Black Mask Detective (Vol. 34, No. 3 — May 1950)

A curvaceous cutie spoiled insurance-salesman Len Martin’s holiday — when she let her throat be cut to prove...

Chapter One Boardwalk Bier

If I hadn’t been such a wise guy and tried to finagle the boss out of a holiday in the mountains, I wouldn’t have gone to the beach and ended up with a beautiful but dead blonde in my lap. I know that sounds a little paradoxical — but then murderers don’t pay much attention to the English language, either.

The boss is a cunning old guy named Mike Hartley who looks like a sweet old gent but is really a louse. He’s got a small office down on Nassau Street with a sign outside which says Insurance. For six weeks now, I’ve been working for him and I’ve yet to write my first policy — except one with my name on it which the old man insisted I take out, “just in case you drop dead or something.”

A rule of the firm, he called it. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if somebody had insured Mike Hartley against insurance, because I haven’t seen a signed policy cross his desk yet either.

Where the slimy old guy gets his cash I’ve yet to figure out, but as long as he keeps paying me the green stuff once a week, why should I care?

“Look, Mr. Hartley,” I blurted out rather bluntly, “I gotta have a vacation — I need it.”

Mike Hartley’s cold eyes slithered over my hundred and ninety pounds, all six feet of it; his smile was crooked but he looked pleased.

“So poor over-worked Len Martin needs a holiday, huh? Well, young feller, I was just thinking the same thing.”

I had expected a fight. I just looked surprised and said nothing.

“Tell you what, Martin — hop on the bus and run down to Atlantic City for a few days.”

“Atlantic City!” I cut in. “Who wants to go to the beach? I was thinking about the Catskills.”

“Since when do I pay. you to think around here, Martin?”

It was a rotten crack, and he knew it. But it was true just the same. That’s the way he wanted it. He did the brain work — I did the leg work. But he also did the paying. So it didn’t bother me — much.

I started to get up, and then his voice took on the sound of No. 40 oil running down the drain.

“Now listen here, Martin, as long as I’m going to pay all your expenses, why should you care where you spend your vacation?”

That picked me up a lot, so I didn’t stop to think that it was way out of character. I mumbled. “Hey, you’ve got something there.”

Then he slipped a thick sealed envelope out of the desk drawer and handed it to me like it was the answer to the atomic bomb.

“Now you’ve got something there, Martin,” he grunted. He squinted at my open mouth. “Just a little something you can do for me,” he explained, “while you’re on vacation.”

I might have known there was a catch. It was going to be a vacation with pay all right — but with work, too.

“Just a couple of policies for a client,” he said. “All you have to do is get her signature. There’s nothing too difficult about it.”

I took the envelope from him and eyed the red sealing wax all over the back of it.

“What’s in it?” I asked sarcastically. “Radium?”

The old man shifted a little uneasily.

“I just told you — policies to be signed.”

I pointed at the sealing wax. “What’s the secret? What am I supposed to do, wear dark glasses when she signs ’em?”

“Oh that!” He laughed nervously. “Well, this client is a little — er, peculiar. She wants to keep this strictly between herself and the insurance company.”

“And you,” I added.

“Naturally. I’m her broker.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I sung out again. “Look away while she’s signing them? And what if there are questions to ask about the policy? How am I to—”

He cut off short with a wave of his pudgy hand. “There won’t be any questions, Martin. And besides, I’m just following her instructions. After she’s signed the policies, you can read every line for all I care. But remember—” he wagged a forefinger at me sternly — “I want those policies signed. And call me when you get there.”

“Dames!” I muttered disgustedly to myself and looked at the name written on the envelope. Then I promptly came alive. It read: Miss Ethel Winters, Boardwalk Hotel, Atlantic City. If she was the gal I had to do business with, maybe a vacation at the beach might turn out to be just that.

I remembered her all right. She’d been in to see the old man only a few days ago, and this wasn’t the kind of a gal you forget easily. She was a sweet-looking blonde with short hairdo and long legs.

It didn’t take me long to pack, and after phoning the Old Man what time I was leaving, I grabbed a taxi to 60th Street. Four and a half hours after I got on the bus, I arrived in that vacation paradise, Atlantic City.

My first stop was the Boardwalk Hotel, and after I registered — with a little assistance from a ten spot — I showered and changed.

“Call me when you get down there,” the Old Man had said. So being the kind of a guy who follows orders — it was a throw-back to my army training, I guess — I called him.

After a while I heard him pick up the receiver at the other end, and his squeaky voice said, “Hello.”

“Hello, Mr. Hartley,” I started to say, “I just got down—”

“Don’t bother me — I’m busy,” he grunted and slammed down the receiver.

I banged the phone down and kicked the waste-paper basket half way across the room. Then I picked up the phone again.

“Connect me with Miss Ethel Winters, huh?”

“Who’s calling, please?”

I tossed my name into the mouthpiece and got a surprise.

“Oh, Mr. Martin. She’s expecting you, sir. She left word for you to go right up, just as soon as you came in. Room 412, sir.”

