Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 31, No. 1 — January, 1948)

Ex-con, ex-shamus Trent should have known better than to get tangled up with a slay sequence just to pick up a little scratch. Why worry about a few minor expenses? In stir, the groceries are for free.

Chapter One

You’ve seen those movies where a private detective occupies an office in a run-down building with the elevated rattling past the window, where the elevator is an open cage that creaks up and down and the corridors are ankle deep in cigarette butts? Gus Cooney didn’t maintain an office like that. His suite was on the fourteenth floor of a very modem, centrally located building. The corridors were marble and tile and neat as a hospital. There was a waiting room, done in jade green and empty now, for it was well after office hours. I walked through this outer room and banged on the door labeled Mr. Cooney, Private.

I’d known Cooney for some time. I didn’t like him much and curiosity more than thoughts of profit lured me to answer his off-handed request that I visit him. He had a loud, brassy voice and I opened the door in answer to it. I stepped into what looked like the directors’ room of some international corporation.

Cooney sat behind half an acre of desk and looked out of place there. I’d have managed to look the part much better. Cooney was fifty, paunchy and gimlet eyed. I would have trusted him loyally with no more than a nickle.

“Sit down, Rick,” he said. “You look a little seedy.”

I grinned at him. “That’s what comes of success. You don’t have to give a damn how you look.”

“Let’s cut the kidding,” he told me. “I know you’re down and out. You served a rap in prison and can’t practice private detecting any more. You spend your time in Bryant Park behind the Public Library and number only the best pigeons among your friends. And I don’t mean the kind that go into the park for necking. How do you live, Rick?”

“I got friends,” I told him. “And a job of sorts.”

“Sure, doing leg work for Stuart Sedley at about thirty bucks a week. You used to spend more than that taking a doll to lunch. How would you like to earn twenty bucks?”

“I’m not exactly averse to it,” I told him. “Only when you broker a job, it’s usually murder. I make it a point to get twenty-five for murder.”

“Stop clowning,” he said irritably. “I’ll go to twenty-five and it ain’t knocking anybody off. Job’s really worth about ten bucks, but you need the dough. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have you because the guy I need has to look like a bum.”

“Thanks,” I said and made up my mind that he needed me because nobody else would take the assignment. “Remember though, I’m limited. I can’t do any snooping. The cops and the Parole Board no like.”

Cooney opened a desk drawer and took out a newspaper photo. It was slightly yellow with age and it showed a young man — good looking boy, whose face looked familiar. The girl in the picture was a stunner and I’d have handled some of Cooney’s lousey work just to meet her.

“Know either of them?” he asked me casually.

“The boy seems to register. The girl doesn’t. Break the riddle, Cooney.”

“That kid is Freddie Ogden. Now does he register?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Freddie served time with me. On a manslaughter rap. I imagine he got out no more than a month ago.”

“Six weeks ago. The girl is Lila Doane and her old man happens to be Ernest Doane who has three-quarters of all the money in the world.”

“What’s the pitch?” I asked him bluntly.

“Tonight, around eight-thirty, Ogden and the girl will step out of a car and enter the Elite Club. You’re to be there. Before he reaches the club, you are to move up to him, call him by name, remind him of the fact he is an ex-con and ask him for a stake. All you get out of him is yours.”

“And then what?”

“Nothing more. That’s all.”

I studied him for a moment. “There’s more than that behind it, Cooney. Unbuckle your tongue. I’m not stepping into a set-up.”

“It’s no set-up. We’re just trying to embarrass young Ogden. I can’t tell you who my client is and I can’t give you any other reasons for doing all this. Twenty-five if you make the kid turn pink.”

“Fifty,” I said. Me, the speculator. Fact is, I didn’t care whether I got the dough or not. This sort of thing wasn’t the private detective work which ran in my veins instead of blood. I was merely interested to see how important the job was. If he paid out hard cash easily, then this was something big.

“You’re a blood-sucker,” he told me, “but it’s too late to compromise now.”

I still wasn’t satisfied. I said: “At least I have time enough to shave and look more presentable.”

He held up his hand quickly. “That’s exactly what you must not do. I want you to look like a plain bum.”

I leaned back and twiddled my thumbs. “In that case,” I said, “my fee is a hundred bucks, Cooney. I’m the type who believes in getting paid for character work.”

Sure, he paid it — after a suitable amount of cursing me. But I knew whatever I was meant to do was important and Cooney would profit ten times the fee he gave me. I was also determined to be very careful not to get myself gummed up in something Detective Lieutenant Westover could pounce on me for. Lieutenant Westover was beset with an obsession. He wanted me back in stir.

I had an hour or so to kill and an extra hundred bucks to help kill it. I drifted into a cheap eating place and ordered the works. I would have liked to patronize one of the more fashionable clubs or restaurants, but they sold liquor there and I couldn’t be caught dead within a hundred yards of a bar.

At eight o’clock I was casing the vicinity of the Elite Club, looking for cops, crooks or other down-in-the-mouth snoops Cooney might have hired. The job looked too easy and Cooney had called my steadily rising ante too fast. I meant to find out what this was all about if I had to beat it out of Cooney. Which would have been a pleasure...

At eight-thirty I was set with the doorman eying me in none too friendly a manner. Ten minutes later a cab pulled up and young Freddie Ogden got out. He didn’t much resemble the con I knew in Sing Sing. Freddie wore a tux that fitted him perfectly, and the doll who got out on his arm had been grossly insulted by the picture I’d seen of her. No camera could have done her full justice.

After spending two years in the pen, pretty girls still gave me the whim-whams and this one raised my temperature an extra degree or two. She had the kind of legs Parisian style creators never thought about when they lowered skirts. She was as willowy as a sapling in the spring. Her eyes were smoky gray and she never had to shape her lips with paint. They were already perfect.

I turned my lapels outward, yanked the brim of my hat down and shuffled up. So did the doorman. I glanced at him and said: “Scram, pal. This is an old chum of mine.”

Freddie gave me a quick look and then a double take. His lips almost smiled. The poor kid didn’t want to recognize me, but he had enough spunk to know a friend when he saw one. Freddie motioned the doorman back.

“Hello, Rick,” he said. “Look, why not come to see me later — at my rooms...”

“Pally,” I told him with both eyes on the girl, “I’m flatter than European treasuries. How about putting the bee on you for a ten spot?”

“Why... why yes, of course.” He reached into his pocket. I had a job to do and carrying it out might mean an answer to this puzzle. I meant to do it no matter how Freddie felt about the situation.

I nodded at the girl. “Freddie’s an O.K. guy, lady. Him and me met in prison. We used to have big long gab fests — when the screws wasn’t too close.”

There were other people heading for the club. Many of them stopped to watch this Manhattan sidewalk scene. There were a few snickers when I mentioned Freddie as a stir-pal. I expected the girl to either slug me across the puss or bust into tears. She did neither. She extended one slim hand in my direction.

“I’m glad to meet any friend of Freddie’s,” she said. “Especially one who helped make his prison life a bit easier. I’m Lila Doane.”

I almost forgot myself and tipped my hat. But Freddie thrust a twenty dollar bill at me. He wasn’t embarrassed any longer. Now that Lila accepted me he didn’t care a hoot in hell what the others thought.

“Thanks, pal,” I said. “I’ll be looking you up. And not for another touch.”

I moved in very close and put on a little act. I talked out of the side of my mouth with grimaces for the benefit of the audience. But the act served two purposes. It also enabled me to give Freddie the low-down on as much of the situation as I knew.

“Watch yourself. I’m on a pitch and I don’t know the score yet. When I do, we’ll hash it over.”

Freddie shook hands with me, Lila smiled and said, “Good night,” and I shuffled away feeling like someone who just snatched a kid’s ice cream dime. I was also more than a little sore about all of this. I’d expected things to happen and nothing had. Clearly my job was simply to embarrass Freddie and when a close fisted monkey like Cooney shells out a hundred bucks for that, something big is brewing.

I decided to make him talk. It would be fun to see how much he could take. I knew he dished it out plenty, but that kind never do like being on the receiving end. Furthermore, I was perfectly safe. Cooney wouldn’t be able to stage any yelps for the cops, not after pulling an angle like this.

I went back to his office building, figuring that although it was past office hours, he’d be there waiting for developments. The place was deserted and reminded me of a gigantic tomb which was, by no means, an error of thinking. I found Gus Cooney huddled behind his desk at the foot of that big leather upholstered swivel chair he filled out so well. Somebody had been very direct about it. The knife had gone clear through Cooney’s fat throat and then been twisted. I doubted that Cooney uttered much more than a gurgle, but I did wonder why he had permitted an intended killer, with a knife in his mitt, to get that close.

Knives as murder weapons are usually used to stick a man in the back, and if used in a fight, there is always plenty of evidence of the scuffle left behind. Here there was none. Not even the rug was mussed and everything on the desk was shipshape. I walked around the corpse, after making sure Cooney was thoroughly dead. I stood a the back of the chair and studied it for a moment. There was just a tiny fleck of blood on the back of it and I thought I knew the answer.

Whoever had knifed Cooney had first moved behind him — an excellent indication that Cooney had no idea as to what was coming — and just reached over his shoulder to let the knife drive deep. Registering that much in my brain, I next searched him without moving the body at all. There was one hip pocket I couldn’t reach, but I thought it held nothing except a handkerchief anyway.

Cooney carried the usual miscellany of junk but nothing that might furnish a lead. I put all the stuff back and tried his desk. There was nothing. His filling cabinets were locked and I guessed that if they contained anything detrimental to the murderer, he’d have made darn sure such evidence was no longer present.

It looked like one of those neat kills, without motive or clues. Even the murder weapon had been thoughtfully removed. I took out my own handkerchief and started wiping the desk top. I wiped the door knobs, inside and out. Then I locked up the place nice and snug.

About the time I hit the street I got my first attack of the shivers. I could be tied up with that kill. I was an ex-con, with plenty of cops for enemies and some cops — like Lieutenant Westover — take the easy way out. I was the easiest way possible. So I made up my mind fast and like all good little boys, I got away from there and went to see Stuart Sedley who was supposed to be my boss and who paid me a weekly salary for doing nothing. Stuart Sedley, you see, didn’t like cops either.

Chapter Two Hand of the Law

Sedley was gray-haired, aristocratic looking and tough as redwood. He mixed a couple of drinks, knowing I liked the stuff and couldn’t buy it openly without risk of being sent back to the pen. I told him the whole story while he listened attentively.

