Black Mask (Vol. 33, No. 4 — November 1949)

I was oh so much more than just a trophy on Clarice’s shelf — now that I could help her beat the slumber chair.

Chapter One For the Love of Clarice

Until I saw her there, lovely in I my doorway, I had convinced myself that I was forever cured of her, safe from relapse. But the mere sight of her was enough to blast away my resolution, and when she spoke the sound of her voice reduced all remaining fragments to atoms.

“I’m sorry, George. I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming at this time of the night if it hadn’t been dreadfully urgent.”

I stood dumbly as she swept by, brushing against me and imbuing me with the usual giddiness. I stood watching her, then resignedly closed my door.

Whatever her devious motive for coming here, Clarice Hanaford — Mrs. Peter Hanaford — would have her way with me. Because once I had been able to refuse her, I had deluded myself into thinking I had won immunity. I had been as foolish as a wino momentarily freed from the fermented fury of the vineyard. I moved after Clarice.

She sat down in my living room, crossing her nyloned legs and holding out her hand for a cigarette. I gave her one and lighted it. The touch of her hand steadying my own had the usual effect, and her sultry eyes peering appraisingly into my own must have plumbed the depth of her power. She inhaled smoke from the cigarette, tossed her head back carelessly and sent a single wayward wisp of her smoky black hair into its proper place.

I had said nothing. Now:

“Clarice, you’re up to something. You haven’t come to me for nothing, after six months of not seeing me. Out with it.”

My affected bluntness did not fool her. She smiled amusedly, her voluptuous lips curling mockingly at the corners.

“You are so cynical, George Always so suspicious. It’s a shame, George. We could have gotten along together so well. You would have gotten my divorce where Sam Carter failed. And then...”

“And then I would have been another Peter Hanaford for you to push around. No dice. Clarice. The mere sight of you melts me down, but not to utter idiocy. So tell me why you’ve come here tonight.”

She shrugged shoulders which, though covered by the thin stuff of her dress, seemed bare.

“It’s Peter again. He has made threats. He has sworn to kill both Martin and me if Martin ever comes to my place again.”

Martin. At first the name meant nothing; then I remembered gossip picked up a couple of months before. Martin was Martin Wainright, Middle City’s plywood tycoon. At the time I had inwardly shuddered for the man. Clarice was sure to lead him a merry chase.

He would be fair game for her, a rich widower socially acceptible — and a handsome fifty in the bargain. There was a daughter, Jackie, but Jackie would only be amused by her father’s playboy phase. Jackie was a playgirl herself, a flaming redhead with an alabaster skin that made a combination Middle City swains found irresistible. I knew Jackie and her father only slightly; there were a million dollars between us.

“What happened to Leo?” I asked Clarice. “Did you put him out to pasture, or is he waiting in the wings?”

Leo Tracey was the sharp lad whom Clarice had found behind a bar at the Flamingo Club and picked up for her very own. Leo hadn’t had to tend bar since Clarice discovered him; he wore diamond studs with his white tie and tails.

Clarice shrugged. “Oh, that? Well, after all, a girl gets bored with a profile.” She looked at me in a way to indicate that I was much more than a profile. “You’ve got to help me, George. This time Peter is serious.”

I thought she believed it, but I couldn’t believe poor Peter would seriously threaten to take the life of anyone. It was his accepting the responsibility for killing two men that had wrecked him and his marriage to Clarice. Of course the marriage would have cracked up sooner or later But the fact was that Peter Hanaford, deep in his cups, had blamed Clarice for the tragedy that had taken place in Denver.

I remembered vividly the day he had accused her.

I had found him in a back street saloon. My role was that of an unwilling lawyer retained to handle Clarice’s divorce case against poor Peter Hanaford.

“I won’t take the case if yon contest it, Peter. I thought maybe you’d just let her have her divorce.”

He lifted bleary eyes and rubbed the stubble on his chin.

“Just like that, huh? After what she did to me in Denver?”

“Come now, Peter. You can’t blame Clarice for what happened. In fact, nobody ever really blamed you — only you yourself.”

It was true. Nobody blamed Peter Hanaford for the tragedy which he had permitted to wreck his life. But Peter Hanaford, over-sensitive, over-conscientious, just hadn’t been able to take it. Perhaps he had always been too successful, too sure of himself. He had built up a reputation in his line of work as being a man who just never slipped up.

It was a tremendous asset, for his line of work was the installation of elevators for a great manufacturer. Paul had been superintendent in charge of installing a pair of elevators in a Denver office building when tragedy had overtaken him. Planking laid across the shaft had split, and two men had fallen ten floors to their doom. Investigation revealed that the men themselves had selected the planking. But Peter Hanaford publicly took the blame upon his own shoulders. He resigned his job and began a descent almost as fatal as that of his two unfortunate employees.

“I never told anyone,” Peter told me, his hand clutching a whiskey glass, “about the telegram Clarice sent me that morning. The telegram said everything between us was finished — she was leaving me. I went to the job in a daze. Always I had insisted that my men use new lumber. I didn’t even know they had found that old scaffolding until I heard the horrible sound of splintering wood.

“Clarice killed those men. From a thousand miles away she killed them with a telegram. And she killed me, too.”

He began to cry. I fled from the bar booth. I went back to my office and sat a long while, trying to make up my mind about Clarice’s case.

