Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938

Black Bill’s hoard was cached, nobody knew where, by an old man who’d forgotten what it was and where he hid it

I

There was a breeze drawing through the open window but it felt as if it were pulled out of the mouth of an open furnace. The thermometer in the shady side of the window registered something over a hundred. Dell Breen jerked his big feet off the desk and let them fall with a bang, flung the paper he had been reading into the corner and said, “Nuts!” in a raspy, sour tone.

Outside the open door a voice said musically, “Remember your blood pressure, Mr. Breen.”

Dell stood up, growling unintelligibly. He jammed a battered Panama over his touseled, ink-black hair and jerked it down over one cold, blue eye. He draped his coat over an arm and stalked out through the outer office.

The red-headed girl at the desk looked up and her eyebrows raised quizzically. “And now, I’ll bet,” she said, “you’re going out and drink a couple of gallons of beer. Don’t you know that will only make you hotter?”

“Wrong,” Dell snapped. “I’m going to Marty’s and have a Tom Collins. That will make me cooler. The hell with business in this weather.”

Trina Crane smiled mockingly. “You still eat in this weather. And the rent comes due no matter how high the thermometer registers. Think of that while you’re having your Tom Collins, Mr. Breen.”

“How do you gals do it?” Dell asked stormily. “You look as cool as an Eskimo. You must have ice water in your veins. I was going to let you take the afternoon off. But since you like business so blame much you can just hold down the fort.”

Trina put her head on one side and crinkled her snub nose in derision. “I always said you big fellows couldn’t take it. Go ahead and have your Tom Collins. If the bill collector calls, I’ll just stall him off as usual.”

Dell said, “Nuts!” again, with still greater vehemence. He slammed the door behind him with a force that made the ground glass panel tremble, and went down the empty corridor with hard banging strides.

He walked into Marty’s and relaxed with a long sigh. It was cool inside. He could feel the chilled air caress the back of his neck and wash gently over his temples. He leaned on the bar and said, “Andy, I don’t know why everyone isn’t in here today. To hell with the streets in this weather.”

Andy grinned and said, “I’ll bet I know what you’re going to have, Mr. Breen. I’ll bet you’re going to have a Tom Collins, I’ll bet.”

“You’d win, Andy,” Dell said. “Slap a long, cool one together and start another right after that. This heat is frying my insides.”

The two old guys were at their usual place at the end of the bar. The big, gaunt man was drawing his usual map. He bent over the bar and his sunken eyes glowed under his jutting brows as he traced lines on the paper with the blunt pencil. His face had a bewildered, lost expression on it as he drew.

The other man was short and round, a roly poly. He watched the gaunt man with compassionate interest on his round face and drank beer.

Dell walked down the bar and stopped beside them. He grinned at them and said to the man with the pencil, “Hello, Skipper, how goes it?”

The gaunt man pushed the map toward him and said, “That’s Waiki. That’s where I was when Black Bill came ashore. He was a black, hard devil, was Black Bill; a murdering, thieving scoundrel. He killed my men, burned my boat and stole my money. But I beat him at last.”

He chuckled deep down in his chest. “He was a hard, to ugh man but I beat him. I beat him with these two hands.” He thrust out his great, bony hands and stared at them. “I killed Black Bill in fair fight with my two hands. Then I took—” He halted, his deep-set eyes tragic in their bewilderment. “What was it I took off Black Bill?”

The little fat man said, “There, there, Skipper, don’t let it worry you. You’ll remember one of these days.” He smiled at Dell as though asking him to humor the skipper.

Dell smiled back.

A girl came through the door and halted, blinking as though the cool dimness blinded her after the hot glare of the street. She was tall and graceful and poised. She had dark eyes in a smooth, warm complexion. Her mouth had the slightest droop of sadness in its gravity.

Then she saw the two men at the end of the bar and the gravity lifted a little as she smiled. She walked toward the bar, saying, “Ah, there you are, Mr. Benedict. Don’t you think it’s time Daddy went home?”

“Whatever you think, Miss Arnold,” Benedict replied. “I stayed in here with him because it is so cool.”

The girl looked at Dell with sudden suspicion in her eyes. She stared along the bar and seemed relieved at seeing no one else there. Dell moved away as Andy came to lean over the end of the bar.

Miss Arnold talked to Benedict in a low murmur. They both kept glancing at Dell as they talked. Finally Miss Arnold asked Andy something and Andy glanced at Dell and murmured back.

Dell saw sudden interest brighten the girl’s eyes. She spoke more rapidly and Andy wagged his head slowly. Dell could hear his voice now. He was saying, “Sure, Miss Arnold. Sure, I know him. He’s a good guy. You could trust him with anything you owned. Dell Breen is a leveler.”

He listened to the girl, turned, jerked his head at Dell, saying, “Mr. Breen, I want you to come over here and meet Miss Arnold. Her and Mr. Benedict have something they think you can handle for them.”

Dell joined them at the end of the bar. Andy backed discreetly away and watched them as he polished glasses. Miss Arnold said in a quick, breathless voice. “Andy tells us that you are a detective and that you can be trusted.”

“I’ve been in business a long time because I know how to keep my mouth shut and protect my clients’ interests,” Dell said succinctly. “What is it you’re up against?”

The girl nodded toward the gaunt man. “It’s about Daddy.” She drew in her breath and expelled it in a long sigh and Dell noticed now that she had a lovely figure.

“I’ll begin at the beginning,” she said. She turned to Benedict. “You stop me if I’ve got anything wrong.”

Benedict nodded gravely and the girl went on: “My father had a plantation and did some trading among the islands in the South Pacific.”

