Fast Buck

I

Rico opened his office door and peered cautiously into the dimly lit restaurant. The long, narrow room with its tables already set for dinner, its small, rectangular dance floor, the band dais decorated with flowers, was empty and silent. He listened intently, then stepped back into the office and shut the door.

‘Be another half-hour before anyone shows up,’ he said. ‘What are you nervous about?’

Seated by the flat, ornate desk in a red-leather lounging chair was a blond giant of a man, whose thick, lumpy shoulders dwarfed the back of the chair. His clothes were creased and dusty. His slouch hat had an oil stain on the front, and the ribbon was frayed. His big, granite-hard face was yellowish white, and his eyes were pale grey: the colour of ice.

Rico watched him with uneasy excitement. He was always nervous and unsure of himself when he was with Baird. He knew Baird was dangerous, and yet he was fascinated by him as some people are fascinated by a snake.

Baird pulled out a dirty, screwed-up handkerchief and tossed what it contained on the desk.

Rico peered intently at the emerald and diamond bracelet. A little pang of greed ran through him. He had never seen anything so beautiful. Then caution edged the greed out of his mind. The bracelet was beyond his class: to attempt to handle it would be as dangerous and futile as a midget attempting to fight Joe Louis.

‘Don’t I keep telling you to leave this kind of stuff alone?’ he said furiously; furious because he was forced to recognise his own shortcomings. ‘It’s no good to me. It’s too dangerous. Al these stones match. The value of the piece is as it is now. Break it up, and it ain’t worth a goddam!’

‘Don’t feed me that crap,’ Baird said. His voice was surprisingly soft for a man of his size. ‘It’s worth a couple of grand even if you have to break it up.’

Rico shook his head. He wouldn’t admit to Baird that he knew of no one to whom he could sell a piece of this value. Ever since he had first met Baird he had tried to impress the big man with his importance.

‘I don’t want it,’ he said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

Baird looked at Rico, his pale eyes probing.

‘All the same you’ve got to take it, Rico,’ he said. ‘I’m in a jam. The twist might die.’

Rico stiffened. His heart skipped a beat and then began to race madly.

‘What was that? What do you mean?’

Baird reached for a cigarette from a box on Rico’s desk. He smiled jeeringly at Rico. The sudden fear in Rico’s eyes amused him.

‘The bitch tried to scream. There was a prowl car not more than ten yards away. I had to hit her.’

Rico looked as if he were going to faint. He clung to the edge of the desk, his face turning white.

‘Why, you crazy bastard!’ he snarled furiously. ‘Get out of here! Don’t you know this’ll be the first place the cops will come to? They know you’re always here. What are you thinking of? Get out and stay out!’

Baird eased his powerful muscles. All along he had known Rico was a cowardly little rat. He had chosen him because of his cowardice. There were plenty of other fences in town he could have gone to, but none of them would be so easy to handle as Rico in a crisis. He knew, too, he had a fatal fascination for Rico. He was everything Rico wanted to be: big, strong, ruthless, and a killer; he was the out-of-reach fantasy of Rico’s private dreams.

‘I want some dough,’ he said. He lit the cigarette and flicked the match across the room. ‘Give me five Cs.’

Rico was frightened. Baird wouldn’t have said the woman might die unless he had a good reason for saying so. Murder! This was something he hadn’t bargained for when he had told Baird he could handle anything Baird brought to him.

He swept the bracelet across the desk towards Baird.

‘Not a dime! Take it and get out! Think I want to be caught on an accessory rap? Maybe you’re crazy, but I’m not!’

A muscle high up near Baird’s right eye began to twitch. He opened his coat so Rico could see the butt of the .45 Colt he carried in a holster under his arm.

‘Five Cs, Rico,’ he said, and Rico could read the threat in the pale eyes.

‘No!’ Rico said violently. His pock-marked face began to glisten with sweat. ‘You can’t do this to me, Baird! You’re not going to hold me up for something I don’t want! You and me have worked together…’

‘Five Cs,’ Baird repeated, ‘and snap it up. I want to get out of town before the heat’s on.’

