mr. Smith, you may not be aware that you're working for me and that my wishes are usually followed to the comma."

"I haven't seen the color of your money yet and I'm not interested in the punctuation of your wishes. I work in my own way. If you don't like it, don't hire me."

Their eyes met and held. It was Jackson who first dropped his eyes and snorted:

"If out-staring me will afford your vanity any satisfaction, Mr. Smith, you may have it."

In the background, the Professor whipped out his notebook and made another note for his Ph.D. thesis.

Jackson whirled on the Kid. "Are you the lad who bummed out here with my son?"

"Yes, sir."

"He was married yesterday," Ira Haenigson contributed.

"Fine! I'm glad you police have discovered something. It is my child who is slain and these remain to spawn and multiply their kind. It's a—"

The old man went on, his face becoming flushed. The secretary clucked consolingly and leaped in with some white pills. After a while, he calmed and demanded to see the spot where his son's body was found.

Ignoring Cellini, he had Ira Haenigson recount the circumstances of the discovery. Pogo's murder he dismissed with a wave of his hand. It was several more minutes before a shack was commandeered from the hobos.

Jackson, his secretary, Haenigson, Burke, and Cellini retired inside for a conference. The secretary spread a handkerchief over an orange crate and Jackson sat down.

Cellini said: "Before I waste more time, I want my status clarified. I've put in a lot of time and effort so far on your son's murder and have been paid off in buttons. I can show you a lump for each dime I've received, so it's a toss-up whether I want the job. Decide right now whether you want me. If you do, I'm running this case my way on your dough. Which will it be?"

The secretary was ready with the box of pills. Jackson flicked it out of his hands. His voice was soft. "I see we talk the same language, Mr. Smith. Though I haven't seen much of you, I already hate your insides But you're the man I need now."

HE snapped his fingers and the secretary handed him a checkbook and pen. When Cellini casually reached for the check, the scrawled figures he read were to the amount of five thousand dollars.

"You're hard," Jackson continued, "and I wish my son had had some of your qualities. I should have been less fond of him, but he might be alive today."

"That's why he skipped from home, wasn't it?" asked Cellini. "Because you and he couldn't get along together?"

"He was wild, Mr. Smith. He never seemed to understand that I was trying to train him to carry on after I was gone."

"How old was he?"

"Twenty-seven. Every time he got into one of his scrapes, his mother thought he was cute, so he'd never listen to me."

"What brought all this to a head?"

"His last scrape. Drunk driving. He ran over somebody and it cost me a small fortune. I managed to get him off on probation. I laid down the law and put him behind a desk in my office at fifty a week. That should have been plenty for a boy of his age, shouldn't it?"

The old man's voice was pathetic.

"I've bought hamburgers for less," replied Cellini. "What made him decide to run away from home?"

"I don't know. I guess he was too adventurous to sit behind a desk. The idea of becoming a hobo must have appealed to him."

"A man who wasn't satisfied with fifty a week salary was attracted by the thought of delousing his shirt on an anthill. I doubt it. Think up a better reason why your son left as he did and when he did in place of the week before or the one after."

"You have that check in your pocket, Mr. Smith, because you must supply the answers, not I."

"Let's not go into any hair-splitting routine. What kind of work did your son do for that fifty a week?"

"He held various positions of responsibility. I was trying to get him interested in the business. His last position was taking care of my realty holdings."

Cellini appraised the star sapphire on Jackson's finger.

"I suppose he couldn't use an automobile because his driving license was suspended," he said, "but what about the train or bus? He had money. Why did he masquerade as a bum and head for a freight train when he could have flown out here by plane?"

"He tried it," replied the old man. "He showed up at the La Guardia Airport but I had foreseen that. I had my men waiting and we nearly caught him there."

"You had your men waiting? I begin to understand. Where else were they waiting?"

"My son left from the airport and hurried to a train depot. The Pennsylvania. I had foreseen that too and one of my men caught him. But Danny managed to fight his way free."

"And I suppose he discovered that you also had the bus depots covered, so he decided to outsmart you. The only way left for him to get out here without being arrested by one of your men was to come in an unconventional way, one you wouldn't expect— to bum his way out."

"That may be correct, Mr. Smith, except that I wasn't trying to arrest him. I was just trying to stop him from running away and getting into more trouble."

"Arrest is the word for it," insisted Cellini, "even if you were doing it on your own. Your son didn't skip town empty-handed. He first cleaned out your wife's jewel box of everything valuable."

"My son was not a thief!" Jackson scanned the circle of faces. "He was not a thief."

"I haven't said he was, but that's the only way to explain where he put his hands on stuff like that without it being hot."

"Understand this, Mr. Smith. He simply took it from another family member and I don't like the implication that it was stolen. That's why I never even reported the matter of the gems to the thick-headed police."

"It's too bad you didn't have sense enough to do it, because then they might have been able to track him. However, I'm not interested in the ethics of the matter. I want to know why your son took the jewelry. How much were the rocks worth?"

The old man shrugged. "Some forty-fifty thousand."

"Which means a resale value of twenty or twenty-five thousand," muttered Cellini thoughtfully. "Just about the sum he borrowed from Bornaman."

"What now?"

"I'm just getting an idea of what your son wanted with that kind of money. What happened after that?"

"Just what you know, Mr. Smith. I received your wire and find him dead out here."

"Of course, to avoid scandal, you didn't report it to the police, but instead hired a large detective agency."

Cellini indicated Burke, who hovered anxiously in the background. "And he was one of their men trying to track down your son."

Jackson whirled on the small operative. He seemed glad to find direction for his anger.

"Are you still here, you muddling, tinhorn detective? Get out!"

Burke mumbled, "Yes, sir," glanced malevolently at Cellini and disappeared.

Cellini stood up. "That should be enough for me to go on for the present."

Jackson frowned. "Is that your elliptical way of claiming you may find the murderer?"

"Yes. Perhaps today."

"If that is so, Mr. Smith, you will have another check for five thousand coming to you."

Ira Haenigson mumbled something under his breath. Cellini didn't bat an eyelash.

"One more point," he said. "You go in for mining, don't you?"

"I own several mines. Why?"

"Do you have any geologists or mining engineers out prospecting for your company?"

"Two or three."

"Did your son have anything to do with them?"

