Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 44, No. 5, September 28, 1929

Jimmy Dugan Finds Some Strange Birds in Blacky Swain’s “Nest” — One Was a Blonde and the Other Red-Headed

I

Nothing in the shape of a blinking electric sign announced or advertised the Nest. There was not even a name place in connection with that basement combination speakeasy, cabaret and dance hall. Total strangers never discovered it, all those who were not habitués were regarded as outsiders, unless their credentials were exceptional. It was far over on the East Side, the resort of gangsters and their “broads.” A foul place.

The music was good, so was the liquor, and the dance floor. All the houses on that side of the dingy block were more or less united in a sort of warren. There was only one entrance to the Nest, but there were several exits, known to the initiated. The back space of two adjoining basements had been made into one big room for general entertainment. The other rooms were used for private parties, for card games, for conferences of racketeers, the division of loot or its proceeds. One basement doorway was entirely closed. Above the other was one dingy electric bulb.

No one got through that entrance who was not wanted. An easier place to enter than to leave, for all the emergency exits, if you did not belong. A place suspected but not yet raided. A place protected, beyond question. At the back was a dingy stretch of ground. Adjoining fences were all negotiable, though the places for passage were masked.

Two entertainers were on the floor, a tawdry blonde who was still slender, still graceful, though her face showed the ravages of dissipation for all its make-up. Her dress was revealing rather than suggestive, she wore a number of gems that flashed too brilliantly to be genuine. Her partner was a slim, slick lizard of a man, with the eyes of a weasel and the suppleness of that feral brute.

They knew their audiences, and their audiences knew all their repertoire, save when, at rare intervals, the blonde introduced a new song. Her voice was husky but not unpleasing, there was still a lure about her of days when she might have been a headliner.

The dance over, dutifully applauded, she sprang up to a seat on the piano, played by a man whose pasty face had eyes in it dead looking as dried currants; from whose dry lips the fag of a cigarette constantly hung.

“I’m tryin’ out a new song to-night, people,” announced the blonde. “See how you like it? Jangle the pan, Looey.”

A couple were admitted after a whispered talk with the burly guard, a broken-nosed paluka, whose prize fighting ambitions had been flattened with his nasal organ. The man who came in looked as if he might be a truck driver. The girl was petite and pretty. The blonde looked at the newcomer with interest, her dancing partner surveyed the girl with a speculation that was an insult to decency, a speculation he was careful to keep veiled. He did not have too much courage, or masculinity, and it was a risky game in the Nest to interfere with another man’s girl. The man in question looked as if he could give a good account of himself.

The two gave their order, lit cigarettes, surveyed the room with languid interest. The blonde deliberately ogled the man. As the song ended, the proprietor of the Nest, an Italian named Salterno, came over to their table, nodded to them.

“My fren’, you say Dutch Frank tell you to come here to have good time, si? I hope you do that. When did you see heem last. You know where he ees, si?”

His beady eyes were more than inquisitive, they held a flame of doubtful hostility.

“I ain’t seen Dutch since I went up north on my last run,” said Jimmy Dugan. “Last I knew he was over on West Fifteenth.”

“Ah! You did not know he was on a trip up the reever? No?”

“You mean Dutch is in stir? That’s bad news. How long a stretch?”

Salterno held up five fingers.

Dugan whistled.

“Say, that’s too bad. What d’ye know about that, kid?”

The girl shook her head in commiseration.

“Dutch was a good guy,” she said. “It’s bum luck.”

“They spot heem by that bum mitt of hees,” said Salterno. “You know wheech feenger was missing, my friend?”

“What are you tryin’ to hand me?” said Dugan. “There was nothin’ wrong with Dutchey’s mitts. What’s the big idea?”

Salterno laughed.

“I theenk you are all right,” he said. “But we hav’ to be careful. You come an’ say Dutch send you here, an’ Dutch ees in stir. So, I ask you one question. Now you dreenk weeth me. Si.”

Nobody knew better than Jimmy Dugan, second-class detective, that Dutch Frank had nothing wrong with his hands. He had helped to send Dutch on that trip up the river. He knew his mug, his measurements, his Bertillon description.