A man in whose custody is placed the lives of others should not attempt to blame his marital troubles for his own carelessness with lives. Peter Hanaford, shedding tears of pity over himself, had earned my disgust. But so had Clarice.

I phoned her and told her that I could not take her case. Divorce, I explained, was out of my line. She pleaded, teased and exerted all her wiles during the next several days to get me to change my mind. For once I could refuse her. The memory of Peter’s face was enough.

Clarice used Sam Carter, a divorce lawyer credited with being able to get anybody a divorce, but Sam had piled up on this one. It wasn’t that poor Peter, with his idleness and drunkenness, hadn’t provided her with adequate grounds for divorce, but in our state, if both parties have grounds, neither can get a divorce. Leo Tracey was just one of the reasons why Clarice couldn’t get hers.

Now Clarice was back, telling me Peter was threatening her.

“What do you expect me to do about it?” I asked Clarice.

She exhaled a stream of blue-gray smoke. “Get me a divorce, George. Then I can have Peter taken in for annoying me. So long as he’s my husband, I can’t even call a cop. It’s a hell of a situation.”

I almost reminded her that she had created it. Instead I said: “No. Clarice. Sam Carter’s the best divorce lawyer in the business, and I couldn’t succeed where he failed. Besides, Peter is harmless. He wouldn’t try to kill you or Martin Wainwright in a million years.”

“No? You didn’t hear him last night! Martin and I were coming out of the Flamingo Club. And Martin was scared to death. I tried to tell him what you’re telling me now, but he’d seen the look in Peter’s eye. It was a look different from any I had ever seen before.”

“He was probably drunker than he ever was before.”

Clarice shook her perfectly molded head. “You’re wrong, George. What really scared me was that Peter was cold sober.”

“But he was angry. He’s not the killer type.”

“No? Weren’t you quoted in the papers not so long ago as saying that there is no such thing as the killer type, that even the mildest, meekest man can be provoked into murder?”

“That’s right. So why don’t you stop provoking Paul into murder? Tell Martin Wainright to go on his way”

Clarice gave me a wry smile. “What do you expect me to do? Sit at home and twiddle my thumbs? I rate a good time, and I’m going to have it.” She moved very close. “Please, George — help me get that divorce.”

She was perfectly sincere in at least one thing — she thought I could get the divorce she wanted. I shook my head.

“I’m a jury lawyer. I couldn’t fool a judge about your past. Nobody could do that.”

She slapped me before I even knew that was her purpose in rising from her chair. She slapped me with her right hand, which held her cigarette, and its burning core struck my face and fell to my rug. I stepped on the butt and ground my foot on it.

“You’d better go, Clarice.”

“I’m sorry, George. You’re so very right. I’ve a past. A honey of a past. But I could change if someone gave me a chance. You’re that someone, George. Help me. Please help me.”

“No.”

She probed me with eyes intelligent enough to see that for all my weakness. I meant my refusal. She shrugged.

“Well, at least you can take me home. I hate to be out alone this late. It’s a quarter after eleven.”

I knew it would be dangerous to drive her home. But I said:

“All right. Come with me, and I’ll get my car.”

My car was in the garage, and we went out through the kitchen. I live alone in a semi-country place, keeping no servants save a couple who live off the premises. I was beginning to wish my home was even more unaccessible.

“It’s nice of you to do this for me.”

Clarice was snuggling close as I turned into the road to Middle City. I liked the warmth of her, the engulfing fragrance of her perfume. My dash light illuminated her carefully revealed knees. She was not giving up. She wanted that divorce. I tried to guess how long she would tolerate me after I had got it for her.

Her head was on my shoulder by the time we reached the Belmont Arms. I opened the door for her.

“You must come up and let me make you a drink.”

“It’s really too late for that. Thanks, anyway.”

“No. I mean it.” She stepped quickly from the car and was in my arms, her lips pressed against mine before I knew it.

I don’t know how long we stood there Then I noticed a movement in the shadows. I thrust Clarice away.

“I think Peter has been watching us.”

“So what? All the more reason for the privacy of my apartment.”

It wasn’t subtle, this attempt to compromise me in Peter’s eyes and put an end to any argument I might have that Peter was a friend of mine. I knew the game, but that long kiss had done its work. The promise of those lips again dissipated all discretion at my command.

There was no one in the apartment-house foyer when we entered. After an early evening hour, only one of the pair of elevators was in use, and it was an automatic. Clarice, lived at the top and tenth floor. Inside the car I pressed the button, the door closed, and we rose smoothly. At the tenth floor we walked to No. 10-D. Clarice found her key in her purse, and I unlocked the door.

Inside the vestibule she turned suddenly, and again she was in my arms. Finally she pulled away and said:

“Let me fix my face. Get yourself a drink and make me a scotch and soda.”

She walked to her bedroom door and closed it after her I went into the living room, found a floorlamp and switched on its light. Then I forgot all about mixing drinks.

A man lay sprawled on the floor, his face staring at the ceiling. The eyes were sightless. The red smear on the white dress shirt front left no doubt that a bullet had torn through the heart of Martin Wainright.

I hadn’t thought of Jackie Wainright for a long while before tonight. Clarice, mentioning her father, had made me think of her, and my thought had not been sympathetic. Jackie looked after herself. But this thing, the murder of her father, would be a haymaker.

