Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 3, March 1964

The Price of Fame by Richard Deming

One needn’t be an exhibitionist to desire that his deeds be known and appreciated, but a reputation in many respects is like a mirror; it reveals much but may conceal even more.

Harry Cannon always cased his jobs carefully. For ten days he had studied the layout of Gilbert’s Liquor Store. He knew what time the place opened in the morning and when it closed at night. He knew the busiest hours of the day, and that the period just before the nine P.M. closing was the deadest. He knew what hours the two clerks worked and that the second-trick clerk left at eight P.M., leaving proprietor Arthur Gilbert alone for the last hour. One night he had even followed Arthur home to Long Island, so that he knew where the man lived.

But best of all he knew that Arthur Gilbert went to the bank only on Friday morning. Which meant that Thursday night, somewhere in the place, an entire week’s receipts were hidden.

Cannon pulled up in front of the liquor store at exactly 8:55 P.M. Through the glass front window he could see the plump, balding proprietor checking out the cash register. There were no customers in the place.

From the seat alongside of him Cannon lifted a false rubber nose attached to some black frames without lenses. When he fitted the frames over his ears, his appearance totally changed. His thin face seemed broader, and the contraption gave him a bulbous-nosed, owlish look in place of his usual pinched, scowling expression. It also added ten years to his bare twenty-eight.

It was both an effective disguise and a safer one than a mask, for from a distance it didn’t look like a disguise. There was always the danger of a mask being spotted from some nearby window or passing car. As he was, casual passers-by, unless they got too close, would merely take him for a rather ugly man.

Slipping from the righthand door of the car, Cannon shot a quick glance in both directions, straightened his lanky form and strode briskly into the liquor store. The plump proprietor glanced up from his register with a customer-welcoming smile which disappeared the moment it began to form. His expression turned wary and he slowly raised his hands to shoulder height even before Cannon drew the thirty-eight automatic from his pocket. The instant reaction made Cannon feel a bleak sort of pride in his growing reputation.

“I guess you know who I am,” he said between his teeth, stepping behind the counter and aiming the gun at the proprietor’s belt buckle.

“Yes,” the plump man said without fright, but still wearing a wary expression. “I won’t give you any trouble. The money’s right there in the drawer.”

Contemptuously Cannon motioned him through a door immediately behind the counter, followed as the man backed into the storeroom, his hands still at shoulder height. After a quick glance around the room to make sure no one else was there, Cannon pushed the door partially shut to block the view from the street but still allow him a view of the main part of the store.

“Turn around,” he ordered.

The man presented his back. “You won’t have to shoot me,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to try anything.”

“You think I shoot people for nothing?” Cannon inquired sourly.

When there was no reply, Cannon said in a sharp voice, “Well, do you?”

“I know you have shot people,” the plump man said carefully. There was no fear in his voice, but it was extremely cautious, “I was merely pointing out that you have no cause to shoot me. I intend to cooperate fully.”

“Well, now. Then you can start by putting your hands down.”

Slowly, carefully, the man lowered his hands to his sides.

“Get on your stomach,” Cannon directed.

Without haste, but without delay either, the man dropped to hands and knees, then stretched full-length on the floor.

“Stay there until I tell you different,” Cannon directed.

Glancing through the partially open door of the storeroom, he saw that no one was passing on the street. Opening the door wide, he thrust the gun into his belt and stepped out to the cash register. The counter blocked the view of the prone man by anyone who might pass the front window, or even come into the store, but Cannon could still see him from the register. He kept flicking glances that way as he scooped bills from the open drawer and stuffed them into his suit-coat pockets. He ignored the change.

When the register was empty of bills, Cannon stepped back into the storeroom and partially closed the door again.

In a cold voice he said, “I guess you’ve read about me in the papers, haven’t you, mister?”

“Yes,” the man admitted.

“Tell me what you’ve read.”

After a momentary hesitation, the man said, “They call you the Nose Bandit.”

