Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 75, No. 4, April 15, 1933

The Kid Muscles In by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Patent Leather Kid Takes a Hand in the Case of Young Ed Pruett, Who Tapped on His Girl’s Window and Found Himself Jailed for Murder

The man with iron-gray hair, patient eyes, firm mouth, and close-cropped white mustache attracted no attention as he walked toward Police Inspector Phil Brame. He was exactly the type of man who might have been a member of the club, in good standing. No one seemed to place him, but, on the other hand, no one questioned him.

Police Inspector Brame sat in his favorite chair, looking out of the window.

There were four members who preempted that semi-circle of chairs around the big window. There was Renfroe, the banker; Bill Pope, the explorer; Police Inspector Phil Brame, and Dan Seller, whose occupation had never been disclosed.

Renfroe, the banker, knew that Dan Seller kept a substantial balance on deposit in his bank, and was inclined to treat Seller with a certain deference. Police Inspector Phil Brame, on the other hand, regarded Seller as a wealthy idler, and made no attempt to disguise his prejudice. Bill Pope, the explorer, bronzed by excursions into the tropical jungles, regarded Dan Seller with quizzical interest.

Dan Seller, young, well-knit, expensively tailored, showed entire unconcern as to the opinions the other three men might hold about him. His manner was that of a wealthy idler who need not work, and who is utterly self sufficient.

Yet it was Dan Seller who first detected something unusual in the manner of the man with the iron-gray hair and the close-cropped white mustache.

“I think, Inspector,” he drawled, “that you’ve got a customer.”

Inspector Brame glanced at Dan Seller curiously, then, as a jerk of Seller’s head indicated the man that was approaching, Inspector Brame’s eyes shifted to look with the steady, patient eyes of the man with the closecropped mustache.

“Inspector Brame?” asked the man, his voice well modulated but firm.

Brame nodded.

“I don’t seem to place you,” he said.

“You wouldn’t,” said the man. “The name is Pruett, Walter C. Pruett.”

Inspector Brame’s forehead wash-boarded with reflection.

“Pruett,” he said. “Pruett. I’ve heard the name...”

The man with the iron-gray hair stood directly in front of Inspector Brame’s chair, his feet planted widely apart, his jaw jutting forward with an air of grim determination.

“I am the father,” he said, “of Ed Pruett. I’m sorry to approach you at your club, but I did it because it was the only way I could reach you. My boy is innocent of that crime, and the police are giving him a raw deal, simply because they’re too ignorant or too lazy to get out and chase down the real facts...”

Inspector Brame got to his feet, his face flushed slightly. His eyes were cold and hard.

“Are you,” he asked, “a member of this club?”

The gray-haired man shook his head.

“I got past the door man under false pretenses,” he admitted. “That is beside the point. I came to you because I wanted to tell you, personally, just where the police are making a mistake. I tell you, there were burglars in that house, and I believe an investigation will show that hijackers...”

“Steward!” shouted Inspector Brame, turning his head in a searching scrutiny.

“Steward! This way!”

A slender man with alert eyes and deferential manner caught the note of urgency in Inspector Brame’s voice, and came on the run to the window.

“What is it?” he said.

“This man,” said Inspector Brame, “isn’t a member of the club. He’s in here under false pretenses. He worked his way past the door man in order to approach me upon a business matter. Throw him out!”

The steward stepped forward and tapped the intruder on the shoulder.

“This way, please,” he said, “and don’t make a commotion.”

The man held his steady, patient eyes on Inspector Brame’s face.

“Will you give me a chance to explain?” he said.

“No!” rapped Inspector Brame. “I won’t discuss the matter. The case is closed.”

The steward’s hand took a tentative grip on the collar of the man’s coat.

“Now, don’t make a scene,” he said, “or we’ll have you arrested. That’s Police Inspector Phil Brame you’re talking with.”

“I know who it is,” said the man. “I wanted to tell him...”

Brame interrupted impatiently.

“Get out,” he said, “and stay out! I don’t want to talk with you. Do you understand? Steward, if this man doesn’t leave, get the officer on the beat. Tell him I want him right away.”

The intruder shrugged his shoulders, turned with an air of almost military dignity.

“It won’t be necessary, steward,” he said. “I’ll go with you. I couldn’t believe that the police heads could be guilty of such damnable bungling. I was willing to admit the underlings didn’t know any better.”

Relief showed in the face of the steward. He shifted his hand to the man’s arm. Together they walked toward the elevator.

Inspector Brame sank back to his chair, his face still purple, his eyes indignant.

“Can you beat that?” he demanded. “The father of a damned, cold-blooded murderer coming to my club in order to intercede for his boy! You’d think the man would be hanging his head in shame, instead of bursting into gentlemen’s clubs, annoying the representatives of law and order!”