Rico snarled at him. He looked like a cornered rat as he crouched over the desk, his teeth showing and sweat running down his face.

‘Get out!’ he said. ‘Take that bracelet with you! I wouldn’t touch it if you gave it to me!’

Baird’s hand shot out and gripped Rico’s shirt front. He hauled him out of his chair, dragged him across the desk, sweeping papers, the cigarette-box, the rack of fountain pens and the telephone to the floor. He stood up, lifting Rico off his feet. Rico hung in Baird’s grip like a sawdust doll, staring with protruding eyes at Baird’s expressionless face.

‘I said five Cs,’ Baird said softly.

He slapped Rico’s face with his left hand. He slapped it four times, very hard, knocking Rico’s head from one side to the other. The sound of the slaps was like the bursting of a paper bag. Then he let go of Rico, who staggered against his desk, his knees buckling.

‘Snap it up,’ Baird said, ‘or you’l get some more.’

Rico staggered to his desk and sat down. His hand went to his cheek, which had puffed up and had turned the colour of port wine. He opened a drawer, took out a bundle of bills and counted out five of them. With a shaking hand he pushed the bills across the desk.

Baird picked them up, tossed the bracelet into Rico’s lap and pocketed the bills.

‘Why do you have to do it the hard way?’ he asked. ‘When I want anything, I damn well get it. You should know that by now.’

Rico didn’t say anything. His fingers caressed his burning face, but he picked up the bracelet and dropped it into his pocket.

‘I’ll let you know where I get to,’ Baird went on as if nothing had happened. ‘I’ll be back in a week if she doesn’t croak. I’ve another little job lined up that might be something. If you hear of anything that’d fit me, keep it on ice until you hear from me? Okay?’

Rico licked his dry lips.

‘Sure,’ he said hoarsely, his hand still on his cheek.

‘Well, so long for now. Take a look outside. I don’t want to walk into any trouble.’

Rico made the effort and went to the door. He peered into the restaurant, listened, stepped back.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Go through the kitchens. Don’t let any-one see you.’

‘So long,’ Baird said again, and moved through the dimly lit restaurant, skirting the tables, moving softly, his hands in his pockets, without looking back.

Rico returned to his office and straightened his desk. When he had picked up the various articles that had fallen to the floor, he sat down limply. He took out a mirror from a drawer and examined his reflection. His eyes were hot and intent as he stared at the livid bruise across the side of his face. He put the mirror away, got up and crossed over to a cellarette standing in a corner. He mixed himself a stiff whisky and soda, sat down again, and took the bracelet from his pocket. He studied it for some time. It was a beautiful piece. At a guess it’d be worth five or six grand. But who would buy it? He frowned at the bracelet. It was the best piece he had ever had through his hands; the best and the most dangerous.

He got up and locked the bracelet in a concealed wall safe. He would have to wait and see if the woman died. If she didn’t die it might not be so difficult to find a buyer. But if she did… He grimaced and took a long pull at his glass.

He went into the bathroom, leading off his office. He spent some time holding a sponge of cold water against his burning face, his eyes still hot and intent, his mind busy.

What a guy that Baird was, he thought. Not a nerve in his body! ‘If I want anything I damn well get it,’ he had said, and it was true. Working with a fell a like Baird meant big-time, Rico told himself. It was dangerous, but look what he stood to gain! He gently patted his face dry. He felt no anger or animosity against Baird for hitting him. It was just another proof of his strength of purpose. Baird was like no other crook who came to Rico. No one else would have dared to touch Rico.

Rico adjusted his tie, smoothed down his thinning hair and went back to the office.

He came to a standstill just inside the door, fear clutching at his heart.

Seated in the red leather chair, chewing a dead cigar, was a short, thickset man with a red, freckled face, sandy hair and wide-set, cold, green eyes. He had on a grey suit, a little baggy at the knees and shiny at the elbows; a nigger brown hat rested far to the back of his head.

