Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 8 — November, 1938)

Bullet Song by Edgar Pangborn

Slugs of justice speed their way to racketeers’ hearts.

The large, moon-faced man climbed out of his roadster and padded across the dark street with a can of sardines in his left hand. November wind nagged at his overcoat, flinging snowflakes at his round cheeks and rushing away across the city with a whining laugh. Behind Tom Paradine’s preoccupied eyes there was music, and he hummed, scarcely knowing he did so — small broken music like the sound of someone trying out the lower register of a cello in another room.

He pushed through the revolving door of Hanifin’s Bar and Grill, and slouched at the bar. He shook the can of sardines he held in his hand, sighed and said, “Damn!” Then, “Beer, Pete,” and dropped the sardines in his overcoat pocket.

The young face behind the bar looked sick; Paradine forgot the music in his mind and added: “What’s the matter, Pete?”

The bartender’s high forehead was wrinkled and there were dark rings around the youthful gray eyes that would not meet Paradine’s. Pete’s mouth was tight-drawn.

“Nothing,” Pete said mechanically; but Paradine saw his hand tremble at the tap.

“Without beer,” said Paradine, “nobody could be a music critic. Do you know I lead a dog’s life, Pete? Always writing things about music, as if anybody gave a damn. Say, is Ed Hanifin anywhere around?”

“No. The boss is away for a day or two.” Pete studied a spot on his apron; said with uncalled-for hostility: “I don’t know anything about music... Did you want to see Ed?”

“No.” Paradine was mildly offended, and bored. “Just wanted to let my hair down and cry on his shoulder. You aren’t old enough to know about such things.”

One of the two other customers was sleepy drunk, nodding over an empty stein; the other read a newspaper at one of the tables, but Paradine glimpsed his eyes above it, and they were keen, cold eyes, on a slant; a hook-nosed man, sallow and hard and watchful. Pete stared unhappily at this man.

Heavy trouble had stricken old Ed Hanifin recently. In Paradine’s private knowledge of that, in the stillness of the bar on a Sunday afternoon, in the tension of Pete Holden and the dark alertness of the hook-nosed man, Paradine sensed something ugly. The room smelt of danger.

But the trouble came in from outside, on dragging feet. A man walked in uncertainly, and leaned on the bar, putting both manicured hands on it palms down, so that rings on his shivering fingers glittered. A small black-eyed man, neat and slim. He said:

“ ’Isk — ss — ’isky straight.” Then in a frail ghost of a voice: “Oh, my God...”

Pete made no move to get the drink. His young scared eyes bored in, hard, angry, pleading, still trying to dig something from the hook-nosed man behind the newspaper.

On the floor under the newcomer’s overcoat Paradine saw a drop of blood, and another splashed beside it. One ringed finger moved on the bar in a wet beer-stain; drew out the liquid uncertainly on the bright wood, making the capital letter E, and two more figures. An East Side address. Paradine could read it.

Pete’s arm swept across the address, wiping it away. The hook-nosed man behind the newspaper, without moving, spoke three words: “Watch it, Ferenczi.”

The black-eyed newcomer turned slowly, hands still palms down on the bar. The door swished, and a little sound came from that direction, like the pop of a champagne bottle. The black-eyed man jumped; said: “Look here, now — won’t stand for that...” He fell then in slow motion, and lay face up on the floor, choked once and was quiet.

The hook-nosed man stood up gradually, both his hands in plain sight holding his newspaper.

Paradine had not seen the one who fired the silenced shot; had only heard the door, and glimpsed a dark thing moving away in snow-spotted blackness. He hurled himself through the doorway and ran down the street after a lurching shadow that vanished around the next corner.

The street was crowded; the killer could be any one of the dozens who were passing. Paradine murmured that East Side address and added: “None of your business, Tom Paradine; but...”

He walked back to his car and sat at the wheel, watching. Rubbernecks had already gathered outside the big window and Paradine could see Pete Holden talking frantically into the phone. He would be calling the police. If the police wanted to talk to Tom Paradine, they knew where to find him. Paradine shrugged, and drove to a mean street — on the East Side. He found the address that had been written in death; it was a four-story brownstone, peeling, its windows boarded up except for the top floor, where jagged holes gaped from dirty windows.

It looked deserted, but from within there was faint confused sound. Paradine stepped down into the basement areaway and pressed himself into the deepest shadow. He heard stumbling footsteps and a sound like someone choking, trying to speak. Hands fumbled at the latch of the iron grille door and pulled it open. A girl stepped through, holding out her hands in front of her. Her face was distorted, the mouth a dark O of terror.

Paradine stepped out of the shadow; said, “Molly Hanifin.”

Her outstretched hands touched his vest before she knew he was there. She stopped, swaying, her eyes focusing on him without recognition or understanding. Paradine took hold of her hands; said:

“Molly Hanifin. Ed Hanifin’s own daughter, sure enough. Long while since I saw you last. You’re in a pretty tough spot. Can I help? Tried to see your dad tonight, but he wasn’t there. He’s with you, I suppose?”

“What? Who—”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“You’re the police? Go ahead, then. Burn me. I don’t care any more.”

“Hell,” said Paradine. “I’m not police Molly.” He kept hold of one of her hands; took the can of sardines from his overcoat pocket and looked at it glumly. “It’s this, Molly. I bought this at a delicatessen, and they didn’t give me a key to open the damn thing. Can t open it without a key. So when I heard that you might be up here, why, I thought maybe you’d know how to open it, you with all your experience at the Bar and Grill and all that, so I came along.”

“I remember you, Mr. Paradine.” Her tension relaxed, and she trembled, swayed toward him, clutched his shoulders for support. “You re kind,” she said, “to talk nonsense while I — please help me. No, you’ve got to go away! You can’t mix into this.”

“I thought I’d hang around a while. Where’s your dad, Molly? He wasn’t at his bar.”

“He’s dead,” the girl said thinly, on the verge of hysterics. “He’s been murdered. You can’t mix into this. The police want me. Two days they’ve been looking for me. They think I killed Dutch Tiemann. They arrested me, and Tiemann’s gangsters snatched me away from them. I got away from them too. They’re both after me now. You can’t come into this. I want you to go. They’re hunting me.”

Paradine looked over her head at the gaping basement door, then down at a little glimpse of red hair under her hat. She was a tall girl, beautifully made. She didn’t want him to go. That was only courage finding speech. He said:

“I know that. I know how Tiemann died. I was talking with Captain Shapiro only two days ago.”

“You can’t mix into this,” whispered Molly Hanifin. “My father’s dead. He’s dead.”

Paradine glanced over his shoulder. A square figure in blue was strolling up the block on the other side. Paradine shoved the girl gently through the basement doorway; closed the door silently behind them.

“Where is he, Molly?”

Her hand guided him down a musty hall to the rear of the basement. The total darkness and the silence were heavy things.

“What is this place, Molly?”

“It’s empty,” she whispered. “It’s one of the houses my father owned. Condemned. Fire laws or something. They’re going to tear it down.” She stopped at the end of the hall. Her voice was no longer a whisper, but had the growing sharpness of anguish:

“Mr. Paradine — this room here. Put out your hand — you’ll find the door. Have you got matches? I can’t go in. I can’t. I’ll wait for you here. Oh, don’t go. Don’t leave me. Please help me. I can’t go in.”

“Don’t get hysterical, Molly.”

“I won’t. I won’t.” There was returning sanity in her voice. Paradine struck a match and, holding it high, stepped into the room.

Ed Hanifin had been a big man, big in many ways. Newspapermen thought so when he was in the ring; they thought so after he sprained his back and couldn’t fight any more, because he never whined about it. They thought he was pretty big when he started Hanifin’s Bar and Grill and made it a place after their own hearts until Prohibition put the lid on it. Even then Hanifin stayed big: he was no bootlegger; his place became just a hash-joint; he made it a good hash-joint and let it go at that. And when the great drouth ended, Ed Hanifin came into a belated second blooming, and the new generation of scribblers loved him as the older one had done.