He breathed a little more easily after Salterno expressed his satisfaction, not so much for his own sake as for that of his companion, Mary Brady. He knew that the very air one breathed in the Nest was fraught with danger to the intruder — and so did the girl — but, to enter there alone increased the risk, and he did not expect to do more than size up the clientèle.

As for Mary Brady, she also was in the game. Her present job was with the Garrity Detective Agency. She was holding down a counter job in a jeweler’s establishment where there had been a recent record of missing gems, valuable rings; believed to be an inside affair. Her evenings were her own, after the store closed, and she gave some of them to Jimmy Dugan.

It was not the first time they had worked together, though the association was not official. Jimmy hoped, some day, to make the partnership permanent. Then, he resolved, Mary would get out of the fascinating but risky game, too risky for the girl he loved, though the adventure of it was in her blood as well as his own.

He had a hint, also a hunch, that the Nest was a rendezvous of the gang known as the Blackbirds, their racket the looting from freight cars of valuable silks whose contents they knew beforehand. Their identity was still a secret to Centre Street, a secret Dugan meant to solve. There were vague descriptions of some of them, given by blackjacked watchmen and others who had been put out of the way.

There had been some who had been less mercifully treated. Floaters who had been found bumping against wharf pilings, brought in with the tide, shot in their defense of the goods the Blackbirds coveted. A desperate lot of racketeers with no thought of the value of human life outside their own.

Dugan watched those who entered the Nest. He and Mary Brady seemed the only strangers. But he recognized none as members of the Blackbirds. It was getting late. The place was filled with the fumes of cigarettes, the reek of liquor. Jests were bandied back and forth. He was conscious of the advances of the blonde entertainer, bolder as the general attitude became more rowdy, more intimate. She was dancing, off and on, with a red-headed, undersized, rat-faced man who seemed more eager than she was, though he was a fine partner, dancing almost as well as her professional team mate, who gave up his attempts to interest Mary Brady, foiled by her indifference.

It looked like an off night. Unless the red-headed man was one of the outfit he wanted. They had a note at headquarters that there was a red-head among the Blackbirds. He did not look like a potential villain, and, while he was evidently well-acquainted, Dugan saw no signs between him and any one else of close intimacy.

“You can stay here all night,” he said to Mary. “We might as well be going. It was just a chance lead.”

But Dugan was disappointed. It was the first time his hunch had failed him, the hunch that was an inborn attribute of the instinctive detective. Dugan was making good, though he had not been long a detective. Six months ago he had been a harness bull, pounding the pavement as two generations of Dugans had done before him. He had been lucky, he told himself, and might well have spelled the word with a p in front of it. “Pluck” and “luck,” and that mysterious phenomenon called a “hunch,” had helped him to promotion, still kept him on the highway to advancement.

It was based, that hunch, upon a natural faculty of observation, of deductions arrived at subconsciously, brought to life by illuminating circumstance, heightened by persistent study of criminal ways. But Dugan was modest. His opinion of himself was far less than that of Deputy Commissioner Connelly, a friend of his father, dead now — Sergeant Dugan. Connelly liked the boy, believed him a comer. It was he who had suggested the capture of the Blackbirds, given Dugan the tips that brought him to the Nest.

II

The blonde was singing again, singing pointedly and provocatively to Dugan, posturing in front of their table.

The song ended with perfunctory applause. They had heard it before. The blonde stopped by Dugan’s table. The red-head came up to her as the orchestra jazzed for a dance. But—

“Lissen, big boy,” she said to Dugan. “This is a social dump. You’ve been dancing with the same dame all evening. And you shake a lively hoof. Split up. Be amiable. Let ‘Blaze’ Menken take on your twist and twirl and give me a number.”

Dugan felt the touch of Mary’s elbow. She knew what they were there for, knew the tip concerning a redhead. She was playing the game. Dugan stood up. His blood was tingling, not from the prospect of the dance, but with the impulse of his hunch. It gave no direct message, but it seemed somehow like the rap of opportunity on his door.

“I didn’t suppose you wanted to dance with me,” he said. The blonde gave him a coquettish look.

“You don’t mind, deary?” she flung over her shoulder to Mary.

“Not yet,” Mary answered.