Renfroe, the banker, said coldly: “You were more patient with him than I would have been. He’s the father of this Ed Pruett who killed Doctor George Lancaster last night?”

“That’s the chap,” said Inspector Brame. “It was plain, deliberate murder, with no extenuating circumstances.”

Bill Pope lit a cigarette.

“The father looks like rather a nice man to me,” he said. “He seemed to have something to tell you that he thought was important.”

Brame snorted.

“The case is dead open and shut,” he said. “Didn’t you read about it in the papers?”

Renfroe nodded.

“The boy broke into the house in the first place, didn’t he?” he said.

“It amounts to about the same thing,” Inspector Brame growled. “He was in love with Lita Monteith, Lancaster’s niece. Doctor Lancaster had forbidden him to call on the girl, and had kept the girl shut up so they couldn’t have any clandestine meetings.

“Ed Pruett goes up to the house, finds out what room the girl’s in, taps on the window, and gets her to let him in. Lancaster heard voices and surprised them. He ordered Pruett out of the house, and Pruett stood his ground. Doctor Lancaster tried to put him out, and Pruett, who is a young, husky fellow, threw Doctor Lancaster from the room. The doctor ran to his bedroom, shouting that he would get a gun. Pruett waited a few seconds, then followed him. There was the sound of a shot, and the girl rushed in to find Pruett standing over Lancaster with a gun in his hand. If that isn’t enough of a case for you, I don’t know what is.”

“What happened after that?” drawled Dan Seller.

“Pruett skipped out. He and the girl hatched up a story, by which the girl was to notify the police and claim that her uncle had been shot by robbers whom he had surprised in the house. She wasn’t going to let us know that Pruett had been there at all.”

“As a matter of fact, some things were taken, weren’t they?” asked Renfroe.

“A lot was taken,” said Inspector^-Brame grimly. “A lot we knew of at the time, and a lot we didn’t find out until this afternoon. As a matter of fact, Doctor Lancaster was mixed up in some dope business. We didn’t know it until recently. After his death, we uncovered certain facts which enabled us to chase back on his activities.

“Pruett might have pled guilty to manslaughter or second degree murder if it hadn’t been for the robbery, but he looted the safe of everything it con-stained. We don’t know how much that was, but we rather suspect that there was a very large amount of cash and perhaps several other things. He took Doctor Lancaster’s watch and wallet. When we caught him, he was just getting ready to skip the country. Of course, the boys say he took the things just to make it look like a robbery, because he was afraid to report the affair as it was. He claims some one else shot Doctor Lancaster, that he heard the shot as he was going toward the Doctor’s room, and that when he rushed in the Doctor was lying on the floor, the gun beside him.”

“Not a likely sounding story,” said the banker.

“It’ll save him from the death penalty, I’m afraid,” Brame admitted reluctantly. “There will be some sentimental ones on the jury. And the police department is handicapped right now. The man they call ‘The Patent Leather Kid’...”

Bill Pope laughed an interruption.

“Come, come, Inspector,” he said, “The Patent Leather Kid certainly can’t be connected with this. He’s just getting on your nerves, that’s all.”

Inspector Brame glowered.

“He’s brought about a disrespect of laws,” he said. “Just because his exploits are spectacular, they appeal to the average newspaper reader. He’s making things very hard for the police.”

Dan Seller rose, stretched, yawned, and gazed down at the three men with eyes that held a glint of tolerant humor.

“Well,” he said, “if you folks are going to talk shop, I’ll go out and take a turn in the air. All this talk about business makes me nervous.”

Inspector Brame snorted. “Can’t even stand to listen about it, eh?”

Dan Seller laughed.

“My constitutional antipathy to any form of labor, Inspector,” he apologized with mock gravity. “You’ll just have to make allowances for it.”

Bill Pope, the explorer, got up from his chair.

“Well,” he said, “I’ll be going, too.”

As Dan Seller walked to the elevator, Bill Pope was at his side.

“You’ll be back soon?” he asked.

Dan Seller regarded Bill Pope with speculative eyes.

“I’m not certain,” he said. “Why?”

Bill Pope laughed.

“Nothing,” he said. “I was just wondering. I thought perhaps Mr. Pruett did more good for his boy by coming here than he had suspected.”

Dan Seller snapped: “Just what do you mean by that, Pope?”

Bill Pope waved his hand and laughed again.

“Go on,” he said. “We’ll be talking business, first thing you know. Go on out and take your walk.”

Dan Seller stared for a moment, and then his face softened into a smile.

“Well,” he said, “it’s a good suggestion, at that.”

It took Dan Seller one hour and twenty-seven minutes to emerge from the identity of Dan Seller, wealthy young clubman, and transform himself to The Patent Leather Kid, one of the mysterious, yet prominent figures of the underworld.