“Waiki,” the gaunt man interposed, “that’s where I was.” He pushed the map forward and said with pathetic eagerness. “That’s Waiki.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Miss Arnold said soothingly, “it was Waiki.” She turned back to Dell. “He must have been quite prosperous because he always had money to send to me while I was at school. He was always writing to me that as soon as he could sell at a fair price he was coming home to spend the rest of his years with me. Then he wrote to tell me he had lost everything. This Black Bill that he talks about was a pirate.”

“Black Bill was a snake,” the gaunt man cut in harshly. “He was a black devil. He burned me out and stole everything I had. But I went after him. I showed him that he couldn’t do that to Duck Arnold.”

The girl nodded as though in confirmation. “He must have done so,” she said, “because later I received a cable from him saying he was starting for home. I was in Chicago then. He told me he was coming home with a fortune. He was coming, he said, on the Pacific Queen.”

The gaunt man wagged his head and chuckled. “Black Bill. I killed him with my two hands. I made him pay for what he’d done to me.”

“The Pacific Queen came through the Panama Canal bound for New York,” his daughter resumed. “There was some uncertainty about her landing date. She was a tramp, not a regular liner. Father landed a day earlier than I expected. I was on my way from Chicago at the time.”

She paused, swallowed painfully, and went on. “He left the ship and went to a little hotel near the docks for the night. Someone on that ship must have learned that father was carrying something worth a lot of money. They followed him to the hotel and—”

Tears swam in her dark eyes. Her slender fingers picked at the purse she was carrying. “As nearly as we can find out they got into father’s room and tried to get his fortune away from him. But he had it hidden somewhere. They beat him up so badly that he was carried to the hospital for dead. When he regained consciousness he was as you see him now. He cannot remember a thing that has happened. He can remember events up to Black Bill. Beyond that his mind is a blank. But we know that whatever he had was valuable. And we know that no one has found it.”

Dell’s thick black brows pulled down in a frown. “How do you know that for certain, Miss Arnold?”

“For one thing,” Miss Arnold said promptly, “they came back to the hotel room after father was taken to the hospital.” She paused and caught her breath and fear sharpened her eyes. “Just lately there have been men watching father.”

“You’re sure you’re not imagining things, Miss Arnold?”

Miss Arnold shook her head. Benedict patted her on the arm and said, “There, there, Laura,” in a gentle tone.

He turned his head and glanced at Dell with concern pursing his lips, “I am sure, Mr. Breen,” he said earnestly, “that Miss Arnold is laboring under no delusion. I have seen the men myself. One of them was hanging around in front of her apartment when I called there today.”

Dell nursed his jaw in one hand as he stared back at Arnold. “It does sound as if the boys didn’t get what they were after. Maybe if we rounded up a few of them we could find out what it is they’re after.”

Benedict wagged his head mournfully. “I wish you could do that, Breen. But the fellow I saw today was a tough-looking customer. He didn’t look as if he’d talk freely to anyone.”

“I got ways of persuasion,” Dell said drily. “Leave me alone in a room with one of these birds and I’ll bet we’d both know a lot more before we came out.”

“Maybe, maybe,” Benedict said doubtfully. “I certainly wish you’d take the case and try, Mr. Breen. The way things are now Miss Arnold and myself are getting too nervous for comfort. It’s like living under the threat of some disaster. Something must be done.”

Laura Arnold said slowly, “I don’t know what your fee is, Mr. Breen. I haven’t a great deal of money just now. Father’s hospital bills and all have eaten up my savings. But I’ve got a good job and can pay you off so much a week. If you do recover whatever it is father has hidden, I’ll see that you get a fair share.”

Dell opened his mouth to speak and Benedict said hurriedly, “I have a little money. I’ll be glad to pay you a retainer, Breen.” He gazed at Buck Arnold affectionately and went on, “I knew the old boy before he went to the Pacific. We were friends in the old days. The least I can do is help him now.”

Dell said gruffly, “I’ll take a look at the layout. If it can be cracked I’ll crack it. Don’t you worry about what it will cost, Miss Arnold. I’m no Shylock. If I turn up the stuff, whatever it is, we’ll talk about pay.”

Laura Arnold’s dark eyes made Dell feel very comfortable inside as they glowed on him. He made his voice gruffer because of it as he went on, “You go along home now and look after your old man. I’ll be around and see you later.”

Laura Arnold scribbled an address on a slip of paper and handed it to Dell. “I’ll expect you soon,” she said. She took her father’s arm and said gently, “Come on now, Daddy. Time to go home.”

Buck Arnold picked up the map and handed it to Dell. His deep-set eyes were full of agonized bewilderment. “That’s Waiki,” he said, as though he were trying very hard to impress a point “That’s where I was when Black Bill came after me. You find out what it was I took from Black Dill when I killed the hellion.”

“You leave it to me, Mr. Arnold,” Dell said. “I’ll find out about it for you.”

He leaned against the bar and watched them go out, the girl on one side, the chubby little Benedict on the other, his straw hat coming only to Duck Arnold’s bony shoulder.

Behind him, Andy said, “There’s a guy, Mr. Breen, who’s been through the mill, I’ll bet Geeze, if that guy could tell you things that’s happened to him, it would make a swell yarn, I’ll bet.”

Dell shook his head and pushed the Panama hat farther back on his head. He took a step away from the bar toward the door when Andy said, “Here’s that second Tom Collins you asked for, Mr. Breen. You’ll feel better out in that heat if you take it before you go.”

“There’s something in what you say,” Dell said. “I can’t go wrong on that advice.”

II

Stepping out into the streets again was like stepping into an oven. The heat that had simmered in the streets all day was getting more oppressive and stale as the afternoon melted into early evening. Dell sighed and headed for the office in long swinging strides.

