Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 10 — January 1939)

Murder for Pennies by James Duncan

It’s “policy” with the Parson to clean up on — and with — the numbers game.

The beacon at the seaplane base was seven miles away, on the other side of the island, but because the moon was full with a blazing tropical fullness, the Parson could see it plainly from where he stood before the door of the little white cottage on San Pedro Road. He gave a last searching look up and down the street, an under-sized man with dark moody eyes and sharp chiseled features. Then with a shrug of his shoulders, he rang a bell next to the door.

It was hot. Cariba, a dot of marl and coral in the Caribbean, was always hot; panting, like a tiger lying in watchful repose. Even with the breeze, it was hot. But because it was outwardly a civilized, pleasurable, tight little island, under British rule, a queer melting pot of races and breeds from the four corners of the earth, Cariba was called “the little Paris of the Caribbean.”

Actually, the indolent breeze, pungent and heavy with the incense of papaya, ripening bananas, wild orange trees, humid with the smell of writhing gourd vines, somehow suggested how close to the surface was the sudden blind violence of the hot countries; the sheathed claws of the waiting watchful tiger.

There came the sound of footsteps in response to the Parson’s ring and then the door was opened. A tall man with a stubborn mouth stood looking down at the Parson. He had thin red hair and the sort of complexion, fair skin and freckles, that goes with hair of that color. He looked about, under and around the Parson without actually looking directly into his eyes.

“What d’you want?” the man said, mumbling as though he were shy.

One hand was loosely hidden behind his back. It held a gun.

“I want to talk to you, Tex,” the Parson said. His own face was expressionless, mild. It was this deceptive mild manner, his soft way of speaking and his delicate pious air which had earned him his curious nickname. But his outward appearance gave no warning of his skill in handling a 7.65 Luger; no hint to the amazing fact that mere mention of the Parson in certain quarters was enough to reduce both criminals and detectives to gibbering incoherence; for, in his time the Parson had outwitted crooks and police alike.

Without invitation, the Parson went past the man he had called Tex. past his gun into a small room furnished sparsely with a tropical regard for airiness. Tex closed the door, then followed the Parson in. His gun was now in plain view. He held it carelessly, lightly, like a man accustomed to guns.

“So you know my name,” he said quietly, “and you want to talk to me.”

The Parson said, “Yeah. I know your name, Tex Kent. I know all about you. You were Cig Wolfe’s triggerman. Sort of private executioner. That was three years ago. Cig Wolfe had New York sewed up. It was all his. Including the policy numbers racket. Remember the take on those numbers? Fifteen million a year. Oh, you paid off six hundred to one to winners. But didn’t the suckers pay, the non-winners! It was too good, if you get what I mean. The protection was O.K. Cig paid out heavy sugar to the right people. But there was competition. And Cig was rubbed out. Cig Wolfe, the biggest racketeer since Capone, kissed lead.”

Tex Kent was remembering aloud. “That chopper was good. When he got through, there was nothing left of Cig’s face. Nothing you could recognize. Twenty dum-dums tore holes in it big as silver dollars.”

“A swell guy, Cig,” the Parson said softly, reminiscently.

“You think so?”

“Every day in the week and twice on Sundays.”

Tex Kent put his gun out of sight into a pocket. His shy, diffident manner had not altered. He said very thoughtfully: “If it’s talk and not gunplay, how’s for wettin’ our whistles?”

The Parson nodded, watched him get a quart bottle out and two glasses. They drank. The Parson said, “You’re a nice reasonable guy, Tex.”

“Uh-huh. And you’re the guy they call the Parson. I remember you now. You used to run gamin’ tables back in N’York for a guy named Vince Guard, though I don’t believe we ever met. You carry quite a rep.”

“Thanks. Shall I continue my little story? I got a chance to throw a little business your way.”

“Business?” For the first time Tex fixed his strange smeary blue eyes directly on the Parson. They were the kind of blue eyes redheads often have. “I like business. What kind of business?”

“We’ll come to that in a moment. Cig Wolfe had a woman — they called her the Dutchess. It was more than a nickname. She was bright as a whip. She’d built him up. She carried on when they planted him. But the going got too hot. Not competition, this time. The law. It seems they got themselves a new D.A. with guts and no price. He just didn’t know the color of money. So he sailed in and banged things around. First thing he gunned for was the protection. Not the racket. You know. The papers are still full of it.”

Tex said nothing. The Parson went on:

“The protection was a bird named North — Judge Edwin North. He was never really a judge. That was just complimentary. But he could fix judges, get Cig’s boys out of trouble when the law got curious about the numbers game. But no sooner does the Grand Jury get ready to hand up an indictment on old Judge North than he swallows runout powders. The new D. A. — Linton’s his name — is stumped. Without North, he’s got nothing. He needs North. So where is North?”

Tex sat still, waiting.

The Parson took a deep breath. “North is here. Here in Cariba. But he’s hiding out. Am I boring you?”

“Yeah. Bore me some more.”

“Linton, the Boy Scout D.A., isn’t asleep, though. He sent his ace investigator, his most trusted man down here to ferret out North and bring him back home. That guy — Jerry Lord — got in touch with me. Do you know Jerry?”

Tex said, “Sure. Everyone knows Jerry Lord. Why did he get in touch with you?”

“It seems that there’s no extradition treaty between our country and Cariba. See? Even if Lord locates Judge North, he can’t get him out unless...”

Tex drawled, “Unless what?”

“Unless, he’s arrested outside of Cariba, say three miles out, in international waters. Or better yet, on an American ship. Then he’s legally Lord’s prisoner.”

“Is that the job? Put North where Jerry Lord can put cuffs on him?”

The Parson grinned. “You catch on quick. Tex. It isn’t like you’d be selling out on North. Hell, he’d turn you in himself if he had half a chance to get his own skirts clear. With me, it’s just a professional job. Lord offers twenty grand. Ten will go to me and ten to you. How’re you fixed for dough?”

“I’m broke,” Tex said quickly. “I had to come away fast.”

“Ten will come in handy then. How do you like it?”

“Lousy. I’m through with trouble.”

“This won’t be trouble. Not when you and I are handling it.”

“Hell, you take it for granted I know where Judge North is hidden.”

The Parson grinned again, nursed his cheek. “You got here a day after North arrived. Funny you should both pick on Cariba to hole up in.”

“When do we do it?”

“Tonight. No. better make it tomorrow. North will keep, and we don’t have to lose sleep over it.”

Tex Kent lit a cigarette. “How about another jolt?” He stood up, smiled a little and said. “Oh, well, what the hell? I don’t owe North anything. I guess I like a little double-cross myself. Ten grand, huh? Couldn’t Jerry Lord be upped a little on the ante?”

“Maybe,” the Parson said. “He’s strictly a business man. There’s just one thing. Lord has to keep his name out of this. If it ever got out that North was forced aboard a boat under a gun on Lord’s orders, his case would be blown sky-high. You can’t do things like that when you’re the law. That’s the system and I’m working with Lord on that understanding. He never appears in the case.”

“Yeah, I know the system.”

“Then it’s a deal?” The Parson held out his hand.

Tex put his hand briefly into the Parson’s. “Right,” he said softly. “Here’s your drink.”

“Thanks.” The Parson looked into its amber depths for a brief moment. “Say, whatever did happen to the Dutchess? I was always curious about her.”

Kent put down his drink in one piece. “Didn’t you hear? She lit out for Havana after Cig died and when the pieces started falling around her head. The pieces of the numbers business, I mean. I haven’t seen her since, but I was told she’s married again to a bird named Blue. Carl Blue. A race-track man or a broker or somethin’ like that.”

“Quite a gal, the Dutchess,” the Parson said.

Tex grinned appreciatively. “Yeah, quite a gal.”

The Parson chatted for a few more minutes. When he rose to go, he told Tex Kent where he could get in touch with him. They arranged to meet at ten o’clock the following morning.

As the Parson went out into the night again, his dark eyes lazily probed the reach of the moon-plated sky, the length of the moon-drenched road. The door closed softly behind him.

Two streets down was an open-air cantina. The Parson hurried to it, went inside to a telephone booth, called a number. When a grave, sing-song voice answered, he said:

“Hello, Ching. I want the master.” He tapped his foot, crowded the transmitter with his lips. “Jerry Lord? This is the Parson. So it’s on the up and up. He bit. Well, yeah. He heard me out. But I don’t think I fooled him. He’s one palooka I couldn’t fool in a million years. I’ll hang around but don’t expect me to be a Dracula the rest of the night. I can’t be everywhere. O.K.. Jerry. Hey, you got a cold? Your voice sounds funny... Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, you’ll hear from me. S’long.”