I clicked the receiver back in its hook, but nothing clicked with me. The Old Man hadn’t said that she was expecting me. I tucked the sealed envelope into the inside pocket of my sports jacket, and with a final tug at my tie and an approving glance at the mirror, I opened the door and walked out into the hallway — and smack into the biggest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.

He just stood there, his little pig eyes boring right through me. Did I say big? This guy was a cross between Gargantua and Mr. Joe Young. I didn’t like the way his brown fedora sat on the back of his bullet-shaped head; or the flat gorilla nose; or the long arms that hung almost to his knees, with the hairy hunks of meat at the end of each of them. I started to close the door, and then he spoke.

“Never mind that, bud. Get back where you came from.”

Now if he had meant New York City, I’d have been glad to oblige. But he didn’t. He meant my room.

“What’s up?” I asked. “What’s the beef?”

His huge fists clenched, and his eyes got harder — if that was possible.

“You’re up, bud, but not for long. And when I get through with you, you’re going to be the beef, ’cause that pretty face of yours is going to look like hamburger, get me?”

I got him all right, and I started to back up.

“You ain’t gonna mess around with no more women,” he said. Then his voice got low and came out through his teeth. “You’ve made a sap out of your last dame.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t care. I knew his intentions. I turned around and walked into my room. Just as I crossed the threshold, I reached out and flung the heavy door back behind me with all my strength.

It caught him flush alongside his big head, and he dropped as if he’d been hit by Joe Louis. I slammed the door shut, jumped over his rolling body, and took off the way I used to every Saturday afternoon when I had a pigskin tucked under my arm. I didn’t know what the big ape wanted, but just then I wasn’t stopping to ask.

I didn’t apply the brakes until I got to Room 412. The door wasn’t quite closed. I knocked a couple of times and there was no answer. I figured maybe Ethel Winters wasn’t there, but as long as she was expecting me, I walked in.

She was there, all right — propped up in bed, wearing a nightgown and a big grin. Only the grin was in the wrong place — it was in her throat. Her neck had been slashed so savagely that it had practically taken her head right off her shoulders. An army trench-knife was still imbedded deep in her pink flesh. I looked down at her beautiful body — then at the bedspread soaked red with her blood, and I knew that if I didn’t get out of there fast, I was going to be sick.

For the next couple of hours I walked up and down the boardwalk, taking deep drags on cigarettes and the much-advertised Atlantic City air. Neither seemed to do me much good. Every time I thought of that blood-spattered bed, my stomach started playing pat-a-cake with my Adam’s apple.

It was quite dark when I got back to the hotel. The lobby was crawling with cops, so I knew that they’d discovered Ethel Winters’ body. I started to do what I should have done in the first place — tell the police what I’d found when I walked into that room. I got over to the desk, where the small cluster of men was standing. Half of them were in uniform and the others wore plain clothes.

A thin hawk-faced man, with piercing black eyes, was doing the talking. The others just listened.

Then the desk-clerk looked up, saw me, and said something to them. All of a sudden I’d never seen so many eyes at one time before — and they were all looking at me.

“Who’s in charge here?” I asked.

“Why?” said the little sergeant with a roly-poly stomach and eyes to match. “Something on your mind?”

“I want to report a murder.”

“You don’t say?” he mouthed. “Now ain’t that interesting?”

The tall man with the piercing eyes silenced him with a motion of his hand. Then he turned to me.

“I’m your man,” he said. “Lieutenant Repetti, Atlantic City Homicide. You were saying?”

“My name is Len Martin,” I told him. “I’m from New York.”

“Now tell us something we don’t know.” He tapped the small notebook he held in his hand. “That, I’ve got.”

“Yeah,” chimed in the sergeant, “why not tell us about this here murder you’re so anxious to report?”

Anxious was hardly the word, but I told them why I was in the resort city and what I had found when I walked into Ethel Winters’ room.

“And what have you been doing since?” queried the sergeant suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you’ve been walking up and down the boardwalk getting the sea air.”

“Yeah, that’s just what I’ve been doing.”

“Oh no!” groaned the sergeant. “You hear that, Lieutenant? Why do these guys always pull that sucker routine?”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I protested. “Don’t get any ideas that I had anything to do with this.”

The sergeant slapped the side of his head and looked disgusted. Lieutenant Repetti poked a long forefinger into my chest.

“You should have come right to us when you found the girl’s body,” he barked. “Why didn’t you?”

“For Pete’s sake,” I fired at him, “I didn’t want to get mixed up in a murder.”

The sergeant laughed harshly, and now it was the lieutenant’s turn to look disgusted.

“And besides,” I went on, “I felt sick. I just wanted to get out of there and get some air.”

The lieutenant started to walk away from me. Then he turned suddenly as if he’d forgotten something.

“Were you in the Navy?” he asked.

“No — Army,” I told him. “First Division.”

“Infantry, huh?” mused the sergeant. “And you mean to tell me that a little blood makes you sick?”

“This is different.”

“I’ll bet.”

“But this was a girl,” I remarked. “She was beautiful.”

“Aw, come now, Martin.” yapped the sergeant pointedly. “You can speak plainer than that.”

