Black Mask (Vol. 20, No. 8 — October 1937)

Monte Carlo Merry-Go-Round by Nels Leroy Jorgensen

Black Burton’s .38 blots out a gigolo’s killer.

Most women would have fainted without apologies. Patricia Blaine did not. Afterward she wondered why she hadn’t.

The echo of the backfire from the retreating taxicab that had brought her from the Monte Carlo Casino here to the small villa on the outskirts of town, was dying away. The big clock on the tall mantle shelf opposite the half-closed door ticked on remorselessly, curiously loud of a sudden in that ordinarily quiet room that had so suddenly become a place of violent death.

The door clicked shut unnoticed. Her purse fell. The girl’s hand went to her throat and even then she could feel the wild, ungovernable hammer of her pulse.

She thought she cried out but the cry died in her throat.

The figure was lying sprawled, half propped up on one shoulder against the small table in the foyer. The eyes were open, upturned and glazed. Light from the small night lamp on the table shed a pallid yellow glow down over a lean face that was beardless except for a small, fastidiously pointed mustache, stained now with blood, and narrow shoulders encased in a well fitting coat with tails.

Blood smeared the once glistening shirt front, twinkled redly on the studs. Blood seeped sickeningly from one corner of the man’s mouth, as though some hideously overgrown infant drooled crimson.

Patricia Blaine never knew afterward how long she stood there, her every muscle turned to marble, her voice frozen in her constricted throat, her hands clenched, and feeling the insane, overwhelming impulse to scream and scream and scream.

All the details were to be a blur for some time to come. But somehow she managed to get to the telephone beside her bed. She had to pass the thing on the floor in order to do it, but she managed. She heard her own voice and failed to recognize it.

Vivian Burton answered the call, a little sleepily. The low voice of the gambler’s wife was throaty and reassuring. It held a steadying quality that eased the girl’s nerves. She found herself talking, stammering, halting, choking over some of the words; and then, before she hung up she had taken a new draught of courage from Vivian Burton’s quiet words of comfort:

“We’ll be right out. Please be very quiet, do nothing. My husband arrived at the hotel, the Negresco, a half hour ago. I’ll bring him.”

Patricia Blaine sat back, staring straight ahead of her, fighting down that scream in her white throat. Even then, though she could not have told just why, she felt calmer.

“My husband.” That meant that Stuart Burton had arrived in Monte Carlo! Black Burton! The famous, square-shooting gambler whose deep insight into human nature and whose swift draw and unerring aim had solved many a murder. With Black Burton there this nightmare might dissolve in the end, after all.

She knew the story of Black Burton, Black Burton and Vivian. Vivian, that lovely, glamorous young society girl the gambler had won so many years in the past — cool, competent, fascinating.

For a long time the gambler and his wife had chosen to live apart. Their ways of life, they had discovered early, had diverged too sharply. But that could never interfere with their devotion to one another.

They lived apart, yes, but they were somehow very close. Vivian had arrived in Monte Carlo the week before, and in that week she and the wealthy young debutante, Patricia Blaine, had been together constantly. They had been friends for many years.

Only the day before Vivian had received word that her husband, who had been in London, had left for Paris and would proceed south when his affairs were in order. And now he was in Nice, speeding toward Monte Carlo!

Patricia closed her eyes. She wanted to try not to think. But consciousness beat in on her and about her. She could not avoid what she had to face. This was the first time that tragedy had even remotely brushed the young heiress.

Tall and statuesque, blue-eyed, golden-haired and regal in spite of her youth, Patricia Blaine’s life had been a glittering one from the cradle. A lilting, dancing, capricious existence that had never had in it room for thoughts of any future of responsibilities of any kind. The important thing, from babyhood, had been to escape ennui.

That was why she had come this season to Monte Carlo. That was why she had joined Vivian Burton at the Casino Tabarin — or the Cercle Tabarin, to give it its local name. To gamble. The small Cercle was one of the lesser casinos in the gambling city, and yet it had shown an appeal of its own; possibly that was because it was more exclusive than the great international gambling palace on the waterfront. And even in gambling, Patricia was lucky; the wheels and the cards seemed ever eager to pay her youth and her loveliness additional homage.

Even this — this thing on the floor outside. He had paid homage, too. He had been her cavalier ever since she had first encountered him at the Tabarin. At first she had thought him merely another gigolo. But he had manners and grace, an air of quality — this Rene Descamps who had told her he loved her; and here he was lying dead in his own blood in her house!

The girl closed her eyes once more. Certainly it could not have been suicide. She had heard that these Latins... but, no, he hadn’t killed himself, even for a thwarted love of her. Even though she had laughed gaily at him only three or four hours before and told him that she could never think of marrying him. Told him of her fiancé... somewhere, even now, in France, motoring here.

Suddenly her half-closed eyes started wide open.

But someone had killed him! Her fiancé... Where was Rowland Kitterley right now? And where were those foolish, schoolgirl letters she had written to the dead man, the letters she had begged him to return to her only that night?

Monte Carlo seemed suddenly a long way from home!

She couldn’t look for the letters now. Couldn’t go to that huddled thing in the hall and search the gaping pockets. For it suddenly occurred to her that Rene Descamps had come here to return those letters as he had promised.

But who had killed him? And why? And what would the police have to say? What would they be forced to conclude about a young and wealthy debutante who had accepted the attention of a gigolo — however innocently — and who now had the gigolo’s corpse in her parlor!

Her housemaid lived in the little cottage at the foot of the hill, a small place that went with the villa. She lived there with her husband, who was caretaker of the place Patricia Blaine had rented for the season. She would arouse Celestine now.

Just then a car ground to a stop on the road that ran thirty yards below the villa gates. She could hear steps coming up the winding way to the veranda. But no voices. Surely if it were Vivian and her husband—

The sound of the muted electric buzzer in the depths of the house was a stinging tonic, like a whip. She jerked. She started to her feet, then brought up. No, she could not pass that thing in the hall again.

She cried out: “Entrez, s’ll vous Plait!” And thought of how ridiculous such amenities were in this sanguinary situation. Then she waited.

In a moment, after she had heard the door open, she realized it could not have been Black Burton and Vivian. A man’s step had halted in the outer hall. She heard a whispered:

“Sacre nom de Dieu!” Then: “Madamoiselle!”

Staring out, she saw the man. What should the manager of the Cercle Tabarin be doing here? Now!

For Monsieur Jules Peret was standing there in the hall, standing and staring down at the dead man, a look of commingled amazement and horror on his fleshy features. In his hand he was holding a small brief-case which appeared forgotten in his astonishment.

The girl found herself exclaiming: “Monsieur Peret! Why have you come here — now?”

He raised his liquid eyes slowly from contemplation of the corpse. Peret was a man of medium height, inclined to fleshiness and pomposity, in his dapper manner an unfailingly calm, suave assurance. It was part of his profession in life to maintain that manner. He raised well manicured fingertips to his tiny mustache, managed:

“Mais! What can this mean, madamoiselle?”