“I mean everything you’ve read.”

“Well, you’ve held up a lot of places. I believe you’ve killed three people.”

“You’d better believe it. What else?”

“The police advise not to resist you in any way.”

“That’s right. Why?”

The prone man said quietly, “I have no desire to make you angry.”

“The only way you’ll make me angry is not to do exactly as I say. Why do the cops advise people not to resist?”

With a sort of resigned caution, the man on the floor said, “They say you’re a psychopathic killer. That you’ll kill on the slightest provocation.”

“Now you’re coming along,” Cannon said with approval. “Do you believe that?”

“I only know what I’ve read. If you want me to believe it, I will. If you don’t, I won’t.”

“I want you to believe it,” Cannon said coldly. “That psycho stuff is window dressing because the fuzz is too dumb to catch me, but you’d better believe I’ll kill you if you give me any lip. You know why we’re having this little conversation?”

“I have no idea.”

“Because I figure it will save me a lot of time in the long run. You wouldn’t refuse to tell me anything I wanted to know, would you, Mr. Gilbert?”

“I doubt that it would be safe,” the proprietor said quietly.

“You are Arthur Gilbert, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I cased this job real thoroughly, Arthur. You keep a money box with the real cash in it. That chicken-feed in the register was just today’s receipts. You bank once a week, on Friday, and this is Thursday night, so that money box ought to be real full. I figure I’ll get to it faster if you tell me where it is than if I have to hunt for it while you lie here dead on the floor. But it’s up to you. I’m going to ask you once. If I don’t get a fast answer, I’m going to blow your brains out. Understand?”

“Perfectly. It’s behind the cognac on the bottom shelf over there in the corner.”

“Point,” Cannon instructed.

Raising one hand from the floor, Gilbert pointed.

Cannon had to remove two rows of cognac bottles before he found the square metal box behind them. It wasn’t locked, so he was spared the irritation of having to make Arthur Gilbert produce the key. There was nearly five hundred dollars in bills in it, plus a stack of checks. He pocketed the bills only.

Walking over to the storeroom door, he glanced out, then drew back again when he saw a young couple slowly walking past the plate-glass front window. He waited a few moments, looked again and saw that the street in front was now clear of pedestrians. Pulling the door wide open, he momentarily turned back to the man on the floor.

“You stay in that position for five minutes, Arthur,” he instructed. “If I see your head above the counter, I’ll blow it off. Understand?”

“I understand,” Gilbert said.

Without hurry Cannon walked from the store, climbed into the car in front of the store and drove away. A quarter block away he removed the fake glasses and false nose, folded them and put them into his inside breast pocket. Six blocks farther he abandoned the car in an alley across the street from a subway entrance, first carefully wiping the steering wheel and shift lever with a handkerchief. Ten minutes later he was on a subway to Brooklyn.

Within a half hour of the time he had left the liquor store, Cannon was ascending to the street from the Fulton Street station. He found his car parked where he had left it, a dozen yards from the subway entrance. He parked in front of his rooming house exactly at ten P.M. Tiptoeing past his landlady’s room, he went up the stairs without her hearing him. He always left for a job surreptitiously and returned as quietly. You never knew when a landlady’s testimony that you had been in your room all evening might come in handy.

In his room he counted the take. It came to five hundred and sixty-two dollars. It wasn’t exactly in a class with the Brinks robbery, he thought, but with his simple needs it would carry him for weeks.

Part of the enjoyment Harry Cannon derived from his chosen profession was the newspaper writeups he got. There was a scrapbook in a suitcase at the back of his closet containing news clippings of every job he had pulled There were twenty-two news accounts in all, the coverage on each progressively more detailed. The first, dated a little more than two years earlier, was a back-page, one-paragraph item describing a Bronx drugstore stickup by a man wearing a dime-store false nose and lensless frames. The latest was a full-column front-page spread headlined: NOSE BANDIT STRIKES AGAIN.