"I believe his department received their reports."

"You would consider a field of tungsten, or some mineral in which tungsten occurs like hubnerite, as quite a find. Is that so?"

"Naturally. Why?"

"Have your secretary contact the geologist covering the West Coast for your outfit. Find out if he has recently discovered such an ore deposit out here and if he contacted your main office on it and, if so, exactly what happened. It's important."

"I can answer that now, Mr. Smith. He has reported no such find to us. The man I had covering the West Coast is dead."

"Dead!"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, he died some three weeks before Danny left home."

Cellini was a long time replying. He lit a cigarette and the curls of smoke reached the ceiling before he asked:

"Did he die or was he killed?"

"It was a natural death. A plane accident."

Chapter 14

IRA HAENIGSON turned to Cellini Smith as the latter piloted his coupe through the traffic.

"Where are we going?"

"To the hospital. To see Chloe. To try to get her to tell us who killed Danny Meade."

"What makes you think she knows?"

"If she doesn't know, then the killer thinks she does. That's why the attempt was made on her life."

Cellini cut into the curb opposite the hospital and told the detective-sergeant to wait He walked over to a nearby gas station, used the phone, then returned.

"All right. Let's go."

Ira Haenigson regarded him suspiciously as they crossed the street and took the broad hospital steps.

"Who were you phoning, Smith?"

"I've started spending some of that check in my pocket on something I've wanted a long time."

"What's that?"

"I've put in an order for a neon sign outside my office window. 'Cellini Smith—Private Detective. We never sleep.' And under that I'll have an eye that blinks."

They reached the desk, asked for Chloe's room number, and took the elevator. They got out at their floor and Cellini stopped an orderly and asked for directions.

"Oh, you mean that burlesque dame," said the orderly, with as much of a leer as he dared.

"Where's her room?"

"She's doing fine. You don't have to worry, mister. I'll be whistling for her my next night off."

"Listen, I just want to know which way her room is."

"Very well, mister." The orderly was offended. "I was merely attempting to be pleasant. She's not here. She's—"

"What!"

"That's right. She was feeling fine, so we let her go. She left about a half-hour ago to make her show."

Cellini whirled on the Homicide man. "Didn't you put a guard on Chloe?"

"A guard? Why should I put a guard?"

"You damned bird-brain, I took it for granted she was being protected."

"Cool down, Smith. We'll go over to the Paree and you can talk to her there."

Cellini jammed at the elevator button, then sprinted for the stairs.

"If she's still alive!" he yelled over his shoulder.

CELLINI SMITH raced down the Paree's side alley, brushed by the doorman, and scrambled up the half-flight of stairs onto stage level. Only two steps behind was Ira Haenigson. They made for the star strip's dressing room and Cellini thrust the door open without knocking.

Chloe sat at the dressing table, kimono wrapped around her long figure, buffing her nails.

"Not a very graceful entrance," she said, "but come in anyway."

Cellini's face was blank and did not show his relief. "How do you feel?"

"All right, now."

The Homicide man moved into the room. "I've stood about enough. I want you to understand this murder has become serious."

"What was it before—comic?"

"I've been too lenient with you and now you're going to answer some questions. In the first place, what are you doing here? Why did you leave the hospital?"

"I work here, Mr. Haenigson, and I left the hospital because I felt like it. I don't understand what you're getting at."

"You'll understand all right. Who tried to kill you?"

She did not answer.

"I told you I've stopped fooling around. Who was it? Who murdered your boy friend? You know and you're going to tell."

Haenigson strode over to her. Chloe's back pressed into the edge of the dressing table as she shrank away.

"Don't touch me. That's all I ask. Just don't put your big, meaty hands on me."

"Why, you crazy woman!"

Cellini stayed by the doorway, listening. Now, he said: "Drop it, Haenigson."

"Don't you tell me what to do!"

"Drop it," repeated Cellini calmly. "I'll take over. You wait for me outside."

Haenigson stood uncertainly for a moment, then stalked out. Cellini closed the door.

Chloe managed to smile. "You've trained him well."

"This case has been a bad break for him and he has to eat out of my hands." He droned on, telling her of the senior Jackson, and when he saw that she was completely relaxed again, he said:

"Of course you know it was Meade's murderer who attacked you. Did you happen to see him? Or was it a her?"

"I don't know. I was lying down and he came in and knocked me out first. With a cold-cream jar, someone told me."

"Who told you?"

"I don't remember."

That sounded too convenient to Cellini. "Chloe, do you know who the murderer is?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you tell me? He might try again. At least get out of his way and go back to the hospital."

"The show must go on. Not all the murders can stop the strippers from their appointed rounds or something."

"That's not good enough, Chloe."

"Flippancy is my escape valve. Your worrying flatters me, but there's nothing we can do."

"Yes, there is. Tell me who the murderer is."

"Cellini, do you know why I refuse to reveal the murderer's name?" For once Chloe's voice was not bantering.

"I can guess," he replied. "Because you were almost railroaded when you killed your husband in self-defense."

"That's right. I told you what happened to me at that time and I've learned my lesson. I realize how easy it is for an innocent person to be convicted on circumstantial evidence, and I want no part of such a thing."

"But you know the murderer."

"Exactly the same way the police knew that I killed my husband with premeditation and not because of self-defense. That's not good enough for me. I'd rather have someone else be sure of his guilt and bring about his arrest."

"Fine, but I wish you'd stay out of the killer's way because I don't think he realizes your compunctions."

He walked out in search of Ira Haenigson. He found the Homicide man standing in the wings, subjecting a grip to a pointless grilling. He broke off when Cellini joined him.

"Well?"

"She'll be all right."

"That's simply wonderful, Smith. I don't suppose you annoyed her with details like finding out who murdered Danny Meade."

"She doesn't want to tell."

Haenigson shouted: "Why the hell won't she tell?"

Hollis Raine finished a blackout with the Ghost and came offstage. She passed by them, a foot away, without any look of recognition and went over to a comer where her youthful husband, the Kid, was waiting.

Cellini said: "It doesn't matter why. The point is she won't, and she's not the type that can be bullied or tricked into changing her mind. However, I think we have a good chance of cleaning this up without her."

"Then why don't we?"