They glided off. The blonde danced intimately, complimenting Dugan. But his hunch persisted that she was making use of him for some purpose of her own. The vindication seemed to arrive suddenly. The music was in the last bars of the dance when three men entered. Dugan saw them over his partner’s shoulder.

A dark man in the lead, with a drooping left eyelid, a face that was the essence of evil, of craft and cunning. His neck seemed slightly twisted, so that he carried his head to one side.

If this was not “Blacky” Swain, reputed leader of the Blackbirds, then Dugan’s hunch, the reports at headquarters were at fault. There was no proof against Blacky, beyond persistent rumors coming through the stool pigeons of other gangs, but, if the Nest was his hang-out, here was a definite lead that Dugan had come here to find.

Also, there was a subtle stir in the crowd. A personage had arrived. The two ment with Blacky, Dugan set down as his guards, pure and simple.

The dance ended. There was applause for an encore.

Then the man with the stiff neck strode through the couples, who made room for him, caught the red-headed man by the shoulder, grabbed Mary Brady by her arm and flung her off.

The blonde broke from Dugan, thrust herself between Blaze Menken and the other. Blacky caught her by the bare shoulder, sent her reeling. His eyes glittered.

“I told you to steer clear of this dump!” he barked at the red-head, who stood as if robbed of motion, staring at the other. The dance floor was cleared as if by magic. Mary Brady a bruise on her flesh, came toward Dugan, who set her back of him, his own eyes blazing. He took a step forward. Blacky Swain wheeled on him.

“You keep out of this, fella!” he said. “If you know what’s good for you!”

It was not only the detective in Dugan that made him interfere. He saw Blacky reach inside his coat, caught the first glint of a gun. It was not meant for him, but for Blaze Menken.

He had not brought a weapon with him. Such things were/not easily hidden, as he knew. Not on a crowded dance floor, in such company. He had come for observation, for clews, not to make arrests; lacking definite reason. But he saw the bruise on Mary’s arm, and murder about to be done. He was first a man and a lover, also an officer of the law.

He caught up a chair and whirled it. It struck Blacky’s bent arm, a leg hit his elbow. The two guards were starting forward and Dugan flung the chair at them, snatched another.

Blacky was writhing with the anguish of the blow. Blaze had darted from the floor, making for the back. Dugan knew no exit save the front door.

“Beat it,” he said to Mary. “I’m with you.”

In the confusion he clove a way with the second chair, thrusting, swinging. The doorman faced him and he beat him down. Behind him the crowd was milling. Every second he expected a bullet in his back; he wasted no time. He faced about as Mary slid through the entrance, leaving it open. Once more he slung the chair into the milling crowd and followed her, slamming the door behind him. In the confusion no one fired. They were clear, the night air fresh on their faces.

He caught Mary by the arm and sped her up the steps to the sidewalk. They raced together to the corner of the block, around it. A cruising cab, its fare delivered, came down the middle of the empty street in the gray light of dawn, and Dugan hailed it with relief. It had been a close call.

“ ’Tis the last time you’ll come with me to such a place,” he said. “ ’Tis no place for a decent girl to be in anyways. You’ve got to get out of this game, Mary, though ’twas me took you into this end of it.”

“You found what you wanted, didn’t you?” she asked.

“That’s naught to do with it.”

“It’s part of the game. Jimmy, I think it was a put-up job. I think they suspected you.”

“They hurt you,” he said. “You’ve left your wrap behind.”

She snuggled to him. She was in the game, she ran the risks, but she knew that it was Jimmy Dugan, the man, not Dugan, the detective, talking. And she liked it.

“Never mind the wrap, Jimmy,” she said. “If you get that gang you can charge it to expenses. But I think it was staged, Jimmy boy. You’ll not go back there? Promise me that? It’s not because of the blonde, Jimmy. I’m not jealous.”

It was the first time she had intimated that she might be. Jimmy slid an arm about her and she let it rest.

“That man Blaze,” she went on. “He wanted to know all about you. They don’t like strangers in that dump.”

“He came nigh to gettin’ bumped off,” said Dugan, “though ’twas not for him I interfered.”

“I know that, Jimmy. But, somehow, I think it was a—”

Dugan’s lips were on hers, in the first kiss between them.