I crossed into the vestibule, found the phone and dialed police headquarters. I told the desk sergeant who I was, who the dead man was and where to find him.

“If your boys don’t use a siren they may pick up someone loitering outside. From the way the blood looks, I think this must have happened only a few minutes ago.”

I hung up and went to Clarice’s door. I rapped.

“Yes? What is it you want, George?”

“I want to talk to you. Now.”

“But I’m... oh, well, wait a moment.” Five seconds might have elapsed when Clarice opened the door. She eyed me suspiciously.

“What are you up, to, George? Why, you haven’t even fixed me a drink!”

“No, I haven’t.” I walked into the bedroom, closed the door and faced her. “Were you expecting Martin Wainright tonight?”

“Martin? Why, of course not.” A little look of hysteria came into her eyes. “Don’t tell me he’s shown up now!”

“I won’t. But he was here. You’re sure he wasn’t expected?”

“Sure, I’m sure! But how do you know he was here?”

“Because his remains lie on your living room rug. He’s been shot through the heart.”

Chapter Two No Alibi Ike

Clarice seemed about to fall. I took her by her arms and guided her to a chair. “Peter!” She gasped. A convulsion went through her body. “I hope they burn him! I hope he sizzles in the chair! This finishes me in this town! Oh, George, if only you had listened and handled my case for me when I asked for you. Oh, George, what am I going to do?” A thought struck her. “Why, they may even accuse me of killing the old fool! George, you won’t let them!”

“They won’t accuse you, Clarice. My guess is that Wainright was murdered within the past twenty minutes. The blood on his shirt front has clotted but not thickened. I’m your alibi, Clarice.”

Her eyes, moist from the tears of hysteria, looked up into mine. Her hands reached my face and pulled it down to her own. Her kiss was apparently meant to endure forever. Suddenly she drew back and said:

“Shouldn’t we call the police? Right away?”

“I already have.”

The radio cruiser crew got there first. Then came a captain of detectives named Jim Crawford, whose manner was testy because I had once beat a second-degree case he’d thought he had all wrapped up. I told him the story as the M.E.’s assistant went to work on the body. By the time I had finished the assistant had confirmed my surmise as to the time of Wainright death. It had probably taken place at about eleven-fifteen, the very time when Clarice and I had driven from my place. That made it about twenty minutes before our arrival at the Belmont Arms.

“Somebody must have heard the shot,” I told Crawford.

He frowned. “I’ve got guys checking on that. What I want is a statement from this Hanaford dame. Where is she?”

“In her bedroom. I can tell you what her statement will be. She didn’t know Wainright was coming here tonight.”

“How did he get in?”

“Maybe the contents of his pockets will show you.”

The M.E.’s assistant turned over a key-case, and Crawford found the key to Clarice’s apartment on the second try. At that moment a plainclothes-man came up with a report that two tenants on the same floor had heard a shot at about eleven-fifteen but had thought they had just been imagining things.

“That puts the Hanaford dame in the clear,” Crawford conceded. “But still I want to hear her story.”

I went to Clarice’s door again and told her to come out. She had changed into a conservative suit. She remained in the vestibule, averting her eyes from the living room entrance as she told her story.

“It was my husband,” she ended it calmly. “He threatened to do this. That’s why I went to see George tonight. But George thought it was only a threat. Now he knows. I may be the next victim if you don’t do something fast.”

Crawford was studying her. I asked him: “Your boys didn’t pick up anyone downstairs?”

“No. Who else saw the guy you think you saw?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody saw you come in?”

“No.”

“Nobody saw you leave your place at eleven-fifteen?”

“No.”

Crawford gave me a long, sardonic look.

I said: “Listen, Crawford, if you think what I think you’re thinking, you’re a fool. Why would I kill Martin Wainright? Do you think I’m crazy?”

“No, but I think you’re plenty interested in this da — Mrs. Hanaford. You could be giving her an out. There’s nobody but your word and hers that she was with you.”

I eyed him without making only comment.

Clarice was looking worried. “Why don’t you pick up my husband?” she demanded of Crawford. “He did it. I know he did it!” A thought occurred to her. “There was a taxicab driver who heard him make threats. Also I think the doorman at the Flamingo must have heard him. He threatened to kill us both if Martin ever came here. He’d have killed me, too, if I had been at home!”

“We’ll take care of your husband,” said Crawford. “Suppose you tell us how you got out to George Rand’s place tonight.”

“I took a cab, of course.”

“What company?”

“It was... well, I don’t remember. But I’m sure the driver would remember me. I tipped him all the change out of a five-dollar bill.”

Crawford was taking notes on her statement.

“If you’re through,” I said, “I’ll take Mrs. Hanaford downtown to a hotel. She won’t want to remain here tonight.”

Crawford said he was through for the moment. I took Clarice downtown and checked her in at the Mayfair. She wanted to talk to me; I sent her alone to her room. I had got involved enough for one night riding elevators with that girl.

I drove slowly back to my place. The truth was that I was doing some fast thinking along with the slow driving. Jim Crawford had me worried. My objective guard had been lowered for a while; it hadn’t occurred to me that my alibi for Clarice would be questioned. A lawyer can never view a situation as an interested party with the same perspective available to him as a professional consultant.