Cannon spent many quiet evenings in his room reading over his scrapbook. He particularly enjoyed comparing the sensational treatment his more recent exploits received with the routine coverage of his early jobs. Three kills had made him about the hottest news copy in town.

On Friday morning he was up early to buy all the New York papers. Back in his room again, he went through them one by one with growing puzzlement.

There wasn’t a single mention of last night’s robbery.

After some thought, it occurred to him that it was possible Arthur Gilbert had died of a heart attack after he had left the store, his body had been found and no one knew there had been a robbery. The man hadn’t appeared particularly frightened, but that may have been mere surface control. Beneath it, he may have been scared to death. Then too, he had read that fat people were more subject to heart attacks than others.

He searched all the papers again, this time for obituaries. There was no mention of Arthur Gilbert.

At noon he went out to buy the noon editions, again for the late afternoon editions, and later for the evening papers. There was still no mention of the robbery and no obituary item on Arthur Gilbert.

By then he was so puzzled, he would have been tempted to drive over to Manhattan and drive past the liquor store to see if Gilbert was still in evidence, except for one thing; he couldn’t have gotten there before nine-thirty P.M., and he knew the store would be closed. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

Saturday morning he bought all the papers again. When there was still no report of the robbery, he searched through each paper item by item to see if there was mention of Arthur Gilbert’s death, for he could conceive of no other reason that it hadn’t been reported. He didn’t find an obituary on the liquor store proprietor, but he did find something of interest in the personal column.

The item read: “If N.B., who visited my liquor store at closing time Thursday night will phone Circle 1-62006, he will learn something of great financial advantage.”

“N.B.” could stand for nose bandit, Cannon reflected. “A.G.” could be Arthur Gilbert. Checking the other papers, he found the same ad running in all of them.

In the hallway outside his room there was a pay telephone, and on a small table next to it was a stack of telephone directories. He checked the Manhattan liquor store, and there it was: Circle 1-62006. He returned to his room to think the matter over.

It was evening before he came to the decision to phone the number. By then his curiosity was so aroused that he couldn’t resist. But, in the event that it was some kind of police trap, he took the subway to Grand Central Station and phoned from one of the booths there. He made the call at 8:45 P.M.

When a pleasant voice said, “Gilbert’s Liquor Store,” Cannon said tersely, “I saw your ad.”

There was a swift indrawing of breath, then Arthur Gilbert said with a peculiar mixture of relief and eagerness, “There’s no one else here, so we can talk.”

“Then start talking.”

Gilbert said, “You noticed there was nothing in the papers about our — ah — meeting, I suppose.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I didn’t report it. As a demonstration of good faith in case you saw the ad, I have a business proposition for you.”

“Yeah? What kind?”

“A job for you. No risk, and the take is twenty thousand. We split fifty-fifty. Interested?”

Cannon was silent for a moment. Then he said, “This is a new one. A victim wanting to go partners with the guy who knocked him over.”

In a reasonable tone the liquor dealer said, “You’re the only person in your — ah — profession I’ve ever had contact with. If I had known how to contact someone with your talents, I would have done it long ago, because this plum has been waiting to be plucked for some time. I risked forgetting the amount you took the other night in the hope that I could get in contact with you. It was a real risk too, because it’s going to take some fancy bookkeeping to cover the shortage.”

There was another silence on Cannon’s part. Then he said, “Why didn’t you mention this job the other night?”

Gilbert said dryly, “You have a reputation for being rather trigger quick. I thought of it, but I’m a cautious man. I thought it probable that if I tried to shift the subject of conversation, you’d put a bullet in my back before you understood what I was getting at.”

“I might have,” Cannon admitted. “I like people to listen and not interrupt when I’ve got a gun on them.”

“I was still thinking of it five minutes after you left, and regretting that there was no way to get in touch with you. Then, just as I was reaching for the phone to call the police, I thought of placing a personal ad.”

Cannon said abruptly, “We’ve talked enough for now, in case you’ve got cops tracing this call. I’ll phone you Monday.”

