Dead Men’s Letters

The Cat-Woman

Big Bill Ryan slid his huge bulk into the vacant chair opposite my own and began toying with the heavy watch chain which stretched across the broad expanse of his vest.

“Well,” I asked, showing only mild annoyance, for Big Ryan had the reputation of never wasting time, his own or anyone else’s.

“Ed, I hear you’ve gone broke. I’ve got a job for you.”

He spoke in his habitual, thin, reedy voice. In spite of his bulk his mouth was narrow and his tone shrill. However, I fancied I could detect a quiver of excitement underlying his words, and I became cold. News travels fast in the underworld. He knew of my financial setback as soon as I did, almost. My brokers had learned my identity — that I was a crook, and they had merely appropriated my funds. They were reputable business men. I was a crook. If I made complaint the courts would laugh at me. I’ve had similar experiences before. No matter how honest a man may appear he’ll always steal from a crook — not from any ethical reasons, but because he feels he can get away with it.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked Ryan, not affirming or denying the rumor concerning my financial affairs.

His pudgy fingers seemed to be fairly alive as he twisted and untwisted the massive gold chain.

“It’s just a message,” he said, at length, and handed me a folded slip of paper.

I looked it over. It was a high class of stationery, delicately perfumed, bearing a few words in feminine handwriting which was as perfect and characterless as copper plate.

I scowled over at Ryan and shook my head. “I’ve walked into all the traps I intend to, Ryan.”

His little, pig eyes blinked rapidly and his fingers jammed his watch chain into a hard knot.

“The message is on the square, Ed. I can vouch for that. What the job will be that opens up I can’t tell. You’ll have to take the responsibility of that; but there won’t be any police trap in that apartment.”

I looked at the note again. The ink was dark. Evidently the words had been written some little time ago. The message did not purport to be to anyone in particular. Big Ryan was a notorious fence, a go-between of crooks. Apparently he had been given the note with the understanding that he was to pick out the one to whom it was to be delivered. The note would clear his skirts, yet he must be in on the game. He’d have to get in touch with the writer after he made a delivery of the note so that the time of the appointment would be known.

I reached a decision on impulse, and determined to put Ryan to the test. “All right, I’ll be there.”

I could see a look of intense relief come over his fat face. He couldn’t keep back the words. “Bully for you, Ed Jenkins!” he shrilled. “After I heard you were broke I thought I might get you. You’re the one man who could do it. Remember, two hours from now,” and, with the words, he pulled out his turnip watch and carefully checked the time. Then he heaved up from the chair and waddled toward the back of the restaurant.

I smiled to myself. He was going to telephone “H. M. H.” and I filed that fact away for future reference.

Two hours later I stepped from the elevator on the sixth floor of the Reedar Arms Apartments, took my bearings and walked directly to the door of 624. I didn’t pause to knock but threw the door open. However, I didn’t walk right in, but stepped back into the hallway.

“Come in, Mr. Jenkins,” said a woman’s voice.

The odor of incense swirled out into the hall, and I could see the apartment was in half-light, a pink light which came through a rose-colored shade. Ordinarily I trust the word of no man, but I was in desperate need of cash, and Big Bill Ryan had a reputation of being one who could be trusted. I took a deep breath and walked into the apartment, closing the door after me.

She was sitting back in an armchair beneath a rose-shaded reading lamp, her bare arm stretched out with the elbow resting on a dark table, the delicate, tapering fingers holding a long, ivory cigarette holder in which burned a half-consumed cigarette. Her slippered feet were placed on a stool and the light glinted from a well-proportioned stretch of silk stocking. It was an artistic job, and the effect was pleasing. I have an eye for such things, and I stood there for a moment taking in the scene, appreciating it. And then I caught the gaze of her eyes.

Cat eyes she had; eyes that seemed to dilate and contract, green eyes that were almost luminous there in the half-light.

I glanced around the apartment, those luminous, green eyes studying me as I studied the surroundings. There was nothing at all in the apartment to suggest the personality of such a woman. Everything about the place was suggestive merely of an average furnished apartment. At the end of the room, near the door of a closet, I saw a suitcase. It merely confirmed my previous suspicion. The woman had only been in that apartment for a few minutes. She rented the place merely as a meeting ground for the crook she had selected to do her bidding. When Big Bill Ryan had picked a man for her, he had telephoned her and she had packed her negligee in the suitcase and rushed to the apartment.

She gave a little start and followed my gaze, then her skin crinkled as her lips smiled. That smile told me much. The skin seemed hard as parchment. She was no spring chicken, as I had suspected from the first.

The cat-woman shrugged her shoulders, reached in a little handbag and took out a blue-steel automatic which she placed on the table. Then she hesitated, took another great drag at the cigarette and narrowed her eyes at me.

“It is no matter, Mr. Jenkins. I assure you that my desire to conceal my identity, to make it appear that this was my real address, was to protect myself only in case I did not come to terms with the man Ryan sent. We had hardly expected to be able to interest a man of your ability in the affair, and, now that you are here, I shan’t let you go, so there won’t be any further need of the deception. I will even tell you who I am and where I really live — in a moment.”

I said nothing, but watched the automatic. Was it possible she knew so little about me that she fancied I could be forced to do something at the point of a pistol?

As though she again read my mind, she reached into the handbag and began taking out crisp bank notes. They were of five-hundred-dollar denomination, and there were twenty of them. These she placed on the table beside the gun.

“The gun is merely to safeguard the money,” she explained with another crinkling smile. “I wouldn’t want you to take the cash without accepting my proposition.”

I nodded. As far as possible I would let her do the talking.

“Mr. Jenkins, or Ed, as I shall call you now that we’re acquainted, you have the reputation of being the smoothest worker in the criminal game. You are known to the police as The Phantom Crook, and they hate, respect and fear you. Ordinarily you are a lone wolf, but because you are pressed for ready cash, I think I can interest you in something I have in mind.”

She paused and sized me up with her cat-green eyes. If she could read anything on my face she could have read the thoughts of a wooden Indian.

“There are ten thousand dollars,” she said, and there was a subtle, purring something about her voice. “That money will be yours when you leave this room if you agree to do something for me. Because I can trust you, I will pay you in advance.”

Again she stopped, and again I sat in immobile silence.

“I want you to break into a house — my own house — and steal a very valuable necklace. Will you do it?”

She waited for a reply.

“That is all you wish?” I asked, killing time, waiting.

She wrinkled her cheeks again.

“Oh yes, now that you speak of it, there is one other thing. I want you to kidnap my niece. I would prefer that you handle the entire matter in your own way, but I will give you certain suggestions, some few instructions.”

She paused waiting for a reply, and I let my eyes wander to the cash piled on the table. Very evidently she had intended that the actual cash should be a strong point in her argument and it would disappoint her if I didn’t look hungrily at it.

“How long shall I hold your niece captive?”

She watched me narrowly, her eyes suddenly grown hard.

“Ed Jenkins, once you have my niece you can do anything with her or about her that you want. You must keep her for two days. After that you may let her go or you may keep her.”

“That is all?” I asked.

“That is all,” she said, and I knew she lied, as she spoke.

I arose. “I am not interested, but it has been a pleasure to have met you. I appreciate artistry.”

Her face darkened, and the corners of her upper lip drew back, the feline snarl of a cat about to spring. I fancied her hand drifted toward the automatic.

“Wait,” she spat, “you don’t know all.”

I turned at that, and, by an effort, she controlled herself. Once more the purring note came into her voice.

“The necklace you will steal is my own. I am the legal guardian of my niece and I will give you my permission to kidnap her. What is more, I will allow you to see her first, to get her own permission. You will not be guilty of any crime whatever.”

I came back and sat down in the chair.

“I have the necklace and it is insured for fifty thousand dollars,” she said in a burst of candor. “I must have the money, simply must. To sell the necklace would be to cause comment of a nature I cannot explain. If I secrete the necklace I will be detected by the insurance company. If the notorious Ed Jenkins breaks into my house, steals my necklace, kidnaps my niece, the insurance company will never question but what the theft was genuine. You will, of course, not actually take the necklace. You will take a paste copy. The insurance company will pay me fifty thousand dollars, and, when occasion warrants, I can again produce the necklace.”

I nodded. “You intend then that I shall be identified as the thief, that the police shall set up a hue and cry for me?”

She smiled brightly. “Certainly. That’s why I want you to kidnap my niece. However, that should mean nothing to you. You have a reputation of being able to slip through the fingers of the police any time you wish.”

I sighed. I had enjoyed immunity from arrest in California because of a legal technicality; but I was broke and in need of cash. All honest channels of employment were closed to me, and, after all, the woman was right. I had been able to laugh at the police.

I reached forward and took the money, folded the crisp bills and put them in my pocket.

“All right. I will accept. Remember one thing, however, if you attempt to double-cross me, to play me false in any way, I will keep the money and also get revenge. Whatever your game is you must keep all the cards on the table as far as my own connection with it is concerned. Otherwise…?”

I paused significantly.

“Otherwise?” she echoed, and there was a taunt in her voice.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Otherwise you will be sorry. Others have thought they could use Ed Jenkins for a cat’s-paw, could double-cross him. They never got away with it.”

She smiled brightly. “I would hardly give you ten thousand dollars in cash unless I trusted you, Ed. Now that we’ve got the preliminaries over with we may as well get to work and remove the stage setting.”

With that she arose, stretched with one of those toe stretching extensions of muscles which reminded me of a cat arising from a warm sofa, slipped out of the negligee and approached the suitcase. From the suitcase she took a tailored suit and slipped into it in the twinkling of an eye. She threw the negligee into the suitcase, took a hat from the closet, reached up and switched out the light.