He walked around the corner to where he had parked a trim little British-made Austin, got in behind the wheel. He moved it close enough so that he could command a good view of Tex Kent’s house, but he was still a block away.

He switched off the lights and waited. He waited about three-quarters of an hour. Then a tall shadowy figure emerged from the house. The figure moved rapidly to the corner, away from the Parson. When it turned the corner, the Parson trailed after.

He rounded the corner in time to see the tall figure climb into a waiting car, lugging a small suitcase in after him.

The Parson scowled moodily through the windshield. The suitcase puzzled him. He had not counted on Tex Kent’s carrying a suitcase.

He trailed the car.

Puerto de las Damas is at the extreme eastern tip of Cariba, a little city all by itself, separated from the rest of Cariba by tradition, blood and unchallenged crime.

Its narrow streets, roughly paved with cobblestones, ended at a high cliff which frowned down on a narrow beach where lashing combers broke high through a tangle of reefs. The docks were to the left: but, long-abandoned, they had rotted and sagged until now they joined edge to edge with almost perfect closeness the limitless tropical sea of silver. Fishing stakes, upthrust like gnarled old fingers, were plunged into the sea; a mysterious crazy system of half-sub-merged bamboo fences, marking a channel passage that was no longer used.

In the days of caravels bearing the proud standard of Spain, Puerto de las Damas had brimmed with life and commerce, but three centuries of English rule had moved Cariba’s center of gravity to the other side of the island within easier hail of Trinidad, and then Puerto had been abandoned to sun and history.

Its ancient houses with courtyards and doors barred with iron gratings were today inhabited by a fierce and savage mixture of Lascars, Chinese and tall, proud blacks, who paid no rent and answered to no authority except that enforced by their own keen knives. This rule existed despite regular, scheduled raids and arrests by Cariba’s efficient police force, carried out mostly for effect, not results. For the most part, the dreary, vice-ridden Puerto was permitted to go its own way so long as its activities did not extend beyond its ancient walled confines.

Hands planted deep in his pockets, the Parson stood in the lee of an ancient rusty cannon, jutting out of the pockmarked face of an old stone ruin in the very heart of Puerto de las Damas. Around the base of the cannon, grass sprouted. This ruin of three-foot thick masonry had been a dungeon and fortress in the days of Spanish rule of the West Indies. Now only scorpions and bats lived within its damp, musty interior.

The Parson kept his eyes fixed on a rambling house of rubble and crumbling stucco, flat-roofed and squat, some two hundred yards away on the other side of the road. Tex Kent had stopped his car in front of that house fifteen minutes before. Because of the angle from which he kept vigil, the Parson could not be sure that Kent had climbed out of the car. He could not even see the car from where he stood. He decided he had waited long enough.

He moved lightly down the street, blending with shadows. He was nearly opposite the car when he heard the soft-toned whimpering of a little child.

The sound lingered in his ears for just an instant and was gone. The surprise of its coming from the house, the impossibility of its belonging there, shocked him to an immobility as controlled and rigid as a pointer’s.

On the street nothing moved. Threads of light stole secretively from lower-story windows in the house before which the car was standing. There was no other sign of life save that elusive wail of a child, either hurt, lost or frightened, that was instantly swallowed up and absorbed in the dead silence of the night.

His eyes were boring into the blackness that enveloped the car before him; his ears were alert to the slightest sound. But the child’s whimpering cry was not repeated. For a long moment the Parson stood there, wondering if he could have mistaken the plaintive call of some night bird for the voice of a child. He moved silently across the cobblestones to the car, and as he moved, his hand reached into his coat pocket and brought out his flat, hefty Luger.

He could see a figure now, seated in the driver’s seat of the car. The figure was utterly silent, watching him without movement. The Parson did not stop short nor did he call out. He kept on coming toward the grim, waiting figure as if he were being drawn to it by a magnetic force outside himself, stronger than his own will. The figure did not move. The Parson reached the car, touched its sides until he moved around to the steering wheel.

Seated before it was Tex Kent. A knife had been plunged into his heart. The haft still protruded. A lot of blood had dripped down, and instead of being absorbed by his shirt front, had formed a little pool on the leather of the seat in the V of his thighs. His head was slightly bowed toward his chest so that he appeared to be gazing into the pool.

For a silent minute the Parson stared at the inert figure of Kent. His own lips were twisted, bitter; his face sallow. He could not explain to himself why the death of Kent should touch his sympathies, but he felt strangely moved. Kent had been struck down suddenly without a chance to defend himself.

The Parson peered into the interior of the car. The suitcase was gone.

A shot crashed inside the house, echoed like distant thunder, and before its flat echoes had died, it was followed by another.

The Parson blinked. His Luger jerked up in his hand. He started toward the house, moving past trailing hibiscus ghostly and redolent in the moonlight, past sail-like banana leaves that grew in the courtyard. Before he reached the house a woman’s angry scream, not terror-stricken but angry, sliced the deafening silence.

The Parson ran swiftly toward the front door of the house, which stood slightly ajar. He pushed it wider and slid in. It was a sort of hall. A staircase angled upward at the further side and doors from it led into other rooms. From up above he heard gasping sobs. The Parson waited, he had heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

In the dim light a woman appeared, carrying a child of four or five in her arms. A little girl. It was she who was sobbing. The woman held a big automatic pistol in her right hand.

When she saw Parson, she stopped her descent and pointed the pistol at him. He said disgustedly, “Ah, I wouldn’t shoot when you got a kid in your arms.”

“That’s manners anyway,” the woman said. She came the rest of the way down the stairs, put the child down. Enormous solemn eyes with grave childlike dignity peeped at the Parson: then the child clung to the woman’s skirts, hiding her head from the Parson, but still sobbing softly.

The Parson looked at the woman, shook his head with a faint smile. A point by point description of her would leave out everything essential. It was the intangibles about her that counted. The lift of the brow; the intelligent, expressive light in her eyes. The Parson could catalog to himself a strikingly tragic, beautiful face, triangular in shape, of an unusual creamy pallor. But that would leave out too much. The fierce glint in the hazel, swimming depths of her eyes, for example; the auburn-haired head, bravely, proudly carried; the tip-tilted nose; the wide, almost barbaric flare of her nostrils.

But even these details were not really significant. What was significant and definite was her personality, her passionate awareness. A vivid, daring quality; an aliveness, a keen zest. A woman not afraid of chances, who would stake everything on the turn of a wheel.

“The Dutchess!” the Parson said softly.

She had been appraising him from head to foot. She said matter-of-factly: “I know you, too. You’re the man they call the Parson. You were a gambler in New York.”

“Cig Wolfe’s widow. Here! That’s a laugh!” said the Parson. “Who’s the little girl?”

The woman did not answer. The Parson saw that her eyes went beyond him. He turned and saw a man in an open door, holding a gun.

The Parson had never seen him before. He had brown, wavy hair, brown eyes that were steady and deadly serious. His chin was neatly cleft and his nose was perfectly modeled. Altogether a handsome face but surprisingly cold, somehow devoid of emotion and human feeling. Only the eyes seemed alive in that face.

“Who’s the boy friend?” the Parson asked.

The woman said, “My husband. Carl Blue.”

“Oh.”

Blue wagged his gun impatiently. “Hey, you! Drop your gat!” he said.

The Parson did not move. Blue crossed the hall to the little girl, who was still crying. He dropped on one knee and began to pat her hair and talk soothingly to her. The Parson blinked, then got the idea. There was to be no shooting in front of the little girl. Carl Blue had not been afraid for himself. It was strange to see Carl Blue comforting her, without showing a trace of expression or emotion on his own face. It was eery, too.

There were still tears in the child’s eyes. But almost the instant Carl Blue bent down to her, she was stretching out her little arms and laughing with a sob as little children do.

The Parson crossed the hall to the door through which Carl Blue had appeared, and looked in. On the floor in the middle of the room lay a suitcase. It looked like Tex Kent’s bag. The lid was open.