Her voice was strained. “You can see what it means! Monsieur Descamps evidently came here during my absence and someone killed him. I didn’t come directly home after I left the Cercle. But when I did I entered to find him just as you see. But why have you come here at this hour?”

For answer he held up the small briefcase he had been carrying. Stammering somewhat:

“But a thousand pardons, madamoiselle! You forgot your winnings of tonight. And you gave no instructions that they be held for you. I took it upon myself, after conferring with Monsieur Lavergne, to bring them to you.”

Peret held out the case, flipped it open, then dumped onto the table just inside the library door a miscellaneous array of Banque de France notes. They were mostly all in large denominations. He was murmuring:

“If madamoiselle will recall she was rather distraite this evening. N’est-ce pas? We did not know. She left without the winnings. If now she will sign a receipt for me... for us...”

He jerked open a slip of paper, uncapped a fountain pen. The girl, almost grateful that she had some distraction, glanced at a pile of mille franc notes, riffled through them absently, then took the pen and scrawled her name on the receipt form.

This, at least, was customary, she knew. And just now she did not want to call attention to the fact that she had been unduly distraught, as Peret had mentioned, about the time she had left Lavergne’s Cercle Tabarin, where this Jules Peret was manager.

She pushed the paper toward him, tried to swallow, and discovered her throat would not respond. Peret was still standing there, staring at her in a peculiarly penetrating way. Now he leaned forward and wispered:

“How did it happen, madamoiselle? Thieves? Or—”

The way he left the sentence trail off she had no difficulty in understanding. After all, the dead man had been her almost constant companion for weeks. Monaco, Monte Carlo and Nice and Juan-les-Pins — all knew them side by side.

She heard the gambling house manager say: “The police! Could you manage to tell me? Perhaps I could help. What was it that happen’?”

She stared at him; then finally her gaze focused. “I don’t know,” she said. “I came in and found him — that way. That’s all I can tell you — tell anyone!”

“Then there was no quarrel?”

“I’m trying to tell you that I hadn’t seen the man — not for hours!” she expostulated. “I came back here alone from — from Monsieur Lavergne’s place, found him here. That’s all I know.”

He looked at her narrowly. Bit his lip. Then he turned and looked down intently at the man in the corner. There was little of even the dignity of death in the way Rene Descamps lay sprawled. He had been shot twice, and obviously at close range. So close that it might even have been suicide — except that there was no weapon in sight. Peret moistened his over-red lips.

Just then sounds came from outdoors. Into the strained and straining silence that the girl felt surely must overwhelm her, came the echo of a familiar voice; and a wave of relief spread over her numbed senses.

Almost hysterically, forgetting that she was afraid, she ran to the door, flung it wide. Peret remained standing there, watching her. She heard the throaty whisper of Vivian’s hail:

“Patricia! We—”

Then she was in the older woman’s arms and the pentup, hysterical sobs had broken free at last. Peret stood motionless.

Behind the beautiful woman who had entered came the dark, tall figure of Stuart Burton. Peret had scant need for asking his identity. Black Burton was known.

As he threw off the dark slouch hat he was wearing the yellow radiance of the foyer light glinted on the burnished jet black of the gambler’s hair. Under that same dark jet cap the eyes of the man took in the entire scene. Yet not a muscle of his features moved. His eyes slid over Peret without lingering more than an instant.

Vivian Burton was almost as tall as her husband, very lovely in a youth that it seemed she might never relinquish. Her dark hair had a midnight softness under the wisp of scarf she had flung over it. Somehow it matched her eyes, deeply violet, understanding. She was comforting:

“Lucky Stuart happened to get in tonight ahead of his own itinerary. Tell us all about it.”

Her glance questioned faintly the manager of the Tabarin. Hastily Particia Blaine introduced them.

Peret said: “Of course one has heard of Monsieur Burton! And one has had the honor before of being presented to madame!”

Vivian seemed uninterested in the formalities. She merely nodded, then turned the girl away from the scene. Burton nodded to Peret, stepped forward and stood bending over the corpse. He made no attempt to touch the murdered man. In a moment he straightened and looked at Peret.

“Who is he?”

Peret told him the name. Burton made an impatient gesture. “What is he?”

Peret shrugged. “We — that is, Monsieur Lavergne employed him. He had the — what you call? — the manner with the lady clientele. In a gambling establishment you will perceive that that is quite an essential. That is, to have on hand one or two gentlemen like him...”

“Do you mean,” the gambler interrupted, “that I’m to understand our corpse here was a gigolo?”

The word seemed to affright the manager of Cercle Tabarin. “Non, non, that is, not exactly, that, monsieur. Not quite that. But he was — shall we say? — at hand. And he has been very much attached to madamoiselle. There were even rumors this last week, that they might elope.” Peret shrugged his shoulders, smiled. “Tiens! It is that we both understand what rumors are; n’est-ce pas, Monsieur Burton?”

Burton only nodded jerkily, followed with his eyes the shadow made by his young wife and the miserable girl in the next room, turned back again to Peret.

“It couldn’t have been serious,” he said quietly. “Miss Blaine is to marry an American. A man I know.”

Peret nodded. “So I — so we understood.” He stood gazing solemnly down at the corpse. At last he sighed. “It will be most embarrassing for madamoiselle, of course. But, what would you? I happened to arrive here only moments before you came. An errand.” Peret, explaining, gestured to the pile of notes on the table beyond where they were standing. “So I wish if there is anything I can do to aid madamoiselle, you, her friend, will command me.”

He waited, almost hopefully, it seemed.

“I hardly think there’s anything,” Burton said. “But madamoiselle will be grateful, I’m sure. And I’m grateful. But murder is murder. And as you suggest, it looks bad for Miss Blaine. However, I’ve just discovered since I arrived that my old friend, Monsieur Ouchy, formerly of the Paris Prefecture, has been appointed Commissioner here in Monte Carlo. He might give us some good advice, if we can manage to connect with him personally.”

“Then you know Monsieur Ouchy, Monsieur?”

“Yes.” Burton cut the syllable short. Then, with a murmured apology, he turned and went out of the room in search of the telephone. Peret glanced at the corpse, lifted one of his many-ringed hands to cover his eyes, and sank down in a chair to wait.

Half an hour later Patricia Blaine was quiet. Her eyes showed no traces of recent tears. Black Burton had telephoned the police and then had listened, without commenting, to the full story. During its recital Peret had sat smoking incessantly but without moving or putting in even a word. When it was over Burton said:

“And Kitterley. Rowland Kitterley, your fiancé. Do you have any idea where he might be just about now?”

Patricia looked afraid. “I know he is due here. At any moment. Perhaps even he’s arrived. He was motoring south; the last I heard was a wire, this afternoon, from Lyons, en route. But he—”

She stopped abruptly. Burton and the others knew what it was that held her thoughts. He knew Rowland Kitterley himself, casually. Kitterley had acquired a nickname; and millionaire sportsman and playboy that he was, it fitted him. It was adapted to his Christian name: “Rowdy” Kitterley. It stuck with him, followed him into every capital of the world and just now it had taken on for the first time a menacing significance.