"Because she's in danger, more than she realizes, and I don't want to leave her till I know she's safe. She doesn't want any part of you or any other cop. I'd put a guard on her, but she'd just duck him."

"Then you figure it out."

"I have. Phone in for a couple of plainclothes men to meet you here. I'll be back in a little while."

Cellini left him and circled around to the front. The Monk was there, pointing to the display posters and haranguing a bunch of stumblebums. Cellini went by them and up the stairs to Mr. Rapp's private office.

The burlesque owner was moodily pitching playing cards at a hat.

"Come in, Mr. Smith. I heard you were making progress."

"I'm glad to know it. Who told you?"

"That gangster. Alex Bornaman. He said you found out where that murdered boy came from."

Cellini drew up a chair.

"What'd Alex Bornaman come to see you about?"

"Chloe. It's funny. She throws him over for somebody like Danny Meade, but he still likes her. A hard guy like him."

"What'd he have to say about Chloe?"

"That somebody tried to kill her and I should keep my eyes open and tell him if I see anything funny."

Cellini wondered if Bornaman was trying to confuse the scent. He said: "I doubt if you'll see anything funny on your stage."

"How right you are," agreed Mr. Rapp somberly.

"As for Chloe, Bornaman's probably right."

"You mean someone did try to kill her?"

"That's right, and if she stays on the loose there may be another attempt, so I want you to do something. She goes on in a little while, so get her to drop the rosebuds or whatever it is that keeps you this side the law. Tell her you're starting a new policy and you expect big things to come off. Tell her anything, but be sure she goes through with it!"

"And have my whole show arrested? I'd have to get my head examined if I let—"

"She'll be the only one to ride the Maria. The rest of the cast won't be touched, and the show can go on. A couple of dicks are waiting and it'll be very quiet."

The cigar circled thoughtfully from one comer of the mouth to the other.

"No, Mr. Smith. It would never work. Chloe's too smart to fall for that. I never asked her to get down to fundamentals before and she'll know that something's wrong."

"That'll be my worry. You do your part."

"All right, Mr. Smith, I'll try to get my own strip arrested. But if Chloe quits because of it, I don't think you can take her place."

PATIENTLY, Cellini Smith and Ira Haenigson waited in one of the boxes for Chloe's act. It was a three-quarter house and the patrons had the customary apathy of an early-afternoon audience.

Haenigson said: "When I phoned to get the boys for the pinch, I asked about those tattoos."

"Did they break them?"

"Not yet. They think you're giving them the business."

"I don't care what they think. Those tattoos give the location of a hubnerite mine."

"They're experts, Smith."

"That's probably the trouble," replied Cellini. "Danny Meade was no expert, so he must have figured out some amateur's trick for enciphering and deciphering the message."

The chorus finished its routine and pranced offstage. Spots came on and Chloe moved out for her number. Unlike the first time he had seen her, she seemed, to Cellini, listless and worried. The reason was Mr. Rapp, whom he could see in the wings, gesticulating and urging the strip to do a full Godiva.

Semi-peeled, Chloe left the stage, waiting for the formality of applause to evoke her reappearance. Cellini could see her talking with the burlesque owner. Rapp had been right. Her suspicions were aroused. The audience, too, seeming to sense that something was in the wind, began applauding wildly.

Cellini knew he had to do something. He left the box and raced down the steps for the stage door. When he reached backstage, he found Chloe arguing heatedly with Rapp. Two plain-clothes men hovered behind scenery, waiting for some excuse to arrest her. No new act had gone on and the audience was now howling and stamping feet Chloe saw Cellini and glared at him with deep venom.

"You're behind this! I'm not enough of a fool not to realize that."

"What's the matter, Chloe?" he taunted. "Are you afraid to give your customers their money's worth?"

"Thank you for being so sensitive about my feelings."

"Your feelings!" He laughed mockingly. "Your customers are out there expecting something. Go ahead and explain your feelings to them. They'll understand!"

Members of the burlesque troupe crowded them. They had no trouble understanding what Rapp wanted and Chloe's reticence was considered an affront to the profession.

Ridicule and withering scorn issued from them. The tumult in the audience was rising and becoming less pleasant. Now, there was a hint of impatient anger in the stamping feet.

Cellini's mocking laughter continued and suddenly she moved out on stage. He watched from the wings with satisfaction. He was gaining his ends with derision where all pleadings would have been futile. Chloe began dancing swiftly, forcing the band to quicken its tempo.

The audience was hushed and only eyes moved, following the swift, graceful body from one end of the stage to the other. Chloe's hands hovered over a clasp on the almost boyish hips and she glanced off at Cellini. There was a grin on his face. The hands dropped away and she walked, leadenly, toward the wings with no pretense at dancing.

One of Haenigson's men, who had moved in for the kill, hunched his shoulders in a disgusted shrug. A roar of rage, that could not be dominated by the furious poundings of the band, rose from the audience.

"You crazy woman! You're ruining me!"

It was the burlesque owner yelling at Chloe as she reached them in the wings. She ignored him, facing Cellini.

"You almost had me, but it won't work."

"Act your age, Chloe." He had to shout because the noise from out front was assuming riotous proportions. "It's for your own good! You'll be safe in jail!"

She shook her head. Cellini took a step forward and placed one hand on her shoulder as if to argue. No one noticed his other hand as it flipped open the clasp at her hip.

Then, with a sudden shove against her shoulder, he sent her spinning out in view of the audience.

What little she wore fell off.

She just stood there, motionless, looking at him in the wings and completely oblivious of the incipient riot in the audience that had instantly changed into joyous bedlam. Her lips moved, but he could gather only a few words that were spat at him. Ira Haenigson, who had followed Cellini, bellowed into his ear:

"What is she talking about?"

Rapp shouted something and the curtain thudded downs The two plain-clothes men, satisfied as to the legality of their position, moved in for the arrest.

"She'll sic Alex Bornaman on me," Cellini replied, "and she means it. The hell with it. See that she's booked, Haenigson. I'll be along later."

THE habitués of the main reading room of the Public Library fell back in their chairs with shocked awe and no little envy. Most of them had often wondered what would happen if someone should dare to swear aloud in the reverential silence, swear in firm, clear tones. Cellini Smith had dared to do it and the habitués had their answer.