The process of transformation included the use of several taxicabs, the entering of a room by one door and leaving by another, a complete change of clothes, and the final entrance in the Maplewood Apartment Hotel, where he was known as the mysterious tenant of the penthouse on the roof. The manager, the clerk and the telephone operator alone knew Dan Seller as The Patent Leather Kid, and they were extremely careful to see that the information was never broadcast.

The Kid crossed over to the glass partition behind which the switchboard operator was taking calls.

“Hello, Gertie,” he said.

The girl looked up, and her face lit as recognition flooded her features.

“Gee, Kid,” she said, “you’ve been away a long time. Where you been?”

“Oh, just out and around,” said The Kid. “Is there anything new?”

“No,” she said. “Bill Brakey’s up there.”

“Give him a buzz and tell him I’m on the way up, will you?” asked The Kid.

He went to the elevator, nodded to the attendant, and was whisked to the penthouse.

Bill Brakey, who acted as The Kid’s right hand man and bodyguard, opened the steel, bullet-proof door on the penthouse.

“Hello, Kid,” he drawled.

Bill Brakey had a perfectly calm countenance, which seemed always placid, regardless of the danger which confronted him. Only his eyes and his hands were restless. His eyes were continually roving about, staring at things, soaking in their every detail, then shifting to something else. His hands were always in motion, fluttering, restless hands, that were never far from a holstered weapon which hung under his left armpit. He was a walking encyclopedia of miscellaneous information about the underworld, and his skill and loyalty had saved the life of The Patent Leather Kid on more than one occasion.

The Kid acknowledged the greeting, went into the sitting room, and flung himself in an overstuffed chair, lit a cigarette, and said: “Bill, what’s the lowdown on this murder of Doctor George Lancaster?”

“Guy by the name of Ed Pruett did it,” said Brakey. “He was calling on the doctor’s niece when the doctor tried to put him out.”

“I know, I know,” said The Kid impatiently. “That’s the newspaper version, and that’s what the police have on it. What really happened?”

Brakey shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know a thing in the world about it,” he said, “except that I do know something about the gun.”

“What do you know about the gun, Bill?”

“Just this: The police traced the numbers on the gun, and found that it had been purchased by a chap named Rodney Field. Field said that he lost the gun about two or three months ago, and the police aren’t doing a thing about it. They’ve let it drop right there.”

The Kid scowled through his cigarette smoke.

“That’s rather strange, isn’t it?” he asked.

Bill Brakey made another gesture with his restless hands and said: “It all depends on the way you look at it. The police got Ed Pruett’s finger prints all over the gun and proved that it was the murder weapon. They don’t have to prove where he got it, and they’re not going to try. He might have picked it up in a hock shop; he might have had it given to him; or he might have found it on the street. They don’t care. He had it in his hand, and his finger prints are on it, and it was the gun that killed Lancaster. That’s all the police are going to worry about.”

“Who is this Rodney Field?” asked The Kid. “A gangster?”

“No. He’s a wealthy chap who goes in pretty strong for polo. He seems to be on the up and up.”

The Patent Leather Kid blinked thoughtfully at his bodyguard.

“It’s funny that a man would ‘lose’ a gun without knowing something else about the circumstances surrounding its loss,” he said.

Bill Brakey nodded.

“I want to find out more about it,” said The Kid, slowly.

Bill Brakey reached out one of his restless hands, caught his hat, and clamped it firmly on his forehead.

“Okay, Chief,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The Patent Leather Kid nodded, flipped away his cigarette and smoothed down his vest.

“Do you know Rodney Field?” he asked.

Bill Brakey shook his head.

“No, but I know his bootlegger — a fellow named Harry Kramer. He can tell us. I’m going to introduce you to him as a guy who may have some big orders and wants a commission.”

“Okay,” said The Kid. “Shoot.”

They left the apartment hotel, hailed a taxicab, and went to a speakeasy which was the official hang-out of Harry Kramer. Brakey indicated a man who sat at a table with a young woman of exotic appearance.

“That’s Kramer,” he said.

The Kid’s eyes surveyed Harry Kramer in shrewd appraisal.

Kramer was about thirty-three or four, black-haired and blue-eyed, slightly inclined to be stout, but carrying his weight entirely around his neck and shoulders. His hips and waist were lean and hard.

“He’s a tough baby,” said Brakey, and led the way over to the table.

Harry Kramer’s face wreathed in a smile.

“Well, well,” he said, “my old college chum — Bill Brakey.”

Brakey nodded.

The men shook hands, and Kramer’s eyes strayed over toward The Patent Leather Kid.

“Friend of mine,” said Bill Brakey. “We want to talk a little business.”

“Sure, sure,” said Kramer. “Draw up your chairs and sit down.”

The dark-haired girl at the table fastened appraising eyes on Bill Brakey, then shifted them to The Patent Leather Kid. The eyes widened slightly and remained fixed on The Kid’s profile for a matter of some five seconds.