He hung up.

Back in his room Cannon considered the conversation from all angles. If the police were using Arthur Gilbert to set a trap, it seemed a rather far-out scheme. Cannon had never heard of a case where a victim was employed in an attempt to gain the confidence of a stickup artist.

The more he thought about it, the more he was inclined to believe that Arthur Gilbert actually was prepared to finger some job. Trying to put himself in the liquor dealer’s place, he was unable to find any illogic in the man’s actions. Convinced that all men were as basically dishonest as himself, it didn’t seem in the least odd to Cannon that a seemingly law-abiding merchant would make himself accessory to armed robbery providing he had to take no personal risk. Cannon sincerely believed that fear of consequences was the only thing which prevented many ostensibly honest men from employing his own method of making a living.

Perhaps Arthur Gilbert had often daydreamed of how easy it would be to knock over the twenty grand he was now prepared to finger. He wouldn’t have the guts to do it himself, of course, or, as he had pointed out over the phone, the underworld contacts to pass on his information to anyone who could use it. The thought of all that easy money would merely lie in the back of his mind, awaiting an accidental encounter with a real pro to give it concrete substance.

It was worth checking out in any event, Cannon decided. Providing he could make contact with Arthur Cannon without risk.

Turning his thoughts to this problem, it didn’t take him long to work out a plan for making safe contact. If it was a police trap, by now Gilbert would have reported to the police that the Nose Bandit had promised to phone again Monday. The fuzz would expect no further attempt at contact before then, and they certainly wouldn’t expect it in any way other than a phone call at the store.

The only defect he could see in his plan to make contact was that it involved letting Arthur Gilbert see his face without diguise, something no other victim had ever done. But there was a solution to that. Once their business was finished, he could make another call at the liquor store some night and dispose of Gilbert.

He tabled the matter until Monday morning.

Though Cannon knew what commuter train Arthur Gilbert took home in the evening, because he had once followed him home and had sat two seats behind him on the train, he didn’t know which train he took in the morning. It couldn’t be a very early one, though, as the man didn’t arrive at the liquor store until noon.

To be on the safe side, Cannon was parked at the station on Long Island at nine-thirty A.M.

When Cannon had followed the liquor dealer home, Gilbert had climbed into a parked station wagon when he got off the train. Lacking a car to follow him the rest of the way, Cannon had to content himself with checking the phone book. As only one Arthur Gilbert was listed on Long Island, he knew the man’s address, but on the chance that Gilbert’s home was under police surveillance, he thought it safer to wait at the train station rather than attempting to trail him clear from his home.

It seemed that Gilbert caught the ten A.M. train, for it was nearly a half hour before Cannon spotted his station wagon pulling into the parking area. The man was alone, and, since no other car followed him into the area, he didn’t seem to be under surveillance.

Cannon reached the gate a step behind the liquor dealer. He was on his heels as the plump man entered a car. When Gilbert took a rear seat next to the window, Cannon sat next to him. The liquor store proprietor gave him a casual glance, then opened a morning paper.

As the train started to move, Cannon studied the other nearby passengers. At this time of day there were as many women as men, most of them having the appearance of housewives off on shopping trips. The men all appeared to be businessmen, and none so much as glanced at Gilbert. By the time the conductor had come by to collect Cannon’s fare and punch Gilbert’s commuter ticket, Cannon was satisfied that no police officer had the liquor dealer under observation.

In a quiet voice Cannon said, “Let’s resume our conversation.”

Gilbert gave him a startled look. Carefully he folded his newspaper and laid it on his lap. He studied his seat-mate with fascinated eyes.

“Don’t look a hole in me,” Cannon said.

The liquor dealer emitted held breath. “You gave me a jolt, Mr. — ah — I don’t suppose you want to mention your name. It’s going to take me a moment to get used to you. I’m not a very courageous man, and frankly you scare me silly.”

