Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 60, No. 1, July 4, 1931

Only one man saw him kill, and that man the killer was determined to silence.

Chapter I The Eyewitness

Slats Doyle entered the station house of the Eighteenth Seattle Precinct wet to the skin, and blue as only an Irishman can be.

Outside the rain was falling heavily, even for Seattle in November. The night was black as a pocket and wet as Niagara, and the sight of Lieutenant Wollson at the desk, who would be certain to order Doyle out into the storm again, was the final bitter drop in the new detective’s cup. He flung himself into a chair and stared at his sodden trouser legs — a lean-waisted, handsome hundred and ninety pounder with curly black hair and eyes of light Irish blue. Wollson grinned down at him maliciously.

“Any flat foot can bust down a door and take a gat away from a crazy hop-head. That’s all you done, Doyle — and the commissioner put you in plain clothes for doing it,” the lieutenant taunted. “Nervy and two fisted are you, huh? Well, that don’t make you a detective — not in this precinct. What have you done about your case?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Wollson repeated in mock surprise. “Three weeks you’ve been on it. If you don’t get results you’ll be back on a beat.”

“You’ll hate that, won’t you?” snapped Doyle. “Okay, gimme back my club. I’ve found out all that’s going to be found out. There was no reason for that killing. No motive at all. So there’s nothing to follow up.”

“Maybe three guys was bumped off for fun, huh?” Wollson settled his huge body more comfortably in his swivel chair. He was fat-bellied, thick-necked, and slow-witted, a man who had reached his present position by invariably doing the obvious. When his subordinates succeeded he took the credit. If they failed, the blunder was theirs, not his, and they bore the blame. The little eyes that were like slits in his fat cheeks gleamed with enjoyment at Doyle’s dejection.

“You ain’t kidding me!” said the detective aggressively. “You assigned me to this case because you figured I’d make a flop. I have — because so far I haven’t got a break.

“A moving van is found parked at the curb with three guys in the front seat, dead. The glass doors of the cab are tight shut, and there’s not a mark on the bodies. The autopsy shows they died by inhaling hydrocyanic acid gas, but the coroner’s office can’t figure out how enough of that stuff could be got inside the cab.

“I did, didn’t I? I found splinters of a glass bottle in the radiator. The bottle was busted against the radiator, and the fan sucked the fumes back into the cab. That gas will kill in half a minute. That’s how they were bumped off.”

“Yeah,” Wollson grunted with heavy scorn. “That’s how. Who the hell cares how? What the prosecutor wants to know is who done it, and why.”

Slats Doyle clenched his fists. “The driver and his helpers didn’t have an enemy in the world,” he explained bitterly. “There was nothing in the van but furniture. Cheap furniture. It wasn’t a gang killing. It wasn’t done for revenge, and it ain’t a case of hijacking where a mistake was made about the truck. Some guy bumped off three perfect strangers. He did it on the road, too, while the van was moving. When the driver felt himself getting groggy he drew over to the curb and shoved the gears into neutral. It would be the natural thing to do.”

“Yeah, you’re smart. You got everything but a suspect,” Wollson snorted. “The commissioner wants two-fisted, aggressive dicks that will go after the crooks, does he? I hopes he likes the sample he picked — over my head. Maybe next time he’ll let promotions be made by the men that should make them.”

“Meaning you?”

“Right,” Wollson nodded. “I ain’t got nothing against you personally, Slats. You’re a good cop. You knew that hophead was going to shoot when you touched that door, and you went after him like a college guy after a football. I saw the bullet holes in the door. Why he didn’t bump you off only the saints know. I’ll give you your beat back, and I’ll get you into plain clothes again. Sometime. Later. But right now, your being what you are is a crack at me, see?

“The commissioner is an efficiency hound, and a business man.” Wollson’s grin took a scornful twist. “He wants results, and he don’t see that results can be got by a guy that sits still. His kind has got to get out of the department, or my kind, see? You’re the commissioner’s choice, and this moving van case was played up so big in the papers that it’s a test case, see?”

“Where me and the commissioner are licked before we start!”

“No,” Wollson growled. “The trouble with both of you is that you ain’t learned to wait. Look at me. I’ve been thirty years on the force and nobody ever saw me excited, or in a hurry. Three bozos get bumped off for no reason. No witness saw the job done and the stoolies don’t know nothing about it. Okay. Nothing can be done — so instead of running around in the rain I don’t do nothing. Sooner or later that murderer will try that same thing again. He will slip up, and I’ll get him.”

“While you wait he’ll bump off a couple more.”

“Of course. That can’t be helped,” growled Wollson, half angrily. “The crook always gets the first shot.” The telephone on the desk rang, and he drew the instrument toward him with a sweep of a huge fat arm.

“Eighteenth Precinct,” he growled.

At once over the slosh of the rain on the street outside the shrill squealing of an excited voice in the transmitter filled the station house, word tumbling over word.

With a scowl Wollson put the receiver against his fat cheek.

“Okay, Mike,” he grunted contemptuously. “Now take your foot out of your mouth. I got you so far. You heard shots and a girl screaming at 242 Rose Street, and when you got there you found a man had been shot, through the window of his own living room. Okay. That’s old stuff, Mike. What’s there about it to make you start talking in bunches?... Huh?... What!... What!”

Despite Wollson’s boast that he never became excited, his face had turned red and white in patches, and his gruff voice shook. Slats Doyle was on his feet like a sprinter waiting the word to go. Mike Slatterly was a patrolman and a good, level-headed guy.

“Mike says the man was wounded too bad to speak,” Wollson explained heavily. “The girl claims her father was looking out of the window. Powie! some one outside unloads a whole clip. The girl screams and starts to bandage her old man. He’s hit in three places. Mike rings up an ambulance and goes outside. And... and... there’s a registered mail truck parked at the curb with the engine running—”

“And a couple of men dead in the front seat, though the doors are intact!” Doyle finished, his eyes blazing. “The cold-blooded, murdering weasels! They knocked off the three boys in the moving van just as practice for this job! To see if the poison gas would work!”

“Hell, who cares!” Wollson roared. “The mail truck’s empty! Sacks of registered mail! Thousands — millions gone, and some reporter is sure as hell to follow the ambulance!”

Doyle, however, had leaped to the station house door. The police car parked outside roared into life as he headed for Rose Street. The case was his, for the moment, though it was of such magnitude that the entire force and the Federal men would be called into it later. His was the first chance to arrest a cold-blooded killer before other defenseless men fell victims to a deadly gas, and this time the police had an eyewitness who was not dead — yet.

Chapter II The Twisted Man

Rose Street was lined on both sides by bungalows, each surrounded by its garden. The rifled mail truck stood in the center of the block, directly beneath a street light, and despite the drenching rain a few curiosity seekers were gathered near by, kept away by the patrolman, Mike Slatterly.

Beyond a glance to satisfy himself that all the bags of registered mail had been carried away, Doyle wasted no time on the truck. He knew only too well what he would find — a pair of dead men and a faint odor of peaches in the interior of the cab.

“Shut off the engine, Mike!” he called and leaped up the bungalow steps to the front door. A broken window pane indicated where the shots had been fired. Already the rain would have blurred any footprints that might have existed, but Doyle could find out the point from which the shots had been fired by the position of the ejected cartridge.

As an afterthought he called to Mike to locate these before souvenir hunters gathered them up, then he turned to confront an open door and the most striking blonde he had encountered in all his twenty-five years.

“I’m Doyle — Terry Doyle, the detective on the case,” he stammered.

She had hair of pure gold, a vivid, buttercup yellow without a trace of red or brown, and eyes as dark as his own. A tall girl, slender, about twenty, with long fingers that gripped the door firmly. Pale, with a fleck of her father’s blood on her cheek, but with her emotions well in hand. A girl with a firm chin and a straight, level glance.

“I’m Myra Freeman,” she said. “Father is still unconscious, but the doctor says he will live. It all happened so unexpectedly that I can’t tell you much, I’m afraid. We were—”

Farther back in the hall Doyle had seen a man who was no stranger. He motioned Myra to be silent. How Billy Peck of the Herald had managed to get to the scene of the crime so promptly was too much for Doyle, but there the reporter was, listening avidly.