“All right, Ed. We’re ready to go.”

She had her own machine in a nearby garage, a long, low roadster of the type which is purchased by those who demand performance and care nothing for expense of operation. I slipped into the seat and watched her dart through the traffic. She had skill, this cat-woman, but there was a ruthlessness about her driving. Twice, pedestrians barely managed to elude the nickeled bumpers. On neither occasion did she so much as glance backward to make sure she had not given them a glancing blow in passing.

At length we slowed up before an impressive house in the exclusive residential district west of Lakeside. With a quick wriggle she slipped out from behind the steering wheel, vaulted lightly to the pavement and extended her long, tapering fingers to me. “Come on, Ed. Here’s where we get out.”

I grinned as she held the door open. Whatever her age she was in perfect condition, splendidly formed, quick as a flash of light, and she almost gave the impression of assisting me from the car.

I was shown into a drawing-room and told to wait.

While the cat-woman was gone I looked about me, got the lay of the land, and noticed the unique furnishings of the room. Everywhere were evidences of the striking personality of the woman. A tiger rug was on the floor, a leopard skin on the davenport. A huge painted picture hung over the fireplace, a picture of a cat’s head, the eyes seeming to have just a touch of luminous paint in them. In the semi-darkness of the nook the cat’s eyes blazed forth and dominated the entire room. It was impossible to keep the eyes away from that weird picture; those steady, staring eyes drew my gaze time after time.

At length there was the rustle of skirts and I rose.

The cat-woman stood in the doorway. On her arm was a blonde girl attired in flapper style, painted and powdered, and, seemingly, a trifle dazed.

“My niece, Jean Ellery, Ed. Jean, may I present Mr. Ed Jenkins. You folks are destined to see a good deal of each other so you’d better get acquainted.”

I bowed and advanced. The girl extended her hand, a limp, moist morsel of flesh. I took it and darted a glance at the cat-woman. She was standing tense, poised, her lips slightly parted, her eyes fixed upon the girl, watching her every move.

“Hullo, Ed, Mr. Jenkins. I understand you’re goin’ to kidnap me. Are you a cave-man or do you kidnap ’em gently?”

There was a singsong expression about her voice, the tone a child uses in reciting a piece of poetry the import of which has never penetrated to the brain.

“So you want to be kidnapped, do you, Jean?”

“Uh, huh.”

“Aren’t you afraid you may never get back?”

“I don’t care if I never come back. Life here is the bunk. I want to get out where there’s somethin’ doin’, some place where I can see life. Action, that’s what I’m lookin’ for.”

With the words she turned her head and let her vacant, blue eyes wander to the cat-woman. Having spoken her little piece, she wanted to see what mark the teacher gave her. The cat-woman flashed a glance of approval, and the doll-faced blonde smiled up at me.

“All right, Jean,” she said. “You run along. Mr. Jenkins and I have some things to discuss.”

The blonde turned and walked from the room, flashing me what was meant to be a roguish glance from over her shoulder. The cat-woman curled up in a chair, rested her head on her cupped hands, and looked at me. There in the half-light her eyes seemed as luminous as those of the cat in the painting over the fireplace.

“Tomorrow at ten will be about right, Ed. Now, here are some of the things you must know. This house really belongs to Arthur C. Holton, the big oil man, you know. I have been with him for several years as private secretary and general house manager. Tomorrow night our engagement is to be announced and he is going to present me with the famous tear-drop necklace as an engagement present. I will manage everything so that the presentation takes place at about nine-thirty. Just before ten I will place the necklace on my niece to let her wear the diamonds for a few minutes, and she will leave the room for a moment, still wearing the diamonds.

“Really, I’ll slip the genuine necklace in my dress and put an imitation around my niece’s neck. She will leave the room and an assistant will bind and gag her and place her in a speedy roadster which I have purchased for you and is to be waiting outside. Then you must show your face. It won’t look like a kidnapping and a theft unless I have some well-known crook show himself for a moment at the door.

“You can pretend that you have been double-crossed in some business deal by Mr. Holton. You suddenly jump in the doorway and level a gun at the guests. Then you can tell them that this is merely the first move in your revenge, that you will make Mr. Holton regret the time he double-crossed you. Make a short speech and then run for the machine. I have a little cottage rented down on the seashore, and I have had Jean spend several days there already, under another name, of course, and you can go there as Jean’s husband, one who has just returned from a trip East. You will be perfectly safe from detection because all the neighbors know Jean as Mrs. Compton. You will pose as Mr. Compton and adopt any disguise you wish. But, remember; you must not stop and open the luggage compartment until you reach the cottage.

She spilled all that and then suddenly contracted her eyes until the pupils seemed mere slits.

“That may sound unimportant to you, Ed, but you’ve got to play your part letter perfect. There is a lot that depends on your following instructions to the letter. In the meantime I will give you plenty of assurance that I will shoot square with you.”

I sat there, looking at this cat-woman curled up in the chair before the crackling fire, and had all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing right in her face. I’ve seen some wild, farfetched plots, but this had anything cheated I had ever heard of.

“Think how it will add to your reputation,” she went on, the singing, purring note in her soothing tone.

I yawned. “And you can double-cross me and have me arrested ten minutes later, or tip the police off to this little cottage you have reserved for me, and I’ll spend many, many years in jail while you laugh up your sleeve.”

She shook her head. “What earthly reason would I have for wanting to have you arrested? No, Ed, I’ve anticipated that. Tomorrow we go to a notary public and I’ll execute a written confession of my part in the affair. This confession will be placed in safekeeping where it will be delivered to the police in the event you are caught. That will show you how my interests are the same as your own, how I cannot afford to have you captured. This paper will contain my signed statement that I have authorized you to steal the jewels, and my niece will also execute a document stating the kidnapping is with her consent. Think it over, Ed. You will be protected, but I must have that insurance money, and have it in such a way that no one will suspect me.”

I sat with bowed head, thinking over the plan. I had already digested everything she had told me. What I was worrying about was what she hadn’t told me.

I arose and bowed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

She nodded, her green eyes never leaving my face.

“Meet me at the office of Harry Atmore, the lawyer at eleven and ask for Hattie M. Hare. He will see that you are protected in every way. I guarantee that you won’t have any cause for alarm about my double-crossing you.”

Apparently there was nothing more to be gained by talking with this woman and I left her.

I had ten thousand dollars in my pocket, a cold suspicion in my mind and a determination to find out just what the real game was. I didn’t know just how deep Big Ryan was mixed in this affair — not yet I didn’t, but I proposed to find out. In the meantime I wasn’t taking any chances, and I slipped into my apartment without any brass band to announce my presence.

At first I thought everything was in proper order, and then I noticed something was missing. It was a jade handled, Chinese dagger, one that I had purchased at a curio store not more than a month ago. What was more, the Chinaman who sold it to me had known who I was. That dagger could be identified by the police as readily as my signature or my fingerprints.

I sat down by the window in my easy chair and thought over the events of the evening. I couldn’t see the solution, not entirely, but I was willing to bet the cat-woman wouldn’t have slept easily if she had known how much I was able to put together. Right then I could have dropped the whole thing and been ten thousand dollars ahead; but there was big money in this game that was being played. I couldn’t forget how Big Bill Ryan had twisted and fumbled at his watch chain when he had delivered that note to me. He was a smooth fence, was Big Ryan, and he wouldn’t have let his fat fingers get so excited over a mere thirty or forty thousand dollar job. There was a million in this thing or I missed my guess.

At last I figured I’d checked things out as far as I could with the information I had, and rolled in.

At eleven on the dot I presented myself at the office of Harry Atmore. Atmore was a shyster criminal lawyer who charged big fees, knew when and where to bribe, and got results for his clients. I gave the stenographeer my name, told her that I had an appointment, and was shown into the private office of Henry Atmore, attorney-at-law.

Atmore sat at a desk, and his face was a study. He was trying to control his expression, but his face simply would twitch in spite of himself. He held forth a flabby hand, and I noticed that his palm was moist and that his hand trembled. To one side of the table sat the cat-woman and the blonde. Both of them smiled sweetly as I bowed.

Atmore got down to business at once. He passed over two documents for my inspection. One was a simple statement from Hattie M. Hare to the effect that I had been employed by her to steal the Holton, “tear-drop” necklace, and that we were jointly guilty of an attempt to defraud the insurance company. The other was a statement signed by Jean Ellery to the effect that I had arranged with her to kidnap her, but that she gave her consent to the kidnapping, and that it was being done at her request.

I noticed that the Hare statement said nothing about the kidnapping, and the other said nothing about the necklace. I filed those facts away for future reference.

“Now here’s what we’ll do, Jenkins,” Atmore said, his moist hand playing with the corners of some papers which lay on his desk, “we’ll have both of these statements placed in an envelope and deposited with a trust company to be held indefinitely, not to be opened, and not to be withdrawn. That will prevent any of the parties from withdrawing them, but if you should ever be arrested the district attorney, or the grand jury could, of course, subpoena the manager of the trust company and see what is in the envelope. The idea of these statements is not to give you immunity from prosecution, but to show you that Miss Hare is as deep in the mud as you are in the mire. She can’t afford to have you arrested or to even let you get caught. Of course, if you should get arrested on some other matter we’re relying on you to play the game. You’ve never been a squealer, and I feel my clients can trust you.”

I nodded casually. It was plain he was merely speaking a part. His plan had already been worked out.