“You didn’t act very scared the other night,” Cannon said suspiciously. “And you don’t look scared now. In fact, you look pleased.”

“Oh, I am,” Gilbert assured him. “But nevertheless you make me uneasy. I just conceal my emotions rather well.”

This seemed logical to Cannon. Since he had begun to gain news headlines, most of his victims trembled with terror the moment he appeared. Gilbert’s calmness had bothered him a little, and he was glad to know it was all front. He liked to be feared.

He asked, “What is this job?”

“Robbing my home.”

Cannon stared at him. “Come again?”

“First I had better explain my circumstances,” Gilbert said. “My wife has all the money in our family.”

“Yeah?”

The liquor dealer gave his head a wry nod. “When you marry for money, Mr. — I keep forgetting you have no name — you earn every cent of it. That little liquor store I run was financed by my wife, a sort of a bone she tossed me to give me something to do. Once a month her brother comes down to audit the books. If there’s a nickel short, she knows it. That’s what I meant when I told you I was taking a real risk in covering a shortage of over five hundred dollars. The total receipts are turned over to Emily and I get doled out an allowance. The house is in her name, the boat, the station wagon and the other car. Everything.”

Cannon frowned. “How come you put up with that? No guts?”

Gilbert flushed slightly. “It isn’t quite as bad as I make it seem. I have the use of everything she owns. Plus membership in an exclusive country club. Plus charge accounts in a dozen stores, so I can buy all the clothes I want. But cash I don’t have. You’ll never find me with more than fifty dollars in my wallet. Just once I’d like some real money of my own to spend without supervision. I’d like to spread my wings a bit before I’m too old to enjoy spending.”

Cannon said without cynicism, “You’ve got some doll lined up, huh?”

Gilbert smiled a trifle sheepishly. “I’d rather not discuss my precise need for money. At any rate, my wife keeps a substantial sum in the house at all times, seldom less than twenty thousand dollars. It’s in a wall safe in her bedroom.”

“I’m no safe cracker,” Cannon said dubiously.

“You don’t have to be. I’ll give you the combination.”

Cannon’s eyes narrowed. “If you know the combination, why don’t you lift it yourself?”

“Because she’d know I took it. No one but the two of us know it. She’d throw me out of the house.”

“With twenty grand, you could afford to be kicked out.”

Gilbert smiled bitterly. “You don’t know my wife. She would have me prosecuted and thrown in jail. And even if I got away with it, it wouldn’t be worth it. I’m her sole heir and she’s worth three-quarters of a million dollars. She’s also not well. I prefer to stay in her good graces.”

Cannon nodded. “Okay. What’s the setup?”

“My wife is a semi-invalid and spends most of her time in her room. She had a slight stroke a couple of years ago and is paralyzed from the waist down. She has a practical nurse to take care of her when I’m not there, but Miss Prentice goes home as soon as I get in from work. Late at night the two of us are usually alone in the house. We seldom have a guest.”

“I see. You want me to walk in some night and stick you up?”

“Not when I’m there,” Gilbert said dryly. “It’s going to be a little more complicated than a simple stickup. We’ll set a specific time and I’ll arrange to be over next door at her brother’s. She doesn’t object to my leaving her alone for short periods, as long as she knows where I am. She has a bedside phone, so she can always reach me, you see.”

Cannon gave him a bleak grin. “All right. Set a time.”

Gilbert pursed his lips. “How about tonight? I get home about eleven P.M. and the practical nurse leaves as soon a I get there. Don — that’s Emily’s brother — never goes to bed until the late show is over, so there will be nothing odd about my dropping in on him at midnight. I do it often. Emily watches it too, as a matter of fact. You’ll probably find her in her wheelchair in front of the portable in her room when you walk in. I’ll leave by the side door. If you take a station by the garage, you’ll see me leave and can use the same door to enter the house. I’ll leave it off the latch.”

“How do I get to her room?”