Trina Crane was tidying her desk when Dell stamped in. He stopped, looked at her impressively. “Well, I got a case,” he said brusquely, then added enigmatically, “I got the prize case of the year.”

Trina smiled with artificial brightness as she said with edged sweetness, “Do tell me about it. I suppose the crown prince of Yakoo has lost his jewels and you’re going to turn them up and bust the great international spy ring in the process.”

“If it was only as simple as that,” Dell sighed. “Trina, did you ever hear of a blind man that was in a dark cellar, looking for a black cat that wasn’t there?”

“I never did,” Trina answered promptly. “But it sounds just like you on your usual sort of case.”

“Don’t plague me, precious,” Dell said absently. “I’ve got just that kind of case. I’ve gotta find something and nobody knows what it is. It’s hidden somewhere and nobody knows where by a guy who forgets what it was and where he hid it.”

“And I suppose,” Trina said practically, “that you get your fee when and if. What’s in this for the office, anyway?”

Dell shook his head, “Honey child, I don’t know. If I turn the thing up I get a cut of whatever it happens to be worth. That is,” he went on ironically, “if I can prove that what I turn up is it and it’s worth anything.”

“I can see where this is going to be a perfect Breen case,” Trina said caustically. “Why don’t you let me handle the business end of these deals for you?” Her eyes looked stormy as she chanted, “I hope you turn up at least a couple of dozen doughnuts and a can of coffee. A split on that would at least keep us eating.”

“Now, listen, Trina,” Dell said patiently, “we’re not as bad off as all that. Of course we could use a nice fee. But we’re not starving yet.”

“Have we got to wait till the wolves are howling outside the door before we start to worry?” Trina snapped.

“You gals, you’re all alike,” Dell grumbled. “Always looking for more and more and more. Money ain’t everything, Trina. There are times when a guy has got to go to bat for real people.”

“It’s a woman,” Trina snapped. “I know, Dell Breen, you don’t have to tell me. Some baby-eyed blonde has got hold of you and given you a hard luck story. I know the signs. You make me sick.”

“You give me a pain yourself, if you want to know,” Dell said harshly. He began to talk himself into a rage. Finally he said, “And she ain’t a blonde. And she ain’t a red-headed, grasping, nickel-pincher either.”

He threw the last over his shoulder as he stomped into his office and slammed the door behind him. He picked up the paper from the corner where he had thrown it and slumped into his chair grumbling. “Money, money, money! That’s all these gals think about.”

He could hear Trina’s high heels clicking angrily in the outer office. When she jerked the door open she had on a yellow hat that was cocked at a belligerent angle over one eye. She swung her purse and said, “I’d just like to see what would happen to this office, Dell Breen, if I didn’t take a little interest in things. I’d just like to see.”

“All right, all right, you’d just like to see,” Dell grumbled. “Now where does that get you?”

He grinned and heaved himself to his feet. “I’m hungry, chicken. What say we step around the corner and see if Henri can still cook a steak?”

“You’ll put your coat on if you do, you big oaf,” Trina said. “I’m not going out with you carrying your coat on your arm like a longshoreman.”

Dell grumbled as he hauled on the coat. He pulled the Panama down, caught Trina’s arm and headed for the elevator.

In Henri’s he snapped an order to the waiter while he opened the paper and ran his eyes down a column.

“A swell escort you turned out to be,” Trina said hitterly. “You take me out to dinner and embarrass me with your attention. Why don’t you just sit at another table and talk to Henri? That would be just as good as shoving your nose in a paper.”

Dell slapped the paper down on the table and said, “Wait a minute, Trina,” in an altered voice. He read aloud. “ ‘Due today at Pier Six, the Pacific Queen. Hardesty, Master, with a miscellaneous cargo from Pacific ports.’ ”

“Is this a proposition, Mr. Breen,” Trina asked snappily. “Maybe you want me to sail away to a tropical isle and live on cocoanuts. Well, I’ll tell you now, nothing doing. We stay here and gather local cocoanuts.”

“Just a minute, Trina,” Dell said patiently. “This ship is tied up with this ease I got. There’s a connection here.”

“I wondered when you were going to get around to that case,” Trina said resignedly. “Suppose you break down and tell me all about it.”

As she listened Trina’s eyes began to narrow. “You may have something there, at that,” she admitted. “They don’t send guys to the hospital and tear up hotel rooms for marbles. Go on from there.”

Dell shook his head. “That’s as far as I’ve gotten, baby. But I begin to see a lead. I’ll bet those bozos on this Pacific Queen know plenty.”

Dell wolfed his dinner and then wedged himself into a telephone booth while Trina finished. It was as hot as a Turkish bath in the booth. Perspiration rolled down his face as he talked and listened. In between mopping his face he made notes on a slip of paper.

When he came back to the table he said, “Trina, I’m going on the warpath. You trot around to see this Laura Arnold and see what else you can pick up. I’ve got the dope on the hotel where Buck Arnold got his. She doesn’t know anything about anybody on the Pacific Queen. I’ll look after that end of it myself.”

He picked up the checks and headed for the door, disregarding Trina’s wisecracks.

The Pacific Queen didn’t look like a queen to Dell. She reared straight, rusted sides awkwardly from the water. A row of bleared portholes stared drearily out over the deserted dock. From the shadows of the dock shed Dell surveyed the boat. A sailor on the gangplank watch lounged on the rail and gazed sleepily down the cleated plank.

The sailor came slowly erect as Dell walked the gangplank and moved over to the bar at the end of the plank. Dell stopped and leaned against the rail. “I’d like to see Captain Hardesty,” he said easily.

The sailor growled, “I’ve got orders not to let nobody aboard.”