The Parson moved over to it. His nape bristled, his eyes narrowed and he threw a hard angry stare back of him at the open door. This was Tex Kent’s suitcase all right. His initials were burned into the leather. Floor boards creaked under the Parson’s feet as he knelt down and peered more closely into the bag.

It was crammed full of currency in little packages, spilling over with thousands — hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He heard a furtive footstep behind him. He whirled, caught a glimpse of a short-statured gorilla-like man, arm out-flung toward him. The man was strangely silent, furtive, red-eyed like a harbor rat. The arm had flung a sap, attached to a leather cord. The Parson ducked but not enough.

He sprawled, legs and arms outflung, but he never knew when he hit the floor. All he knew was that he was hurtling through space with blackness cascading down upon him. He heard a scream — it was the Dutchess: “They’re back! Oh God, they’re back!” Revolver shots thundered. And then there wasn’t anything.

Coming to, the Parson lay motionless for a moment or two, conscious of severe pain in his head. Then he sat up. There were voices in the next room. Stiff British voices. “After all that shooting, there should be at least something besides a man stabbed to death.” Cops! The Parson got to his feet. He remembered the bag suddenly and stared.

The bag was no longer there.

The Dutchess, Carl Blue, that little child, the man with the sap — all had pulled a fade-away.

He heard the cops moving about in the next room. He sped silently for the door. He would have to get out. Cordite fumes still hung acridly in the air. The door led to another room in which there was an open window. The Parson slid through it into the night.

Cariba’s finest hotel was the Queenshaven. It was laid out like a park with golf courses, tennis courts and private swimming pool under nodding palms, and a host of little white stucco and red tile cottages. The Parson occupied one of these cottages, number six, but he did not go to it. Instead he went to one marked number two. It was only an hour since he had quitted the twisting streets of the Puerto and his head still ached.

He came in with a cigarette between his lips, however, and a droll half-smile hovering on his mouth.

“Well, I’m back, Linny,” he said.

The man he called Linny stood up from a wicker easy chair, surveyed him with alert gray eyes, his heavy leonine head held almost to one side. Presently he too began to smile, slyly, jovially.

“Same old Parson. It that a bump on your head or are you parting your hair in a new way?”

“Both. It’s a bump and I’ve got to part my hair around it.” He dropped into a chair facing the other man, blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Want to hear about it?”

The man called Linny was a striking, distinguished figure of a man with aggressive features, graying hair. He sat down again, nodded. “Let’s have it all.”

The Parson rapidly sketched what had happened at the house in the Puerto. “That’s what we got to go on,” he finished complacently. “Riddles.”

“It’s a mess. I can’t understand the Dutchess. Far as I can see we’re not closer but further from our object.”

“And don’t forget that bagful of money!” the Parson said warmly.

“Yes, that certainly complicates matters. So does the presence of the child. I’m going to a lot of trouble to sew this case up. It would be too bad if the thing got out of hand.”

“Things moved fast,” the Parson agreed.

Linny shook his head impatiently. “You see, we’re moving forward on a hunch. There are strings attached to this we have absolutely no control over.”

The Parson shrugged. “Want to chuck it?”

“How can I — now?” The older man’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “You can, though, any time.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“Thanks, Parson.”

A tall man with smooth dark hair and dark eyes idled into the room, hands in his pockets. Almost imperceptibly the Parson tensed. Force of habit as well as the urge of precaution made his hand creep toward his gun.

The movement was not lost on Linny. He laughed. “Parson, this is Ed Clancy. He just arrived from New York. I had him come down in case you might need help. Ed, this is the Parson.”

The men nodded to each other. “I don’t need help,” the Parson muttered. “I work alone.”

“I know, boy. But in a case like this you never can tell. Anyway. Clancy will be here any time you need him. Are you going?”

“Uh-huh. It’s home and bed for me.”

When the door had closed on him, Clancy said: “Chief, I don’t altogether approve of this. The Parson’s a notorious gunman and a crook. How can you trust him in such a delicate case?”

“You don’t understand. The Parson’s a peculiar sort of crook.”

Jerry Lord, special investigator for New York’s D.A., swung in his chair, pushed back his emptied plate and drained his morning coffee. This was another day, cheerful and serene, with blue sky and golden sun benevolently bright overhead. Lord was a square-built, stocky man with bright whimsical eyes, a frank broad face, an easy engaging grin. He watched his Chinese boy place food deftly before the Parson, said:

“Clung, if I want you again I’ll ring.”

“Very good, master.” The boy padded out, closed the door.

Lord said, “Don’t let that bump on the head spoil your breakfast, Parson.”

The Parson pushed the food away from him. “I’m not hungry. Besides, it’s not the bump; it’s knowing all those people were there and all that money.”

“You did your best. And anyway think of my position. I send you to get the cuffs on Judge North, and he’s not even there.”

“I didn’t see him,” the Parson corrected. “He may have been there. Anyway, somebody else was there. The Dutchess.”

Lord grunted. He lit a cigarette, took three quick drags, spoke through the smoke. “What kind of a guy is her new husband, this Carl Blue you told me about?”

The Parson shrugged. “Just another guy, I guess. Cold, though, like a fish. You can feel it just looking at him. Good looking. Perfect features. Maybe too perfect.”

Lord got up, went to the window and peered out. After a minute he came back to the table solid-heeled and sat down, eyes clouded and bemused. He looked up at the Parson.

“Boy, I can’t make this out. Not yet. You’re likely right when you say you frightened Tex Kent into running to the Judge’s hideout with a bagful of money, if the Judge was really there. But what the hell is the Dutchess doing here? She bailed out of the rackets two years ago, a few months after Cig Wolfe was killed.” His hands balled into fists and he repeated forcefully: “Why should the Dutchess be in Cariba?”

The Parson said, “And that kid. Somehow I think that kid is the whole story. You say you heard about that kid?”

Lord waved his cigarette. “Well, there were rumors that she and Cig had a little baby girl they were keeping under wraps, away from the seamy side of life. But I never saw it and I never met anyone who had. It was all very vague.”

“Tell me more about the numbers racket,” the Parson said. “When Cig was torpedoed, somebody else took over the trade, didn’t they?”

“Well, yes. The Frankie Moore mob from Jersey City stepped up to the big time. But by then, Linton, my boss, had his sleeves rolled up and was breaking things up fast. So Frankie Moore never got to earn the big important dough that Cig Wolfe had rolled in. In fact, before he got started, Frankie Moore was out.”

“Was it Frankie Moore who gunned Cig?”

“Huh?” Jerry Lord looked sharply at the Parson. “It was never cleared up who killed Cig. It was just one of those things. But it was never believed that Frankie was responsible for the rubout.”

“How come? If he stepped into Cig’s shoes, isn’t it more than likely that he knocked off Cig to get there?”

Lord shook his head. “I see where you’re heading. But you’re making a lot of mistakes. In the first place, Frankie Moore got his start under Cig as a racket man, and secondly he was Cig’s friend; he owed a lot to Cig who had practically made him a gift of the Jersey City territory.”

The Parson dug in. “That was always the Wolfe’s way. Not kill off but buy off the competition. Divide and rule.”

Lord was silent, intently watching the Parson. He snapped a finger against his cigarette, flicked the ash into his cup, said: “Well, what do you think?”

“This: Something went blooie last night. I don’t say I know why Tex Kent was killed, though that bagful of dough could be motive enough. I don’t even say I know who put a knife in him. But I do say motives don’t start here in Cariba, they stretch away back to New York. Judge North didn’t show last night. It’s even possible he butchered Kent. I don’t know. I’m sure he was there somewhere.

“The Dutchess and her fancy new husband, Carl Blue, are thick in it. And that little girl... I don’t think that suitcase of money was intended for Judge North. I think it was being delivered to the Dutchess. And above all I think there was opposition present that neither the Dutchess, Tex Kent, nor Judge North had counted on. Keep this in mind. Just as I was passing out I heard her yell: ‘They’re back! Oh God, they’re back!’ It was a general mix-up, a scramble, a root-ta-tootin’ lead party.”

“You’re lucky,” Lord sighed, “one of those bullets didn’t wing your way. The whole thing sounds like a bad dream.”

“Sure. But things happened faster than in dreams. That yell of the Dutchess’ now: ‘They’re back!’ Who was ‘they?’ The opposition. And the opposition almost spoiled the plant.”

