Black Mask (Vol. 18, No. 11 — January 1936)

“G-Man” Chuck Thompson by Dwight V. Babcock

Chuck Thompson follows the “G-Men” code.

They found young Jerry Mulholland in a ditch with his face buried in the mud. He’d been dead for hours, but he’d been a long time dying. It takes a long time when your guts are shot full of holes the way his were. And, while you slowly bleed to death, every second of remaining life is an agony of excruciating torment — pain clawing and ripping and burning inside of you.

They found him shortly after daylight, members of the county radio patrol did, alongside a lonely dirt road that rambled across the top of low hills. After a while, the divisional field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified — for young Jerry Mulholland had been a Department of Justice operative, working out of that office.

The news was a bitter blow to every man who happened to be at the office when it came in. Jerry Mulholland had been their friend and their brother agent. He had been young and enthusiastic and eager to learn. He had been a clear-eyed, intelligent, likable kid, irresistibly winning his way into their hearts.

They went to work swiftly, with grim purpose, while grief and bitterness and silent fury seethed within them. It was mid-morning when they started. In less than a half-hour they had established these facts — and these only:

Jerry Mulholland had not been on an assignment when he met his death. The day before, he had been doing routine work — checking used car lots with special agent Chuck Thompson in an effort to get on the track of a hot car syndicate that was rumored to be operating in the East, altering the appearance and numbers of stolen cars and shipping them to the Pacific Coast to be sold. Their work had met with no success that day and Mulholland had left Thompson at five-thirty, bound for home.

He had been shot elsewhere than the ditch where he was found, for the bullets had gone all the way through and none were in the earth around or beneath him. Trussed hand and foot he had been thrown from a car while still alive and left to die a thousand deaths, writhing in the mud.

It had rained a little during the night, before that had happened and there were tire tracks of a heavy car in the claylike consistency of the road-bed along there — tire tracks that showed new Goodyears on all wheels except the right rear, that one leaving the tread of a worn General.

And Jerry Mulholland had tried to give them a lead. They’d found a filth-encrusted handkerchief wadded up in one of his hands. He had known what was coming, and somehow he’d been able to get that off his killer and hang on to it.

That was all. Not much to go on. No apparent motive for murder. But Jerry Mulholland’s death could not go unattoned. For, along with personal desires for vengeance, there was the tradition already established that no one could kill an F.B.I. man and get away with it.

The “G-Heat” was smoldering, ready to flare — the moment the killer’s identity was established.

The handkerchief was sent to the police laboratory for a quick preliminary micro-analysis and report before being air-mailed East to the Department of Justice’s own crime laboratory, the most complete in the world.

Michael — “Iron Mike” — Dougherty, Special Agent in Charge of the divisional field office, got Washington on the direct wire.

Chuck Thompson, because he had been closer to Jerry Mulholland than any of the others and because he felt the responsibility was his, was sent to break the news to Jerry’s widowed mother.

There were other cars parked at the curb before the neatly modest bungalow and two of them had press-car signs pasted in their windshields. Thompson’s young face darkened as he noticed these signs, and slow angry fire rose within him. He went hard-heeled up the walk to the tiny, roofed-in porch — a tall, hard-muscled figure in neat dark gabardine. The door stood partly open and sounds that were insistent, questioning voices drummed out to meet him.

He pushed inside without knocking and was in a small white and blue living-room. Two reporters had Mrs. Mulholland backed into a corner of the divan, taking turns asking her questions which she answered in a dazed mumble.

Thompson rapped, “Shut up!” as he crossed the room. He grabbed each one by a shoulder, jerked them up and around. “And get out!”

Two startled white faces gaped up at him. One hardened immediately to a wise-eyed glare. The voice that went with it started to bluster. “Yeah? And who—”

The words died — killed by the deadly dancing glitter in this young giant’s eyes. The other reporter was already edging meekly for the door. The blusterer swallowed, licked his lips, picked up his hat and followed swiftly. Thompson went to the door and closed it soundlessly behind them.

He drew a deep breath then removed his hat and swung around. He looked very young and ashamed, standing there like that with his head bent — like a small boy whose mother has caught him fighting. He said, with quiet sincerity: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Mulholland.”

“It’s all right, Chuck. Thanks for getting rid of them.”

He lifted his head and his eyes were somberly troubled. His gaze found and clung to hers. “You know about — Jerry.”

It was more a statement than a question.

“I know.”

She was surprisingly young and daintily small, Mrs. Mulholland. Soft black hair framed patrician features that were as regular and clearly etched as a cameo. She sat on the divan, eyes misted, but with her head held high. Her lips quivered when she spoke, but she kept her voice level.

“My boy — he went like a man. He died for a great cause — for his country.”

Hers was a proud sorrow.

“Yes,” Thompson said. He moved impulsively forward a step, stopped, bit his lip. “I’d give anything if it could have been I instead of him, Mrs. Mulholland.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Chuck. I know.” Her breath caught on a quick dry sob and she pressed one hand against her mouth, then quickly looked away.

Thompson felt big and awkward and angry at himself, at the world. His eyes were humid and breath flared his nostrils. He could not think of anything to say.

A moment and her chin lifted again, a proud light shining through the sheen of tears that filmed her eyes. “Jerry would want me to be brave. I... I can’t believe it’s happened — that he’s gone. I won’t be bitter about it. But he must not have died in vain.”

“He won’t have.” Thompson’s hands were clenched fists, crumpling his hat. “We’ll get the one responsible for Jerry’s death — I’ll do it if it takes me the rest of my life.”

She looked up, leaning suddenly forward, and her face was grimly eager, her voice strong with a new vibrancy. “I want to help, Chuck. I want to help find my boy’s murderer. What can I do? There must be something.”

Thompson crossed to the divan, seated himself beside her, this mother of one who had been his friend. “You can answer a question or two, if you feel up to it,” he said gently. “But you must leave the active work to those in the division assigned to the case. They won’t rest till the killer is brought to justice.”

“I suppose you’re right.” She was leaning back in the divan now, staring out the window across the room, her voice tired, disappointed. “Only it will be hard — sitting at home, knowing Jerry’s killer is out there somewhere. Free — and alive. If I were only a man!”

She breathed deeply and after a little while her eyes came away from the window, met his squarely. “What was it yon wished to ask me?”

“Jerry — did he come home at all last night?”

“No. I thought maybe an emergency had arisen. That he had been sent out on a case. I didn’t worry very much. He had told me that might happen any time.”

“He didn’t phone?”

“No.”

Thompson lowered his eyes. “I guess — there’s nothing else, right now. You know how I feel about—”

“I know.” One small warm hand pressed with quick firmness over his big one. His glance was drawn up to hers and she looked deep into his eyes. “You’re a fine boy, Chuck. Jerry loved you. I hope you will come to see me sometimes.”

“I will — you know I will.” He stood suddenly, abashed. “I have to go now, Mrs. Mulholland. Isn’t there someone — a friend — I can call to come and stay with you?”

She shook her head quietly, hands folded in her lap. “No. There are neighbors if I want them. But I’d rather just be alone for a while now.”

The anguish, the wordless suffering in her eyes bit deep into Thompson’s soul, scarring it a little. He could sense the loss she had steeled herself to sustain, the great loneliness that was now hers. Yet she held her head up bravely, and he knew she would keep it that way despite the bitter sorrow in her heart.

He turned and went softly to the door, out on to the porch. With the door closed behind him, he took his time getting his hat on while he stared at nothing. Then he went slowly down the walk and got into the sedan he was driving.

“Hello.”

The voice was friendly yet doubtfully timorous. It belonged to the meeker of the two reporters Thompson had ordered from the Mulholland cottage. He stood in the street at Thompson’s left elbow now, appearing from nowhere, a nondescript gangling figure wearing owlish Harold Lloyd glasses. He was using a hopeful, ingratiating smile.

Thompson was lighting a cigarette. He eyed the newshound quizzically, said, “Hello,” without warmth, exhaling smoke with the word. He flicked away the match, started the motor.