He was big now, in death.

He sat propped against a corner of the bare room, and his large gray eyes staring nowhere had so much peace and dignity, it was as though they asked you not to mind the hideous hole in his chest through which his blood had spilled. Ed Hanifin was a gentleman, and when someone had shot him through the heart he had died like one, accepting the inevitable, while his great body refused to be either pathetic or grotesque.

There was nothing in that small square room except death. No furniture; no signs of occupation; the single window was boarded up. Paradine returned to the hall, and his second match showed him Molly’s face, wet-cheeked, quiet.

“Who did that?” he asked. “You know.”

“If I knew — whoever did it would die. I’d live long enough to see to that.”

“You two were hiding out here?”

“I was. He never ran away from anything. He brought me here and stayed here to take care of me. I had to go out, to get food for us. I was less conspicuous than he was, with his white hair and a head taller than anybody else. He stayed under cover just so as not to give me away.

“Maybe three hours ago I got back with some food. We’d fixed up a room upstairs. I went up there; didn’t find him, so I waited for him. He went out too, after dark, two or three times. He wanted to do — something, for me. Never mind what. I waited for him a long time. I got frightened. Finally I began to look, here in the house. I found him. Then I ran out front. If I knew who’d done it—”

“It won’t bring Ed back to have the State burn you for murder.”

“They will anyhow,” she said, “for Tiemann’s murder. They found my hand-bag up at his place, in Tiemann’s hand,” said Molly Hanifin.

“The cops didn’t give that to the papers,” said Paradine. “They didn’t tell about the mob snatching you away, either, though it should have been front page. I suppose the cops are sensitive about such things. That’s the impression I got, talking with Captain Shapiro.”

“Why don’t you go?” said Molly. “I’m wanted for murder. You can’t mix into it. You’ve been kind. You helped me; kept me from going to pieces entirely. God knows, you’ve done enough. I want you to go.”

Paradine said, “Did you kill Tiemann?”

“No.”

There was a banging at the iron grille door. Paradine said, “You’ve got to get out of here. Where’re the stairs?”

A hard official voice barked:

“Open up there! Don’t stall, Hanifin. Police. Open up!”

“Here!” Molly choked, tugged at Paradine’s hand. They ran up the creaking flight to the pitch darkness of the first floor. The basement door rattled violently.

“Open up, Ed Hanifin! We know all about it. The back’s covered; you can’t lam out of it. Want us to break it down? Get sense, Hanifin.”

“They want him too?” muttered Paradine, as they ran up, flight after flight.

“No, no! They’re after me. They must’ve been tipped off that he was with me.”

The basement door slammed inward.

On the roof the wind flung snow in their faces. Molly had guided Paradine this far, but on the roof she stared around her, lost and confused. There was an unbroken stretch of six four-story houses, and then a ten-foot drop to the roof of a three-story building near the corner. Paradine let down his six-foot bulk over the edge, dropped the remaining four feet and held up his arms.

Molly jumped. Paradine caught her, eased her down, and ran to the front of the roof, staring over into the street. He saw the friendly red eye of his roadster at the curb below.

Molly said, “Fire-escape?”

“No good. Trap us in the back yard.” Paradine strode to a square of skylight. “This’ll be somebody’s skylight bedroom, I think,” said Paradine, and drew up his foot. “I love other people’s bedrooms,” and his heel crashed down, splintering the frosted glass with shattering noise and powdery upheaval of snow. Paradine flung himself down at once, thrusting his arm through the break; he found the fastening and jerked the skylight up on snarling hinges. He swung over into black uncertainty, hung on the edge of the frame a moment and then let himself go with knees relaxed, landing on the floor without losing his balance.

Someone squawked. There was the padding of bare feet, and a harsh overhead light flared on. Paradine looked into the empty face of a gayly pajamaed young man.

“Son, you’ll just have to ignore this.”

The young man said, “But, wha—”

“All clear, Molly! Let yourself down.”

Paradine caught her waist, breaking the force of the drop. The young man in pajamas was waving one fist, digging with the other at his eyes; Paradine put four fingers on his chest and shoved. The young man sat down.

Paradine snatched open the door, turned:

“If you wear pajamas like that,” he snarled, “you’ve got to expect this sort of thing.”

Paradine ripped out the key, hustled Molly through the door and locked it from the outside. They ran down the two flights of stairs, and out the front door of the lodging house. Molly Hanifin had not spoken; her teeth were digging at her upper lip. In the hallway, Paradine said:

“Easy now. Coat collar up, hat down, and don’t hurry.”

He guided her to his car and bundled her in; neither of them looked up the street at that other house. As he put the car in gear and slid way from the curb, Paradine laughed at his chest and said:

“Only a couple of days ago Captain Shapiro was trying to tell me I was too old to run around the way I do.”

“He’s the one who arrested me and tried to make me say I’d killed Dutch Tiemann — before I was allowed to see a lawyer or anything. He kept saying, even if Tiemann was a racketeer and a louse, murder was murder. I got to thinking maybe I had killed Tiemann. He got me so I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing... It was my hand-bag, you know. I had been there to see Tiemann that night. And Captain Shapiro — oh!”

“I had a notion,” Paradine said, “that Shapiro didn’t do things that way. Thought he was usually decent. Backroom technique, huh?”

Molly stared straight ahead, watching the white street they traveled.

“And then,” Paradine said, “the mob turned up fresh and full of ideas when you were on your way from the precinct station to the court-house, and scattered lead around, and got you loose, shooting a police driver. He died before they got him to the hospital, by the way. A whole lot of fight about one girl. And now I’ve got you under my wing.” He pressed down on the gas. “Look back when I turn this corner. That car’s followed us for two turns.”

Molly stared through the rear window. “Yes; they’re following. Let me out. I can’t drag you into this.”

“Duck down now. That’s it.”

“But you’ve got to let me out!”

“And don’t talk so much. Try to be a little different from most women, Molly. Please.”

Paradine stepped up the motor, shooting across town. The other car followed.

“Stay down, Molly, ’way down.”

“You can’t run away from the police like this, just for me.”

“They aren’t police,” said Paradine. “More likely friends of the late Dutch Tiemann. Must’ve tailed me uptown and hung around in their quiet way. Of course, I ought to let you out, Molly. Just put you out on the pavement, and drive around the block and come back to see how you look all full of holes. You’re a damned fool, Molly. Damn it, I like this. Haven’t felt this young in twenty — ah! That was business.”

The rear-vision mirror had shattered, and a coughing noise rose above the shouting of the motors. Paradine swung his car around an El pillar, took the center of the street again, and then darted around a corner. From behind him he heard a sickening crash and a yell of pain. He braked sharply, jumped out and ran a few steps.

What was left of a long red sedan clung to one of the pillars of the El, wheels spinning slowly and more slowly. A human thing twisted on the pavement; a Tommy gun was within reach of the thing’s no longer dangerous hand. A man in blue was running toward the mess from the next block down. Paradine got back in his car. Molly was climbing out the other side, pressing her hand over her mouth. Paradine pulled her back roughly and drove away. He said: “We’ll go home now. I need a drink.”

Tom Paradine closed the door of his bachelor apartment behind Molly and shook himself like a big dog; he dropped the can of sardines on the mantel.

“I’ll have to leave you alone a while, Molly. I’ve got to go out visiting. You’ll have to give me your word you won’t take a run-out on me.”

Molly stared at him. “I give you my word,” she said. “But I still wish—”

Paradine smiled. He turned away, humming under his breath; went to the kitchenette and mixed two highballs. Into one of them he poured a little white powder. When he came back with the drinks Molly was crying silently.

“What’s that you’re humming?” she asked, trying to brighten up.