“Plant?” Lord’s head bobbed up. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I say. Plant. Something fixed beforehand.” The Parson was relaxed, eyes somnolent. “Everything that happened last night was planned, figured out before it happened. But the opposition was the unpredictable event that spoils the best of plants... and murders.”

“You mean there was some gang present, some gunmen who were after the Dutchess?”

The Parson nodded. “Somebody who took a licking from her and Cig Wolfe sometime back, probably in connection with the numbers racket.”

Lord shrugged. “You may be right. As far as you go. But remember, my job is to bring Judge North back home. I could take the Dutchess, too. That would help. But I don’t give a damn about the dough or Tex Kent or that little girl or what you so quaintly call the opposition. That’s incidental.”

“Yeah. But sometimes it’s the incidentals that count most.”

Lord smiled ruefully. “You’re telling me. Listen, boy. No racket’s been bloodier than numbers. It’s pennies, just pennies. A business in pennies. But millions upon millions upon millions of pennies. And each one is red with blood. Soaked in it. Dozens of people have been murdered for control of those pennies.”

“What are you driving at?”

“There’s a whole lot involved here. It’s not your quarrel. If you want to, you can slide out.”

The Parson frowned. This was the second time he had an offer to quit. He stuck a cigarette between his lips, lit it, sent up a white balloon of smoke. “Hell, I’m in it this far, I might as well stick.”

Lord reached over the table and put friendly pressure on the Parson’s arm. “Boy, you’re tops. In New York they used to say you were one of the best shots and one of the smartest heads in the rackets. I can well believe that. You got what it takes.”

The Parson shrugged. “I look out for number one. I had an eyeful of that bag of money last night. I’d just like to put my hands on it. That’s why I’m sticking with it. And then this is the first time I’m working with the law — even if only from the outside.”

“You like working with the law?” Lord asked.

“It’s a new experience. It gives me a kick to watch a respectable law like you at work.”

Lord looked quizzical. “I don’t know if you’re kidding or not. Anyway, I still think this is not your quarrel, and that you ought to quit. I’ll pay you whatever you think you ought to get for your work last night and you can drop it right as is. I mean if it’s money...”

“It’s not money,” said the Parson.

Lord grinned. “Oke. I’m glad to have you, boy. I’m glad you’re so set on sticking. Tell me,” he added curiously, “what makes you and Linton such pals? When I left New York, Linton said, ‘Get hold of the Parson. He’ll help you.’ You didn’t know me when I arrived here, yet soon as I showed you Linton’s letter, you were ready to pitch in. He’s New York’s crusading D. A. and you’re supposed to be a red-hot. Where’s the connection?”

The Parson nodded reflectively. “I can see where you’d be puzzled. You know the old Five Corners district, backwash of the docks in New York? Linton and I played there together as kids, we went to school together. When he was admitted to the bar, I was his first case. He got me out—”

The Chinese boy looked in the door. “The milk is here, master.”

“The milk? Oh, yes. Yes. Very well, Ching. I will take it later, chilled.”

“Chilled, master?” The boy’s head ducked. “Very good, master.”

“Milk?” said the Parson. “Do you drink stuff like that? Say, that bottle of Demerara looks good. Break it out, will you? I could inhale a slug. Breakfast doesn’t seem to be what I need.”

The tropical morning air was fresh and the bright-plumed birds poured song abandonedly from throbbing throats.

The Parson entered his cottage at eleven, whistling soundlessly to himself. He liked living at the Queenshaven with its spacious country club air, cottage-plan and privacy. There were rooms to be had at the main building, but these were mostly for tourists. The cottages were for more permanent guests.

He peeled off his dark jacket, lit a cigarette and dropped into an easy chair. He unstrapped his holster, laid gun and holster on a tabouret beside him.

When the bathroom door across the room began to open toward him, he did not stir nor did he snatch at his gun. He sat and watched it.

The door took a long time in opening. Then a gun peeped through, held in a white hand. Behind the hand came a man. His face was ruddy, well packed; his hair white. His clothes were good but wrinkled as though they had been slept in. His gun was a Police Positive .38, but he did not seem to be sure of it or of himself.

He moved hesitantly to the door leading to the bedroom and peered in. He came back to the middle of the room and with an apologetic smile, said:

“I just wanted to be sure we’re alone.”

The Parson accepted this as the natural order of things, nodded sagely.

“I’ve been waiting almost an hour for you,” the man went on. “I’m Judge North. Edwin North.”

“You don’t look much like the pictures the New York papers printed.”

“Those were old pictures, taken ten years ago. I’ve changed, I guess. Listen.” His words dragged to a stop. The room was quiet. The Parson could hear the man’s soft breathing.

“Listen,” he said again slowly. “We’re ready to make a deal. We’ll lay the dough on the line. We’re through fighting.”

The Parson stared at him unblinkingly. The lines at the corners of his mouth drew down skeptically. He waved his cigarette, said: “Call off the artillery and take a chair.”

North nodded. He pocketed his gun gingerly, sat down. He looked tired.

“O.K.,” said the Parson. “You said ‘we.’ ”

“The Dutchess and I. Listen. She knows when she’s licked. That’s why she sent me to you. You’re working for Jerry Lord. I saw you last night in Puerto de las Damas. I know what’s wanted. We’ll kick in.”

The Parson said, “Tex Kent was kicked — out. He was murdered.”

North lifted his head. “I know that. It was tough. We liked Tex. He was good oats. But we won’t try to make it tougher by going at things the hard way. I mean with guns. We’re licked, see? And we know it. That’s why I’m here. We want to make a deal with Jerry Lord.”

“Oh, a deal with Jerry Lord?”

“Yes.”

“When do you want to see him?”

“Right away. Now.”

The Parson rose to his feet. “Then why wait?” He strapped on his holster, sheathed himself in his tight-fitting black coat. “Does Carl Blue know about this deal?”

North fidgeted, shot a sidelong glance at the window. “Oh, of course.”

“And it’s oke with him?”

“It’s oke.”

“Hm.” The Parson was silent a second. “You know that Jerry’s job is to take you back to New York to stand trial.”

“I know.”

“Is that the deal you have in mind?”

A sad, wistful smile appeared on the older man’s tired face. “No, but it may be part of it. After all Jerry’s the one to dictate terms. We’re licked and we know it. We’ll play ball.”

“Did you come here alone?”

The sudden ferocity with which this question was flung at him jarred Judge North. Panic guttered in his eyes; they flicked involuntarily to the window, again they slithered away. “I... I don’t know what you mean,” he said at last. “Of course I’m alone.”

The Parson grinned suddenly. “There’s just one more thing. Last night...” He waved a hand airily. “You know what happened last night. There was quite a rumpus. Shooting and yelling and things like that. And one guy sapped me. Do you know who that guy was?”

North nodded wearily. “That was Hugg, Tobe Hugg they call him. He’s Frankie Moore’s hot trigger.”

“Frankie Moore?” the Parson repeated gently. “I didn’t see him after the sapping. So he was there last night, too.”

“Yeah. He and Tobe Hugg nearly wrecked everything.”

“Frankie Moore took over Cig Wolfe’s numbers racket, didn’t he?” the Parson said lazily. “The Dutchess sold the business to Frankie, didn’t she?”

North stood moistening his dry lips, staring at the Parson.

“Well, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.” North’s voice was tired and soft. “She sold it to him.”

“How much did she get?”

North went on staring.

“I said how much did she get?”

“About a half million.”

The Parson nodded. “So that was why.” He pursed his lips. “All right. Let’s go.”

As they drove in the little Austin through the crowded streets to the other side of the island the Parson imagined they were being followed, but when he glanced about, he could not be sure. He drove with a steady hand and from time to time he even smiled as if at a private, and very droll, joke.

The cottage which Jerry Lord occupied stood almost alone in a street that fronted the estate region of Cariba. There were flowers in front of it in huge yellow and blue ceramic pots, a small terrace. There was even a lawn. It was a poor lawn, however, with a wretched stand of grass, blighted by the limestone, which crops out in gray masses like dirty snow from the thin topsoil of the West Indies island.

Ching opened the door to the Parson and when the Parson walked in on Jerry Lord, he looked up with surprise, said: “Round trip, Parson? Forget something?”

“No. I brought you a visitor.”

Judge North walked into the room.

Lord’s smile receded slowly, leaving his face hard, purposeful. He was up on his feet, saying through clenched teeth: “Damn you, Parson! I thought I told you to keep me out of this. You know I can’t—”

The Parson shook his head. “This is not a pinch. At least you don’t have to make it here. The Judge says he wants to make a deal with you.”