Too many people in Middle City knew I had a motive for lying for Clarice. Those first few weeks of our association a couple of years back had been very public indeed. I’d picked up Clarice at a cocktail lounge; she had worn no ring, given no hint of her marriage to Peter.

Then Peter had come back from an elevator installation job, and Clarice had calmly announced his arrival in town with the comment: “Of course you’ll be too sensible to let this make a difference. He’ll be sent away on a new job in a week or so.”

Maybe Clarice would have been right if I hadn’t met Peter and decided I couldn’t wrong a guy that nice. But lots of people who knew the first chapter of the story had guessed that there were many more chapters, and they filled in details to suit themselves. Jim Crawford would find those people if he hadn’t already heard the gossip.

I parked my car in my garage, entered my house and snapped on the lights of my living room. Peter Hanaford sat comfortably in one of my chairs. He held a thirty-eight revolver in his hand with the greatest of carelessness.

“Hello, George, my friend.” The sarcasm was obvious. “That was a nice love scene you and my wife put on tonight.”

“I’m glad you liked it.”

“And I refused to believe all the yams people told me about you and Clarice!”

“And now you believe everything, don’t you?”

“Why not? It was clever of you letting the word get around that you refused to take her divorce case against me. Too bad you couldn’t have coached Sam Carter better.”

“You’re going off the deep end, Peter. Tonight was the first time I’ve seen Clarice in months. And believe me, it’s the first time I’ve kissed her since I met you.”

Peter sneered. He was cold sober. I recalled Clarice’s statement that he had been cold sober the night before, when he had made the scene in front of the Flamingo.

“Why did you come here, Peter? To use that gun?”

“No. That’s just protection. You’re a husky guy, George, and I’ve been on the booze for too long. I just want to have it out with you about Martin Wainright.”

I watched him, took a chair opposite him and lighted a cigarette. I didn’t taste it.

“What about Wainright?”

“That’s what I want to know. Last night I made a fool of myself in front of the Flamingo when I saw Clarice with him. I suppose Clarice told you.”

“She did.”

“Today Wainright sent a guy to see me. I didn’t even get his name. I take it the guy’s a strong-arm character from Wainright’s plywood plant. He came into a saloon and sat down on a bar stool beside me. Then he told me something.

“He told me that his boss had paid me plenty to keep out of his way and that if I ever made another scene or even spoke to Wainright in public again, I’d have my head beaten in. Then the guy left. Now, what do you think of that?”

“I think Mr. Wainright had some very definite ideas about you, Peter. What had he paid you for keeping out of his way?”

Peter’s already flushed face colored more deeply. If he had meant to use the gun in his hand, I think he would have used it then.

“You know me better than that, George.”

“I think I do. I’ll withdraw the question. It looks as if somebody has been doing business in your name, Peter.”

He nodded grimly. “Now, isn’t that funny? I had the same idea. Know who I thought of first?”

“Me, I suppose.”

“No, I thought of Sam Carter. That shyster would do anything. But tonight after I saw you and Clarice together, I changed my mind. How much did you shake Wainright down for, George?”

“Do you seriously think I have to make money by chiseling?”

“No, you don’t have to. But one thing I’ve noted about successful guys. The more dough they make, the more they got to have. And the less they worry about how they get it.”

“I won’t argue philosophy with you, Peter. But I can give you my word that I didn’t even know Wainright’s name was connected with Clarice’s till I heard some gossip two months ago. And I didn’t know anything definite until she came here tonight.”

Peter studied me for a full minute. Then: “I wouldn’t believe you on a stack of Bibles, George.”

“All right, don’t. So where do we stand?”

“Right here: If ever you shake Wainright down again in my name, I’ll use this gun. I mean it, George. I didn’t mean it when I threatened Wainright last night, but I mean it now.”

“Then you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Wainright is dead. Nobody can shake him down now.”

Peter Hanaford sat up straight. He whistled softly.

“So that’s why that cruiser stopped at the Belmont! I thought someone had reported me being there.”

“Somebody did. I’m glad you saw us, Peter. You can tell Captain Crawford all about it.”

A cagey look came into Peter’s eyes “So it’s a homicide case!” He leaned forward. “I’ve got it! Wainright’s body was in Clarice’s apartment when you walked in! Are the cops holding her?”

“No. Wainright was shot at eleven-fifteen. We were just leaving here then. The police know that. Clarice is in the clear.”

A sly smile came over Peter’s face. “Because of your alibi. There’s nobody but you to back her up on that. Nobody saw you with her but me!” He broke off into laughter.

“I thought you loved her, Peter.”

A hard glint came into his eyes. “Love her? Sure I love her! Can’t you appreciate the hell I’ve gone through, knowing she went with all sorts of men? But how many men can she kiss if she goes to a reformatory for life? Not many, huh?”

“She might get the chair, Peter.”

“Clarice? Not a chance! With you as her lawyer, she probably won’t even get life. But manslaughter would put her away long enough to spoil her looks when she gets out. No, I don’t see any men in her life — not when I tell the cops you and she were shaking Wainright down in my name. When I made a scene last night he began to think. He tumbled to the fact someone was working him. So he had to be stopped. Stopped dead. The cops will like that, George. They’ll love it!”