“You’re safe. Mary, that’s all that matters,” he said.

III

“This is Blaze Menken speaking,” said the voice. “You remember me, in the Nest? Where can I have a talk with you? I don’t want to come up where you are.”

Jimmy could understand that. Blaze Menken! He had saved his life, but he remembered Mary’s warning. Manlike, he wondered if she was right. Without conceit, recollecting their ride home, he was not sure how much she had been afraid for him as he for her.

A detective had no right to be in love, he had told himself more than once. It confused things. If Mary was fond of him it might upset her judgment. This was a lead he had no license to refuse. For once his hunch gave out no indication.

“I’ll meet you uptown,” he said. “In the drug store, Times station, in half an hour.”

Blaze was on hand, furtive, glancing about him. He suggested a subway ride, and Dugan accepted the proposition. In the subway they got off at Rector, between trains, and Blaze spoke his mind. Dugan had some questions of his own to put.

“You dicks are not so wise,” said Blaze. “You put on masks at line-up, but you have to come out in the open when you testify at trials, and you can bet we’re there to watch you. You pulled in that Greek crowd and you went on the stand. The papers carried your picture. Say, it’s easy. We’re on the lookout for you fellas, same as you are for us. The minute I saw you in the Nest I knew who you were.

“But Black don’t treat me right, see? That blonde is my broad. I mean the singer, Mae Morgan, who made a play for you. I got her that job. She was a down and out dope when I picked her up. Looks different now. She’s got Blacky’s goat, an’ I reckon he’s got hers, though she tells me he said he’d bump her off if she didn’t quit me fer him.

“Thet may be the truth or a stall. He told me to lay off. An’ I wasn’t layin’ off. He may run the racket, but that don’t give him any right to cop my doll. There’s some things a guy can’t stand for. You wouldn’t. I buzzed your broad when I danced with her. She wouldn’t give you erway. She’s solid fer you, but Mae — well, she acted like she still thought a lot of me when Blacky starts to stick me up. He’d have bumped me off if it hadn’t been fer you. And he knew I didn’t have a rod on me.

“I’ll fix him. The whole outfit is lousy. They think Blacky is Gord Almighty. They’ll do me in if we don’t git to ’em first, an’ I’m puttin’ you wise. They’re runnin’ a load to-night. Silk. They’ll come in a launch on top the flood, round midnight. They may stow it or a truck may come fer it. Depends on how Blacky’s fixed up the sellin’ end. They’ve got a snug dump. You’d never uncover it. But you meet me at ten o’clock and I’ll put you hep.”

“Tell me now,” said Dugan.

But Blaze Menken was plainly nervous, fidgeting with his finger ends, flicking the end of his nose. He had said the singer used dope when he met her. He carried all the signs of an addict himself.

“No,” he said. “I gotta go. I’ll meet you at Mother Blinn’s. She runs a lunch dump close to the hide-out. The gang’ll all be away.”

The man was trembling all over. It might be hate, fear, but Dugan thought that Blaze was needing a sniff of cocaine. He was probably in jeopardy. If Blacky had meant to kill him in the Nest he would not hesitate to finish the job. Blaze knew too much. Blacky would not overlook the fact that Blaze might turn on them to save himself.

Dugan let him hop the next train uptown after he had got the directions concerning Mother Blinn’s location — right on the edge of the river, catering to longshoremen and wharfingers. Then he bought a paper, looked at the tide tables. Blaze had told the truth about the tides. It would be high water on the East River at twelve eighteen.

Dugan knew that the racketeers were well-organized. They had spies hanging about headquarters, around the courts. The masks of the detectives were all right for general inspection, but they could not wear them during a trial. It was a weak place in the armor of the law.

He knew also that one of the great assets in making arrests and getting convictions came from flaws in the gangster’s equipment. Jealousies were frequent, of one sort and another — dissatisfaction about cuts in the division of spoil, suspicion that leaders held out on the others. There was little honor among racketeers. And life was held lightly. Their affairs with women were frequently the cause of disruption, if not of downfall.

It looked like a good lead, and he resolved to meet Blaze at ten o’clock.