“The side door is on the east side of the house. Walk straight ahead down a hall to the stairs. At the top of the stairs turn right. Emily’s bedroom is the second door on the right and the safe is behind the picture on the north wall. A word of caution, though. Don’t let her hear you until the instant you open her door. That shouldn’t be difficult, because there is wall-to-wall carpeting throughout the house. But walk softly anyway. She keeps a gun in her bedside stand, and I don’t want any shooting. In spite of her strictness about money, I’m really rather fond of the old girl. I want your promise that you won’t harm her.”

Cannon said, “I never harm anybody who behaves.”

When Gilbert looked a little dubious, Cannon said, “If you’re thinking about those three, I had reasons. That smart punk in the filling station tried to jump me. The woman in that drugstore started to scream her head off. And the old man in the delicatessen wouldn’t tell me where he kept his cash box. I don’t use my gun unless it’s necessary.”

Cannon’s reasons for killing didn’t seem to reassure Gilbert much. He continued to look dubious. He said, “Well, it can’t possibly be necessary in this case. She can’t jump you because she can’t move from her chair without assistance. And she can’t scream because she speaks only in a bare whisper. Her stroke partially paralyzed her vocal chords. I want your assurance that you won’t harm her or the whole deal is off.”

“I told you I don’t gun people for nothing,” Cannon said irritably. “That psycho killer stuff is just to make news. What’s the safe combination?”

Gilbert gave his head a slow shake. “You don’t get that until the last minute. You might get the idea to walk in before I got home and clean the safe without cutting me in. I wouldn’t want you to try it with Miss Prentice there. She might try jumping you or screaming. And I don’t want anyone killed. You meet me when I walk out the side door and I’ll give you the combination.”

Cannon shrugged.

“Now you can’t simply walk to the safe and open it,” Gilbert said. “Emily would wonder how you knew the combination. You’ll have to fake being a professional safe-cracker. Put your ear to the safe as you turn the knob and so on. Will you do that?”

“I’ll put on an act,” Cannon agreed.

“You won’t have to worry about Emily giving an alarm even after you leave,” Gilbert said. “If you cut the phone cord in her room, she’ll be quite helpless. Her’s is the only extension on the second floor, and she can’t get downstairs in her wheelchair. She can’t even scream. She’ll simply have to wait until I return. I’ll stay over at Don’s until one A.M. in order to give you plenty of time for a getaway. All you have to do is lift the ten thousand dollars from the safe and walk out.”

“Ten thousand?” Cannon said with a frown. “I thought it was twenty grand.”

Gilbert smiled slightly. “You’ll have to forgive me for my lack of trust, but how do I know you’d arrange to get my split to me? I haven’t the slightest idea who you are or how to get in contact with you. I’ll remove my half before you arrive. Emily always wheels her chair to the stairhead with Miss Prentice when she leaves, so I’ll have an easy opportunity.”

Cannon’s last lingering doubts about the liquor dealer’s good faith evaporated. Though his manner hadn’t indicated any distrust of the arrangements, ever since the conversation started Cannon had been searching for some hint that the whole thing might be an elaborate police trap. The realization that Gilbert didn’t trust him any more than he trusted the liquor dealer settled his suspicions once and for all.

There was one factor Gilbert apparently hadn’t considered though, Cannon thought with a grim inner smile. What was to prevent him from cold-cocking the liquor dealer as he came from the side door, relieving him of his ten thousand, then going inside for the rest?

A moment later he was startled to learn that Gilbert had considered this factor. The plump man said casually, “Incidentally, in case you have thoughts of getting the entire twenty thousand, the excuse I plan to use for going over to Don’s house is to show him my new shotgun. It’s a double-barrelled ten-guage. I’ll have it in my hands when I walk out of the house. Loaded. As I mentioned before, I’m not a very courageous man, but I really wouldn’t have much fear of going up against a pistol with a shotgun. It would be a pretty one-sided duel.”

In spite of himself Cannon began to feel grudging respect for the careful planning Arthur Gilbert had done.