Lord’s eyes snapped. “A... a deal?” he said waveringly. Then again he roared, pounded the table hard. “To hell with a deal! I gave you orders—”

“Aw, push your tongue between your teeth,” the Parson said, and reversing a chair, sat down. “Ankle out, Ching.”

The Chinese boy stood with his hands folded in his loose black sateen sleeves and did not stir. Lord shot an angry glance at the boy, barked impatiently: “Well, get out! Get out!” And when the door had closed, “This is sweet, boy, sweet! Fine mess you’ve thrown me into.”

“It’s not a mess,” the Parson said patiently. “It’s a deal. Maybe we both stand to make something big out of it.”

Lord put his hands on his hips and stared fixedly, venomously at Judge North. Then his shoulders shrugged helplessly. “O.K., since you’re here. What’s the deal?” He swung across the room. “Wait until I lock this door.”

He stopped short. The door opened and two men crowded in, pushing Ching before them. Both had huge .45 automatics leveled. They were rather young men to judge by their clothes. But their faces were old, hard. One was tall, even good looking in a hard-faced, thin-lipped way, with slaty, murderous eyes and vigorous, determined features.

The other was short-statured, furtive, with long arms ending in powerful looking hands; his eyes, cold as a reptile’s, slid over the room, went carelessly past the Parson, then came back to linger at leisure on him. It was the man who had sapped the Parson the night before in the house in Puerto de las Damas.

“In reverse,” the taller man said.

“What? Who?”

“In reverse, you.”

Slowly Jerry Lord stepped back. His face was the color of smudged paper; his eyes jiggled nervously in his head; his upper lip twitched with the movement of his eyes, while the rest of his face was frozen.

“Hi, Judge,” the tall man said, flicking a hand in mock cordiality in the air.

Judge North swallowed but he did not seem especially frightened. There was a fine dignity to the way he held his white-haired head.

“Hello, Frankie,” he said.

“Who’s the gent in black?” Frankie Moore asked.

“The Parson,” North said almost indifferently. “That’s what they call him.”

“This runt? This little guy? He’s supposed to be tough. I’ve heard of him. But he’s built more like a divinity student. Hey, Tobe. This is rich. Rich!” Laughter gurgled in his throat. “Whatta you know — this is that famous guy, the Parson!”

Tobe Hugg grunted. “Hell, I can take him, Frankie. I took him last night.”

Hugg moved suddenly. One step, one swing with his left. The Parson crashed to the floor with the chair he had been seated in. He scrambled to his feet. There was death in his eyes. His hand streaked for his shoulder holster, but at once, almost at the same instant, he let it drop to his side and put it behind his back. But the light in his eyes did not die out, though they were now almost calm.

“See?” said Hugg. “I can take him.”

“That was a dumb thing to do. Hugg,” the Parson said softly. “You’d better kill me, finish the job. That will be your easiest out.” That was all he said. His glance was locked with Hugg’s.

Hugg, holding the gun, dropped his eyes first. The Parson stood there, leaning slightly forward on the balls of his feet, with infinite purpose expressed in every line of his face, his body. It was as if Hugg suddenly realized that the Parson did everything and said everything behind the eternal mask of that mildness and obliqueness which had given him his nickname; and that behind the mask was concealed cruelty, steel-hard ruthlessness; a quite blind, but leashed, and terrifying power.

“Ah-h!” snarled Frankie Moore. “Don’t horse around. We got business, Hugg. Let’s get on with it.”

Something of the Parson’s unruffled confidence seemed to have communicated itself to Jerry Lord. He drew himself up.

“I can tell you that whatever your business may be, it will be better done without guns. I ask you — I insist you put your guns away.”

“Aw, take a walk on the ceiling! Shoo, fly!” Frankie’s low, rough laugh was ironic, cutting.

“Nevertheless, I insist you put your guns away!”

“Insist then!” Frankie turned to Hugg. “Fat Face insists, Hugg, old tomato. He won’t play it our way. He insists. He thinks we’re still listening to him.”

A covert look passed like a darting visible flame between Jerry Lord and Ching.

“All right, you’re inviting trouble,” Lord said doggedly.

“We’re inviting trouble!” Frankie guffawed. “Listen to Fat Face! Boy, oh boy, if you ain’t the icing on the cake! Keep ’em covered, Hugg.”

He was crossing over to Judge North, but stopped short in sudden, sharp alarm. “Hey, ain’t that footsteps I hear outside that door?”

Hugg and Frankie turned their heads for but a split watch-tick. Ching’s folded hands came undone and from the folds of his sleeve appeared a small-bore Smith and Wesson.

“Geez!” yelled Hugg. “Lookit the Chink!”

Ching’s gun went off, and the bullet tore Hugg’s hat from his head. It slammed against the wall, seemed to float lazily to the floor.

Frankie Moore shot Ching.

Ching whirled, spun as if by a centrifugal force with one foot raised slightly off the floor. There was something undignified and silly about it, as though he were executing a dance step. Then he crashed down with one hand under him and blood seeping from between his fingers.

The sight of the blood, the feel of the hot gun in his hand did something to Frankie Moore. He was grinning vapidly, breathing hard, like a drunken man. He was kill-drunk.

He said, “I’ve got five more bullets. Any takers?”

No one in the room stirred. Frankie bent his gaze on the Parson. “What about you, toughie?”

The Parson shook his head slowly, dreamily.

“O.K. You’re goners. All of you. Shell out your hardware while you still can.”

No one moved. It was clear that the slightest movement would invite a bullet. It was very still in the room. Distinctly footsteps could be heard racing up the stairs; little, exceedingly rapid steps; someone seemed to be running.

But Frankie shook his head, still grinning. “I was made out a sucker last night — and in New York. You know about that. Judge. There was a bagful of dough last night. I didn’t get it. I almost got it but I didn’t get it. I’ll collect in my own little way. Look at me, all of you. Look at me!”

“Geez! There’s somebody movin’ around outside,” Hugg grunted uneasily. “There’s someone outside, boss.”

“Look at me!” chanted Frankie, disregarding Hugg’s anxiety. “Look at me because you’re going to die!”

“Look up here, why don’t you?” a voice cut in softly.

There was a jarring, tearing sound.

A Tommy gun’s ugly snout ripped through the copper screening of the window, thrust into the room. Behind the gun was a face the Parson had last seen standing beside the Dutchess, soothing a sobbing little child.

Apparently nothing could change the expression on this face. It was as elegant, as dignified, as unfeeling as it had been last night. The eves, too, were the same — stern, thoughtful, preoccupied. The man said, “You two with the heaters — slide ’em to the floor. And don’t be sloppy about it.”

Frankie Moore’s grin stayed congealed on his face. He seemed stupefied. Then suddenly his .45 spat viciously.

The Parson melted to the floor as the Tommy gun laid down a barrage. Frankie Moore screamed, twisted and fell on his side. Blood oozed out of his ears and nose.

Hugg, from an angle, smashed two bullets into the copper screen. The Tommy gun wavered. It was evident that Carl Blue had been hit. No fire was returned from the Tommy gun.

A gun behind the Parson began to cough. The bullets sang wide over his head. But they were not intended for him. Judge North took three of the bullets in the chest and neck and went down.

A bullet that was earmarked for the Parson dug splinters out of the floor inches from his head. His head jerked about and he saw Hugg shooting at him. He went over backward, hooked himself around a chair and somehow was unhurt. His hand snaked in, brought out his Luger.

“Curtains for you, toots,” the Parson muttered, and fired.

Hugg plunged forward and hit the back of a chair with an outflung arm to keep from falling.

“That was for the sap last night,” the Parson muttered. “And this is for the sock you just handed me.”

He fired again and Hugg went down without even a groan.

The machine gun was operating again, pouring slugs into the bodies of Hugg and Frankie Moore.

And then suddenly above the choked roar of crashing bullets, there was a faint sound of a child’s sobs, muted, distant but clear, unmistakably clear.

The Parson’s head shot up, listening, like a creature of the wild.

The machine gun came to a sudden halt. Simultaneously, a woman yelled. And instantly the machine gun went back on the job, but no longer was its snout protruding into the room. It was being fired at some short distance from the window. Pieces of plaster chipped off in an even row along the wall, head high.