There were no further introductions. The newcomers sat at the table. Everyone seemed to take everyone else for granted.

Kramer nodded toward his companion and said: “Her name’s Dolly.”

“Hello, Dolly,” said Bill Brakey.

She parted her full red lips in a smile, then turned to The Kid. “Hello, everybody,” she said.

Brakey turned to Kramer.

“A friend of mine,” he said, “who isn’t over a million miles away from here, is in a position to control the business of a couple of clubs and some big individual buyers. He wants to know about a cut.”

Kramer was effusive. He shifted his eyes rapidly from Brakey to The Patent Leather Kid, then turned, and did his talking entirely to Bill Brakey.

“This friend of yours,” he said, “could get a pretty good cut if he didn’t get to shopping around.”

“What do you mean by a good cut?” asked Brakey.

“A couple of dollars a case on the quality stuff,” said Kramer.

Bill Brakey looked over at The Patent Leather Kid, and said musingly: “I don’t think this friend would want to swing the volume of business he’s got at that price.”

Kramer lost his smile.

“Shucks,” he said. “I’m giving you the very top cut on it now, Bill. That’s for the quality stuff which will run into money. On the ordinary stuff I could not possibly pay more than a dollar.”

Bill Brakey looked meaningly at The Patent Leather Kid. The face of The Patent Leather Kid was as a mask. Harry Kramer’s eyes shifted rapidly once more from Bill Brakey and studied The Kid’s face.

Dolly leaned across the table toward The Kid, smiled at him, and said: “Do you like dancing?”

“No,” said The Kid.

Bill Brakey shrugged his shoulders to Kramer.

“You see how it is,” he said. “I have an idea my friend would want more than that.”

“That’s a good cut,” insisted Kramer.

Brakey pursed his lips, flashed a glance at The Kid. “Well,” he said, “I’ll talk it over with my friend, and let you know.”

Kramer settled back in his chair, pulled down his vest over his trim waist, and beamed about the table.

“Well, now,” he said, “that’s all over with, let’s forget business. What you been doing with yourself these days, Brakey?”

“Just sort of loafing right now,” said Brakey.

Kramer shot The Patent Leather Kid a swift, searching glance, then turned back to Brakey.

“Heard you was acting as bodyguard for The Patent Leather Kid,” he said.

Brakey raised his eyebrows. “Who told you that?” he asked.

Kramer grinned, and said sagely: “I can’t tell you that.”

Brakey puckered his forehead in a frown.

“Say, Kramer,” he said, abruptly changing the subject, “you have Rodney Field as one of your customers, don’t you?”

Instantly the genial smile left Kramer’s face. His eyes became cold and hard.

“What about Rodney Field?” he asked.

“I want to get some information about him.”

“What information?”

“About a gun.”

“What gun?”

Bill Brakey leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “In this Pruett case, they’ve traced the gun that did the killing. It belonged at one time to Rodney Field. He said he lost it.”

“You mean the gun that killed Doc Lancaster?” asked Kramer.

“Yes.”

“It was Pruett’s gun,” said Kramer. “The guy that did the shooting. His fingerprints were all over it.”

“How did he get it?” persisted Brakey.

Kramer frowned. “I ain’t an information bureau, you know, Brakey,” he warned.

“That’s all right,” Brakey said, “but I figured you could give me some information about Rodney Field. I figured that if there’d been a hijacking out at his place you might have known of it.”

Kramer flashed a glance at the young woman.

“Well,” he said, “I don’t know a thing, and Dolly and I was just getting ready to go when you came in. Come on, Dolly.”

Bill Brakey looked from one to the other, with thoughtful eyes. “Don’t let me keep you,” he said.

Kramer half turned, looked at The Patent Leather Kid, then at Brakey.

“If I was you,” he said, “I wouldn’t lose any sleep worrying about that gun. Losing sleep is a bad thing for a man. It ruins his health.”

Then he turned and strode toward the door, the girl on his arm. Neither one of them looked back.

Bill Brakey turned to The Patent Leather Kid, and frowned.

“Now, why the hell,” he said, “should that have happened?”

“Well,” The Kid told him, “it happened all right, regardless of why it should have happened. We’re sitting on a powder magazine right now.”

Brakey nodded.

Molly Malloy was in the late forties, and approximately fifty pounds overweight. She sat in a huge overstuffed chair in a room which was over-furnished and gaudy. Once in awhile a young woman would pass through the room and nod. The place smelled of perfume and incense.

“Gee,” said Molly Malloy, staring at Bill Brakey, “you sure got a crust to ask me about Harry Kramer!”

“Never mind the crust, Molly,” Brakey said, “I’m asking you. I want to know what’s between Harry Kramer and Rodney Field.”

“What makes you think anything is?”

“I don’t know; call it a hunch if you want to, or don’t call it anything at all. Just tell me. That’s all I want you to do.”