Paradine set down the drink beside her. “That? Some of the world’s greatest music. I heard it this afternoon, and wrote my little piece about it in time for tomorrow’s paper, as if it mattered the fraction of a damn, what a music critic thinks about Brahms’ ‘German Requiem’. I’m tremendously unimportant, Molly. I got interested in running around with the cops and playing unofficial hell and all that sort of crack-pot activity because I realized a few years ago just how unimportant I was. I had to be something, to make myself feel big occasionally. You see, once upon a time I thought I was a musician myself.”

“What are the words you were humming?” Molly asked.

“Well, in English: ‘Make me to know the measure of my days on earth, to consider my frailty, that I must perish.’ ”

Molly Hanifin turned her face away quickly.

“I’m sorry,” said Paradine. “No, I’m not sorry. Don’t brood, Molly. Why, after a while you’ll simply be glad to remember that Ed Hanifin lived and died like the good man he was... No; writing bromides about music isn’t much fun any more. So, after grinding out my little column to report that Johannes Brahms was really quite a musician in his way, why, I went to Hanifin’s Bar and Grill and had a drink.”

“Was Pete there?”

“Pete was there,” said Paradine slowly. “Another man too, came in. His name, I understand, was Ferenczi.” Molly’s face gave no sign of knowing the name. “A little dapper man with rings on his fingers. And still another man was watching things from behind a newspaper. I didn’t like him. A parrot-nose guy, with a nasty pair of eyes. Well, Ferenczi spelled out the address of that place where I found you; seemed to be doing it for Pete’s benefit, and didn’t want the parrot beak to horn in on it. Ferenczi was in a pretty bad way, Molly. He was bleeding and then only a minute or two after he’d come in, somebody slid through the front door with a silenced gun and finished the job.”

Molly’s wide-eyed stare was pure pain. “Ferenczi? I don’t know—”

“Ferenczi’s dead. I saw that. I chased the killer and lost him in the crowd. Thought I’d look up the address on the chance it’d be interesting. It was. Isn’t it time I had the whole story, Molly? No; don’t drink that just yet. I’ll be honest, I put a bit of sleeping powder in your drink. I want you to sleep. But first, how about telling me the story, Molly Hanifin?”

“The story?” she said.

“Yes. Or should I tell you? Dutch Tiemann was a louse. He worked the protection rackets for all he could, with a bit of blackmail on the side, and maybe half a dozen other things. I knew him slightly. I know lots of queer fish. I think I can guess why he was killed — he was too loose around the mouth. So last Wednesday morning the charwoman found him spread around his apartment with your hand-bag in his fist and his safe rifled, and your finger-prints all over. Lots of people who could have done it, of course... A few days ago, someone told me that a young guy was trying to muscle in on him. A young guy called Pete Holden.”

“No!” Molly jumped up, hot-eyed. “He was not. Pete Holden isn’t in the rackets and never was. Whoever told you that was lying.”

“Sit down, honey. Please. Do you know who it was, told me?”

“Whoever did was lying.” But Molly sat down again. “He — I know Pete. It just isn’t so. Who told you that?”

“Tiemann himself,” said Paradine. “Eight days ago. Tiemann was a loose-talking slob, after a few shots. I ran into him in a saloon. He always thought I was a joke; funniest thing in town. He was full, and unbuttoned his mouth. Nothing anybody could use in court. I remember I said, ‘Well, Tiemann, how’s vice, crime and corruption?’ and he said, If it ain’t Saint Cecilia in long pants!’ and we had that kind of thing back and forth a while, and pretty soon he was crying into the beer and saying he knew he’d wind up with a dose of lead and what the hell was the good of anything and why couldn’t he go home and see if his old mother remembered him.

“After a while a little parrot-nosed guy came in and walked him off more or less right side up. Sure; the same parrot-nose I was telling you about before, the one I saw at Hanifin’s tonight. But before that happened, Tiemann had been saying to me: ‘Paradine, that damn kid, Holden, thinks he can buy out my trade. He’s a young man that wants to get ahead. When I turn up on a cold slab, you and your flatfoot pals can just remember what I said about Pete Holden.’ ”

“Pete,” Molly said, “Pete Holden is my husband.”

“Well, Molly, that’s quite a beginning. Go on from there.”

She twisted her hands together; forced out each word:

“Dad took on Pete, two years ago. Sort of partnership; Pete put up a little money and we made some improvements. I... we got married. I was crazy about him. I am. He’s all right. He is not mixed up in the rackets. Tiemann was lying to you, just wanted to get Pete into more trouble, by saying that to you...

“It was about two years ago that Tiemann’s gang started putting pressure on us. Dad had made a sort of fresh start with the Bar and Grill, after Prohibition ended, and Tiemann’s gang — well, I know they’d been in bootlegging, because Tiemann himself tried once to make Dad turn the place into a speakeasy.

“When the bottom dropped out of bootlegging they started the protection racket, taking in places like ours that didn’t have a lot of money and influence to use in fighting back. Dad fought. He never paid Tiemann a cent. Tiemann warned Dad he’d get him. Dad just laughed and told him where he could go. And Tiemann didn’t do anything right away; didn’t smash up our place the way he did some others. He worked slow; passed around nasty stories about us. Dad said they were nothing but a pack of yellow rats; said he could afford to sit tight and wait till the city got around to fumigating...

“Then after a while Tiemann went to work on Dad, through me. Began by passing around stories about me, stories that came home to Dad and made him wild. And then Tiemann began really wanting me. Oh, he took his time and made a big play for me. Gave me a line about wanting to quit the rackets and reform. I wouldn’t have any of that, so he started to use threats. Things that were going to happen to Dad if I wouldn’t be ‘reasonable.’ You can imagine.”

“I can imagine,” said Paradine mildly.

“Pete and I kept our marriage sort of secret, except from Dad. Pete sort of wanted it that way, until he’d earned enough to give me a home. Somehow or other Tiemann learned about it. He began telling me things that would happen to Pete. Pete didn’t and still doesn’t know that Tiemann was after me. I didn’t dare tell him. I kept Tiemann off. But I couldn’t have kept it up much longer; he wouldn’t have stood it. He was the kind to go crazy for anything he didn’t have. I — oh, I’m sick. I’m tired. I can’t think.”

“Take it easy. So you did kill Tiemann?”

“No!” Molly cried. “I went there last Tuesday night, sure. I went there with my mind made up to either give in to him or kill him. I thought I could kill him... He was sure he had me. He wasn’t in any hurry then. He lounged around and tried to get me drunk. Sat there staring at me, saying how nice it was I’d decided to be reasonable — reasonable. That was his big word. Staring at me and scratching his cheek, like the way he had. I found I couldn’t do either. I couldn’t give in and couldn’t kill him. I started to go; he grabbed me and I fought. That’s how he got my hand-bag. He wasn’t strong. I shoved him over, and his head hit the edge of a table and he didn’t move and I thought maybe I’d killed him after all. I didn’t care, then, but I was afraid. I didn’t shoot him...

“I went home. They came for me in the morning. The police. Pete was out. Dad didn’t understand. I tried to tell him it was all some mistake. He wanted to fight ’em. They grabbed his arms...”

Paradine waited a while before he urged her gently: “And when the gang shot up the police car and kidnaped you?”

“I don’t understand all of that. One of the kidnapers struck me on the head after they got me in their car. I didn’t come out of it for a long while. When I did I was tied up in some wretched room, and Salter came in.”

“Salter? One of Tiemann’s friends?”

“A partner. He must be boss now, from the way he spoke. He thought I’d killed Tiemann. He said he’d taken me from the cops because he didn’t want me to beat the rap the way I would, he said, if it got to a jury. But that wasn’t his real reason. He thought I had something, a confession, that Tiemann had made him write. Salter was furious. I pieced it out from things he said. It seems Salter killed a man — it was that Banks’ hold-up and murder, about a year ago. A jeweler was held up and shot. Salter did that; Tiemann made him write a confession and held it over him. Salter thought I had this confession.”