I stamped out my consumed cigarette. “You know it didn’t happen that way, Peter. You saw us come into the Belmont.”

A gleam of triumph shone in Peter’s eyes. “Sure! I know it — you know it and Clarice knows it. But the cops won’t. They’ll have just what I tell them. And it’ll be enough to nail Clarice — and maybe you!”

Chapter Three A Playgirl Buys In

Arguing was useless. Nothing would stop him from giving his story to the police. But I wasn’t going to let any alcoholic wreck walk into my home and hold me at the point of a gun.

Peter was disarmed by my apparent passiveness. He didn’t have a chance to lift the thirty-eight before I catapulted out of my chair. I knocked his gun hand aside with the heel of my own right hand, and the gun went thudding to my rug. I threw a left jab that missed his jaw but caught his neck and forced a scream. I had my right ready by then, and a hook ended the argument. Peter lay back unconscious in the chair. He’d keep quiet for a while.

I picked up the thirty-eight and thrust it under my belt at the left side, butt to the right. Then I grabbed Peter under the shoulders, lifted him up, stooped and pulled him over my shoulder. I carried him into my bedroom, flopped him on my bed. He lay perfectly still. I figured him to be good for a ten-hour sleep at least.

I went back into my living room, crossed it and reached the phone in the hall. I called the Mayfair and asked for Clarice Hanaford. There was a wait; then a clerk told me she had gone out.

“Did she say where?”

“No. She merely left her key.”

I hung up. I thumbed through my phone book, found the name I wanted and dialed the number opposite it. I waited a couple of minutes, but there was no answer.

But Leo Tracey could be too busy this night to answer telephone calls.

I decided to pay Leo Tracey a visit. I walked into the kitchen — and stopped short.

Jackie Wainright, ravishing in an evening wrap and cape, stood there in the rear doorway. She was aiming one of those twenty-five calibre automatics that a man can get only one finger around.

“Hello, Jackie. How did you get in?”

“The same way somebody else must have. Your back door has been broken open. Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

“Well, I’d have plenty of burglar insurance if I were you. This place is kind of isolated. Nobody would hear this gun go off if I pulled the trigger.”

“Now, wouldn’t that be a silly thing to do? Why don’t you put away the gadget and let me mix you a drink, Jackie?”

I had never addressed her by her first name, actually her nickname, before tonight. Lots of things were puzzling me. Why would a playgirl use a man’s back door to get at him with a gun when that man was almost a perfect stranger? But I thought I could fathom the gist of her motive.

“I’m sorry about your father, Jackie. I suppose you’ve come to see me about what’s happened.”

“That detective told me you were Clarice Hanaford’s alibi. I’m going to break her alibi, Rand. She murdered my father, and you’re going to admit you lied to the police.”

“Or your dainty little finger will squeeze that trigger?”

“That’s exactly what will happen.”

“Don’t be a fool, Jackie. A confession made under duress is never admissible in evidence. Besides, I’m tired of having guns pointed at me tonight. The last guy had a much bigger gun. Want to see it?”

I drew Peter Hanaford’s thirty-eight from my belt and pointed it at Jackie. I grinned. She looked as if she were about the most startled girl in the world.

“No, Jackie, I wouldn’t shoot you — any more than you would shoot me. You must have been drinking to have come here like this.”

“I haven’t had a thing. And what happened to Dad would have sobered me if I had been drinking! You’ve no right—”

She burst into tears. She put the little automatic into her handbag and got out a hanky. I watched her dry her eyes, replacing the thirty-eight under my belt.

“My alibi for Clarice Hanaford is on the level, Jackie. I may even have a line on who the killer is. I was setting out to check it when you charged in, hardware in hand.”

Jackie had dried her eyes. If she used mascara, it was the kind that didn’t run. The eyes regarded me thoughtfully but they didn’t completely trust me.

“If you’re on the level about Clarice, who do you think did do it? I’ve got to know!”

“It’s too early to say definitely. Just give me time. How about going home like a good little girl?”

“No, I’m going with you. I want to be in on this.”

I studied her. She meant it. I don’t think I had ever spoken a dozen words to her before tonight. I couldn’t figure her because I simply didn’t know her. Maybe she had begun to believe me; maybe she didn’t believe me at all and wanted to pin me down by going along. I decided to string her along.

“O.K. Come with me.”

She docilely followed. We got into my car, and I drove from my garage. Jackie’s car was parked on the side of the road, perhaps a hundred feet from my drive. I hoped she had lifted the keys; it was a chartreuse convertible, nice pickings for a hot-car hand.

When we hit the city limits I cut across to Lonsdale Avenue.

“Where are we going?” Jackie wanted to know.

“The Flamingo Club. The guy I want to see is usually hanging around there about this time.”

The time was getting on toward one Things should be popping at the Flamingo. The late crowd of drunks made the place at about this time. But I hadn’t the slightest idea that Clarice Hanaford would be there until I had checked my hat and escorted Jackie to the bar.

Jackie was getting a lot of critical stares. By this time the news of her father’s murder had been on the air, and here she was, trotting around at a night club. Jackie ignored the stares. I ignored them, too. I was concentrating on Clarice at one of the tables near the wall.