Peck was a regular guy. Doyle liked him, and the Herald was fair to the cops, giving praise or blame to the individuals who deserved them, and never holding the department in general responsible for the fact that criminals were becoming more daring and more successful, as other newspapers did from time to time.

The reporter was as welcome as any one of his profession could have been, though Doyle’s thought was that publicity is likely to aid the criminal rather than the police.

“Wipe off the grouchy stare,” Peck grinned. “I’ve got to get the news. That’s what I’m paid for, but anything that the Herald or I can do to help you will be done pronto. I’m here to play ball with you, Slats. I’ve got the story already, but there’s still plenty of time before the deadline and I’m hanging around to get your theory, provided you’re willing to have it printed.” The grin broadened. “I can always say that an immediate arrest is expected, of course...

“Mr. Freeman is an accountant and a widower, Slats. He bought this house four years ago, and since his wife died Miss Freeman has been keeping house for him. Mr. Freeman is a great reader. They were both sitting in the living room reading when they heard a car put on its brakes hard—”

“Say, will you let her tell it, Bill?” Doyle interrupted.

“Mr. Peck is repeating exactly the words I used,” Myra answered quietly. “We heard brakes, and though there was no crash or a collision, both father and I thought there had been an accident and went to the window. He had to raise the shade, of course. He looked out, stared, and then seized me by the waist and threw me aside. He seemed to fall straight back upon me. The window pane shattered and there was blood on his chest. A pistol was firing. I screamed — I’d heard that was the thing to do—”

“I’ll say it is!” Doyle grunted.

“And tried to stop the bleeding. The next thing I knew a car started, and I heard the policeman running down the street.”

“You saw nothing yourself?”

“Only a Ford touring car and a truck with a little man opening it,” Myra apologized. “I had only time for a glimpse. They fired at father instantly.” The dark eyes flashed, and the firm chin set. “They weren’t his enemies! They shot him in cold blood—”

“They?” Doyle inquired.

“Or he. I’ve no idea who or how many!” the girl exclaimed.

“They — or he — are like that, Miss Freeman,” said Doyle. “Your father is lucky to be living. Three men were bumped off practicing for this. The moving van case,” he added for the reporter’s benefit.

“Say — that’s news!” exclaimed the latter. “I’m glad I hung around. Got any idea who did it, Slats? It must be some hot shot—”

Doyle looked at the reporter hard. “Not an idea in the world,” he confessed. “The hot shots all had airtight alibis in the other case. How long after the shots before the car started again, Miss Freeman?”

“I’ve no idea. Maybe a minute. Maybe as much as five.”

“The truck carried ten mail sacks. I’ve checked that,” interposed Peck officiously. “They’ve no idea of the value at the post office until they check up the lists, but the sum must be way up in the hundreds of thousands. Even one man could snake ten sacks out of the truck in less than a minute.”

Doyle shrugged. The time element was not important, and the girl’s testimony as a whole worthless.

“I’d like to see your father,” he said.

“How about me?” pleaded Peck.

“Sure. Come along. You’re playing ball with me,” the detective conceded.

The living room of the bungalow extended entirely across the front of the house. From the center of the rear wall a straight, narrow hall led directly to the back door, with the kitchen and dining room on the left, and on the right two bedrooms with a bath between. Mr. Freeman was in the rear bedroom — a small room with two windows, one on each corner of the house. The back window was open about a foot at the top. Against the side window the rain beat heavily.

An ambulance surgeon had just finished bandaging the wounded man, and sat watching him closely. Freeman’s eyes were open — clouded with pain to be sure, but with no signs yet of fever or delirium. He was a tall, wide shouldered, dark-haired man of forty-five, his hair only slightly grizzled at the temples. His head turned as he caught sight of Doyle, and he tried to speak.

“Will you get out of here and stop disturbing my patient?” snapped the ambulance surgeon without looking around. “One of these bullets touched the lung. I don’t want him to talk for a day at least.”

“Meanwhile a murderer is getting away,” Doyle objected.

“Could you find him — even if my patient risked a hemorrhage?” snapped the ambulance surgeon sarcastically. His answer, however, displeased Freeman, for the dark head moved irritably on the pillow. Myra stepped forward and placed her ear against her father’s lips.

“He says to bring him a pencil and paper, then,” she interpreted. “Father is very determined,” she went on with a slight smile. “I think it would be better for him to have his way, even if he has to exert himself somewhat.”

The ambulance surgeon rose with what he meant to be freezing politeness. “My patient is properly bandaged and all he needs is absolute rest. If you disregard my orders I can only withdraw from the case,” he said. “I expect other calls, but if I were a physician regularly called in I—”

“Thank you,” said Myra. She was quiet and polite, but the two words were a dismissal. They revealed to Doyle that she was no mere golden-haired, dark-eyed doll. No general in command of an army in battle could have accepted responsibility more instantly, or with more finality. The ambulance surgeon snapped his bag of instruments shut, bowed, and walked from the room without a word. Myra followed him out and returned with pencil and paper, and on the bed Freeman gave a grim little nod of approval when he saw her.

“How many men?” said Doyle. “One? Two?”

A nod stopped him. Myra sat on the bed and put a pencil in her father’s fingers, holding the paper where he could reach it without lifting his arm.

“If daddy thinks he can do anything, he can. He’s like that,” she said proudly. “Still, we mustn’t ask too many questions.”

“Two men both very unusual in appearance,” wrote Freeman’s pencil. “Saw one directly under street light taking out sacks. Short and misshapen like a monkey or a spider. Head twisted to left and held on one side as though by injury. He fired.”

“Lefty the Monk!” whispered Doyle. “That twisted neck identifies him like a finger-print! But who’d figure that Lefty—”

“Would be in anything big?” snapped the reporter. “He’s half-witted. Killing a girl for her rings, like he did in that boarding house case a year ago, was about his speed. He’s too peculiar looking to be a member of a regular gang.”

“Other driving Ford touring car with side curtains out,” wrote Freeman. “Never left seat, but leaned out to point to me. Face covered with black beard. Was very tall. Head even with car top. I am not mistaken.” The pencil went back and underlined these words twice. “He jerked back head as little man shot. I will swear he bumped himself on car top and that he must be over six feet six.”

“Six feet six and bearded?” Peck echoed. “I pass up that guy! Don’t know any crooks that can pinch hit for telegraph poles. See here, Doyle, this testimony don’t make sense! Lefty the Monk never figured out a job like this. What’s more, some bystanders are witnesses to every stick up. Why’d any sensible crook pick a rod like Lefty, who’d be identified at a glance?”

“The moving van murder didn’t make sense either. Until later_;” said Doyle grimly. “A guy that would have a dress rehearsal for a new kind of poison bomb wouldn’t leave anything to chance. If he picked a marked man like Lefty the Monk I’ll bet he had a reason.”

The detective turned to Freeman. “Are you sure about the other man’s height?” he asked slowly. “Could you identify him in court?”

Freeman nodded. “Yes. Yes. Positively — by shape of head and set of shoulders,” he wrote.

“Then we’ll get him,” said Doyle with satisfaction. “A crook as tall as that is a marked man, and he must know it. There can’t be a dozen of them in all Seattle, and they’ll have a hard time slipping out of town as soon as we put in a general alarm. Which is what Lieutenant Wollson would call waiting,” the detective went on exultantly. “Meantime I’ll grill Lefty and find out who he’s been running around with.” The detective’s blue eyes widened as a new thought struck him. He turned to the reporter.

“About that boarding house case that Lefty was acquitted of!” he exclaimed. “Everybody knew that Lefty was guilty, but the district attorney couldn’t shake his alibi because he had a witness who wasn’t a gangster or a crook. Wasn’t that witness a mighty tall man?”

“Seems to me like he was,” grunted the reporter. “He was clean-shaven, though. A mining engineer down on his luck and, living in a tenement till he picked up a job. I don’t remember his name, but I can find it out in ten minutes from the files as soon as I can get back to the office. He wasn’t a crook, though, Slats.”