Four of the moth-eaten guards converged on the courageous experimenter and hustled him out firmly but gently.

Nor did Cellini Smith mind this genteel version of the bum's rush. He had wasted well over an hour consulting tomes on cryptography, ciphers, and codes and volumes on mineralogy. But the key to those symmetrical dots in the tattoo design still eluded him. His head was a crazy jangle of mathematical codes, box codes, the Bacon cipher, Porta's table, the gamut. None worked. He returned to his ancient coupe and slammed it into gear with the challenging fierceness of one who could now afford a better car.

A few minutes later, he parked by the ramshackle building where the aristocratic Pop lived and went upstairs. Pop bowed Cellini into the overcrowded bed-living room and donned his jacket before speaking.

"Some refreshments, Mr. Smith?"

"No thanks," said Cellini, wondering what Pop would do if he said "Yes." He added: "I'd like some more information."

"About mines and ores?"

"That's right. I've seen Danny Meade's father and a couple of things bother me. I'd like to know the steps a company will go through to acquire a piece of land for mining."

Pop mooched a cigarette and said: "If the company has a fairly shrewd idea of what to expect, it will first option the land it's interested in and then explore it or work sample diggings."

"Doesn't that take time?"

"Of course. However, in the case of virgin territory the case is usually different. Then the geologist is on his own and reports the findings back to his main office when he comes upon any likely piece of land."

"Can the geologist option the land on his own?"

"Some can, some cannot. It depends on the firm. Usually, the geologist waits on his company's instructions."

"But what does he do in the meantime?" asked Cellini. "Sit out there on the ground until he gets further orders?"

"Not if he suspects it to be a valuable find like, let us say, a field of copper. Or hubnerite, since we both know that is our concern. Then if the land is not yet tied down, the geologist must be very secretive before someone else gets wind of it."

Cellini frowned at the smoke-blackened ceiling. "Suppose the geologist found this field of hubnerite and connived with some one at his home office to keep it a secret. Does that make sense?"

"Very slight, sir. If the geologist was such a scoundrel, he would keep it entirely to himself till he had purchased the land. He would either make the normal report to his home office or not breathe a word of it to a soul."

Cellini could think of no further question to ask the old man. He nodded, went down to his car and fifteen minutes later entered Ira Haenigson's office in the Hall of Justice.

The detective-sergeant supplied the information that his men had not yet cracked the codes and recommended sending the pictures to expert cryptographists in Washington.

"Go ahead if you want to," said Cellini, "but it would take too long to do any good. Things are moving too quickly."

Haenigson hauled out a bottle and two glasses. He said: "Jackson phoned in a few minutes ago. He checked to make sure about the geologist he had out here covering the West Coast and there's no question of it."

"Of what?"

"The guy died a natural death in a plane crash. He had been messing around Death Valley for a couple of months and suddenly showed up at Bishop. He got drunk and said he had to get to Frisco in a hurry. He went to the airport and hired some old crate that cracked up near Modesto. Him and the pilot both cashed in."

Cellini nodded. "Go on."

"Jackson said if you wanted more dope about that geologist he can get it because he found out that the guy's papers and things were mailed in to his office back East."

"His papers? Did Jackson see them?"

"No."

"He'll never find those papers now. Those papers reached Danny Meade's department and he destroyed them. But it's not important now. Just have Jackson phone Bishop and find out exactly what this geologist was doing there before he hopped that plane."

"I can handle it quicker." The Homicide man lifted the receiver of his desk phone, spoke into it and turned back to Cellini.

"The police in Bishop will get on it right away."

"Fine. Even if they discover nothing it'll be all right."

HAENIGSON drained the last few drops from the bottle. "What the hell are you so gay about?"

"The whole thing is becoming clear. At last we know why Danny left the East, traveling hobo-style, and why he didn't dare come any other way. I know why he was carrying twenty grand in ice, where he got it from, and why a baby as shrewd as Bornaman loaned him another twenty. But don't start asking questions. I have to know where there's a deposit of hubnerite before we can turn the screws on Bornaman and crack this."

The two men fell silent. After a while, Cellini heard the door open. His back was toward it but, seeing Haenigson's expression across the desk, he could tell it was no ordinary visitor.

Slowly, Cellini turned around. Framed in the doorway, was Alex Bornaman. Behind him, his hoods, Dado and Vanzy. Haenigson's voice was quiet, persuasive.

"Now, you wouldn't try any funny stuff here would you, Bornaman? You're too smart for a thing like that. You know what building this is. You know you'd be nailed twenty feet away if you started something."

"I know."

The Homicide man relaxed. "What do you want?"

"I want Smith to know I'm still around and watching and I want you to lay off me." "I haven't been doing u thing to you, Bornaman," said Ira Haenigson. "You should consider yourself lucky. I'm only going to start now."

The racketeer laughed humorlessly. "Haenigson, you're getting too big for your hat. Do you call booking my boys doing nothing?"

"Since when are you telling me I can't pull in you or anyone else I feel like?"

"I wouldn't beef about that, Haenigson, if you did it legitimately. But you jugged them at the other end of town and my mouthpiece didn't know where to bail them. I don't like that."

"What don't you like about me, Alex?" Cellini asked mockingly.

"The double-cross you gave Chloe this afternoon. I won't forget that. The next time my boys get hold of you, Smith, you won't be so lucky."

Bornaman turned and left with his men, followed by the detective-sergeant's snorts and Cellini's laughter.

"I'll break him," Haenigson muttered. "I don't care what strings he pulls, I'll do it."

"He plays things too smart. Your own head would roll. I thought you were filing those hoods away in a quiet station and delaying the official booking."

Haenigson laughed harshly.

"One of my own men must have tipped him off. That only shows that I like to act big when I talk of breaking him. Bornaman's got too much pull for a sergeant like me to try playing tug-of-war."

"Well, he's out for trouble now."

"We can't help that, Smith."

"We can if some of the others start singing about him. Can you corral the whole outfit into the Luxembourg Gardens for another grilling in an hour or so?"

Ira Haenigson reached for the phone. When he was finished, he said: "It's set if it'll do any good."

"I think it will. I have a good idea of the killer right now. It works in beautifully with this whole geology angle."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"I need some way to get the killer to show his hand. If—"

Cellini stopped short. "What's the matter?"