The girl seemed to sense the gambler’s thoughts. She burst forth with:

“But Rowdy wouldn’t possibly have known, at least I fail to see how he could have, that I was — accepting the escort of this man! How could he? He’s been in London; he just left my father in Paris. You’re thinking that he might have heard, might’ve become angry and—” She broke off on a choked sob and ended ineffectively: “No! It wouldn’t be his way!”

Peret looked skeptical. But, “It will all depend,” Burton said, “on his alibi for all this evening. If he’s really motoring here, that gives him quite a range, I’d say.”

Voices came. Two. Burton went to the door and they heard him speak. In a moment he returned to the room shepherding the two visitors. He introduced them.

Monsieur Ouchy, Commissioner of Police at the gambling capital, was a short, stubby man with pink cheeks and bland blue eyes that were somehow shrewd withal. He looked, and was, a gourmand. His paunch was prodigious and his grayish-white mustaches were magnificent. With him was a man from his department.

When Ouchy had heard the story, he turned on the gambler.

“Naturally we know of you, Monsieur Burton. I speak of the police in general; you and I are — how you say in English? — old comrades.” He tried to laugh a little; then he became very grave. “Mais, we must understand that this is tres serieux.” He bent his mild but penetrating blue gaze upon the heiress and the gaze was steady when he said: “You are certain, madamoiselle, that you cannot be of help further?”

“I know nothing but what I have told you, monsieur,” the girl responded in a small, dead voice.

“Was the gentleman perhaps in love with you?”

Burton frowned, waited. But Patricia was a thoroughbred. “I think he was,” she said at last. Calmly! “At least, in his own fashion he was. But I had to impress upon him tonight that I am affianced. My finance is on his way here right now.”

“Your fiancé?” Ouchy leaned forward. This was an angle that a French police official found more comprehensible, of a sudden. “His name?”

She told him. Ouchy raised heavy eyebrows. “And where might he be at this moment, madamoiselle?”

She made a helpless gesture. “Somewhere between here and Lyons,” she replied. “That is all I know.”

“And he drives, it is suggested, a powerful car?”

Her eyes looked frightened. “A Mercedes,” she said. And then she added quickly, “You’ll doubtless discover this anyway, eventually — I’ve heard the French police are thorough — so I might just as well tell you now. Rowdy had a specially built Mercedes engine installed by the manufacturers themselves. His car is possibly as speedy as any motor in France!”

There fell a pall of silence. Peret stirred. Ouchy sat back and placed his fingertips together.

“Doubtless we can investigate Monsieur Kitterley’s movements without trouble,” was his comment. But they all understood.

A sound came from the blackness outside. A hail. Burton looked up. Footsteps approached, sounding over the gravelly walk from the top of the steps, then clumped across the narrow veranda. The voice called:

“Hi, Pat! Welcome-home celebration at this hour?”

They all looked up to gaze at the newcomer. Patricia Blaine’s pallor had swept back again. Her eyes were wide, staring.

“Rowdy!” she breathed.

At sight of them all there Rowland Kitterley stopped short in the doorway. He had, his attitude seemed to denote, expected a late party, perhaps. But never a grave gathering like this. Tragedy hung heavy in the air, inescapable.

Kitterley was tall and good-looking in a careless, debonair way. His smile was a delight. His brown hair was wavy and tossed back as though with impatience. His tweed suit was unpressed with almost a studious negligence, and yet it showed its fine tailoring; it was, like its owner, careless. His tie was twisted slightly askew. His gray eyes, young and reckless, were direct and arrogant. He stopped still in the doorway.

“Is this, by any chance, a funeral?” he murmured.

Patricia’s breath caught in her throat. It was Ouchy who responded almost gaily:

“Pas encore! Not yet, monsieur. Perhaps tomorrow. And this would be Monsieur Kitterley?”

Kitterley looked bewildered. “Yes, but—”

Ouchy said abruptly, “Monsieur is perhaps failing to understand. And if he is totally in ignorance then his lack of comprehension is only natural. If he is! Monsieur Kitterley, there is a man in the next chamber — we have placed him there until the medical men arrive — who has tonight been murdered. Murdered — here! It might be most satisfactory to all of us if monsieur could explain where he was an hour or two previous.”

“Why, I’ve been driving here. Left early enough to get in sooner, but I had a breakdown.”

Kitterley parted his lips, closed them, then moistened them again to breathe: “Who was murdered?” And he stared helplessly at Patricia. She did not answer him, only sat there looking appealingly up at him out of her lovely, haunted eyes.

Burton interposed. The gambler said easily: “The body’s in the next room, Kitterley. If you feel up to it you’d better have a look at it. Then we can talk to more purpose.”

There might have been a protest but Burton was waiting for none. Taking Kitterley by the arm he steered him out of the crowded library. In the room where low lighting burned in one corner, away from the face of the dead man, he came to a halt as Kitterley stopped short. Burton’s calm voice said:

“It’s going to be a tough investigation, Kitterley. If you’ve got anything to tell me you’d better tell it now.”

Kitterley was turning back from the corpse. His eyes were wide, almost frightened. “Do you suggest that they might think I had something to do with this? Or Pat? But why, Burton, why?”

“Haven’t you yet gathered that Descamps was a gigolo, or something very close to it? And in love, without encouragement, no doubt, with Patricia?”

The youngster shook his head. “I had a faint idea Pat had someone steering her around, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Maybe even I wondered what kind of a guy he might be. I know that sort of thing is done here. If that fact interests you, the information didn’t mean a damn thing. It wasn’t even information, for that matter, just things I’d heard.”

“I didn’t mention it,” Burton said shortly, “as a piece of gossip! I’m more interested in making you understand what the situation is. And trust these police to discover that you’re known to have a violent temper. As it stands now, you and Patricia are both under suspicion.”

“Sorry, Burton!” Kitterley broke in. “I should’ve known better. I know you! And if you’ll only help—”

“I intend to help. But I can’t do too much in the dark. Your having been driving south — that alibi, will it hold?”

For a second the boy hesitated. Then he shrugged.

“Its got to,” he said bitterly. “There’s nothing else. But Patsy had nothing to do with it, did she? You’re sure? The fellow might possibly have annoyed her and she—”

When he broke off before the thought shaped ugly in his mind, Burton told him: “It wasn’t Patricia. But it’s up to us to find out who it was. The French police, fine as the are, dearly love a crime passionel.”

“Yes, I can see! They might railroad either of us on the strength of what to them is patent evidence; and even if they didn’t succeed this thing would be hanging over us the rest of our lives! Hell, Burton,” savagely, “if they must have a dummy to try for the case, let ’em pick on me! That driving alibi can be broken down, anyway, I suspect.”

“Yes?” Burton thought it best not to pursue that. He looked narrowly at Kitterley. “And your motive? Jealousy?”