My association with Sedley began soon after I was paroled. A couple of fancy dans tried to involve his son in a murder and I got him out of it. Sedley was grateful — about as grateful as a man can be. He knew I was a private eye and even without a license I’d still operate after a fashion. So he gave me a job which stood up under the inspection of the Parole Board and the eagle eye of Lieutenant Westover. In return I was expected to do little for him, draw a week’s pay and find my own cases.

I was an ex-con — with an explanation. I drew three to five on a manslaughter rap because when I’d had a license, a gun, handcuffs and everything including an office, I’d been a pretty good shamus. The pay-off came when I was retained to pay blackmail money. I met the blackmailer by arrangement and he did a neat double-cross. He accepted the money and tried to get away without returning his evidence. In the resulting melee I plastered him too hard and broke his neck.

The guy who retained me denied he even knew me. Why not? If he testified, the secret he was paying off to be kept secret would come into the open. Besides, I was paid a fee to take such risks and I had no real beef coming. I served my time and was one of the most obedient boys up the river. Most of it was spent being a barber and my last job was preparing convicted men for the chair.

Stuart Sedley said: “I can’t help you much, Rick. I know the Doane family, of course. Ernest Doane comes of a long line of thieves, gamblers, industrial pirates and, I suspect, killers. Smart people who never cared much what happened so long as they got what they were after.”

“The daughter looked — damned swell,” I told him in her defense.

Sedley chuckled and talked to me over the rim of his glass. “All girls look swell to you. They will for weeks yet — until you get used to seeing them around. Rick — if this has to do with the Doane family, it’s big. Maybe something you should lay off.”

“Maybe, but I won’t,” I told him. “Tell me more.”

“Well, Ernest Doane is an off-shoot of this family. He’s honest. He married his first wife years ago and they had a daughter. His first wife was the kind who played, I guess. Anyway he kicked her out and there was a divorce. Then he married again — Lila’s mother, who died soon after Lila was born. Far as I know this tendency toward mayhem and assorted evils hasn’t been passed on to Lila.”

“The first wife and daughter,” I mused. “Now would there be anything in it for them if the Doane family was cursed or something?”

“Might be. I wouldn’t know. The only other member of the family is Kate Bradford, a beagle-eyed, hatchet-faced spinster who is a head nurse at Community Hospital. I understand the nurses regard her with affection — the same kind they have for rattlesnakes.”

I put down my empty glass. “Thanks, anyway. I’m going to see Freddie Ogden. I owe him an explanation for the set-up in front of the night club anyway.”

“Keep out of Westover’s way,” Sedley warned. “If you. get tied up with with Cooney kill, I’ll alibi you. You were doing some work for me tonight.”

That was the kind of guy Sedley was. They came better, but way up in the sky, not here on earth. I walked to the bus stand and rode back to town. There I transferred to the subway and rattled my way down to where Freddie Ogden lived.

The kid had one room in a modest hotel. He put on a bigger front than he should, but that was his business. Mine was murder and he could help me — I hoped.

Freddie wasn’t in, so I hung around the lobby and got myself spotted by the hotel dick in about three minutes. He kept his eyes on me and just about the time Freddie sauntered in, the hotel dick was ready to run me off the premises. All he’d have had to do was whisper it and I’d have taken a powder. Guys on parole don’t fight — not even with a hotel snoop.

I went to Freddie’s room with him and had some more drinks. Freddie listened while I explained. He began shaking his head from side to side before I was through.

“Honest, Rick, I don’t get it. In the first place you seem to think you embarrassed Lila and me. That isn’t true. Neither of us gives a hang what others think. I’m an ex-con on a bum rap maybe — but still I wore numbers and I don’t give a damn who knows it. Lila feels the same way.”

“But there has to be something,” I said. “After all, a man was murdered tonight. The only reason was because he knew too much. About what? That’s what I want to know.”

“I can’t help you,” Freddie said. “But I’m getting scared. Why should anybody be trying to upset me?”

“Talk about the rap that drew you a prison term,” I suggested. “Might be something there.”

“Couldn’t be, Rick. Lila and I had been attending a dinner dance at a golf club. I got myself nice and plastered, as I usually did in those days. Lila and I had a fight about it and I went off in a huff, driving my own car. Last I could recall, the booze was getting me good. I kept falling over the wheel. When I woke up, there were half a dozen state troopers around me. Seems I hit a man walking alongside the road, kept going and then passed out.”

“There was no question about what happened?”

“Not so far as I’m concerned. I recall weaving the car. If I hit anything, I didn’t know it. There are vague recollections of pulling up because I was afraid of getting killed — and then the cops.”

“Nice and pat,” I said without much assurance. “The kind of an accident that can be rigged best. I’m not saying it was rigged, but it could have been. Freddie, are you in the chips?”

“I can scrape up a hundred if you need it,” he told me.

“No, no. I don’t mean that. I’m working and everything is fine. What I refer to is motive. If there is no reason to put you on a spot, then what I was hired to do was aimed at Lila and her family.”

“But why?” Freddie wanted to know.

So did I and I told him so. I also asked him about Lila’s half sister. Her name, according to Freddie, was June. She worked in a night club. Her mother was a nurse and lived on her income from that and what old man Doane sent her. At least he stuck by one of his marriage vows. She was never in want.

I put the bottle down. “We’re getting nowhere, Freddie. And I can’t make a move. If I go to see Doane’s first wife, or her daughter, one or both is apt to call the cops and that’ll put me right back where both of us want to stay away from. Incidentally, you were in a cafe tonight. How come?”

“I’m not on parole,” Freddie grinned. “I served my maximum. Got into a mess with a con named Hazy and I slugged him. That was just before my name was coming up for parole and it didn’t come up.”

“Believe me,” I said, “serving the rest of your time was worth it. A guy on parole has both legs cut off and both hands in a vise. Freddie, I’ve got to talk to Lila and her father.”

“O.K., Rick. We’ll both go to the house tomorrow night.”

“Two ex-cons? The old boy might accept one when his daughter shoves him down his throat, but two mugs...”

“Forget it, Rick. Ernest Doane is like Lila. He doesn’t give a hoot what a man has been. If I say you’re a friend of mine, that’s it. See you about eight?”

I nodded and got up. “I’m going to my office where it’s quiet and I can think. Some private eye — me. I have to do my work by sitting and thinking about it.”

“Office?” Freddie asked. “But I thought you weren’t allowed to practice...”

“The office,” I said, “is in Bryant Park. The last bench in the direction of Sixth Avenue. For a secretary I’ve got a speckled pigeon by day; at night there’s usually a few neckers around. That’s my office. Drop in any time and don’t bother to phone ahead.”

I knew where June Doane worked and I sauntered to that neighborhood first. I wanted a look at her. The cafe was one of those side street joints where the food is bad, the liquor worse, and the check depends on how much like a sucker you look. In the lobby were some half nudes of June. I hung around until she came out. She wasn’t bad — even with clothes on.

June looked a lot like Lila. They had the same father and that resulted in a similarity of chins, eyes and manner. There the resemblance stopped because June saw me eying her and in the dark she didn’t know whether or not I looked like money. She gave me an open high sign and said something I couldn’t hear when I turned away.

One A.M. is no time for an ex-con to be prowling around a public park so I changed my mind and went to the rat trap where I lived. They called it a hotel, but Sing Sing was a lot cleaner and had more service. When you yelled, a guard came — with a club in his mitt perhaps, but he came. In this fleabag you could scream your ears off for a maid to give you fresh sheets and you’d be as alone as if you were in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

The desk clerk was a pal of mine. He was off somewhere so I had no warning. When I unlocked my room door, Lieutenant Westover was sitting there and I didn’t like the kind of a grin he was wearing.

Westover was taller than my six feet and he was built like a truck. Beefy, with jowls, a double chin and a nasty disposition. He was on easy ground with me. A parolee isn’t supposed to argue with anybody, let alone a detective lieutenant.

“This place,” I said, “crawls with bugs. Big ones, and the biggest look copper to me. What’s on your mind besides busting me, Westover?”

I started removing my coat and Westover waved his hand. “Keep it on, Rick. You’re taking a ride with me.”

“For what, I’d like to know?” I demanded.

“For panhandling, that’s what. Even if the guy you panhandled is a stir-bug the same as you. Ex-cons are supposed to make their own way, not beg.”

I sat down slowly. “Now look, Westover...”

“Lieutenant, to you,” he snarled.

“O.K., Lieutenant then. It happens I loaned Freddie Ogden ten bucks while we were in stir. He promised to pay it back, but he couldn’t contact me. I read where he often went to the Elite Club and I waited...”

“Save the wind,” Westover advised with liberal sarcasm. “It was panhandling and the doorman witnessed it. He told one of my boys about a pair of ex-cons meeting in front of the place and that’s how I tumbled.”

I reached for the phone. Inwardly I was considerably relieved. Finding Westover parked in my room instantly made me think I’d been tied to the Cooney kill. It seemed Westover either hadn’t made a connection between me and Cooney or the private eye’s body hadn’t even been found yet.

“Who are you going to call?” he demanded.

“My boss — Stuart Sedley. A panhandler has to be broke and I get paid regularly. Then I’ll call Freddie Ogden and his girl friend. Then you can take me in and I’ll make more trouble for you than you ever thought existed.”

Westover arose and very carefully slugged me across the mouth. Then he started slapping my face and cuffing my ears until they burned like fire. That was the hand and majesty of the law — as he saw it. I held my arms stiff, my palms flat and hard against the bed on which I sat. I kept telling myself not to take him. I could do it. He knew that and so did I, but Westover was only praying I’d take a poke at him.

He got tired of this after awhile, shoved me flat on the bed and then started frisking the room. He didn’t find anything. I made certain not to keep any papers around, no extra money and nothing which could be construed as a weapon. He walked into the bathroom and washed his hands. He flung the towel into my face.

“Clean up your kisser,” he growled. “You must have been drunk to fall on your face and muss it up that way.”

He strolled out of the room, slammed the door and continued down the hall. I sat there, cursing him fluently for ten minutes while the pain went out of my face. But I’d won that round and I could be a trifle proud of it. Somehow I didn’t feel that way. My head hurt too much.

Chapter Three Shadow Man

The next afternoon the papers were full of Cooney’s mysterious murder, but Lieutenant Westover didn’t seem to be any part of the investigation. I read the details and, boiled down, they only stated that nobody knew a thing about the kill. It was funny, in a way, because I could have helped the cops, but if I did they’d heave me back to prison. This was one time I could laugh and enjoy it.

At eight that night I met Freddie Ogden and we walked to the triplex apartment where Ernest Doane lived. Lila admitted us. She kissed Freddie with a vigor that made me actually jealous, but she took my hand in both of hers and held it warmly. That was recompense of some sort.