"Wait a second," said Cellini. His voice sounded queer and off-pitch to his own ears. "Alex Bornaman has just bailed out Dado and Vanzy."

"Don't worry. We can pull them in again."

"It's not that. What Bornaman said indicated he also knew we had pulled in Chloe."

Haenigson finished it. "He might have bailed her too then!"

The Homicide man grabbed for the phone and barked into it. He listened, then nodded to Cellini. For a long second, the two men looked at each other. Then, with one mind, they leaped from their chairs and raced out.

Chapter 15

EVEN as Cellini Smith and Ira Haenigson rounded the side alley that gave into the stage door of the Paree Burlesque, they could hear those too-familiar sounds and knew they were late. Cries of horror and dismay, babbling voices protesting their innocence or another's guilt, questions of curiosity or morbidity, impotent, futile oaths, promises of revenge.

Chloe lay dead— beyond doubt this time— not ten feet from the stage door. From the radio cops, who had just arrived, and the burlesque performers, Cellini dully gathered what information there was.

The candy butcher had gone into the alley for a breath of air a little while before and had found the body. It could have been lying there for at least forty minutes, for nobody had entered or left the theatre by the backstage during that time. Beyond that, none knew, heard, saw or even surmised anything.

Chloe, Cellini imagined, had been bailed out by Bornaman's lawyer and had immediately returned to the theatre for an appointment with her killer. He asked a question. Yes, a chorine informed him, Alex Bornaman had been there seeking Chloe some two hours previously and had learned that she was under arrest. He had left the theatre immediately to arrange for bail.

Cellini fumbled for a cigarette and his fingers shook when he lit it. He felt that a little more care, a little more foresight, and this might have been prevented. That tall, black-haired woman who didn't mind stripping before a packed theatre but who had compunctions over revealing the name of a murderer, might be alive but for his neglect.

The cops shoved back the crowd and Cellini could see the body.

The story was plain. She had been ambushed from behind a rubbish box near the end of the alley and chopped down as she was about to enter the stage door. The front of her dress was dyed red. One of the razor-sharp slugs was no doubt, embedded in her heart and the murder weapon lay near-by on the pavement.

The slingshot was fashioned of a forked stick and a lemon-tinted garter that was companion to the one Cellini had found on the floor of Chloe's dressing room. This garter was not as dainty as the others. Its ribbon was thicker and hand-sewn whereas the others were machine-stitched. Cellini ripped the ribbon open and found that the elastic was reinforced with a piece of rubber from an inner tube.

Cellini gazed at the body again. Chloe had not died immediately. A trail of blood showed that she had tried to drag herself to the stage door, tried blindly, painfully, to feel her way across the concrete.

Feel!

Cellini caught his breath. Those dots! That was the answer, of course.

He pushed by the gaping crowd into the theatre and went to a wall phone. He hunted in the directory, pulled the pictures of the tattoos out of his pocket and dialed.

When he was finished he turned to find the Homicide man inching toward him. "It's nice to know you trust me, Haenigson."

"What are you up to, Smith?"

"Phoning the Institute for the Blind."

"I don't get it."

"The code that Danny Meade used, those dots in the tattoo designs on his arm. I think they're in Braille."

Haenigson whistled appreciatively, then frowned. "What do you mean you think?"

"I described some of those dots to someone at the Institute but they don't seem to make sense even in Braille. The individual figures are all right, but they don't seem to add up to anything. It's probably a double transposition or substitution cipher."

"Maybe if I tell my men that they can bank on part of the process being in Braille, they'll be able to crack it. Give me a nickel to phone."

Cellini handed him a coin.

"It'll take too long. Our man is still hot from his latest killing and we must nail him now or never. I've got to have enough of an inkling about that code to bluff my way."

"You know what it's about, don't you?"

The detective-sergeant dialed.

"Sure. I know, with reasonable certainty, that it's a double transposition cipher, partly in Braille, that it gives the location of a hubnerite mine or a deposit of hubnerite ore. I know, too, that the directions for finding the mine are sufficiently complicated; else Danny Meade would simply have memorized them without having them tattooed on his arm. I know—"

"Wait a second, Smith. What could be so complicated about finding a mine? All that's necessary is the lot, section and township numbers. There's no such thing as unsurveyed land any more."

Cellini nodded glumly. "That's been painfully clear to me ever since I ventured into the library and read about it."

HAENIGSON'S response came over the phone and he spoke into the mouthpiece. When he had pronged the receiver he turned to Cellini and said:

"The boys are getting to work on the tattoos from the Braille angle. We also heard from the police in Bishop about Jackson's geologist. They couldn't find out a thing. He was trying to buy some kind of fluoroscope and then hopped that plane for his ride to Frisco."

"Fluoroscope?"

"That's what I said. I told my men to ring me here if they crack that code."

"Don't bother, Haenigson. We don't need it any more."

"Why not? What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing at all. I've just earned my retainer so I'm set"

"What did you find out, Smith?"

"You'll learn in due time. Let's go outside. I have all I need to make Bornaman talk now."

They reached the back-stage alley. Specialists from the homicide department were there, using tape measures, powder, and camera. Curiosity, rather than horror, now dominated the gathering crowd.

"I heard the Monk was hanging around before," the detective-sergeant said.

"Backstage?"

"No. Out here. Do you think he potted her?"

Cellini shook his head. "The Monk would use his hands, not a slingshot. He might have tried to strangle her, but not this."

"You know who it is, Smith," said the Homicide man. "I want to hear it right now."

Before Cellini could reply, another voice intruded. It was hoarse, agonized, the words indistinguishable.

They turned to see Alex Bornaman. Cellini and Haenigson watched. Bornaman walked over to the body and stared down at it. He trembled.

The detective-sergeant raised a dubious eyebrow.

"A fake?" he asked.

"I doubt it," replied Cellini. "I think he really went for her. Furthermore, he doesn't have to worry about anyone accusing him of murder, so he had no reason to get rid of Pogo or Chloe. His type of killing is safe. He buys alibis wholesale."

Haenigson shook his head. "That only means we can't prove it, but not that he isn't guilty. Remember he's the one who bailed out Chloe. He might have been afraid she'd talk."