“Beards can grow and every crook makes a start some time,” said the detective sententiously. “I’m rounding up all the tall men, but he’ll do to start with. It’s like you said — an eyewitness can be expected at every holdup, even though a crook plans the job for a rainy night. Here’s a guy so tall that he don’t dare step out of the car himself. He’s got to get another crook to help him. If he’s a gangster, that’s easy. But assume he isn’t. Only an educated chemist could fix those poison bombs.

“How could he do better than to take a little half-witted gunman he can convict of murder by a word, and who don’t dare to double cross him? How many witnesses would notice the driver of the car with a monkey like Lefty right out in the street handling the sacks and doing the shooting? It’s Lefty that risks the rap.”

“Big boy, I’ll bet you’ve doped it right!” Peck exclaimed. “Go make your pinch while I write my story and search the files! Biggest crime of the year solved in ten minutes by a camera eyewitness and a lucky Irish cop — thanks to the assistance of the Herald. The commissioner will make you a sergeant for this, Slats.”

There was a feeling of triumph in the little corner bedroom which even the wounded witness shared. A criminal who had not hesitated at murder to perfect his plans had been balked by the incalculable trifle that has wrecked so many perfect crimes. The girl and the three men had each been instrumental in solving a mystery. They were pleased with themselves — so much so that the counterstroke came like the flash of lightning out of a clear sky.

A bullet crashed through the window shade. The electric light over Freeman’s bed exploded. Doyle reached for his own revolver, but in the sudden darkness which left him blind he heard a hissing, boiling sound. A powerful odor of fresh peaches rose to his nostrils.

“Poison gas! Hold your breath and get the girl out!” he shouted to Peck.

Ten words only, uttered in an instant, and yet as he caught his breath a giant and invisible hand seemed to grip his throat and paralyze his chest. He could not breathe. His heart pounded slower and slower in his ears. Behind him the lighted oblong of the door opened as Peck dragged Myra away, but Doyle was lurching toward the bed. With senses slipping he flung the bed clothes over Freeman’s face and gathered the wounded man into his arms. The effort took the last of his strength. He lurched into the hall, collided with the opposite wall, and tottered backward. Somehow he closed the door of the bedroom, then he pitched unconscious upon the witness he had rescued.

Chapter III The Bait

Faintly Doyle heard voices. The fumes of ammonia bit at his nostrils. He opened his eyes, and found the fat, scowling face of Lieutenant Wollson bending over him.

“Murder — yard,” Doyle gasped.

“Gone, kid,” growled the lieutenant, not unkindly. “Lie down, now. You’ve been out for an hour. The surgeon damn near gave you up.”

“Freeman — the witness?”

“Still out,” Wollson grunted. “You’ve done all you could. Leave this to me. The reporter slipped me the dope.”

Despite this reassurance Doyle raised his head. He lay on the floor of the Freeman living room. Every window was open, and wind and rain drove in in gusts that sent the sodden curtains flying like wet flags. Bent over the couch he saw Myra’s golden head and the back of a police doctor. Freeman had not been removed, then.

The room was full of policemen who stood around with gloomy expressions that Doyle could not understand, under the circumstances. They should be out rounding up Lefty the Monk and tracing down the tall man who had been a witness at Lefty’s trial. Peck was not present. If an hour had elapsed the reporter would be busy at the newspaper office.

“For once I gotta admit a reporter has been of some use,” growled Wollson. “It was him that thought of opening the windows. Otherwise the doctor says enough of the gas would have seeped in through the crack in the door to do for you. You’re lucky, Slats. Ain’t many that have got a lungful of cyanide and lived to tell about it. Mike wasted time running in here instead of circling the house. When he got out again the killer was gone. Damn the nerve of the guy! He was after our witnesses! He’s thorough, damn him. Damn thorough!”

“Our one witness. The girl didn’t see anything.”

“He don’t know that,” Wollson growled. “He tried to put her on the spot, with you and Peck for good measure. We’ve got to protect that dame as carefully as her father.”

Doyle sat up. That the lives of the Freemans were still in danger was a startling idea, yet an instant of reflection revealed that Wollson was right. The killer had not rushed to get away after the loot was secured. He had dared to come back, to take the offensive against the law.

He had brains. Two lives stood between him and the enjoyment of the money he had stolen. A case of mail robbery is never marked closed. The government would spend years tracing down clews, though these led to the remotest corners of the world. A man noteworthy because of his height would not dare face the eyewitness of his crime.

“Freeman must be right. The killer is tall,” Doyle muttered. “Did Peck tell you about the tall man that testified at Lefty’s trial?”

“Yeah, he told me,” growled the lieutenant sarcastically. He passed Doyle a newspaper photograph which showed a man about forty, clean-shaven, with eyebrows that met about the bridge of the nose and a straight, thin mouth. “That’s the witness at Lefty the Monk’s trial. His name is Irving Traub. He’s a mining engineer and assayer that came to Seattle two years ago. Lives in his laboratory, don’t do much business and ain’t got no record.

“His height, according to clippings in the Herald office, is six feet seven or eight. Yeah. That reporter sure slipped us the dope. He damn near cried when I wouldn’t let him print anything. He allowed this case was a brilliant exploit by the police — meaning you — and a heroic rescue. He swore your theory of it was correct.”

“Well?” said Doyle sharply.

“So did I, an hour ago. We checked up and found that Traub left for Alaska three days ago. On a sailing ship that carries supplies to the salmon packers. We’ve tried to get her on the wireless, but she don’t carry any. Won’t dock for two days, either. Suppose this Traub did leave her, which is possible, what then?”

“Lefty knows him.”

“Lefty,” growled Wollson angrily, “was picked up four blocks away from here with a bullet hole between his eyes. The killer must have plugged him as soon as the mail bags was in the car. Didn’t I say he was thorough? I’m going to send the Freemans off to jail before he collects them, too. Then I can wait.”

Doyle was silent. The thought of Myra and her father in jail, even as guests, was not pleasant to contemplate. They were too independent, too strong willed and too fearless to endure that long, and they could not be held against their will. Once they went home again, police protection would be a mockery.

“Wait how long?” he asked guardedly.

“Why, about a week,” Wollson answered. “If the killer makes a getaway, this becomes a Federal case, don’t it? If he tries to hide out here and fight, he’s got to go to some of the gangsters to keep away from us. I’m figuring he’ll do that, and when he does, one of these birds will bump him for the jack. The newspapers will be out pretty soon with the news that he’s got two million bucks in cash and negotiable stuff, Slats. How long will he last with that?”

Again Slats was silent. Wollson was attempting to pass the buck. Even if he were right, and the dead body of a tall, bearded man were picked up some time in the next week, the money would remain lost. Worse still, Wollson was assuming that the killer was a fool — and every move the criminal had made argued quite the contrary.

“Freeman is about my size and build,” Doyle thought aloud. “Suppose I changed clothes with him, chief? Suppose you sent him to the police infirmary in my name? He’s as safe there as in jail. The girl could be sent there, too, to be treated for shock. I could stay here — in bed — under the name of Freeman. The police surgeon would keep his mouth shut, and we could get the Herald to print a story that Freeman was too badly injured to be moved. Bill Peck is friendly enough with us to fix it. Don’t guard the house at all — or only with one patrolman that has orders to keep both eyes shut if he sees any one trying to get close. If the killer thought we cops were dumb he might take another crack at his witness.”

The fat face furrowed with thought. The narrow eyes glanced at Doyle, and away again.

“It can’t do no harm. It would look to the commissioner as though you were backing his ideas,” Doyle argued cunningly. “Gimme a break, chief. You put the idea up to the commissioner and the Herald. If we get this killer before the Federals do, neither of them will forget who did it.”

“Yeah,” Wollson growled weakly. “You’re volunteering for his duty, Doyle? I don’t want no mistake about that! I don’t want it said I ordered any of my men to stay here and pass himself off as a guy that a damn thorough killer would give about a million bucks to see dead.”

“Sure, I volunteer,” Doyle grinned.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see a golden head bent over a figure that barely breathed. If he succeeded, a girl would be safe. If he failed — there would be no harm done. No harm at all.

“We gotta guess at his name, and he’s got two million bucks,” Wollson was growling. “Hell, the cops never get a break! He could hire more men than there are. on the force if he knew how to use his jack.”