The younger man grinned unhappily. “That’s as good as any, isn’t it?” he said. “Why not? Though there’s not much room for jealousy with that poor beggar now!”

They went back inside.

Black Burton left his wife that night at Patricia’s villa. He returned to his hotel alone, and he went in somber thought.

Vivian had been staying with her younger friend for some time; then had moved from Patricia’s villa, Les Charmettes, into the hotel in town only upon word of her husband’s approaching arrival.

In the morning Monsieur Ouchy appeared at the Hotel Negresco. Burton received him as an old friend, gravely. He knew Frenchmen; knew that underneath the official’s manner there was warmth. Knew that though Ouchy loved the good things of life, its wines and finest viands, the man was more than competent for his job. In Paris Ouchy had left behind him something of a record.

But nevertheless Ouchy was not one to overlook any possibility. Burton realized this anew, when Ouchy announced with due gravity:

“It is all so regrettable, my good friend Monsieur Burton. But we have made the check on this Monsieur Kitterley.” He paused.

“Do you mean that you’ve found his alibi was no good?”

Ouchy nodded in sober fashion. “Pas bien! We of the police have our own methods, n’est-ce pas? We have discovered that it was more than possible for Monsieur Kitterley to have been here last night, much earlier than he appeared to us! What he said about his breakdown was a correct story. I confess that that news surprised me. But it took only fifteen minutes to get the car repaired!”

Burton sat back. He lit a cigarette. At last, “I suppose that means you arrest Monsieur Kitterley,” he said.

Ouchy moved his hands and got to his feet. “Pas encore. Not quite yet,” he said. “But Monsieur Kitterley will make no move that is not known to us. By tomorrow, perhaps, the arrest comes.”

He waited. Burton knew what for. The gambler said:

“I’ll see him. Maybe he does know something that will help. I assume you’re thinking that he might have killed a gigolo through jealousy?”

Gravely Ouchy nodded; added, with something twinkling in his eyes nevertheless, “It has been done! But it would be better if we discovered it to have been that way, apres tout, m’sieu,” and stopped. “For if Monsieur Kitterley did not do the murder, then who did?”

“You’re thinking of the girl?”

Ouchy shrugged. “What must one think? You know the police must take what the evidence offers. And there is so much evidence here. I understand that mademoiselle’s father is in Paris?”

“I think so.”

“He is very rich?”

“Quite. He’ll be along soon; you can count on that.”

Ouchy sighed. “I trust so. I think the lady may need much help,” he said. Then he brightened. “She is very beautiful. And perhaps, after all, the help is already here — if she is innocent. And if this fiancé is innocent, too.”

“The help?”

Ouchy smiled, at the door. “Quit Black Burton is here; n’est-ce pas?” he said. “Au revoir, monsieur.”

Burton stood looking fixedly at the closed portal for a moment. Then he glanced at his watch. He telephoned the villa, spoke reassuringly to Vivian, shrugged himself into his clothes and went out.

He walked up the Promenade des Anglais until he came to a small rendezvous he knew of old — the rather remote little Casino Bleu, overlooking the blue sea. Here he ordered a cocktail and food.

He was draining his cocktail when Rowland Kitterley came in. Kitterley looked back over his shoulder as he entered. There was worry in his young face, care in the depths of his eyes.

When he caught Burton’s signal across the room he gave a distinct start. He began to turn away, then, rejecting a first impulse came back and threw himself into a vacant chair at Burton’s small table. He lit a cigarette nervously, sat staring.

The waiter came with another cocktail and Burton observed, “You probably need one, too,” and ordered a second.

Kitterley puffed silently until the second glass came. Then he drained three-quarters of its contents at one gulp, leaned across the table and said:

“We might as well come clean, eh, Burton?”

“As for instance?”

“I’ve just seen the noon-time copies of L’Intransigent. ‘An arrest at any moment. A woman!’ ” He made a gesture with his strong hands. “We both know what that means, eh?”

Burton nodded gravely. “Fairly obvious. Can you help?”

Kitterley’s clenched fist came down on the small table. “Yes, by the Lord, I can help!” he exclaimed. “I can tell ’em the truth!”

“And what would that be?”

“That I killed that gigolo!”

Through cigarette smoke Barton looked across the table. “For what they’ll call a crime passionel, Kitterley?”

“I don’t give a damn what they call it! If they check my record back far enough they’ll see my breakdown last night didn’t amount to much. I could’ve been here.” The boy took a deep breath. “I was here!”

“At Patrica’s villa, Les Charmettes?”

“Yes. And I killed him! Jealous! It’s well known that I’ve got a temper. Then I cooled off, went back and retraced my route, had that breakdown, and came on again. What will the police think of that?”

Burton squashed out his cigarette, his features a blank, and said, “I’m afraid you won’t be telling the police any news about that breakdown only taking a short while. But the rest.” He lit a new cigarette, leaned forward. “Frankly, and it shouldn’t surprise you, that story is likely to be believed. Even, I might add, it’s true. Anyway, one part of it is true and so the rest might well be. I do believe you were there earlier. And if you’d tell me the story of that it might help a lot.”

Kitterley was staring at him out of a white face. Burton helped him with, “The idea of you as a skulking killer isn’t logical, of course. But the idea of you in a jealous rage at what you might have seen — well, that’s believable.”

“Does that mean you’d believe it?”

Burton did not answer. He wanted to steady the quivering nerves opposite him. He beckoned a passing waiter, ordered their glasses refilled, smoked quietly. Waited. When the drinks came and the waiter had gone, lowering his eyes, Kitterley said:

“You’re half on to the right idea, Burton. As I said, I was here earlier.”

Nodding, Burton prodded: “Surprise for Patricia?”

With a flash the youth looked up. “Not the way that sounds, no!” he exclaimed. “Surprise, yes. But I wasn’t trying to spy on her. I arrived, went straight to Les Charmettes. There was a low-burning light in the living-room but the place looked empty. I started for the porch. Then... then it happened.”

“What?”

“The murder! I... I saw it done!”

Burton’s eyes were narrowed. “You saw the murder?”

Kitterley shook his head impatiently. “I saw two men. I saw this gigolo chap plainly as he came up there. He went to the door, knocked. I’d stopped by then, wondering what was up. No answer. He half turned away. Then out of the bushes a figure came and I saw moonlight on a gun barrel. Someone cursed, said something in French that I couldn’t get, and this fellow turned around; he began to rush toward whoever it was, and crying out something. They spoke, but not like friends. Then there was a shot — two shots — and that was all.”

After a space of silence, “You saw him killed, then,” Burton murmured. “And what did you do?”

“Gave chase. I didn’t stop to think of what it was all about but I knew I’d just seen murder done, in all probability. I knew Pat’d be in for it. I ran after the beggar but I lost him.”

“Wouldn’t recognize him again?”

“No. His description would fit any one of a dozen men I know. In the dark, that way, you understand...” Kitterley toyed with the stem of his cocktail glass. “It’s altogether screwy, Burton, believe it or not. But I saw that man killed at the bottom of the porch steps. And the body was found inside Pat’s house!”