"There are other things. For instance, slingshots aren't Alex's speed. I can't see him sewing rubber inside a garter. He'd prefer a tommy gun. Besides, he wouldn't have left the murder weapon lying here."

"Why not?"

"He's smart enough to know how dangerous that is, and he didn't have to leave it here. He could have taken it with him. The only reason that slingshot was left here, Haenigson, was because the killer couldn't get away to dispose of it, and was afraid of having it found on him."

"Maybe. Then what about the Monk? I can't get him out of my bean."

"You told me yourself he didn't go back-stage, Haenigson, so he couldn't have heard Bornaman say he was going to bail out Chloe. He wouldn't have been waiting for her."

Alex Bornaman walked over to them.

"Who did it?" The racketeer asked Cellini, not the Homicide man.

"You caused it," evaded Cellini.

"Yes. I didn't know before why you had her booked. That's the only reason why I put up bail."

"I told you to watch her when you and your boys had me."

"Who did it, Smith? That's all I want to hear from you."

"We're going down now to the Luxembourg Gardens. Everybody's there, so suppose you come along."

"You couldn't keep me away, Smith."

Haenigson left instructions to his men and followed Bornaman and Cellini out to the sidewalk. A large Sedan stood at the curb with Dado and Vanzy in the front seats.

"We'll take mine," said Alex Bornaman. "It's larger."

Though there was a touch of a command in the words, Haenigson and Cellini agreed and the three men squeezed into the back. The car started, made a U-turn and sped down the block. Alex Bornaman sat between them, his hands clenched, his eyes fixed on the nape of Dado's neck.

"You're losing that twenty grand you laid out for the land," Cellini said, "so you might as well talk."

"I'm losing nothing, Smith."

"You're wrong, Alex. I haven't cracked those, tattoos yet, but I know that they are partly in Braille and that they give the location of a deposit of hubnerite in Death Valley. It will be only a matter of time."

The racketeer said nothing.

"The land rightfully belongs to Meade's old man and you won't be strong enough to buck him, so you might as well clear yourself of the murder."

"I'm in the clear." But Bornaman spoke uncertainly.

"You know better than that, Alex. The D.A. will call it obstructing justice. He'll give you the aiding- and- abetting- a- criminal business with both barrels, so you'd better answer questions now before it's too late."

"Your job is to tell me who killed Chloe. Forget the rest."

"These aren't the palmy twenties, Bornaman. Juries don't admire racketeers any more. Besides, I know about the fluoroscope."

ALEX BORNAMAN'S hands clenched over his knees and he nodded.

Cellini accepted it as assent and asked: "Have you already paid the twenty grand for the land?"

"Yes, but it's in escrow."

"Then Danny Meade's father can still stop the sale, so you lose both ways unless you give in. When does it come out of escrow?"

"A couple of weeks."

"Shrewd boy, Danny Meade. He would have made a fortune if he hadn't been murdered."

Ira Haenigson frowned as they sailed by a boulevard stop sign and Cellini asked Bornaman:

"Who knows that you've already put the dough into escrow for the land?"

"Meade knew, and I told Chloe."

"Here's the way I see the whole thing," said Cellini. "Danny Meade was cooped up in his father's office and was only waiting for his chance to get out. He had a responsible job and his chance came when one of his father's geologists died in a plane crash. The police forwarded all papers found on the geologist to the home office, and they reached Meade's desk.

"Meade read these papers and then hid them, for it was his big chance. He learned that the geologist had discovered a deposit of hubnerite, but had kept it to himself. The geologist probably decided that old man Jackson had enough money, so he said nothing. He marked the way to the deposit of ore, returned to Bishop to buy a fluoroscope, and when he couldn't find one there, decided to fly to San Francisco."

"What about that fluoroscope?" interposed Haenigson.

"Tungsten ores, if I remember my reading of this morning, are fluorescent, and if a fluoroscope has its lights turned on such ores, in the dark, they will glow brilliantly. It is a common way of identifying and estimating the percentage of tungsten contents in a mine. Thus, after the geologist had ascertained the general location of his mine, he embedded pieces of tungsten rock in the ground at strategic points, and returned to civilization. It was the only safe way of keeping the secret for himself, as a piece of tungsten ore is not readily distinguishable, in daylight, from limestone or most ordinary rocks or minerals that occur in nature. Naturally, the tattoos, when they are deciphered, will give the various turns and directions to follow with a fluoroscope to the deposit of hubnerite. It makes a well lighted path and a foolproof one unless the key is known. Is all that correct, Bornaman?"

Again, the almost imperceptible nod.

"Meade," continued Cellini, "stole his mother's jewelry to finance the purchase of this ore-bearing land. His father discovered the theft almost immediately, guessed his son would attempt to flee the city, and posted men at strategic points. Thus, Danny had no choice but to bum his way out, losing himself in the anonymity of hobo jungles. So Meade picked up the Kid and bummed his way to the West Coast, but en route the rocks were stolen by Jed Collins. And that's where you muscled in, Alex."

"That's where I was asked to come in."

"It's still ten years without parole. Meade had to purchase the land before his father's detectives figured out the thing. He needed a lot of money, some twenty thousand, and you, Alex, agreed to put it up because you saw a golden opportunity for easy sugar."

Again the Homicide man interrupted.

"Where does that Braille business come in?"

"When Jed Collins stole the jewels, he nearly got the paper giving the various directions that would lead to the ore deposit with the aid of a fluoroscope. That put a scare into Danny Meade, so he divided the figures and directions and had them tattooed on his arms. No one knew about it, but before Alex put up the dough for the purchase of the mine, he had to be told. Thus, after the murder, Alex was forced to steal the body to photograph the tattoo designs."

Ira Haenigson snapped his fingers.

"If the killer ripped apart Meade's wallet to find the paper on which the land location was described, then Bornaman can't be the one we want. Provided you're right that Bornaman knew all about the tattoos."

"Don't worry about that," said the racketeer. "I wouldn't put up that kind of fancy dough without knowing where I stood."

"What was your share in the mine for supplying the twenty thousand?" asked Cellini.

"Fifty per cent."

"And the rest?"

"That was divided evenly three ways. It came to a little less than sixteen and two-thirds per cent for each."

"Let's get it straight, Alex. Danny Meade naturally had one of those three remaining shares. Who were the other two?"