“If? Yes — if!” Doyle agreed. This killer had brains and nerve. He would know.

Chapter IV Murderer’s Money

The Hongkong Café had been a sailors’ boarding house in the days when seamen were shanghaied for their advance money. As the fashions in rackets changed it had become successively a gambling house, a saloon, and last, a dance hall, but the essential nature of the place had never changed.

The huge, rambling wooden structure, built on piles that extended far out over the harbor, was a plague spot, designed for smuggling men, drugs, or liquor; a maze of passages that led to secret or private rooms. It was pierced with trap doors, provided with a dozen exits by land and water, and, under the management of Gus Voticelli, was the stronghold of the underworld. Beer and alky runners, gamblers and all their ilk were glad to split with the fat Italian for legal or physical protection in times of difficulty, and the right to operate without competition in the territory he assigned to them.

At midnight a tall man whose face shone from a recent application of the razor, entered the Hongkong and asked the bartender for Gus. Though he was a stranger, he was ushered to the private room of the boss racketeer with the briefest delay. The eyebrows that crossed his face in an unbroken bar of black, the thin, straight lips, the eyes were those of a man who would tolerate no refusal.

Even Voticelli, accustomed to rule and used to uneasiness on the part of those who sought him out, felt the difference. Almost deferentially he called for two glasses and a bottle of wine.

“Only suckers drink,” the stranger refused curtly. He took a Herald extra from his pocket and spread it on the table so that Voticelli could see the headlines announcing the mail truck robbery.

“Two million dollars gone. There’s the statement of the post office,” he announced calmly. “I got it. Do you want half?”

From an inner pocket he took a sheaf of checks, bank notes and securities and tossed them down before the gangster. “That’s just a sample to prove I’ve got the rest.”

The gangster stared at the money. His hand moved toward it, and recoiled.

“You expect to be pinched,” he accused.

“No,” said Traub contemptuously. “I’ve had a bad break, that’s all, and I can’t work alone any more. I could go to any gang of crooks in town, but I’ve picked you because you’re not as yellow as the rest. Not quite.”

“You bumped Lefty the Monk?”

“Certainly,” said the stranger with the utmost coolness. “There’s a gun and a couple of those poison bombs in my pocket right now. Think that over before you decide to pick up any easy money by holding me for the cops and claiming the reward that will be offered by to-morrow.”

Voticelli started. The tall man smiled at the confession that he had read in the mind of the other.

“I expect you to double cross me if you can,” he challenged. “I’ll do as much for you. Let’s get that straight. It’s money we want, both of us. If we work together we’ll divide two million. If we don’t you can pick up five or ten grand as a reward but where will the big money be? Where I hid it. And that’s a place that no man can find and live.”

The gangster moved uneasily. He was no weakling, but this man was the stronger. Though the Italian would not admit the fact, he was afraid. The ruthless face and the expressionless eyes across the table belonged to a monomaniac; intelligent, determined, but without the human weaknesses of the normal individual.

“If you’re thinking I can be made to talk, by torture, I can’t,” declared Traub, and smiled again when Voticelli shook his head. “All right. Play with me, and you’ll get a million without any risk to yourself. All you have to do is to send out a couple of fall guys to carry out my orders. I’ve doped the job out — thanks to the kindness of the press in informing me exactly what moves the police have made.”

Voticelli reached out and pocketed the money. “If I don’t have to do anything that will spoil my own racket — why, okay,” he grumbled. “You talk big. It’s all here in the headlines. You are spotted, and the cops have got a witness. By to-morrow you won’t be able to step out on the street even.”

“Exactly,” said Traub with perfect composure. “Between me and a million are a man and a girl. I’ll pay you the balance of what I’ve got to get rid of them, and I’ll plan the thing for you as neat as I planned the holdup. I don’t care if the job takes you a year. There’s enough money on the table there to pay you for hiding me out, but if I get pinched, or die before you put this across, those are the last dollars of mine you’ll pocket.”

“Says you!” Voticelli grumbled. “Those witnesses ain’t rodmen that nobody cares about. The whole force will ride me.”

“Bump a rodman that nobody cares about and his friends lay for you, personally, with a machine gun,” snorted the killer contemptuously. “All the cops can do is arrest the fellow you send after the witness. Is he going to squeal on you?

“If you’re yellow you can wait till the excitement dies down — though right now the cops don’t know what they are up against. They’ll figure I’m trying for a get-away. The witness I want most is at home, damn near dead. The girl’s in a hospital, though she’s well enough to walk around, as I know. You don’t have to shoot anybody! Rough handling and exposure will kill the man as sure as a bullet. The girl can be got out of the way. I had a chance to size her up, and she’s got too much nerve for her own good. Get rid of them, and I’ll bring you half a carload of registered mail. If you can trail me to the place where I have it the whole lot is yours.”

The killer’s eyes gleamed contemptuously. “If you fail to-night, why, beginning to-morrow, I’ll offer five hundred thousand for the man, three hundred for the girl, and a hundred for the detective on the case and the reporter that covered it. Payable as you get rid of them, and each time a chance at the whole pile. It’s hidden not so far from here.”

“Hate yourself, don’t you?” the gangster grumbled, though his face was alight with calculating greed. “Suppose I put them on the spot? How do I know you make good?”

“You can always switch,” said the killer contemptuously. “I’ve got to make good. I’d rather spend one million where and how I please than make a get-away to some hole with two million that I could never spend. I’ve planned this stick-up for more than a year. Ever since I found out how to liquify hydrocyanic acid gas and confine it in a fragile container.

“I’m not a man that can hide in a crowd, so I figured on taking along a fall guy to give any witness an eyeful, and then bumping him. I just didn’t get the breaks, that was ail. Lefty didn’t see a shade go up, and I had to lean out of the car to call to him. The truck had to stop right under a light.”

The killer shrugged. “The cops will know soon enough that Irving Traub left on a sailing ship, but that he fell overboard before she was far from shore. My alibi won’t last more than a day or so. I need an organization, and I’m willing to pay for it.”

Voticelli reached for the bottle and poured himself a drink.

“I got some fall guys, too. I guess I’ll use them,” he said at last. He walked to the door. “Say, get hold of Beany and a couple more of those would-be hard guys,” he called to the bartender. “Tell ’em I’ll give them a job as a try-out.” He turned back to Traub, and poured himself another drink. “Now, what do you want done?” he demanded.

On the roof of the Hongkong Café the rain drummed noisily. Traub lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned across the table.

Chapter V The Night Attack

The rain, an hour later, was making Doyle curse steadily under his breath. It made the garden behind the Freeman house dark as a pit. The gusts of wind gave the shrubbery which grew there a life of its own. With face pressed against the lower pane of the rear bedroom window, the detective was trying to distinguish the imaginary from the real.

There was a man in the garden. He was sure of it, though he had seen nothing more than a shadow darker than the rest, a movement more purposeful than the tossing of the branches which instantly merged in darkness and movement.

The Freeman house was unlighted. Behind Doyle a blanket had been caught between the upper and lower sashes to make sure that his head would be invisible and to protect him from the rain that beat through the bullet-shattered upper pane. He hesitated to leave his post and whisper to the surgeon who kept watch in the front part of the house. Mike Slatterly had been ordered to patrol the sidewalk until he heard a shot, and thus compelled to play a waiting game. Doyle was on fire with impatience.

His eyes might have deceived him. Minutes had passed since he had observed the movement, and yet the man in the garden kept at a distance. Stealthily Doyle tried the lower window sash to make sure he could fling the window open with a single movement, and measured the distance to the ground. If the man approached he would leap out.

Far away a police whistle shrilled, but Doyle was too intent to be distracted. Subconsciously he heard an automobile coming down Rose Street, and strained his eyes for the glimmer of light that would be reflected into the garden in the rear. It came — and with it a shock that rocked the bungalow to its foundations. A thudding roar of high explosive, a crash of wood and the tinkling of glass, a lurch of the floor under Doyle’s heels. The bomb must have blown in the whole front of the house.

The surgeon was shouting Doyle’s name. Outside Slatterly’s whistle was going, answered by a dozen more from right and left — and again, this time positively, Doyle saw a movement in the garden. The man was on the right hand side, twenty feet away, flattened against the hedge.