“Shut up!” I yelled, and I felt like planting my fist in his fat face.

“Cut it, sergeant!” Lieutenant Repetti’s voice snapped like a whip. Then he looked over his shoulder at me. “Stick around, Martin. I want to ask you some questions about that insurance. I’ll send for you when I need you.”

I watched them walk away, and then nearly jumped a foot when the desk-clerk tapped me on the arm.

“Don’t let that fat slob of a sergeant get your goat, Mr. Martin. He’s a louse.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “He sure sounds like it.”

“Now that Lieutenant Repetti — he’s a real nice feller, Mr. Martin.” He grinned.

“Well, just so long as he doesn’t think I had anything to do with this, I’ll believe you.”

“Oh, he doesn’t think that, Mr. Martin.” The clerk ticked the bottom of his rimless glasses with his finger. “As a matter of fact, they know who killed her. Some great big hairy bruiser the maid saw running out of Miss Winters’ room.”

Chapter Two What’s in a Name?

I went back upstairs, stuck the key in my door, and walked in. Just as I reached over to the light switch, the door banged shut behind me, and something hard and round jabbed me between the shoulder blades.

Now, I’m no cop or private eye. I’m just a guy trying to learn the ropes in the insurance business; but I didn’t have to be told that it was a gun sticking in my back. I figured I couldn’t afford waiting to find out what the guy was going to do.

So I spun around, bending low to the ground and leaned to the right. My left arm pawed out with a sweeping motion, and the gun went flying across the room. I heard it land with a satisfying thud on the carpet. I came up out of my crouch and threw a hard right just where I thought his belly would be. It was there, all right, because my fist felt like it went in about six inches.

There was a low moan as the air whished out of gasping lungs, and although it was so dark that I couldn’t see the gunman in front of me, I sensed something falling forward. I stuck out my hands and grabbed. But the body suddenly went limp, and it felt all soft and feminine under my touch.

I reached out and found the light witch. My eyes didn’t make a liar of my sense of touch. It was a gal, all right — out cold. The way I’d hit her, she’d probably have a sore diaphragm for days to come.

I picked her up and put her on the bed. By the time I got the Army .45 off the floor and shoved in into my pocket and brought a glass of water from the bathroom, she was coming to.

She moaned a couple of times and her hands went to her midriff. I guess it hurt plenty. Then she spotted me bending over and her eyes looked frightened. She started to get up. I put my hand out and pushed her back on the bed.

“No you don’t, baby. You stay right where you are.”

“Please... please!” and she looked even more scared than before. “I must get up.”

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “If you get up now you’re going to be sick, and I’ve got a very sensitive stomach.”

Her hands were rubbing where I’d hit her, and I laughed a little callously. “You, too, eh?”

She didn’t reply, but just stayed there, taking long, deep breaths. I gave her the glass of water, and after she’d taken a few sips, I sat down beside her.

“Look, kid,” I said, “I’m sorry I slugged you so hard, but you shouldn’t go around pulling a gun on a guy. Now what’s it all about?”

I gave her a chance to answer, but she just bit her lips and looked at me through narrowed eyes. Then I got sore.

Here a dame sneaks into my room, sticks a .45 in my back for no apparent reason at all, and here am I sitting there like a sap, playing twenty questions with her, just because I’m sorry I hit her and because she’s built like the Taj Mahal.

I grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and puffed her up towards me.

“Look, baby, you’ve got some talking to do, and you’d better switch it on right now.”

Well, she switched it on all right. The tears flowed out of her beautiful eyes like the breakers rolling up on the beach outside my window. I just sat there like a dope, scratching my head, wondering what it was all about and wishing I’d never asked that stinking old boss of mine for a vacation.

After a while she got up and flexed her arms over her head, and I couldn’t help noticing that she had what every gal has — only more so.

“Why don’t you leave my sister alone?” she demanded. “Leave her alone, I say!”

I guess my mouth must have flopped open like a trout coming up for bait because she piled it on. “And you needn’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean, either.”

“Look, baby,” I replied slowly, “this may be a shock to you, but I don’t know what you’re gabbing about.”

I read surprise all over her face, so I kept talking. “I don’t know you and I don’t know your sister. And if she’s anything like you, it’s okay with me if I never run into her.”

Her lips started working and I thought for a second that she was going to cry again, but she didn’t. Instead, she blinked her lids at me and didn’t answer.

Then she showed me the back of her head as she walked over and stood looking out of the window. I must have convinced her all right, because she turned around and said hesitantly: “I... I must be wrong.”

“That sounds like a song title, baby,” I quipped. “But you sure are. Why pick on me?”

“I thought you were the heel messing up my sister’s life, so I decided—”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I cut in. “Do I look like a heel?”

“No,” she conceded with a half-smile. And then bit off, “But I didn’t know the rat’s name. And besides, the man at the desk told me that my sister left word she was expecting you. There wasn’t anybody else. Don’t you see? That’s why I thought that you...”

She left the sentence hanging, as the expression on my face gradually sank in.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“And your sister’s name is?”

Even before she answered, my intestines dropped two stories because I knew what she would say.