Mother Blinn’s lunch dump looked like a stranded scow. A long counter with stools ran for two-thirds of its length, stove and supplies back of it. There was a line of small tables, and, in the rear, two cubby-holes of rooms for privacy. Mother Blinn was a mammoth figure, half white, half Cuban negress, powerful enough to run that place where rough men gathered and racketeers dropped in.

Blaze was waiting outside for Dugan in the shadow. He had pulled himself together, seemed confident, crafty, and capable. They went to one of the back rooms. Mother Blinn did all her own work, cooking, waiting, and washing up.

“We gotta order some grub,” said Blaze. “She don’t let you hang round without payin’ fer it. She makes good strong coffee. I didn’t eat no supper. I’m takin’ ham-and.”

Dugan contented himself with coffee and doughnuts. The woman left to fill the order.

“Tell me about this hideout,” said Dugan. “I want to know all about it before I go ahead.”

“It’s a junk warehouse. Salterno has a nephew who buys up the cuttings and trimmings from the loft trade. See? Brings ’em down here an’ sorts ’em. He leases the warehouse. That end of it’s straight. You could search the place any time an’ find nothing. But it’s double-decked — see? The stuff he brings in is all over the floor an’ hides a trap, though you’d have to look close before you found it even when you know about it.

“The stuff comes in the launch, always on the flood. The end of the wharf is fixed so the launch can get right under it, right up to the lower deck. We take it up through the trap as it’s sold. Salterno’s nephew, Rocco, Does most of the delivering.”

“Where is it?” asked Dugan.

Blaze pointed out through the window of the little room to a long, irregular line of wharves and sheds, with docks occasionally in between.

“Fifth one,” he said. “The lower deck is fixed up with bunks, got electric lights. It’s snug enough. We got grub there an’ electric plates fer cookin’ if we need it. We could hide out there fer a week, or a month, fer that matter, if we wanted to. Usually we just use it fer a sort of dump to wait in when we’re lookin’ fer Rocco to show up fer the goods. Play cards there sometimes.”

“Only way in by the trap and by water?” asked Dugan. Blaze’s story was frankly told. Dugan was beginning to plan his attack. They would need the river police.

“That’s all,” said Blaze.

“How many in the outfit?”

“Six, countin’ me out. Two of ’em generally stay in the launch.”

Mother Blinn entered, bringing the food. The coffee was strong, if inclined to be bitter. Dugan put in plenty of sugar and milk, broke his doughnuts and ate them swiftly.

Blaze would admit him to the warehouse, open the trap. It could be closed from beneath. Dugan wanted to make sure, to give the whole hideout a look-over before he made up his campaign. He was not sure what he would do with Blaze. Probably have him held at headquarters.

He looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes after ten. There was time enough, but not too much. They might have some trouble in getting in touch with a river patrol. It would be best to let the stuff be landed, watching them from the farther shore, to wait for Rocco to arrive, or perhaps to stop him, load officers in the wagon, force Rocco to let them in, give the proper signals. Then close in from land and water. There would be a fight. Racketeers were rats, in Dugan’s estimation, but they fought viciously when cornered.

The plans began to shuttle into a pattern in his mind as Dugan stood up. He finished the coffee in one gulp and nodded at Blaze.

The latter’s face had suddenly become distorted, dim. It enlarged, diminished, the walls of the small room seemed to contract, to swirl. A giant hand seemed closing on Dugan’s heart, his brain.

He saw Blaze grinning, or some one who must be Blaze, grinning like an imp. The half white woman was in the open doorway, a gigantic figure with rolling eyes and flashing teeth. He had been drugged. Chloral or—

His thoughts were no longer coherent. Mind and body lost coordination as Dugan strove to gather himself, clutching with forceless fingers for his gun. Then he felt himself falling, falling through infinite space in utter blackness.

IV

Dugan woke with a shudder. He had been violently, automatically sick and he still felt the nausea. But that and his own vitality had fought the drug. Still, he could hardly breathe. Sweat poured out of him. He was stretched in some sort of a bunk in darkness, in a place that was unventilated, hot.

Yet he shivered. His brain seemed to open and shut. It was not yet clear, memory did not function. There was the sound of lapping water close by and that proved the link that brought him to full consciousness.