“Wait a minute!” the reporter begged anxiously. Thompson waited and the gangling one’s smile got sheepish. “I don’t know for sure, o’ course, but I got a hunch you’re one of these G-men — like Jerry Mulholland was. Did you know Mulholland was here, in town, last night?”

Quick glitter shot into Thompson’s gray eyes and they tightened at the corners. His voice had an eager ring. “Where?”

“At... at McCulloch’s Drug Store down on the Boulevard. He come in there about six o’clock for some cigarettes. They know him there.”

“That’s only four blocks from here,” Thompson muttered thoughtfully. “And he never reached home.” He shifted from neutral to low gear, looked up suddenly, jaw set. “Thanks — but if you know what’s good for you, you won’t bother Mrs. Mulholland any more.”

The car started to move as he let the clutch in. Keeping pace with it, the newshound shook his head in a violent protestation of innocence, almost dislodging his glasses.

“Not me! I wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t my idea anyhow. That smart guy from—”

“Okey.” Thompson flashed a brief, hard grin, gunned the motor.

The car jerked away from the curb, leaving the reporter behind. It was doing forty at the first cross street, the hood pointed for the boulevard.

Fifteen minutes later he had himself closeted in a phone booth in McCulloch’s Drug Store. He’d called the office and caught Michael Dougherty in the office. He was speaking swiftly now, tersely, in a clipped emotionless tone.

“He was in here last night about six for some cigarettes. That was half an hour after he left me downtown. He must have been on his way home, but he didn’t get there. No one recalls seeing him after he left here. I think Jerry saw something that aroused his suspicions between here and his home, or spotted someone on the fugitive list. He tried a tail without getting a chance to phone, was suspected and trapped.”

“Check,” Dougherty agreed. “That’s the theory we’ll go on for the present at least. We’ve had the word out on the kid’s car and I’ve just got a report that it’s been found empty parked on a side street. Nothing suspicious about it — no blood stains — but Collins and Blake are on their way over to check up on fingerprints.”

Thompson’s face got thoughtful, but he didn’t interrupt the flow of words coming from the receiver. Dougherty’s voice clicked on crisply.

“Now, get this, lad. A report on the handkerchief has come in from the police lab. It shows the presence of grease and lubricating oil stains, gray automobile lacquer, and traces of heroin in the dried mucus. What do you make of that?”

Thompson’s answer leaped into the phone. “It means our killer is a sniffer — on the junk. And he’s, been working or hiding out in a garage. The automobile lacquer points to a garage with a paint shop, and that seems to hook in with the hot car syndicate whose existence Jerry and I were checking on.”

“Maybe. And I’d say look for a car with a new battle-ship gray paint job, with a worn General on the right rear wheel and new Goodyears on the others. The word’s been flashed over the state teletype and to all field offices. We’re going to start checking garages.”

“Yes, sir,” Thompson put in quickly. “And as long as I’m here, I’d like to work this area. I believe that Jerry was taken so far from here — southwest of the city — and his car in the other direction — in an effort to focus attention away from here. I’ve got a hunch the whole business centers here.”

“All right, lad. But we’ve got to check on every other possible angle. I’m sending Enright and Smith over to work with you. They’ll meet you in the lobby of the Continental Hotel inside half an hour. You know how to proceed. Check all garages, body works and large service stations in your area. Look for the car. When you spot it or a ringer, or find a plant that looks suspicious, report to me. We want plenty of man-power in on the final showdown.”

Iron Mike Dougherty’s voice took on an edge of steel. “We’re going to get Jerry Mulholland’s killer, and we’re taking no chances of a slip-up. Be careful. This rat uses heroin and heroin’s dynamite. He’s bad. I’ve talked to the chief in Washington. He says: ‘Get him alive if possible — but get him!’ ”

“We’ll get him,” Thompson gritted softly as Dougherty broke the connection.

He, slid the receiver back on the prongs, stood for a moment staring with hard unseeing eyes at the mouthpiece. Then his lips tightened; he pulled the brim of his hat down over his left eye, went out of the booth. He strode long-legged across the store to the door, heels clicking sharply on the tile floor.

He went out into the noon-day sunshine of Glendale’s main business artery — tall, broad-shouldered, trim-hipped — a young athlete in a hurry. He looked clean and hard and masculine, moving along like that, with purpose in his stride and serious purpose in eyes that usually sparkled with good-natured laughter — with a grim-set mouth that could wear a flashing spontaneous smile.

The sign read:

It was faded, this sign, paint rotted and peeling. The once black letters, three feet high, were bannered across the top front of the building against a dirty brown background — barely discernible in the dusk.

The building was a single-storied square front that sagged with age. Rusted skeletons of cars cluttered a weed-choked lot next to it. The wide double doors were closed. There was a window in the front — a big window made up of many small panes. And each pane was black with encrusted grime. The place seemed desolate, deserted, but a light burned inside somewhere, its rays feebly penetrating the grime-filmed window glass.

The new black sedan drifted slowly past, veered in to the curb as it slowed, came to a gentle stop near the corner half a block away. This was a dark side-street, a Mexican section, just north of the boulevard. No other cars were in sight.

Within the new black sedan, Thompson said: “It’s getting dark. We’d better grab a bite to eat and phone in and report after this one.”

McKenzie Smith drawled lazily: “Let’s eat first; I’m too weak to move. This one’ll just be another dud anyway.”

He sat beside Thompson, slouched behind the wheel, hat on the back of his head. He was sandy-haired and lanky, McKenzie Smith, with freckled, pleasantly homely features. An ex-newspaperman, he affected a bored languor but was a whiz in any kind of action.

“You and your perpetual hunger!” Thompson rapped without rancor. He got the door open at his side, looked back at Bill Enright. “Okey, Mac. You be the one to stay with the car this time. This joint may be another dud, but there’s a light inside. And you never can tell.”

Smith closed his eyes, yawned. “That suits me. Just let me know when the shooting starts.”

Thompson and Enright got out, walked back through the deepening dusk towards the ancient building with its grime-encrusted window. The older man did not speak. He had not spoken much all afternoon. He was a raw-boned grizzled man with iron in his spine. Lean and straight as a poker, he walked with his shoulders back, a sort of silent grimness about him. A veteran man-hunter on the trail of implacable justice.

They came to the closed double-doors and found a smaller door piercing one of them. There was no outer knob or handle. Thompson leaned against this smaller door; it opened and they went inside.

Near the rear and hanging low over the dismantled motor of an old Ford, one light globe burned within that big ramshackle garage. It cast eerie shadows about the cluttered expanse of the interior. Black, grease-soaked filth was everywhere.

Two men stood not far from the light. Both had swung to face the door as it opened. Now one came forward hurriedly and the other turned and walked away. The one that came forward was a small man in a grease-stained mechanics’ jumper, a greasy rag in his hands. He had grease on his narrow face and in his stringy hair. He headed off Thompson and Enright near the door, demanded surlily:

“Yeah? Whatcha want?”

“We stopped,” Enright explained civilly, “because we saw the light. You paint cars here, don’t you?”

Light glow reached his face and it was no longer hard and grim. It was relaxed in a pleasant, disarming smile that matched the easy tone of his voice.

Thompson managed to look bored, letting his eyes rove beneath sleepy lids. The left rear corner of the interior was walled off in the shape of a square, the size of a small room. But in the right rear corner a car stood, almost obscured in deep shadow. It was a heavy sedan, its hood pointed the other way. Gleaming highlights showed on the smooth dark green surface of a fresh paint job.

The other man had disappeared in the deep shadow alongside this car.

“Yeah — sure,” the garage-man had said in answer to Enright’s question. “You seen the sign, didn’t you?” His voice was truculent, and his feet were planted firmly. But his eyes held a darting, uneasy gleam.

Enright nodded. “That’s why we stopped. Briefly, here’s what we want. We represent the Crestview Mortuary. We have three hearses and two sedans to be refinished. We’re getting estimates on the job. Would you like to bid on it?”

The garage-man tongued his lips uncertainly, but got more cordial. “Say, lissen — I can give you the best paint job in this part of the country. I know it’s best because I do the work personal, see. And everything’s guaranteed... ev—”

“Is that,” Thompson interrupted, “a sample of your work?” He lifted his chin towards the sedan in the distant shadows. “I’d like to look it over.”