"Chloe and the Kid."

"I see. I suppose the Kid had it coming because he helped Meade get out here, and probably gave him the idea of approaching Chloe so as to get at you to borrow the dough. And Chloe had it coming because she steered Meade to you."

They were nearing the Luxembourg Gardens.

Haenigson asked: "Bornaman, how come you let this Danny Meade become first man with Chloe?"

"I was first man! Don't get any other idea about it!"

"Take it easy. I just asked."

"I told Chloe to string Meade along until the land was purchased and the corporation set up, but that's all. Chloe wouldn't try anything behind my back."

NOT much, thought Cellini, but he said nothing. The car stopped and the three men stepped out.

"Keep the bus running," Alex Bornaman instructed his men. Cellini raised his brows but did not comment.

They began walking across the grounds and as they neared the shacks, Cellini could see that Haenigson had done a thorough job of it. They were all there, from the hobos to Mr. Rapp and Pop. Two policemen were keeping a watchful eye on them.

"Act natural and keep moving. Don't try to yell. I have a rod in each pocket." It was Alex Bornaman speaking from behind Cellini Smith and Ira Haenigson.

"You're hammering your own coffin nails," said Cellini. However, neither he nor Haenigson gave any outward sign of alarm but continued walking toward the shacks in the center of the Gardens.

"I'll take care of myself, Smith, and of Chloe's killer," Bornaman said.

Cellini was keenly conscious of the gun pointed at his back. "What are you trying to get at, Alex? We both want the same thing."

"You're going to find the guy I want. Chloe's dead. She's been murdered, and her killer's not going to get a shyster and plead insanity and be paroled in a few years."

Out of the side of his mouth, Haenigson said: "If you think we should jump him, I'm game."

"No. He's not bluffing."

"That's right," came Bornaman's voice smoothly. "As for you, Haenigson, when we get there, send your boys away if you don't want a slug in your back. After that, Smith better produce what I want. Now, shut up."

Cellini and Haenigson thought it wise to comply. They arrived at the shacks, moving evenly, trying to avoid false steps, their hands hanging by their sides.

The Homicide man nodded to the two cops.

"That's all." The policemen exhibited mild surprise but left for their prowl car. Cellini half-turned till he could see Alex Bornaman. The racketeer was a few paces behind, his small black eyes alert and his hands bulging in the pockets of his topcoat. There was nothing to do but follow instructions.

"I suppose you know what we're here for," Cellini said tentatively.

"Chloe knew who murdered Danny Meade, but for reasons of her own, wouldn't tell. A little while ago, she was murdered because she had that information. We're here to find out who the killer is."

This was not, of course, news to Mr. Rapp, Hollis Raine, or the Kid, but the hobos were taken aback. The Monk spread his arms and seemed ready to launch into a tirade when Dusty pulled him back.

The Professor scanned the faces eagerly, pencil poised over his notebook.

"I don't like this," said Hollis Raine. "What have me and the Kid to do with it?"

"It's not you, but everybody," soothed Mr. Rapp.

"Don't give me that!" Her voice was strident and, Cellini sensed, a little afraid. "That dick's been trying to pin Meade's murder on me from the beginning."

"And with good reason," said Cellini. "You were at the burlesque house before, when Bornaman found out Chloe was in jail, and you heard he was going to bail her. You could have stepped out into the alley and shot Chloe. You had to leave the slingshot lying there because you couldn't dispose of it. You had to return to the theatre and you were afraid you might be searched."

"Why pick on me?" She swore. "There were fifty other people in that theatre including my own husband and the whole bunch."

"I know, but we're discussing you." Cellini had a chance to take a couple of steps backward as Hollis advanced toward him. But he was still not sufficiently near to Alex Bornaman.

"You were jealous of Chloe," he continued. "You sent her a note threatening her if she didn't keep quiet, and you left a slug in her room in an attempt to implicate her. You wanted to be a strip tease and you might have killed Danny Meade because he couldn't see you for dirt.' It sounded thin and mixed up, Cellini knew, but Hollis's temper was short and he hoped his ruse might work.

"You'd better hurry." It came from Alex Bornaman.

Cellini said: "The Kid was really in love with Chloe, not you, and that's why you killed her."

This time it worked exactly as Cellini had hoped. Hollis Raine spat inarticulately and leaped at him. Rapidly, having the excuse he needed, Cellini pedaled back. He came abreast the racketeer and his fist swung around, connecting with Bornaman's jaw, viciously and unexpectedly. Hollis stopped, gaping in surprise.

"Beautiful," said Ira Haenigson appreciatively. "I was wondering if it would work."

Cellini leaned over and removed the two guns from the unconscious racketeer's pockets. He tossed one to Haenigson.

It suddenly dawned on Hollis Raine. "Say, that guy was holding rods on you and you were just riling me to get at him."

"That's right," said Cellini. "I know you didn't do the killings."

"Well, it's about time you said so."

The Professor chuckled delightedly. "Very interesting," he remarked. "I must make a note of it."

"Don't bother with that masquerade any more," said Cellini.

"I beg your pardon?"

Cellini's answer was to grab the notebook from the Professor's hand. The student of hobos stood taut and motionless.

"Don't tell me you're picking him!" Haenigson exclaimed.

"I'm picking on him. I want to know why he forgot himself and wrote in this notebook without effort when his glasses were broken but other times he pretends he's nearsighted."

"The glasses must be a disguise," supplied the Homicide man.

"Sure. He wasn't very academic when he forgot himself and hit that girl for breaking his glasses. There's probably window pane in them."

The Professor tried to speak, but only a frightened whimper issued.

"And also," continued Cellini, "the phony excuses he gave me for not being able to produce the notes he was typing during Meade's murder. The answer? The notes don't exist."

Cellini riffled through the pages of the notebook in his hand and then tossed it to the Homicide man.

"Look at that, Haenigson. Nothing in that notebook makes any sense. Those aren't notes for any thesis on bums, but just a lot of gibberish to impress people."

"You don't have to go on," said Ira Haenigson. "This guy's hiding out. He's probably wanted on some criminal—"

"No," Cellini cut in. "Not for any criminal charge, because he's smart enough to know that the cops check hobo jungles regularly. It's something for which men went to Mexico in the last war, but can't do it in this one. Unless I'm way off, he's a draft-dodger."