‘Hello, Rico,’ he said, eyeing Rico’s face with his bleak, green eyes. ‘Who’s been knocking you around?’

Rico smiled stiffly; his mouth felt frozen.

‘How did you get in here, Lieutenant?’ he asked, coming to the desk. ‘I haven’t seen you in weeks.’

Lieutenant George Olin of the Homicide Bureau crossed one thick leg over the other, took the cigar out of his mouth and stared at it with an expression of disgust. He tossed it into Rico’s trash basket, produced a cigar-case, selected another cigar and put the case back in his pocket.

‘I sneaked in,’ he said, staring at Rico. ‘I hoped to catch you on the wrong foot. Have I?’

Rico tried to laugh. The croaking sound he made deceived neither himself nor Olin.

‘I’m very careful where I put my feet,’ he said, and sat down. ‘What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?’

‘Suppose you tel me,’ Olin said. ‘Had any visitors within the past half-hour?’

Rico poured himself another drink while his mind worked swiftly. Had there been a patrolman watching the club? He didn’t want to admit Verne Baird had just left, but if the club was being watched, and Baird had been seen leaving, it would be awkward to be caught in a lie. But as lying came more naturally to him than telling the truth, he decided to lie.

‘I haven’t had anyone in here,’ he said careful y. ‘The club doesn’t open until eight.’ He glanced at the desk clock. The time was twenty minutes past seven. ‘I’ve been working. Of course, anyone could have come into the restaurant without me knowing: like you did.’

Olin grinned sourly. He knew all about Rico. He knew he was itching to move out of small-time into big-time. He had been watching Rico for months now, waiting for a false move.

‘Still playing it close to your chest, Rico? One of these days you’re going to lie yourself into the gas chamber. I hope I’m there to spit in your eye before they close the door.’

Rico continued to smile, but his eyes shifted uneasily. Even when spoken about in jest, death had a horror for him.

‘What’s biting you, Lieutenant? You sound a little sour tonight. Have a drink?’

Olin shifted his squat figure to make himself more comfortable.

‘I don’t drink on duty,’ he said, rubbing his fleshy jaw. ‘Who hit you — Baird?’

Rico was expecting something like that, but although he was prepared he couldn’t conceal a little start that told Olin all he wanted to know.

‘One of the girls,’ Rico said, and lifted his shoulders. ‘I thought she was a pushover, but I made a mistake. The little devil hit me with a hair-brush.’

‘Good for her,’ Olin said. ‘Where is she? Maybe I could persuade her to make a charge against you.’

Rico laughed.

‘She went home. There was nothing to it, Lieutenant. It happens every day. But why bring Baird into this?’

‘Has he been here tonight?’

‘I haven’t seen him,’ Rico said, shaking his head. ‘I haven’t seen anyone but you tonight.’

‘And your pushover friend,’ Olin said.

‘Well, yes…’

Olin lit his cigar, puffed contentedly for a moment, took the cigar from between his teeth and blew gently at the glowing end.

‘About a couple of hours ago,’ he said, looking at Rico, ‘Jean Bruce, the actress, in case you don’t know, left her house to attend some shindig at the Martineau Galleries. Between her house and the end of the drive, she was held up and robbed. An emerald and diamond bracelet worth five grand was stolen.

From the way the stick-up was staged, it’s my bet Baird did it. There was a prowl car within twenty yards of the robbery, and the officers didn’t see or hear a thing in spite of the fact it was done in broad daylight. Baird specialises in that kind of recklessness. He’s been hanging around this club for the past few months, so I thought I’d drop in and see if you and he were dividing the spoils.’

Rico sipped his whisky, patted his thin lips with a stiff linen handkerchief and stared back at Olin, his eyes intent and sick looking. At this moment he wished he had never had anything to do with Baird.