“Ethel Winters.”

I don’t know where I got the guts to tell Janie about her sister, but I did. Believe me, it was worse than D-Day on Omaha Beach, and she took it plenty hard, too. But she listened to everything I told her, just sitting there with that stricken look on her face.

“Oh, Ethel!” she moaned. “My poor darling.”

She dabbed a bit of lace furiously at her eyes. “But not Kosloff,” she cried. “It couldn’t be — the police must be mistaken! He loved her. He couldn’t kill Ethel.”

“Kosloff?” I exclaimed. “Who’s Kosloff?”

She tossed her head impatiently. “Kosloff the Great. He used to be a circus strong man.”

“Oh!”

“But he loved Ethel. Why would he kill her?”

I didn’t know the answer to that one, but at least I knew the name of the guy who was to make my face look like something you serve between a roll.

She told me that this Kosloff the Great had known her and her sister since they were kids and followed them around like a huge protective dog, particularly Ethel. I guess he’d made the same faux pas that Janie had made and thought I was the guy playing Ethel for a sucker.

Janie stood up slowly, her eyes rubbed red.

“I must see her, I’ve got to!”

“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” I protested.

“Why not?” she flung out, her eyes stabbing me.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Ask the police.”

“The police, the police!” she almost screamed. “They think poor Kosloff killed her! Why don’t they find the real murderer? Why don’t they?”

She began pacing up and down the room like she was determined to wear out the carpet in nothing flat.

“It’s that rat who wouldn’t leave her alone — he killed her!” She looked at me but I registered absolutely nothing. She moved towards me and put a warm hand on my arm. Her voice was irresistibly soft and appealing.

“Help me find him, please,” she pleaded.

Well, like I said before, I’m no cop. What little talent I have is directed into other channels. Just the same, it was plenty tough to say no to Janie’s vibrant voice and soft, red lips, but I did just that, wishing all the time that Lt. Repetti and his roly-poly sergeant were there.

Well, I got my wish, because just then a set of hard authoritative knuckles were laid against my door.

I opened up and in stalked the lieutenant with his fat sergeant right behind him. They pulled up short when they spotted Janie.

“Who’s the dame?” asked the sergeant.

I told him and his eyes bugged out.

“What’s she doing here with you, huh?”

I ignored him and spoke to the lieutenant. “Miss Winters wants to see her sister’s body, Lieutenant.”

He looked thoughtful and said quietly, “That can be arranged.”

The sergeant butted in harshly, “You got an army trench knife, Martin?”

I shook my head. “No.” Then suddenly I remembered the one I’d brought home with me from overseas. “Wait a minute,” I added quickly, “Yeah, I have one. Why?”

The sergeant flashed a look at Lt. Repetti, but the lieutenant’s keen eyes never left my face for a second, although his voice sounded casual and quite unconcerned.

“What did you do with that knife?”

“It’s on my desk at the office, Lieutenant. I used it as a letter opener, but I don’t see—”

The next words refused to come, although my mouth tried real hard. Because, all at once, I did see.

It had been an army trench knife that I had seen sticking out of Ethel Winters’ throat.

I felt my cheeks burning. “What are you guys trying to pull?” I yelled. “I don’t get it.”

The sergeant made noises in his throat. “But that blonde babe in 412 got it, Martin — right smack in her beautiful neck.”

What I saw in their faces gave me the willies. I glanced at Janie and she reminded me of a cat about to spring. Her lips formed a thin hard line across her white face. I tried to keep my mounting hysteria out of my voice.

“Millions of guys brought home trench knives, millions of them. Why pick on me?”

“Because, young fellow,” the lieutenant snapped, “your name is Len Martin.”

I waited helplessly, knowing that something terrible was about to happen.

The lieutenant continued, “And because the initials cut into the handle of the murder weapon are L. M.”

Then all hell broke loose. There was a sudden movement as Janie threw herself on me, scratching and screaming like a wild thing. I guess I was too stunned to do anything but just stand there wiping the flecks of blood from my face, as they rushed her out of the room.

I touched my cheek and it felt sore. I guess her fingernails had really dug in. I turned to the lieutenant.

“This is screwy. Why would I kill her? I didn’t even know the dame. And you’re all wet about that trench knife, too. It’s not mine.” I spread my arms out in front of me. “How can it be?”

“Did you put your initials on your knife?”

“Sure, I did. So what?” I challenged. “That doesn’t make me the murderer any more than it makes it my knife.”

“We’ll see,” he muttered quietly and nodded his head at the sergeant.

The fat guy came over and patted my pockets, and pretty soon Lt. Repetti was holding the sealed envelope my boss had given me and the gun I’d taken from Janie.

I told him about the gun and the man Janie was looking for. The sergeant laughed out loud, but the lieutenant looked interested and made some notes in that little book of his.

“Here, sergeant, catch!” He tossed the .45 across the room and I watched the fat boy grab it in the air and put it in his pocket.

The lieutenant fingered the envelope and looked at the sealing wax.

“What’s that for?” he grunted.

I started to explain but he had already opened the envelope and didn’t seem to hear what I was saying, so I shut up. He examined the policies briefly then looked up, waving them in the air.