“I have one suggestion,” I said.

He inclined his head. “Name it.”

“That you call in a notary public and have them acknowledge the confessions.”

The lawyer looked at his client. He was a beady-eyed, sallow-faced rat of a man. His great nose seemed to have drawn his entire face to a point, and his mouth and eyes were pinched accordingly. Also his lip had a tendency to draw back and show discolored, long teeth, protruding in front. He was like a rat, a hungry, cunning rat.

The cat-woman placed her ivory cigarette holder to her vivid lips, inhaled a great drag and then expelled two streams of white smoke from her dilated nostrils. She nodded at the lawyer, and, as she nodded, there was a hard gleam about her eyes.

“Very well,” was all she said, but the purring note had gone from her voice.

Atmore wiped the back of his hand across his perspiring forehead, called in a notary, and, on the strength of his introduction, had the two documents acknowledged. Then he slipped them in one of his envelopes, wrote “Perpetual Escrow” on the back, signed it, daubed sealing wax all over the flap, and motioned to me.

“You can come with me, Jenkins, and see that I put this in the Trust Company downstairs.”

I arose, accompanied the lawyer to the elevator and was whisked down to the office of the Trust Company. We said not a word on the trip. The lawyer walked to the desk of the vice-president, handed him the envelope, and told him what he wanted.

“Keep this envelope as a perpetual escrow. It can be opened by no living party except with an order of court. After ten years you may destroy it. Give this gentleman and myself a duplicate receipt.”

The vice-president looked dubiously at the envelope, weighed it in his hand, sighed, and placed his signature on the envelope, gave it a number with a numbering machine, dictated a duplicate receipt, which he also signed, and took the envelope to the vaults.

“That should satisfy you,” said Atmore, his beady eyes darting over me, the perspiration breaking out on his forehead. “That is all fair and above board.”

I nodded and started toward the door. I could see the relief peeping in the rat-like eyes of the lawyer.

At the door I stopped, turned, and clutched the lawyer by the arm. “Atmore, do you know what happens to people who try to double-cross me?”

He was seized with a fit of trembling, and he impatiently tried to break away.

“You have a reputation for being a square shooter, Jenkins, and for always getting the man who tries to double-cross you.”

I nodded.

There in the marble lobby of that trust company, with people all around us, with a special officer walking slowly back and forth, I handed it to this little shyster.

“All right. You’ve just tried to double-cross me. If you value your life hand me that envelope.”

He shivered again.

“W-w-w-what envelope?”

I gave him no answer, just kept my eyes boring into his, kept his trembling arm in my iron clutch, and kept my face thrust close to his.

He weakened fast. I could see his sallow skin whiten.

“Jenkins, I’m sorry. I told her we couldn’t get away with it. It was her idea, not mine.”

I still said nothing, but kept my eyes on his.

He reached in his pocket and took out the other envelope. My guess had been right. I knew his type. The rat-like cunning of the idea had unquestionably been his, but he didn’t have the necessary nerve to bluff it through. He had prepared two envelopes. One of them had been signed and sealed before my eyes, but in signing and sealing it he had followed the mental pattern of another envelope which had already been signed and sealed and left in his pocket, an envelope which contained nothing but blank sheets of paper. When he put the envelope with the signed confession into his coat pocket he had placed it back of the dummy envelope. The dummy envelope he had withdrawn and deposited in his “perpetual escrow.”

I took the envelope from him, broke the seals, and examined the documents. They were intact, the signed, acknowledged confessions.

I turned back to the shyster.

“Listen, Atmore. There is a big fee in this for you, a fee from the woman, perhaps from someone else. Go back and tell them that you have blundered, that I have obtained possession of the papers and they will expose you, fire you for a blunderer, make you the laughing stock of every criminal rendezvous in the city. If you keep quiet about this no one will ever know the difference. Speak and you ruin your reputation.”

I could see a look of relief flood his face, and I knew he would lie to the cat-woman about those papers.

“Tell Miss Hare I’ll be at the house at nine forty-five on the dot,” I said. “There’s no need of my seeing her again until then.”

With that I climbed into my roadster, drove to the beach and looked over the house the cat-woman had selected for me. She had given me the address as well as the key at our evening interview, just before I said good night. Of course, she expected me to look the place over.

It was a small bungalow, the garage opening on to the sidewalk beneath the first floor. I didn’t go in. Inquiry at a gasoline station showed that the neighbors believed Compton was a traveling salesman, away on a trip, but due to return. The blonde had established herself in the community. So much I found out, and so much the cat-woman had expected me to find out.

Then I started on a line she hadn’t anticipated.

First I rented a furnished apartment, taking the precaution first to slip on a disguise which had always worked well with me, a disguise which made me appear twenty years older.

Second, I went to the county clerk’s office, looked over the register of actions, and found a dozen in which the oil magnate had been a party. There were damage suits, quiet title actions, actions on oil leases, and on options. In all of these actions he had been represented by Morton, Huntley & Morton. I got the address of the lawyers from the records, put up a good stall with their telephone girl, and found myself closeted with old H. F. Morton, senior member of the firm.

He was a shaggy, grizzled, gray-eyed old campaigner and he had a habit of drumming his fingers on the desk in front of him. “What was it you wanted, Mr. Jenkins?”

I’d removed my disguise and given him my right name. He may or may not have known my original record. He didn’t mention it.

I shot it to him right between the eyes.

“If I were the lawyer representing Arthur C. Holton I wouldn’t let him marry Miss Hattie Hare.”

He never batted an eyelash. His face was as calm as a baby’s. His eyes didn’t even narrow, but there came a change in the tempo of his drumming on the desk.

“Why?” he asked.

His tone was mild, casual, but his fingers were going rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tummy-tum tummy-tum turn.

I shook my head. “I can’t tell you all of it, but she’s in touch with a shyster lawyer planning to cause trouble of some kind.”

“Ah, yes, Mr.-er-Jenkins. You are a friend of Mr. Holton?”

I nodded. “He doesn’t know it though.”

“Ah, yes,” rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; “what is it I can do for you in the matter?”

“Help me prevent the marriage.”

Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum.

“How?”

“Give me a little information as a starter. Mr. Holton has a great deal of property?”

At that his eyes did narrow. The drumming stopped.

“This is a law office. Not an information bureau.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Miss Hare will have her own personal attorney. If the marriage should go through and anything should happen to Mr. Holton another attorney would be in charge of the estate.”

He squirmed at that, and then recommenced his drumming.

“Nevertheless, I cannot divulge the confidential affairs of my client. This much is common knowledge. It is street talk, information available to anyone who will take the trouble to look for it. Mr. Holton is a man of great wealth. He owns much property, controls oil producing fields, business property, stocks, bonds. He was married and lost his wife when his child was born. The child was a boy and lived but a few minutes. Mr. Holton created a trust for that child, a trust which terminated with the premature death of the infant. Miss Hare has been connected with him as his secretary and general household executive for several years. Mr. Holton is a man of many enemies, strong character and few friends. He is hated by the working class, and is hated unjustly, yet he cares nothing for public opinion. He is noted as a collector of jewels and paintings. Of late he has been influenced in many respects by Miss Hare, and has grown very fond of her.

“How do you propose to prevent his marriage, and what do you know of Miss Hare?”

I shook my head.

“I won’t tell you a thing unless you promise to give me all the information I want, and keep me posted.”

His face darkened. “Such a proposition is unthinkable. It is an insult to a reputable attorney.”

I knew it, but I made the stall to keep him from finding out that I had all the information I wanted. I only wanted a general slant on Holton’s affairs, and, most of all, I wanted a chance to size up his attorney, to get acquainted with him so he would know me later.

“Stick an ad in the personal columns of the morning papers if you want to see me about anything,” I said as I made for the door.

He watched me meditatively. Until I had left the long, book-lined corridor, and emerged from the expensive suite of offices, I could still hear his fingers on the desk.

Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tummy-tum-tummy-tum-tum.

I went to a hotel, got a room and went to sleep. I was finished with my regular apartment. That was for the police.

At nine-forty-five I sneaked into the back door of Holton’s house, found one of the extra servants waiting for me, and was shown into a closet near the room where the banquet was taking place. The servant was a crook, but one I couldn’t place. I filed his map away for future reference, and he filed mine.

Ten minutes passed. I heard something that might or might not have been a muffled scream, shuffling footsteps going down the hall. Silence, the ringing of a bell.

I stepped to the door of the banquet room, and flung it wide. Standing there on the threshold I took in the scene of hectic gaiety. Holton and the cat-woman sat at the head of the table. Couples in various stages of intoxication were sprinkled about. Servants stood here and there, obsequious, attentive. A man sat slightly apart, a man who had his eyes riveted on the door of an ante-room. He was the detective from the insurance company.

For a minute I stood there, undiscovered.

The room was a clatter of conversation. The detective half arose, his eyes on the door of the ante-room. Holton saw me, stopped in the middle of a sentence, and looked me over.

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

I handed it out in bunches. “I’m Ed Jenkins, the phantom crook. I’ve got a part of what I want. I’ll come back later for the rest.”

The detective reached for his hip, and I slammed the door and raced down the corridor. Taking the front steps in a flying leap I jumped into the seat of the powerful speedster, noticed the roomy luggage compartment, the running engine, the low, speedy lines, slammed in the gear, slipped in the clutch, and skidded out of the drive as the detective started firing from the window.

I didn’t go direct to the beach house.