Molly Malloy flashed a suspicious glance to The Patent Leather Kid.

“Are you sure your friend’s all right?”

Bill Brakey took the cigarette from his mouth and nodded.

The Patent Leather Kid said: “Go ahead and tell her, Bill.”

Bill waved his hand toward The Patent Leather Kid.

“This,” he said, with something of a flourish, “is The Patent Leather-Kid.”

Molly Malloy gasped. Her eyes grew round. Then she heaved herself to her feet, waddled across the room, and locked the door. She came back and dropped into her overstuffed chair with a great creaking of springs.

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she asked.

“That’s all right,” Bill Brakey told her. “Go ahead and give us the dope. Never mind that.”

She said: “I don’t know how you found it out, but Harry Kramer had Rodney-Field robbed.”

“Go on,” said Brakey. “You interest me.”

“It was his country house,” said Molly Malloy. “He’s got a pretty place there, and he does quite a bit of high-class entertaining.”

“What was taken?” asked Bill Brakey.

She snickered. “What do you suppose? Be your age!”

Bill Brakey said: “You mean the booze?”

She nodded her head, and rolls of flesh rippled about her chin and neck.

“Sure,” she said. “You see, Kramer went to Field with the proposition of buying a whole bunch of the stuff. Kramer needed money, and he said he was willing to clean out his warehouse cheap. Field took him up on the proposition.

“That was fine, while it lasted. But after Kramer spent the money he started in to try to get Field to buy some more hooch. Field wouldn’t buy because he had his cellar full. He was drinking it like water at his parties, giving it to his friends and all that, but he still had enough to last him for a long while.

“So then Kramer got the bright idea of having a couple of muscle men go in and pull a hold-up and clean out Field’s wine cellar. They drove up with the trucks and stuck up the watchman and a couple of servants, took their own sweet time loading up the truck, and drove away.”

“Then what happened?” asked Brakey.

“Oh, the natural thing,” she said. “Rodney Field needed some booze. He got in touch with Kramer and yelled about what had happened. Kramer was all crocodile tears and sympathy. So Field started buying again.”

“And I presume that Rodney Field got his own stuff back again at a higher price than he paid for it the first time?”

“Sure!” said Molly Malloy. “Don’t be silly! What do you suppose Kramer went to all the trouble of sticking the joint up for?”

Bill Brakey exchanged a significant glance with The Patent Leather Kid.

“Looks like we’ve got to go and see Field,” he said.

Molly Malloy unlocked the door.

“If you guys got any life insurance,” she said, “better be sure that the premiums are all paid. It always saves trouble.”

“Thanks,” said Bill Brakey, and they filed out into the corridor.

On the sidewalk Bill Brakey and The Patent Leather Kid lowered their voices and discussed the situation.

“Sort of puts us in a tough spot,” said Bill Brakey.

“That’s all right,” said The Patent Leather Kid. “You can see what happened.”

“What happened?” asked Brakey.

“Kramer got a couple of muscle men to do the hijacking from Field. One of those muscle men grabbed Field’s gun.”

“Well?” asked Brakey.

“That man was a muscle man and a hijacker.”

“I still don’t get you,” said Brakey.

“Lancaster was mixed up in the dope business. He must have had a big bunch of dope in his safe. Two men had hijacked Rodney Field at Kramer’s suggestion. They did other hijacking on their own. They were working on Doc Lancaster’s safe when Lancaster came dashing into the room. Naturally they figured he was charging them, and let him have it. Then they dropped the gun and beat it. Young Pruett came rushing in right behind Lancaster and was fool enough to pick up the gun.”

“Well,” said Brakey, “it sounds logical, but I don’t know how we’re going to get any proof.”

“Yes,” said The Patent Leather Kid, squinting his eyes, and furrowing his forehead, “we’re going to need proof.”

The two men started pacing along the sidewalk. Suddenly The Patent Leather Kid chuckled. “You don’t suppose,” he said, “that Rodney Field ever saw this Lita Monteith, do you?”

“Hell, no,” said Brakey. “Why?”

“That makes it fine,” said The Patent Leather Kid. “Gertie, the telephone operator up at the apartment house, will be off now. She’ll do anything for me. She’s a good scout.”

“What do you want her to do?” asked Brakey, mystified.

“Go call on Rodney Field,” said The Kid, “and tell him that she’s Lita Monteith.”

“And then what?” asked Brakey.

“Oh, then,” said The Patent Leather Kid carelessly, “we kidnap her, at the point of a gun.”

“While she’s talking with Field?”

“Sure.”

Bill Brakey made a gesture of surrender by throwing out his palms. “It’s too much for me,” he said.

“Stick around,” invited The Kid, with a grin.

The Patent Leather Kid turned his powerful car down a side road which was some two hundred yards from the private driveway which wound around the terraced hill to the magnificent residence of Rodney Field.