‘Couldn’t she identify him?’ he asked. ‘He’s big enough. I don’t like that last remark of yours, Lieutenant. You can’t talk that way to me.’

Olin tapped ash on to the carpet. He showed his teeth in a mirthless smile.

‘Can’t I? Who’s going to stop me? The reason why she can’t identify Baird is because he murdered her!’

Rico gulped, and his smile slipped. He thought with horror of the bracelet in the safe.

‘Murdered her?’ he croaked. ‘How do you know Baird did it? What proof have you got?’

‘He’s a killer,’ Olin said quietly. ‘I’ve rubbed around with crooks long enough to know who will kill and who won’t. Ever since Baird blew into town I’ve been watching him. I knew sooner or later he’d break loose and kill someone. He’s dangerous, Rico. Up to now you’ve played around with the little punks, but Baird isn’t a little punk. He’s a kil er. Take my tip and keep clear of him. The guy who tries to pass that bracelet is booking himself a one-way ride to the gas-box.’

Rico felt a cold chill run up his spine. He hurriedly gulped down the rest of the whisky.

‘I’ve never been in trouble,’ he said, his face twitching. ‘You’ve nothing on me. You never have, and you never will have.’

Olin made a weary gesture.

‘Don’t be a sucker, Rico. You haven’t a bad little club here. You’re making nice money. Keep clear of guys like Baird. If you know anything about the bracelet, now the time to spill it. Why do you think I came here? Ask yourself why I didn’t send a couple of my boys to pull you in and push you around just for the hell of it. I’l tell you why. I’m ready to do a deal with you, Rico. There’s going to be a hell of a stink when the press hears this Bruce woman’s been knocked off. I want it cleaned up quick. If you know anything about it, spill it, and I’l keep you out of it. That’s a promise. I don’t want you: I want Baird!’

Rico felt a sweat trickle down the back of his neck. He knew he could trust Olin, but if he fingered Baird, and Baird heard about it before Olin could reach him, Rico’s life wouldn’t be worth a damn.

Olin, who had been watching him closely, guessed what was going on in his mind.

‘We’ll pick him up in a few days. In the meantime, if you’d feel happier, I could tuck you away in a nice safe cell. Come on, Rico, get smart. It was Baird, wasn’t it?’

Rico made up his mind. For the past year now he had dealt with petty crooks, making a nice side-line in stolen property. Baird was his first big client. He had made a lot of money out of his transactions with Baird during the past months. Besides, if he fingered Baird the rest of them would drop him like a hot brick. He wasn’t going to be stampeded just when he was moving into big money.

‘If I knew, Lieutenant, I’d tell you,’ he said with an ingratiating smile. ‘But I don’t know. I don’t know nothing about Miss Bruce or her bracelet… not a thing.’

Olin sat for a moment staring at Rico, his face slowly tightening with rage.

‘Sure, Rico?’ he said, leaning across the desk. ‘And, by God! you’d better be sure!’

Rico flinched back.

‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant,’ he stammered, ‘but I can’t tel you what I don’t know. I haven’t seen Baird since the day before yesterday. I don’t know nothing about the bracelet…’

Olin got up.

‘I’ll get Baird,’ he said, his face set and menacing. ‘Make no mistake about it. Don’t kid yourself he won’t talk. He won’t go to the chamber alone. If you’re hooked up with him, you’ll go too! I’l give you one more chance, and you’d better take it. Have you got that bracelet?’

‘I tell you I don’t know a thing about it!’ Rico said, through clenched teeth.

Olin reached across the desk and grabbed hold of Rico’s coat front, pulling him out of his chair. He shook him savagely.

‘God help you if I find out you’re lying, you little creep!’ he snarled, and flung Rico back into his chair so violently the chair went over backwards and Rico sprawled on the floor. ‘And don’t think you’ve seen the last of me!’ Olin went on. ‘I’ll be back.’

For a long time after Olin had gone, Rico sat at his desk, staring with empty eyes at his twitching hands, and sweating.