He lay there, listening. He must have been brought to that lower deck Blaze had told him about, truthfully enough, realizing it would sound better than fiction, sure that it would do Dugan no good.

He was miserably weak. The drug had poisoned him. Feebly he felt the damp wall beside him, the sideboard of the bunk he was stretched in. His watch was gone, his gun, his badge. They had stripped him. Blaze and Mother Blinn between them. The pair had probably carried him along the lonely water front. Blaze could not have managed it by himself.

Then he heard voices. A line of dim light showed overhead, widened. A trap was opening. He heard footsteps shuffling on a ladder. Then the click of a switch as an electric light was turned on, dazzling to his blood-injected eyes.

He kept them open, as a drugged man would, staring at the ceiling. Slowly, forced by his will, strength was coming back to him. Very slowly — and he was unarmed, helpless. It was a wonder they had not killed him outright. He guessed why not. Blacky was the type who liked to jeer and gloat over a dick who had fallen for his frame-up.

It had been well planned. They had recognized him, Blaze or some one else, from the first time he had come into the neighborhood. The play at the Nest had been cleverly staged. They knew he would come there sooner or later and they had all been in it. Salterno, the doorman, the singer. And he had fallen for it.

But he could not quite comprehend their virulence. They hated all dicks, of course, but Dugan had not found out anything definite against them. It was true he had pulled off some successful things; they might be afraid of his uncovering them, but, to got rid of him so early, only meant that others would take his place. He had happened in close on a run, but it was very doubtful if he could have interfered with that so swiftly.

The two men came and looked at him. He lay huddled, his eyes fixed.

“What you goin’ to do with him?” asked one of them. “Give him the works?”

Dugan dared not glance at them, dared not show sign of intelligence, hardly of life.

“That’s up to Blacky,” said the other. It was Blaze’s voice. “This is the guy that turned up the Circle Cross outfit. Turned up some others, too. He’s a dangerous dick — or he was. He’ll be crabmeat before mornin’. Cross was Blacky’s pal. Blacky’s gittin’ even.”

“Goin’ to dump him in the river?”

“Naw. Blacky’s too wise fer that. We don’t want no floaters identified. Soon as the load’s clear they’ll put him in the launch an’ take him out on the ebb into the Sound. Blacky’ll weight him down with pigiron ballast an’ let him slide to the bottom.”

“Bump him off first?”

“Not Blacky. He’ll wait fer him to come out of the drops an’ he’ll tell him a few things before he ties him up. He’ll drop him in alive, the dirty—”

Dugan listened to his fate, to the filthy stream of abuse from Blaze’s lips. Rage urged his glands to function. Adrenalin flicked through his system, clearing his blood.

“He sure fell fer the play,” chuckled Blaze. “Figgered he’d saved my life. He nigh busted Blacky’s elbow, though. He had a swell dame with him. I’d have liked to git her. Maybe I can yet, if I can locate her. She’d come runnin’ if she thought he was hurt. Stuck on the lousy dick. Mother Blinn ’ud handle her.”

“You want to cut out monkeyin’ wit’ janes, Blaze,” said the other man. “It’s after twelve. Better open up. They’ll be here in a few minnits. An’ Rocco’s due right now. The stuff’s all sold.”

Dugan dared not look. His blood was racing now, his heart pounding. The talk of Mary summoned the last reserves within him. The drug was still in part possession of him, but they had not bound him. He could hardly hold himself in, but he knew he had slight chance, unarmed, against the two of them.

He felt a draft of air, the smell of tidal water. He guessed what they were doing. Opening up some sort of hatch through which the stolen silk would be passed.

He was grateful for the air, though he dared not fill his lungs. He lay breathing stertorously, unmoving, save for occasional twitches. But his senses were alert once more.

He heard the clink of bottle and glasses. Suddenly a buzzer sounded.

“There’s Rocco,” said Blaze. “Help me open those doors. He’ll run the truck inside.”

They mounted the ladder. Dugan heard their tread overhead. He sat up and realized how weak he still was. His brain seemed filled with fumes and he could not rise. But he had to. It was his only chance. They were busy, but they would not be busy long. Once they came back it was the end. His chance was slim enough, as it was.