“It’s going to leave you about a quarter of a mile to walk, Gertie,” he said. “Do you think you can do it?”

“Sure,” said the voice of the telephone operator.

“In your French heels?” asked The Kid.

She laughed. “Listen, Kid,” she said, “any time a girl’s worked on a hotel switchboard as long as I have she knows enough not to wear French heels when she goes automobile riding.”

The two men laughed. “Come on, Bill,” said The Kid, “give a boost here and we’ll put her over the fence and let her start walking. Now, Gertie, you take it easy. Don’t ring the doorbell for at least fifteen minutes. We’ve got to look around a bit, and I want to be in the house when you ring the bell.”

“I gotcha,” she said.

“And you remember the line about the gun?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

They pushed Gertie over the fence, watched her follow a path which showed dimly in the starlight.

The Patent Leather Kid slipped through the fence, followed by Bill Brakey. “Well,” he said, “we might as well get started,” and he pushed on up the terraced hill, toward the back of the huge house which showed gloomy and forbidding, blotting out the stars.

The Kid led the way to the back of the house, prowled around a few moments, then selected a window. A curved steel jimmy was inserted under the sash. There was the sound of straining wood, then a sharp click, and the window shivered open.

“Better let me go first, Chief,” said Bill Brakey.

The Patent Leather Kid said nothing, but sprang lightly to the casement, and slipped into the warm darkness of the house. Once inside he assisted Brakey through the window, then paused to adjust a mask over his face.

“Now,” he said, “we want to find a telephone.”

“That should be easy,” Bill Brakey whispered, and the beam of his spotlight cut the darkness. They found a telephone in the corner of the butler’s pantry. The Kid took down the receiver and breathed a number.

“What number is that?” asked Brakey.

“The speakeasy where Kramer hangs out,” The Kid said. Then, a moment later, he spoke softly into the receiver: “Hello, is Kramer there... Yeah. Tell him it’s a friend with an important piece of information... okay, I’ll hold the line...

“Hello, Kramer? This is a friend. I just wanted to give you a tip. Don’t let anyone know where you got it. The Patent Leather Kid and Bill Brakey went out to Rodney Field’s place tonight. They jimmied a back window and went in. They’re in the house now. I don’t know what they want, but they’re wearing masks.”

The Kid slipped the receiver gently back on the hook, and grinned at Bill Brakey.

Brakey mopped the back of his hand across his forehead. “Gee, Kid,” he said, “that’s just about like putting your head in a lion’s mouth I”

“Maybe,” agreed The Patent Leather Kid enigmatically.

A bell jangled through the house. “That,” said The Patent Leather Kid, softly, “will be Gertie, ready to strut her stuff.”

They waited in tense silence while they heard steps going down stairs in the front part of the house, heard the sound of a door opening, the sound of a man’s voice, then the tones of a woman’s voice, then feet on the stairs once more.

They waited for an anxious two or three minutes, and then the feet went down the stairs again, and two pair of feet made noise on the treads, as two people ascended the stairs.

“Looks like he had an upstairs study or library of some sort,” said The Kid.

“You think he’s seeing her?” asked Brakey.

“Sure he’s seeing her,” said The Kid. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Moving with the unerring precision of men who have accustomed themselves to the dangerous pitfalls of the darkness, the two men found back stairs, went up them, moved down a corridor, and heard the sound of voices.

“But,” said a man’s voice, “what good would it do you, Miss Monteith, if I should tell the police that the gun had been stolen from me?”

“Maybe,” said Gertie’s voice, “the police would believe that the man who stole the gun from you was a professional crook and give Ed Pruett a break.”

“They’d want to know all about the circumstances of the robbery,” said the man’s voice.

“Sure,” said Gertie, “why not?”

“Well,” said the man’s voice, “you see, it would be most embarrassing for me to explain all of those circumstances. The only thing of value that was taken was something that I wouldn’t care to tell the police about, particularly if I had to tell where I had purchased it.”

“You mean booze?” asked Gertie.

“I think,” said the man’s voice, “that I won’t definitely commit myself, if you don’t mind, Miss Monteith.”

“All right, Bill,” said The Patent Leather Kid to his bodyguard, “that’s our cue. Come on in.”

He held a gun in his right hand. His eyes gleamed with sinister purpose from behind a mask. He pushed his way purposefully into the room where Gertie was talking with Rodney Field. He had given Gertie no inkling of his intention, and when she looked up and saw a masked man pushing a gun in her general direction her facial expressions were sufficiently genuine to have allayed any possible suspicion upon the part of Rodney Field.

The Patent Leather Kid swung his gun in an arc which included the two occupants of the room, and barked to Rodney Field: “Stick ’em up, guy!”

Rodney Field was attired in a lounging robe and slippers. His slender, tapering hands gripped the arms of the chair until the skin showed white and taut across his knuckles.