“In other words,” said Paradine with a new queer light in his eyes, “this Salter used to go by the name of Gus Snyder?”

“Yes.”

“They dragged him in for the Steve Banks’ murder, but there wasn’t evidence enough and the grand jury had to chuck it without an indictment. A confession would turn the trick nicely, with what the cops already have.”

“I suppose.” Molly’s head drooped; her words were coming with difficulty; she was ready to drop. “Anyhow, Salter thought I had this confession; thought I’d got it out of Tiemann’s safe, and he wanted to know where it was. I couldn’t tell him, and he said he’d burn it out of me. After that, he said, he’d see I didn’t beat the rap — he’d deal it out to me himself. He meant it. He’s cold; he’s horrible. I was never afraid of Tiemann the way I was afraid of him. A small man, with a hooked nose.”

“I know,” said Paradine. “He reads newspapers. When I saw him this evening I was still fondly thinking of him as Gus Snyder.”

“He left me alone after a while; another man set me free. I don’t know who it was; his face was covered. I did see rings on his fingers. Another small man.”

“Ferenczi,” said Paradine laconically.

“And he’s dead? He said they’d kill him if they knew he’d set me free, but he couldn’t stand it to see Salter give me the works. He wasn’t one of Salter’s men. He came in when the room was dark and untied me and took me out the back way through an alley. And he’s dead...”

“Yeah; he’s dead. Died apparently trying to tell Pete where you were. I wonder how he knew where to find you.”

“I don’t know,” Molly groaned. “Well, I went down alone to the Bar and Grill. Found Dad alone. Pete was away. When Dad saw me, he... he always loved me so much—”

“So the two of you went to that empty house and hid out.”

“He wasn’t hiding!” Molly said. “He... well, he left a note telling Pete to carry on while he was away for a few days. Pete still thinks the police have me, you see, since they kept the snatch out of the papers. Dad said that the less Pete knew, the less he’d be in danger from the mob... We were in that house two days and nights. Dad went away twice; he’d tried to make me tell where that hide-out of Salter’s was, and I wouldn’t because I knew what he’d do, but he said he’d find out anyway. Then, somehow, they found out where we were. They found Dad, when I’d gone out. Oh, why didn’t they kill me. I was what they wanted.”

“And you were there two or three hours before you found him, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Ever thought, Molly, that Pete Holden might have learned more than you think? That maybe he did kill Tiemann for good and sufficient reasons?”

“Pete’s not a murderer.”

“Oh, anybody can kill... Oh, by the way, where is that place of Salter’s?”

Molly gave a West Side waterfront address; then pressed both hands to her mouth and gasped through her fingers: “Before God, give me your word you won’t go there. I didn’t mean to say it. You tricked me!”

“Why, shucks!” Paradine laughed. “Best thing would be to tip off the cops that they’d find something up there. I’m a lazy man, myself. But meantime I can nose around and get a line on things — on who did kill Tiemann and so on.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Do?” said Paradine. “Play the piano while you take your drink. Then I’m going out. You’ll drink it if you trust me, Molly.”

Paradine played the Chopin “Berceuse;” with the corner of his eye he saw her fingers curl around the glass; presently she drained it... Paradine knew his Chopin, as he knew his other friends. Once he heard Molly make a drowsy noise in her throat. When the Cradle Song was ended, he saw that she was asleep, prone on the divan with one hand curled under her chin.

Paradine watched her a while. “I wonder if she did kill that punk...”

He bent over and touched his lips lightly to the fragrant warmth of her red hair; then he straightened angrily as someone shoved a finger into the doorbell of the apartment and kept it there.

He swept Molly off the divan and carried her to the bedroom. She made feeble protesting sounds out of sleep as Paradine took off her shoes, put her in the bed and pulled the covers up as far as her nose; but then she settled with a long sigh into deeper slumber. He hurried back to the living-room, shutting the bedroom door. The bell still shrilled. He thrust Molly’s coat and hat into the closet; then he opened the front door and snarled:

“What the flaming hell is your idea? Take your claws off that damned bell. Oh, it’s you, Shapiro. Hello, Leeds. Well, come in. My sister’s just got back from the hospital and she’s trying to sleep. If you make any noise I’ll kill you both and dump you down the incinerator with the other garbage.”

The heavy-jawed police captain flushed, hesitating on the doorsill. Lieutenant Leeds, suave and tall with steady black eyes, came in ahead of the Captain, glancing around the living-room, taking in everything and saying nothing. Captain Shapiro mumbled:

“Damn sorry, Paradine. Didn’t know. Didn’t even know you had a sister, old man. Look, this is sort of official, Paradine.” Shapiro closed the door and his expression slowly changed.

Paradine’s mask still held the show of anger. Shapiro was intensely uncomfortable, running a finger around the inside of his collar, putting his blunt head on one side, gray eyes round and troubled. “We had a look at your car, front of the house,” said Captain Shapiro.

Paradine spoke with acid sweetness: “Did I forget parking lights, officer?”

“Don’t be like that.” Shapiro rubbed his neck. “You’ve got a bullet hole in the rear fender. Another one in the place where your rear vision mirror used to be.”

There was anger in Paradine’s eyes. “Must have got there since I left it. It was all right then, an hour or so ago.”

“You just brought your sister from the hospital, in your car?”

“Yes.”

Captain Shapiro sat down heavily on the divan. He sniffed, and his jaw hardened.

“I kind of wish,” said Captain Shapiro, “you wouldn’t take that tone... Remember I was telling you the other night, about how that Hanifin woman got away from us?”

“How she was taken away? Yes, I remember. What about it?”

“There was a shooting tonight, down at Ed Hanifin’s Bar and Grill. Man named Al Ferenczi got shot pretty dead. One of the Tiemann men, he was. You were there. We got a tip-off, where the Hanifin woman was hiding out with her dad. We knew they were together somewhere. Tip went out over shortwave of course, couple boys from a radio car got there and found Ed Hanifin shot to death. Leeds and I went over.

“Couple blocks from the place, I had a glimpse of you in your car, with some girl. Must’ve been your sister. Looked like Molly Hanifin, but I figured then, seeing it was you it couldn’t be her. We saw a car right behind with a bunch of tough babies in it, but again, I figured, seeing it was you, they couldn’t be anything to you, see? The Hanifin woman had skipped out along the roofs just before the men from the radio car broke in. There was some man with her. Trail in the snow a mile wide. They broke through the skylight of a guy’s bedroom. We talked with this guy. He thinks he’d know the man again.

“There was a mean smash-up over on Ninth, this evening. Car tried to climb the El. It was full of rats. Tiemann rats. Four of ’em. Three are dead, and the one in the hospital... well, doctor says he ain’t likely to talk now or later. They had a Tommy gun in the car.

“The cop on the beat saw a big guy get out of the roadster and start toward the smash and then pop back and take a run-out... Funny smell around here. Kind of nice perfume. Unusual. ‘Fillette Mechante’, that’s the fancy French name of it. I know, because Molly Hanifin told me. Only other time I ever smelt it was when I arrested her. I’m playing fair with you, Paradine, because I always liked you, even if you are nutty as all hell. We want Molly Hanifin. We want her bad. We want her for murder. Right away. She killed Dutch Tiemann. She may have killed her father.”

The Captain stood up, walked a few paces up and down the room. He lifted the can of sardines from the mantel and eyed it wearily.

“Damn you,” said Paradine, “that’s my supper. You can’t have it. I don’t know anything about Molly Hanifin.”

“Then why does this room smell of her perfume?”

“My sister uses it. It’s not so uncommon as you think.”

Captain Shapiro drew in deep breath.

Leeds had not moved. Shapiro stood in front of Paradine, staring up, head on one side.

“I hate it,” he said, “but we’ve got to search this place.”

Paradine stepped quickly in front of the bedroom door and his face twisted and went livid.