Sam Carter was with her. The divorce lawyer was in a tux; he wore one well. The gray at his temples and his fine-line mustache filled out the picture of a debonair bon vivant. He didn’t see me, and neither did Clarice.

They were talking earnestly. When the bartender had served Jackie and me drinks, she asked:

“Well? Did you come here to keep an appointment with Clarice?”

“Don’t be absurd. There’s a lawyer with her now.”

“A divorce lawyer. The Hanaford dish is too clever to trust Carter with a murder rap. Especially after he muffed her divorce case.”

I shrugged.

Jackie persisted: “Why did you come here?”

I ignored her, motioned to the bartender and asked: “When did Carter show tonight?”

The bartender looked as if he were too busy to remember such trifles. The three dollars left from a five-dollar bill lay on the bar. I thrust it toward him.

He perked up and answered: “Carter got here about ten minutes ago, just ahead of the dame with him. Anybody can tell you that. Everybody knows what happened tonight.”

The bartender finished with a disapproving glance at Jackie.

“Whatever it was,” said Jackie, “it must have been important for her to have come out at this hour of the night. Hut why didn’t she meet Carter where they wouldn’t be seen?”

“Because there’s no such place. The police have a tail on her. She may try to shake the tail here. If I have to leave suddenly, think nothing of it.”

But she was thinking plenty of it — that was plain from the suspicion in her eyes. She’d probably guessed that I meant to lose her from the start. I pretended to be interested in my drink as I faced the backbar and watched Clarice and the divorce lawyer in the mirror. I’d just finished the drink when Clarice arose and walked toward the powder room.

“Follow her there,” I told Jackie. “I think this is it. Is there another door to that powder room?”

“No, but I remember a low window. But you don’t seriously expect me to walk into the same room with that woman, do you?”

“You won’t have to make a scene. Hurry it up.”

She stubbornly shook her head. “Nothing doing. You’d be gone when I got back. I’m calling your bluff. If you have someone to see tonight, turn him up.”

That was that. I shook off the bartender in the matter of another round and kept an eye on the powder-room door. It opened many times in the next fifteen minutes, but Clarice didn’t come out. I looked reproachfully to Jackie.

“See? What did I tell you? She’s used that low window. Better take a look.”

Jackie was convinced, but not about me. She shook her head.

“If she’s gone, you know where she’s gone to, I’ll bet.”

I looked away from her as Sam Carter left his table and crossed to the checkroom. A bare-legged girl turned to procure his hat from another bare-legged girl behind the counter. I slipped off my bar stool and crossed to him.

“Well, hello, Sam. Fancy meeting you here!”

Sam pretended to look pleased and surprised. He was neither.

“A terrible thing about Clarice,” he said. “She’s a scared little girl. Thinks the cops will try to nail the Wainwright thing on her. Wanted me to take the case. I told her I was just a divorce lawyer. Why don’t you handle it?”

“And be the alibi witness at the same time?”

Sam shrugged. “You could hire a youngster to handle your own direct examination and conduct the rest of the case yourself. But I don’t seriously think she’ll ever be tried with you as the star witness. Jim Crawford knows better than to attempt anything like that.”

“Maybe. Where’d Clarice get to, Sam?”

He shrugged. “Where’d your own date get to?”

I turned. Jackie was gone from the bar. This was the time for me to make a fast exit. I did.

Jackie was sitting in my car when I reached it in the parking lot. Her voice filled with sarcasm, she asked: “What kept you?”

“All right, Jackie — have it your own way. I wanted to spare you something very unpleasant. I think I know who killed your father and why. The motive is something I’m certain about. Peter Hanaford told me tonight that your father sent an emissary to him today — I mean yesterday and warned him not to bother your father again. There was something said about a shakedown purportedly paid to Peter. Peter thought I had been using his name and collecting from your father. He was pretty nasty about it.

“I know it wasn’t me. My first choice was Leo Tracey, the gigolo Clarice used to be so thick with. He would be the kind to capitalize on a thing like that after Clarice had kicked him out to make room for your father. My second choice was Sam Carter, but now Sam’s my first. The fact that Clarice met him tonight may mean that she’s wise to him. Or it may mean I’m a bum guesser.”

“How are you going to find out which choice is right?”

“By going to Tracey’s apartment and beating the truth out of him. Still want to deal yourself in?”

“I’ll take five cards.”

“You asked for it.”

I drove from the lot and headed to the south side, where Leo Tracey lived in a swanky apartment house. Leo wouldn’t ordinarily be at home this time of the night, but I had a hunch Clarice might meet him there.

My hunch was wrong. The night man at Leo’s apartment house told me he had left at eight and hadn’t returned. I went back to my car.

Jackie was still being sarcastic. “So Tracey’s not home. What now?”

“I’ve a hunch I know where Tracey is. And Clarice, too.”

“You and your hunches. Where to this time?”

“Clarice’s apartment. Still want to ride with me?”

“I’m seeing you and raising you.”

It was two-fifteen when I pulled up in front of the Belmont. I half-expected to find cops staked out in front, but none were visible, nor were there any in the foyer. I escorted Jackie to the automatic elevator. I pressed the No. 10 button, and the car rose smoothly.

It stopped, the door did not open. I pressed the No. 10 button again, but nothing happened. I tried the Door Open button, and nothing happened either.