The Parson stayed down. He heard a car being started outside in the street. Then abruptly the Thompson was silenced. Footsteps raced away across the lawn. The car was roaring, exhaust bubbling, and then it gunned down the street, its clean getaway plainly underscored by the diminishing sound of swishing tires and whirring engine.

Gunsmoke swirled in clouds in the bright bars of sunlight that angled into the room. The Parson heard people shouting out in the street. Then he heard a little whimper close at hand.

It was Jerry Lord. “My shoulder. A hunk of bullet ricocheted. A lot of blood, but it ain’t bad. Help me out.”

The Parson lifted him up and towed him across the room into the hall. The cottage was very quiet. Lord straightened, “Guess I’m all right now. Touch of nerves in there. Pretty horrible, with all those bodies on the floor.”

“Yeah. Death is something you gotta get used to. Listen. There’s gonna be cops and questions. What’s the story?”

Lord groaned, pushed at his face with his knuckles. “Are... are they all dead?”

The Parson nodded.

“Then we’ll tell the truth. We got nothing to hide. We’ll tell ’em how I came down here to sew up Judge North and bring him hack. The D.A. Linton, will back me up. Then Frankie Moore and Hugg tried to save the Judge. There was shooting and that’s all.”

“And the chopper — Carl Blue?”

Lord shivered. “Was that Blue? I didn’t know him.”

“Leave him out,” the Parson said decisively. “Listen. With North dead, you must bring something back. Why not the Dutchess, possibly Blue as well?” Lord stared. “Right! Right as rain. There were footsteps from upstairs, weren’t there? I mean it wasn’t imagination?”

“No. I heard them, too.”

Lord pulled out a handkerchief. “Here. Tie up this arm. I feel better already. I’m going up to have a look.”

“Be careful.”

“Where’s the need?” Lord asked cheerfully. “We came through alive out of that shambles in there, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. We’re the only ones who got down on the floor while we were still in one piece.”

“What a horrible experience!” Lord said vexedly. “I wish I could understand all this.”

“It’s simple. Frankie and Hugg were at that house in the Puerto last night. They nearly killed the Dutchess. So her new husband trailed them today and when they came here he took his revenge and killed them.”

“Yes, but Judge North. You said he had a deal to make with me.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know what it was. Probably a deal to turn State’s evidence if he consented to go home with you quietly and submit to formal arrest. We never got around to discussing it, you know.”

“Not with all that happening.”

“Say... that Ching. That was a fast one he pulled, plucking a gun out of his sleeve. It was a good trick even if it failed.”

“Ching was very devoted to me,” Lord said solemnly. “I am very sorry he had to die.”

“So am I.” There was a pounding at the door. “Cops. You do the talking. Just grease it thick and I’ll supply the amens.”

Dusk placed a gossamer, inky blanket over Cariba and as if through tiny rents stars began to appear. Lights began going on here and there among the cottages. Huge drop-lights illumined the dining terrace of the main building of the Queenshaven. The Parson had been sitting in cottage number two all the afternoon. His coat was off and his tie was loosened. A tall iced drink had been riding at his elbow throughout the day. From time to time it had been replenished by the leonine-headed man he called Linny. The Parson was enjoying himself.

“Everything depends on catching up with the Dutchess now!”

The Parson made an expansive gesture. “Don’t worry. She can’t get out of Cariba.”

“I wish I were as certain as you. I wish Clancy would phone.”

“He will. Just hold on to your pants and subside.”

Linny nursed his jaw. “Too damn bad about Judge North. All the guys who can talk knocked off. That helps, doesn’t it? That helps loads!”

“What’s the odds?” The Parson shrugged. “Besides, you know how he came to die.”

“Oh, hell. If you’d brought him here instead of down to Jerry Lord, the whole picture would be different.”

“Maybe. But there would have been nothing in it. I took a chance, I’ll admit that. But it seemed the right thing to do. I wanted to play the string out. You can’t blame me because Frankie Moore and his stooge showed up and dead-pan and his chatter gun. It was a circus setup and I took a header. Before I could get organized, it was all over.”

The other man sank down into a chair. “I’m not blaming you, Parson. You’re fine. But I’m worried. All these people dead and nothing to show for it.”

“There’ll be plenty if you’ll only wait.”

“I’m waiting! Hell, I’m sick and tired of waiting.”

“Everybody’s tired of waiting. Judge North was and he got the shroud.” The Parson’s eyes twinkled. “Boy, if you’d seen the faces on those British cops when they walked into that room. Four corpses! No less than four!”

They were silent a moment and then the Parson said, “You know what to do when Clancy phones, don’t you?”

“Sure. I’ll be at my post just as we arranged.”

“Good. I’d like the act to go over smooth this time.”

The Parson finished what was left in his glass, took out and inspected his Luger. Satisfied, he slipped it back, folded his hands over his stomach, seemed to doze.

The phone rang some five minutes later. Instantly alert, the Parson snatched it up. “Yes?... When?... O.K., Clancy, I’ll be over in ten minutes. Just keep an interested eye on them but don’t make a grandstand play. Swell.”

He hung up, swung about. “Just as I figured, Linny. Clancy just lamped them at the seaplane base. I knew it was either a plane or the Santos Prince, the only boat sailing from Cariba tonight. My dough said the plane all the time.”

“You sure figured the angles right this time, Parson! I hope nothing goes wrong!”

“It won’t,” said the Parson decisively. “Just do your part.”

“I’ll be under the window looking in, just as you said.”

The Parson parked his car in the cinder-spread parking area at the seaplane base and walked to the bright lights of the concrete, modernistic waiting room. Clancy met him near the door, said laconically: “They’re inside. They’ve been buying the kid ice cream.”

He fell in behind the Parson, strode with him across the cork-lined floor. The Parson saw them seated across the room with the little child between them. Three bags were on the floor at their feet. One of them the Parson recognized at Tex Kent’s bag.

Neither the Dutchess nor Carl Blue moved when the Parson came up to them. He did not draw out his gun. His voice was soft, easy when he spoke. “We’ve got a date, folks. Let’s go.”

Carl Blue gazed fixedly at the Parson, but his expression did not change. “You’re making a mistake. We’re leaving on the plane.”

The Dutchess put an arm about the little girl, drew her to her protectingly. The child gazed with solemn, round eyes at the Parson. He leaned over and chucked her under the chin. She did not smile. There was something sinister, deadly about the Parson’s lean, sharp-featured face. The child seemed fascinated by him.

He said, “Don’t ever say I’m making a mistake. This is the show-down. I wouldn’t touch either you or the Dutchess. The kid would be the first thing I’d shoot for.”

Wide-eyed with fright, the Dutchess was saying: “You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t!” She looked deep into the Parson’s eyes. Shuddering, she turned away, tugged at Blue’s arm. “We’d better go,” she said wearily. “He’s not bluffing.”

“That’s sensible. Pick up the bags, Blue. All of them. You can hold the girl by the hand, Dutchess. Now march and act nice.”

Blue bent over, took up the bags, one under his arm, two in his hands. Clancy walked at his elbow. The Parson walked a little behind the Dutchess and the child. Outside, at the car, he said:

“Search ’em for guns, Clancy. You’ll drive. Blue will sit next to you.” And to the Dutchess: “You get in the back. I’ll hold the little girl on my knee. That’s so you won’t go getting ideas.”

The little Austin purred down Cariba’s boulevard, bright and colorful with evening promenaders. “What do you intend doing?” Blue asked.

“We’re going to pay a call on an old friend,” said the Parson. “Say, what’s the little kid’s name?”

“Alice. Parson, you can’t get away with this. You can’t take me where I don’t want to go.”

“Relax, pal. This is my party.”

“Be quiet, Carl,” said the Dutchess. “Oh, please!”

The car rolled through the main artery of town, hit Upper Leeward Road and followed it to Victoria. A mile or so on and it pulled up before a solitary house.

“But this is Jerry Lord’s place!” the Dutchess exclaimed.

“Exactly. There are lights in the lower-story windows, so he must be at home. Now listen, all of you. There’s going to be no break here for a getaway. Unless, of course, you want little Alice killed. I wouldn’t like to do it. Honest. But if you force me... So act nice. You take the bags and go first, Blue. Wait right there before the door. Keep him covered, Clancy. Now you, Dutchess. I’ll carry Alice. Gee, she’s just no weight at all. Now that’s sensible all around.”