“You can’t do that. I tell you, my sister’s ill. She’s got to sleep. It’s T.B. She had to have a lung collapsed. I’m taking her south next week, otherwise I’d’ve had her stay at the hospital. If she’s got to be waked up by a pair of damned flatfeet banging around the room — you can’t do that. You haven t a warrant.”

“I have a warrant,” said the Captain. “Hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. I hate this worse than you do. I’ll do my best not to wake her, Paradine.

Paradine said at last: All right, Shapiro. You can start with the bathroom and dining-room and kitchenette, out that way. I’ll see if my sister’s still asleep.”

Shapiro nodded to Leeds, who went with him to the rear of the apartment. Paradine entered the bedroom, locking the door.

Molly was motionless in deep slumber. Light from a window across the court showed the pale outline of her face, childishly delicate in relaxation.

Paradine remembered a box of sketching materials which he had bought years before and then never used. He unearthed it in his closet and found in it a few sticks of drawing charcoal.

A few strokes of the charcoal lengthened the line of her eyebrow visible above the bed covers; a mark at the side of her nose made it seem sharper in that vague light, aging her face. Paradine viewed his work with a wan grin; grabbed a box of after-shaving talcum powder and sprinkled it thickly over the profusion of her hair. It would pass for gray hair, if Shapiro didn’t turn on the light. Paradine unscrewed the bulb of the bedside lamp and tucked it away in a drawer. Molly’s breathing continued regular and quiet.

They were coming back from the rear of the apartment. Paradine unlocked the door.

“All right. She’s still asleep,” he whispered. “It’s a miracle, after the happy time you had with the doorball. You can use your flash; if you turn it on her and wake her I’ll kill you. And be quiet.”

Shapiro briefly turned his pocket flash into the closet, then stood in the middle of the dark room, glancing uneasily toward the bed.

“If you must,” said Paradine, and gripped Shapiro’s arm, turning off the flashlight but not trying to take it from the Captain’s hand. Paradine hoped sickly that the pounding of blood in his throat was hidden as he led Shapiro to the bed and whispered: “Does the Hanifin woman have gray hair?”

Shapiro stared once, sharply, then blinked his eyes and tiptoed out. With the door closed, he mopped his forehead and groaned:

“I hope you don’t hate me for this, Paradine. I hope your sister gets better.”

Leeds said, “About the bullet holes in your car—”

“Shut up,” said Captain Shapiro.

At one o’clock Paradine tiptoed into the bedroom and took the charcoal marks off Molly with light touches of a damp cloth. He set the can of sardines down softly on the pillow.

From the lower drawer of the dresser he took out a shoulder holster and a Colt .38. He went to the front window and smiled down at the slope-shouldered figure across the street. Shapiro had left a man on watch.

Paradine shrugged and left the house. He walked two blocks to the subway, without haste and without looking behind him. In the station he caught sight of the slope-shouldered man. He boarded Paradine’s downtown train, reading a newspaper with tremendous concentration.

Paradine sent him a vague, friendly smile, and the newspaper immediately covered his whole face. Paradine got off and walked toward the single yellow glow that was Hanifin’s Bar and Grill.

Pete Holden was alone. He watched Paradine come in with hostile eyes, and said:

“That was nice, the way you ran out when trouble started. I had to tell the police you’d been here and run out as if you were chasing somebody.”

“As if I was chasing somebody,” said Paradine. “Funny. I had an idea I was chasing somebody... I’ve talked with the cops, of course. Look here, Pete, I’ve been hearing things about you.”

“What?”

“Oh,” said Paradine, “I heard you’d been having trouble with rats. It does beat hell, the way they get into everything. I’m the exterminator.”

Pete said. “Talk sense!”

Paradine watched his eyes. They were agate hard, made so by his trouble and anxiety, perhaps. “You don’t feel a bit good, do you? Well, it isn’t strange, with Ed Hanifin dead and the cops on a hunt for your wife.”

Pete’s hands turned into fists. “What’s that you said? Ed Hanifin—”

“He’s dead. Someone shot him three times through the heart. It was fairly straight shooting, for a punk. I have a funny feeling that whoever did it ought not to live. Yes, the cops would like to know where your wife is... Incidentally, I noticed that Salter didn’t shoot Ferenczi himself. But I think he had it done, didn’t he?”

“Salter?” said Pete Holden slowly. “Who is Salter?”

“A small fellow with a parrot beak who reads newspapers.” Paradine’s voice was soft; deep purring cello notes from his chest. “I noticed a couple of cops across the street when I came in just now. There was another, tailing me. The three of ’em are having a conference, I suppose. Queer people, cops; sometimes I like ’em, sometimes I don’t. Did you kill Dutch Tiemann?”

“You must be crazy,” said Pete Holden. “I ought to throw you out. Who the hell told you I was married?”

Paradine shrugged. “You might get away with it on the unwritten law basis or something. Tiemann was a louse and it was a shame the way he went hunting after your wife... I don’t really know a lot, Pete: that’s the devil of it.” Paradine’s hand rested against his vest. “If I knew more, I could tell for sure whether you’re a good egg or a damned swine. Tiemann’s ailment was that he was too loose around the mouth. You’re too tight...

“I wonder why Ferenczi thought it was so important to give you that address; so important that he got himself shot for it. And you didn’t seem a bit interested, I remember. Ah, draw me a beer, Pete. I don’t feel so damned good myself.”

Holden reached for a glass, his hands shaking. He said:

“If I thought for a minute that you were straight about this... I think you’re heeling around for the cops. You’re trying to find out from me where Molly is, so the cops can get her. She didn’t kill Tiemann. If I didn’t think that was your game, maybe I’d loosen up and tell you things.”

“You don’t know where Molly is,” said Paradine. “I don’t see how you knew she wasn’t still in the jail-house; the snatch was kept out of the papers... This glass is dirty. Ed Hanifin never stood for anything like that when he was alive. Get me a clean one.”

Pete Holden picked up the glass Paradine had shoved toward him. He held it in his shaking hand, and foam spilled, and the hand tightened. Paradine murmured:

“You want to throw that in my face. Don’t do it, Pete.”

Pete said stiff-mouthed: “I’m sorry. The clean ones must be out back.”

“Uh-huh. The only way I can figure it out, Pete, is this: Now that Tiemann’s dead, his mob has split in two. Salter is the natural heir apparent, except for one thing: he hasn’t got the confession that Tiemann made him write, the confession to the murder of Steve Banks. You remember Tiemann made Salter write out and sign a—”

“I remember!” Holden laughed, gripping the edge of the bar. “What the devil are you trying to do?”

Paradine ignored that. “Salter hasn’t got that confession. Tiemann s safe was rifled when he was killed. It s a good bet that the one who killed Tiemann has that confession. And the one who has that confession can send Salter straight to the chair any old time. Salter knows that... Get me a clean glass.”

Pete walked stiffly to the kitchen at the back. From the kitchen Paradine heard the clink of glassware, but it was an unreasonably long moment before Pete returned with a glass, its bottom resting in his curled palm. He held it under the tap, eyes downcast; sliced off the foam from the top and set it.

“Thanks,” Paradine said. “Three of the Tiemann crowd died tonight in an automobile smash. Three dead, and one in the hospital not much good to anybody. Tiemann men — that means Salter men, I think. They were Salter men, so I guess you probably hadn’t heard.”

“Just what do you mean?”

Paradine gazed into his untouched beer. “Tiemann himself told me not very long ago that you, Pete, were trying to muscle in on him. You joined up with Ed Hanifin two years ago, and it was two years ago that the Tiemann mob went to work on Ed. Now you explain.”

“It’s a damned lie,” Pete spat.

“O.K.,” said Paradine, and smiled suddenly. “It’s a damned lie, son. I wanted to hear that... Dig me up a ham sandwich, will you, Pete?”