After a moment Gilbert added, “On the other hand, you don’t have to fear my double-crossing you by blasting with the shotgun when I walk out. The only way I can stay clear of suspicion is for you to rob the safe and get away clean.”

Cannon nodded. “I guess we understand each other. We’ll pull it off tonight.”

It would have been pointless for Cannon to ride the train all the way back to Long Island to pick up his car, drive it back to Brooklyn, then have to drive to Long Island again that night. He simply left the car there all day and caught the evening train which left an hour before the one Arthur Gilbert took. This gave him an hour to case the layout before Gilbert arrived home.

The home was a broad, two-story brick building set well back from the street with a good fifty feet of lawn between it and the houses on either side. Driving past it slowly, Cannon noted only two rooms were lit. One, on the lower floor, was probably the front room. The other was a front corner room upstairs. He guessed this to be Emily Gilbert’s room.

Though he had abandoned all suspicion of a police trap, he searched the shadows beneath trees as he passed anyway. There was no sign of a stakeout. A several-years-old car was parked in front of the house, but he saw it was empty as he passed. He assumed it probably belonged to the practical nurse.

Cannon circled the block, parked a half block away and cut through several back yards to reach the double garage behind Gilbert’s home. The garage doors were open and he could see a large sedan parked in the stall which wasn’t vacant.

There was a half moon, but a huge elm near the garage cast the east side of the building in deep shadow. Cannon leaned against the side of the garage and waited. From this point he had a perfect view of the side door fifty feet away.

A few minutes before eleven headlights swung into the driveway. Cannon faded behind the garage until the station wagon drove into it, then moved back to his former position.

A car door slammed and footsteps sounded on the concrete floor. Then Arthur Gilbert’s plump form rounded the corner and the man peered toward him in the darkness.

“That you?” Gilbert inquired cautiously.

Cannon said, “Uh-huh.”

The liquor dealer made a relieved noise. “All set?”

“Uh-huh,” Cannon repeated.

“Just wait here until I come out,” Gilbert instructed. “I’ll come to you. I’ll try to make it by eleven-thirty.”

“Okay,” Cannon said laconically.

Turning, the plump man walked away and entered the house by the side door. Cannon leaned his back against the garage and waited.

Harry Cannon was a patient man, which was one of the reasons he was so successful in his field. He was capable of standing for hours without boredom, studying the comings and goings of customers, when casing a potential job. The wait the next half hour didn’t bother him in the least. He didn’t even feel the need of a cigarette.

A few minutes after Gilbert went indoors, a woman in white uniform came from the side door and walked down the driveway to the street. A moment later he heard the car parked in front drive away.

It was just eleven-thirty when the side door opened again. The plump figure of Arthur Gilbert appeared and moonlight glinted from the twin barrels of the shotgun under his arm. Cannon straightened as the man approached. When Gilbert got within a few feet of him, the barrels raised to center on Cannon’s stomach.

“What’s that for?” Cannon asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Just precaution,” Gilbert said quietly. “I’m going to give you the combination now, and I’ll feel safer having you covered once you have that. I plan to keep the ten thousand I have in my pocket.”

“You think of all the angles, don’t you?” Cannon said coldly. “What’s the correct combination?”

“R-3, L-27, R-4, L-2. Better repeat it to yourself a few times.”

Cannon soundlessly began moving his lips. After a time he said aloud, “R-3, L-27, R-4, L-2.” He gave Gilbert a questioning look.

“You have it,” Gilbert said with approval. “Emily is in her chair watching television. Do you have your disguise?”

Reaching into his inside breast pocket, Cannon drew out the false nose and fitted it into place. The shotgun continued to bear on him.

With a frown Cannon said, “Well, get started next door.”

The liquor dealer’s teeth showed in the darkness. “I don’t think I want to turn my back on you, friend. I’ll go next door after you’re inside.”

“You’re a trusting soul,” Cannon growled.