He stepped forward as he said this, around the grease-stained one. But a hand jerked suddenly at his arm and a voice exploded in his ear. “No!”

One word. Sharply, and shrill with sudden panic. Thompson turned and looked down into eyes that were sick with fearful concern. And within him, Thompson’s blood tingled crazily, but his voice stayed calm, slightly puzzled.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” The garage-man swung around and took up a dogged stance between Thompson and the rear of the building. Between streaks of dark grease his face glistened whitely, damp with sweat. Desperate lights moved in his eyes, but his thin jaw was clamped stubbornly and his words were a surly snarl: “Nothing, see!”

Enright’s mouth had tightened down to a thin line below the clipped edge of his mustache. He said, with haughty condescension: “I’m going to insist on having a look at that car. If it’s a sample of your work, it seems only right that we should examine it as long as we’re giving you a chance to bid on a big job.”

He moved forward purposefully.

Beneath a cheerfully listless exterior, Thompson was mentally on the alert. But he wasn’t entirely prepared for what happened then.

A sudden sawing grind — an automobile starter — blasted into throbbing rhythm as a motor caught, roared. The green sedan!

The one in the greasy jumper jerked about as though yanked on a string. Thompson’s knees bent a little and his hand streaked up and under his coat.

Motor noise filled the building in that moment, beat against the walls. Orange flame spurted in deep shadow where the car stood and the blasting report of a single shot echoed above all other sound.

Thompson had his gun out the same instant, fired, as a sledge-hammer seemed suddenly to smash into the garage-man, knocking him backwards to the floor, face twisted in agony.

The car had pitched forward, motor thundering, rubber screaming. It backfired, lurched ahead. There was a splinering sound of impact; wood ripped and crackled as the sedan tore through closed double-doors, out into an alley.

Thompson squeezed the trigger twice more, felt recoil kick his palm as the Colt yammered. Enright was firing, too. But the sedan rocked around unaffected, sluing sidewise into the alley, out of sight, roaring away.

Enright shot one look down at the stricken one on the floor, sprinted towards the rear of the building, after the car. But Thompson spun, slammed to the front door, yanked it open, dived out to the street.

McKenzie Smith was coming on the run from the parked government car, gun steel glinting in his hand. Pounding to meet him, Thompson yelled: “Get back! The car — start it.”

Shots rang sharply from the alley — Enright firing at the car which from here was only a diminishing roar in the night. Smith checked his long-legged lope, skidded as he snapped about, was sprinting back towards the corner.

He reached the black sedan with Thompson fifty feet behind, threw himself behind the wheel, had the car driving into motion as Thompson jumped for the running-board.

“Which way?”

“Right,” Thompson clipped. “Around the corner. A green sedan — it headed this way up the alley.”

Smith cut the wheel hard over; the car slid into the turn, swooping forward in second, accelerating swiftly. Thompson got the right front door open far enough to squeeze inside. Up ahead two short blocks a dark sedan flashed through corner street light radiance. It had headlights but no tail-light; it was going away fast.

“That’s it,” Thompson rapped tersely, eyes glued on the windshield.

The speedometer needle was at forty-five; Smith shifted to high, gunned the throttle. They surged into hurtling speed. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know. But it’s the car we want, I think. It’s got a new paint job — green instead of gray. They weren’t taking any chances — had it done over in a hurry.”

Smith’s eyes never left the road. He was strained forward over the wheel, his homely freckled features tight and glowing with a sort of unholy joy. “How many of ’em are there?”

“One, that I know of.”

They jolted over ruts and bumps, swerving crazily, plunging forward, but Smith held the car to the road, kept the accelerator against the floor-boards. The streets along here were dark, empty, but arc lamps shed pools of yellow glow at intersections. The sedan ahead shot through one of these lighted areas, whipped left, disappeared.

“Left,” Thompson said. “The corner after this. They’re heading for the boulevard.”

Smith nodded. “Yeah. What happened to Bill?”

“He’s all right.”

They took the corner on two wheels, tires squalling, rear end rocking dangerously. Smith tramped on the throttle; the car leaped into new speed. Blocks ahead the street ended in white brightness — the moving lights of traffic on the boulevard. And between them and the brightness was the racing green sedan. They had gained a little on it.

Thompson’s face was a taut, hard-set mask. “This is going to be fun,” he breathed. “In that traffic.”

Then, above the power-drone of their motor, rose a low moan that crescendoed immediately to a piercing shriek. Traffic slowed to a standstill at the opening to the boulevard and the tail-lightless sedan swirled out into it, heading northwest.

“A siren!” Smith blurted. “They’ve got a siren!”

Thompson’s eyes thinned down, glinting. “Yeah. But maybe that makes it better for us. It’s going to take all traffic out of the way.”

They made the corner before cars on the boulevard got on the move again, dry-skidded out onto the wide concrete face of the State Highway. This was the main artery for cars northbound from the city and vicinity. They settled, flying along in the wake of the sedan whose screaming siren cleared a wide, empty swath before it.

Thompson leaned over the back of the seat cushion. There was a click of released spring clips and he came up with a heavy automatic rifle. A Colt Monitor, it was — the most deadly and most accurate weapon of its type ever devised. Shooting steel-nosed .30 caliber bullets, pumping them as rapidly as a sub-machine gun and with a range of over three miles.

He set the butt on the floor between his feet and reached out one hand, turned a small crank above the dashboard. The windshield lifted, leaving a horizontal three-inch slit at its base through which wind rushed whistling.

The car ahead sirened its way along the boulevard, rocketing into the heart of a sizable town. And the government car hurtled in its wake, the tail of a screaming comet. Thompson’s eyes flicked to the dash; the speedometer hovered above eighty-five and the motor thrummed full throttle, but they were slowly dropping behind. Still he did not lift the rifle.

And neither special agent spoke now. Each knew his job and was intent on doing it.

The lights of the town were a long bright blur on either side as they rushed past. There were many people on the streets here, parked cars. Thompson waited.

Then the lights dropped behind and they were charging through open country. Only a few houses, odd buildings, clustered lights, occasionally dotted the sides of the highway. Traffic was suddenly negligible. Thompson lifted the rifle.

He said, “Get set,” through closed teeth, poked the barrel through the opening at the bottom of the windshield.

He got the butt against his shoulder, clamped his jaws, found the car ahead with the lights. He aimed low, braced himself against recoil, pulled down the trigger.

Blue flame leaped, darting; four reports crackled out.

A quarter of a mile ahead the green sedan seemed to twitch, bouncing, faltering in its projectile-like progress — a dark wavering bulk behind bright headlights.

“Got a tire!” Thompson clipped tightly.

He watched, squinting, while McKenzie Smith kept the throttle wide open. The bouncing sedan checked speed, swerved suddenly, careening towards the right side of the highway. It leaped a low curb, went into a skid, whirling completely around in a thick cloud of dust. Siren sound was a mournful lessening wail.

“We got ’em!” Grim exultance sang in Smith’s voice. “Hang on!”

He braked expertly, letting compression do most of the work, pointed for the curbing and the stalled green sedan. Thompson had the window at his right open, his automatic out and up. The rifle lay against the cushion at his left knee, abandoned for the moment at least. Their headlights flashed over the dust-screened, stalled sedan as their front tires hit the curb, bucked wildly.

A figure was running crouched over, away from the settling dust and towards a low railroad embankment that paralleled the highway. Thompson kicked open the door at his right, left the car as it slued sidewise, wheels locked, stopped. Headlight beams caught the man against the embankment — caught and pinned him there in pitiless brilliance.

Scrambling up the bank, he whirled, gun glitter flashing in his right hand. The jolt when Thompson hit the ground jarred every bone in his body. He tripped, almost fell, caught and braced himself. In the same motion his gun steadied.

The roar of three shots blended; Thompson felt a quick hot sting against his left side. The one on the embankment straightened up as though smacked by a mighty hand. He poised there for a moment, rigid, unmoving, clutching the smoking gun. Then he spilled backwards in a limp heap, rolled loosely down to level ground.