“What’s the idea?” he asked.

“You know what the idea is, all right,” said The Patent Leather Kid grimly, “and it’s a damn good thing that we got here just when we did.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rodney Field.

The Kid made a purposeful gesture with the gun.

“The hell you don’t! You were just going to spill the goods about us to the broad.”

“About you?”

“Sure, me and my partner — the ones who hijacked your cellar and copped your gun.”

“Oh,” said Rodney Field, settling back into the chair, after the manner of a man who suddenly sees something which has theretofore been obscure.

“Sure,” went on The Patent Leather Kid. “It’s about time you took a tumble. Kramer was the one who hired us. He got you pretty well stocked up with hootch, so you weren’t buying regularly. He figured it’d be a good plan to clean you out. We were the birds who did it for him. Then he sold you your own booze back again at a higher price. You had a good gun here and we copped it when we were hijacking the hootch. Then, when we were hijacking some dope from Doc Lancaster he came busting into the room and we had to let him have it. It happened we used that gun, and we left it there. We figured you’d be called on to explain that gun sooner or later, and would spill all to the police. So we decided we’d see that you kept silent.”

“Just how are you going to do that?” asked Rodney Field, sparring for time.

The Kid laughed grimly. “There’s lots of ways,” he said, “but one’s better than any of the rest. Tie him up, Bill.”

Bill Brakey took rope from around his waist, and approached Field.

“Wait a minute, boys,” said Rodney Field, “you’re getting me wrong on this.”

Gertie got slowly to her feet.

“Look here,” she said.

The Kid jabbed a gun into her stomach.

“As for you,” he said, “you’re going with us. You’ve talked too damn much! You had a chance to sit back and keep out of this mess, but you wouldn’t do it. You had to go pulling some slick detective stuff, and now you’re due to go for a ride.”

She gave a half scream, and The Kid pushed the gun against her waist, spun her half around, and started rushing her from the room.

“Tie the man up, Bill,” he said, “just the way I told you.”

The Kid rushed Gertie into the hallway, then said to her, in a low voice: “Take it easy, Gertie.”

“What’s the idea?” she asked.

“Stick around,” he said, “you’ll find out.”

He left her and tiptoed back to the door of the room, where he greeted Bill Brakey when that individual came out.

“Tie him up, Bill?” he asked in a low voice.

“Sure.”

“To the chair?”

“Yes.”

“So he can reach the telephone?”

“Sure, that’s what you told me to do.”

“All right,” said The Kid. “Let’s wait a minute and see what he does.”

They waited in tense silence for a minute or two, then there came sounds of struggling motion from the room. That motion was followed by little thuds, such as might have been made by one who was bound to a chair, but was managing to hitch that chair across the floor, by little convulsive motions. Then they heard the sound of a telephone being overturned, and the voice of Rodney Field speaking in low, tense tones: “Give me police headquarters,” he said.

The Patent Leather Kid tapped Bill Brakey on the arm.

“That’s all, Bill,” he said, “we’ve finished.”

“What do we do now?” asked Brakey.

“Go home.”

“Okay,” said Brakey, “let’s go.”

They picked up Gertie, made their way silently out through the window by which they had entered, three silent shadows moving with purposeful skill, the men keenly alert, as befits men who have learned to do their work at high speed and in darkness; the woman self-reliant and loyal, obeying whispered instructions unquestioningly.

They moved down the terraced slope, across the strip of level grass, and Gertie was once more lifted over the barbed wire fence.

“Okay,” she said. “What’s the next item?”

“Just stick around for awhile,” said The Kid, “while we have a cigarette.”

On the main highway, out beyond the intersection, two cars went whizzing past, the headlights dancing on the road as the cars swayed and lurched in the grip of the terrific speed at which they were being hurtled over the pavement.

The Kid looked at his luminous strap watch.

The minutes passed. There were more lights in the big house on the hill — lights which sprang abruptly into dazzling oblongs of light as another window added its golden quota to the illumination.

The night was calm and peaceful.

Of a sudden, the frogs by the side of the road ceased their interrupted chirping. The distance snarled with the sound of tires and the roar of an open exhaust.

“The police,” said The Patent Leather Kid, and lit another cigarette.

Two police cars flashed past the intersection, traveling at high speed. The Patent Leather Kid pressed his foot on the starter.

“Well,” he said, “we might as well start for home.”

The car purred into motion, slid smoothly to the intersection, turned back on the boulevard. The Kid pushed the throttle well down to the floor boards.

From behind them came the sound of gunfire. First an isolated shot or two — then the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, interspersed with the boom of riot guns.

“Sounds like a Fourth of July celebration,” said The Kid.

Police Inspector Phil Brame flung himself in the chair in front of the club window. His eyes were red and bloodshot, his skin gray with fatigue and coated with the greasy covering which indicates sleepless nights and unshaven days.