SHIVERING spasms shook the Professor's body from top to bottom as he listened to the ominous murmurs of the hobos. He took a step as if to flee. Cellini waved the gun in his palm.

"Better not try it, Prof. You can't outrun a bullet. Suppose you lie down on the ground till we're ready to take care of you. Get down!"

The Professor almost fell to the dirt. Viciously, Dusty let loose a kick at his ribs and said in a hurt tone:

"Me thinking this coward was studying us! What a laugh!"

"I'm tired of this!" Hollis Raine suddenly yelled. "I'm getting out of here because I'm in the clear."

"Not quite," said Cellini. "You didn't do the killings, but you know who did, so you're still an accessory. You're—"

"Leave her alone!"

This time it was the Kid, yelling as he rushed at Cellini. The steel from a penknife in his hand glinted in the dusk. Cellini sidestepped, and caught the Kid on the temple with the barrel of the gun in his hand. The Kid dropped in his tracks.

Haenigson swore.

"You don't have to be so rough with a boy like that, Smith."

"He's your killer and I'm taking no chances with that kind. His wife knows, and you can ask her."

Haenigson's mouth parted and he looked toward Hollis Raine for confirmation. But she was not listening. She sat on the ground, the Kid's head in her lap, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his temple.

"I suppose she really loves him," Cellini said. "That's why she tried to scare Chloe into keeping quiet with that note."

Alex Bornaman began to stir.

Cellini kneeled and bound the racketeer's wrists with his necktie.

"It worried me," said Cellini, "why the Kid, young as he is, would go for a played-out dame like Hollis and actually marry her. I imagine he likes her, but he did it mainly to prevent her from testifying against him. She didn't mind. She loved him. She knew the Kid was cut in on the hubnerite mine and that they'd be in clover."

Cellini turned to Hollis Raine.

"You don't like burlesque work, do you?"

"Who does?"

There was no fight left in her. Tears streaked her makeup and the face was drawn.

"That's what I figured when you turned down the peeling job Rapp finally offered you. It was a mistake to do that after you'd been yelling you could outstrip Chloe. It made me realize you started the whole thing only as an excuse in case you were found fooling around Chloe's dressing room leaving notes."

Alex Bornaman struggled into a sitting position. Haenigson brandished a revolver. The racketeer waved him back.

"Don't worry. Smith dropped me fair and I'm not beefing. I only want to hear him name the killer, because I won't always be tied up."

"It's the Kid," said Cellini, "for several reasons. The very conception of murdering with a slingshot is basically youthful. A more mature person wouldn't think of it, and would mistrust it as a weapon. Only youths know how dangerous a slingshot can be. Another thing to indicate the murderer's age was his lack of guts. He took a try at my life once because he figured I was dangerous, but didn't try again. He was all right with long-distance murder, but when he tried to strangle Chloe with his hands he couldn't make a thorough job of it.

"Remember, too, that while Chloe had good reasons for not revealing the murderer's name, still, it had to be someone she could be sorry for. Someone like the Kid."

"Are you sure she knew?"

Cellini nodded.

"Of course. Hollis threatened Chloe in a note because she knew the Kid was the killer. Chloe probably saw the Kid steal the garter or the slugs from the prop room and added two and two."

A crazy laugh escaped Alex Bornaman.

"The D.A. won't get a conviction on that. I'll have to do the job."

"Don't worry, Alex. It has to be the Kid by a process of elimination. Ripping Meade's wallet apart, hunting for some piece of paper that gave the location of the mine proved that the murderer didn't know the location had been tattooed on Meade's arms. That automatically eliminated you, Alex, because stealing the body proved you knew about it This also gives us the motive."

"I don't get it," Haenigson cut in.

"The Kid wasn't satisfied with his share in the mine. I saw that when Bornaman told me he grabbed fifty per cent of it for himself, so the Kid became greedy. He didn't know of the tattoos, and killed Meade figuring he'd find the location of the field of ore on him. His idea was to get it and make Bornaman give him a bigger share because he would be the only one knowing where this field of hubnerite was. The Kid probably didn't know that the land was already in escrow."

The racketeer nodded agreement.

"To continue with the elimination, the Kid tried to turn suspicion on someone at the Paree by leaving a slug in Chloe's room, stealing her garter, and taking the slugs from the prop room. But to get the slugs, he had to do it after a show when the prop room was locked, so he broke the hasp. That was a mistake, because it eliminated the burlycue bunch. They wouldn't have had to break the hasp. They could have walked into the prop room during a performance without attracting suspicion. Finally, Pogo's murder narrowed the choice to Chloe or the Kid. And Chloe's dead."

"What did Pogo have to do with it?" asked Haenigson.

"They were the only two to whom I mentioned that someone had told me he had seen Hollis Raine hanging out here during Meade's murder, and a little while later Pogo was dead. You were here, weren't you, Hollis?"

The chorine whispered a "Yes."

"Sure. You saw something was wrong with the Kid when he walked you home, and you followed him back here and saw him ambush Meade. That's how you found out he did it. I happened to tell the Kid that someone had seen Hollis here, and he was afraid that he too had been spotted, so he killed Pogo. The Kid was able to figure out it was Pogo because he saw him talking to me here. Later, the Kid invented a fairy tale about seeing two men bury Pogo's body. He was good at fairy tales. He fooled you, Haenigson."

"How come?"

"Road kids have no love for cops, but still he gave you a cock-and-bull story about escaping from a reformatory and wanting to be a policeman. That was successfully calculated to make you like him and not suspect anything."

As if by signal, everyone started talking. The Monk damning them all, the hobos planning a quick exit out of town, others claiming that the Kid had always looked like a criminal....

Cellini stood looking at nothing for a long time. He only vaguely saw Ira Haenigson waving a piece of inner tubing which he had found and from which the murder weapon had been reinforced. He only half-heard Pop asking him for another loan. His eyes saw, but his mind didn't take in, Alex Bornaman's dark, scowling face; Hollis Raine, bending over her young husband; the Professor, still lying in the dirt, his body convulsing with sobs.

He walked away, trying not to think of Chloe, but forcing his mind to dwell on the new neon sign, a full-time secretary, ways to spend that fat check.

End

Table of Contents

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15