Smith swore ruefully as he leaped from the government car. “He’s the only one! Hell — why didn’t you save him for me?”

Thompson straightened slowly, a stiffness around his jaw, eyes staring bitterly. Without answering, he trudged wearily forward. Loping swiftly ahead, Smith reached the side of the fallen one first, kneeled, turned him over.

“You got him dead center,” he said after a moment. “Some shooting!”

The dead man was short and plump. His dark suit was streaked with dirt and dust from the embankment; his face was smudged with it. His hat had come off, showing glossy black hair that glistened in the headlight glare. It was the man Thompson had glimpsed in the garage. There was blood on his chest.

Sirens were screaming not far away, getting closer. Cars were stopping on the highway, brakes and tires wailing. Standing above McKenzie Smith and looking down, Thompson got the hot Colt back in its clip.

“I had to let him have it,” he muttered. “He fired first.”

“Sure he did.” Smith glanced up. “What’s the matter with you? Snap out of it! This is one of the rats that got Jerry.”

He got out a handkerchief, began wiping dirt from the plump dead face. Thompson turned away, but Smith’s voice followed him almost at once. It was vibrant with a new excitement.

“And that ain’t all, brother! This is Fatso Legri or I’m a pickled herring!”

Thompson swiveled, headlight glow catching the hard eager glint that flashed in his eyes. Pete “Fatso” Legri was on the wanted list. A small-timer, but a fugitive. He had crossed state lines in stolen cars. He was wanted on half a dozen charges ranging from the possession and sale of narcotics to murder. He’d killed a cop in Kansas City less than a month ago.

Shrieking siren noise was earsplitting in its nearness. It cut out suddenly and there was dying motorcycle thunder, crowd hubbub behind Thompson. He paused to crack a brief grin at Smith who was rising, pivoted and went back toward the paving with fresh spring in his stride.

A couple of state motorcycle cops rammed through the gathering throng to meet him. Thompson let light show on a gold shield in his cupped palm, said so that it only reached their ears: “F.B.I. — Department of Justice. We’ve run down a killer. Keep this crowd back and get traffic moving again, will you?”

They said they would. They swung around and started to work.

Thompson went over to the government car and switched off the headlights. He got out a handkerchief and placed it under his clothes against the shallow bleeding ridge across his ribs. The wound was minor; it did not hurt a lot. It wouldn’t have hurt at all if it had been three inches more to the right.

Smith’s voice called: “The tires check. Goodyears all around except for the rear right and that’s a worn General.”

Thompson moved around to where the lanky ex-newsman was playing flashlight luminance over the back of the green sedan. The light lingered on two bullet holes on a height with the concealed gas tank, moved to another low on the streamlined left wheel-guard. The tire under it was flat, half off the rim. There was the smell of gasoline.

“Uh-huh,” Smith grunted. “Some shooting!”

They went around to the driver’s side of the car. It was a Hudson. Dust motes danced in the headlight beams, but the twin tail-lights were dark. Smith put the flashlight inside the driver’s compartment, worked an odd switch on the dashboard, looked out and to the rear. Ruby glow fell from the left tail-light; white light brought the license plate out of darkness.

“A fixed getaway car. The license can’t be spotted at night with the tail-light out. And that looks like extra heavy sheet steel in the back where the bullets went through.”

Thompson nodded. He took the flashlight from Smith and sent its rays probing into the tonneau. Seat and rear cushion were missing. The rest of the compartment was blackened, charred, minus all upholstery.

“Torched out,” Thompson breathed harshly. In the reflected glow of the flash, his face had a look of granite hardness, and gleaming points of steel danced in his eyes. “To remove bloodstains. They hadn’t got around to refinishing the inside yet. This is the car all right.”

He shifted the flash to his left hand, pulled his gun, stepped to the front fender and made a short deep scratch in the finish with the sight. With the flash close to it, the scratch showed a layer of gray beneath the dark green of the new lacquer.

“Yes,” Thompson said softly. “This is the car.”

He thumbed away the flash beam, stared out at the highway. Cars were slowly crawling away and the two cops were using a lot of hard language, keeping them moving, waving faltering traffic on past. Smith shifted his feet, ran his hand over his homely face, said: “Well—”

Thompson turned towards him, his voice clipped, decisive. “You take charge here, Mac. I’m going back to Enright. Fatso put a bullet in the garage-man before he lit out, but he may be able to talk.

“Get this car under cover. The new paint job probably covered up any prints, but don’t let anyone else lay hands on it till we get a chance to examine it. You know what to do. I’ll phone the morgue for you.”

“Okey,” Smith agreed. “I’ll handle this end.” He gripped Thompson’s shoulder hard, shook it a little as the latter bent to slide under the wheel of the government car. “Cheer up, pal. Jerry’d say we weren’t doing so bad.”

“It’s only the beginning. We’re nosing into something big, or I can’t read the signs right.” Thompson’s eyes were hard and far away. “And one lousy small-fry rat like Legri doesn’t begin to pay for the man Jerry was.”

He started the motor, meshed gears. He waited till he had the car backed out onto the highway before switching on the headlights.

Warm morning sunlight poured through a sixth-floor Federal Building window, fell in a yellow slab across a desk. Papers crackled in Michael Dougherty’s strong right-hand fingers, were dropped into the slab of sunlight. Three typed pages they were — a sworn statement, signed by Bert Lynch. Bert Lynch was the wounded garage-man.

Dougherty said: “Legri tried to fix it so Lynch couldn’t talk, but he’s going to pull through and I’m satisfied he’s telling the truth — except when he claims ignorance of their identity. He’ll be held for harboring.”

He was called “Old Iron Mike,” but he wasn’t old, despite his unruly shock of pure white hair. He was aggressively, dynamically young. He had the jutting, bulldog jaw of a fighter and was short and stocky and hard as tempered steel.

With his body planted before the desk, he faced the others in that plainly furnished, paneled office — Thompson, Enright and Smith. These three stood before him, at ease, waiting. Thompson said with a dreamy hardness: “Then, Moran—”

“Yes. Ed Moran — ‘Soap’ Moran.” Iron Mike Dougherty jiggled a rogues’ gallery photograph between thumb and forefinger. His eyes were like twin flecks of blue ice. His voice was clipped, crisply earnest.

“He’s the one we want now. Lynch has positively identified him from pictures as Legri’s companion and his fingerprint classification matches with those we found in that room they used at the garage. You know his record; he’s a life-taker and he’s the heroin user. Neither Legri nor Lynch was on the junk.

“The kid spotted those two — Moran and Legri — after he left the drug-store and recognized at least one of them. He must have followed, not having a chance to use a phone, got caught by them. They found out who he was from his identification card, and let him have it. I’d say Moran was the killer. He got Jerry. It’s up to us to get him!”

Dougherty paused, flexed his lips. He dug fingers back through the white shock of his hair, eyed each one with his keen penetrating stare. “You know what we have to go on. Moran and Legri showed at Lynch’s garage a little over a month ago. They picked that spot because of its isolation and appearance. They needed work done on their car. It had been driven hard and long; they’d taken it on the run from the Middle West. Lynch did the work and asked no questions.

“They wanted a place to stay and propositioned him, offering him big money. Lynch was broke and in debt. Business was bad. He needed money. He claims he didn’t know who they were, but admits he thought they were in hiding. He let them use the back room in the garage. They stayed two weeks, not going out in the daytime.

“Then they left, warning him to keep his mouth shut. A week ago they come back and had their car painted gray and helped with the job. Their former Utah license plates had been changed for local numbers — registered to a fictitious name and address. Lynch noticed the siren under the hood; it hadn’t been there before. Yesterday morning they came back again, wanted him to do a rush job, refinishing the car in another color. The back compartment had already been torched out, according to Lynch’s statement.

“Legri had called for the car when you reached Lynch’s place last night. Legri was naturally nervous over the — business of the night before, probably fearing you were just what you were — other Federal men who had picked up his trail. When you talked about examining the car he got panicky, tried to silence Lynch and make a getaway, outrunning you on the highway.