With a bound Doyle went through the window. He expected a shot. There was none. As he struck the ground the man turned and ran like a rabbit. The hedge at the rear of the garden checked him. Doyle made a flying tackle. One hand caught a coat tail, and held it. The two rolled through the hedge and into the garden beyond.

Once Doyle was hit on the head with a blackjack, he thought, for he saw a million stars. Then he had the man in his arms — a feeble, squirming, scratching armful of skin and bone, and not the tall giant he sought! Savage with disappointment Doyle twisted two thin wrists together and snapped on handcuffs, then snapped his flash light into the prisoner’s face.

He had caught a boy about eighteen. A rat. The pallid skin and the pupils of the eyes, tiny as pin points, told their own story.

“Who are you?” Doyle growled.

“Beany Gra— Aw, what’s it to you?”

“Come through!”

No answer. Doyle jerked his prisoner upright and felt the bump on his head. His scalp was bleeding slightly. He swung his flash in a circle to discover the weapon. A thirty-two caliber automatic lay at the foot of the hedge which had stopped its flight when the kid flung it away.

“Come clean— Who were you told to plug?” demanded the detective.

No answer.

Heavy feet pounded across the grass. Doyle lifted his flash light onto the figure of a patrolman who came charging forward with ready club.

“Nobody passed me!” the latter sung out. “Oh — hello, Slats! Where did you get that?”

“What are you doing with this precinct, Bill?” retorted the detective.

“Oh, two platoons are out. Wollson posted us around two blocks with orders to close in if anything broke. How’d he get through?”

“Oh, while some of you turned your backs to keep the rain out of your eyes,” snapped the detective. “Know him?”

“Yeah. Belongs down by the water front.”

“Gunman?”

“Naw. Nothin’ but a sneak thief. Hangs around with some of Voticelli’s bunch, when they’ll let him. Is Wollson here yet?”

“How’d I know?” Doyle growled.

He was sore. To surround the block with cops was just what might have been expected of the lieutenant. Had the killer come himself he would have noticed the uniformed men and retreated. The detective shoved the captured pistol into his pocket. He was sorry for the kid, and wanted to break his neck at the same time.

“Thought you’d show ’em you was a real rod, huh?” he grunted, and led the way into the house.

Lights were flashing up as the police gathered after a futile chase of the car from which the bomb had been tossed. Already Wollson was busy passing the buck. His heavy voice reached Doyle, bawling out the men for being blind, for being slow, for letting the tall killer slip through their fingers. The front room was a wreck when Doyle entered it. At the sight of the prisoner the lieutenant’s complaints ceased.

“You’ll talk, rat,” he growled. “Doyle, you did good work. Lucky I thought of moving Freeman out of here, huh?” Proudly he surveyed the shattered walls. “If the bomb had exploded on the porch instead of on the ground outside, nobody’d be left,” Wollson expanded.

“We might send for an ambulance,” Doyle suggested, more amused than otherwise at being robbed of the credit for his scheme, but anxious that the secrecy of Freeman’s whereabouts be preserved. Wollson went to the telephone. He ordered the ambulance, but instead of hanging up, remained at the phone. The bulky shoulders were tensed.

“What do you mean?” he snarled over the wire in a tone that made Doyle’s heart sink. “Freeman ain’t even here! Of course he ain’t hurt! Yeah? No. No, I’ll take care of it.”

He turned, and though his face was purple on this occasion his boast that he never became excited was made good. Angrily he glared at Doyle.

“The hospital got word just now that this house had been bombed and Freeman was dying and calling for his daughter,” he accused. “She left to come here. Is this more of your smart Alec stunts? Sending Freeman to the infirmary in your name was your idea!”

“But she knew her father wasn’t here. That I—” Doyle stammered, aghast.

“She did, and she came out just the same!” shouted Wollson. “Thought you was dying, likely. Who the hell would care if you had! It’s a plant! She’s gone! My witness! My witness is gone!”

“The kid I caught hung around Voticelli’s,” snapped Doyle, his mind racing. Myra had been grateful to him. Because she thought he was dying she had hurried to come. He was responsible if anything happened. Gone. A phone call. A taxi waiting for a girl to leave the hospital in the rain. All so simple, and so diabolically, coldly clever. The bombing of the house had been a play for two victims. Because Doyle had had the effrontery to match wits with the killer it had succeeded in part.

“The kid you caught! The hell with him!” snarled Wollson. “I got to get out every man to watch the streets. Fat chance of doing anything, at that! As for you — g’wan home and go to bed! You’ve done everything for us in this case that you can. G’wan! Get out of my sight!”

Led by Wollson, the policemen raced for their cars. Numb with despair, Doyle followed them as far as the sidewalk. As the tail lights sped away he stood alone, shivering in the rain.

The kid came from Voticelli’s! A miserable clew, but all he had.

Chapter VI The Phony Extra

The impulse to race to the Hongkong Café and extract a confession from Voticelli at the point of a gun was all but overpowering. Not the certainty that such an attempt would be futile, that it would begin with a sneering denial, and end by his shooting the gangster, or being shot by him, restrained Doyle. He was seeing red.

What held him in his tracks, what made him turn at last and walk to the telephone, was the fact that whatever the gangsters or the killers desired to do with Myra Freeman had already been done. If the killer had her, she was already dead, but if it were an accomplice there was a chance — a faint chance — that she had merely been kidnaped. If she were still living, haste and violence on the part of the police would only serve as her death warrant. Her abductor would be forced to slay her to protect himself.

To attempt to trace her, with all the city to search, was a futile task. Wollson would have a policeman on every corner, would not neglect to keep Voticelli’s headquarters under close surveillance. Search it he would dare not, for the same reasons that restrained Doyle. To save the girl the forces of the underworld must be taken in flank, their alliance with the killer broken up.

How long Doyle stayed in the rain he never knew. Perhaps not longer than five minutes, but into them he crammed the mental effort of a year. He was limp, exhausted, when he called the Herald office and got Bill Peck.

Bleakly Doyle related the latest sensation in the case. The excitement of the reporter who cried that the news deserver another extra, and who yelled for the night editor to listen in, left the detective cold. He was willing to give the news that would sell a lot of papers, but he was doing it so that the Herald might be more willing to do a favor for him.

When Peck began to babble thanks Doyle made his request. He could hear the gasp with which it was received.

“That’s impossible! I mean, it can be done all right, but we can’t — oh, hell, I’ll put the managing editor on the phone. He’s still here.”

Doyle waited, staring at the telephone. Though he did not have much hope, he talked to the managing editor well. When the Herald got out its extra, he said, he wished they would print one very special edition for him — an edition of only three or four copies.

He wanted to walk into every important gangster headquarters, beginning with Voticelli at the Hongkong, with a paper which had an eight-column headline in the Herald’s largest type:

Yes, Doyle admitted, that wasn’t true. Yet the life of a girl was at stake. There wasn’t time to use ordinary police methods. His theory was the killer was a marked and hunted man. No gang would give him shelter or assistance except in the hope of getting his money. Furthermore, the killer wouldn’t dare reveal where the loot was. He’d be bumped right away.

By spreading a false report Doyle would start a quarrel among thieves. By watching the face of the gang chiefs as they read the headline he might learn positively which of them was allied with the murderer.

“I’ll have to get the okay of the police commissioner,” said the managing editor. Doyle’s heart leaped. He had convinced the Herald; he had no doubt that the commissioner, with his love of direct and aggressive action, would approve.

“When can you have my papers ready?” he asked eagerly.

“Three-quarters of an hour,” the managing editor promised.

Doyle hung up the phone and took a taxi.

Despite the utmost speed of a newspaper at the copy desk and in the composing room, however, it was two o’clock when Doyle entered the Hongkong Café with the specially printed copy he had requested in his coat pocket. On the other hand, that copy was a work of art, and half a dozen plain-clothes men under the command of a sergeant had been put at Doyle’s orders. He posted them around the café, ready to dash in if anything broke.