“Dad so wants to meet you, Mr. Trent,” she said. “But I’m going to call you Rick. Oh... my aunt Kate will be there too, but don’t let her disturb you though she’ll growl and make faces at you.”

Ernest Doane turned out to be a husky looking man with white hair and a pink face. His handshake was friendly. He had us all sit down and then he told a young man in one corner of the room to mix drinks. The young man I found out later was named Paul Manning and he was private secretary to the whole family. He was typical of his sort, graceful enough to be almost effeminate though I knew he was anything but that. He bowed at the right time, addressed Doane as ‘sir’ and treated Lila as if she were his sister.

Kate Bradford sat primly erect in one of the smaller chairs. She was skinny, thin-faced and wore plain brown hair pulled back severely. I guessed she was easily Doane’s age, but she didn’t show it. Her lips were tightly compressed and stayed that way most of the time. She didn’t see my hand when we were introduced and I gathered the idea that she didn’t even like Santa Claus when she was a kid. I could well imagine how the nurses at Community Hospital regarded her.

Doane said: “I’m glad to have you here, Mr. Trent. You probably believe that’s rather odd in view of your prison term and the way you are probably treated by other people, but Stuart Sedley talked to me today. We happened to run into one another.”

I knew how accidental that meeting was. About as accidental as a Joe Louis punch. Sedley had set the stage for me.

Doane went on. “Having been to prison is no honor, I admit, but that doesn’t make a confirmed criminal of you. Matter of fact, I believe my own family is implanted with more criminals...”

“Ernest,” Kate Bradford snapped.

He waved a hand at her. “Mr. Trent will understand, Kate. I have to tell him this so he will realize I’m quite sincere. My great-grandfather, Mr. Trent, murdered at least three men. They hung him eventually. My grandfather killed no one, but he drove several people to suicide when he swiped their money. Oh — most legally according to the books, but those people were ruined just the same. My father once maimed a man for life during a college boxing exhibition. Dad wangled the fight because he hated this other chap. And after that Dad wasn’t a saint. Like his father before him, he made money through other people’s ruin.”

“Some family, eh, Rick?” Lila winked at me and grinned. No wonder Freddie had fallen for her.

Doane said: “Trent is too polite to comment. Now here is what I’m after. Being the descendant of such an assorted bunch of murderers and thieves, I’ve striven to make up for their digressions. I’ve conducted my own life upon an exemplary plane. Now Lila has fallen in love with Freddie. Very good — I heartily approve because I like Freddie. He’s sown a few wild oats and reaped them too. Should I, with my family background, take issue with that? You are following me, Mr. Trent?”

“I think so,” I said. “You’re satisfied with Freddie as a son-in-law. And you should be. He’s no criminal. Spending a year or two in prison hasn’t made him bitter or crooked. And I can tell you this — in prison I found him to be honest and friendly. There isn’t a man up there who wouldn’t say the same things about him.”

“Except Hazy — a convict I belted because he pushed around an old man,” Freddie cut in.

“Which is to your credit,” Doane added. “Thank you, Mr. Trent.” He bowed in my direction. “Learning how Freddie acted while in prison is the main reason I was anxious to see you. Now, perhaps, you will realize my motives. I’m trying to purify the family blood. I couldn’t allow my daughter to marry a man who might revert to all those things my forebears were.”

That was when I started to see daylight in copious quantities. What had happened wasn’t aimed at Freddie, but at the Doane family. Freddie, publicly fingered as an ex-con by another ex-con who looked like a bum, wouldn’t help his chances with Lila, nor improve her social or moral status.

I said: “Mr. Doane, I can assure you Freddie is O.K. in every respect.”

He rubbed his hands. “Fine, fine. I’m a bit hipped on this subject, but I’d rather Lila died a spinster than continue a blood strain that results in nothing but an assorted pack of crooks and killers.”

I wanted to ask him about his other daughter, June, but decided this wasn’t quite the time for it. We chatted about various things for awhile, I was served two more drinks by the secretary, who also seemed to act as butler, and then excused myself.

Manning, the secretary, accompanied me to the door and handed me my hat. As I moved past him, he spoke in a whisper. “Stay out of it, Trent. You look healthy and why not remain that way?”

He pivoted and stepped away fast. I wasn’t surprised. I had an idea all along he was listening too intently. Now and then I’d spotted his jaws working as if he had all he could do to keep quiet. As I watched him, Lila came into the hallway. I saw Manning’s face clearly and I guessed the answer. The jerk was in love with her.

I was thinking about that as I walked away from the apartment. I tried to figure in Gus Cooney’s tie with all this, but I couldn’t. Except that he had hired me to make things tough for Freddie. Then I had something else to bother me. I was being tailed. By an expert at that, but I knew all the tricks and when the same man stays behind you for blocks, he isn’t following his nose.

I couldn’t get a good look at him so I kept going. A tail might be the answer to the whole affair. As a rule that kind can’t take it and I knew how to dish out persuasive powers which induced a man to talk. I turned the next corner, found it to be a quiet street with no cops in sight. I put my back against the building wall where the shadows were thickest and waited.

He came around the corner cautiously, didn’t see me anywhere and started moving fast. So did I. As he went by, I stepped out and tapped him on the shoulder.

He swung, with one hand going toward his armpit and I let him have it right on the chin. Then I lifted the gun out of its holster, pushed him against the wall and grabbed his throat. He snapped out of it fast and his eyes burned into mine.

I said: “Who pays you to gumshoe around, chum?”

Just to make certain he’d answer, I bumped the back of his head against the wall. That didn’t do the trick so I bumped his head again — harder. He clawed at my hands to break the grip on his throat. I yanked him forward again and this time I meant to rattle what brains he had. Rattle them good — and then a radio car lazed around the corner.

Its headlights swept toward us and I dropped my hands fast. I carefully began dusting off his shoulders, as if he was an old, old pal of mine. But he saw an out and took it. He shoved off, walking fast and passing the radio car. The cop at the wheel gave me a cold eye. I lit a cigarette with what I hoped wasn’t exaggerated nonchalance and strolled away.

My man was gone, of course. I still had his gun in my pocket and the memory of it made me shudder. If those radio cops had ever decided to frisk me, I’d be on my way back to the pen for a long stay. I got rid of the gun at the next trash can and felt a little better.

Half an hour later I thrust the key of my room into the lock, stepped inside and turned on the lights. That rat wasn’t as dumb as I believed. He’d beaten me home and he was sitting in the same chair that Westover had occupied the night before. With one material difference — he’d acquired another gun and it was pointed straight at me.

In the light I had a good look at him and something clicked. I said: “Well, well, Hazy, why didn’t you tell me who you were back there?”

Hazy was the con whom Freddie had smeared up at the pen. He needed smearing again — though he held plenty of insurance against it in his fist.

He said: “Sit down, Trent. Take off your coat first and heave it into the corner. Then we’re going to have a little talk. About busted heads.”

“Hazy,” I said quietly, “I thought you were a flatfoot. It was a mistake.”

“Yeah — it was. And you’re going to know it fast.”

I sized him up as a brute — one of the kind who has fat inside his skull instead of brains. That made him even more dangerous. A guy without imagination makes the worst possible type of killer. I’d much sooner face a gunman who was intelligent and might think of the consequences.

He moved over toward me. I knew what was coming. The gun swung down and the muzzle clipped my forehead. It sent me back but I raised up quickly. A man who goes down is too open a target for more pistol whipping. Hazy grinned at me. The kind of a grin you see in nightmares. He let me have another swipe with the muzzle. This time I folded up, forward, letting my head fall onto my knees and my arms hung loosely.

I said: “You’re making a mistake, Hazy. You won’t get paid for this because Gus Cooney is dead.”

He bit at it as I knew he would. “Cooney — dead?”

I stayed doubled up. “Somebody slipped a knife through his neck last night. The papers are full of it. Can’t you read?”

Hazy gave a hoarse laugh. “So what? What’s Cooney to me? This is a personal matter anyhow. You tried to smash my brains out and I’m going to put you in a hospital. And you won’t talk either because if you do, you’ll go back in stir.”

I couldn’t see him, except his legs from the knees down, but I saw them brace. He was raising the gun. It was now or never because the next blow would likely knock me cold and I might not wake up. I simply raised both arms and let myself fall out of the chair. My arms wound around his legs and threw him off balance.

He was a wildcat. As he reeled off, getting back on balance, I straightened and closed in. I grabbed his gun hand with my left and kicked him in the shins. That didn’t drive his foot from under him so I tried it again. He was made of cast iron.

His free hand punched me on the throat and I thought I knew how Cooney had felt when the knife went through him. I twisted his gun wrist hard. That turned him around and I threw one at the back of his neck. That worried him for he made a rumbling noise at the bottom of his lungs. I punched him again, somewhere. He let go of the gun and I let go of his wrist. I bent to pick up the rod and he did a sprint toward the door, got it open and went through.

By the time I was in the hallway, he had disappeared down the steps. I followed, encouraged by the sound of his pounding footsteps. I reached the lobby as he sent the revolving doors spinning. I saw him turn a corner down the street and when I took that same corner, I took it wide so he wouldn’t be able to pull my trick by waiting for me against the wall. He wasn’t there. He’d turned into a space between two buildings and that was where I lost him.

A five minute prowl showed me no trace of the guy so I gave up. I found I had another gun in my belt. Getting rid of them seemed monotonous and this time I merely wiped it clean and dropped it in the alley before I started back for home. I was half tempted to keep the rod but only half tempted — because if Westover ever frisked me and found a gun... well, I was determined to stay out of the Big House if possible.

One thing I knew. Cooney had hired Hazy. Possibly because he knew Hazy hated Freddie Ogden enough to kill him if necessary. Which might be the sum total of his orders, so I headed for a telephone and called Lila’s home. I got Freddie and told him to keep his eyes batted. He was properly grateful and as I hung up, I guessed I might as well go whole hog for the evening and pay Doane’s first wife and daughter a visit. I was in no shape to go to sleep anyway. My heart was still pounding too savagely.

Chapter Four Two Smart Women

I fritted away a buck and a half on a cab ride to the address and found it was one of those semi-fashionable places. No doorman, but a self-service elevator and a certain amount of cleanliness. The halls didn’t smell of cabbage and kraut, though somebody did like onions with their steak. I knocked hard on Anna’s door.

She opened it and surprised me some because I expected to see a frilly fifty year old woman trying to act like sixteen. Instead she seemed mature and sensible. She was dressed in a nurse’s uniform with white shoes and stockings that did nothing for her legs.

June Doane, in light blue pajamas with an overall pattern of dice on them, was stretched out on a davenport. One foot rested on the floor, the other leg was curled up under her. She looked up at me and said, “Hello,” with interest. The dame was man crazy.