On a dark side-road I stopped the car, went back and opened up the luggage compartment and pulled out the bound and gagged girl. She was one I had never seen before, and she was mad. And she was the real Jean Ellery or else I was dumb.

I packed her around, parked her on the running board, took a seat beside her, left on the gag and the cords, and began to talk. Patiently, step by step, I went over the history of the whole case, telling her everything. When I had finished I cut the cords and removed the gag.

“Now either beat it, go ahead and scream, or ask questions, whichever you want,” I told her.

She gave a deep breath, licked her lips, wiped her face with a corner of her party gown, woefully inspected a runner in the expensive stockings, looked at the marks on her wrists where the ropes had bitten, smoothed out her garments and turned to me.

“I think you’re a liar,” she remarked casually.

I grinned.

That’s the way I like ’em. Here this jane had been grabbed, kidnapped, manhandled, jolted, forced to sit on the running board of a car and listen to her kidnapper talk a lot of stuff she naturally wouldn’t believe, and then was given her freedom. Most girls would have fainted. Nearly all of ’em would have screamed and ran when they got loose. Here was a jane who was as cool as a cucumber, who looked over the damage to her clothes, and then called me a liar.

She was a thin slip of a thing, twenty or so, big, hazel eyes, chestnut hair, slender figure, rosebud mouth, bobbed hair and as unattainable as a girl on a magazine cover.

“Read this,” I said, and slipped her the confession of the cat-woman.

She read it in the light of the dash lamp, puckered her forehead a bit, and then handed it back.

“So you are Ed Jenkins— Why should auntie have wanted me kidnapped?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s what I want to know. It’s the one point in the case that isn’t clear. Want to stick around while I find out?”

She thought things over for a minute.

“Am I free to go?”

I nodded.

“Guess I’ll stick around then,” she said as she climbed back into the car, snuggling down next to the driver’s seat. “Let’s go.”

I got in, started the engine, and we went.

A block from the beach house I slowed up.

“The house is ahead. Slip out as we go by this palm tree, hide in the shadows and watch what happens. I have an idea you’ll see some action.”

I slowed down and turned my face toward her, prepared to argue the thing out, but there was no need for argument. She was gathering her skirts about her. As I slowed down she jumped. I drove on to the house, swung the car so it faced the door of the garage and got out.

I had to walk in front of the headlights to fit the key to the door of the garage, and I was a bit nervous. There was an angle of this thing I couldn’t get, and it worried me. I thought something was due to happen. If there hadn’t been so much money involved I’d have skipped out. As it was, I was playing my cards trying to find out what was in the hand of the cat-woman.

I found out.

As though the swinging of the garage door had been a signal, two men jumped out from behind a rosebush and began firing at the luggage compartment of the car.

They had shotguns, repeaters, and they were shooting chilled buckshot at deadly range through the back of that car. Five times they shot, and then they vanished, running like mad.

Windows began to gleam with lights, a woman screamed, a man stuck his head out into the night. Around the corner there came the whine of a starting motor, the purr of an automobile engine, the staccato barks of an exhaust and an automobile whined off into the night.

I backed the speedster, turned it and went back down the street. At the palm tree where I’d left the flapper I slowed down, doubtfully, hardly expecting to see her again.

There was a flutter of white, a flash of slim legs, and there she was sitting on the seat beside me, her eyes wide, lips parted. “Did you get hurt?”

I shook my head and jerked my thumb back in the direction of the luggage compartment.

“Remember, I wasn’t to stop or open that compartment until I got to the beach house,” I said.

She looked back. The metal was riddled with holes, parts of the body had even been ripped into great, jagged tears.

“Your beloved auntie didn’t want you kidnapped. She wanted you murdered. Right now she figures that you’re dead, that I am gazing in shocked surprise at the dead body of a girl I’ve kidnapped, the police on my trail, the neighborhood aroused. Naturally she thinks I’ll have my hands full for a while, and that she won’t be bothered with me any more, either with me or with you.”

The girl nodded.

“I didn’t say so before, but I’ve been afraid of Aunt Hattie for a long time. It’s an awful thing to say about one’s own aunt, but she’s absolutely selfish, selfish and unscrupulous.”

I drove along in silence for a while.

“What are you going to do?” asked the kid.

“Ditch this car, get off the street, hide out for a few days, and find out what it’s all about. Your aunt tried to double-cross me on a deal where there’s something or other at stake. I intend to find out what. She and I will have our accounting later.”

She nodded, her chin on her fist, thinking.

“What are you going to do?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Heaven knows. If I go back I’ll probably be killed. Having gone this far, Aunt Hattie can’t afford to fail. She’ll have me killed if I show up. I guess I’ll have to hide out, too.”

“Hotel?” I asked.

“I could feel her eyes on my face, sizing me up, watching me like a hawk.

“I can’t get a room in a hotel at this hour of the night in a party dress.”

I nodded.

“Ed Jenkins, are you a gentleman?”

I shook my head. “Hell’s fire, no. I’m a crook.”

She looked at me and grinned. I could feel my mouth soften a bit.

“Ed, this is no time to stand on formalities. You know as well as I do that I’m in danger. My aunt believes me dead. If I can keep under cover, leaving her under that impression, I’ll stand a chance. I can’t hide out by myself. Either my aunt or the police would locate me in no time. You’re an experienced crook, you know all the dodges, and I think I can trust you. I’m coming with you.”

I turned the wheel of the car.

“All right,” I said. “It’s your best move, but I wanted you to suggest it. Take off those paste diamonds and leave ’em in the car. I’ve got to get rid of this car first, and then we’ll go to my hideout.”

An hour later I showed her into the apartment. I had run the car off the end of a pier. The watchman was asleep and the car had gurgled down into deep water as neatly as a duck. The watchman had heard the splash, but that’s all the good it did him.

The girl looked around the place.

“Neat and cozy,” she said. “I’m trusting you, Ed Jenkins. Good night.”

I grinned.

“Good night,” I said.

I slept late the next morning. I was tired. It was the girl who called me.

“Breakfast’s ready,” she said.

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes.

“Breakfast?”

She grinned.

“Yep. I slipped down to the store, bought some fruit and things, and brought you the morning papers.”

I laughed outright. Here I had kidnapped a girl and now she was cooking me breakfast. She laughed, too.

“You see, I’m about broke, and I can’t go around in a party dress. I’ve got to touch you for enough money to buy some clothes, and it’s always easier to get money out of a man when he’s well-fed. Aunt Hattie told me that.”

“You’ve got to be careful about showing yourself, too,” I warned her. “Some one is likely to recognize you.”

She nodded and handed me the morning paper.

All over the front page were smeared our pictures, hers and mine. Holton had offered a reward of twenty thousand dollars for my arrest. The insurance company had added another five.

Without that, I knew the police would be hot on the trail. Their reputation was at stake. They’d leave no stone unturned. Having the girl with me was my best bet. They’d be looking for me alone, or with a girl who was being held a prisoner. They’d hardly expect to find me in a downtown apartment with the girl cooking me breakfast.

I handed Jean a five-hundred-dollar bill.

“Go get yourself some clothes. Get quiet ones, but ones that are in style. I’m disguising myself as your father. You look young and chic, wear ’em short, and paint up a bit. Don’t wait, but get started as soon as we eat.”

She dropped a curtsey.

“You’re so good to me, Ed,” she said, but there was a wistful note in her voice, and she blinked her eyes rapidly. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, either,” she added. “You don’t have to put up with me, and you’re being a real gentleman…”

That was that.

I was a little nervous until the girl got back from her shopping. I was afraid some one would spot her. She bought a suit and changed into that right at the jump, then got the rest of her things. She put in the day with needle and thread, and I did some thinking, also I coached the girl as to her part. By late afternoon we were able to buy an automobile without having anything suggest that I was other than an elderly, fond parent and the girl a helter-skelter flapper.

“Tonight you get educated as a crook,” I told her.

“Jake with me, Ed,” she replied, flashing me a smile. Whatever her thoughts may have been she seemed to have determined to be a good sport, a regular pal, and never let me see her as other than cheerful.

We slid our new car around where we could watch Big Bill Ryan’s place. He ran a little cafe where crooks frequently hung out, and he couldn’t take a chance on my having a spotter in the place. One thing was certain. If he was really behind the play he intended to have me caught and executed for murder. He knew me too well to think he could play button, button, who’s got the button with me and get away with it.

We waited until eleven, parked in the car I’d purchased, watching the door of the cafe and Big Ryan’s car. It was crude but effective. Ryan and the cat-woman both thought I had been left with the murdered body of Jean Ellery in my car, a car which had to be got rid of, a body which had to be concealed, and with all the police in the state on my track. They hardly expected I’d put in the evening watching Big Ryan with the kid leaning on my shoulder.

At eleven Ryan started out, and his face was all smiles. He tried to avoid being followed, but the car I’d purchased had all sorts of speed, and I had no trouble in the traffic. After that I turned out the lights and tailed him into West Forty-ninth Street. I got the number of the house as he stopped, flashed past once to size it up and then kept moving.

“Here’s where you get a real thrill,” I told the girl as I headed the car back toward town. “I’ve a hunch Harry Atmore’s mixed up in this thing as a sort of cat’s-paw all around, and I want to see what’s in his office.”

We stopped a block away from Atmore’s office building. I was a fatherly-looking old bird with mutton chop whiskers and a cane.

“Ever done any burglarizing?” I asked as I clumped my way along the sidewalk.

She shook her head.

“Here’s where you begin,” I said, piloted her into the office building, avoided the elevator, and began the long, tedious climb.