Suddenly the child began to cry. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’ wanna go. I don’ wanna. Bad mans!” she said suddenly to the Parson.

“Sh! You’re all right, babe. Cripes, I won’t hurt you.” There was unexpected, soothing gentleness in the Parson’s voice. And to Clancy: “Open the door.”

Clancy took hold of the knob and pushed the door open. Carl Blue stepped in, still loaded down with the bags. Clancy prodded the Dutchess in, followed her. The Parson walked in last, carrying the wide-eyed child.

The house was utterly silent. The Parson saw Blue stop short at the threshold of the room in which the shooting had taken place that afternoon. The Dutchess also stopped. Only her profile was visible but he could see her lips tighten, her face muscles grow rigid. Clancy stepped closer, cried out bitterly:

“It’s the Chief. He’s been killed!”

The man the Parson had called Linny lay on the floor on his side with a hand pressed to his ribs. The Parson began to see that the copper screening had been removed from the window, which stood open. The Dutchess caught her breath as she looked down at the figure on the floor, exhaled slowly, said:

“Isn’t that District Attorney Lew Linton?”

The Parson nodded. “Come in, everyone. Keep ’em covered, Clancy.” The Parson knelt down beside the inert figure. Very faintly he could hear breathing. His eyes flicked up at the others. “He’s been stabbed. Just as Tex Kent was stabbed. But he’s still alive. Knife didn’t touch his heart. There! He’s coming to.”

Linton’s eyes opened slowly. Slowly recognition came into them. “Hello, Parson,” he whispered.

“Are you hurt bad?”

“S-scratched. Hit my head on the floor when I fell. I’ll be O.K.”

“Who did it, Linny?”

Linton tried to speak. But the words did not come. Again his eyes closed. The Parson felt his heart. The pulse was regular, strong enough.

He straightened. “He’ll be fine in a little while. Sit down, folks.” His voice dropped lower: “Sit down, Dutchess. You too, Cig.”

The Dutchess broke in. “You can’t—”

“Button up,” the Parson silenced her dryly. “I’m talking to Cig. Cig Wolfe. How about it. Blue? You’re Cig Wolfe, aren’t you? Aren’t you?” Again his voice lowered: “You see, Cig, the masquerade is over.”

Carl Blue turned his face to the Parson, his eyes wide, pupils dilated, but still his face was cold, expressionless, without movement of a muscle. He looked at the Parson without fear. His voice was quiet. “How did you know I was Cig Wolfe?”

“I knew almost at once. Your face. Always calm. Never a smile, never a frown. Lifeless, cold. And the too perfect features. No nerves in it. I remembered what Tex Kent had told me. The chopper was good. Twenty dumdums went through the face of the man they thought was Cig Wolfe. Twenty dumdums so that no one could recognize it. You were that chopper, weren’t you, Cig? Who was the man you killed so that they could bury him under your name?”

“Just a guy off a park bench. No good to anyone, not even himself. I sent his mother ten grand. That’s the way he wanted it. He looked enough like me — hair, features, build — to pass, if the face wasn’t examined too closely.”

The Parson nodded, eyes lowered for a minute. “And then you got this new face. Plastic surgery. It’s a beautiful job. But you can’t smile or grin or look angry or show any other expression. They cut up your nerves to make over the face. They gave you not a new face but a mask. A perfect mask. Why did you do it, Cig?”

The man’s head jerked back. A light flamed in his eyes, then instantly died away. He glanced sidewise at the Dutchess and it seemed, almost it seemed, that he smiled. But actually his features were as rigid as ever. His words, though, showed his intention.

“Don’t take it so big, honey. This isn’t the end yet.” He looked back at the Parson. “Why did I do it? Alice. There’s your answer. When the Dutchess had that kid, everything changed for us. We hid her from the world on a little farm in the White Mountains. But that couldn’t keep up forever. Someone would have found out, hit out at us through her. And I couldn’t quit as Cig Wolfe. There were too many — committments. So we thought up this plan. I didn’t want to be in the rackets any more. We had some dough. I wanted to live like other people, do things like other people, have my daughter grow up to be proud of me.”

The Parson looked keenly at the impassive face of Cig Wolfe. He suddenly felt sorry for him. Cig was just a man who wanted to be a husband and a father. There was something touching in the way his voice broke, in the way his eyes strained, darted about; but something terrible, awesome in the way his face remained cold, expressionless.

The Parson said, “But you didn’t break clean enough. Your kickback was when the Dutchess sold the numbers racket to Frankie Moore. Two weeks later Linton cracked down and Frankie never got to see any profits. He was dumb but not dumb enough not to know he’d been tricked into buying something worthless. That’s why he followed the Dutchess here.”

Cig Wolfe nodded diffidently. “We needed more money. We had to take the chance on Frankie. Listen, I never begged for a break in my life. But I’ve handed them out in my time. Look, I’m not a tough gunman now; I’m just a guy who’s a father. I’m begging for a break. Not for me. For the Dutchess and the kid.”

“You should have thought of that before you killed Frankie and his stooge, Tobe Hugg. The Cariba cops want you and the Dutchess now. You didn’t have to come here and do a lot of typewriter work.”

Cig shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. When a guy, who has no business in the mix-up, hooks up with a mugg like Frankie, knifes your best pal and then, when the shooting starts, sneaks off your little girl — what would you do? Exchange a bag of money for the kid and forget it?”

“You got the dough and this guy got the kid in that mix-up in the Puerto,” the Parson interrupted. “Is that the way it went?”

Cig nodded.

“Then why didn’t you pay out the sugar if the kid means so much to you?”

“We intended to. That was supposed to be the deal Judge North wanted to swing. The money for the kid. Then we saw Frankie and his gun and we knew it was no go. So we took the kid the hard way.”

The Parson moved across the room to where the bags had been deposited, knelt before Kent’s bag, unstrapped and snapped the lid open. The money was there in neat little piles as he had seen it last.

“Tex Kent brought this with him from the States, eh?” he said. “And the Judge brought the kid.”

The Dutchess said, “Yes!” Her handsome face was very lovely, grave, stoical. “Maybe it’s no use, but we’ve lived hard, we’ve tried to live it down, make a new life. You’ve got to give us our chance. You can’t snatch our chance away from us. Here! We don’t care about the money any more. It was the last of the numbers money cached away. We should never have touched it. You take it. It’s yours. Let us go. There’s still a few minutes to make that plane.”

The Parson looked at her. “O.K.,” he said quickly. “You can go and take the kid with you. Cig and the money stay here. I’ll help you but I wouldn’t lift a finger for him, even though I think he’s a right guy.”

“No! No! Oh, you can’t do that! I won’t leave him. You think I’ve gone through all this just to run out on him?”

“He’s right, honey,” Cig said. “I’ll take my dose. After all, I can’t kick. I guess I got this coining. You blow with the child.”

There was no abjectness in his manner and no heroics. Perhaps the abnormal passivity of his face lent particular dignity to his bearing. The Parson could not be sure.

“I won’t go!” the Dutchess said with a quietness to match his own. “Nothing you can say will make me.”

“Well, if that’s that, Clancy,” the Parson said, “you’d better get a move on. Linny needs help fairly fast.” He snapped shut the lid of the bag of money. “Take this down to police headquarters. No, don’t phone,” he added as Clancy made a move in that direction. “Go there yourself and bring back a squadron of cops with you.”

Clancy walked toward the Parson to take up the bag, but he never got his hand on it. The closet door opened and Jerry Lord stood there with a .45 automatic in his hand. He was breathing heavily. His coat was off. The armpits of his shirt were dark with sweat.

“Put down that bag,” he said thickly. “Gosh, it was hot in that closet.” His eyes were wild in his head.

The Parson put the bag down gently. “Hello,” he said cheerfully. “Is that a gun? I thought knives were your specialty.”

“Put up your hands, all of you,” said Lord. “If any of you make a grab for me, it’s the works.”

He started moving toward the door, making his way closer to the bag all the time.

“You can’t get far, you know,” the Parson drawled quietly. “Not loaded down with the bag.”

“What’s in it will give me wings, take me ten times around the world. Far enough for me.”

The Parson spoke again, still lazily. “Linton forced your hand, didn’t he? He was supposed to be outside that window looking in while Clancy and I faced you with Cig and the Dutchess. Linton wanted proof of your crookedness, Jerry. He got it, didn’t he? More than he expected. We were going to stage a little tableau, Clancy and me. But that isn’t needed now. You surprised him looking in your window.”