Mrs. Doane wasn’t quite as impressed. She stepped in front of me. “Well, what do you want, busting in here like this?”

“Gus Cooney sent me,” I said.

“Who the hell is Cooney?” she demanded.

That was that. If she’d known him, I’d have detected some slight sign of it in her eyes. “Maybe,” I said, “I’ve made a mistake. You are Mrs. Dorne?”

And while I made up that name I knew I hadn’t made any mistakes. I faced a small table on which was a photo in an imitation leather easel. Two people were in the picture. June — and Paul Manning, the secretary who kowtowed to Ernest Doane.

“The name,” Mrs. Doane told me, “is D-o-a-n-e. Not Dorne. Haven’t you eyes good enough to read? My card is tacked below the bell.”

“I’m very sorry,” I said.

“I’m not.” June sat up and pushed back her blonde hair. “Ma — let him stay. He wants something. I saw him last night outside the club.”

I sighed and nodded, then grinned foolishly. “Some guys do all sorts of things to meet a doll,” I told her. “Maybe you never noticed, but I’ve been at the table near the palms every night for the past week. I like your singing and — stuff. I wanted to meet you and last night I couldn’t rake up the nerve.”

“He’s lying. He smells copper to me,” Ma put in.

“He looks good to me, Ma.” June came a little closer. She used too much perfume, but it was the right type for her, seductive — and I wondered what goofy name they had for it.

I wanted out. I said: “I’ve made enough of a fool of myself. I... I’ll be going now. Maybe tomorrow night, outside the club...? Supper and champagne, perhaps.”

Ma was certainly no dope. “Champagne from a guy who wears thirty dollar suits and one buck ties? What’s your angle, mister? Who are you? June, bring me that newspaper on the table.”

June winked at me signifying we’d just made a deal, but she got the newspaper. Ma looked at the headlines and threw it down. “You mentioned the name of Gus Cooney when you came in here. Cooney is dead — murdered. I think the cops would like to talk to you. June — get on the phone.”

“Oh, now look, Ma...” June pleaded.

“Call the cops. You heard me.”

My departure didn’t demand formalities. I did manage to scoop up my hat and make for the door. Ma threw something at me and it hit the door as I closed it behind me. No self-operated elevator ever went so slowly. I was afraid the precinct might happen to contact a radio car in the same block and I wanted no fuss with Westover. Not now. Things were too hot and so was I.

On my hasty way home I did some mental arithmetic and came up with a total that didn’t mean a thing. June knew Paul Manning who worked for Ernest Doane. Manning had warned me to stay out of it. There was a hood named Hazy who liked me just enough to spill my blood in copious quantities. I had met Anna Doane, the first wife of Lila’s father and she knew the ropes. Of them all Anna was the most dangerous. What did it add up to? In my book, one nice big zero.

But there was something. Not much as yet. Somebody had hired Cooney and killed him because Cooney was the type to prowl and learn things and make a little blackmail touch. A private detective’s normal and honest income wouldn’t supply the kind of an office Cooney maintained. Whoever hired him was trying to get at me now, on the theory I was of the same stripe as Cooney.

And back of all this lay a motive. Ernest Doane was wealthy, so money probably was behind it. As potential heirs I had Lila, Anna Doane, June Doane and Kate Bradford, the aunt. I was one hell of a private eye. Without a license I was strictly limited. With three years in stir hanging over my head, I was in a straitjacket so far as carrying out an investigation was concerned. I did the only thing I could. I telephoned Stuart Sedley.

“Things are getting hot and confused,” I said. “No beef on the Cooney murder yet, but if Westover gets the case he’ll consider me as a suspect. He remembers me with every two-bit case that comes his way. I need help. Do you know who Ernest Doane’s attorney is?”

“Yes,” Sedley said. “All three of us belong to the Uptown Athletic Club where we meet often and exercise with glasses containing scotch and soda. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve got to see this lawyer and he must understand I’m on the level before I go there. He must also accept me at face value which isn’t much. Can you fix it?”

Good old Sedley. He arranged things so that Attorney Thompson greeted me with an inhaler of old brandy which I needed. He listened to my story, by no means in full, but I convinced him Ernest Doane might be in danger.

Thompson stuck his nose in the brandy inhaler and sniffed generously. He didn’t look like a Man of Distinction doing that, but I knew you could get very tight inhaling the stuff. I preferred to drink it.

When he came up for air, he put the glass down and reached for a cigar. “I shall violate all the ethics of my profession,” he said. “Because I think you’re right and Doane may be in danger. For ten years his will left half the estate to Lila, a quarter to June and a quarter to Anna, his first wife. About six months ago he changed it. Lila gets the whole shebang. June and Anna get headaches.”

“What about Aunt Kate?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Kate doesn’t need any money and Ernest knows it. Grant that she-devil her due, she’s a big shot at a hospital and the place runs like clockwork. She lives within her means. In fact I know how much she is worth and it’s plenty. Every dime goes to the hospital at her death.”

“Couldn’t Anna, his first wife, break that will?”

“Not so long as I have a signed forfeiture of all rights to Doane’s money. She signed it to bleed him for plenty when he divorced her. Anna can’t get a thin dime. Have another brandy?”

With the news he gave me I needed the whole bottle. The only theory I had just blew up in my face. Doane’s money wasn’t behind the scheme and when money isn’t back of murder, the real motive is always hard to determine.

That was the way the situation lay when I climbed into bed. No loopholes, no clues. The only man who might tell me anything was dead and my only rainbow was the fact that I was a hundred bucks ahead. I decided that with all this on my mind I’d never sleep and I conked off in two minutes.

In the morning I spent some time around the building where Gus Cooney had maintained his offices. I talked to people who worked in the building, but they knew nothing about his clients. He maintained a secretary who worked part time only. I knew the cops had questioned her and if I went over the same ground it would only result in my being tagged for making like a sleuth. That angle was too dangerous for me to tackle.

I was about at the end of my rope by dinner, with every possible loophole in the case closed up tightly. I even gave way to reasoning that Cooney’s murder might not be connected with this case at all, but the work of someone he’d blackmailed. When I start thinking in those weak terms, I’m really whipped.

At seven o’clock, right after dark, I was in Bryant Park. I didn’t exactly know why I went there except that I’d become used to the place and I enjoyed this quiet oasis in a city teeming with noise. Here the traffic along Forty-second Street, Fifth Avenue and Sixth, seemed muted and far, far away.

I was seriously considering a movie about the time I heard those high heels chatter against the cement. They were the steps of someone who knew exactly where she was headed, for casual visitors to the park just stroll. Then she was close enough so that I recognized her. June slowed up, stopped and looked down at me.

“Hello, Rick,” she said. “May I sit down?”

“Sure. I’m glad you came.”

She sat beside me and I wished she wouldn’t use that perfume. Whoever made it knew their stuff. She was close — very close and, I thought, she wouldn’t mind being a bit closer. I didn’t give her any encouragement. That’s me — he man.

“You were very silly last night,” she said. “Not that I minded, but Mom didn’t lose any time checking up.”

“In what way,” I asked, “was I silly, as you call it?”

“Telling me,” she said chidingly, “that you watched my show from a table near the palm trees. There aren’t any palm trees in the club where I work. It happens you are Rick Trent, ex-convict, ex-private detective and you’re working for my father.”

“Guess again, sweetheart. I can’t work for anybody as a shamus. There’s a matter of a license.”

“Poo,” she sniffed. “A license wouldn’t bother a man like you.”

“Tell me, June, how you learned all this.”

“There are ways.” She was giving me the cute routine now.

“Such as telling Paul Manning about my visit?”

She smiled. “You saw the picture of us together. Well, suppose he is in love with me?”

That didn’t jibe. A man can look with love in his eyes upon only one woman at a time and I’d seen that light in Paul Manning’s when he watched Lila. June was playing second fiddle whether she knew it or not.

I handed her a cigarette, lit it and my own. I wondered what meaning lay behind her visit and I intended to let her bring up the subject. Instead she smuggled closer.

“You’re not a bad sort, Rick. You and I could make music.”

“Nuts,” I told her. “I’m a broken down ex-con with hardly enough dough to eat let alone take around a girl like you. Not that I wouldn’t like it, mind you.”

“I’ve got money. I’m not as rich as my half sister, but I have money.”

That one hit me hard. “As Lila, you mean? What are you talking about? Her money comes from her father.”

“Oh no,” June contradicted. “Lila’s mother was wealthy and when she died she left it all to little Lila. But let’s not talk about her. Just about you and me, Rick. We can see one another again?”

“Look,” I said, “I can’t take you anywhere because of parole rules. That means no clubs, no bars, not even a restaurant where they sell booze. I’m always being stopped by cops. Sometimes they frisk me for luck and they don’t care who is around to witness the act. You’d have no fun with me.”

“Oh-oh,” she chortled, “that’s what you think. I work in a night club. I hate them. I don’t drink much. I’d be satisfied with a bus ride — and you, Rick.”

I was really getting the business and there was some reason for it. She hadn’t come here merely to throw herself into my arms. Not June! I remembered enough about women — her kind — to know that. If she had an angle, why didn’t she spill it?

I decided to make her talk. “Sorry, June. I wish I could take you up on this. Right now I’ve got a date.”

“Sit still, you fool,” she snapped. Her whole attitude changed then. “Do you think I enjoy this? I came here to tell you that Paul Manning isn’t quite as much of a fool as he seems. Something is up at my father’s place. I don’t know what it is or what is to happen, but there’s trouble brewing. And when it breaks, I want to be right there, batting for my share of his money.”

“Now you’re beginning to make sense,” I said. “What gives you the idea you or your mother would clean up if Ernest Doane — shall we say — died?”

“He’s my father, isn’t he? My mother was married to him once. That gives us some rights.”

“Sure. About as much as I have under parole laws. June, before you start beating your brains out, check around and make certain you really can get something out of the estate. Talk to a lawyer...”

She looked at her wrist watch and jumped up. “I will, Rick. I’ll let you know. Now I’ve got to run. My first show goes on in an hour. You’d be surprised how long it takes a girl to put on a costume that hardly covers her. See you later.”

She barged off fast and I sat there trying to figure it out. June knew very well her mother had signed away all rights to Doane’s estate. They were thick, those two, and Anna would have told her. So that wasn’t the reason why she came here. And telling me about Paul Manning wasn’t the motive either because she hadn’t informed me of something I didn’t already know. I recalled how she’d become so suddenly serious when I attempted to break away. Then I realized why she had come. To hold me here, on this park bench. To keep me from prowling while something went on. Something I might stop.