“Our examination of the back room of the garage and the rest of the building — and the car, has got us nothing that means anything so far, except the siren. It’s our only lead and I don’t believe it amounts to much.”

He paused again, but the others did not speak. They waited, attentively silent, knowing he had not finished. Main Street traffic sounds drifted up faintly to that quiet sixth-floor room.

Dougherty rubbed a hand across his mouth and jaw. “The siren was made here by the Peerless Siren Manufacturing Company. The serial numbers on it had been filed off, but Conroy brought them out with acid. According to the Peerless Company’s sales records, the siren was originally sold a year ago to the Peace Haven Sanitarium for use on one of their ambulances. The Peace Haven is in Fairfield off Admiral Road. As an institution it has an admirable record, handling many charity cases, and the owner has a fine personal record. So that lead doesn’t look very promising.”

“But,” Dougherty said, continuing, “it must be followed up. Moran and Legri must have made connections in this vicinity before they left the hideout in Lynch’s garage. And I believe Moran is still here, in hiding somewhere in our district.”

His hand knotted into a fist, pressed down hard against the desk. His aggressive jaw jutted. “We’ve got to find him! To avenge the kid as well as to put Moran where he’ll do no more killing. No detail must be left unchecked. I’ve got others doing the routine work. You three will be in charge of the outside investigation. Enright, you supervise the continued examination of the garage. Go through everything with a fine-tooth comb.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Smith, you will work on the car. As far as you have been able to determine, it is not stolen. Trace its origin. Take it apart piece by piece, and examine each piece for prints. Both of you save dust samples for microscopic examination.”

McKenzie Smith nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Thompson, trace that siren. Start at the sanitarium and trace it from there. Report to me as soon as any of you get any kind of results. That’s all. Any questions?”

The heads of Enright and Smith moved in quick negation. “No.” Thompson hesitated, but shook his head as Dougherty’s level blue glance sought him.

“Okey, then.” His grin was hard and confident. “Shove off. And good luck to you. Get Moran. I know you can do it.”

The three special agents relaxed, turned and went from the room in thoughtful silence.

Peace Haven sanitarium was situated on a knoll well back from the road. A wide graveled drive wound up through an incongruous wilderness of tall palms and shorter willows that screened the building from the road. The building itself was low and rambling, of gray stucco and with a green tile roof. It had many windows. It stood behind a neat shrubbery dotted lawn in the cool shade of overgrown pepper trees.

No human being was in sight when Thompson parked his car at one edge of the drive, slid out from behind the wheel. He went towards the entrance, past a fountain and a pool which held water lilies. A section of graveled drive branched off from the main one, disappeared around one corner of the building. The world seemed very far away, shut out from this spot.

As he got close to the entrance, the wide glass-panel door was opened by a big, thick-shouldered negro in a white jacket. He stretched thick lips in a broad, welcoming grin, held the door wide, said: “Yes, sah! Come right in, sah!”

Something soft brushed Thompson’s left shoulder and the side of his face as he moved inside. Large leaves, shaped like pointed elephant ears, they were — wine-red in color and with a velvety surface. Giant potted begonias with superb pink blossoms, one plant on either side of the door.

He was in a broad cream-colored reception hall which was bisected at right angles by another narrower hall. The reception hall ended in French doors and he could see through gauze-like curtain material out into a sun-splashed patio. He removed his hat.

It was cool in here and the sound the door made as it closed brought to him the realization that the building was very quiet. He turned and said to the smiling darky:

“I want to see the person in charge here — the manager.”

Behind him, someone spoke in a low, mellow voice. “Yes? I am the... uh one in charge here.”

Thompson swung back. A right-hand hall door that had been closed was open now and a man stood there. Thompson was tall — well over six feet. But this man was taller. He towered over Thompson as he stepped forward, bending his fine silver-haired head as he came through the doorway, and Thompson had to look up to meet his eyes.

He was tall and straight and thin as a scarecrow, this man, yet he had about him an air of grave dignity, of distinction. He had a hawkish face with bushy brows and military mustache of silver gray. Dressed in sober black, he leaned on a tall curved-handled black cane. His eyes, too, were black — a deep lacquer black. Beneath the bushy brows they regarded Thompson inquiringly.

Thompson said: “I’m with the Department of Justice. I’d like to get some information.”

“Yes?” Faint surprise showed in the black eyes and they wrinkled at the corners. “You mean you are er — a member of that fine group to which young Jerry Mulholland belonged? A government secret agent — a G-man?”

“Yes.”

“Oh...” The very tall man pursed his lips, let them come apart with a soft liquid sound of sucking. He shook his head sorrowfully, sighed. “Too bad — about young Mulholland. Too bad. I knew him slightly. He was a fine lad.”

“He sure was,” Thompson affirmed quietly. He glanced sidewise at the negro who hovered respectfully in the background.

The tall man noted the direction of the glance. He coughed gently, said: “But what can I do for you? Er — my name is Findley — Joseph Conrad Findley. I own Peace Haven.” He indicated the door through which he had appeared, stood aside. “Come in, come in here where we can sit down.”

Thompson went through the doorway into a room that was half-office, half-study. There was a flat desk of carved walnut at one end, a rustic stone fireplace at the other. Booklined shelves reached halfway to the ceiling against the far wall. There were deep chairs with blue leather upholstery, and a divan before the fireplace. A thick, blue Chinese rug was underfoot.

Following Thompson, Findley explained: “I maintain living quarters in the building. I’m all alone in the world and the sanitarium is my — hobby, you might say — my greatest interest. I like to be near it.”

“I see.” Thompson turned, hesitated, frowning slightly.

“Is it something about young Mulholland?” Findley had closed the door and he looked very tall and very dignified, standing there before it. He spoke in a seriously thoughtful tone.

“I understand from the morning papers that you and your — er colleagues exacted quick vengeance for his death — wasting little time in running the killer to earth. You are to be congratulated.”

“Perhaps,” Thompson said softly. “But nothing we can do will bring back Jerry.” Bitterness tightened in his eyes and he looked squarely across at the tall man. “The car Fatso Legri drove had a siren on it. That siren was sold to this sanitarium hardly more than a year ago.”

Findley’s bushy brows arched and his dark eyes looked startled, amazed. “You’re sure?” He flexed his lips, making thoughtful sucking sound, eyes narrowed, and pointed a long left-hand finger at Thompson. “That siren was stolen just about a week ago from our ambulance.”

His dead-level stare bit deep into Thompson’s for a long moment. Then he swung around, opened the door, called: “George!”

“Yes, sah?”

“Find Doctor Stitt and have him come here as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sah.”

Findley closed the door, waved a hand, explained: “Doctor Stitt is our resident physician. This is a lax season right now but he stays here the year round. He’ll know more about it than I do.”

Scowling, he went pacing unevenly across the room, leaning on his cane and rubbing the side of his neck with his left hand. His right leg did not bend at the knee and his right foot was singularly unwieldy. Before a window, he turned, jerked a glance at the chair nearest Thompson.

“Sit down! Sit down! He’ll be here in a minute.” His tone softened abruptly and he waggled his left hand before him. “Don’t mind me, young man. This is — uh most embarrassing. Most embarrassing.”

“I understand.” Thompson remained standing quietly by the chair. “But don’t let it bother you. We expected something like that had happened and my visit is more or less routine — just a check-up.”

“Of course, of course.” Findley was smiling again.

Knuckles tapped the door panel and the door swung inward. A clean-shaven blond man came in. Middle-aged, he was of medium height and looked clean and cool and healthy in a surgeon’s white smock. Pince-nez spectacles jiggled on the bridge of his nose as he walked forward, smiling inquiringly.

Findley said: “Frank, this is Mr... er—”

“Thompson,” Chuck supplied.

Findley nodded. “—a Department of Justice operative. Thompson; Doctor Francis Stitt.”

The doctor blinked, looking at Thompson with sudden new interest. He shook hands, said: “This is a pleasure,” heartily.

“Tell him—” Findley was stabbing out with his finger for emphasis. “Tell him about the siren disappearing from our ambulance.”