II

Ed Dallas steered his tall, lanky frame into a pay booth. While he waited for a connection, he surveyed the busy hotel scene through the glass panel of the booth door, his eyes shifting from one beautiful woman to another, trying to make up his mind which of them he would take out for the night should a miracle happen and give him a choice.

A girl’s voice said in his ear, ‘International Detective Agency. Good evening.’

‘This is Ed,’ Dal as said. ‘Gimme the old man, will you, honey?’

‘Hold a moment, please,’ the girl said, and proceeded to make violent crackling noises in Dallas’s ear.

‘Must you knock my brains out?’ Dal as complained, holding the receiver at arm’s length. ‘Why don’t you use your hands instead of your feet?’

‘I would if I thought you had any brains,’ the girl said pertly, and completed the connection with a loud whistle on the line.

Harmon Purvis, head of the agency, said in his dry, flat voice, ‘What is it, Dal as?’

‘The Shine’s just had callers,’ Dal as said, speaking rapidly, the glowing end of his cigarette bobbing up and down within an inch of the telephone mouthpiece. ‘A man and woman. The man’s a well-nourished bird, pushing fifty, and looks made of money. The woman’s a nifty; young, blonde, with a shape that’s knocked my right eye out. The Shine was expecting them. They by-passed the desk and went right up. Want me to do anything about them?’

‘Don’t cal the Rajah a Shine,’ Purvis said coldly. ‘He’s a high-class Hindu. He may be coloured…’

‘Okay, okay,’ Dal as said impatiently. ‘I wouldn’t know the difference. What about these two? Want me to cover them?’

‘Better find out who they are,’ Purvis said. ‘We can’t afford to take chances. They’re his first callers, aren’t they?’

‘If you don’t count the two rubes from the Embassy, and the floozie he had up there last night to fix his insomnia.’

Purvis said he didn’t count them.

‘Well, okay. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll buzz you on the next move. So long for now.’

Dallas replaced the receiver, pushed open the booth door and walked fast across the lobby of the Hotel Cosmopolitan to where Jack Burns was reading a racing sheet, with one eye on the reception-desk.

Dallas leaned over his shoulder.

‘The old man wants me to find out who those two are,’ he said. ‘Stick around and try to earn your money. If anyone shows up, give the old man a buzz.’

Burns groaned.

‘If I have to sit in this goddamn lobby much longer, I’ll go nuts,’ he grumbled. ‘I wouldn’t mind trailing that blonde myself. Get her telephone number, Ed. She might make blind dates.’

‘Not with you, she wouldn’t,’ Dal as said. ‘A nifty like her needs the velvet touch. I could rock her dreamboat myself.’

‘You’d have to knock over a bank before you got within a mile of her,’ Burns said, mopping his round fat face. ‘A frill with that shape doesn’t have to give anything away. It’d cost you plenty.’

‘You could be right at that.’ Dal as straightened. ‘Don’t fall asleep on the job. The old man thinks this’s important.’

‘I wish I did,’ Burns said, yawning.

Dallas made his way through the crowded lobby to the main entrance. He sat down in a basket chair, shifted it around so he could watch the elevators and waited.

He had a long wait. It was over an hour before the Rajah’s visitors appeared. The girl came first: an elegantly dressed blonde with big blue eyes and a cold, sophisticated expression that intrigued Dallas.

She moved gracefully, swaying her hips in a way that made all the men in the lobby look back at her, aware she was creating a sensation as she passed, and accepting it as her due.

Her companion was a tall, darkly tanned man, a little heavy around the waist-line, but very upright.

His sleek grey hair was taken straight back, and his military moustache bristled. In his immaculate clothes he had an arrogant air of confidence and authority that impressed Dallas, who wasn’t easily impressed.

They passed Dallas without noticing him, and went down the hotel steps to the street. Dallas slid out of his chair and went after them. He was in time to see them get into a big black LaSalle, driven by a smartly uniformed Filipino chauffeur, and which moved away so quickly that Dallas saw he hadn’t a hope of following it.