Burton waited a long time. At length he squashed out his cigarette and looked up to find the eyes of the younger man, haggard and haunted, fixed desperately on his face.

“You believe me, Burton?”

“I’m inclined to, just at this moment. But what good it’s going to do, I can’t tell. You don’t surprise me,” the gambler added, “with verification of the fact that the body had been moved. Ouchy didn’t spot it last night, but Rene Descamps — if that was his name — had not been killed where he was found. I knew that and I was keeping it as an ace up my sleeve. There was no blood on the floor where we found him. And he’d bled a lot from those wounds. Therefore, since bleeding stops shortly after death, he must have been moved after he died!”

Kitterley was staring. “But for what reason?”

Burton was looking slightly more pleased. When he spoke at last it was to say: “The answer to that is going to solve our case. Can’t you see what it means?”

“Not quite yet.”

“It means,” Burton propounded, “that your fiancée was being framed. And a frame means either blackmail, or something even more sinister.” He nodded. “This afternoon,” he said, “I think we should stop in and see our friend the owner of the Tabarin. Monsieur Lavergne, did I understand was his name?”

“Monsieur Alexandre Lavergne,” Kitterley agreed. “One of the small operators here. But—”

“Yes, Lavergne,” Burton repeated. “We mustn’t forget, Kitterley, that all this merry-go-round began at Cercle Tabarin.”

Alexandre Lavergne was an imposing individual. It was said that, in spite of his name he was an Anatolian Greek and it was believable. He looked well fed and well satisfied; his manner was that of a perennial, if somewhat suspicious, host to all the cosmopolitan world. The Cercle Tabarin was one of the smaller of the licensed houses for gambling in Monte Carlo; but Lavergne possessed all the pomposity and manner of a really big operator.

It was Peret who met Burton and his companion in the entrance foyer. Burton was angling toward the cage where the cartes du jour were to be bought when Lavergne intercepted him.

“But non, monsieur,” he expostulated. “Merely the matter of the stamp, if you insist. While the famous Monsieur Burton is our guest it is not permitted that he pay for a carte.”

Burton thanked him. Kitterley was at his elbow when they entered the gambling rooms. A long, glistening bar ran alongside and down the length of the main room. The other rooms were small, fairly well furnished, but looking faintly drab and unromantic in the daylight.

There was little play going on at that hour. The voices of the croupiers sounded listless and even the clatter of the small balls at the roulette wheels sounded dispirited.

Burton bought a chemin-de-fer “shoe,” dealt for almost an hour until a Greek who appeared to be well known in the place came in and bid for the bank. Burton sold it with relief and went out. He had not wanted so much to play as to look the place over. He found Rowdy Kitterley at his side as he struck the open air once more.

“Lavergne had nothing to say about the death of his gigolo,” Kitterley summed up, outdoors.

Burton frowned. “I noticed that. I wonder why,” he murmured.

Black Burton left Rowdy and returned to his suite at his hotel. A telegram was waiting for him; he tore it open, smiled with a pleased look, and tossed it aside. It was quite late in the afternoon when Vivian Burton and Patricia Blaine came upstairs.

The debutante had recovered a lot. In her eyes shone a defiant courage.

“You’ve seen Rowdy?” she demanded.

He nodded, went to the sideboard and busied himself with cocktails. Vivian smiled when she accepted her glass.

“You must miss Han Soy,” she said.

A smile flitted across his dark face. His Chinese servant and he had been almost inseparable for many years. But he gestured to the telegram he had tossed on the table.

“I left Soy in London,” he said. “I was surprised, even though I shouldn’t have been, but he had relatives there. But just now he’s wired me he’s due this evening on the next Golden Arrow Express.” Then he turned gravely to Patricia. “Yes, I’ve seen Kitterley. He told me what I might almost have guessed. He could have done that murder last night.”

Patricia started. “You mean he—”

“I mean he was in Monte Carlo earlier. But that news was no particular surprise to me. I think you should know, though, that he advanced the information gratuitously. Advanced it with the idea that it might help your status with the authorities.”

“My status?”

“Certainly.” Burton set down his cocktail glass. “The French police have a passion for crimes in which there’s a woman involved. This one last night was practically made to order. Tell me, Patricia, would it be possible for anyone to blackmail you?”

Her small clenched hand went to her red mouth. Her eyes were dilated. She half rose to her feet, sank back.

“Blackmail!” she repeated. “But I’ve done nothing to — oh, but I see what you mean! Yes, you’ve guessed right. There were letters. Letters I wrote to Rene Descamps, foolish things and all of them harmless — except one, perhaps. He promised to bring them back to me last night. I wanted them before Rowdy came — not that they were dangerous, but because I know Rowdy, and I’d suddenly begun to wonder about these Latins.” When Burton nodded in his grave way she hurried on: “I’m trying to impress upon you that they weren’t compromising letters, not in any way. No, no! They could all be published and they wouldn’t reflect on me at all. But...”

She hesitated. Burton’s eyes were on her flushed face, and he leaned forward to finish for her:

“But they might reflect on someone else?”

“Y-yes,” she said in a small voice.

“Rowland Kitterley?”

“Yes. If the police got them, they would think Rowdy killed him because of jealousy.” She moistened her lips. “It’s silly, I suppose, the whole thing. That is, it would be if it weren’t so tragic. You see, I know Rowdy’s temper. Perhaps Rowdy wouldn’t object to what you know is more or less of a custom on the Riviera, indeed, all through France, for unchaperoned girls to pay a young man to escort them. In most cases it’s purely a business matter and ends there. But it didn’t happen to in this case.”

“I gather the boy fell in love with you; is that it?”

“I’m afraid so. I hadn’t looked for anything of the sort, of course. But such being the case, as it was, I knew that if Rowdy ever discovered I’d been accepting this boy’s attentions, after he became serious, he’d never understand. And perhaps I don’t blame him. So I tried to persuade Rene that we mustn’t be seen together again. He avoided me; but not because of my wishes. It was — a sulk.”

Vivian stirred. Her eyes pleaded with her husband’s when she protested: “Don’t you see what that means now, Stuart? Patricia at last had to write Rene and warn him, knowing Rowdy Kitterley was due here. He and his temper. She asked him for her letters back. Only innocent notes, in themselves, as she says. Nothing you could pin blackmail on. The boy finally brought them, or promised to. However, they weren’t on his body. And the last letter is warning Descamps of that Kitterley temper, of what will happen if the letters are ever discovered. That last one is the letter that was almost a warning of what Rowdy would do if he discovered, and that was among the ones that disappeared — if it was ever there — from the body!”

Burton smoked slowly. “So it’s not a matter of blackmail,” he said thoughtfully. “I’d been off the track... No. They won’t try to blackmail you. The letters are innocent. But they have meaning. And it boils down to this: Their meaning, in the hands of the right person or persons, points definitely to Rowland Kitterley as the killer, especially since his alibi has been broken!”