Looking at him, Stitt nodded, swung his eyes back to Thompson. “That was the night of the Cameron Hotel fire in downtown Glendale. We were parked in an alley-mouth just outside the fire lines, doing first aid work. Luckily they got the fire under control before anyone suffered any really serious burns or injuries.”

He let himself down on the arm of a chair, used a slow reminiscent smile, lifting one hand slightly. “But in the excitement someone managed to dismantle our siren and make away with it. We didn’t see them, haven’t any idea who it was.”

“Your driver—” Thompson suggested.

Stitt shook his head, took off his glasses, polished them on one corner of his smock. He had round pink cheeks. “Didn’t see a thing. You see, it was dark and the hood of the ambulance was headed into the alley and we were working at the back.”

Thompson ran two right-hand fingers along the edge of his jaw. “I’d like to speak with your driver. You don’t think he could have been in collusion with the thieves?”

“No,” Findley exploded emphatically. “Impossible! Impossible, sir! Fred’s as honest as the day is long. He’s been with us for years. And he’s not on duty this morning anyway.”

“As a matter of form I must question him,” Thompson insisted gently. “May I have his address?”

Findley stood very stiff, very straight. His voice was gruff with displeasure. He gave an address, added: “His name is Fred Morehouse.”

“Thanks.” Thompson’s good-natured, boyish grin flashed. “I think that’s all.” He moved to the door, paused. “By the way, you reported the theft of the siren to the local police of course.”

Findley had thawed some under Thompson’s smile. He nodded, the sternness gone from his eyes and mouth. “Certainly, certainly.”

Doctor Stitt had his glasses back on his nose, bobbed his head.

Thompson said: “Thanks again for your trouble,” and went out into the hall and left them there. The negro in the white jacket opened the glass-paneled door for him. A begonia leaf touched his hat as he stepped outside.

It was close to noon when Thompson used a phone in the redecorated Cameron Hotel lobby and spoke with Dougherty. He said:

“The siren was stolen a week ago Friday night when the ambulance was doing first aid duty at a fire in the Hotel Cameron. That’s all that anyone seems to know about it. I’ve checked with Findley — the owner of the sanitarium — the doctor on duty that night, and the ambulance driver. The hotel employees know nothing more than that. I’ve just come from the local police station; the theft was reported there the next morning.

“From what I’ve picked up, Joseph Conrad Findley — he’s the one who owns Peace Haven — seems to be sort of a city godfather to the town. Everybody knows him and likes him. He gives a lot of money to charity every year.”

“I know,” Dougherty replied. “He’s one of the town’s civic leaders, a respected citizen, well known and admired for his philanthropies. That’s the report I had on him, but I neglected to give it to you.

“But we expected to find that the siren had been stolen in some way—” His voice had a vibrant crackling sound over the wire. “—so don’t be disappointed. Moran can’t get far; his picture and description are all over the country by now. Everyone is watching for him.” A split-second pause, then: “How about that ambulance driver? It would be a job getting that siren loose. He could have—”

“He seems to tell a straight story. He’s a world-war veteran and has a good local record; gave me several references. But I got his prints on a cigarette case for checking against the Washington file, just in case. His name is Fred Morehouse.”

“Okey. Bring the prints in to be photographed this afternoon. I’ll see you then.”

Thompson said: “Yes, sir,” and had started the receiver for the hook when the urgent impact of Dougherty’s voice almost shattered the diaphragm. “Wait a minute!”

He got the receiver back near his ear. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Mulholland called this morning when I was out of the office for a few minutes. She wanted to get in touch with you — left word for you to phone or come to see her as soon as you could. Said it was urgent.”

Sudden puzzled concern put a shadow about Thompson’s eyes. He said slowly: “I’ll do that right now.”

Vague uneasiness gripped him as he pronged the receiver. He shifted the snap-brim of his hat, pushing it up off his forehead, got a new connection and gave the operator the Mulholland number. He listened to the steady spaced ringing of the phone bell at the other end of the wire for a full minute, and a growing premonition that something was very wrong increased with each unanswered ring.

He abruptly cracked the receiver into its prongs. There was a tight, stiff look about his mouth as he banged out of the booth, sailed across the hotel lobby, through the door to the street.

A plump young woman was bent over a rose bush in the yard of the house next to the Mulholland cottage. She had on a fancy bright-colored sunbonnet and a pair of yellow linen overall slacks. She stopped clipping roses from the bush and watched curiously as Thompson brought his car to a screeching stop, kicked open the door and ran up to the Mulholland porch.

He planted his right thumb against the bell push, tried the latch with his other hand. Locked. He kept the bell going, hammered the door with his fist. A minute of this and he stopped, listened.

The plump young woman in the next yard said: “Mrs. Mulholland isn’t home.”

Thompson whirled, glared at her from the porch. “Where is she?”

The woman went wide-eyed, blinking, trilled a weak, flustered laugh. “I... I don’t know. She went away early this morning and came back, and then later some people called for her and she went away with them.” She turned towards the house, swung back and added brightly: “Maybe it was the undertakers. Her son’s funeral is tomorrow.”

“What did these people look like?” Thompson was coming down from the porch, across the lawn, his hat in his hands. He was sober-faced, serious, and the fierceness had faded from his eyes. “I’m a friend of Jerry Mulholland’s. It’s important that I locate Mrs. Mulholland at once.”

“Oh.” She nodded, smiling uncertainly up at him, grew thoughtful. “Why, I was in the house and I didn’t get a look at them except when they came out to get in the car. There was a woman and a man and Mrs. Mulholland walked between them. She seemed kind of weak and all broken up, poor soul, and they had to help her out and into the car. But then you can’t blame her, with her only—”

“What kind of a car was it?” Thompson cut in. And his voice was gently firm, but his eyes held a sort of bitter desperation.

“A sedan, I think. Some dark color. I didn’t pay much attention. I’m not one to pry into others’ affairs, or spy on them. But poor Mrs. Mul—”

“What time did they leave here?”

The whiplike intensity of his tone startled her, left her wordless for a moment. “About — about an hour ago or more.”

“You couldn’t describe this man and woman?”

“Why, no. I didn’t pay any attention — they were just average looking. In... in dark clothes I think. Yes — in dark clothes!”

“Thanks,” Thompson said.

He turned away, deep brackets etched about the corners of his mouth. He went around to the back of the house. The back door was unlocked and he went inside. The neat little kitchen was spic and span, white porcelain and checkered linoleum. He moved slowly through the rest of the rooms and his eyes were searching slits of live steel.

There was nothing out of place anywhere — except in the living-room. And that was nothing tangible. Only a faint sweetish smell that lingered on the air. Thompson stood in the middle of the room, chin lifted slightly, inhaling deeply through his nose. His breath expelled harshly and he swore in a low, terrible voice.

Chloroform! That smell was chloroform.

He stood there a moment in that small cheerfully blue-and-white room, with a strange numbness growing inside him. And his knuckles were white, every muscle in his body rigidly taut. Only a moment he stood like that, and then he came briskly alive, went to work with a swift, deft speed, starting with the divan and examining every square inch of that room.

Near the door, caught on the back of an upholstered chair, he found several strands of hair. Hairs that were too long to belong to a man, and which could have been pulled from someone’s head in a scuffle. He placed them on a clean sheet of white paper from the desk, moved to the window, holding them in the better light. They were a light brown in shade; Mrs. Mulholland had coal black hair. And clinging to these light brown hairs was a short stiff white thread.

Thompson did not stop for more.

Once in his roadster, he burned the highways on the shortest cut to the Federal Building and its laboratory. Chuck knew that in the fragmentary evidence he had lay the key to the whole mystery, a key that would open the secret door behind which was hidden the unknown power directing the operations which had relentlessly wiped young Jerry Mulholland from their evil path and pointed a half dozen other murders.

“Iron Mike” Dougherty and Bill Enright were with Chuck when the analyses finally came through, and all three were like bloodhounds on a warm trail. To be sure, the results were indicative rather than conclusive, but they were convincing nevertheless to these keen manhunters, incredible as the lead might be.