He could barely stand. He looked round for some weapon, but that hope faded. He caught up the bottle and swigged from it. It was good liquor and it steadied him though he reeled, from weakness, as he made for the open hatch.

Deputy Commissioner Connelly sat at his desk, laboriously filling in a crossword puzzle with the stump of a lead pencil, a cold cigar between his lips. He was feeling uneasy about Dugan. He had not reported in all day. It might mean that he was hot on a lead, it might mean he had met with some disaster.

If Dugan had a fault, it was that of over initiative. So far his luck had helped his pluck to bring him through. And he had brains. But Connelly was given to hunches and he did not like it.

If he did not hear from the lad soon he meant to send to the Nest. He thought of going himself. Dugan was more to him than a promising detective, one who had the genuine instinct for the game. He was fond of him, as he had been of his father. He admired Dugan’s ambition, his studies; and his affection made him more sensitive to Dugan’s welfare.

Still, the lad had common sense. He would not try to tackle such a gang as the Blackbirds alone. If he had got anything on that outfit.

He pushed aside the puzzle that would not work out to-night, lit his cigar and puffed at it, frowningly. His telephone rang.

“What’s that? What name? Send her in.”

He rose as Mary Brady entered, her face pale. He knew her, knew her affiliation with the Garrity Agency, and he was pretty certain how affairs stood between her and Dugan. She did not take the chair he offered, but stood alert, calm enough, for all the sign of worry in her face.

“I was at the Nest with Jimmy last night,” she said. “There was a quarrel started and Jimmy interfered. A man took hold of me to get at another one. He started to pull a gun. Jimmy fought his way out with a chair. I think it was faked.”

“Why?”

Rapidly she told him the whole story. Came to her conclusion.

“The blonde entertainer must have been in it. She was wearing a lot of jewelry. Most of it was paste, but there was one ring that wasn’t. A diamond nearly eight carats. She didn’t buy that. If we could get hold of her we might find out what has gone wrong.”

“What makes you think it wasn’t a phony ring? What do you know about diamonds?”

“I’m working for the agency with Oppenheim. They’ve lost a lot of stones lately. I don’t know, of course, that this is one of them, but I do know that some of the stones that were taken were Brazilian. They were not blue-whites. Brilliant, but off-color. I heard them talking about them. And I know that imitations are not made of off-color stones, unless on a special order. If she didn’t come straight by that stone you could get it out of her. And—”

“You’re a smart girl,” said Connelly. “We could use you on the force if the regulations stood for it. We’ll collect this Mae Morgan. I’ve a notion we’ve got something on her. We’ll bring her in, and this partner of hers, with our friend Salterno. We’ll raid the Nest. What they know we’ll find out.”

The deputy was of the old school. His methods of dealing with crooks might not be considered humanitarian, but they were efficient. He pressed a button, gave swift, concise orders.

“I’m going with the squad,” he said, opening a drawer of his desk and taking out his gun.

He examined it expertly, set it in a shoulder holster.

“I’m going with you,” said the girl.

Connelly shook his head at her.

“No place for you. We’ll bring them back here.”

“You may find something out right there,” she said. “I’m going, anyway. I’m a detective. I’ll go by myself if you won’t take me.”

Connelly put his hand under her rounded but firmly molded chin, looked into her eyes.

“You can’t ride with the squad,” he said. “But I can’t stop you following. I’ll take you in my own car. You can handle the woman. You’re right. There’s no sense in bringing them here. We’ll hold our little third degree right in the Nest.”

V

Dugan hung from a sodden beam, almost submerged. The shock of the water helped to revive him. He could swim, as soon as he was sure enough of his strength. His rapid exit had left him exhausted. He was thankful for the days when, as a youngster, he had learned to dive, to swim under water, from the wharves where he played with the boys of the neighborhood.

The hatch was above him and to the right as he held himself close to the planking that covered the piles. He heard the excited voices of Blaze and two other men. Rocco had come down the ladder, probably for a drink. The beam of a flash light played on the water, roved about the surface, along the boarded-in section of the wharf.

“He was shammin’,” said Blaze. “Got rid of the dope when he threw up. We gotta get him or Blacky’ll raise hell.”