“That’s it!” the girl cried. “But I repeat there was only that one letter that would involve Rowdy. However, that would be enough; I can see that I put it to Rene very strongly that he must forget about me before Rowdy came. That Rowdy, if Rene loved his own life, mustn’t ever be allowed to know that he and I were — what we were.”

Vivian’s careful voice came slowly: “If you need it put more bluntly, Stuart, Pat’s letter as much as said that Rowdy would not stop at killing if he became jealous.”

The girl’s eyes were moist. Burton sipped at his glass thoughtfully. “Did I understand this French boy wanted you to marry him?” he asked at last.

“Yes. Oh, he was very respectful, very sweet. Somehow all along I had the impression that he wasn’t liking his role. Resented the whole background.”

Burton raised his eyebrows at that; then he frowned and went to the window, stood looking down into the blue-gray shadows that were stealing down along the Promenade des Anglais. The early lights were soft, kindly blurs through them. “No one has been to you as yet, suggesting that he knows where the letters are?” he murmured over his shoulder.

“Not... yet.”

“Someone will be,” he said grimly. “You must let me know immediately who it is. Though the why of all this is beyond me! If it should turn out to be blackmail I’ll be able to understand it. However, whatever it turns out to be, it wasn’t blackmail in the beginning. I’ll swear to that. I’m not sure why I’m so certain. But one thing is certain — you’ve given me ideas!”

Black Burton was at the Cercle Tabarin that night with his wife, but Patricia Blaine was home at her villa, Les Charmettes, and in bed. Alexandre Lavergne was eagerly welcoming to Burton and Vivian. At eleven o’clock, when Vivian was finishing a run at the roulette table, Lavergne, coming up beside Burton as the gambler played chemin-de-fer, looked up with a low exclamation. Burton turned to see Ouchy making an entrance.

The policeman was not in uniform and created no interest among the other guests. But Ouchy stopped beside Burton’s table, touched his arm and said:

“It is with regret, my good friend Monsieur Burton, that—”

When he stopped Burton picked up his counters and said: “It is with regret that you’ve come to tell me that you’ve arrested Kitterley. Is that it, monsieur?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“You have more evidence, then, since we talked?”

“Not direct evidence. No. But that alibi of the motor car. His actions. Other things. We discovered a worn suit of rough serge in the back of the car, his car; it was torn and stained. Not with blood. No. But such tears as might be caused in breaking through the brush surrounding madamoiselle’s villa. He claims he was in an accident recently, but... And we have tested the earth marks on it, too. They might have come from this part of France. We have checked his speedometer and his petrol tank. We believe he has lied to us. There were tracks of his footprints around the villa.”

“Then you believe you have the man who murdered our friend Descamps?” The new voice was that of Jules Peret, manager of the Cercle Tabarin.

Ouchy spread his hands. “I regret to say that we have adopted the only course,” he said, and turned away.

Burton looked after him. He frowned. He knew why Ouchy had gone out of his way to come here with that information. The French policeman was far from a fool. He had approached Burton because he believed that the gambler knew something, something not yet revealed. This new knowledge might get it out of him.

Shaking his head a little, a half smile on his lips, Burton turned to find himself staring at Lavergne. The operator of Cercle Tabarin was standing there shaking his head, making little muttering noises, half clucks, behind his teeth. Peret, the manager, beside him, looked grave, almost funereal. Lavergne said in a low voice:

“This is a bad thing. That it should come home to one of us here! But men will do strange things for women; hein, m’sieu?” A shrug. “This Monsieur Kitterley — he possesses the temper of the most violent, I have heard. It was that then...”

But Burton had turned away. He found Vivian; they cashed their counters and went out. Vivian had heard and she was quiet.

Burton summed up. “I’m very much afraid, with those foolish letters around loose — at least, that one letter — that Rowdy Kitterley is going to find himself in an uncomfortable spot. However, until they show up, he’s comparatively safe. But the evidence of that last warning letter will practically condemn him!”

Vivian turned to him as they reached the curb. “But where are the letters?” she demanded. “If Rowdy is being framed, as you seem to think, why haven’t the letters appeared? They’re surely worth something to someone!”

Burton shook his head: “The answer to that, my dear, will solve the whole case.” He went on, almost reluctantly. “And, too, there’s another answer we mustn’t let ourselves lose sight of entirely. Even if we do feel sympathetic toward Rowdy. Put everyone into the scene as it is at the present moment, and out of the whole cast of characters you’ll find that Rowland Kitterley had more reason that anyone else to keep those letters concealed!”

Burton drove with Vivian to Patricia’s villa. There he took leave of her. Han Soy was due at the hotel on the next train. But for a moment, at the summit of the flight of wooden steps that led up to the villa, he paused, alone in the darkness.

Below him wound the splendor of that broad highway known as Grande Corniche. The harbor of Villefranche showed clusters of fairy-like lights; the crafts moored out there in the silence were like ghostly, pasteled silhouettes on the dusky softness of a painted background.

He touched his left shoulder. Somehow he was glad that he had thought to adjust the shoulder holster with its reliable .38 under his coat tonight. There might be need for it. Things had stirred up, he thought. And Han Soy, his faithful valet, was due...

He descended the steps slowly and entered the car. The Paris Express must have got in before this.

A block before the taxi came to the entrance of his hotel, he leaned forward and gave the order to pull up. He paid off his driver and walked on. The late hour had almost drained the Promenade des Anglais of even wakeful strollers.

Entering the hotel by the door opening on the Promenade, he called for the key to his suite, accepted it abstractedly. The clerk was in conference with two guests and paid him scant attention as he handed it over.

Still, with a feeling that called for caution, Burton left the elevator on the floor below his own. He mounted the well-carpeted stairs slowly, thoughtfully, wondering if Soy had come yet and reflecting that if he had he had been sent up to the suite. Burton had left word he was expecting him.

He fitted his key, stepped into the small foyer, then stepped back with a whispered oath.

Yes, Han Soy had arrived.

A scramble, a low oath that matched his own! Burton’s gun flicked into his hand. Two men were dark shadows against the portieres in the rear. Soy’s voice cried out something.

Livid flame bit the half-dark. Burton heard lead slam against the door panel to the left of him. He fired at the flash.

He knew two men to be there. Han Soy was an almost indistinguishable huddle in the middle of the sitting-room floor.

One dark figure went through the window, onto the fire-escape. The second paused only to snap another wild shot; then, at Burton’s return flash, he was gone.

The gambler sped across the intervening space. A chair had been deliberately upended inside the doorway. His feet tangled in its rungs in the darkness and he had to dutch at the wall to save himself from a spill.

But the effect had been accomplished. By the time he reached the rear window, the fire-escape was empty. Curtains were billowing innocently outward from an apartment opening just below.

It was against Burton’s nature to make any futile attempt at running out and trying to intercept his attackers on the floor beneath his. The two men, whoever they were, had known their business. In only one particular had they fallen short: Before a fear that must have been deep in them, fear for the known menace of Black Burton’s .38 and his shooting wizardry, their nerve had failed.