“What now, Chuck?”

“Iron Mike” asked gruffly.

“The chauffeur first,” Chuck answered promptly. “Then the showdown; and I want you to let me handle that.”

Dougherty closed his desk drawer with a bang.

“All right; let’s go,” was all he said.

High wattage globes flared at each corner of the low stucco building that housed Peace Haven Sanitarium, sent bright fingers of light reaching through the surrounding trees for Thompson’s car as it crawled up the graveled drive. It was dusk. Stars shone palely in a rapidly darkening sky; the moon was hiding somewhere below the horizon.

Thompson stopped the car near the pool of water lilies, got out and let himself show plainly in the light that flooded over him, walked towards the entrance.

The wide door opened, was held that way by the same hulking, thick-shouldered negro in the same neat white jacket. Teeth sparkled in the light glare; his grin was as broad as it had been that morning. But it didn’t get into his eyes; they were searching, doubtfully wary. And his voice lacked its former deep rich timber when he said:

“Yes, sah. Come right in, sah.”

Thompson smiled back at him — a happy-go-lucky carefree smile — reckless laughter in his eyes. He walked straight towards the colored one, and when he was across the threshold and close enough, his hand moved very smoothly and very swiftly up and under his coat and out again. He poked the automatic that was in it hard against the lowest button of the other’s white coat.

“Be a good darky, George,” he said softly. “Take me to Big Joe. Quick!”

He hadn’t stopped smiling, but there was steel under the softness of his voice, in the compelling flash of his eyes. George’s smile had gone with breath expelled harshly. He had stiffened, heavy shoulder muscles cording, straining outward against coat cloth. He looked down slowly at the gun snout that was pressing into his hard belly, looked up, brown-flecked whites of his eyes showing.

Soft light glowed in the reception hall. The negro nodded mutely, stepped back, his eyes still on Thompson. And Thompson moved aside to let the door close, brushing against one of the potted begonias. He followed closely as George backed to the nearest right-hand door.

“Turn around,” Thompson breathed swiftly. “And open it — and walk straight through to the center of the room.”

The negro was breathing heavily. There was no fear, only a sort of hypnotic wonder, in his eyes. He pulled them away from Thompson’s, swiveled, got the door open and walked forward into the room. Thompson followed, heeling the door shut and setting his shoulders against it.

Shaded lights glowed in corners; window shades were drawn. Joseph Conrad Findley sat behind his carved walnut desk and looked at Thompson. He sat leaning forward a little, both hands pressed down against the desk top, a long thin lighted cigar jutting from the left side of his mouth.

Doctor Francis Stitt stood beside the desk, poised on the balls of his feet as though he had started to run and changed his mind. Glitter on his eyeglasses hid his eyes, and his red lips were parted slightly, showing his even white teeth.

An air of tense expectancy held them like that for a moment.

Then Thompson lifted the Colt a little, said: “Don’t move. Keep your hands on the desk, Findley, and let’s talk things over. I’ve come for Mrs. Mulholland.”

Stitt settled down on his heels, glasses jigging on his nose. His mouth closed tightly. The surgeon’s smock was gone and he wore a dark suit coat, matching his trousers. Findley sat back calmly, lamp glow gleaming on his silvery hair. Beneath bushy brows, his dark lacquer-surfaced eyes seemed inquiringly puzzled. He took his left hand slowly from the desk, got the cigar away from his mouth, said, “Mrs. Mulholland — what do you mean?” in his mellow voice.

Keenly alert, Thompson let go of a quiet chuckle of appreciation. “She’s here. I know she’s here.” Blood sang swiftly in his veins. “Listen—”

Findley’s hawkish face was peacefully, attentively, composed. He lidded his deep black eyes. Smoke rose tranquilly from the tip of his cigar. Stitt had not moved. The negro stood in the center of the blue Chinese rug, facing Thompson, his massive shoulders hunched forward. Breath, pumping slowly through his flat nostrils, made harsh whistling sound in the room.

“Listen,” Thompson repeated. “She wasn’t the kind that could rest and leave the hunt for her boy’s murderers to others. She had to do something to help avenge his death. Somehow, some way, she found out something. She tried to reach me this morning to tell me about it, but someone suspected that she had learned something and got to her before I did.

“There were two of them. They used chloroform and took her away only half conscious. But she put up a fight. There were pulled-out hairs on a chair near the door — and they weren’t from Mrs. Mulholland’s head. A starched white thread was caught in the hairs — the kind that might come from a nurse’s cap. And, besides incidental dust on that hair, the microscope showed presence of pollen dust. Begonia pollen dust.

“It’s hard to go in or out the front door of your Peace Haven without running into one of your potted begonia plants. The chloroform and thread pointed to a hospital; the begonia pollen to this so-called hospital. Those hairs came from someone who was sent from here.”

Findley shook his head slowly, firm lips curved in a patient smile. “Preposterous, sir! Amazing! A figment of wild imagination. If you think Mrs. Mulholland is here, you are welcome to search the premises.”

“Maybe you don’t understand.” Thompson’s eyes kept on the move, flashing from one to the other of these three still figures in the room. The gun was very steady in his low right hand.

“This is the showdown, Findley — the end. The end of Peace Haven Sanitarium and the front you’ve spent years in building. The end of Joseph Conrad Findley — public benefactor, philanthropist, citizen and political power. And the end of Big Joe — right guy in certain criminal circles.

“You played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, built up an elaborate double life — a front to hide your real business. A dirty business, Findley. Dope. We know now that your Peace Haven is the main distribution point in the Southwest for smuggled drugs coming in over the Border and through coast ports. We know now that you used ambulances in transporting much of it.

“You see,” Thompson went on, “Fred Morehouse, your chauffeur, talked. Maybe you weren’t expecting that — after you got his first report on the questions I asked him. He saw the light of reason. It was easy money, working for you, but he’s an ex-soldier and he really thinks a lot of the country he fought for. He saw that this was war too — a war against crime and criminal makers such as you — and that he was on the wrong side. He changed over.

“We’ve got you, Findley, and men like you are hard to get. Men who work in the dark, behind a shield of respectability and political influence. You’re harder to reach, but you’re worse and more dangerous than a dozen killers of the Dillinger-Nelson type. You’re the ones who breed those killers.”

Findley’s lips moved. His voice was old and dead. “Why do you bother to tell me this? Why do you stop to explain?”

“Because the hairs I found at Mrs. Mulholland’s had no roots on them — no trace of dandruff or dried scalp tissue. But there was powdered glue on the ends. The hairs were from a wig, Findley. A man disguised as a woman wore it. Unless I’m very wrong, that man was Soap Moran. He’s hiding here, masquerading as a woman since his picture has been decorating page one of all newspapers. Legri had been here with him; they took the siren from your ambulance with your knowledge. The report to the police was just to cover yourself in case there was ever a kick-back.

“Moran is a heroin sniffer and a killer. He’ll probably try to resist arrest. The knoll this place is on is completely surrounded by Federal Narcotics Agents, F.B.I. men, and deputy sheriffs. No one can get out. Most of the supposed patients here are really your own men, but there are a few legitimate ones. We don’t want them to get hurt or killed. I came in alone to talk it over, to make you see that resistance is useless. You have a system of alarms strung around the grounds and if we’d rushed the place, someone would have got panicky and there’d have been fireworks. But you can order your men to lay down their guns. That way we will only have Moran to deal with.”

Thompson stopped speaking, got his breath, asked slowly: “How about it, Findley? You know the game’s up. Are you going to let us take over peacefully?”

Stitt lifted a drawn face from his hands, hung haggard eyes on Findley. Staring into distance, the tall silver-haired commanding figure behind the desk nodded dumbly. “It’s the end,” he whispered almost inaudibly.

“You’re wise,” Thompson said. “Your decision won’t hurt you any when you get in court.” His voice took on clipped urgency. “You can reach your men with the house phone on your desk. Order them one by one to come in here. And where in the building is Moran? And Mrs. Mulholland? She’s here and alive I know. If you’d wanted her dead, the chloroform could have fixed that in her own home.”