“That doesn’t include me, buddy,” Dell said. “I’m a special kind of person. I’m coming aboard.”

The shoulders of the sailor strained forward, “You bloody well try it, Mr. Wise Guy.”

A voice hack in the shadows rumbled, “What’s going on there, Ferris? Who are you talking to?”

Ferris glanced over his shoulder, “It’s a mug who wants to see you, Cap’n Hardesty. I told him nobody could come aboard and he says he’s bloody well coming just the same.”

A new element came into the unseen voice. “Let him come aboard, Ferris. I’ll talk to him if he wants to see me.”

Ferris stepped to one side and Dell walked across the deck toward the voice. His feet made hollow sounds on the steel deck. The voice had moved. It spoke again just ahead of him. “Follow me to the bridge deck. My cabin is up there.”

Dell saw the man materialize as he climbed the flight of narrow steps. He was huge with long apelike arms and immense shoulders.

Dell followed, his muscles tightening. There was something off color about this packet, his nerves told him. He became surer as he reached the bridge deck. Something hard jammed into his ribs and a voice growled. “So you would butt in. Just walk straight ahead through that door and I’ll have a look at you.”

The room at the back of the pilot house was big. A heavy bed was clamped to the floor. A huge chest of drawers was built into the bulkhead. Light from the bulb in a brass ship’s lantern cast a feeble glow.

The fellow was whiskered to the eyes. Red lips made a line through the grizzled red of his beard and mustache. He had a little knob of a nose and bright little blue eyes.

His voice had a note of hoarse triumph as he said, “So it’s the bloody Mr. Breen. You pushed your ugly mug into something that doesn’t concern you, Breen, and now you’ll damn well have to take the consequences.”

“So you’re Hardesty.” Dell said softly. “And you know all about me. That’s damned interesting. Do you mind telling me what it’s all about?”

“I’ll tell you before I heave you over the side out at sea,” Hardesty growled. “I don’t like nosey landlubbers, Breen. I’ve got no use for damned pavement pounders like you. It’ll be a pleasure to tell you what it’s all about before I heave you over the side with a length of anchor chain lashed to your feet.”

He came closer and peered at Dell. “I don’t like your face, Mr. Bloody Breen,” he snarled. “I don’t like your face or your sneaking ways. I like you a bloody sight less than anyone else I know.”

Dell braced himself. Hardesty would be a tough man to take. He looked as though he would rat her mix in a barroom brawl than eat. And right now he was on the business end of a young cannon.

Dell did not realize how lightning fast the big man could move until he saw the hairy fist start. He tried to duck and caught the blow like the smash of a sledge hammer on the side of his face. As he went down he felt it club him again. After that he knew nothing for awhile.

III

Hammering pain in his head woke Dell Breen. He stared up at the brass ship’s lantern and worked his jaw. The whole side of his face felt paralyzed and dead. His jaw was all he could move at first. Hardesty had trussed him up with the efficient skill of a sailor.

He rolled his body and found he was not lashed to anything. He lay on his side and surveyed what he could of the room. A locker of some kind with a full-length mirror built into its door was in the opposite wall. He rolled over to it and tried to break it with his feet and found that when he kicked out, the cords that bound his wrists to his ankles bit into the flesh until the blood started to flow. After the second kick his arms felt numb and dead and he hadn’t made any impression on the mirror.

He rolled over again and saw a derby hat resting on a chair. He pictured the round hard hat perched on the top of Hardesty’s great shock of red hair and grinned feebly. Then the grin faded as a new thought came to him.

He rolled across and bumped the chair until the hat fell off. It rolled across the room and Dell had to roll after it. He was bathed in perspiration by the time he got it.

The next move was even more difficult. He found he could hold a cramped position on his knees as long as he kept his wrists close to his ankles. Perspiration ran into his eyes and almost blinded him as he worked the hat into a corner, turned it and worked his head into it.

It came down around his ears and flopped over his eyes. He went across the room in a series of little hops on his knees. He saw himself in the long mirror and grinned. He looked as though he had gotten his head into an iron kettle with a rim on it.

He put his head down and butted the mirror like a goat. His head began to ache more violently as he butted. The hat was down so far over his eyes that he couldn’t see now. Rage began to mount in his throat and made him forget his headache. He threw everything he had into the last butt and heard glass crackle and crunch as his head went through.

For a second he held his breath. He had a sudden horrible picture of himself caught with a sliver of glass in his jugular, bleeding to death with his head in a jagged trap.

He worked his head back gingerly. His head came out but the hat remained wedged in the splintered glass. He got the rim in his teeth and jerked savagely and a long sliver of glass came out with the hat.

He rolled over and got the sliver of glass in his hands. A jagged edge of glass under his thigh bit through his clothes and through the skin. He could feel warm blood trickle down his leg. But he had the sliver of glass in his hands. It cut his fingers as he sawed at the cords.

It took him ten minutes to get free. He stood up and surveyed himself in the top half of the mirror. There was blood on his face, trickling down from the edge of his scalp where a piece of glass had bitten through. He looked at his hands. Three fingers were badly cut.

Looking around he saw a bathroom. Inside he found a medicine chest and located a bottle of iodine. He poured it over his cut fingers and swore as the stuff burned like a flame.

He opened the door of Hardesty’s stateroom and listened. Far forward somewhere a man was singing, Abel Brown the Sailor. Far-off traffic rumbled heavily. The air was thick and warm and pungent with a mixture of a hundred waterside smells. But after the heat of the enclosed stateroom the night air felt almost cool. That, and the rage that mounted in him, brought steadiness and returning strength.

He went very softly down the companionway to the lower deck. He hugged the deck house, his feet making no sound as he padded on the balls of his feet. He was behind the sailor on the gangplank watch before the man heard him. Even then the fellow was not suspicious. He turned slowly, his voice more curious than alarmed, “Who’s that?”