Burton retraced his way and bent swiftly over the form of the little Chinaman who had served him so well and for so long. He snapped on the overhead lights and the luxurious apartment sprang into recognizibility.

But Han Soy was not dead. Nor was he too badly hurt. Small, even for a Chinaman, the yellow man struggled up on one elbow as Burton crouched over him. Blood ran down thickly from a clotted and jagged tear in the skin just over his left eye.

Burton said swiftly, “Your temple! Anything else, Soy?”

Han Soy held up a hand and shook his head. Burton poured him a large drink of brandy. The Oriental downed it swiftly, a look of gratitude and devotion in his slanting eyes.

Burton helped him to the lounge. Soy said at last: “Did you know them, sir?”

“I don’t think so; didn’t get enough of a look, but I’m pretty sure they’re strangers to me. But tell me—”

“There is little to tell! But perhaps on the other hand there is much when it is seen by two pairs of eyes.” Han Soy paused. His English was pure, unstilted, his diction excellent. Soy had been and was a scholar. He smiled a little. “Yes, perhaps there is much to tell. Perhaps it is because of what I had seen, there in the railway terminal before I came on here. They did not want me alive when you arrived to tell you that!”

“I suppose everyone who knows me knows who you are, of course — our long association,” Burton nodded. “They could have spotted you easily enough if that was in their minds. And there never was any secret about your being due to arrive here. The thing is, why did they want to silence you before you could talk to me? What did you uncover?”

Han Soy sighed. “Maybe nothing. But it must be something, still. I saw two men in buying tickets for the Golden Arrow north. And I could not help but recognize them from the pictures I had seen — you know the story of this murder has been in all the papers since it happened, your connection with it, the principals; you understand? I had time to become acquainted with all the known facts long before I reached here. And so when these two saw me and saw that I had possibly recognized them, guessing who I was...” Han Soy spread his long, thin hands. “It would have been better for them had I not lived to tell you.”

Burton lit a cigarette. Through the smoke of it, as he arose from beside the couch, he queried softly:

“I understand a little, Soy. Who were the men you recognized buying tickets north?”

Han Soy replied: “One I did not recognize. But the other, I have seen his photographs, with the news of the murder. The one I recognized resembled the man who works at the Circle Tabarin. Jules Peret.”

Burton turned away. He made no comment at once. Instead, as the little Chinaman’s slant eyes followed him, he crossed the room, slumped into a deep chair and closed his eyes. Wreaths of smoke curled about his dark features. Soy made no move, said nothing.

At last: “It’s got to be that way!” Black Burton exclaimed. He got to his feet. “I’m leaving you here, Soy. If it’ll be any comfort to you, you paid the price for cracking this case with that crack on your head!”

Now the gay lights on the Promenade were surrendering their hours of triumph to gray fingers of an early dawn mist creeping in from the Mediterranean. Burton’s taxicab dropped him two blocks from the Cercle Tabarin. He told a somewhat querulous and suspicious chauffeur to wait there for him, then turned up his collar to hide his white shirt front and strode away.

From the road the Cercle Tabarin was mostly in darkness. It was situated on Monte Carlo’s outskirts, almost on the border of the port town of Villefranche. Mist continued to billow in damply from the sea; the air already had in it a hint of sunrise.

Housebreaking or prowling had never been the gambler’s metier. He would have much preferred to be in on the conversation behind that one lighted window in the rear of the gambling house, and he might have crept close enough to overhear what went on there, too; but he chose the other way.

With the facts in his hand, marshaled at length in his brain, he had his last resources: The gambler’s way — bluff.

He rang the bell. Somewhere inside the darkened house an echo of its chime came to him. Only silence followed. Then at last footsteps and the door came open on a stout chain.

A servant stood there, a servant only partly undressed. Burton recognized him as one of the Cercle attendants. And he could not fail to recognize the automatic in the man’s hand.

Burton said: “Monsieur Lavergne, at once! And it is greatly important! Vile! Hurry!”

The man knew him. There was a sullen and crafty look in his eye when he unbolted the heavy chain lock that guarded the portal. But he obeyed the command, nevertheless, and he stepped back as Burton entered the gloomy, semi-dark hallway and stepped into the groping shadows.

The door closed. The gambler repeated: “Take me to your master, Monsieur Lavergne. There is no time to lose!”

The man hesitated. Then at last he turned with a shrug and made a gesture. Burton was aware that his hand had dropped the gun into a side pocket and followed it there.

Burton knew he must use finesse. Without it he was lost. No one knew where he had gone, for certain; the taxicab driver would probably never relate the affair. The police? It was just possible, Burton knew, that Ouchy had had him trailed, on an off chance. But he had seen no sign of any shadow as yet.

Lavergne stood, coatless, across a table in a green-walled chamber. Yellow light shone down on the table. In the room’s corners stealthy shadows lurked. Across from the gambling house proprietor stood the sleek, meticulously clad figure of Jules Peret.

They stared at the intruder. The house servant hugged the wall in the background. Lavergne’s eyes were both questioning and hostile. Peret had no secret in his look; it was baleful, savage, and yet a little fearful.

Burton said easily, “You’ll forgive the intrusion, I know, Monsieur Lavergne. Under ordinary circumstances I should never have thought of it. But I reasoned that you would want to know something I have discovered. It concerns you, I think.”

Lavergne waited. He raised bushy eyebrows; his heavy jaw thrust forward a little. He said:

“The intrusion may perhaps be forgiven. It remains to be seen — its justification. What is it that monsieur wants?”

Burton nodded, almost as if to himself, then said lightly: “The letters, Monsieur Lavergne. The letters that mademoiselle the American had stolen from her. The letters, in short, that Peret took away from your gigolo when he killed him at the lady’s villa!”

Peret uttered an oath. Lavergne’s eyes widened. Before the rising storm of expostulation could break, Burton was going on swiftly:

“Don’t object yet, Lavergne! Perhaps you’ll see things as I see them when I tell you that Peret was making off with them on the first fast train north in the morning. That he was giving you what you’d call the merry-go-round and getting to the girl’s father first with them!”

Lavergne stared disbelievingly. “You are mad, perhaps, monsieur. You suggest that Peret here killed Descamps?”

“More than that! He killed Descamps at your orders! And then he took the letters. The letters he discovered can be used for blackmail. But I can see that that wasn’t the idea behind it all. Descamps knew too much and he went to Miss Blaine that night intending to tell her the whole truth. And that? Why, you and your gang had planned to have Descamps marry her, then make her very wealthy father pay through the nose for an annulment. That was behind your whole plot. It tripped up when young Descamps found he couldn’t go through with a dirty scheme like that. He was too decent, when it came right down to the last bit of dirty work. So he came to tell her the truth — the truth about you and your gang of Apaches, and the truth was that you had arranged for her to be forced to marry him if worse came to worst! And that’s the time he returned with her letters.”

Peret interposed, his calmness slightly restored: “In that case the lady must have the letters.”