Pete turned away, shoulders relaxed. He disappeared in the kitchen again. Paradine, watching him go, had a queer sort of despair and uncertainty in his face. He bent swiftly, his hand visible through the plate-glass window, and poured out the beer into the cuspidor near his feet, shielding the glass from his own fingers with a paper napkin. He thrust the glass, still covered by the napkin, in his overcoat pocket; reached down the counter for another empty, unwashed glass and clicked it down in front of him with a smack of his lips as Holden returned from the kitchen with the sandwich.

“Never mind that sandwich after all,” said Paradine. “Look, Pete, sorry I had to put you through it, after all the rat trouble you’ve been having around here, but I had to find out something. I wasn’t sure about you. Maybe I’m not quite sure, even yet; but I’m going to take a chance.” Paradine reached across the bar and dropped his hand on Holden’s shoulder; the shoulder winced slightly, and stiffened, but Paradine kept his hand there.

“Look here, Pete, Salter’s got your wife. Up at his hide-out. I’m going there. I’m going to blast hell out of that pack of rats. I think you’re going to help. Instead of heeling around for the cops, Pete, I’m in bad with them. So bad it’s a wonder I’m not locked up. It looks to me as if you’d kind of stood around and let the Hanifins fight alone. But maybe I’m wrong. If you’ve got what it takes, you’ll come along and help me get Molly. Salter hasn’t got that confession, but he’s got your wife. He thinks she has the confession, you see. He wants it. His methods aren’t very nice, I’m told.”

Pete Holden had gone chalk-white. “If I could believe you—”

Paradine jammed his hand down into his overcoat pocket. “Of course, if you want to sit and count your fingers while another man pulls your wife out of hell—”

“I’m coming with you,” Pete Holden said. He ripped off his apron and ran to the back, flinging on his coat, turning off the restaurant lights. When he came front to lock the door, Paradine was looking across the street. He said:

“Right, son. We go out the back way.”

They slipped through the service alley at the rear of the Bar and Grill; nevertheless, in the subway Paradine saw the slope-shouldered man on the platform, and a square bulk in blue uniform lounged near him. Paradine slung his arm back of Pete’s shoulders affectionately and said:

“I’m tired of cops. Next station, follow my lead. Maybe it’ll work.”

The train snarled into Fourteenth Street. Paradine bolted from his seat and plunged through the door, Holden behind him. The police shadows stepped off the train without haste. Just before the door slid shut, Paradine and Holden were back inside the car; it ground past the slope-shouldered man, and through the glass Paradine gave the officers a smile of dazzling sweetness.

Salter’s house near the water-front was a blind thing, hiding secrets behind tightly shuttered windows that had no light behind them. It was next door to an all-night coffee shop, and the counterman moved, as Paradine and Holden went by, and walked unhurriedly toward the back of his shop. Paradine saw that, and thought that Holden saw it too. But Holden turned directly into an alley without a word. Paradine murmured: “You seem to know the way.”

“I’ve been here before. So what? That guy in the shop saw us. The only way into the house except by the front door is through that shop.”

“Got a gun?”

“Yes. Have you?”

“Yes; I have a gun. Let’s go.”

Holden walked down into the alley, Paradine a pace or two behind. He sensed rather than saw that Holden had stopped again. Then Holden gasped, staggered backward into Paradine, righted himself and snarled. Paradine heard a swish in the air and flung up his arm, catching a savage blow on it, apparently from a blackjack. Paradine grabbed the arm that held the thing, and threw his weight backward, tugging.

The dimly visible man with the sapper lost his balance; his feet scrambled loosely on the gravel of the alley, and his left side crashed into the wall of the building. Paradine sent his right fist where he expected to find the point of a jaw, and found it. There was the thick sound of a body falling helplessly. Paradine struck a match and knelt for a second. The man was out cold. He was the coffee shop attendant.

Further down the alley, Holden was struggling with someone. A tiny glow came from the rear exit of the coffee shop, and Paradine saw the two straining figures stumble through that light. Holden had a man by the throat and was stepping backward, dragging him; Holden’s voice was saying, “You guessed wrong, fella.”

The man Holden held dropped with a small choking sound and lay still. Holden came toward the light brushing his hands together; saw Paradine and said: “Heels!”

The alley opened into the kitchen of the coffee shop, and this kitchen was empty. One dirty wall was a half-inch out of true, showing itself to be a door slightly ajar; beyond it there was darkness. Holden stood at one side of it, reached out and shoved it gently with his foot.

Paradine was just behind Holden, and Paradine’s hand was on his holster. They cat-footed through the secret door.

From some uncertain direction there was the sound of a low monotone. The light from the kitchen touched the steps of a staircase. The treads did not creak. A door, with a dim light behind it, was at the head of the stairs.

Holden put his ear at the crack. He shaped words! “If she isn’t here, Paradine—”

“If she isn’t here it’s my fault,” said Paradine, and Holden might make what he could of that.

Behind that door the monotone said:

“You think we’re washed up. Maybe. If you hadn’t sent the boys out after that fat ape because you thought the girl with him looked like the Hanifin broad, we’d be sitting pretty. Mueller in the hospital is liable to squeal. You can thank yourself for that, Marsh. And if anything happens, you’re the goat. I can see to that. If the cops get you, you’ll be the head of the mob — that’s what they’ll hear, and you’ll get the whole works. The Ferenczi killing will come right home to you where it belongs, and up you go to the hot squat. But my nose is clean.”

A dry, nasal voice, the same monotone that had said, earlier that night, “Watch it, Ferenczi!” when Ferenczi was already past watching anything, said, “But, Salter, it was your orders. You wanted Ferenczi gunned out. Suppose I was trigger man, it was your orders.”

“I’ll enjoy watching you try to tell that to the cops. No, Marsh, if the cops come down on us, you’re for it. I’m telling you so that you won’t get wrong ideas. I saw you shoot Ferenczi, and I can get witnesses to prove I was there reading a newspaper when it happened.” Salter laughed. “You can’t say I wanted Ferenczi gunned out. Seemed like he wanted himself gunned out. He was asking for it. All the other boys were loyal. Hey, Belling? That right? All loyal as hell, weren’t you?”

A third voice answered in a thin toady’s whine. Salter went on:

“Uh-huh. Poor Ferenczi was the only one that was damn fool enough to throw in with—”

Pete Holden kicked the door open; stepped through with a gun out in his right hand and said:

“Reach, boys! Up! All the way up!”

Paradine eased his bulk through the doorway and kicked the door shut behind him; his Colt drooped from his hand, not pointing anywhere in particular; he remarked:

“Better satisfy him, gentlemen. Peter’s riding high tonight.”

Salter got up slowly, both thin hands in sight. The man’s even, reptilian calm chilled Paradine. The other two in the room stayed in their chairs, frozen. A wide-shouldered, slab-faced man with drooping cheeks; that was Beef Marsh. Marsh was right, in his blind way; you couldn’t say he’d killed Ferenczi. He’d only pulled the trigger. The other man cringed, his narrow little face gone gray. Belling, Salter had called him; but his name didn’t matter. The city’s mean streets spawned his like by the hundreds.

Salter said almost gently: “Well, young man?”

“Where is she?” Holden said.

Salter glanced quickly at Beef Marsh, and then allowed a grin to curl up his lips. He said: “Why, he’s looking for a woman. Take a walk, buddy. Somebody gave you the wrong address.”

“You’re asking for it,” Holden said, and his voice cracked. “I can shoot you first and find her afterward. Where is she?”

Salter gave Marsh another quick look. Paradine saw what it meant. The only light burning in the room was a bridge lamp near the chair where Salter had been sitting. A section of the cord was exposed, and that section was within reach of Marsh’s long leg. Paradine pointed his gun at Marsh’s slightly moving foot and said:

“Don’t believe I would, Beef.”

“Where is she?” Pete Holden said.

Salter shrugged. “She’s not here.” For the first time Salter’s moving slanted eyes acknowledged Paradine’s existence. “I can tell you where she is, maybe, in return for — let’s say, services rendered.”