“Policies to be signed, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t know what’s in them, huh?”

I shook my head. “That’s right.” Again I started to explain, but he stopped me cold with a movement of his hand.

“You didn’t know these were signed, huh?”

“You’re nuts,” I told him. “How can they be?”

His eyes darted from the policies he held in his hand to me. “Look,” he said and his bony finger pointed at the signature lines.

I looked, and I guess my eyes must have popped. Even from where I stood I could plainly read Ethel Winters’ signature on both policies.

Lt. Repetti whistled sharply and it brought me up short.

“They’re both for $10,000,” he was saying. “Her sister, Janie Winters, is the beneficiary on one. And the other—” He stopped and threw a quick glance at his fat assistant.

I saw the sergeant pull a .38 calibre pistol out of his holster and hold it loosely in his hand.

“Guess who gets the dough on the other one, Martin?” the lieutenant queried softly, and he held it up for me to see.

I took a step towards him and the sergeant’s gun made an arc in my direction. I strained to see the name typed under the word beneficiary. The blood drained out of my face and I got jelly in my knees, because the name written there was mine... Len Martin.

Chapter Three Rough Stuff

I must have looked like a sick dog because when I told them I was going to throw up, the sergeant shoved me roughly towards the bathroom.

“Get in there, mac.”

Just as we got to the door, I kicked out hard and my foot caught him wickedly in the right shin. He went down yelping with pain, grabbing his leg with both hands. Before they came alive I’d banged the bathroom door shut and snapped the lock. I opened the small window and went down the outside of the two-story fire-escape, hand over hand.

It had happened so fast that they didn’t have a chance, but I just had to have time to think. The way I figured it, a two by four cell in the city jail wasn’t going to accelerate my mental processes to any great extent.

I shuffled along with the crowd milling about the boardwalk for a while. Then I cut over to the main street and stopped in at a large drug store on the busiest corner. I ducked into a phone booth at the rear of the store and called the boss at his home in New York.

Right off the bat he asks smugly, “I presume you got those policies signed?”

“Who are you trying to kid?” I snapped into the phone. “You knew they were signed all the time.”

“That’s right,” I heard him say calmly.

“What’s the big idea?” And before he had a chance to answer, “And how the devil did my name get on there as beneficiary?” I tossed at him.

“Well, you should know by now, young fellow.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“That’s the way she wanted it,” and now he sounded a bit impatient. “It’s for me to follow instructions, understand?”

“What are you talking about?” I barked.

“Oh, come now, Martin.” His voice was ringed with ill-concealed amusement. “You don’t have to pull my leg. Obviously you and that girl must have been very close... uh... friends.”

“What?”

He laughed softly to himself. “Although it is somewhat of a mystery to me why she wanted to keep that policy such a secret from you,” he continued. “Sealing wax!” He clucked knowingly. “Women are such sentimental fools anyway.”

“Now, look here, Hartley,” I demanded. “I want to know—”

He interrupted me in a voice that was cold and biting. “If you’ve got any more questions about that stupid policy, Martin, I’d suggest that you take it up with your lady friend. Good-by.”

I tried to get him back but he wouldn’t answer the phone.

I got me a belly full of panic and I wanted to bolt for the nearest depot, grab the first bus out and keep going until I was a thousand miles away. But I didn’t because I knew I was a fool. I hadn’t been thinking right from the first moment I walked into that hotel. Somebody was playing me for a sap, with the electric chair as the payoff. Besides, by now Lt. Repetti probably had me on the teletype and I had as much chance of getting out of town as if I had my name in neon lights on my back.

“Maybe,” I conjectured, “if I could locate Ethel Winters’ guy...”

That gave me an idea and I phoned Janie at the hotel.

She really gave me a rough time. Here was a gal who had convicted me of murdering her sister before I’d even had a trial. She didn’t seem to be interested in the other guy any more. But somehow I sold her a bill of goods and she agreed to meet me an hour later. I suggested a deserted spot on the boardwalk at the northerly end of the beach. She told me she’d be there and I believed her.

After I hung up, it occurred to me that maybe persuading Janie to meet me had been easier than I had expected. Could be that she wasn’t sure after all that I was the killer.

I went to the far end of the beach and waited. There wasn’t a soul around, and the only sound was the crashing of the waves on the sandy beach coming with monotonous regularity.

I chain-smoked like mad and watched the moon throw indistinct shadows on the boardwalk as it ducked in and out of dark masses of clouds. After a while I could see Janie coming. She was alone. I stood there and let her flashlight pick me up. Then it winked out and she walked right up to me and said, “Well?”

I started to answer but the words got only as far as my lips. Too late I sensed something moving behind me and turned just in time to catch a huge hairy fist under the right ear.

The beach tilted sharply and I lost my footing. I rolled over, spat the sand out of my teeth and looked up.

Janie seemed to be dancing in front of me and she was grinning. I shook my head vigorously and took another look-see. She wasn’t dancing but she was still grinning. Kosloff the Great reached down and a big paw grabbed my shirt and yanked me to my feet.