Inside the rambling building Doyle sensed an equal readiness for emergencies. Though the dance floor was empty and no customers were in the bar, a bartender and two assistants were on duty. The bartender smiled sourly when Doyle appeared, as though he expected such a visit, and when the detective asked for Voticelli the gangster appeared almost immediately, fully dressed and cold sober, which was not his habit at that hour. He ushered Doyle into the private room, and faced him across the table with an alertness so intense that the detective’s hunch became doubly strong.

Before Voticelli could say a word Doyle tossed the specially written copy of the Herald across the table.

“Thought that might interest you,” he declared, pointing to the screaming headline.

For a second the gangster sat rigid. A poker blankness spread across his fleshy countenance. The eyes flickered to the detective, hot with disappointment and hate, and-then away.

“Yeah? And why?” the gangster parried.

To prolong the uneasiness of the other Doyle delayed the answer. He fished out a cigarette, rejected it because it had been crumpled in the package, selected another, struck a match, and blew a long puff of smoke at the ceiling.

“I’m too wise to mix up in that stuff,” snapped Voticelli.

“Sure. So I told the lieutenant,” Doyle remarked with obvious sarcasm. “Lots of cars outside, ain’t there? Might be bad for business, huh?” Like a flash Doyle flung himself half across the table.

“I’m trying to be right with you, you dumb-bell!” he snapped. “A witness of ours was abducted last night, and we picked up one of your rats! It ain’t your regular racket, so I figured you’d like to know about this!” Doyle’s forefinger stabbed at the headline. “It would be hell, wouldn’t it, to do an expensive job — for a dead beat?”

“What do you mean? I don’t get you,” Voticelli growled sullenly. Despite the gangster’s efforts to control his features Doyle observed an expression of uneasiness and of calculation for which he was at a loss to account.

“A million is a lot of money,” the gangster growled. “A tenth of that would look good to me.” He stopped. Again he glanced fleetingly at Doyle. “You bulls blame me for everything,” he grumbled. “I’m getting sick of it.”

“Nothing like coming clean,” Doyle suggested. “You ain’t done anything as far as the department knows — yet.” He was looking hard at the gangster. Doyle’s heart was in his mouth. The best actor cannot control his features absolutely. Voticelli would reveal something at this secretly veiled hint at the fate of Myra Freeman. But beyond the fact that he was concealing strong emotion of some sort, there was no visible reaction.

“Don’t know nothing about this,” growled Voticelli at last. “Get that — nothing. But I’m willing to be right. Kidnaping a dame is bound to raise trouble. I got friends, the same as the department has, and one of them may have heard something. Give me four or five hours, and I might be able to find out who done it. I’ll give the guy a tip to turn her loose. Are you willing to wait?” The gangster rose as he spoke and backed toward the door. Both hands were in his coat pockets.

“Sure I’ll wait!” snapped Doyle. He was sure at last that he was on the right trail, though whether Voticelli wanted the time for which he had asked to check up the story of the discovery of the mail sacks or to move Myra to a safer place of concealment, he could only guess. Only great danger or an enormous stake could induce the gangster to threaten him with a concealed gun.

As the door closed behind Voticelli Doyle rose and tiptoed toward it. He meant to follow the gangster through the café.

“Hi! Bring Mr. Doyle a drink!” Voticelli shouted in the passageway. The detective stopped. During the wait he was to be under guard, then? The private room was windowless, escape impossible. There was a telephone in the room, but no time to use it. Instead Doyle whipped out his revolver and stepped to the door. If he could overpower the bartender quickly and silently, he might follow still.

The door opened in his face. The bartender, carrying a bottle on a tray, stopped short to avoid colliding with him. Doyle’s left hand caught the toppling bottle. With the right he jabbed the bartender in the stomach with the gun.

“Come in!” he whispered fiercely. Wide-eyed, the bartender made one forward step. Doyle swung the door shut with his foot. He had not seen Voticelli.

“Keep your trap shut!” he threatened. He confiscated a gun from the bartender’s hip pocket, whirled him around, and snapped on handcuffs. Swiftly he gagged the man with two handkerchiefs, forced him to sit down in the corner of the room, and tied his legs together with his suspenders.

It was all quickly done, yet when Doyle tiptoed to the door again the sound of Voticelli’s footsteps had died away. With a curse at his luck, Doyle unlaced his shoes. With a sudden inspiration he whipped off his coat and vest, snatched the apron from the bartender and tied it around his own waist, picked up the bottle and the tray. Since he had to wander through a maze of passages at random, he might as well have an excuse. No one would mistake him for the bartender, who was a foot shorter, and bald, but the Hongkong must have many waiters. Doyle thrust his gun under his apron, remembered his service holster, and removed that. A waiter in stocking feet? Well, anybody who looked at him closely enough to observe that would see through the clumsy disguise anyhow.

Chapter VII Doyle Meets the Killer

The corridor outside the private office extended straight through the building. Through an unshaded window at the far end Doyle caught a glimpse of the lights of a steamship moving out to sea, which located the water side of the building and enabled him to get his bearings.

That Voticelli had gone toward the bar seemed unlikely, so Doyle walked toward the rear. There were half a dozen doors in the corridor, and he paused to listen at each. There was, however, no sound of voices.

At the extreme rear the corridor turned to the right. On the left, a steep, narrow flight of stairs mounted to the second floor. Doyle thought swiftly. The kitchen and private dining room were at the right. To the left was the dance hall. Any private rooms in which a girl might be hidden or a criminal concealed, would logically be found on the floor above the dance hall. Therefore he went up the stairs, and stepped at the top into a corridor such as he had left.

On a stool twenty feet away a slatternly old woman in black was perched like a dried up crow. Despite the hour, she was wide awake.

“Bringin’ me a drink, deary?” she cackled.

Doyle’s crude disguise had won him an instant’s respite. The old woman was peering at him, chin forward and eyes puckered as though her sight were dim. Doyle hoped she was half blind.

“The boss ordered this bottle, but he ain’t in his office. Did he come up here?” he questioned, stepping forward.

“No, he — hey, who the hell are you?” Like a flash the old woman was on her feet, her back against the door before which she had been posted.

“The new waiter—”

“Like hell!” she shrilled, and opened her mouth to scream.

Doyle leaped to silence her, but with an agility he had not suspected she ducked under his arm. The tray he carried fell with an echoing clang, and hard upon that the old woman’s screams cut the silence. Racing down the corridor, she yelled for help, for the boss, for a gat — quick!

On the floor below a door opened with an echoing slam. Heavy feet started on the run for the stairway. Doyle’s escape was cut off. To follow the old woman was to be guided into the midst of the gangsters. In the hope of breaking through to a window he hurled himself against the door which the woman had been guarding, only to recoil as though his shoulder had struck a solid partition.

No flimsy bedroom door, this! It was secured with a cylinder lock — and why should it be watched at two in the morning? He heard the heavy feet that were running toward him strike the stairs, but he caught up the stool and swung it with all his force against that massive door. At the third blow one of the upper panels cracked. That was all. The framework was still solid. To smash the door would take an ax.

Swiftly he put his eye to the crack. Though it was narrow as a knife slit, he could see an unshaded electric light, a part of a window, barred with heavy wire netting, and one side of a narrow iron bed. Only one side, but the blankets were pulled awry as though the bed were occupied.

The screaming and the hammering on the door had been enough to wake the soundest sleeper. Only a person drugged or insensible could lie quiet in such a racket. Drugged — or dead!

With a wild Irish yell Doyle snatched his revolver and sprang for the head of the stairs. Discover who lay in that bed he must. He would drive the gangsters back, then shoot a hole through that door if necessary. The police outside would hear the shots. There would be help for him in a minute if he could only hold his ground!

He was at the stairway just as Voticelli reached the top. They fired simultaneously.

A red hot whip flicked Doyle’s cheek. His own bullet missed completely, but with his left hand he managed to knock the gangster’s gun aside as Voticelli fired again. They were chest to chest, and with a fighter’s instinct Doyle clinched, holding the gangster’s gun away from his body. There was an instant when Doyle might have shot, but it would have been murder. Instead he swung his revolver at the head of the other man.