Dell said, “A guy with something for you,” as he stepped forward on his right foot and pivoted, throwing all the weight of his shoulders into the left hook to the sailor’s stomach. The man doubled up with the breath leaving him in a loud, “Woosh.”

“That’s for you,” Dell snapped. “And this is for that louse of a captain, in case I don’t get a chance to give it to him myself.” He brought the right no from the hip in a crushing uppercut and the sailor shot back against the rail and flopped down on the deck.

The fellow who was singing Abel Brown the Sailor forward, stopped suddenly and yelled. “Hey, what’s going on there?” His feet made loud, clanging noises on the steel deck as he ran.

Dell went down the gangplank in a series of leaps. The board had enough spring in it to give him momentum. He cleared the space between the gangplank and the shed in a long, spring-propelled leap. He made for the street with the second sailor’s voice following him in a string of startled, “Heys!”

Walking up the street in hard, angry strides he thought it over. He was still as much in the dark as ever. But he did know now that Hardesty knew something. He knew also that Hardesty had been tipped off that a detective had entered the game. He cursed his own stupidity at not remembering that he had been hired in a public bar and that even then, someone had probably been tailing the Arnolds and Benedict.

There was, he knew, another angle of approach. There was the hotel where Arnold had stopped. Laura Arnold had been able to tell him the room where Arnold had been registered. The room had been torn apart twice. Hardesty and whoever was in this with him were still looking for the unknown valuables. Therefore the hotel would still be a focal point.

Breen stalked across the bare and cheerless lobby to the shabby desk. The man behind the desk was pinched and thin. He had shifty black eyes that were like jet in the pallor of his face. He looked suspiciously at the streaks of blood on Dell’s face as he turned the grubby register around to face him.

Dell grinned and wiped at the blood streaks with the back of his hand. “I got paid off this afternoon,” he said. “A couple of mugs tried to take me in a back alley.”

The clerk nodded. It was in his eyes that such things were not unknown to him. Dell let his eyes wander over the tiny cubicle behind the counter. There was an oblong frame with cardboard slips opposite the room numbers. The white ones had names typed on them. The pink ones were blank. Opposite number 206 he saw the name, “William Gannon.”

Dell jerked his head at the slip and said to the clerk, “I’ll bet that’s Bill Gannon off the Pacific Queen. Good old Bill. How long has he been here?”

The clerk’s eyes filmed over with caution. “Mr. Gannon has been with us quite awhile. I wouldn’t know about what ship he came off.”

“That’s all right.” Dell said beartily, “Bill was always a cautious guy He knows how to keep his mouth shut, Bill does.” He winked at the clerk as one man winks to another who understands these things and the clerk smiled coldly and tightly.

“If you’d just stick me somewhere on the same floor as good old Bill I could look him up when he comes in.”

The clerk picked a key off the rack and held it in his hand. “You’ll have to pay in advance, mister,” he said.

“Sure,” Dell said agreeably. “I understand.” He threw a crumpled five-dollar bill on the counter and explained, “I’ll bring my duffle bag around later. I left it in a saloon while I located a berth to turn into.”

The clerk said, “Up the stairs and to your right. Your room is 209. The toilet is right across from your room.” Dell could fed the clerk’s eyes boring into his back as he swaggered across the lobby with what he hoped was a good seaman’s roll. The filthy stairs creaked as he climbed to the barren, odorous corridor above.

He unlocked 209 and went in. He groped in the darkness till he found the bare bulb in the center of the room and snapped it on. He stood for a second, gazing around, his nose wrinkling with distaste. The air was stale and foul. He crossed and threw up the window and surveyed the rest of the room with a glance. The bed was an old-fashioned brass affair. Over the head of it a fly-specked card read, “God bless this abode.”

Dell grinned wrily and looked around. Besides the bed there was a washstand with a cracked mirror over it, two rickety chairs and a battered desk in a corner. The covers on the bed looked as though they had seen a lot of guests since they had seen a laundry.

He paused at the foot of the bed for a long time, his face heavy with thought. As he paused he rested one hand on the top of one of the low brass footposts. A noise somewhere in the hall made him turn quickly. It sounded as if someone had fallen. No other sound followed that one dull thud.

He stood a moment, listening.

As he turned, the top of the brass post came off in his hand. He held it, staring at it, then he stared at the hollow post from which it had come and a speculative gleam came into his eyes. He replaced it slowly and made an attempt to screw it back in its place. But the thread was worn and stripped. The brass cap turned round and round loosely. When he lifted his hand the cap stayed on the post at a drunken angle.

Behind his closed door he went through his pockets. His gun was gone. He felt of the empty holster under his arm again and his mouth pulled down at the corners and his eyes burned a more frosty blue. He shoved a hand into his hip pocket and sighed with relief.

He pulled the sap out and looked at it most lovingly. He slapped it into the palm of his left hand and grinned. Slipping it up his sleeve he put his head on one side and gazed at the door.

Opening it softly he slid out into the corridor. He could hear a low murmur of voices from the lobby below. Someone was talking to the clerk. Dell listened for a second but could hear nothing of what was said. He shrugged gently and walked along the corridor, keeping close to the wall to minimize the creaking of the loose boards.

A thin thread of light trickled out from under the door of 206. Dell put his ear close and listened. There was no sound from within. He tried the knob cautiously, turned it and pushed the unlocked door open slowly.

A voice across the room said, “Well, if it ain’t Mr. Bloody Breen again. So you got loose, did you? You’re smarter than I thought. But this time I’ll make sure of my job.”