I got out of the park fast and whistled a cab. I rode to my hotel because if any messages came, that’s where they’d be. The desk clerk was signalling frantically as I entered the lobby.

He said: “Rick, some guy has been calling you every five minutes for the last half an hour. He sounds like trouble. Last call was about three minutes ago. He’ll be on the wire before you can reach your room.”

“I’ll stick here and take it,” I said. “Didn’t he leave any name or number?”

“The guy sounded too scared. Funny how it’s so hard to disguise fear over a telephone. I remember when my old man died... Hold it, Rick. The board is buzzing and I’ll lay odds this is your friend.”

It was Freddie Ogden. He said: “Rick, listen carefully. I’m at 269 Carmody Street. Third floor, rear left. In a room where Hazy lived.”

“Did you say lived? In the past tense?” I asked.

“He’s dead, Rick. Somebody put a knife through his throat. I’m scared. Will you come here?”

“Stay in that room and lock the door,” I told him. “I’ll be there as fast as a hack can bring me.”

Chapter Five Frame-up For Two

Hazy was as dead as Cooney had been and the cause of his death was exactly like that which killed the private eye. I’m no stickler or stranger to blood, but I’ll admit examing that wound made my stomach jump. The blade had apparently been thin and long. I say apparently because the killer had insured death by twisting the knife.

I arose from my kneeling position and went over to sit on the bed. Freddie occupied a chair and he was almost as gray as the corpse. I said: “O. K., Freddie, let’s have it all.”

“There isn’t much to tell, Rick. I was getting dressed for a date with Lila. At seven the phone rang...”

“At exactly seven?” I asked him carefully.

“Yes. I remember because I was looking at the alarm clock to see how much time I had and when the phone rang, I jumped because I thought it was the alarm going off. What’s the difference anyhow.”

“Plenty, perhaps. A call precisely on the hour looks like a prearranged one. Go ahead.”

“Hazy was on the wire. He said he’d made a terrible mistake about you and me too. That he’d been told both of us were out after him. He said ex-cons should stick together and that he had a lot to tell you. I promised to try and contact you. I did try and you were nowhere that I phoned.”

“I was sitting in a park listening to a smart little doll soft-soap me into being scarce when you needed me,” I said bitterly.

“Well, I called Hazy back and he told me if I came over, he could give me the story. That it was important, his life was probably in danger and I should leave at once. Also make certain I wasn’t tailed.”

“Or accompanied,” I said. “What was the set-up when you got here?”

“He was — just like you see him now. The door was closed but not locked. He didn’t answer my knock so I stepped in and — found him.”

“You saw nobody you knew?”

“Not a soul — and I was careful not to be tailed.”

I took his arm. “We’re getting out. This has all the elements of a beautiful little trap. And if it is, the man who set it has had plenty of time to spring it. Go to work with your handkerchief and wipe every flat surface you might have touched, even remotely.”

While Freddie did this, I searched the body, knowing very well there’d be nothing on him to give us any sort of a clue. After that we went away from there as fast as we could travel. Near Fifth Avenue, I drew him into a drug store with booths and we sat down in one. I ordered something — I don’t remember what — as an excuse to stay there.

I said: “Listen, Freddie, you’re in a mess. I don’t believe you killed Hazy, but you’ll have one hell of a time making the cops think you didn’t.”

“But why? I hardly knew the man.”

“You know any man whose kisser you push in and you banged Hazy up plenty while you were both in stir. It prevented you from getting a parole and that’s motive enough. Besides, Hazy was making things tough for me. We’re prison pals and friends outside too. It could be construed that you took it upon yourself to stop Hazy from bothering me — permanently.”

About the time I was half through telling him how he stood, Freddie began sweating. He said: “Rick — if this is a frame, it’s the second pulled on me. The more I’ve thought about it, the less I think I ran down that man three years ago. Now — this.”

“Yeah — this, and it makes the other frame look like a traffic violation. They burn guys for murder. Take it from me, I barbered enough of those babies to know. You’ve got to get under cover.”

“But where? Where can I go, Rick?”

I said: “Stay here and keep your eyes open. If anything that looks like copper comes through the door, you ease out. Never mind me. I can take care of myself and I’ve got me an alibi for the time of the murder. They may have kept me out of your reach, but they alibied me at the same time. I’m going to make a phone call.”

There was a character known as Horseface — for no reason I could think of — who’d bunked with me in prison. Since his release, he’d settled down in Connecticut but he wasn’t averse to helping an old friend. I got Horseface on the wire and gave him the story.

“Sure,” he said quickly. “I remember Freddie. Nice kid and even if he knocked off Hazy, I’d still give him a hand.”

“What we need,” I said, “is a comfortable spot if possible. He may have to stay out of circulation a long time.”

“I got me a little house near Wilton,” Horseface told me. “You take the Ridgefield Road until you clock seven and three-tenths miles on your speedometer. Turn off there and the first place you come to will be it... A house far back where it can’t be seen from the road. I’ll have the pantry stocked right away.”

“The people who own it won’t be back unexpectedly?” I asked.

“Nix the idea, Rick. It belongs to my mother-in-law and I sent her to Mexico City for her health, she thinks. Freddie can stay there for six months.”

I thanked him, promised to return the favor and went back to the room. Freddie had a car and he gave me the keys and a note to the garage people so I could drive it out. Brother, if Lieutenant Westover ever saw that note!

Forty minutes later I slid from behind the wheel and let Freddie take over. I’d left him in a cafe. The kid didn’t forget me. He’d palmed a double rye and ginger and handed me the glass. Between sips I gave him explicit instructions.

“Another thing,” I added, “nobody is to know where you are.”

He whistled softly and I knew what was coming. “I... phoned Lila while I was waiting for you to come with the car. Rick, I had to tell her.”

“Sure — and whoever else might be listening or have Lila spotted so she can be trailed to the spot where you’re hiding. The damage is done. Forget it. I’ll keep an eye on Lila too and maybe turn up something — or somebody. Get going now — and drop me uptown near Community Hospital.”

“You going to see Aunt Kate?”

“Yes. I think Anna and June are mixed up in this pretty deeply. Anna works at the hospital and Kate will know about that. All I have to do is worry whether or not she’ll tell Westover I’ve been making passes like a sleuth.”

“She won’t, if you ask her not to,” Freddie said. “Kate’s an old war horse, but otherwise O. K. And Rick, thanks a million.”

He let me off a block from the hospital. I’d never seen the place before. It was of moderate size and, I guessed, privately endowed. A nurse who looked glamorous even in uniform winced when I said I wanted to talk to Kate Bradford.

“You a friend of hers?” she asked.

I nodded. What the hell difference did that make? I found out one hour and ten cigarettes later. About the time I began feeling like an expectant father, I saw that nurse stroll past the room where I was supposed to be waiting. I called her inside.

“Now look here,” I said. “When I told you I was a friend of Kate Bradford that was a facetious statement. We don’t happen to be friends. In fact, I hate her guts, but I’ve got to see her.”

The nurse grinned. “Why didn’t you say so before? We make a point of letting Kate’s visitors wait around for four or five hours. Puts them in a nice mood when she finally shows up and believe me, mister, that kind of a mood matches Kate’s as it is twenty-four hours a day.”

“As bad as that?” I asked.

“Worse than that. This, my friend, has been a red letter day in Community Hospital. She tried to boss Dr. Harper. The poor old dear — meaning Kate — didn’t know Harper was a big shot. He didn’t take the bossing, but he did do some bawling out and when he finished, Kate was like a dishrag. We’re already taking up a collection for Dr. Harper’s Christmas present.”

“So she runs the joint,” I reflected out loud.

“She thinks she owns it. I’d better get her. At ten she’s due to assist on a gall bladder operation. Once she’s scrubbed, nobody can see her. Wait here.”

Kate came down a few minutes later, stiffer and starchier than ever. For my money I’d rather see Old Man Death himself than her kisser if I was on my way out. I wondered what the mortality rate in this hospital was.

“Yes, Mr. Trent. You wanted to see me.” She didn’t ask questions. She stated them.

I had to carry on a campaign to convince her. “Before you have me thrown out of here,” I begged, “keep in mind the fact that I am trying my best to help Ernest. There have been two murders already, perhaps more in the offing and one of them could be the death of your nephew. Aunt Kate, I need your help.”

“My name,” she told me in a voice she reserved for student nurses, “is Miss Bradford to you. How can I help? I’m a head nurse, not a policeman.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but you look and act like both. Now wait — this is important. Anna Doane — your nephew’s first wife — works here, doesn’t she?”

“She is a nurse. She was a nurse when she married Ernest. I saw nothing wrong in allowing her to work here.”

“But she is involved, Miss Bradford, in these murders. Don’t ask me how nor how much. I don’t know yet. All I want from you is a statement saying that Anna was here tonight. Since six o’clock.”

“To my knowledge she was. Good evening, young man.”

“O. K.,” I said and picked up my hat. “I’ll send flowers to Ernest’s funeral too.”

She hesitated and curiosity got the better of her. She stood there, waiting for me to talk.

“Anna,” I told her, “gets nothing if Ernest dies. That much I know. Neither does June. So they have no motive and yet I’m convinced they are mixed up in it. Could they hate Ernest sufficiently to take sides against him?”

“Ernest put Anna out of the house when June was less than a year old. I protested against it, but Ernest always was headstrong. Certainly they have reason to hate him.”

“And will you keep watch on Anna? Tell me if anyone comes to see her...”

“Ordinary nurses are permitted no visitors while on duty. When they go off, they are no concern of mine. I refuse to be a — an eavesdropper for you. Now I have an operation to prepare for. If you must come here again, please remember that I am on duty from four until midnight or after. I am ordinarily not available during those hours for it sets a bad example to the others.”

She stalked out of there on her skinny legs but boy, she had bearing in her shoulders. If the nurses had a nickname for her, it couldn’t be anything else but Old Ramrod.

I had things to do and they wouldn’t brook any delay. I got myself over to the vicinity of the Doane’s apartment as fast as possible and took up a position across the street. I had a feeling that Lila wouldn’t let much time elapse before she went to Freddie.

Chapter Six Hideout

While I stood there, I shook down my memory for all the facts which were part of this case. There weren’t very many and predominant among them was the idea that whoever was behind this happened to be a past master at the art of the frame. I had few doubts but that the cards had been stacked against Freddie when he was convicted of manslaughter. It was all part of an unpretty pattern that spread over a period of years. The murderer was patient and cautious. Let a killer with average intelligence plot a crime and he leaves few, if any, clues. The best advantage cops have is that most murders are committed in a moment of intense hatred — by people who lose their heads and, consequently their lives or liberty. My killer wasn’t that type.