“Of all the times to get stuck in an elevator!” I said impatiently. “It happened to me once before in a little hotel out West. The same kind of elevator. That time I got out by doing something they said was impossible. I got the fingers of both hands in the crack between the door and the frame — like this. Then I pulled — like this.”

I grunted and tugged at the door with all my might. It had taken a lot of pulling that time out West — plus the anger of being locked in a car for a solid hour. That time I had barely managed to open the door. This time I couldn’t budge it. I realized suddenly that we were moving downward. My back had been to the push button and to Jackie. I turned.

“Did you push the down button?”

“I didn’t push any button! We just started down, that’s all!”

Chapter Four Express to Oblivion

Jackie was slightly pale. I felt cold sweat pour down my spine. Of course someone on some other floor could be summoning the car. But it was odd that it had stuck.

I pushed the fifth-floor button. I knew almost at once that we had gone past the fifth floor. Suddenly the ear stopped with a terrific jar. Rather, it bounced a couple of times before it came to a complete stop.

I had my arms around Jackie. She looked up at me with frightened eyes.

“What happened?”

I was afraid to tell her what I thought. I was afraid to think it. Abruptly we started upward.

“Here we go again!” I laughed. “These fancy elevators play tricks with you.”

I wasn’t fooling her. I wasn’t fooling myself. This car was no longer automatically operated. It was manually operated — from the control tower on the roof of the apartment house.

Peter Hanaford was up there. Peter Hanaford, the former elevator installation superintendent, who knew all there was to know about the operation of modern elevators. He could do anything with this car that he wanted to do.

I thought I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to tease us a while. He would play with us as a cat plays with a mouse. Then he would kill us. He would cause the car to drop ten floors to the basement below where even those bumpers couldn’t guarantee hope.

I knew why Peter was plotting to do this thing, why he was teasing us now. He had watched Jackie and me enter from a window in the elevator tower ten stories above. In the dim light in front of the Belmont, Jackie’s red hair had looked a smoky black. Peter had taken for granted that she was Clarice. He had recognized me, of course, and drawn the obvious conclusion that I was with his wife.

The elevator stopped. In a moment it would descend to the well. It was too bad for Jackie, too bad that her red hair looked black from a distance in dim light...

I had certainly underestimated Peter’s capacity for recovery. I had made every mistake possible this night. Plague on my hunches after this — if there ever were any afterwards.

The elevator plummeted downward at a rate so fast that it seemed the floor would give way in advance of our feet. Instinctively Jackie and I clutched each other. Her face was bloodless, but the look in her eyes was game.

The crash came violently. Both of us were hurled to the floor, torn from each other’s grasp. Jackie pulled her dress over nyloned legs, peered up solemnly.

“It isn’t any accident, is it? Someone is doing this.”

“Yes, Jackie. Someone is. Peter Hanaford. He mistook you for Clarice. He’s insanely jealous — and trying to kill us both.”

“And he will, won’t he?”

“I don’t think so. These elevators are equipped with bumpers. Remember the girl who fell eighty floors in an elevator when a crashing plane cut all the cables in the Empire State Building? The bumpers saved her.”

Jackie slowly turned and looked at the center of the car floor.

“They didn’t help this time. Look.”

I looked. My blood seemed to turn into ice-water as I saw the bulge in the floor. Then I remembered that we had not bounced this last time. We had simply crashed, then eased upward a foot or so.

“What does it mean?”

I avoided her eyes. I hated to tell her. But she must know.

“It means, Jackie, that Peter Hansford thought of the bumpers. He’s put something in the elevator well for us to strike. The first time we didn’t descend fast enough to reach it, and the bumpers bounced us back. This time we hit it, and the bumpers could only ease us back into position at their top.”

Jackie crouched closer now. “Can he take us up and try again?”

“I think so. We didn’t fall that time — we merely descended rapidly. He is only teasing us now.”

“Can... can he make us fall?”

“I’m afraid so, Jackie.”

“But... but aren’t these things made so they can’t fall? Haven’t they safety devices?”

“Sure. But if the cables that operate them are cut, there’s nothing to stop our fall.”

It was horrible to have to tell her these things. But I knew them to be true. Peter had once showed me how he could make a supposedly fool-proof automatic elevator move like a puppet up and down its shaft. I could visualize him now, aloft in the tower, his features distorted into perverted craftiness, toying with us as a prelude to our doom.

The car was lifted with a suddenness and acceleration almost as rapids as that of our fall. At the top floor it stopped so abruptly that we were all but thrown into the air. Without really being aware of it now, we were clutching each other tightly — so tightly that the barrel of the thirty-eight under my belt was jabbing into my side.

The pain made me aware of its existence. I thrust Jackie away, rose to my feet and drew out the gun. I motioned Jackie to get her legs out of the way, then aimed at the floor and fired. The roar of the gun was deafening in the confined space. Jackie looked at me as if I had gone out of my mind.

“Why did you do that? That lunatic’s above us! Why don’t you shoot up at him?”

“I couldn’t hit him from here. If I shoot down through the shaft, maybe someone will hear it, and call the police.”

I fired again three times. Certainly that blast should wake every occupant of the building. I decided to fire once more, then save the last round just in case. I fired the shot, making the fifth bullet hole in the floor. A worry beset me; I broke out the cylinder and saw that my worry had cause. I threw the gun to the floor.