Hardesty was sitting with his back to the window. Under the glare of the naked bulb his red whiskers shone like polished copper. His eyes were very bright and blue above the whiskers. His tongue looked pale and soft as he licked his lips. “That’s what you’re going to get, Mr. Bloody Breen.”

He jerked his head. Following the direct ion of the gesture Dell saw a man lying on his face on the floor beyond the bed. A cheap blue serge coat covered his bony shoulders. His long legs were clad in soiled gray flannels and ended in heavy-soled boots. The fellow had a fringe of sandy hair between his scrawny neck and the shiny bald top of his head. Only now the bald head wasn’t so shiny. It was bisected by a red valley from which blood seeped to run through the fringe of hair, over an ear to the linoleum beneath him. Something about the way the man lay told Dell that he would never move again under his own power.

IV

His face a mask, Dell looked at the big gun in Hardesty’s hand. Hardesty’s hands were matted with red hair. Red hair trickled along the thick fingers that held the gun so steadily. On its long barrel was a smear of crimson. Dell glanced from it to the crushed head of the man on the floor.

Hardesty chuckled hoarsely. “That was Bill Gannon, Mr. Bloody Breen. That was Bill Gannon who used to be my first mate. He tried to doublecross his old skipper, the scurvy rat. But I knew, Mr. Bloody Breen. I knew that he was trying to. Trust Red Hardesty. He gets to know most things. I knew he was trying a doublecross, just as I knew that you were coming on the job, Mr. Bloody Breen. I make it my business to know everything.”

Dell smiled tightly. “You’re quite a man, aren’t you, Hardesty? You’re a very smart man in your own opinion. Now if you could only get somebody to agree with you.”

Hardesty got up very slowly, the black snout of the gun very steady as it menaced Dell. “I’d like to put a slug through your guts, Mr. Bloody Breen. But it would be too noisy. So I’ll just bash your head in the way I did Gannon’s.”

He came across the room very quietly. It was fascinating to watch such bulk move with such catlike silence. He kept his eyes on Dell and the snout of the gun started to rise a little.

With his eyes gripping Hardesty’s Dell let the sap slip out of his sleeve into his hand. “I took your gun, Mr. Bloody Breen,” Hardesty said, “so you’ll just have to take what’s coming to you without a struggle.”

Dell kept his face blank. Hardesty was a long pace away from him when he moved. He stepped in. his left wrist knocking the snout of the big gun up, his right coming around with a swish.

Hardesty saw it coming. The man had reflexes like a cat. His mouth jerked open as he ducked. But the sap was traveling too fast. Dell was putting all the anger and hurt he had felt into that swing. It was aimed at Hardesty’s jaw. Hardesty ducked just enough so that it took him on the side of the head just above the ear.

All the strength flowed like water out of his heavy legs and he started to fall. Dell managed to get his hands under Hardesty’s shoulders to ease the force of his fall. A heavy thud might bring the nosey clerk up.

Hardesty lay on his face without motion. The big gun with the smear of red along its barrel lay a few inches from his outflung hand. Dell kicked it into a corner and stared down at Hardesty. “You were just a little too smart, Skipper,” he said softly. “You were just a little too sure of your own ability and shrewdness. And that doesn’t pay in this business.”

He looked toward the door. It was all but closed. He stared at Hardesty again, then at the dead Gannon. Then he glanced around the room.

It was a carbon copy of 209. The same smeared and cracked card was over the head of the brass bed. The same kind of washstand and mirror stood against the wall. But where the other mirror was cracked this one was merely bleared and distorted with spots.

Dell walked to the foot of the bed and looked at the brass posts. The caps were screwed on evenly here. Then he saw something else, a thin thread hung down a half inch below the collar of the cap. Dell stared at it, his eyes beginning to shine.

It looked as though this might be it — the break he’d fought for.

Holding the end of the thread very carefully between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he unscrewed the brass cap. He dropped the cap on the bed and still very carefully pulled up the thread that ran down into the hollow post and seemed to have something heavy on the end.

There was a little sack of chamois skin on the end of the thread. Dell hefted it in his hands and whistled tonelessly. He continued to whistle as he loosed the string of leather that pulled the bag closed at the top. The whistle died as he stared into the chamois bag.

He put a thumb and forefinger into the sack to pick up one of the big pearls. He was so intent on what was in his hands that he did not hear the door open. He heard nothing until the man who was behind him slugged him on the back of the head. He caught at the foot of the bed but there was no strength in his hands. Clawing at the bed he slid down to the floor.

Dimly he heard someone scurry past him. The door slammed and the man was gone. Dell shook his head, clamped his teeth and fought with the nausea that gripped him. He felt himself slowly coming to the surface. He hadn’t been slugged hard. Either the man who had hit him hadn’t the strength or else he was in too much of a hurry.

He sat up and stared dazedly at Hardesty, still sprawled on the floor. “Mr. Tough Hardesty,” he said drily, “if you had a head like mine you’d be in a better position to boast. I guess I can take it.”

He stood up on trembling legs. Gradually the trembling passed. He backed slowly to the door. As he paused he saw a tremor run up Hardesty’s back. He was lying with the side of his face resting on the floor. As Dell watched him he saw one blue eye open cautiously and slowly close and Dell grinned.

Dell walked around Hardesty very cautiously. He could see the butt of his own gun peeping out of Hardesty’s pocket. He very expertly snapped it out and stood for a second with it in his hand, the shrewd smile on his face growing. With his eyes still on Hardesty he backed again toward the door, the gun held in his hand.

In the corridor he closed the door softly behind him. He carefully eased the gun into its armpit holster. “Go ahead and play possum, Mr. Hardesty, and see what it gets you.” He jerked his big shoulders in a shrug, turned and ran lightly along the corridor and down the rickety stairs. There was a queer questioning gleam in the clerk’s eyes as Dell crossed the lobby toward him.