At nine-twenty, Lila emerged from the building. She didn’t look around, just walked as fast as possible to the nearest corner. I was tempted to go after her, but I figured if anyone wanted to get on her trail, the place to do it was from the starting point right here.

Sure enough, within the next three minutes a familiar person hurried out and went in the same direction that Lila had taken. Paul Manning, and he wasn’t smooth and subservient. There was a look on his face akin to murder.

I tailed Paul Manning because where Lila went, he’d also go and I’d be right back of both. That was what I thought. Paul suddenly made himself scarce down an alley and I had to duck for the cover of a pole — a light pole at that, but not much of me could be seen, I hoped.

I knew why Paul had moved fast, too. There was a garage on this side street and down the ramp slid a yellow coupe with Lila at the wheel. As she pulled away, Paul raced for the garage too, while I frantically hunted a cab without much luck.

I saw Paul drive out in a limousine which I took to be Ernest Doane’s. Then they were both gone and I was left chewing my nails. I yapped senseless curses at all the taxi drivers in New York until it suddenly dawned on me that I had no reason to tail them. I knew where they were going. Two years in stir seemed to have done things to my so-called thinking apparatus.

But getting me a car was another matter. That particular garage gave me a cold eye and a sharp “No” when I asked to rent one. They must have thought I was on the lam for something. I started walking and tried another garage six blocks north. They didn’t like me either, but the night manager had compassion enough to tell me where I might hire one.

Now, at long last, a cab wheeled by and I stopped it with a whistle loud enough to grace the Queen Mary. I had the driver take me to the third garage. There I was rented a car. All I had to do was leave twice what the car was worth, a pint of blood and slip the manager twenty bucks under the table.

But I had a car of sorts. I didn’t look at the make and there was nothing on the dash to indicate it. I figured the manufacturer never had the courage to baptize the wobbly, weaving old crate.

It made more noise than a B-29 and had the speed of a tractor. If I never turned that car back, the garage was in money. My foot got tired being held flat against the floor board so I pulled out the dash gas control all the way, settled back and let her tear along at top speed. Something around thirty-two.

Curses didn’t help. I was a whipped man the instant I got behind the wheel and once I realized it, things got better. The miles ticked off somehow. She kept going, I’ll say that much — without further comment on how she went.

I figured about an hour had elapsed before I hit the Ridgefield Road and then I found out the speedometer didn’t work. Not the one that registered tenths of a mile, so I had to go by the big one and when it passed the allotted mileage according to Horseface’s orders, I held her at thirty and counted off three-tenths of a mile. I made a turn, bumped over a deeply rutted road and heard the shots some distance away.

My estimation of time and distance was lousy. I’d taken the wrong road. I backed up, finally made a turn and streaked for the highway. Streaked, that is, like a tortoise. There’d been three or four shots. Fast ones, as if an inexperienced hand was around the butt of the gun. It sounded like an automatic.

I kept listening for more shots or the sound of another car, but my own Stanley Steamer made more racket than a roller coaster so I gave up. I found the right road at last. I spotted the little house Horseface had described. I saw the yellow coupe and the black limousine and — somebody lying face down in the path leading to the house.

I yelled to Freddie because if he’d done this, he might still have an itchy finger. Freddie recognized my voice and popped out of the house fast. When he reached me, I was turning over what was left of Paul Manning. I lit a match, cupped it and grimaced at the two wounds directly over his heart. And I’d thought the shooting had been done by an amateur.

“Is he... is he... dead?” Freddie asked.

“He won’t say ‘yes sir’ to Lila’s father again. What happened? Where’s Lila?”

“In the... the house. Rick, I killed him. I had to. I thought he was a cop.”

“Killed him with what?” I demanded.

“A... a gun I found in the house...”

“Stop it, Freddie.” I grabbed him by both lapels and shook him until his teeth chattered. “Horseface wouldn’t allow a rod in any place he or a relative owned. He’s on parole too.”

Lila came out then, striding along like a man, her hair loose and wind slashed from the fast drive. She didn’t make any bones about it.

“Rick, I’m glad you came. I killed Paul Manning. He followed me. I didn’t know who it was. Dad kept a gun in the coupe. I went back for it...”

“Went back?” I asked her quickly.

“Yes, Rick. You see, I thought it might be Anna or my half sister, June. Both of them hate me like poison. I thought all along they were behind this. I could handle both of them. I know I could, but when the driver of the big car got out, it was a man. I thought he had a gun too. I ran back to the coupe and got Dad’s automatic.”

“Where did you find it? In its usual place?”

“Why... no, Rick. No, it was on the seat. Had been there all the time, I suppose.”

“People don’t carry rods on car seats, Lila. Think... was it there during your ride here or wasn’t it?”

“I... don’t know. Maybe I unconsciously took it out of the glove compartment because I was scared. I don’t know. Everything was hazy. I fired, I don’t know how many times. Then I... I saw him lying there and I ran into the house.”

“Lila,” I said in as kindly a voice as I could possibly summon, “if you’re pinched for this, don’t get on the witness stand. You’ll strap yourself into the electric chair as sure as little bullets killed Paul Manning. Now let’s go into the house. I doubt anyone heard the shots. Horseface wasn’t kidding when he said this place was isolated.”

“Horseface,” Freddie said very unnecessarily, “is a friend of ours, Lila.”

I busted a dozen parole regulations then — and a couple of laws which apply to ordinary people. I pulled Paul’s body out of sight behind some bushes. Then I went into the house and doused the lights. In the darkness, I let them have it.

“You kids just wound yourself in more trouble than you ever knew existed. Why didn’t you ask who it was before you blasted him, Lila?”

“I... was scared. I told you. I was afraid for Freddie. I thought whoever it was had come to get him.”

“The protective female,” I sighed dismally. “Now what are we going to do about it?”

Lila began laughing hysterically. Between laughs, she said: “Think of it. I’ve reverted. I’m the descendant of killers and pirates and horse thieves and crooks. A real descendant now. I’ve become what Dad was always afraid he’d turn into. And I don’t give a damn. Do you hear me, Rick? I don’t give one good damn. Freddie... Freddie, sit beside me. Hold me. I’m scared all over again.”

“Finished?” I asked. “Then listen to reason for a change. You two are going back. Freddie to his room, you to your apartment. You’ll act as if nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened!” Lila laughed hysterically again. I walked over and slapped her hard across the face. That did it. She began sobbing quietly for a change.

“Freddie, you’ll probably be picked up,” I told him. “You’ll say you were at Lila’s. You two had an early date. Aunt Kate can’t deny that because she’s been at the hospital and I promise Paul Manning won’t testify against you.”

“Picked up?” Freddie asked. “You mean I’ll be arrested?”

“That’s what they call it. Freddie, did you think for a moment the murder of Hazy was committed for the fun of it? That kill is framed on you right now. Oh sure, nobody saw you that you know of, but I’m betting a couple of people show who’ll describe you to fit the rogue’s gallery photo they carry at Headquarters.”

Freddie had a pretty good grip on himself by then. “I’ll do whatever you say, Rick.”

“Lila is your alibi and you are hers. Maybe the death of Paul was a frame too.”

“No! No, I killed him,” Lila started all over again, but when I advanced toward her she stopped abruptly. She remembered that slap. I’d intended she wouldn’t forget.

“Whether you did or not, Freddie will say he was with you in your apartment. Tell your father what happened. Every last little detail and tell him I’ve got plenty of faith in both of you. Get him in on the twin alibis if you can.”

“He’ll do it — for me,” Lila said. “But I’d almost rather be shot than tell him I... I killed Paul.”

“You’ll have to tell him,” I said. “He’ll protect you because he is your father. No matter how much the cops land on Freddie, stay with that story. He was with you. Now beat it, both of you.”

“But... but there are three cars,” Freddie said with rare good sense. I hadn’t thought of it.

“Four,” I said. “Yours, Lila’s coupe, the limousine Paul drove, and that 1902 model I piloted. Take the same cars you drove here. I’ll account for the other two, somehow. Get going — before the cops decide to hunt Freddie at your apartment, Lila. And listen — don’t break any speed laws on the way back and watch the lights. If you’re pinched tonight — say so long to freedom.”

Freddie asked: “What are yon going to do?”

“I don’t know — yet. Maybe nothing. If Westover happens to land on this case, you haven’t seen me since the time I panhandled ten bucks. Now beat it. Time is an essential element even if you two can’t realize that.”

I watched them drive off in their respective cars. Then I sat down on the doorstep to figure the next move. I’d have one hell of a time piloting two cars back to town, but something had to be done. If there was a sacrifice, it was going to be the quiver I drove up here, but I’d have to account for that too.

Finally I hit on a plan, a simple but effective one. I should have thought of it right off the bat, but sometimes I use sawdust for brains. First though, I hunted a flashlight in the house and did some detective work. It was hopeless. The drive was gravel which didn’t take any footprints and heavy, close-cropped grass extended smack to the edge of the drive. I gave that up.

I went back to the house, stood near the door and visualized Paul Manning getting out of the car. It was dark as pitch. The limousine was even blacker and Paul was wearing a dark blue suit and a dark shirt. No part of him should have been visible. What was Lila shooting at, then? And I’d heard four shots. There were only two wounds in Paul. If Lila had plugged him twice through the heart, she wasn’t missing with the other two shots by much of a margin.

With the flash, I checked over the car. Freddie had been standing right in front of it, but there were no bullet holes in it. At least, that was a consolation because when the cops found the car next day, I didn’t want them to get excited about bullet holes.

I gave up then, climbed into the old hack and drove it to a garage I’d spotted some two miles down the road. It was closed, but the owner lived alongside. I found that out after I stopped just short of the place, raised the hood and did a few things to the motor of the rented car. It was a pleasure. I owed that crate some torture.

The garageman took one look and groaned. “Mister,” he said, “I won’t have this baby ready for two days. Your car is ancient. Hard to get the necessary parts.”

“O. K.,” I told him. “Take your time. I’ll hike to the village and grab me a train. Be out in a couple of days.”

I did start toward town too, until there was sufficient darkness between me and the garage. Then I doubled back to where Paul Manning’s car waited for me. Paul waited, too, though not for me. All he needed was a medical examiner and an undertaker.

I drove that sleek limousine back to town. Compared to the nut and bolt job I’d driven out, it was like driving on a cloud. I actually enjoyed myself. I pulled up on a quiet side street, wiped prints off the wheel and door handles, made a check to see things were O.K. and then left the car there. The cops would wonder how it happened to be in this spot while its driver was plenty of miles away, lying behind a bush with his heart full of lead.

Cops are paid to worry anyway. I had no guilty conscience.