Atmore’s lock was simple, any door lock is, for that matter. I had expected I’d have to go take a look through the files. It wasn’t necessary. From the odor of cigar smoke in the office there’d been a late conference there. I almost fancied I could smell the incenselike perfume of the cat-woman and the aroma of her cigarettes. Tobacco smoke is peculiar. I can tell just about how fresh it is when I smell a room that’s strong with it. This was a fresh odor. On the desk was a proof of loss of the necklace, and a memo to call a certain number. I looked up the number in the telephone book. It was the number of the insurance company. That’s how I found it, simply looked up the insurance companies in the classified list and ran down the numbers.

The insurance money would be paid in the morning.

That house on West Forty-ninth Street was mixed up in the thing somehow. It was a new lead, and I drove the kid back to the apartment and turned in. The situation wasn’t ripe as yet.

Next morning I heard her stirring around, getting breakfast. Of course it simplified matters to eat in the apartment; but if the girl was going to work on the case with me she shouldn’t do all the housework. I started to tell her so, rolled over, and grabbed another sleep. It was delicious lying there, stretching out in the warm bed, and hearing the cheery rattle of plates, knives and forks, cups and spoons. I had been a lone wolf so long, an outcast of society, that I thrilled with a delicious sense of intimacy at the idea of having Jean Ellery puttering around in my kitchen. Almost I felt like the father I posed as.

I got up, bathed, shaved, put on my disguise and walked out into the kitchen. The girl was gone. My breakfast was on the table, fruit, cream, toast in the toaster, coffee in the percolator, all ready to press a button and eat. The morning paper was even propped up by my plate.

I switched on the electricity, and wondered about the girl. Anxiously I listened for her step in the apartment. She was company, and I liked her. The kid didn’t say much, but she had a sense of humor, a ready dimple, a twinkle in her eyes, and was mighty easy to look at.

She came in as I was finishing my coffee.

“Hello, Ed. I’m the early bird this morning, and I’ve caught the worm. That house out on Forty-ninth Street is occupied by old Doctor Drake. He’s an old fellow who used to be in San Francisco, had a breakdown, retired, came here, lost his money, was poor as could be until three months ago, and then he suddenly blossomed out with ready money. He’s retiring, crabbed, irascible, keeps to himself, has no practice and few visitors.”

I looked her over, a little five-foot-three flapper, slim, active, graceful, but looking as though she had nothing under her chic hat except a hair bob.

“How did you know I wanted to find out about that bird; and how did you get the information?”

She ignored the first question, just passed it off with a wave of the hand.

“The information was easy. I grabbed some packages of face powder, went out in the neighborhood and posed as a demonstrator representing the factory, giving away free samples, and lecturing on the care of the complexion. I even know the neighborhood gossip, all the scandals, and the love affairs of everyone in the block. Give me some of that coffee, Ed. It smells good.”

I grinned proudly at her. The kid was there. It would have been a hard job for me to get that information. She used her noodle. A doctor, eh? Big Ryan had gone to see him when he knew he would have the insurance money. The aunt wanted the girl killed. The engagement had been announced. Then there was the matter of my jade-handled dagger. Those things all began to mill around in my mind. They didn’t fit together exactly, but they all pointed in one direction, and that direction made my eyes open a bit wider and my forehead pucker. The game was drawing to the point where I would get into action and see what could be done along the line of checkmating the cat-woman.

A thought flashed through my mind. “Say, Jean, it’s going to be a bit tough on you when it comes time to go back. What’ll you tell people, that you were kidnapped and held in a cave or some place? And they’ll have the police checking up on your story, you know?”

She laughed a bit and then her mouth tightened. “If you had been one of the soft-boiled kind that figured you should have married me or some such nonsense I wouldn’t have stayed. It was only because you took me in on terms of equality that I remained. You take care of your problems and I’ll take care of mine; and we’ll both have plenty.”

“That being the case, Jean,” I told her, “I’m going to stage a robbery and a burglary tonight. Are you coming?”

She grinned at me.

“Miss Jean Ellery announces that it gives her pleasure to accept the invitation of Ed Jenkins to a holdup and burglary. When do we start?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Some time after eight or nine. It depends. In the meantime we get some sleep. It’s going to be a big night.”

With that I devoted my attention to the paper. After all, the kid was right. I could mind my own business and she could mind hers. She knew what she was doing. Hang it, though, it felt nice to have a little home to settle back in, one where I could read the papers while the girl cleaned off the table, humming a little song the while. All the company I’d ever had before had been a dog, and he was in the hospital recovering from the effects of our last adventure. I was getting old, getting to the point where I wanted company, someone to talk to, to be with.

I shrugged my shoulders and got interested in what I was reading. The police were being panned right. My reputation of being a phantom crook was being rubbed in. Apparently I could disappear, taking an attractive girl and a valuable necklace with me, and the police were absolutely powerless.

Along about dark I parked my car out near Forty-ninth Street. I hadn’t much that was definite to go on, but I was playing a pretty good hunch. I knew Big Ryan’s car, and I knew the route he took in going to the house of Dr. Drake. I figured he’d got the insurance money some time during the day. Also I doped it out that the trips to the house of Dr. Drake were made after dark. It was pretty slim evidence to work out a plan of campaign on, but, on the other hand, I had nothing to lose.

We waited there two hours before we got action, and then it came, right according to schedule. Big Bill Ryan’s car came under the street light, slowed for the bad break that was in the gutter at that point, and then Big Ryan bent forward to shift gears as he pulled out of the hole. It was a bad spot in the road and Bill knew it was there. He’d driven over it just the same way the night I’d followed him.

When he straightened up from the gearshift he was looking down the business end of a wicked pistol. I don’t ordinarily carry ’em, preferring to use my wits instead, but this job I wanted to look like the job of somebody else anyway, and the pistol came in handy.

Of course, I was wearing a mask.

There wasn’t any need for argument. The gun was there. Big Bill Ryan’s fat face was there, and there wasn’t three inches between ’em. Big Bill kicked out the clutch and jammed on the brake.

There was a puzzled look on his face as he peered at me. The big fence knew every crook in the game, and he probably wondered who had the nerve to pull the job. It just occurred to me that he looked too much interested and not enough scared, when I saw what I’d walked into. Big Bill had the car stopped dead before he sprung his trap. That was so I couldn’t drop off into the darkness. He wanted me.

The back of the car, which had been in shadow, seemed to move, to become alive. From beneath a robe which had been thrown over the seat and floor there appeared a couple of arms, the glint of the street light on metal arrested my eye; and it was too late to do anything, even if I could have gotten away with it.

There were two gunmen concealed in the back of that car. Big Bill Ryan ostensibly was driving alone. As a matter of fact he had a choice bodyguard. Those two guns were the best shots in crookdom, and they obeyed orders.

Big Bill spoke pleasantly.

“I hadn’t exactly expected this, Jenkins, but I was prepared for it. You see I credit you with a lot of brains. How you found out about the case, and how you learned enough to intercept me on this little trip is more than I know. However, I’ve always figured you were the most dangerous man in the world, and I didn’t take any chances.

“You’re a smart man, Jenkins; but you’re running up against a stone wall. I’m glad this happened when there was a reward out for you in California. It’ll be very pleasant to surrender you to the police, thereby cementing my pleasant relations and also getting a cut out of the reward money. Come, come, get in and sit down. Grab his arms, boys.”

Revolvers were thrust under my nose. Grinning faces leered at me. Grimy hands stretched forth and grabbed my shoulders. The car lurched forward and sped away into the night, headed toward the police station. In such manner had Ed Jenkins been captured by a small-time crook and a couple of guns. I could feel myself blush with shame. What was more, there didn’t seem to be any way out of it. The guns were awaiting orders, holding fast to me, pulling me over the door. Ryan was speeding up. If I could break away I’d be shot before I could get off of the car, dead before my feet hit ground. If I stayed where I was I’d be in the police station in ten minutes, in a cell in eleven, and five minutes later the reporters would be interviewing me, and the papers would be grinding out extras.

It’s the simple things that are hard to beat. This thing was so blamed simple, so childish almost, and yet, there I was.

We flashed past an intersection, swung to avoid the lights of another car that skidded around the corner with screeching tires, and then we seemed to be rocking back and forth, whizzing through the air. It was as pretty a piece of driving as I have ever seen. Jean Ellery had come around the paved corner at full speed, skidding, slipping, right on the tail of the other machine, had swung in sideways, hit the rear bumper and forced Ryan’s car around and over, into the curb, and then she had sped on her way, uninjured. Ryan’s car had crumpled a front wheel against the curb, and we were all sailing through the air.

Personally, I lit on my feet and kept going. I don’t think anyone was hurt much, although Ryan seemed to make a nosedive through the windshield, and the two guns slammed forward against the back of the front seat and then pitched out. Being on the running board, I had just taken a little loop-the-loop through the atmosphere, gone into a tail spin, and pancaked to the earth.

The kid was there a million. If she had come up behind on a straight stretch there would have been lots of action. Ryan would have spotted her, and the guns would have gone into action. She’d either have been captured with me, or we’d both have been shot. By slamming into us from around a corner, however, she’d played her cards perfectly. It had been damned clever driving. What was more it had been clever headwork. She’d seen what had happened when I stuck the gun into Ryan’s face, had started my car, doubled around the block, figured our speed to a nicety, and slammed down the cross street in the nick of time.

These things I thought over as I sprinted around a house, through a backyard, into an alley, and into another backyard. The kid had gone sailing off down the street, and I had a pretty strong hunch she had headed for the apartment. She’d done her stuff, and the rest was up to me.