Burton swung on him. “In such a case the lady would have the letters if you hadn’t got there first and killed Descamps!” Turning quickly on Lavergne the gambler continued hurriedly: “You, Lavergne! Can’t you see now? It was a merry-go-round, all this you began, but Peret intended to finish it. In his pocket you’ll find tickets for the next train north, leaving in about an hour from now. He had an accomplice of his own; and he and this other — whoever he is — were double-crossing the whole lot of you. I know now the plot wasn’t blackmail to begin with and that Descamps was killed because you were afraid he’d talk too much, but afterward Peret saw his chance and now he’s playing his own hand!”

Lavergne’s eyes flickered to his hireling. In them was something of crafty understanding, the kind of grudging approval a jackal might cast upon another of his own kind. An unscrupulous man himself, the operator could recognize the Machiavellian scheme that his subordinate had planned so carefully under his nose. Now that it had been pointed out to him it was all patently clear.

Into his small eyes, suddenly smaller, a look of cunning and comprehension crept. The eyes flicked beyond Burton to where the henchman who had answered the door hovered in partial shadow. Lavergne moistened his thick-ish lips until they seemed pouting childishly under his heavy mustache.

Peret commenced to speak. But Lavergne cut in:

“Oui, a most charming plan. But believe me, Burton, my idea had no element of blackmail in it. It was only... well, Descamps was in the way, a too gallant adolescent who could seriously interfere with my ideas. And the letters...” He sighed. “Ah, yes. And then it is, I suppose you wish me to gather, that my friend Peret intended to go north on this morning’s train? In Paris he would see the girl’s father, eh? Perhaps even the boy’s attorneys and then he would be negotiating for money for the letters on his own account. For I have heard they are all the police need for conviction. And no doubt her father would willingly have paid in full, for his daughter’s sake and even for Monsieur Kitterley?”

“It’s rather plain, isn’t it?” Burton said. “But since I’ve explained and since I see you understand, if you’ll hand over the letters to me, I...”

Burton knew that this gesture was bluff. But he had to get the reaction. He could not be certain at the moment who had the letters, whether Peret had broken down and taken his employer in with his scheme, at the last, or not. He held out his hand.

Lavergne was laughing in a soft, chuckling way.

“Mais non!” he exclaimed. “As I swore to you, the whole thing was not conceived by me in this way. But now you have been so kind as to understand Peret’s scheme, to outline its possibilities so generously to me, what is there to stop a poor operative to profit by it?”

Burton had not moved but he found he had only to turn the slightest bit in order to see the automatic of the servant who had brought him in; the weapon was pointed at his middle. Lavergne was saying in his deadly voice:

“You and I, my good friend Peret, we will have much to talk of — later. Much!” He turned, continued, “But in the meantime — non, do not move of the slightest, M. Burton!”

Peret was deathly pale under his olive skin. Burton knew better than to make a move for his gun in those seconds. Here they had heard of him, heard of that lightning-swift draw from under his left shoulder; they would never give him the opportunity to use it if they could help it. They were too wary of him.

Peret was babbling: “Lavergne, you cannot believe this dog’s word against mine! He lies!”

Lavergne interrupted. He had reached out his big hand and was pawing in his desk drawer. For an instant Burton was aware of a small packet of letters there, then he understood. Peret had intended to take those letters with him, in one way or another, before he left here today. Lavergne’s hand closed over the butt of a Luger and he said to his henchman:

“Gaston! Attendee! Peret has said that the gentleman lies. Look in Peret’s pocket very carefully, for he has a weapon somewhere, I am sure. See if those letters are there! But see first if the tickets are there as M. Burton said.”

Gaston went about his work with caution. Peret backed to the wall. His eyes were bulging with fear and his mouth was agape like a suffering fish’s. All the suave veneer and polish of the man was wiped away by sheer terror. There was deadly meaning in Lavergne’s eyes, a menace in the soft, low purr of his voice.

Burton said, in a low tone: “Not too much of the bluff, Lavergne! You fooled me and it’s you who have the letters. Peret only hoped to steal them from you before he left. But you—”

Burton took his hazard as Peret saw his last slim chance evaporating. The eyes of them all were mostly for him. Then he moved, just as Gaston flipped back Peret’s coat lapel.

A startled gasp came from Gaston. Peret’s hand dove downward. A ridiculously small pistol emerged as if by magic from under the white of the cuff on his left wrist.

Burton moved. Lavergne, just in time, recalled that the gambler was probably the greatest menace in the room. The big Luger swiveled.

The small gun so suddenly in Peret’s hand spat at Gaston and the crack of it was ridiculously inane in the tumult that ensued. Then Burton felt lead from Lavergne’s Luger breathe past his head. Heard it as it smashed into the paneling beside him.

He heard Gaston’s wild cry; then a tom sob that was half a curse and half a prayer as Gaston fired at Peret. Then Burton’s own .38 was in action. Through the crimson blaze at its mouth, through the whirling smoke layers in that small room, through the hammering, deafening echoes of the tumultuous firing, he could see Lavergne go down.

Something burned Burton’s shoulder. Crouching, he swung about as Lavergne crumpled forward across the green baize table top, the big gun still clamped tight in his fist. Blood spurted from him.

Peret’s cry lingered. Burton whirled in time to see Gaston on the floor, bringing up his weapon.

Burton snapped a shot. Gaston’s slight body gave a tremor and slammed back against the wall that had been half bracing him.

Peret wavered, started to speak, choked something incoherent; and then, as a rush of blood foamed to his lips, he crumpled and fell.

Burton took a deep breath. For a long moment he stood there, until the echoes of firing had almost died away and a tense, almost unreal stillness had come.

Then carefully he slipped the gun into its holster, methodically picked out the letters from the drawer He glanced at them to make sure of them, then he went to the fire still burning low in the small grate in the outer room. He placed each envelope with meticulous care in the tiny blaze. As he dropped the last one and watched it shrivel up he saw the thick stream of crimson that was running unchecked down over his own wrist.

At last he straightened and his dark face looked tired. He moved wearily toward the door.

In the hotel, much later that day, he told Vivian the story. Patricia Blaine had gone to the Bureau de Police to await her fiancé’s release. Burton was still weary.

“Yes, my dear, that’s all,” he said. “One thing is certain: Without those letters the police could never make out a ghost of a case against Rowdy and they know it. I think it was Lavergne’s idea all the time to erase Descamps from the picture because the lad was getting too troublesome; began getting that way, I gather, after it developed into a real case of love for Patricia. They were really frightened of what he could reveal about the whole crowd.

“And there, right in their hands, was a suspect made to order for them, a suspect they even had the goods on without trying overhard. Rowdy. Only they couldn’t even be satisfied with that. Anyway Peret couldn’t; and afterward, when Lavergne saw the same opportunity, it got him, too. They had to try another stunt, double-crossing one another to do it. And the odd part of it is that if they hadn’t wanted to squeeze the last cent out of their merry-go-round murder they’d probably not have left a single workable clue. Somehow I think there must be a moral in that, but I’m too lazy just now to worry about it.”