Chapter Seven The Workover

I phoned Freddie’s hotel ten minutes later and, surprisingly enough, he answered.

“Nothing has happened so far,” he reported. “No news flashes of that certain affair...”

“Stay put,” I told him. “And hang onto your nerve.”

I hung up and spent another nickle calling Lila. She didn’t sound much like the affectionate, friendly girl I’d met only a couple of days before. Her voice was weak and full of hopelessness. I tried to cheer her up.

“There’s a chance neither you nor Freddie will be connected with this thing at all. How did your father take it?”

“He... agreed to provide Freddie and me with alibis. Right now he’s locked himself in the study with a bottle. He... looked sick when I told him.”

“He’d be sicker if the police pinched you for murder, Lila. Remember that. Keep in touch with Freddie. Act as if nothing at all has happened.”

“Nothing — at — all,” she laughed and made me shiver as she hung up.

I subwayed to the station nearest my hotel. This was the worst mess I’d ever been in, though my luck was holding so far as Freddie and Lila were concerned. I remembered I still had that automatic. Getting rid of guns was really becoming a habit. This one could be traced to Ernest Doane and there might be complications. Yet I couldn’t go around with the thing on my hip.

I stopped off at a store and bought a box and some paper. I found an all night lunch room with nobody but a sleepy counter man in it. There I ordered coffee and a hamburger and while it was being prepared, I wrapped the gun into the box.

First though, I wiped it off carefully. There was plenty of cordite all around the butt and the trigger. I slipped out the magazine and counted three slugs. The load capacity was nine. Lila had fired four times. What had happened to the other two bullets — if they’d really been in the clip?

I gave up trying to solve that and finished wrapping the gun. I addressed it to Ernest Doane at his office, marked it Fragile and from a book of stamps, I plastered what I thought was plenty to carry the thing. I mailed it at the next parcel drop and felt better. Much better.

But I was worried, too, because something should have happened to Freddie. If Hazy’s murder was a frame, the real killer couldn’t let much time lapse before his trap was sprung. I didn’t know it then, but I was worrying about an item that was due to knock me into right field.

The desk clerk swore Westover hadn’t been around. I telephoned Sedley then and asked him if he’d come to see me. He recognized the urgency in my voice and promised to leave right away.

I went to my room, cleaned up a bit and was putting on a fresh shirt when someone knocked on the door. Sedley, of course. He’d made very good time. I opened it and a big hand shoved me so hard I went backwards, and tripped.

Lieutenant Westover didn’t laugh at me. He was beyond the laughing stage. There was savage determination in his eyes and I knew my goose was cooked.

Westover cocked one foot back. “Stay there, con. Stay there or I’ll kick your jaw loose.”

I let my full weight rest on the floor again. I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t necessary. Westover would spill his piece.

He went over to a chair, picked up my coat and turned it upside down. He shook everything out of the pockets and huffed a little because the contents were nothing by which he could put me back in stir. He took a pair of cuffs from his pocket and began twirling them.

“This time,” he told me, “you really went over the dam, Trent. Where’s the knife?”

“I swallowed it,” I said.

“You’re going to swallow a few thousand volts of juice. Get this, con. I’m arresting you for two murders. I can bring you in half dead if I like and nobody is going to say a word. Not a single squawk. Now talk.”

“Tell me what to talk about,” I suggested. “Not two bodies, Lieutenant, because I only know one formally and I didn’t kill Gus Cooney.”

“You knifed him and you knifed an old prison pal of yours named Hazy with the same blade. Give up, con. You can’t get away with it forever. Soon as we found Hazy, I went to work on it. Happens I met a couple of radio patrolmen who told me they had seen Hazy not so long ago and at the time they thought he was being worked over by another mug. So what happens? The patrolmen glance at the rogue’s gallery and yelp when they see your puss. You roughed Hazy up then, but you had to let him go. Later you got him right. What for, con?”

I said: “If you’re taking me in, take me in. I won’t talk to you.”

He raised his foot, kicked out and clouted me alongside the jaw. It hurt like hell and for a moment blind rage almost made me tackle him. I didn’t though. He’d have a time proving me as the double killer. Otherwise there’d been no questions, just a straight hook to the jaw and a fast trip to the cooler.

He kicked me again and then unlimbered a blackjack. “I’m going to bat your ears off, con,” he warned. “Talk!”

I didn’t say a word. Not until the sap hit me across the back of the neck and then I only groaned. He shellacked me with the sap a dozen times, being careful to hold back the blows and all the while I was thinking of how I could get back at this overgrown ape.

He got tired after awhile and sat down again. I was lying on my face, tasting blood and hating the taste of it. Westover spoke, but he seemed to be a long, long distance away. Once he kicked me experimentally in the ribs, but I didn’t even grunt. I was past the stage of making noises. All I wanted was a nice long sleep. Preferably in a cool hospital bed.

Hospital bed! That was it. The very thing. Westover didn’t know it, but he was doing me a favor. I was laughing like someone in a padded cell. Laughing at myself because it seemed I did my best thinking when my brains were knocked loose. The laughing got him.

“This is your last chance, con. I’m going to kill you if you don’t talk.”

I spat a mouthful of blood in his face and started laughing all over again. He swarmed around the room, ripping stuff apart in his search for the murder knife. I wasn’t worried about his finding it because I knew where the knife was and it wasn’t here.

He came back to my side and poised the sap. “Here it comes, con. This one will split your skull open. You killed Cooney and you killed Hazy. Tell me all, if you want to keep your head.”

Sedley knocked on the door at that moment. I often wondered afterward if Westover would have used the sap again. There was one man Westover feared and he stood in the doorway now. Sedley had power and authority. He wielded a big club and Westover was no match for him and knew it.

Westover lowered the sap, put it into his pocket, growled something and brushed past Sedley. He kept on going and I started laughing all over again.

“Damn that mayhem-mad cop.” Sedley went for a wash cloth and a glass of water. I called him back.

“Don’t clean me up. In about two minutes I’m going to collapse. Pass right out. You’ll get excited and call for an ambulance and make sure that ambulance comes from Community Hospital.”

“Of course,” Sedley said. “Of course, Rick. Anything you say.”

He was humoring me. I sat bolt upright to show him I wasn’t finished — and fell back again. Passing out would be easy for me.

“I mean it, Mr. Sedley,” I told him. “I’ve got to go to Community Hospital and this way nobody will be in the least suspicious. Later on, we can arrange to take care of Westover. Things never worked out better.”

“You mean nobody was ever worked over better.” Sedley went to the phone. “Some day I’m going to kiss that guy and embarrass both of us.”

We had quite a wait for the ambulance. Sedley sat down on the edge of the bed while I stayed on the floor so when I collapsed for the doctor I wouldn’t have far to fall.

Sedley was frowning. “An idea hit me not so long ago, Rick. About Ernest Doane. Keep in mind his family history — it smells. His family was full of the worst kind of people. Isn’t it possible then that Ernest reverted?”

I said: “I know what you’re going to offer. Ernest Doane wants the money his second wife left to Lila. I considered that for awhile. About ten seconds. No, Mr. Sedley, there’s more than that to it. In a way you’re on the right track though.”

“Just how? I feel as wound up as a top.”

“Someone is playing on Ernest Doane’s reverence for the present. Doane felt he had licked the past — until Lila told him she’d knocked off Manning. That worked squarely into the scheme of things fashioned by this somebody.”

“In what way?” he wanted to know.

“The murderer staged all of this for one reason. Put yourself in Doane’s position. He’d licked the black strain in him. Prevented any of it from cropping out in the daughter he loves — Lila. Now she turns into a killer. What would you do in Doane’s shoes? Defend her — of course. But after that? Would you want all that money he’d leave, to go to her and foster the continuation of this family of high class mugs?”

Sedley nodded. “I see. Ernest would prevent Lila from getting a dime.”

“Certainly. So there’s Ernest Doane without an heir and filthy with dough and — not in very good health. Nobody told me so but he’s too flushed. I’ve an idea his blood pressure was bad and right now it’s awful.”

Sedley wagged his head. “For a theory it’s not bad. The murderer now stands to get Doane’s money. Very well, but — who the hell is the murderer?”

“Don’t you know who?” I asked him.

“Rick, there isn’t anybody to inherit. Not a soul. I knew Ernest well enough to guess he won’t turn any of his fortune over to Anna or her daughter June. Manning, as confidential secretary, might have been expected to get a nice slice but he’s dead. The only member of the family left is Aunt Kate. She’s got money of her own and doesn’t want any more.”

I was slowly getting a bad case of the heebies because Sedley could be right and me all wrong. If that was true, I’d just pushed myself thirty miles further from the solution of the case.

The ambulance doctor and an orderly came in with a stretcher and just in time. I no longer had an opportunity to tell myself how wrong I might be.

The doc said: “How many people pushed him around?”

Sedley answered because I had my eyes closed and I was breathing hard, like a guy who might not breathe much longer.

He said: “Just one man with a badge. Look him over good, Doc, because the cop that did this is going on the carpet.”

The doc applied a stethoscope and scared hell out of me. “He certainly does deserve to be broken. This man is in serious condition. O. K., Pete, help me slide him onto the stretcher.”

I was limper than a soaked Christmas herring. And it wasn’t all pretense. While the ambulance sirened its way to the hospital, I began thinking of Westover in the chair. It made a very pleasant picture. I was wondering how I could arrange to shave that spot on his head for the electrodes when the ambulance arrived at the hospital.

Chapter Eight Money and The Power

When I opened my eyes again, I was tucked in bed and Anna Doane stood there looking down at me. She seemed worried.

I said: “How are you going to do it, Anna? With a hypo of poison, an overdose of morphine or maybe — just a knife?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told me. “I’m here on routine work. This happens to be my floor and I’ve got to care for you. Don’t expect too much.”

“I’d prefer no care at all — from you,” I told her flatly. “You were interested enough in me to have your daughter June check up with Paul Manning. Then you had her freeze me to a park bench while somebody tried framing Freddie.”

She put a hand against my forehead. “You’re irrational. I’ll have to order a sedative.”

“Oh, no.” I tried to sit up and didn’t quite make it. The pillow felt too good. “From you I wouldn’t take Scotch and I’ve never been known to refuse that before in any way, shape or form. Anna — what do you expect to get out of it?”

“I’ll get myself a headache if Miss Kate ever sees you acting like this.”

“Anna,” I went on, “you signed away all right and title to Doane’s estate when he divorced you. Neither you nor June can get a penny unless Doane changes his will. Do you think he can be persuaded to do that?”

“Keep quiet,” she snapped.

“Think it over, Anna,” I advised. “You’ve got brains. You know the score and when there’s murder, you won’t be batting up to par. Because there’s been three murders, Anna.”