Hang it! My disguise was in my car, and here I was, out in the night, my face covered by a mask, a gun in my pocket, and a reward out for me, with every cop in town scanning every face that passed him on the street. Oh well, it was all in a lifetime and I had work to do. I’d liked to have handled Bill Ryan; seeing I couldn’t get him, I had to play the next best bet, Dr. Drake.

His house wasn’t far, and I made it in quick time, I was working against time.

I took off my mask, walked boldly up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

There was the sound of shuffling feet, and then a seamed, sallow face peered out at me. The door opened a bit, and two glittering, beady eyes bored into mine.

“What d’yuh want?”

I figured him for Doctor Drake. He was pretty well along in years, and his eyes and forehead showed some indications of education. There was a glittering cupidity about the face, a cunning selfishness that seemed to be the keynote of his character.

“I’m bringing the money.”

His head thrust a trifle farther forward and his eyes bored into mine.

“What money?”

“From Bill Ryan.”

“But Mr. Ryan said he would be here himself.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

I had made my play and the more I kept silent the better it would be. I knew virtually nothing about this end of the game. He knew everything. It would be better for me to let him convince himself than to rush in and ruin it trying to talk too much of detail.

At length the door came cautiously open.

“Come in.”

He led the way into a sort of office. The furniture was apparently left over from some office or other, and it was good stuff, massive mahogany, dark with years; old-fashioned book-cases; chairs that were almost antiques; obsolete text books, all of the what-nots that were the odds and ends of an old physician’s office.

Over all lay a coating of gritty dust.

“Be seated,” said the old man, shuffling across to the swivel chair before the desk. I could see that he was breaking fast, this old man. His forehead and eyes retained much of strength, indicated some vitality. His mouth was sagging, weak. Below his neck he seemed to have decayed, the loose, flabby muscles seemed incapable of functioning. His feet could hardly be lifted from the floor. His shoulders lurched forward, and his spine curved into a great hump. Dandruff sprinkled over his coat, an affair that had once been blue serge and which was now spotted with egg, grease, syrup and stains.

“Where is the money?”

I smiled wisely, reached into an inner pocket, half pulled out a wallet, then leered at him after the fashion of a cheap crook, one of the smart-aleck, cunning kind.

“Let’s see the stuff first.”

He hesitated, then heaved out of his chair and approached a bookcase. Before the door he suddenly stiffened with suspicion. He turned, his feverish eyes glittering wildly in the feeble light of the small incandescent with which the room was redly illuminated.

“Spread out the money on the table.”

I laughed.

“Say, bo, the coin’s here, all right; but if you want to see the long green you gotta produce.”

He hesitated a bit, and then the telephone rang, a jangling, imperative clamor. He shuffled back to the desk, picked up the receiver in a gnarled, knotty hand, swept back the unkempt hair which hung over his ear, and listened.

As he listened I could see the back straighten, the shoulders straighten. A hand came stealing up the inside of the coat.

Because I knew what to expect I wasn’t surprised. He bent forward, muttered something, hung up the receiver, spun about and thrust forward an ugly pistol, straight at the chair in which I had been sitting. If ever there was desperation and murder stamped on a criminal face it was on his.

The only thing that was wrong with his plans was that I had silently shifted my position. When he swung that gun around he pointed it where I had been, but wasn’t. The next minute I had his neck in a stranglehold, had the gun, and had him all laid out for trussing. Linen bandage was available, and it always makes a nice rope for tying people up with. I gagged him on general principles and then I began to go through that bookcase.

In a book on interior medicine that was written when appendicitis was classified as fatal inflammation of the intestines, I found a document, yellow with age. It was dated in 1904 but it had evidently been in the sunlight some, and had seen much had usage. The ink was slightly faded, and there were marks of old folds, dog-eared corners, little tears. Apparently the paper had batted around in a drawer for a while, had perhaps been rescued at one time or another from a wastebasket, and, on the whole, it was genuine as far as date was concerned. It couldn’t have had all that hard usage in less than twenty-two years.

There was no time then to stop and look at it. I took out my wallet, dropped it in there, and then went back to the bookcase, turning the books upside down, shaking them, fluttering the leaves, wondering if there was something else.

I was working against time and knew it. Big Bill Ryan wouldn’t dare notify the police. He wouldn’t want to have me arrested at the home of Doctor Drake; but he would lose no time in getting the house surrounded by a bunch of gunmen of his own choosing, of capturing me as I sought to escape the house, and then taking me to police headquarters.

It was a matter of seconds. I could read that paper any time; but I could only go through that bookcase when I was there, and it looked as though I wouldn’t be in that house again, not for some time. At that I didn’t have time to complete the search. I hadn’t covered more than half of the books when I heard running steps on the walk, and feet came pounding up the steps.

As a crook my cue was to make for the back door, to plunge out into the night, intent on escape. That would run me into the guns of a picked reception committee that was waiting in the rear. I knew Big Ryan, knew that the hurrying impatience of those steps on the front porch was merely a trap. I was in a house that was surrounded. The automobile with engine running out in front was all a part of the stall. Ryan had probably stopped his machine half a block away, let out his men, given them a chance to surround the house, and then he had driven up, stopped the car with the engine running and dashed up the steps. If Dr. Drake had me covered all right; if I had managed to overpower the old man, I would break and run for the rear.

All of these things flashed through my mind in an instant. I was in my element again. Standing there before the rifled bookcase, in imminent danger, I was as cool as a cake of ice, and I didn’t waste a second.

The door of the bookcase I slammed shut. The books were in order on the shelves. As for myself, I did the unexpected. It is the only safe rule.

Instead of sneaking out the back door, I reached the front door in one jump, threw it open and plunged my fist into the bruised, bleeding countenance of Big Bill Ryan. That automobile windshield hadn’t used him too kindly, and he was badly shaken. My maneuver took him by surprise. For a split fraction of a second I saw him standing like a statue. The next instant my fist had crashed home.

From the side of the house a revolver spat. There was a shout, a running of dark figures, and I was off. Leaping into the driver’s seat of the empty automobile, I had slammed in the gears, shot the clutch, stepped on the throttle and was away.

I chuckled as I heard the chorus of excited shouts behind, the futile rattle of pistol shots. There would be some explaining for Big Bill Ryan to do. In the meantime I was headed for the apartment. I was going to decorate Jean Ellery with a medal, a medal for being the best assistant a crook ever had.

I left the car a couple of blocks from the apartment and walked rapidly down the street. I didn’t want the police to locate the stolen car too near my apartment, and yet I didn’t dare to go too far without my disguise. The walk of two blocks to my apartment was risky.

My own machine, the one in which Jean had made the rescue, was parked outside. I looked it over with a grin. She was some driver. The front bumper and license plate had been tom off, and the paint on the radiator was scratched a bit, but that was all.

I worried a bit about that license number. I’d bought that car as the old man with the flapper daughter, and I had it registered in the name I had taken, the address as the apartment where Jean and I lived. Losing that license number was something to worry about.

I made record time getting to the door of the apartment, fitting the latchkey and stepping inside. The place was dark, and I pressed the light switch, then jumped back, ready for anything. The room was empty. On the floor was a tom article of clothing. A shoe was laying on its side over near the other door. A rug was rumpled, a chair overturned. In the other room there was confusion. A waist had been ripped to ribbons and was lying by another shoe. The waist was one that Jean had been wearing. The shoes were hers.

I took a quick glance around, making sure the apartment was empty, and then I got into action. Foot by foot I covered that floor looking for something that would be a clue, some little thing that would tell me of the persons who had done the job. Big Bill had acted mighty quick if he had been the one. If it had been the police, why the struggle? If it was a trap, why didn’t they spring it?

There was no clue. Whoever it was had been careful to leave nothing behind. I had only a limited amount of time, and I knew it. Once more I was working against time, beset by adverse circumstances, fighting overwhelming odds.

I made a run for the elevator, got to the ground floor, rushed across the street, into the little car Jean had driven, and, as I stepped on the starter and switched on the lights, there came the wail of a siren, the bark of an exhaust, and a police car came skidding around the corner and slid to a stop before the apartment house.

As for me, I was on my way.

Mentally I ran over the characters in the drama that had been played about me, and I picked on Harry Atmore. The little, weak, clever attorney with his cunning dodges, his rat-like mind, his cowering spirit was my meat. He was the weak point in the defense, the weak link in the chain.

I stopped at a telephone booth in a drug store. A plastered-haired sheik was at the telephone fixing up a couple of heavy dates for a wild night. I had to wait while he handed out what was meant to be a wicked line. Finally he hung up the receiver and sauntered toward his car, smirking his self-satisfaction. I grabbed the instrument and placed the warm receiver to my ear.

Atmore wasn’t at the house. His wife said I’d find him at the office. I didn’t call the office. It would suit me better to walk in unannounced if I could get him by himself. I climbed into my machine and was on my way.

I tried the door of Atmore’s office and found it was open. There was a light in the reception room. Turning, I pulled the catch on the spring lock, slammed the door and turned out the light. Then I walked into the private office.

There must have been that on my face which showed that I was on a mission which boded no good to the crooked shyster, an intentness of purpose which was apparent. He gave me one look, and then shrivelled down in his chair, cowering, his rat-like nose twitching, his yellow teeth showing.

I folded my arms and glared at him.

“Where’s the girl?”

He lowered his gaze and shrugged his shoulders.