Too late I remembered that many people load five rounds into a revolver, keeping the sixth chamber open for holding the hammer down. There was no last cartridge to save.

I remembered Jackie’s gun. Her handbag lay in a corner. I reached for it, opened it and drew out the little automatic while she watched with uncomprehending eyes.

I drew out the automatic’s magazine. It was empty. I drew back the slide. The chamber was empty. I tossed both articles in disgust into the corner with the handbag.

“You would carry an unloaded gun!”

“You don’t think I’d carry any other kind?”

I laughed without mirth.

Jackie got to her knees. “What’s he doing now? Why isn’t he sending us down again? What’s he going to do next?”

“I think those shots have changed his plans. I—” The whole car trembled and fell perhaps a fraction of an inch. I knew my suspicion was right. I said hollowly: “He’s cutting the cables. Jackie. It won’t be long now.”

I turned and ran the fingers of both hands into the door jamb. I tugged with all my might, but the door would not budge.

“Can I help?”

“No, Jackie. There isn’t room.”

I tugged so hard it seemed my fingers would break. The door would not move. Then Jackie did move. Jackie had retrieved the revolver that I had dropped. She crawled beneath me and began to attempt to force the muzzle into the door jamb. She wasn’t having any luck.

I reached down and gently took the gun from her hands. I forced it into the door and pried. I knew from past experience that it took only a fraction of an inch of movement to free the great spring pressure on the door. The car lurched as I finally got the barrel all the way into the jamb. This time I pried with all my strength. Once we sank below a certain level no human strength, aided even by lever, could free the door.

The door gave. Holding the gun as a lever with my left hand, I worked my free hand into the jamb. Jackie, too, got her small hands through. We both pulled; the door came back.

“Out, Jackie! Quick!”

I knelt and fairly dragged her by her armpits. Then we were on the firm, solid floor. We looked at each other in disbelief; then we both began to laugh a little hysterically.

Our laughter was abruptly broken off as the elevator car disappeared before our eyes. It simply dropped from sight, twisting, threshing steel cables screaming after it as the entire contents of the shaft fell to the well below.

The building shook as the mass crashed. Dust rose ten stories to issue from the yawning doorway. Then another door opened, and Peter Hanaford stepped from the stairway to the elevator tower. His eyes opened in incredulity as he saw me; then his right hand reached into his pocket and emerged with a revolver pointing right at us.

“So you got out! A lot of good that will do you and Clarice!”

I realized that I was hiding Jackie from his view. I thrust her vigorously around so that he could see her.

“You stupid fool! Look who you almost killed! I don’t even know where Clarice is. We were coming here to see her. I thought she might be keeping a date with Leo Tracey.”

Astonishment paralyzed Peter Hanaford. Perspiration beaded on his forehead as he realized the enormity of his mistake. Then he turned as down the corridor another door was opened.

It was Clarice’s door — she emerged with wide eyes. Doubtless she had returned a few seconds after Jackie and I had entered the building.

The too-handsome man who followed Clarice into the corridor was Leo Tracey. Both stopped short as they beheld, first us, then Peter Hanaford. They seemed fascinated by the revolver in his hand.

“What happened?” Clarice asked no one in particular. Then she saw the gaping doorway of the elevator shaft. She clutched Tracey for support, but the former bartender looked as if he needed support himself. He wasn’t bright enough to fathom the fate he had missed, but the revolver in Peter’s hand was something he could understand.

Peter lifted the revolver, aimed it at Tracey.

Tracey screamed: “Don’t... don’t... I’ll tell the cops everything! You can’t shoot an unarmed man! I threw away the gun I got Wainright with!”

He cracked completely when he realized what he had blurted out. “It... it was Clarice’s idea! She said she’d get rid of both you and Wainright tumbled she and I’d been shaking him down. If she framed you, she’d be a cinch to get a divorce even if you didn’t go to the chair. George Rand was to be her alibi — she went out to his house as bait while I did the job. Don’t shoot — I’ll tell the cops — I’ll—”

Peter Hanaford shot him through the heart. Clarice stared unbelievingly at his body at her feet.

Peter said: “Come here, darling. We’re going down.”

A gleam of triumph came into Clarice’s eyes. She moved confidently to her husband. Grinning, he seized her hand and led her down the corridor. He led her past the fire stairs.

Clarice cringed. “The stairs! They’re that way!”

Still grinning, Peter said: “But we’re not going down that way!”

I realized then what was happening. I tried to lunge toward Peter’s legs, but he side-stepped me, reached the open elevator doorway with his prisoner. Then Clarice knew.

“Peter! Have you gone crazy! If you throw me down there, they’ll burn you in the chair!”

Peter’s grin was like no human grin.

“No, Clarice, they won’t burn me. We’re going together — like those two poor devils in Denver, the guys we killed together.”

Clarice tried to break away, and I tried to reach Peter again, but the struggle was over in seconds. Both bodies went together. Clarice’s shrill scream endured almost interminably as the pair dropped in space. Then the scream ended...

I helped Jackie to her feet. Without pausing to explain to the curious occupants of the corridor, I led Jackie to the stair door, and we walked down the nine flights to the ground.

All the way down neither of us had a word to say. Words weren’t necessary. We had been through a hell of a lot together, Jackie and I.