Paradine’s grip on his gun tightened. Salter was walking straight toward Holden’s gun, hands above his shoulders, and there was still a grin curling his lip. A foot or so from the point of the gun he stopped, and his right hand came down and out in slow motion, toward Holden, the fingers cupped.

“Molly’s in a tough spot,” Salter said, “so I hear. You can get her out of it all right, I guess. She’s still all in one piece, so far as I know. You can get her out, in return for — well, let’s quit stalling, Pete. Hand it over... The gun don’t mean a thing. You’re still crazy about that broad, so I’ve got you where I want you. Hand it over. You know what I mean.”

Angry blood mottled Holden’s face. “Where is she?”

“Why, he’s like one of these trained birds. Can’t say only just one thing. You’re funny, Pete. You don’t know how funny you are.”

It had looked like a grandstand play, when Salter walked up to the gun, grinning at it. It was more than that. Paradine realized too late that Salter had put himself in front of Marsh. The slab-faced man stabbed out his foot, yanking the cord free from the wall-socket and throwing the room into blackness.

Death shouted through orange flame.

Dropping flat, Paradine rolled his body till it wedged against the door. He braced up on his left elbow, his gun gripped in his right but not shooting in the darkness.

There was enough shooting without Paradine’s help.

Gunfire flared from the corner of the room where Belling had been cowering. That shot was answered from somewhere near Paradine; Holden’s gun, perhaps. Belling’s scream was thin and high. Light stumbling footsteps reached the door, and a weight fell across Paradine’s legs. There was choking and gasping, audible under the noise that another gun was making now.

Paradine slipped his gun to his left, reached down and gripped the thing lying across his legs and flung it away. It was Belling, limp, unresisting. Paradine’s hand was stickily wet.

Holden was on the other side of the room now. Paradine heard him shout thickly, over and over: “You’re asking for it! You’re asking for it!”

Paradine reached up, feeling for the doorkey; found it, turned it, and dropped it in his pocket. He got slowly to his feet; moved crouching across the room, a step at a time, toward the wall-socket.

There was no more shooting now. Holden said from an uncertain direction in a drawn, wavering voice:

“You asked for it...”

There wasn’t any answer.

Paradine put down his left hand, feeling about on the floor. Someone was breathing hard, sobbing. The room stunk; gun-smoke and the sweetish reek of fresh blood. Paradine’s fingers found the light cord, the plug and then the socket.

The lamp had been knocked over, but a metal shade had saved its bulb. Light washed up from the floor, leaving two dead open-eyed faces in shadow, and a third face that was waiting for death.

Beef Marsh had not gone far from his chair. He lay beside it, his long body curled in a question mark, and the dot of the question mark was a red smear, showing the place where Belling had evidently risen once, after Paradine flung him away and before he tumbled in a heap across Salter’s legs to finish dying.

Salter sat braced against the wall, both hands pressed white on the floor. He was bleeding, but his eyes were still alive, fixed on Holden, who stood in the middle of the room swaying, breathing painfully, his gun drooping. Salter’s wound was somewhere in the middle of his chest, and there were flecks of foamy blood on his lips; he spoke, like a phonograph running down:

“You won’t get anywhere with it, Pete. You’re just funny. It’s a wonder Ferenczi didn’t know how damn funny you are. Tiemann knew. Tiemann knew even when...”

Pete Holden was walking toward the dying man. Paradine moved toward him quickly. Not quickly enough. The gun in Holden’s hand roared, kicking up.

Salter jerked convulsively, quivered and fell over flat.

Paradine grabbed Holden from behind, seizing both arms and holding them out at the side. Holden stiffened and strained away, but could not break the grip. Paradine’s hand wormed down Holden’s right arm till it reached the wrist, then squeezed with all the sudden power of trained muscles, paralyzing Holden’s clasp on the gun, which clattered on the floor. Paradine kicked it away, but still kept his grip on Holden’s arms and said:

“It’s all over. Understand that?”

Holden said, “Molly—”

“You haven’t the right to think much about Molly,” Paradine said, “except for one thing. You can make it a little easier for her, if you want to. You can have an out. I’ll give you that.”

Pete suddenly wrenched at the restraining hands. It was no good; the pale corded hands were expecting it. Holden threw himself this way and that, blindly, an animal in a trap. Paradine drew the man’s hands together so that his own right could hold both wrists. Paradine’s left hand moved under Holden’s coat, found the inner pocket empty and slid down.

Under Holden’s vest there was the faint rustle of paper. Paradine ripped open vest and shirt, caught the edge of the paper clasped to Holden’s undershirt and drew it out. A single sheet, covered with fine, tight handwriting and signed with Salter’s name.

Paradine freed Holden’s wrists and sent him staggering toward the armchair across the smeared question mark that had been Beef Marsh. Before Holden could push himself up out of the chair, Paradine’s gun covered his heart. Paradine said:

“No more shooting. I said it was all over. This paper proves you killed Tiemann. I knew that, but I had to prove it to myself.”

The bleak light from the floor poured along the high-lights of Holden’s defeated face. He sank back in the chair, staring vacantly.

“You got this confession of Salter’s when you killed Tiemann. Man, you were a fool to think you could make Salter talk turkey the way Tiemann could. It took an old hand like Tiemann to manage a cold fish like Salter. Salter was right. Ferenczi was another damn fool for throwing in with you. But I think I know why he did.”

Holden said nothing. Paradine went on:

“Ferenczi threw in with you because he loved your wife. Not the way Tiemann did. Really loved her, I guess. He saved her life and it cost him his. He got her away from this place when Salter had her here and was planning to pull her apart. Ferenczi joined with you for Molly’s sake only, and not because he thought there was any chance you could fill Tiemann’s shoes the way you planned to.”

Paradine waited. Holden had gone limp, and shut his eyes. Holden said nothing.

“And when Ferenczi wrote out that address you wiped it away. Because you already knew it. You’d been there, about three hours before. I think Ed Hanifin learned that you were in the racket up to your neck. He went for you with both hands; and you shot him to death,”

Holden let out a shaken breath.

“Maybe,” said Paradine, “when you went to Tiemann’s place that night it was an unwritten law set-up, at first. You learned — maybe from Ferenczi — what Tiemann was up to with your wife. So you went there to kill. I think you found him unconscious. Molly’d left the door open when she ran out. You walked in a little later and found him out cold, but alive, and killed him like that.” Paradine stepped closer; murmured: “But you must have known that was Molly’s hand-bag. Sort of spoils the unwritten law business, doesn’t it?”

Holden’s eyes flew wide open then. Blood was throbbing in his temples; he twisted his hands and cried out:

“I didn’t know it was her bag! I hardly saw it. I shot him, yes. I got the things out of his safe, money, and that confession. But I didn’t know it was her bag.”

“It’s possible,” said Paradine. “I believe you. You did care about Molly, in your way... How long did you work for Tiemann before he ordered you to work in with Hanifin?”

Holden looked at the question mark on the floor; moved his foot a little further from it; said:

“Three years. Years of doing what he told me to... But I wanted to go straight after — after we were married.”

“Wanted to.” Paradine’s voice was chilled with contempt. “If a man wants to, he does. He may have to fight for it, and go hungry, but if he wants to be straight, he is straight. There’s a rotten spot in you, and it spread, that’s all.”

“Save the lecture,” said Holden. “I know when I’m through.”

Paradine’s face softened. “There’s a decent out for you if you want it.”

“I want it,” Holden said. “You’ll have to give me that. I know what you mean.”

“Yes; you know what I mean. Man, you were wild, to think you could be another Tiemann. Even if you’d won out at the start and made Salter come to heel a while, being boss would have finished you. I wasn’t certain about that part of it. I wasn’t sure that’s what it was — your hankering to be the big shot. I brought you here in order to prove it. And Salter proved it nicely, to my satisfaction. Molly isn’t here, Pete. Salter hasn’t had her here since Ferenczi got her out. She’s with me.”