Findley’s hawkish face tightened bitterly. His gaze came back from infinity and his eyes, finding Thompson’s, burned with an intense dark fire. “She’s here, but not on my orders. I didn’t want to touch her. Moran planned—”

He broke off as his eyes jerked upwards and a voice above and behind Thompson snarled sharply: “Selling me out, huh? Drop it, dick!”

Thompson didn’t look up. He stiffened tensely, then relaxed, letting right-hand fingers loosen from the grip of the Colt, staring across at Findley. The gun made a thudding sound as it hit the rug. Findley was half out of his chair, glaring at the spot above Thompson’s head. Stitt’s white face and the negro’s shiny dark one were turned that way.

“Sit down, Big Joe! Get that heater, George.”

Thompson stood still. He knew that voice belonged to Moran, and from the sound of it Moran was keyed up to killer tension.

Hate burned in Findley’s eyes; hate almost throttled his voice. “Put down that gun, Moran! You’re only going to get yourself and a lot of others killed.”

“I’m doing this! Sit down and shut your face. Get the heater, George, and hold it on this smart dick.”

Findley sat down, his hawkish face dark with suppressed fury. Stitt stared in fearful fascination, breathing through his open mouth, his eyes looking very large and black with a dumb terror. Muscles twitched in the negro’s sweaty face. His eyeballs bulged. He hunched reluctantly forward, got the gun, backed away with it without once taking his gaze from the one above Thompson.

“Get away from the door, dick. I’m coming in.”

Thompson took three steps forward, turned, looked up. A transom above the door was open. Head and shoulders of a man showed there. Soap Moran. And a blued-steel automatic was trained on the room. He was sleek and black-haired, Moran, with a thin white hatchet face and a twisted lipless mouth.

He warned tautly: “Don’t nobody move. You watch that dick, George, and if he tries anything funny, let him have it. If you don’t — if you make one slip, you’re through. I’ll croak you deader’n hell.”

The negro swallowed, nodded jerkily, pointed the gun at its former owner. Thompson stood six feet away and to one side, paid no attention. He watched Moran’s head suddenly duck from sight. The door instantly jumped open and Moran was in the room, crouching, coming from a chair that stood in the hall just below the transom.

He made an incongruous figure, crouching there in a white starched nurse’s dress. The uniform was complete to white shoes and stockings; only the wig and cap were missing. He was small and thin and cruel-looking, this outlaw. His slitted eyes glittered dangerously and the gun looked like a cannon in his hand. He had killed seven men and two women — not counting Jerry Mulholland.

That thought seared into Thompson’s brain, started hot blood pounding at his temples. He forced his voice level as Moran closed the door behind him, said evenly: “You can’t get away, Moran. This place is covered on all sides. Those on the outside gave me fifteen minutes before coming in after me. The fifteen minutes are nearly up and they’ll come in shooting. You haven’t a chance.”

“Haven’t I?” Moran’s lipless mouth sneered. “Listen, dick! I’m going out of here and they’re not gonna touch me. I’ve got a car at the side door. And you’re gonna tell them to let me through — because I’m gonna take the old Mulholland dame with me!”

Tight muscle suddenly ridged the clean edge of Thompson’s jaw.

Moran’s slitted eyes whipped to the negro. “And you’re coming with me, George. I’ll need your help. Let these other yellow bellies stay and take the rap. But one funny move out of you and it’s your last, see!”

The negro’s thick slobbery lips opened and closed and he finally croaked: “Ye... yes, sah!”

“All right then, we’ll go down and get the dame and the dick can do his stuff.” He swung his pin-pointed eyes to the desk at the end of the room. “And don’t you two do anything but sit there. The first one that gets in front of me gets a slug in the belly. You can sit and wait for a pinch, but nobody takes Ed Moran!”

Findley’s cigar had gone out; it was crumpled in his fist. His black eyes burned with a fierce fire and his face was a craggy mask of gray. His voice shook with a terrible fury. “Damn you, Moran! If it hadn’t been for you and Legri, none of this would have happened.”

Thompson looked sleepy about the eyes. But, without moving, he was set on the balls of his feet.

“Yeah!” Moran chopped off a harsh taunting chuckle. “So Big Joseph is mad! If you’da let me finish the dame when I wanted—”

Thompson leaped. The negro was standing with the gun pointed before him, but his dazed, fear-filled stare had wavered. Thompson moved like a shot and his low-driven shoulder rammed the colored one’s chest. The impact carried them off balance, stumbling across the room. But Thompson’s right hand caught the Colt, twisted it viciously, and the hard edge of his left palm cracked down on the black wrist. The gun came free in his hand as they hit a chair and fell.

The room roared with gun sound — one hammering report on top of the other. Thompson had fallen underneath George. He felt the slugs smash into the negro. Struggling frantically aside, that one was slammed back on top of Thompson, pinning him down.

“Ahh... ahh...” A tortured sob rattled from the black’s throat as life went out of him.

And over the negro’s thick shuddering shoulder, Thompson got a flash of Moran’s twisted white face; the smoking automatic in his hand was steadying for a third shot, tense knuckles contracting. The Colt was pinned against Thompson’s chest by the dead weight of George. Thompson gathered himself, heaved with arms and legs.

The negro’s heavy body catapulted up into the air as Moran’s gun crashed again. Thompson rolled, snapped to his knees, squeezed trigger three times. Thundering concussion slammed about the room. Moran’s bullet thudded into the negro’s body.

But Moran’s gun didn’t sound again. He crashed back against the door panel and the automatic was knocked from his fingers. He went to his knees, choking on blood and clawing at the holes in his chest. A crimson flood spilled out over his fingers and dyed the white nurse’s uniform. He fell forward on his face.

Feet pounded in halls; voices shouted in and around the building; window glass shattered. A forceful, authoritative voice — “Iron Mike” Dougherty’s voice — rang out suddenly, beating down all other sound:

“Don’t be fools! You’re trapped. No one can get out of the building.”

Two shots cracked out. Pandemonium died swiftly. There was comparative silence and men with guns were in the room.

Thompson got to his feet and faced Dougherty and Enright as they came through the door. There were no words; but eyes moved quickly about the room, lifted to Thompson’s, asked questions. He looked toward the desk.

Stitt was on his feet, shoulders crowding the wall, spread-fingers pushing against the plaster. His face was white as death. Findley stood slowly to his erect magnificent height. His face was peacefully composed and there was an air of grave dignity about him as he faced these men who would take him away to prison.

He bowed a little — a mocking bow. And suddenly he had his black cane in his hands. And just as suddenly the lower part of the cane had fallen away, and a long, slender blade glittered in the lamplight.

The gun in Thompson’s hand moved forward.

He said swiftly: “Drop it, Findley. You can’t do anything with that now. It’s all over. This is the end.”

Findley looked at Thompson and his eyes got distant. He sighed, nodded absently. “The end. Yes — this is the end. It couldn’t last.”

He let his gaunt shoulders slump, looked down. The sword blade slid slowly between his fingers, hilt towards the floor. And everyone else in that room remained strangely silent, held as though by a spell, while he said: “I knew it was only a matter of time — after they moved in on me. But it was no use to run away; I’m too old for running, and for prisons. This is the best way.”

His body stiffened; he turned away from the desk and fell rigidly forward. His hands held the sword point against his chest as he went down. There was a jarring thud. He lay on the floor with two feet of blood-stained blade showing above his back.

Doctor Francis Stitt made a sudden whimpering sound that was like someone far away screaming horribly. He put clawed hands over his face as though to shut out the sight. Thompson slowly lowered the Colt. Released breath made sound in the room.

They found Mrs. Mulholland locked in a cement-lined room in the basement, tired but unharmed.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Mulholland?” Thompson asked.

“Yes, Chuck.”

“We’ve got them,” Chuck told her, “the ones we wanted. And we’ve cleaned out a sore spot that has been bothering the Narcotics Bureau for a long time. But we wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for you and the leads we got through you. There has been a lot of talk about G-men, but it’s time they recognized some G-women. You carried on where Jerry stopped and—”

“And that is what he would have wished,” Mrs. Mulholland finished softly.