Lord’s breathing was slow and thick. “Don’t you dare move. I’ll plug you, Parson.”

“I’m not moving, Jerry. But I just wanted to tell you how it was. Linton knew there was a leak in his office, bribery, corruption, a guy who had ‘protected’ Cig Wolfe and was tied in with his successor, Frankie Moore. He wanted to root it out. He suspected you were it. When Judge North escaped the Grand Jury and came here, Linton gave out a story that North had been Cig’s protection. The protection was you, but Linton couldn’t prove it. So he sent you to round North up. That’s what you thought. Actually he sent you to me. It was up to me to pin the goods on you. You thought I was a sap. You didn’t think I knew that when you sent me to Tex Kent, it would dynamite Kent into running to North with his bagful of dough.

“Linton knew about that dough. He had followed Kent here. And when I phoned you about my talk with Kent, you weren’t on the phone. It was Ching, covering for you. There was just enough difference in his voice to tell me. You and Frankie Moore and Hugg were on Tex Kent’s tail. You followed him — and me — to the Puerto. You stuck a knife into Kent and you got the bag. But that wasn’t all Frankie wanted. He wanted to blast Cig and the Dutchess. You got tripped up, lost the bag. In the mix-up, you took second best — the child.

“When I got here with North to lay his deal before you. Ching was waiting with a gun up his sleeve. That gun was meant for me. Frankie busted in. He had been upstairs with Hugg. They sneaked down the back way probably. Frankie was riding high. You got scared. Frankie fully intended to kill North and me. You caught Ching’s eye. You wanted him to wipe out Frankie, a dangerous confederate. But Cig spoiled that party and saved my life, even though he couldn’t save North. You shot North over my head. The bullet came from behind me. I knew it came from your gun but I couldn’t do anything about it — then.”

Lord had stopped, standing on the balls of his feet. He said very coldly: “Is there any more?”

“Yeah,” said the Parson. “This: I’ll bet I can draw out my gun and shoot faster than you with a gun already in your hand.”

Cig Wolfe laughed. It was something to hear not see. Nothing showed on his face. He threw himself in a pantherlike spring that carried him six feet to crash into Lord. The gun in Lord’s hand barked aimlessly.

Lord went hurtling into the wall, went down on one knee, face panicky, gray, the gun wavering in his hand. Again that dry, hard laugh of Cig Wolfe’s was heard. He lifted himself from the floor and leaped at Lord a second time. It was practically tossing his life away.

Lord fired and Wolfe was hit but not stopped. He kept on coming with a slow, dragging step, while blood pumped out of his cheek in a gushing rivulet. His mouth was filled with blood and he spat out a dark wad of it and a tooth.

Behind him Clancy began to fire with nervous haste, chipping the wall. The Dutchess cried out once and covered her little girl with her body. The child’s frightened screams blended with the roar of gunfire.

Lord jumped toward the door, tripped, almost fell headlong, then caught his balance and pumped two bullets into Cig.

The Parson’s body had jerked to one side and out of the jerking had appeared his gun, large and ominous in his hand. But he had held his fire. Cig had been in his line. Now Cig went down on his face. The Parson fired. He did not want to kill Lord. He wanted to hurt him.

Lord screamed as the bullet smashed the delicate bones of his hand. His gun fell down out of the bloody mess, bounced on the floor.

Cig kept on coming, crawling, dragging along on the floor. Lord, screaming in pain and hysterics, pushed at him. Cig got a hand on his trouser leg, pulled him down. Lord frantically snatched up his gun with his left hand, dug it into Cig’s eye.

The Parson fired again with delicate, precise aim. A small round hole appeared magically high up on Lord’s beaded forehead. At once three small drops of blood trickled slowly out, mingled with the sweat, trickled into Lord’s glassy eyes.

Linton slowly, painfully raised his head, as if roused by all the shooting, gazed about dazedly.

The Parson stood quietly, a short undersized figure in black, unruffled and calm. He walked swiftly across the room to where Cig lay on the floor, squatted down beside him.

“How is it, Cig?”

Cig spat blood. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I gave you your chance,” Cig said brokenly, hoarsely. “I gave you your chance to get him. He’d have killed you otherwise. It wasn’t throwing my life away. I was a goner anyway. If I stuck around, the Dutchess would stick with me. She would never leave me no matter how I argued. Some dames are stubborn, huh? So I gave you your chance. You won’t forget a favor. You’ll give her a break. And my kid. Now she’s got to go, doesn’t she? She can’t stick with me now, poor kid. She’s got to go...”

The agonized eyes peered at the Parson but the nerveless face was set, expressionless, cold like a mocking mask.

Soft Breezes stirred the pennons and rigging of the magnificently white Cortania, but still it was hot. Cariba was always hot. Linton, perched moodily at the rail, watched the shimmering lights of the little city. He drew on his blackened pipe, said: “You saw her off?”

The Parson nodded. “She took the plane for Buenos Aires. She’ll get a new start there. A dame with her brains and looks won’t find the going tough.”

“All I can say is I hope she has her lesson learnt by heart.”

“Oh, she’ll go straight. There’s her kid, after all. You know, she fell in love with Cig and married him before she knew how he made his dough. She was just a babe in arms then. Barely eighteen. And when she found out, she didn’t quit. Some dames are like that. She stuck and tried to talk him into giving up the life he led. The reason why she plunged into the racket the way she did was to shame him; show him she was being dragged down too. Then the kid came along and Cig really decided to ease out.”

“So Cig hauled off and got himself a new face?”

The Parson’s eyes dreamed. “Yeah. And if he hadn’t crossed Frankie Moore he’d have gotten away with it.”

Linton sighed. “Poor Cig... so close to his goal. But he’d never have reached it really. Somehow, somewhere the backwash of his past life would have caught up with him, engulfed him. Still, that was a pretty noble thing he pulled on Lord.”

“Well, he had it figured right. He was never yellow. He wasn’t afraid to die. He knew he’d never get clear. He wanted the Dutchess and the little girl to get their chance.”

A voice bawled, “All ash-oah that’s go’n ash-oah...”

The ship’s whistle throbbed. People started to wave handkerchiefs, hats. The ship’s band tootled, “Auld Lang Syne.”

Linton thrust forth his hand. “Well, it’s good-by again, Parson.”

The Parson, wrapped in thought, took it, shook it briefly. “Good-by, Linny. If you should happen to pass by the old Five Corners where we played as kids, just give it a look-over for me.”

“Wouldn’t you like to go back? Aren’t you tired,” Linton waved a hand toward Cariba’s lights, “of all this?”

The Parson shrugged. “One place or another, they’re all the same after a while. And I’m beginning to like it here, to be truthful.”

He was on his way to the gang plank when Linton ran over and caught his arm. “One more thing, old kid. If I remember correctly there was a suitcase mixed up in the case somewhere. Somehow when we got around to it, it had disappeared and I didn’t want to make a fuss in front of those stiff British colonial police.”

“Suitcase?” asked the Parson innocently. “What suitcase?”

“A suitcase full of money which Tex Kent had brought with him from New York.”

“Oh, that. A trifle, you know.”

“Seriously, Parson, how much was in it?”

The Parson faced him. “A hundred and twenty grand.”

“Wha-at! What did you do with it?”

“Well, I kept twenty. I thought I had at least that much coming to me.”

“And the rest?”

“Went with the Dutchess. Only she doesn’t know it. Maybe she does by now. I helped her pack her bags.”

Linton squeezed his arm affectionately, grinned. “You’re the berries, kid. No fooling! And you’re a white man, too!”

“What’s up? What went wrong?”

Linton exploded into rich laughter. “Nothing’s wrong. But the Dutchess — now don’t break down, boy — the Dutchess returned that money to me just before her plane took off. She didn’t want any part of it. You see, it was blood money to her. She wants to start clean. I’ve got it now in the ship’s safe. A cool, clear hundred grand.”

The Parson’s eyes snapped. “And I was sucker enough to hand out good dough to a dame only to have her turn around and hand it right back! That’s gratitude!”

He looked at Linton for a half a second. Linton was grinning broadly, and presently the Parson, too, was grinning.

“Anyway,” he said, “I got my twenty grand. That’s no gag. And you’re not getting any part of it back.”