“With you!” Holden started to rise, but Paradine waved the gun and Holden dropped back.

“She’s all right,” said Paradine. “She will be all right; she’s got courage. She could even stand it to live through the days of your trial. Watching the State put you to death would be... well, she’s still in love with you. She might believe you weren’t guilty. She might have that thought to live with, after you’d been tried on the front page and then burnt.” Paradine picked up Holden’s gun in his left hand, by the barrel. “You killed Ed Hanifin, Pete? You’re admitting that?”

“Yes.” A sigh curiously like relief followed the simple word.

“With this gun?” said Paradine.

“Yes.”

“Used this one on Tiemann too?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a glass in my pocket. Came from the Bar and Grill. Traces of beer in it. Traces of poison in the beer, aren’t there? That’s what the police chemist will find, isn’t it, Pete?”

Pete Holden set his teeth; groaned through them: “Yes. Rat poison.”

“Sure you want the out, Pete? It’s up to you.”

“I want it.”

Paradine glanced at the chambers of Holden’s gun; said: “There’s another death in it,” and tossed it across the question mark.

Holden caught it by the grip. His livid face squeezed up like a crying baby’s. He said:

“There isn’t a damned bit of evidence.”

Holden’s gun blazed — outward.

Paradine felt a blow under his ribs; felt his right forefinger tighten, but scarcely heard the explosion that followed. The blow had spun him halfway around, and there were wide scarlet wheels spinning away from his eyes toward black distance. His mind cleared before his eyes did, laboriously but sanely tracing the course of that bullet. It had struck near the hip-bone on the left, and ranged upward, until a rib stopped it at the back. The spinning wheels changed to zigzag lines, showing the course of that bullet, and then they disappeared, and Paradine saw the room again, and saw Pete Holden dead, on the other side of the question mark, with a neat bullet hole between his eyes. Paradine said carefully out loud:

“I am not going to fall down. Plenty of evidence, Pete. Especially now.” Paradine pressed his left hand to his side; it seemed to ease the pain that was sending white fire up and down his back; he holstered his gun; said, “Poor devil. Poor devil.” He walked to the door, turned the key, said again: “I am not going to fall down.”

Blasts of cold air outside the house made Paradine more light-headed. The pain was like something walking beside him, clear of his body. The wound was not bleeding much; Paradine kept his left hand pressed on it, outside his overcoat; walked two blocks before he found a taxi and climbed in and gave the address of his apartment. He tried to ease himself down on the seat, but the car’s jerking start threw him backward and he said, almost shouting:

“I can do it if little Ferenczi could!”

“Huh?” said the driver, braking and turning half-around. Paradine leaned forward; gabbled:

“Drive fast. I’m drunk. What I want is speed. The reason is that I am rather—”

“Drunk,” said the driver, and threw in the clutch. Outside Paradine’s apartment the cabbie gave the big man his arm, helping him to the lobby, remarking: “Sure. I know how it is, buddy.”

Paradine dug up a five-dollar bill; said:

“Hope you have nine children, and every one of them a fine, upstanding man like—”

“Go to bed,” said the driver. “Thanks.”

Paradine reached the third floor in the self-service elevator. But outside the door of his apartment his knees buckled and gave way. He reached up with his key and struggled with the lock a while; said:

“Ferenczi—”

The door opened. Paradine scrambled inside on hands and knees, shoved it shut behind him. The telephone was in the foyer. Paradine rested both arms on the telephone table, trying to rise. The apartment was dark and silent. But, of course, Molly must be still asleep. Paradine got a grip on the telephone and pulled it down.

Now the pain was a thing that hung somewhere between him and the ceiling, jeering at him because his fingers were furry and had trouble with the telephone dial. Paradine laughed; heard himself do it. After a time there was a tired, peevish voice on the phone. Paradine said:

“Still awake, Shapiro?”

“You!”

“Shapiro, listen.” Paradine’s voice was low, but steady enough. It told everything. Everything except the fact that Paradine expected to die. Paradine knew Shapiro was not the only one listening at the precinct station telephone; knew that even before he hung up there would be a squad car cutting across the city to the water-front to find out if he spoke the truth. Paradine wound up:

“Come here yourself, Shapiro. I’ve got evidence, with me.”

“Coming,” Shapiro said, hostile, weary and suspicious.

“Bring a surgeon with you.”

“A surgeon? You’re—”

Paradine hung up the receiver sharply; called:

“Molly? Molly?”

There was light; Molly’s face somewhere above him; between him and the pain. Paradine wanted to tell her something important, but heard himself say only: “I’m sorry about that talcum powder.” Then he fainted, and the lapse of consciousness made it seem that Molly s face melted into Captain Shapiro’s...

Shapiro was real. He was there, kneeling beside Paradine on the floor of the foyer. Paradine reached complete clarity for a while, and saw the other faces — Molly’s, Lieutenant Leeds’, Dr. Meier’s.

“Molly,” Paradine said, “go away. I want to talk to this square-headed ape. Leeds, take her out back and give her some black coffee. She’s had sleeping drops... Listen, Shapiro, can you fix it so she won’t know? So she can think he went out clean? Why not pile it on Salter? Give the papers that. He could have been guilty.”

“We’ll do what we can for her,” Shapiro said, “if what you’ve told is the truth.”

Dr. Meier shoved an elbow in Shapiro’s belly. Meier had been cutting the clothes away from the wound; Shapiro was in the way.

“I’ve got proof,” said Paradine. “It might not stand up in court, with a shyster to talk the jury deaf, dumb and blind, but Pete Holden isn’t going to court. In the drinking glass you’ll find traces of poison, arsenic, I suppose. And the bullets. The one from Tiemann’s body will match the ones from Ed Hanifin’s, if you haven’t already found that out. And the other bullet from Holden’s gun. That’ll match.”

“The other bullet,” asked Shapiro vaguely, “from Holden’s gun?”

“How should I know just where; it is?” Paradine snarled. “I brought it with me, and if your doctor can’t find it, then he’s—” He laughed. “Your medical man is trying to hurt me with a little — hypodermic — syringe...”

He swam up out of long hours of morphine sleep, aware of diluted sunshine coming through blinds. The room was his own but there was an alien face under a white cap, and he asked it:

“Where’s Molly?”

“She’s having breakfast.” The face smiled with professional kindness. “She didn’t sleep, like you did.”

“Breakfast!” Paradine grunted; there were slow waves of pain, and he wondered why he didn’t mind them much. “Tell her I want to talk to her.”

Molly had already come in. There was something white in her hand, and her eyes were red-rimmed but quiet.

“Sit down,” Paradine said. “What’d they tell you?”

Molly looked away. “Everything,” said Molly. She sat down in a chair by the bed; looked him full in the face. “I overheard some of what you were telling the Captain. I asked him, and he told me everything. I’m all right, Mr. Paradine. I fought it out. If nobody says anything about it to me for a while... I know Pete died tried trying to kill you. After a while I’ll go away.”

“Stop at that point,” said Paradine, and sighed. “You’ve got what it takes. You won’t ever be exactly alone in the world. You have yourself, and that’s good company. You’ll find others. Marry again, of course. Do that. It gets tiresome, living alone.”

“No. Never.”

“Of course you will,” Paradine snorted. “What the hell’s that you got hold of?”

Molly glanced at the sandwich in her hand. “I don’t know what’s in it.”

“Dear heart,” Paradine moaned, “It’s stupid to live alone. I’d marry you myself, fat and past fifty though I am and in spite of your nasty habit of calling me Mr. Paradine — if only you had a sense of humor.”

“Why, I—”

“No; you haven’t. How did you get that damned can of sardines open without a key?”

Molly’s weary face stared, sober, a little surprised. “With a can-opener.”

“Oh,” said Paradine. “With a canopener. Just like that.” He sighed, and turned his mild plump face away from her, and slept.