I advanced. Right then I was in no mood to put up with evasions. Something seemed to tell me that the girl was in danger, that every second counted, and I had no time to waste on polite formalities. That girl had grown to mean something to me. She had fitted in, uncomplaining, happy, willing, and she had saved me when I had walked into a trap there with Big Bill Ryan. As long as I was able to help that girl she could count on me. There had never been very much said, but we understood each other, Jean Ellery and I. She had played the game with me, and I would play it with her.

“Atmore,” I said, pausing impressively between the words, “I want to know where that girl is, and I mean to find out.”

He ducked his hand, and I sprang, wrenched his shoulder, pulled him backward, crashed a chair to the floor, struck the gun up, kicked his wrist, smashed my fist in his face and sprawled him on the floor. He didn’t get up. I was standing over him, and he crawled and cringed like a whipped cur.

“Miss Hare has her. Bill Ryan got her located through the number on a machine, and Hattie Hare went after her. She is a devil, that woman. She has the girl back at the Holton house.”

I looked at his writhing face for a moment trying to determine if he was lying. I thought not. Big Ryan had undoubtedly traced that license number. That was but the work of a few minutes on the telephone with the proper party. He couldn’t have gone after the girl himself because he had been at Dr. Drake’s too soon afterward. On the other hand, he had gone to a public telephone because he had undoubtedly telephoned Dr. Drake and told him of his accident, probably warned him against me. From what the doctor had said, Ryan knew I was there, and he had dropped everything to come after me. What more natural than that he should have telephoned the cat-woman to go and get the girl.

I turned and strode toward the door.

“Listen, you rat,” I snapped. “If you have lied to me, you’ll die!”

His eyes rolled a bit, his mouth twitched, but he said nothing. I ran into the dark outer office, threw open the door, snapped the lock back on the entrance door, banged it and raced to the elevator. Then I turned and softly retraced my steps, slipped into the dark outer office, and tiptoed to the door of the private office. By opening it a crack I could see the lawyer huddled at his desk, frantically clicking the hook on the telephone.

In a minute he got central, snapped a number, waited and then gave his message in five words. “He’s on his way out,” he said, and hung up.

I only needed one guess. He was talking to the cat-woman. They had prepared a trap, had baited it with the girl, and were waiting for me to walk into it.

I went back into the hall, slipped down the elevator, went to my car and stepped on the starter. As I went I thought. Time was precious. Long years of being on my own resources had taught me to speed up my thinking processes. For years I had been a lone wolf, had earned the name of being the phantom crook, one who could slip through the fingers of the police. Then there had been a welcome vacation while I enjoyed immunity in California, but now all that was past. I was my own man, back in the thick of things. I had accomplished everything I had done previously by thinking fast, reaching quick decisions, and putting those decisions into instant execution. This night I made up my mind I would walk into the trap and steal the bait; whether I could walk out again depended upon my abilities. I would be matching my wits against those of the cat-woman, and she was no mean antagonist. Witness the manner in which she had learned that the girl had not been murdered, that I had convinced the girl of the woman’s duplicity, had taken her in as a partner, the manner in which the cat-woman had known she could reach me through the girl, that I would pick on Atmore as being the weak link in the chain.

I stopped at a drug store long enough to read the paper I had taken from the book at Dr. Drake’s house, and to telephone. I wanted to know all the cards I held in my hand before I called for a showdown.

The document was a strange one. It was nothing more nor less than a consent that the doctor should take an unborn baby and do with it as he wished. It was signed by the expectant mother. Apparently it was merely one of thousands of such documents which find their way into the hands of doctors. Yet I was certain it represented an important link in a strong chain. Upon the back of the document were three signatures. One of them was the signature of Hattie M. Hare. There were addresses, too, also telephone numbers. Beneath the three signatures were the words “nurses and witnesses.”

I consulted the directory, got the number of H. F. Morton, and got him out of bed.

“This is Mr. Holton,” I husked into the telephone. “Come to my house at once.”

With the words I banged the receiver against the telephone a couple of times and hung up. Then I sprinted into the street, climbed into the machine and was off.

I had no time to waste, and yet I was afraid the trap would be sprung before I could get the bait. It was late and a ring at the doorbell would have been a telltale sign. I parked the machine a block away, hit the backyards and approached the gloomy mass of shadows which marked the home of Arthur C. Holton, the oil magnate. I was in danger and knew it, knew also that the danger was becoming more imminent every minute.

I picked a pantry window. Some of the others looked more inviting, but I picked one which I would hardly have been expected to have chosen. There had already been a few minutes’ delay. Seconds were precious. I knew the house well enough to take it almost at a run. When I have once been inside a place I can generally dope out the plan of the floors, and I always remember those plans.

In the front room there was just the flicker of a fire in the big fireplace. Above the tiles there glowed two spots of fire. I had been right in my surmise about the painting of the cat’s head. The eyes had been tinted with luminous paint.

In the darkness there came a faint, dull, “click.” It was a sound such as is made by a telephone bell when it gives merely the jump of an electrical contact, a sound which comes when a receiver has been removed from an extension line. With the sound I had out my flashlight and was searching for the telephone. If anyone was using an extension telephone in another part of the house I wanted to hear what was being said.

It took me a few seconds to locate the instrument, and then I slipped over to it and eased the receiver from the hook. It was the cat-woman who was talking:

“Yes, Arthur C. Holton’s residence, and come right away. You know he threatened to return. Yes, I know it’s Ed Jenkins. I tell you I saw his face. Yes, the phantom crook. Send two cars and come at once.”

There was a muttered assent from the cop at the other end of the line, and then the click of two receivers. Mine made a third.

So that was the game, was it? In some way she had known when I entered the place. I fully credited those luminous, cat-eyes of hers with being able to see in the dark. She had laid a trap for me, baited it with the girl, and now she had summoned the police. Oh well, I had been in worse difficulties before.

I took the carpeted stairway on the balls of my feet, taking the stairs two at a time. There was a long corridor above from which there opened numerous bedrooms. I saw a flutter of pink at one end of the hall, a mere flash of woman’s draperies. I made for that point, and I went at top speed. If my surmise was correct I had no time to spare, not so much as the tick of a watch.

The door was closed and I flung it open, standing not upon ceremony or formalities. I was racing with death.

Within the room was a dull light, a reflected, diffused light which came from the corridor, around a corner, against the half-open door, and into the room. There was a bed and a white figure was stretched upon the bed, a figure which was struggling in the first panic of a sudden awakening. When I had flung the door open it had crashed against the wall, rebounded so that it was half closed, and then remained shivering on its hinges, catching and reflecting the light from the hall.

In that semi-darkness the cat-woman showed as a flutter of flowing silk. She moved with the darting quickness of a cat springing on its prey. She had turned her head as I crashed into the room, and her eyes, catching the light from the hall, glowed a pale, baleful green, a green of hate, of tigerish intensity of rage.

Quick as she was, I was quicker. As the light caught the flicker of cold steel I flung her to one side, slammed her against the wall. She was thin, lithe, supple, but the warm flesh of her which met my hands through the thin veil of sheer silk was as hard as wire springs. She recoiled from the wall, poised lightly on her feet, gave me a flicker of the light from those cat-eyes once more, and then fluttered from the room, her silks flapping in the breeze of her progress. Two hands shot from the bed and grasped me by the shoulders, great, hairy hands with clutching fingers.

“Jenkins! Ed Jenkins!” exclaimed a voice.

I shook him off and raced for the door. From the street below came the sound of sliding tires, the noise of feet hurrying on cement, pounding on gravel. Someone dashed up the front steps and pounded on the door, rang frantically at the bell. The police had arrived, excited police who bungled the job of surrounding the house.

There was yet time. I had been in tighter pinches. I could take the back stairs, shoot from the back door and try the alley. There would probably be the flash of firearms, the whine of lead through the night air, but there would also be the element of surprise, the stupidity of the police, the flat-footed slowness of getting into action. I had experienced it all before.

In one leap I made the back stairs and started to rush down. The front door flew open and there came the shrill note of a police whistle. I gathered my muscles for the next flying leap, and then stopped, caught almost in midair.

I had thought of the girl!

Everything that had happened had fitted in with my theory of the case, and in that split fraction of a second I knew I was right. Some flash of inner intuition, some telepathic insight converted a working hypothesis, a bare theory, into an absolute certainty. In that instant I knew the motive of the cat-woman, knew the reason she had rushed from that other room. Jean Ellery had been used by her to bait the trap for Ed Jenkins, but she had had another use, had served another purpose. She was diabolically clever, that cat-woman, and Jean Ellery was to die.

I thought of the girl, of her charm, her ready acceptance of life as the working partner of a crook, and I paused in mid flight, turned a rapid flip almost in the air and was running madly down the corridor, toward the police.

There are times when the mind speeds up and thoughts become flashes of instantaneous conceptions, when one lives ages in the space of seconds. All of the thoughts which had pieced together the real solution of the mystery, the explanation of the actions of the cat-woman had come to me while I was poised, balanced for a leap on the stairs. My decision to return had been automatic, instantaneous. I could not leave Jean Ellery in danger.

The door into which the cat-woman had plunged was slightly ajar. Through it could be seen the gleam of light, a flicker of motion. I was almost too late as I hurtled through that door, my outstretched arm sweeping the descending hand of the cat-woman to one side.

Upon the bed, bound, gagged, her helpless eyes staring into the infuriated face of the cat-woman, facing death with calm courage, watching the descent of the knife itself, was the form of Jean Ellery. My hand had caught the downthrust of the knife just in time.