“This time there ain’t gonna be no door, bud!” he growled.

Something crashed into my jaw and suddenly it was D-Day on Omaha again and all the guns in the world were going off in my face.

Now I know what they mean when they say he went down like a poleaxed steer. That was me — and there was almost as much blood. If I’d had any sense, which I hadn’t, I’d have stayed down after the fourth time, but I kept rolling to my feet and coming up for more. And I got it.

After a while the sand wouldn’t hold the weight of my body and I started falling through space. It must have been a very deep hole because I don’t remember getting to the bottom.

I came to fighting for breath; it felt as if I were drowning. I was lying face down on the wet beach and the waves were lapping at my head. I tried to get up but I couldn’t — something was on my back. It was a foot, a big heavy number 12.

“He’s coming to now,” said Kosloff’s deep voice. “He can take it, so I give it, yes?”

“No. That’s enough just now.”

It was Janie’s voice, but the sound of it was so strident that I could hardly recognize it.

“Bring him over here,” she told him.

Kosloff picked me up and flung me over his broad shoulder like a side of beef. He walked for a few moments, then dumped me heavily into the sand. I didn’t move for a few seconds because I couldn’t. I ached all over and I felt tired and sleepy, but I forced myself to sit up and take stock.

I tried to talk, but my bruised lips never got past the unintelligible muttering stage.

Then Janie started laughing. After a while I caught on that she was laughing at me. It hurt. I was still being played for a sap and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Finally she stopped laughing and said, “Things catch up, Mr. Martin, don’t they?”

“Yeah, bud, that’s right,” boomed Kosloff. “First we work you over but good, and then you end up on the cops’ door-step. Pretty, huh?”

Listening to the strong man’s heavy voice and looking at Janie’s grinning face, I was beginning to get some crazy ideas. I rolled over to my knees and sat there like Buddha for a few minutes, trying to take stock. At last I blurted out what had slowly been taking shape in my mind.

“You killed her, didn’t you, Janie?” I said harshly. “You murdered your own sister!”

I caught the stunned look on Janie’s face and then Kosloff grabbed me, jabbering something about finishing me off. Short jarring blows poured down on me like a heavy rain, but it didn’t bother me any more. I didn’t even feel the storm because I was swimming in a nice warm pool. Only it kept spinning around faster and faster and faster, until I knew I couldn’t keep above water very much longer.

At last I let go, and as I went under, I saw Janie tearing at the big man’s arms, and heard her screaming. Only I didn’t know what she was saying. I was floating... floating...

My body felt hot and heavy with soreness. My mouth was dry and filled with millions of sharp little needles, but there was something about my head and eyes that was deliciously cool and soothing.

A small soft hand was tenderly stroking my brow. I was stretched out on the sand, my head resting in Janie’s lap, her fingers gently massaging my forehead. She had been crying and the sound of her voice was still filled with it.

“You’ll be all right,” she soothed. “Just rest, please.”

I tried to move and waves of nausea rolled over me. I swallowed hard and stayed where I was.

“I’m a fool,” whispered Janie. “I thought you killed Ethel. But when you accused me, I knew you couldn’t have done it or you wouldn’t think I had.”

I sighed wearily. “What difference does it make? I’m tired of running.”

“No, no.” There was a catch in her throat. “You’re tired, hurt... It was that terrible beating — that brute, Kosloff.”

“What was he trying to prove?” I asked. “How much punishment a man can stand?”

“It’s my fault,” she murmured. “I was glad when he was doing it.”

“That’s nice to know,” I muttered bitterly.

“We were sure you had murdered Ethel, and he was going to half kill you and then turn you over to the police.” She rung her hands. “It makes me sick when I think of it.”

I managed a thin smile. “Makes you sick?” I touched my battered face and shuddered.

“Oh, I’m sorry, so terribly sorry,” she said. “If there was just something I could do...”

There was, and after what had happened to me I didn’t hesistate to lay it on the line. “You’re going to help me catch the real killer, baby,” I said.

Forty-five minutes later we got out of Janie’s car and went into a small diner twenty miles the other side of Atlantic City. I ordered sandwiches and coffee for both of us and there we sat, the two people who had every reason to benefit most by Ethel Winters’ death — ten thousand reasons a piece and all of them with a dollar sign tucked in front.

Only I hadn’t killed the gal — and if I was to believe Janie and follow my masculine instincts, neither had Janie.

“There’s nobody,” she said in answer to my question about her relatives. “Ethel was all the family I had.” She shook her head sadly from side to side and I looked thoughtful.

“The same goes for me,” I volunteered. “So I guess I can’t pin it on some guy who’d get the ten thousand dollars if I got the chair.”

Then suddenly I tingled all over. I snapped my fingers sharply under Janie’s nose and she jumped with a start.

There was someone who would benefit if I was stashed six feet under. Mike Hartley, my boss! There was that insurance policy he’d made me take out when he hired me, and Hartley, Inc. was the beneficiary. A rule of the firm, he’d insisted, and I do mean insisted. I needed the job so I let him write me up. Had he also written my ticket to the death house? I told Janie what I was thinking.