Though the blow landed, Voticelli half parried it with his left elbow. He was dazed and his pistol slipped from his fingers, but he managed to throw both arms around Doyle and cling like a leech. He was a foot shorter than Doyle, and though the detective struck again and again at the head pressed against his chest, he could not knock the gangster out or wrestle out of his grip.

A pistol barked, and a bullet zupped within an inch of Doyle’s ear. The shot came from the bottom of the stairs. He swung Voticelli between himself and the new enemy and looked down into cold eyes that glared from beneath eyebrows that were an unbroken bar of black, and into the muzzle of a levelled pistol that coolly followed every movement of Doyle’s head.

Even with the beard gone, and before he noticed Traub’s height, Doyle recognized him by the eyebrows. The killer was in no hurry to shoot. He was sighting carefully, making sure of his arm. In that tense second Doyle noticed that Traub was stripped to his undershirt, that he had a flash light wrapped with tire tape in his left hand. Then the detective dropped to his knees, dragging Voticelli down with him.

Traub swore aloud, for as his target vanished behind the gangster’s broad back a police whistle shrilled inside the café. There were shouts from the front of the building, the crash of a door burst from its hinges by a concerted rush, and then the loud pound of feet down the corridor. The police were coming at last.

Doyle strained to jerk his gun arm from Voticelli’s clutch. Traub coolly turned to the window, threw both legs over the sill, and then leaned back for a last shot at the men above. Doyle winced at the flash, but the bullet was not aimed at him. Voticelli suddenly went limp, shot through the shoulder blade to the heart.

Traub leaped into the harbor. The bullet Doyle sent after him only shattered the glass.

When the sergeant of the plainclothes squad reached the end of the corridor Doyle had come down the stairs and was climbing through the window. His face was a mask of blood, and the sergeant, seeing what looked to be a waiter on the point of escape, leaped for him.

“Not me — I’m Doyle,” said the detective through clenched teeth. “There’s a broken door upstairs, and Myra Freeman’s there, I think. Look after her, sarge! She’s here somewhere, if you have to take this damn place apart to find her!”

“Okay, but—”

“But, hell! The killer’s in the harbor! Tell Wollson it is Traub, and send a police launch to hunt under the piers. I’m going now!”

Doyle twisted and dived into the dark water, revolver in hand.

Chapter VIII Under the Piers

When he rose he could see little. He trod water, and peered left and right. Beneath the café the darkness was absolute. Among the piling was a hiding place that Traub could have reached in three strokes, and where he might lurk for hours, slipping from behind one pile to the next unseen, even though half a dozen men with flash lights invaded his refuge. There was no sound but the slup slup of the tide against the piling, and no sign of the police launch whatever.

Yet if Traub had sought the nearest shelter, he would be caught when morning came at the latest. A swimmer could not move fast or far through the piling. Doyle’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. The faint glimmer of the lights on the shipping anchored near by cast a sheen on the water. He began to pick out logs floating in the tide, a bit of box, square and black against the surface glimmer, and, suddenly, strikingly noticeable because, of all the small dark objects on the surface, it alone did not drift with the tide, a round blot perhaps fifty yards away that could only be the head of a man — a man swimming parallel to the piers, and within a dozen feet of their shadow.

“Sergeant!” Doyle shouted.

There was no answer. That satisfied him perfectly. It was his duty to call for help, but he wanted none. He was a superb swimmer, and even if Traub struck out across the harbor to escape the police dragnet — which was possible for him to do even now — Doyle had the ability to follow. He set out with long strokes, making as little splash as he could, gaining upon the black dot that moved steadily ahead of him, but not so fast as to drive Traub into the refuge of the piers. Doyle figured that the killer was on his way to the hiding place that he had prepared for himself in the event that the crime had no eyewitnesses. If he could be taken there the loot would also be recovered.

Traub had seen Doyle dive. He was aware that he was being pursued, of course; yet, though he swam rapidly, nothing about his progress indicated flight. He was not splashing like a swimmer moving at top speed. Indeed, he seemed to permit Doyle to close the gap between them to about twenty-five yards, for after that distance was attained the detective discovered that he could no longer gain.

They were in easy pistol shot, but neither could see the sights, and Doyle, with only four cartridges left, did not want to fire until there was some one on the piers who could head Traub out into the open water. So late at night, however, all the watchmen seemed to be inside, and the water front in that section consisted of rickety buildings, poorly lighted and policed — the older part of the city, more or less abandoned in favor of the more modern wharves.

For fully ten minutes, during which Doyle estimated that he must have swum a quarter of a mile, the chase paralleled the docks. Then Traub began to angle in, and suddenly his head disappeared under the piling of a cluster of sheds which were without a single light, and beneath which the darkness was thick as soot.

Doyle’s head would still be outlined by the surface glimmer. It would be a superb target. He realized it, but nevertheless, he pressed on. Cartridges that have been immersed in water are not too reliable. He could fire at Traub’s flash if the killer missed. The break would be more nearly even than anything he had had yet.

Nevertheless, he gasped with relief when he passed from the open into a darkness that seemed to press on his eyeballs, only to curse under his breath a second afterward.

Traub was — where? The tide went slup slup against the piles, covering all sounds of the movements of a swimmer. Bullets were not the only weapons the murderer possessed. If he had a gas mask that would protect him against his own poison bombs — well, if he had, reflected Doyle grimly, it was always possible to swim away under water at the first whiff of the peach odor. Since he couldn’t possibly find Traub in this game of blind man’s buff the thing to be done was to summon help. Doyle shook the water out of his revolver and pulled the trigger. The cartridge exploded. So far, so good. Some one would hear that.

“Help! Police!” he shouted, grinning to himself at the noise he made. He was bawling like a citizen after a holdup. Calling for help might be sensible, but from sheer embarrassment Doyle could not keep it up. Any one within hearing would have heard him, anyhow.

There was no answering shout. The tide went slup slup against the piling.

Nevertheless Doyle’s efforts had a result, though one he had not anticipated. Not twenty feet away the beam of a flash light stabbed down through an open trap door. Doyle caught sight of a slimy ladder rising from the water for a distance of above five feet to the floor of the sheds overhead before the flash light beam found him.

He dodged behind a pile just as a pistol exploded and a bullet splashed water where his head had been. Before he could return the shot, the flash light was snapped off.

“Going to fight, huh?” Doyle whispered delightedly. Dark or not he could find that ladder now. No use to waste precious ammunition in the hope of summoning help that might not come. Instead, he worked his way toward the ladder. He was close to it when he stopped, appalled at his folly. No sucker had ever sucked down bait so eagerly. Of course Traub had revealed himself — to shut Doyle up! He was waiting up there unhampered by the water, to make the shutting up permanent.

For perhaps a minute the detective remained motionless. Traub had lured him to this spot deliberately, and yet, being here, if he retreated the killer would escape — might be escaping even now by some way of his own through that jumble of unlighted sheds overhead. Doyle shrugged and swam ahead, though now that he was aware of the danger he moved far more cautiously. If he made any noise that could not be mistaken for that of the tide once he was under the ladder, there would be a blinding flash of light into his eyes, the crash of a pistol, and curtains for Mr. Terence Doyle, late of the Eighteenth Seattle Precinct.

There had been three piles between him and the ladder. Already he had passed two. He held his breath and floated rather than swam on his back, his revolver ready, his feet dragging, propelling himself by paddling with one hand held at his hip. Very gently his head touched a bar of wood parallel with the water. The ladder.

Once his hand was on the lowest rung, however, it took all his courage to lift himself out of the water. The snap had not been shut. He could shoot at the flash of the light. In a sense he would have an even break, except for the difficulty of climbing with a revolver ready to shoot instantly. Yet to his overstrained senses each drop of water that fell from his body made distinct splash. He held his breath. Not a sound. No! That was a breath — and the faint hiss of it was almost in his ear!

Doyle froze on the ladder. His adversary was within arm’s length, waiting to locate him by the sounds of his advance!

For a long time Doyle clung to the slippery ladder, gun levelled, holding on with one hand. His muscles began to ache. To hang there longer was impossible. Retreat was as likely to betray his position as an advance. He held his breath, straightened his body, and slowly reached upward into the darkness, waving his gun in wider and wider circles.

There was a click of steel against steel. His revolver had touched a pistol that also groped in the dark for contact with his body.