“Oh, my lord, what a night!” he groaned. “I’ve got to go down and get shaved and massaged, but I’m just too tired to move.”

Renfroe surveyed him with an eye which was cold and appraising, but his mouth clucked expressions of sympathy. Bill Pope, the explorer, stared with his calmly quizzical eyes. Dan Seller seemed mildly interested.

“Been busy, Inspector?” asked Dan Seller.

Inspector Brame snorted.

“Busy!” he said. “Of course I’ve been busy! My God, all hell broke loose last night. Busy! Say, I’ve been so busy that a fellow who doesn’t do anything more strenuous than clip coupons would think that he’d done a life time of hard work if he’d been with me for the last twenty-four hours!”

Dan Seller raised a mildly supercilious eyebrow.

“Indeed,” he murmured politely, in the tone of one who simulates interest only through courtesy.

“Something about that murder case, wasn’t it?” asked Bill Pope.

“I’ll say it was,” snorted the Inspector. “Do you know what happened? You’ll be getting it in the papers anyway, so I might as well tell you.

“First we got a call from Rodney Field that a couple of muscle men are out there, trying to keep him from giving some testimony about that Lancaster case, and that they’re going to take him for a ride, and that they’ve already taken Lita Monteith out to silence her.

“Naturally we went out there on the run. We knew we were going up against a tough gang, so we sent out a squad car that was equipped with machine guns, tear gas, pineapples, and everything else.”

“Did you need all that stuff?” asked Bill Pope, quizzically.

“I’ll say we needed it,” said Inspector Brame, “but we still can’t figure just what happened. We got out there and there the gangsters were in the house all right. We surrounded the place and had them trapped. When they saw they were cornered they opened fire on us, and we hemmed them in. It was quite a mêlée while it lasted. We had reinforcements come out, and finally the members of the gang who weren’t killed or wounded surrendered, and they kicked through with a story of what had happened. A bootlegger by the name of Kramer had employed a couple of guys to muscle Rodney Field’s hootch, which is underworld parlance for cleaning out his cellar by force. That enabled the bootlegger to sell him more liquor. However, when these hijackers cleaned out the cellar they stole a gun from Field. It was the gun that killed Lancaster. Lancaster was mixed up in dope traffic. These hijackers were just getting a big shipment of dope from Lancaster’s safe when he burst in on them. Naturally they shot him.”

Inspector Brame stared from one to the other, as though he had been a performer on the stage, and was awaiting a hand of applause.

Renfroe, the banker, nodded his head sympathetically. “That was wonderful detective work, Inspector,” he murmured.

Inspector Brame nodded slowly, almost solemnly.

“Yes,” he said, “it was very clever deductive reasoning. We put two and two together and forced an admission from the gangsters, but the funny part of it was that the story, as told by Rodney Field, doesn’t coincide with the facts. He says that the gangsters came out there and took Lita Monteith some ten or fifteen minutes before they returned for the second time, and that the second gangsters were not the same as the first. On the other hand, we have found out that the gangsters only made one trip and that Lita Monteith never was out there. We had shadows on her all the time, and she never was near Rodney Field’s house.”

“I don’t see what difference that makes, Inspector,” said Dan Seller, with a look of cherubic innocence upon his face. “Your men caught the gangsters red-handed, and wiped out the gang, didn’t they?”

Inspector Brame frowned portentously.

“Well,” he admitted, “there is, of course, that aspect of the case. But we still can’t understand the other. You see, one of the men who was in the house, when the police surrounded it, was this bootlegger named Kramer. He was shot through the lungs, but while he was still conscious, on his way to the hospital, he gave information to the effect that they hadn’t gone out there to kidnap Rodney Field and Lita Monteith at all, but to get The Patent Leather Kid. They knew that he was out there.”

“A straight tip?” asked Dan Seller.

“A straight tip,” said Inspector Brame, nodding his head once more, slowly and solemnly.

Abruptly Bill Pope started to laugh.

Inspector Brame whirled on him.

“What are you laughing at?” he demanded.

Bill Pope coughed, choked, caught his breath, and shook his head.

“Nothing in particular,” he said. “I was just wondering how The Patent Leather Kid got into this case.”

“He just muscled in!” savagely exclaimed Inspector Brame.

The left eye of Bill Pope, the explorer, closed for a brief fraction of a second, in a swift, surreptitious wink, as he caught the eye of Dan Seller.

“Yes,” he said, slowly and distinctly, “The Patent Leather Kid muscled in — and saved the life of an innocent man.”

“Not at all,” said Inspector Brame with dignity. “It was simply a matter of time until the police would have uncovered the true facts about that Lancaster murder case.”

Bill Pope said nothing, but his cool smile was far more irritating than words would have been.

But the look of cherubic innocence remained stamped upon the face of Dan Seller.