“But how was he mixed up with my sister?”

She was alive with the expectant excitement that she had caught from me. I tried to think slowly and clearly, but I couldn’t find the answer to her question. All I knew was that Mike Hartley had written Ethel’s policy and had been instrumental in sending me down to Atlantic City. Also that he had access to the trench knife on my desk. I was a sap for not seeing it before and I became inflated with the thought of my success.

Then all at once the air went out of my tires.

“Mike Hartley isn’t the murderer.”

“But he must be,” argued Janie. “It all seems to fit.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “it jells all right except for one thing. The old stinker wasn’t in Atlantic City today.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, baby,” I replied evenly, “I phoned him when I arrived in Atlantic City, and he was still in his office in New York.”

“Then he’s not the one?”

“That’s right.” I grimaced. “I’m still it.”

And that was just the moment that Janie got the idea that my boss might know something about the guy who had been playing around with her sister.

Well, it was just an idea, but you know how it is when a gal gets a notion like that. I was sure that the Old Man couldn’t give us a lead to Ethel’s boy friend, but like I said, Janie had an idea. Trying to buck her was like trying to swim the English Channel with your arms wrapped in tin foil.

Five minutes later, Janie was accelerating her sleek buggy past a road sign that read: New York, 115 miles — only I didn’t see it because I was snoring my head off on the seat beside her.

Chapter Four Wrong Number

Two o’clock in the morning is no time to go calling on the Mike Hartley type of man, especially when he’s your boss. But if I couldn’t find the boy who’s made a corpse out of Ethel Winters, I’d be out of a job anyway. So I left Janie in her car outside the Old Man’s apartment and went on up.

Fifteen minutes later I was again sitting next to Janie with my head flung back against the leather upholstery. I let her light a cigarette for me and the smoke felt good going into my lungs.

“It’s no use, Janie,” I said slowly, “Mike Hartley can’t help.”

“You mean he won’t!” she spat angrily.

“No, baby,” I rolled my head wearily, “he can’t. He doesn’t know a thing about the other guy. But he’ll be glad to testify at my trial as to my character and—”

“Trial!”

“Yeah. His advice is to turn myself over to the police.”

“Oh, no!” She reached out and took my hand and I held on.

“I’m afraid he’s right though,” I said. “I’ll try to get me a good lawyer and then I’ll just pray.”

“But how about the man who was chasing Ethel? Doesn’t Mr. Hartley know — isn’t there something?”

I shrugged my shoulders and blew a puff of smoke at the windshield.

“If there was such a monkey, I don’t know him and neither does the boss. He can’t figure who took the trench knife off my desk either, any more than he can account for your sister wanting him to write me in as the beneficiary on her insurance policy.” I cleared my throat. “The old goat had the idea that I’ve been running around with your sister — that she was my girl.”

It was as if I dropped a bomb. I felt Janie’s body stiffen next to mine and she slipped her hand out of my fist and gripped the steering wheel hard.

“Was she?” Her voice was quiet and full of edges. “Tell me — was she?”

“No!” I hastened to reply. “Of course not.” And I made sure that my voice had the sharp tone of finality about it. “The only time I ever laid eyes on your sister before today was when she came to Mike Hartley’s office about three days ago.”

I glanced at the slim, tense figure beside me. “You believe me?” I asked.

She turned and smiled wanly. “I believe you,” she said and her small hand found mine again. She was quiet for a moment, then she said, “Anyway, I’m sure I wouldn’t like your boss.”

I laughed grimly. “Who does?”

“He was a real louse on the phone,” she said. “He hung up on me.”

“Hung up on you? When was this?”

“A few minutes ago, when you were with him,” she replied.

“What was the idea?” I asked and I felt annoyed and probably sounded it.

She stuck her head out of the car window and looked up and down the street.

“There’s been a car cruising in front of the house,” she said in a worried tone. “I was scared. It looked like they were watching us.” Her voice picked up. “Although I haven’t seen them for quite a while now.”

I looked over my shoulder; there was nothing in sight. “Who was in the car?”

“I couldn’t see,” she told me. “But whoever it was must have seen you go into the house. That’s why I tried to get you.”

I looked around again but still didn’t spot anything.

“You’re just getting jittery, kid.” I remarked. “Forget it.”

But I couldn’t forget it. Something bothered me and I couldn’t quite lay my hands on it. Then, just like that, I remembered.

Mike Hartley hadn’t answered the phone while I was with him!

“You must have called while I was on the way down, huh?” I prompted.

“Oh, no,” she answered. “You were with him because he said he was busy.”

The muscles in the back of my neck got all tight and started to do tricks.

“Are you sure it was my boss you talked to?” I asked.

“Don’t be silly. I even called the second time after he hung up and he did the same thing again — told me he was busy and slammed the phone down.”

Then the harassed lines in my brow smoothed out. “You must have gotten the wrong number.”

“I did not,” she bit off indignantly. “I got the right number. I took it out of the phone book in the lobby. Here, I even wrote it down.” She handed me a small hunk of notepaper.