Flame streaked the darkness. Involuntarily Doyle also pulled trigger. He dropped his weapon and lunged upward, snatching at the pistol flash. He caught a wrist, hurled it sidewise. The flash of the second pistol shot burned his face as he let himself fall from the ladder. Gripping his enemy’s wrist as he was, Doyle’s weight jerked the killer through the trap. As they struck the water the detective’s left hand found the throat.

They sank deep, yet though Doyle’s lungs were bursting his only emotion was a fierce joy that the other would drown too. Nothing would have broken his grip. He was kicked, till he caught his enemy’s legs with his own. Then he held tight.

A fist beat at his face, but the water robbed the blows of their sting. Grimly Doyle clung, saving his breath. The pair rose, but very slowly. Doyle caught a mouthful of air and shoved himself under the water again. When air in his lungs brought him to the surface the second time his prisoner struggled no longer.

Chapter IX Doyle Thinks

Doyle got his shoulder beneath the unconscious prisoner. With the last of his strength he managed to climb the ladder and dump his burden on the floor of the shed. He found the flash light in Traub’s hip pocket, and with this located an electric light, which he turned on. One bag of registered mail lay beside the open trap. Otherwise the shed was empty, but the trail of Traub’s wet feet was printed clear on the dusty floor. The tracks led out through a door in the front of the shed, and back again. Beside the door was a wet patch, as though the killer had stood waiting at the point for some time.

There was only a moment to notice these details, for Traub had begun to gasp for breath, and the detective had scarcely time to bind arms and ankles with strips of his shirt before the eyes opened. Traub tried to get up, found he was bound, and lay back, shaking his head to clear away the mists of unconsciousness.

“You damn, lucky flatfoot,” he whispered. “Got me, have you?” The thin lips twisted in a bitter grin.

“You’d never have done it if Voticelli hadn’t been a rat. He was scared to let me at the girl until the jack was in his hand, and went into a blue funk when you came in!

“Shut up!” snapped Doyle. “The memory of the shot in the back which had killed the gangster was too vivid.”

“He’d have squealed,” Traub persisted. “If crooks like him only had nerve they could run the country if they wanted to. There’s more of them than there are police, and their organization is as good.”

“Yeah,” Doyle grunted.

The cold eyes stared at him with an expression that made him uneasy.

“I had you licked twice,” Traub whispered. “Once when I waited outside the window with the bomb in my hand to find out how much you guessed. Once again when I lay in the dark here with my gun pointed down the ladder, waiting for you to climb up and touch it. You were dumb, flatfoot — too damn dumb to be scared. Nerve and persistence. That’s all your kind have!”

“Yeah,” Doyle grunted. For a moment he had forgotten the poison bombs. Traub wore nothing but a pair of trousers. The detective cautiously felt the pockets, but found nothing. At his shrug a contemptuous smile crossed the killer’s face.

“Dumb — and lucky,” he repeated. “And what’ll it get you? Nothing!”

“Say, are you trying to bribe me?” Doyle snapped.

“No. I can size up men,” retorted Traub almost as sharply. “I’ll be pinched and convicted. You’ve got me — and it’s going to do you no good. But if you’d been yellow I could have been the biggest crook this country ever saw. I could have ruled it, flatfoot! I had the nerve and the science. I had the money.”

The thin lips drew together, and Traub shrugged. “To hell with that. I failed,” he remarked conversationally. “I don’t mind dying, but I hate to be laughed at. Photographed and jawed at by stupid fools. Interviewed by sob sisters, used by a lawyer to make himself Governor, and psychoanalyzed by college professors hunting publicity. I’m not licked yet, flatfoot. Give me a break and I’ll do you a favor. I want to die, understand? Here and now. Let me roll through that trap and drown. Before I go I’ll tell you where the rest of the mail is. The truth.”

“Nix,” said Doyle. “Your tracks are plain enough in the dust.”

“Suit yourself. I had nothing against you,” Traub whispered. “You’d have been a great detective, too. You’re just smart enough, and dumb enough. But suit yourself.”

The killer’s jaw set. He closed his eyes and threw himself back on the dusty floor. He did not mean to speak again.

A shiver went down Doyle’s back. He dragged Traub away from the trapdoor and stood staring around the shed. This murderer was cold as a king cobra. Hate was as foreign to him as mercy. He was a machine for getting what he wanted — and he was threatening.

Traub was not bluffing. Thus far Doyle had won. Whether by nerve or luck he cared little, but he sensed that the end was not yet. He was tired, and the salt water made the wound on his face smart intolerably. Even his senses were dull. He couldn’t seem to use his head at all. A child could follow those footprints.

Doyle whipped his brain into action. The trail on the floor was too obvious, but what of the footprints by the door? The killer had had no time to waste. He had been forced to move around in the dark, and yet he had paused too far from the trap to listen for Doyle, and had even brought back one sack of mail. For Voticelli? No. For a lure? That was more probable, but as a temptation to do what?

Seeing one bag, the natural impulse of a detective would be to rush ahead to locate the rest. Doyle decided he was not going to hurry, anyhow. On the contrary, he stepped onto the wet patch and examined the door inch by inch. Nothing was unusual, except that near the door jamb and as high up as he could reach, there was a bit of string projecting through a crack into the room beyond. Doyle glanced at Traub. The latter’s eyes were tight shut. The detective took the string in his fingers and pulled.

Nothing happened. The string was attached to a weight in the other room which moved about a foot. About a foot from the hole where the string disappeared through the partition was a rusty nail. Doyle twisted the string around this.

Maybe he’d found Traub’s secret. Maybe not. Doyle drew a deep breath and thrust the door open.

On the floor before his eyes lay the balance of the stolen mail sacks. He hardly saw them. The room into which he looked was like that in which he stood, and directly opposite was a door that led to the street. From the lintel of this door hung a brick, and behind it, pinned to the door itself, was something white.

Doyle stepped behind the door he had just pushed open. Here was another brick, but by pulling the string he had lifted this clear of the swing of the door. In a handkerchief pinned to the door panel was a bulge half the size of his fist. Carefully he felt behind the cloth and took out a thin glass sphere filled with a yellowish liquid.

Had he opened the door carelessly he would have broken the poison bomb.

“Found it, have you?” snarled Traub unexpectedly. “Damn you, flatfoot, you think! All right, send for the wagon. You’ll go far, flatfoot, and mind this: Most men are dumb! Treat them so, and use them, because the fools can’t help it!”

“Yeah?” Doyle answered.

He removed the poison bomb that guarded the outer door, caught up a stick, and beat a tattoo on the sidewalk to summon the nearest patrolman. A police whistle replied, not far away, and with a sigh of content Doyle leaned back against the shed wall. In a few minutes now the wagon would arrive, in a few more he would be at the Hongkong. The doctors might have brought Myra around by this time... Wollson would probably be there, too.

All Doyle’s desire to humiliate the lieutenant had vanished. He was in a position to crow. Wollson would have crowed if the circumstances had been reversed, yet in the reaction from the excitement and strain of the last six hours Doyle realized that he would accomplish nothing by indulging in a cheap, personal triumph. For some time yet Wollson would continue to be a lieutenant. On the next case he would do the obvious thing again. In the interim he would continue to use his authority to chase Doyle out into the rain on useless errands.

Therefore it happened that when the patrol wagon arrived Doyle was silent during the ride to the Hongkong. The vision of a girl with hair of bright gold rode with him, and when the wagon stopped before the café he leaped out, forgetful of his bleeding face in his eagerness.

Wollson caught him by the arm.

“Is Myra all right?” Doyle snapped, “I... I mean, Miss Freeman?”

“Sure. She’s sitting up asking about you,” growled the lieutenant. “Forget the dame, Slats. She ain’t important. She saw nothin’. How’d you get this Traub guy?”

Gently Doyle slipped out of the lieutenant’s grip. He answered in such a low tone that only Wollson heard.

“By going ahead — and by using my bean,” he whispered. “You might try that last the next time you wait. This case is up to the district attorney now, so get out of my way. Myra Freeman is mighty important to me.”

Humming under his breath, Doyle hurried into the café where Myra waited.