The cat-woman staggered back, spitting vile oaths, lips curling, eyes flashing, her words sounding like the explosive spats of an angry cat. The knife had clattered to the floor and lay at my very feet. The green-handled dagger, the jade-hilted knife which had been taken from my apartment. At that instant a shadow blotted the light from the hallway and a voice shouted:

“Hands up, Ed Jenkins!”

The cat-woman gave an exclamation of relief.

“Thank God, officer, you came in the nick of time!”

There was the shuffling of many feet; peering faces, gleaming shields, glinting pistols, and I found myself grabbed by many hands, handcuffs snapped about my wrists, cold steel revolvers thrust against my neck. I was pushed, jostled, slammed, pulled, dragged down the stairs and into the library.

The cat-woman followed, cajoling the officers, commenting on their bravery, their efficiency, spitting epithets at me.

And then H. F. Morton walked into the open door, took in the situation with one glance of his steely eyes, deposited his hat and gloves on a chair, walked to the great table, took a seat behind it and peered over the tops of his glasses at the officers, at the cat-woman, at myself.

The policemen jostled me toward the open front door.

The lawyer held up a restraining hand.

“Just a minute,” he said, and there was that in the booming authority of the voice which held the men, stopped them in mid-action.

“What is this?” he asked, and, with the words, dropped his hands to the table and began to drum regularly, rhythmically, “rummpy-tum-tum; rummpy-tum-tum; rummpy-tum-tumpty-tum-tumpty-tum-tum.”

“Aw g’wan,” muttered one of the officers as he pulled me forward.

“Shut up, you fool. He’s the mayor’s personal attorney!” whispered another, his hands dragging me back, holding me against those who would have taken me from the house.

The word ran through the group like wildfire. There were the hoarse sibilants of many whispers, and then attentive silence.

“ ’Tis Ed Jenkins, sor,” remarked one of the policemen, one who seemed to be in charge of the squad. “The Phantom Crook, sor, caught in this house from which he kidnapped the girl an’ stole the necklace, an’ ’twas murder he was after tryin’ to commit this time.”

The lawyer’s gray eyes rested on my face.

“If you want to talk, Jenkins, talk now.”

I nodded.

“The girl, Jean Ellery. She is the daughter of Arthur C. Holton.”

The fingers stopped their drumming and gripped the table.

“What?”

I nodded. “It was supposed that his child was a boy, a boy who died shortly after birth. As a matter of fact, the child was a girl, a girl who lived, who is known as Jean Ellery. A crooked doctor stood for the substitution, being paid a cash fee. A nurse originated the scheme, Miss Hattie M. Hare. The boy could never be traced. His future was placed in the doctor’s hands before birth and when coincidence played into the hands of this nurse she used all her unscrupulous knowledge, all her cunning. The girl was to be brought up to look upon the nurse as her aunt, her only living relative. At the proper time the whole thing was to be exposed, but the doctor was to be the one who was to take the blame. Hattie M. Hare was to have her connection with the scheme kept secret.

“But the doctor found out the scheme to make him the goat. He had in his possession a paper signed by the nurse, a paper which would have foiled the whole plan. He used this paper as a basis for regular blackmail.

“It was intended to get this paper, to bring out the girl as the real heir, to have her participate in a trust fund which had been declared for the child of Arthur C. Holton, to have her inherit all the vast fortune of the oil magnate; — and to remember her aunt Hattie M. Hare as one of her close and dear relatives, to have her pay handsomely for the so-called detectives and lawyers who were to ‘unearth’ the fraud, to restore her to her place, to her estate.

“And then there came another development, Arthur C. Holton became infatuated with the arch-conspirator, Hattie M. Hare. He proposed marriage, allowed himself to be prevailed upon to make a will in her favor, to make a policy of life insurance to her.

“The girl ceased to be an asset, but became a menace. She must be removed. Also Arthur C. Holton must die that Miss Hattie M. Hare might succeed in his estate without delay. But there was a stumbling block, the paper which was signed by Hattie M. Hare, the paper which might be connected with the substitution of children, which would brand her as a criminal, which would be fatal if used in connection with the testimony of the doctor.

“Doctor Drake demanded money for his silence and for that paper. He demanded his money in cash, in a large sum. The woman, working with fiendish cunning, decided to use me as a cat’s-paw to raise the money and to also eliminate the girl from her path as well as to apparently murder the man who stood between her and his wealth. I was to be enveigled into apparently stealing a necklace worth much money, a necklace which was to be insured, and the insurance payable to Miss Hare; I was to be tricked into kidnapping a girl who would be murdered; I was to be persuaded to make threats against Mr. Holton, and then I was to become the apparent murderer of the oil magnate. My dagger was to be found sticking in his breast. In such manner would Miss Hare bring about the death of the man who had made her the beneficiary under his will, buy the silence of the doctor who knew her for a criminal, remove the only heir of the blood, and make me stand all the blame, finally delivering me into the hands of the law.

“There is proof. I have the signed statement in my pocket. Doctor Drake will talk. Harry Atmore will confess… There she goes. Stop her!”

The cat-woman had seen that her play was ended. She had realized that she was at the end of her rope, that I held the evidence in my possession, that the bound and gagged girl upstairs would testify against her. She had dashed from the room while the stupefied police had held me and stared at her with goggle eyes.

Openmouthed they watched her flight, no one making any attempt to take after her, eight or ten holding me in their clumsy hands while the cat-woman, the arch criminal of them all dashed out into the night.

H. F. Morton looked at me and smiled.

“Police efficiency, Jenkins,” he said.

Then he faced the officers. “Turn him loose.”

The officers shifted uneasily. The man in charge drew himself up stiffly and saluted. “He is a noted criminal with a price on his head, the very devil of a crook, sor.”

Morton drummed steadily on the desk.

“What charge have you against him?”

The officer grunted.

“Stealin’ Mr. Holton’s necklace, an’ breakin’ into his house, sor.”

“Those charges are withdrawn,” came from the rear of the room in deep, firm tones.

I turned to see Arthur C. Holton. He had dressed and joined the group. I did not even know when he had entered the room, how much he had heard. By his side, her eyes starry, stood Jean Ellery, and there were gleaming gems of moisture on her cheeks.

The policeman grunted.

“For kidnappin’ the young lady an’ holdin’ her. If she stayed against her will ’twas abductin’, an’ she wouldn’t have stayed with a crook of her own accord, not without communicatin’ with her folks.”

That was a poser. I could hear Jean suck in her breath to speak the words that would have freed me but would have damned her in society forever; but she had not the chance.

Before I could even beat her to it, before my confession would have spared her name and sent me to the penitentiary, H. F. Morton’s shrewd mind had grasped all the angles of the situation, and he beat us all to it.

“You are wrong. The girl was not kidnapped. Jenkins never saw her before.”

The policeman grinned broadly.

“Then would yez mind tellin’ me where she was while all this hue an’ cry was bein’ raised, while everyone was searchin’ for her?”

Morton smiled politely, urbanely.

“Not at all, officer. She was at my house, as the guest of my wife. Feeling that her interests were being jeopardized and that her life was in danger, I had her stay incognito in my own home.”

There was tense, thick silence.

The girl gasped. The clock ticked. There was the thick, heavy breathing of the big-bodied policemen.

“Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rumiddy, tumptidy, tumpy tum-tum,” drummed the lawyer. “Officer, turn that man loose. Take off those handcuffs. Take… off… those… handcuffs… I… say. You haven’t a thing against him in California.”

As one in a daze, the officer fitted his key to the handcuffs, the police fell back, and I stood a free man.

“Good night,” said the lawyer pointedly, his steely eyes glittering into those of the officers.

Shamefacedly, the officers trooped from the room.

Jean threw herself into my arms.

“Ed, you came back because of me! You risked your life to save mine, to see that a wrong was righted, to see that I was restored to my father! Ed, dear, you are a man in a million.”

I patted her shoulder.

“You were a good pal, Jean and I saw you through,” I said. “Now you must forget about it. The daughter of a prominent millionaire has no business knowing a crook.”

Arthur Holton advanced, hand outstretched.

“I was hypnotized, fooled, taken in by an adventuress and worse. I can hardly think clearly, the events of the past few minutes have been so swift, but this much I do know. I can never repay you for what you have done, Ed Jenkins. I will see that your name is cleared of every charge against you in every state, that you are a free man, that you are restored to citizenship, and that you have the right to live,” and here he glanced at Jean: “You will stay with us as my guest?”

I shook my head. It was all right for them to feel grateful, to get a bit sloppy now that the grandstand play had been made, but they’d probably feel different about it by morning.

“I think I’ll be on my way,” I said, and started for the door.

“Ed!” It was the girl’s cry, a cry which was as sharp, as stabbing as a quick pain at the heart. “Ed, you’re not leaving!”

By way of answer I stumbled forward. Hell, was it possible that the difficulty with that threshold was that there was a mist in my eyes? Was Ed Jenkins, the phantom crook, known and feared by the police of a dozen states, becoming an old woman?

Two soft arms flashed about my neck, a swift kiss planted itself on my cheek, warm lips whispered in my ear.

I shook myself free, and stumbled out into the darkness. She was nothing but a kid, the daughter of a millionaire oil magnate. I was a crook. Nothing but hurt to her could come to any further acquaintance. It had gone too far already.

I jumped to one side, doubled around the house, away from the street lights, hugging the shadow which lay near the wall. From within the room, through the half-open window there came a steady, throbbing, thrumming sound: “Rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tum; rummy-tum-tummy; tum-tummy-tum-tum.”

H. F. Morton was thinking.