“It’s the right number all right, and I certainly didn’t—”

She chopped off the words suddenly because I was sitting there, staring at the piece of paper in my hand with eyes that wouldn’t believe what they saw.

The number she’d written down was Mike Hartley’s telephone all right, but it was his office number, not his home. I whirled on Janie almost savagely.

“Can a man be in two places at once?”

She arched her back against the door. “W-what do you mean?”

I didn’t speak but flung open the door of her car and strode back into the lobby of the apartment house.

I slipped into the telephone booth and dialed a number. I listened, then I cradled the receiver roughly and flinging open the creaking door, grabbed Janie by the arm and side-wheeled her back into her car without a word.

I parked Janie across from the building on Nassau Street where I played at trying to learn the insurance game, and told her to wait.

The office where I worked was on the second floor, and as I climbed the short flight of stairs I couldn’t help noticing what a dark, crummy place it was. I put my office key in the door that said: Hartley, Inc. and walked in.

I didn’t see my trench knife on the small desk I called home but I did see something else in the room.

Mike Hartley had one of those new wire recorders connected to his telephone. I sidled over and examined it closely. Then I knew how the Old Man could be in two places at the same time. It had the automatic attachment that raised the receiver when the phone rang. A previously recorded message played into the mouthpiece.

I raised the receiver slightly and Mike Hartley’s recorded voice filled the room: “Hello... Don’t bother me, I’m busy.”

I dropped the receiver and slapped my fist into the palm of my hand. “So that’s how it was done.”

“Yes, that’s how it was done.”

I whirled around and faced Mike Hartley standing in the doorway. And for the third time in a few hours, I knew what it felt like to have a gun pointed at my body.

“Why?” I asked and it was a shock even to me to hear how calm my voice sounded. “Why her and why me?”

He laughed foolishly. “She didn’t count. You shouldn’t be concerned about her — that young lady was going to commit suicide anyway.”

“You must be nuts!”

He sighed and rubbed his head with his left hand but his right didn’t move. “She was a little fool, such a little fool. She got herself all involved with some Romeo and then she wanted to die. She wanted to die, but she wanted to leave her sister provided for.” He chuckled again. “She made a mistake, though. She told me about it and I capitalized on it.”

“Naturally,” I agreed. “And—”

“I persuaded her to take out a second policy.”

“Persuaded!” I snorted.

“Call it what you will,” he shrugged. “I just convinced her that if her intentions became common knowledge in insurance circles, she’d never get a policy. It was fairly easy.”

“But why me?” I asked.

“I couldn’t have my name on the policy, now could I?” he explained tersely. “It might prove collusion and then I couldn’t collect the money. No. You were my stroke of genius, young man. I could collect on you.”

I nodded my head slowly but my brain was moving at a frantic pace.

“You’re lucky, you know. I was going to kill you. But then that little fool changed her mind. She wanted to live, she said, didn’t want to kill herself.” Mike Hartley gestured at me. “I had no alternative. I had to have that ten thousand dollars. I need it.”

“Need it enough to kill Ethel Winters and frame me,” I said bitterly.

He bobbed his head at me and pointed at the wire recorder. “Clever contraption, that. It enabled me to use the suspect as my alibi...”

He raised his gun and I knew what he was going to do, but I couldn’t move. There was a blinding flash of light, and the deafening roar of thunder.

Something grabbed at my chest and knocked me over backwards. Then there was another flash and another peal of thunder, but this time it seemed to come from behind me.

Then I didn’t care any more. I was back swimming around and around in that nice warm pool of water again. I caught a glimpse of Mike Hartley’s face distorted with hate and pain. Then I saw the fat ugly features of the sergeant from Atlantic City and the long, gaunt figure of Lt. Repetti.

But the last face I saw belonged to Janie. It was white and scared and her eyes were filled with tears. She was bending over me and her soft lips were close to mine. Then for the second time that night I was floating... floating...

I moved my body and a sharp pain shot through my chest. I guess I moaned because a chair scraped close by, and when I turned my head I saw Janie.

“How did it work out?” I asked.

“Shhh,” she cautioned. “You’re supposed to rest. You’re in the hospital.”

I started to sit up but Janie and the stabbing pain wouldn’t let me.

“Is it all over?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Mr. Hartley’s in jail and Lt. Repetti says he’ll get the chair. They’re taking him back to Atlantic City.”

“Then I did see Repetti and the sergeant before I passed out!”

She smiled. “They were following us all the time. They were in that car I saw in front of the apartment house.”

“But there was something else, Janie,” I murmured. “Just before I went under you were bending over me and,” I grinned, “what were you going to do?”

She showed me and this time I didn’t pass out.

She patted my face, “You’re supposed to take it easy,” she breathed softly. “I’ll be back later.”

I let my body relax as she went out.

And then the peace was shattered by a buxom gray-haired nurse.

“Say, aren’t you the lucky one, inheriting all that money!”

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“I’ll bet you’ll want to go on a real nice vacation, huh?”

When I didn’t answer she went right on. “What you’ll need is a rest and a nice spot for a quiet holiday. Why don’t you go to Atlantic City?”

Say! Was she kiddin’?