Dell’s face was very grim as he leaned over the counter. “Now, wise guy, you can call the cops. There’s a dead man up in 206. I didn’t kill him but I know who did. When the homicide boys come tell them that Dell Breen was here. Tell them that I’m going to the apartment of Laura Arnold on Waverly Place. Tell them to look me up and I’ll give them the score.”

He watched tight secrecy flow into the clerk’s face and smiled grimly. He turned from the desk and halted a moment with his head bent, listening. He could hear uncertain feet moving toward the stairway in the hall above. The smile twisted his lips into still sharper irony as he headed across the lobby to the street.

He took his time finding a taxi, waiting on the curb till a cruiser came down the street. He climbed in slowly, gave the driver the address on Waverly Place and leaned back in his seat with the same enigmatic smile playing on his lips.

The smile was still there when he paid off the cabby and crossed the sidewalk to the apartment entrance. But it faded slowly as he waited for the click of the door after he had rung.

He climbed the two flights of stairs slowly. Laura Arnold had come out into the hall and was leaning over the balustrade. Dell saw Trina’s red hair shining in the lamplight and heard her voice, “Well, here you are at last, you big lug. What kind of a game have you been playing?”

Dell said, “Shut up, pest. I’ve got troubles of my own. I’ve been kicked around like an old can and run through a sausage grinder. Shut up and see if Miss Arnold has a drink in the house.”

“I’ve got some beer in the ice chest,” Laura Arnold said hurriedly. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything else.”

“Give him beer,” Trina said crossly. “He’ll drink anything.”

As he came into the room he saw the shocked solicitude in Laura’s eyes. Trina’s eyes widened and her mouth softened. “Aw, Dell,” she said in quick contrition, “I didn’t know that you’d been hurt. What happened? Are you badly hurt?”

Dell grinned wrily. “Just scuffed around the edges and a few nicks in the shell, kitten,” he said. “Thanks for the sympathy. I guess I’ve got to get half killed to get a kind word from you.”

Trina bustled away and came back with a pan of water and a cloth. She started to dab at the blood on Dell’s forehead but he pushed her away and said thickly, “Where’s that beer? I want beer more than anything else right now.”

Laura came out of the kitchenette pouring beer from a can into a tall glass. Dell took it, buried his nose in the suds and drank thirstily. He sighed as he set the glass down and said, “Another one would be about right.”

Trina shifted from one foot to the other Impatiently. “If that isn’t like you, Dell Breen. Here we sit all evening worrying our heads off, and. when you come back looking as if someone had been working on you with a meat axe, you haven’t got a thing to say for yourself. What happened? What did you find out? Who beat you up?”

“Just a minute, kid, just a minute,” Dell said softly. “One thing at a time.”

Benedict came on tiptoes into the room. He gave a start when he saw Dell, then said to Laura, “He’s asleep at last. He was very restless and excited. I had to listen to him tell me a dozen times about Black Bill and Waiki before he’d settle down.”

Dell’s eyes asked questions and Laura said, “Mr. Benedict has been with father all the evening. He can handle him much better than I can. Father is highly excited tonight.”

Dell wagged his head and said, “I see.”

Trina burst out again, “Come on you dull oaf and tell us what happened.”

Dell said, “I went down to the Pacific Queen to interview Captain Hardesty. But Hardesty was waiting for me. We had a little passage in which all the winnings went to the skipper. I got out of that with the major portion of the damages you see. Then I went to the Haven Hotel. I found Hardesty again and a dead man.”

Laura’s breath made loud whistling noises as she leaned tensely forward. Trina watched Dell with narrowed eyes. Benedict was standing beside a table, his round eyes on Dell.

Trina snapped, “You’re holding out on us, Dell Breen. I can see it in your eyes. You can’t fool me. I know you too well. Come on, what did you find.”

“I found the marbles,” Dell said softly. “I found the marbles that all the rough boys have been playing for.”

“Marbles?” Trina asked. “What do you mean, marbles? Come on, Dell, loosen up.”

“You found out what it was Daddy hid,” Laura said. “What was it?”

“I’m coming to that,” Dell said. He put his elbows on his knees and listened. The thunder of the Sixth Avenue L filled the room with echoes. Outside in the street a boy yelled shrilly. A radio was turned on somewhere in a neighboring apartment. Someone was climbing the stairs slowly.

He straightened his chair and smiled grimly. “Your father has a very fine and valuable collection of pearls, Miss Arnold. Undoubtedly it was what he took from Black Bill. Bill, like a lot of unsavory characters in those waters, wisely put a lot of his takings into pearls. Pearls, you know, represent great wealth in a small, easily transported medium. Then Mr. Arnold started for home with his pearls. But somebody else knew about them.”

Someone stirred in the corridor outside. Dell said in a loud voice, “If Benedict hadn’t tipped me off I never would have got past Hardesty.”

Benedict opened his mouth and gasped, “What?” in a frightened voice. “What are you talking about?” All the pink was flowing out of his chubby face leaving it white and strained.

The door into the hall jerked open and someone roared, “You damned bilge rat. You doublecrossing crook. I never should have trusted you.”

Dell dived out of his chair as Hardesty fired. The big gun had a voice like a cannon. It spewed orange flame half the length of the room. Benedict went back over the table as though an invisible hand had struck him.

Hardesty jerked around, his big gun leveling. His mouth was a wide in his gleaming whiskers. “As for you, Mr. Bloody Breen,” he roared, “I’ll make sure of you this time.”