That one shook her. “Three?”

“That private eye, Gus Cooney. He found out too much, intending to cash in, so he was knocked off. Hazy was just a poor sap who got himself bumped because he happened to be a handy stooge. But Paul Manning wasn’t a stooge, was he, Anna?”

She walked away from the bedside and I stopped her with a few words. “I’m going to sing, Anna. I’m going to tell the cops. How do you think I got shellacked this way? They were trying to make me talk, but I wouldn’t. Not then. They’ll come here here and try again. Next time I won’t be able to evade their questions.”

She gave an audible snort. “You’re trying to pump me. You don’t know anything and you think I do.”

“I’m sure of it, Anna. And I know a lot. Like the fact that Paul Manning is dead and Lila is going to be blamed for it. That will bust her father’s heart and close his purse strings to her. So maybe all his money will be left to June. But that isn’t the way it’s going to work out. Because Lila didn’t shoot Paul.”

“Shoot — Paul?”

“Sure. Paul was another stooge. A guy who was determined to take life easy in his old age. Only he didn’t have any old age. He played up to Lila. Maybe he got somewhere before Freddie was sprung. Maybe not. Then he tried your daughter June. But it was Lila he went for. June just happened to be a prospect for Doane’s money.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said very softly.

“I do.” I had her now, good and proper. “You helped with all of this because of the chance Doane would make June his heir. He won’t and somebody else knows this too. Somebody else knows exactly what Doane will do with his estate because lie’s talked about it. You haven’t a chance, but all along you’ve been told you had.”

I’d have broken her in another five minutes, but it wasn’t my lucky night. A nurse popped into the room and told Anna she’d better get to some other patient or Kate would raise hell.

This other nurse came over and took my temperature and pulse. When she got the thermometer out of my mouth, I said: “Who sent you down here? The old battle axe?”

“You know her too?” She laughed.

“Who doesn’t? I thought Kate was on surgical duty tonight.”

She shook down the thermometer. “Kate was — for better than four hours, but she came down a few minutes ago.”

“Just what is Kate’s position?”

“Superintendent of nurses. We have another name for her, but it isn’t spoken in the presence of the male sex.”

“She must be pretty good to get that high.” I kept on with it.

“She may be a good nurse, but she’s one heck of a boss to work for, Mister. And she didn’t get to her position by showing exceptional talent. Look, I’m talking too much and I don’t even know who you are. Be good and sleep.”

“Uh-uh, not me,” I chuckled. “If I ever do, it’ll be my last sleep, baby. How about smuggling me in a shot of rye?”

“I’ll smuggle you in a sleeping pill,” she said. “Golly, the things that would happen to me if I ever gave you a drink. Or even took one myself for that matter. Will you go to sleep?”

I shook my head. I’d had enough sleep. The way I looked at it, I’d snoozed all through this case. With my eyes wide open I should have known all the answers. There’d been only one all the time, but I’m not used to running down greedy killers who murder without thought of money.

Five minutes later Aunt Kate came in.

“Mr. Sedley told me what happened to you,” she said sympathetically. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Trent. Sorry, too, that I treated you the way I did. At the house, I mean.”

Whatever Westover had done to my head didn’t interfere with my hearing at all. I heard the faint metallic rasp as the knob of the door to the adjoining room turned very slowly. The latch was going to click any minute. I started coughing. I had a regular spell of it, but I shook off Aunt Kate’s attempts to pour water down my throat.

“Not that,” I told her. “It’s unhealthy stuff. I want something that bites.”

“Perhaps, a bit later when the floor is quiet, I can bring you something. It’s against the rules, but what’s the sense being boss if you can’t break rules.”

“You like being boss, don’t you?”

She smiled. “Naturally. It proves to me that I am competent. Now I’d better have one of the girls prepare you.”

I lay back weakly. “Not yet, Kate. I feel terrible. How does a guy feel when he’s going out for good?”

She put her hand on my forehead. I’d been hoping for just that. I groaned.

“Don’t leave me. Please! I’m scared. You’re the only person I know in here. Kate — hold my hand. Hold it tightl...”

“Oh, now, you’re just the victim of your own imagination,” she soothed. But she took my hand in hers. I closed my fingers tight. “Kate, you’re slipping,” I told her.

She tried to pull free and didn’t. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“You just came down from surgery. Only a matter of minutes ago. Nurses on surgical duty scrub just like the doctors and, Kate — you forgot to scrub away that dark stain of gunpowder and you forgot your hands might smell a trifle oily from holding Doane’s gun.”

I give her credit. The old girl had more spunk than I reasoned. Most women would have either begged me to shut up or promptly fainted. I hadn’t been keeping track of Kate’s other hand. Now I did. It held one of those surgical knives that are so long they must be used on horses, not people.

“Keep your voice low,” she warned. “I thought you caught up with me, Trent. I was afraid of you right from the start. The others — they’re stupid. Some of them I used. The others were too blind to see.”

“All that money,” I said with considerable apprehension. She held the knife like a veteran doctor. “All that lovely money of Doane’s. With Lila the murderer of Paul — as you wanted Doane to believe — he’d do as he always said he would. Give his estate, to charity. And what better charity than the hospital where his darling aunt works? Only you’d see that you controlled it and the staff of this hospital would do exactly what you said, including the doctors you haven’t been able to boss so far. You’d be head man here, Kate. That’s what you wanted. Money meant nothing, but power does. How am I doing, Kate?”

“You just talked yourself into the grave,” she said quietly. The scalpel came closer.

I had to do something to hold her off. I said: “Sure — the same type of knife that killed Cooney and Hazy. The kind that might leave an incision any doctor would recognize. That’s why you twisted it and made the wound look bigger. How will you explain about me, Kate? Have you thought of that?”

“I’ve thought of everything — even that,” she said. Right then I didn’t feel very good and I kept getting worse. She went on: “You’re a poor fool who is in trouble with the police and even suspected of being involved in these murders. You were horribly beaten, in danger of going back to prison. It’s quite logical that you should take your own life. Snatch this scalpel from my pocket... I’m not afraid, you see. A knife really isn’t a woman’s weapon but to me it is fast and clean. Death is no stranger to me, Mr. Trent.”

I’d been bringing up one knee slowly. I let her bend over the bed and then I raised it hard. That was perfect. The biggest dope in the world should have remembered that hospital beds are made with square corners that hold the sheets in place as if they were riveted there.

The knife was poised for a slicing blow. She was going to make it look as if I’d shaved — a bit too close. Then Anna Doane screamed. It had been she who’d opened the adjoining door to hear everything. I didn’t figure on that, though I’d hoped. Along about the time that scalpel was two inches from my throat I was even hoping for miracles.

The scream did it. Kate, so intent on her gruesome little job, was startled out of her wits. She turned like a flash and I kicked the covers free.

For the next three minutes I had a wildcat on my hands. Kate didn’t look strong, but there was power in her arms. I battled that scalpel while Anna yelled her lungs out in the hall. Sedley was one of the first to barge in. Then a couple of internes showed up, followed by nurses in starched uniforms and patients in anything they happened to have on.

I told Sedley about it later. “Kate wanted the money to further her ambitions. She’d have bought her way to becoming super of the whole damn hospital. She was obsessed with ambition and drunk with the desire for power. That can be a motive even stronger than hate sometimes.”

“Anna Doane has been doing a lot of talking,” Sedley said. “She realizes she was a dope. Kate never entered surgery tonight. Anna took her place. With those masks and the long gowns, you can’t even tell a man from a woman, let alone distinguish two females.”

“I know,” I said. “She needed the time and alibi to knock off Paul Manning and blame the kill on Lila. Things worked as she planned. Paul, of course, was another of her little men, thinking he’d land Lila if he played his cards right. Lila shot at Paul — with the same gun which had already killed him.”

Sedley nodded. “I know. Paul told her Lila was going to Freddie and she instructed him to pick her up. As they neared the spot, she shot him.”

“What Lila saw was Paul getting out of the car, either still alive but dying on his feet — or Kate was in the car holding him up somehow. The luck of a killer like Kate! Lila ran to her coupe in which Kate had already ditched the gun. Kate knew Lila would fight like a wildcat to save Freddie. So Lila blazed away and hit nothing but a lot of scenery. She didn’t even put a slug in the car. That was the giveaway so far as I was concerned. Of course I was hit on the head with the knowledge that she fired four times, but two bullets were missing.”

Sedley lit a cigar. “What about Freddie? Was he framed for that first rap?”

“Sure he was,” I said. “I haven’t any proof, but Kate will furnish it. She wanted to get rid of him because Lila had fallen, and if they married, Kate’s plans would go haywire because Lila would be protected and removed from a close association with Kate. She hired Gus Cooney to embarrass Freddie in the hope Lila might give him up. But Cooney hired me for that job and he did enough prowling to find out Kate had a money motive behind her scheme. Cooney always was a fool. He tried to blackmail her and she did some carving on his neck.”

“She killed Hazy to frame Freddie again?” Sedley asked me.

“Of course, but things happened so fast then, Kate couldn’t keep up with them. What did Anna Doane say about her own part in this?”

“Kate told her Doane’s money should go to her and June. Anna fell for it. She admitted obeying Kate and having June keep you busy while the frame was set, though Anna swears she didn’t know it was murder. Kate told her later on and convinced Anna she couldn’t back out now. So Anna went on with it, taking Kate’s place in the operating room. There would have been an alibi.”

“Speaking of alibis,” I said, “how about Westover?”

Sedley puffed contentedly. “I’m going to have him kicked off the force, Rick.”

“Nix,” I said. “Not that I wouldn’t love it, but I was too mixed up in this. If I’m forced to testify, I’ll talk myself right back into the can. This is the time Westover has it on me.”

Sedley sighed. “Whatever you say, Rick. I guess you’re right at that. But we’ll let him stew awhile.”

I swung my legs off the bed. “Let’s get out of here, Mr. Sedley. I want to see Doane and tell him he’s been betting against himself all the time and Lila is O.K. Somebody ought to feel good from this.”

“Do you think you can?” Sedley asked.

I grinned at him. A rather lopsided grin because my face still hurt. “I’ve been pasted worse than this before. You know, in a way I’m sorry I had to spring it on Kate so quickly. In her own peculiar style she had a heart.”

“You’d never know it from me.”

“She was on the verge of bringing me a shot of rye, Mr. Sedley.”

“Man alive, she’d have put a kick in it with arsenic or cyanide.”

I winced. “Sometimes you break up the most wonderful dreams.”

“Come on,” he told me. “Doane will give you all the drinks you want and if he doesn’t, I’ve a cellar full.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” I demanded.