“He’ll raise hell, too, if he makes a giter-way. Maybe he drowned. He can’t git out.”

“I’ll shoot the rat,” said Blaze. “Swing that torch, can’t you?”

The ray came toward Dugan and silently he sank under the surface, groping for a handhold, finding it in a snag of slimy iron bolt with a square nut at its end, hanging to it, holding his breath, fearful that a bubble might betray him.

Looking up he could see the ray moving away, a dim spot through the murky water. Silently he came to the surface again, took long breath, swam under water, making for the front of the wharf. He had seen that the torch ray barely carried that far. Soon the launch would be coming.

It was here already. He heard it bump lightly against the end of the wharf, close in. Treading water in a far corner he saw a gate swing open. A launch came in silently, thrust forward by boathooks, gliding through. The gate was closed. He could not get out to the river.

But he had not been seen. The launch had been darkened, but now lights showed in the cabin. There was a bustle of men. The engine was shut off. The launch moved on, came to rest by the open hatch.

Dugan could see the men handling the stolen stuff expeditiously. There were three of them at it, the fourth standing in the bows. Evidently Blaze was not eager to break the bad news and Black was busy with getting the loot ashore. Blaze had said two men usually stayed in the launch. They would probably go into the cabin. When they did—

He had got another hold. The drug seemed to have leached out of him. Energy had returned. When Blacky heard the news, they would make a thorough search of the space beneath the wharf, would find him, shoot him if they did not haul him ignominiously aboard.

Blacky had gone inside with two of the men. Dugan heard a sudden storm of words. He launched himself out beneath the water, body straight, making for the hull. He had to act at once. Black was cursing Blaze, who was excusing himself. The two men aboard went forward and Dugan dragged himself into the cockpit.

“Turn on that searchlight,” Blacky ordered, appearing in the hatchway. “Start that engine. Set her over by the gate. If he ain’t drowned we’ll git him. I’ll fill him full enough of lead to sink an’ stay down.”

He broke into curses. Beside him some one held the torch that stabbed the darkness, but failed to locate Dugan, crouching back of the hood.

The engineer was coming back along the narrow gangway beside the cabin structure. Dugan prayed that he would have a gun.

The man did not see him as he stooped to enter the cabin. Dugan was on him like a tiger. He brought down the back of his hand in a rabbit punch with desperate force and the man fell inside the cabin, Dugan on top, feeling for a weapon, finding it.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” cried Blacky. “Turn her over. Go aft and help him, Jake.”

Dugan met the second man as he stepped down into the cockpit. He clubbed him with the barrel of the gun he had found, rejoicing in the feel of it. His strength was with him again.

The man toppled backward, across the gunwale, sprawling, struggling convulsively, falling into the water with a splash.

“What’s up?”

Blacky leaped aboard and Dugan fired at him over the cabin hood. He saw Blacky reel and then straighten up, shooting back. The bullet whined close to Dugan as he sent a second slug straight to the mark. Blacky went down in a heap, but now other bullets were singing, spurts of fire coming from the hatch.

But no one dared to come aboard. He held them, and he drove them back. His hammer clicked on his last cartridge as they disappeared from his accurate marksmanship. Not for nothing had he practiced at the police gallery.

Dugan raced forward, got Blacky’s gun with shells still in it. He gained the hatch and saw the room empty, a pair of legs disappearing up the ladder. He fired at them and a body came hurtling down, a body topped by a red head. Blaze!

Blaze rolled on the floor, twisted, trying to aim his weapon, collapsing as Dugan’s lead tore through him.

He heard the scrape of opening doors, the starting of a motor. They were making their get-away. Leaving the loot. And he had got four of them.

Three. He heard a slight noise as he was about to mount the ladder. The man he had rabbit-chopped was looking through the hatch, but ducked, unarmed, as Dugan let him go. He might need all his shells for men who would fire back.

One man would have a hard job to open the gate and get the launch out. Dugan was but one himself as he sprang up the ladder.

The truck was moving out. Then it halted.

Headlights sprayed it. There were sharp commands. Officers came swarming into the warehouse, surrounding the truck. Dugan saw Connelly with unbelieving eyes. And then, back of the deputy, he saw the shining face of Mary Brady.