He circled the man and the shotgun moved with him. He was conscious of it still aimed at his back when he reached the side door. Trying the door, he found it unlocked, pushed it open, then glanced back toward the garage. Gilbert stepped from shadow into moonlight, the shotgun now aimed downward. Lifting one hand in a salute, the man moved off across the lawn toward the house next door.

Cannon entered the house and quietly shut the door behind him.

There was only a dim light on in the hall, which bisected the house from one side to the other. At its far end he could see the stairs. His feet moved soundlessly on the thick carpeting as he went the length of the hall and climbed the stairs to the upper floor. There was a night light on in the upper hall too. Without sound he moved to the second door on the right and placed his ear against it. Inside he could hear a television set going.

Drawing his gun, he flicked off the safety, placed his hand on the knob, turned it and slammed the door wide open.

Directly facing him was a middle-aged, gray-haired woman seated in a wheelchair. She wore a robe over a nightgown and her eyes were burning with rage. Her lips were moving soundlessly in what seemed to be mute curses. Both hands rested on the arms of the chair and the right one held a revolver, its butt firmly set against the wood of the chair arm. The muzzle pointed straight at the doorway.

Cannon reacted faster than he had ever reacted in his life. His finger was squeezing the trigger before the knob of the door crashed back against the wall.

The bullet caught the woman squarely in the heart. Her mouth popped open and her right arm jolted from the chair to hang downward, still gripping the gun. She made a gurgling noise in her throat and her head slowly slumped to her chest.

With one stride Cannon was across the room and had jerked her head up by the hair. One look was enough. She had died instantly.

Flicking on his safety, he shoved the gun into his belt and moved to the picture on the north wall. Jerking it from its hook, he flung it aside. Behind it, just as Gilbert had said, was a small wall safe.

Mouthing the numbers aloud, he rapidly spun the dial. Within a matter of seconds the safe was open. His eyes lighted with satisfaction at the thick stack of currency inside. He didn’t bother to count it, ramming it into various pockets as rapidly as he could. It took both coat pockets and both side pockets of his trousers to hold it all.

Within a minute and a half of the time he had entered the room, he strode out again and ran toward the stairs.

He came to an abrupt halt as he rounded the corner and reached the top of the stairs. On the landing below him stood Arthur Gilbert with the shotgun aimed upward. He was smiling quite calmly-

Cannon’s last thought was the indignant realization that Arthur Gilbert had lied to him. The liquor dealer had said he wasn’t a courageous man. In that final moment Cannon could tell by the expression on his face that he was as cold-blooded and emotionless as Cannon himself, no doubt about it.

He made a frantic grab for his belt, got the gun halfway out just as both barrels of the shotgun blasted. He felt a searing flash of pain which seemed to encompass his whole body, then he felt nothing.

Stepping over the dead man, Arthur Gilbert moved to the open door of his wife’s bedroom. Viewing the scene inside with satisfaction, he leaned his shotgun outside the door and went inside.

He had some difficulty prying her stiff fingers away from the gun, nearly as much as he had had earlier when he forced them around it. When it was free, he dropped the gun into the drawer of the bedside stand and closed the drawer.

Then he left the room and went downstairs.

The side door burst open just as he reached the bottom of the stairs. A tall, lean man of about fifty rushed in, came to an abrupt halt and stared at Gilbert. Moving toward him like a sleepwalker, Gilbert allowed his face to assume an expression of dazed shock.

“For God’s sake, what was all the shooting?” the lean man inquired.

Gilbert said dully, “The Nose Bandit, Don. Miss Prentice must have left the door unlatched when she left. I was in the basement cleaning my new shotgun when I heard the shot. I loaded it and rushed upstairs just in time to meet him coming down. He’s dead. I let him have both barrels.”

“What about Emily?” his brother-in-law asked.

“That was the first shot,” Gilbert said, his face squeezing into an expression of grief. “Her bedroom safe is wide open and she’s dead. He killed her.”

“Oh, no!” the lean man said in a horrified voice. “Poor Emily!”