V

Dell had snapped the gun from his holster as he dived out of the chair. He rolled over on one side just as Hardesty leveled the gun. Dell’s slug hit him squarely between the two hedges of red eyebrows, and Hardesty went over backward with a surprised look on his face.

Dell got up slowly. On the floor below a woman screamed like a banshee. Laura stood with her hands at her throat, her eyes wide.

Trina was the first to recover. She snapped in a high-pitched voice, “Dell Breen, you big mick, you knew that was going to happen. You led that big Tarzan right up here to make a killing.”

“It was the only thing I could do,” Dell said. “I had begun to suspect Benedict but I couldn’t be sure.”

Then his tone changed. Below in the street a cop’s whistle was blowing shrilly. “The coppers will be here. We’ve got to have a story for them.”

He crossed the room and frisked Benedict expertly. He found the chamois bag and slipped it into his own trouser pockets. “It’s like this,” he said crisply, “your father, Miss Arnold, was mixed up with Hardesty some way. It was Hardesty who beat him up and sent him to the hospital. Benedict was his friend. Hardesty killed another of the gang, a fellow named Gannon in the Hotel Haven. But you don’t know anything about that. You only know that you were frightened about your father and hired a bodyguard. Hardesty came in here tonight and shot Benedict. I shot Hardesty. We don’t know what it was all about. As far as you know it had something to do with your father’s career in the South Pacific. Hardesty won’t talk any more. Neither will Benedict. I shall explain my trip to the Haven Hotel as a matter of business for you. I was trying to head off Hardesty. If the cops want any more they’ll have to go to the South Pacific.”

A blue-coated patrolman with a big gun in his hand and a scared Irish face stuck his head through the door. “What’s going on here?” he blustered. He stared from the dead Hardesty at his feet to Dell. Then he saw Benedict’s feet sticking over the wreck of the table and his eyes widened more.

“It’s all over, copper,” Dell said harshly. “Call the homicide boys and I’ll talk to them.”

The cop came slowly into the room. “The homicide squad is on the way now. Boy, you’re going to have some explaining to do.”

Dell did have some explaining to do. But he had his story pat and was backed by Laura Arnold and Trina. They all left finally, taking Hardesty’s body and that of Benedict with them.

They had already picked up Gannon. Sergeant Hoyle, a horse-faced, frozen-eyed man who knew Dell said, “I guess you’re in the clear, Breen. But if there’s any kick-back on this I’m coming straight after you.”

Dell grinned, “Be yourself, Hoyle. Miss Arnold hired me as a bodyguard. You can see how she needed one. Poor little Benedict was killed because he tried to look after her. But Hardesty was the guy on the murder trail. And you’ve got him. What more could you ask?”

“I could ask, maybe, for the real story,” Hoyle grumbled. “But I know sure as hell that I wouldn’t get it.”

Dell talked for a long time after the last of the police had gone. “It was like this. When your father got the pearls, Miss Arnold, he knew he had the fortune he wanted. Black Bill had ruined him. He felt he was only squaring when he took Black Bill’s pearls. They represented blood money Black Bill had taken from others.

“Your father merely sent you word that he was coming home well heeled. He couldn’t tell his daughter the real story in a letter. But he could tell a friend who would understand. And, being human, he had to tell someone. So he wrote a letter to his best friend, Benedict, telling him what he had.

“Your father was coming home with Hardesty, a man who knew both Arnold and Benedict. But your father didn’t trust Hardesty so he told him nothing. Benedict went to the ship, hoping to get to Arnold before he went ashore. But Arnold was already ashore. He made for the first hotel.

“Once he got ashore Benedict was afraid to tackle Arnold. Benedict was a weakling and Buck Arnold was a strong, tough man. So Benedict made a deal with Hardesty. Hardesty took Gannon with him and caught your father at the hotel. They beat him up but did too good a job. At first your father was stubborn and wouldn’t tell, later he couldn’t. That stimied them.

“Hardesty gave it up and sailed with his ship. Gannon jumped ship, figuring on crossing both Benedict and Hardesty if he could find the pearls. He couldn’t. In the meantime Hardesty was due back. You got me on the job. Benedict tipped Hardesty to that and he was waiting for me. I guess that’s all.”

He righted the table that Benedict had knocked over and spread his handkerchief on it. He untied the bag and let the pearls roll out. There were an even dozen, huge, lustrous, perfect.

Laura put her trembling hands on the table. Her eyes were wide and unbelieving. Trina said in a hushed, tremulous voice, “Good gosh, Dell, they’re worth a fortune.”

Laura said suddenly, “But. Benedict was with father all the evening. How could he have been at the hotel?”

Dell said grimly, “It was a swell alibi. But I’ll bet there’s a fire-escape at your father’s window.” He smiled at her nod and went on. “He slipped out, went to the hotel to see if anything was happening. He got there just as I found the pearls. He bopped me, beat it back here, and crawled back by the way of the fire-scape. Evidently your father had gone straight to sleep.”

Laura shook her head. “I can’t believe it even yet.”

“Life is like that at times, kid,” Dell said soberly. “But you want to start thinking about other things. I’ll steer you to a reputable jeweler who’ll give you what those pearls are worth. Then you can have specialists look your dad over. I’ll bet he’ll be right as rain in a few months.”

Laura took the pearls and said shakily, “I don’t know how to thank you. I’ll be glad to have you handle the pearls. And your fee—”

Dell started to say, “Ah, now, Miss Arnold, don’t you worry about that.” Trina grabbed his arm and gave him a jerk. “I’ll take care of that, Miss Arnold. I handle all the business details.”

As they went down the stairs, Dell grumbled, “You women are all alike. All you think about is money, money, money.”

Trina snapped, “Somebody in the firm has got to think about money. In this business you don’t play for marbles.”