He memorised the licence number and signalled to a passing taxi.

‘Police Headquarters,’ he said urgently, ‘and imagine you’re driving to a fire!’

Three minutes later, the taxi pulled up outside the concrete and steel building that housed the city’s police. As Dallas paid off the driver he saw Lieutenant Olin get out of a police car and start up the stone steps leading to the main entrance of the building. He ran after him.

‘Hi, George,’ he said, joining Olin. ‘Too busy to do me a favour?’

Olin frowned at him.

‘I’m pretty busy,’ he said reluctantly, ‘but I guess I can spare you a minute. Come on in. Have you heard Jean Bruce has been knocked off?’

Dallas’s eyes popped.

‘You mean she’s been murdered?’

‘That’s what I mean.’ Olin walked quickly along the passage to his small office, kicked open the door, entered and sat down behind a small battered desk. ‘A stick-up job with a couple of my boys sunning themselves within yards of it. The guy got away with an emerald and diamond bracelet worth five grand. He hit the girl on the side of her jaw — broke her goddamn neck.’

‘Jeepers!’ Dal as whistled. ‘Any idea who?’

Olin nodded.

‘Yeah, but never mind that. What do you want?’

‘Checking up on a black LaSalle, licence number AO 67. I want to know who owns it.’

Olin accepted the cigarette Dallas pushed at him, and then a light.

‘Working on something?’

‘A fifteen-year-old robbery,’ Dallas said. ‘Want to hear about it? It’s a good story.’

Olin shook his head.

‘Robbery isn’t my line. Besides, who cares about a fifteen-year-old robbery?’

‘The insurance companies — when the amount involved is four million,’ Dal as said seriously.

Olin looked startled.

‘Is that right? Four mil ion?’

‘Yeah. The insurance companies were caught for the lot. They paid up, but they’re still trying to find the jewellery.’

Olin squinted at his cigarette end.

‘I think I remember something about that job: wasn’t it a Rajah’s collection?’

‘That’s right. The Maharajah of Chittabad. He lent the whole of his family heirlooms to the Purbright Museum. That was fifteen years ago. The museum was staging an exhibition of the world’s most famous gems. The Maharajah had his collection flown to New York. They never arrived, and they’ve never been seen since. A year later a fence in Holland was approached by Paul Hater with some of the stuff.

Remember Hater? He was the smartest jewel thief of them all. The fence shopped Hater because Hater wouldn’t agree to his price. Hater was arrested, but he wouldn’t tell where he had cached the collection.

He got twenty years: he’s still serving his sentence, and is due out in a couple of years time. Old man Purvis is representing the insurance companies, and we’ve been trying to find the stuff ever since. Our one hope now is to wait until Hater comes out and then stick to him like leeches in the hope he’ll lead us to the hiding-place. There’s four hundred grand in it for us if we get the stuff back, as well as a yearly retainer.’

Olin blew smoke down on to his grubby blotter, then waved it away irritably.

‘Did Hater do the job alone?’

Dallas shrugged.

‘No one knows. The pilot and the crew of the plane were never found: nor was the plane, for that matter. We figure they must have been working with Hater, but he wouldn’t finger them. We’re pretty certain the stuff’s never come on the market. Hater’s the only one, as far as we know, who knows where it’s hidden.’

Olin pushed out his aggressive jaw.

‘I guess my boys would have made him talk,’ he said sourly.

‘Don’t kid yourself. They worked over him until he looked as if he had been fed through a mincer.

Nothing anyone did to him — and they did plenty — could make him open his trap.’

‘Aw, the hell with this!’ Olin said impatiently. ‘I’ve got me a murder to solve. What do you want this car owner for?’

‘A couple of years back, the Maharajah died,’ Dal as explained. ‘His son came into the estate. This guy has his own ideas of how to live, and he’s been throwing his father’s money around like a drunken sailor. Rumour has it he’s run through half the old man’s fortune already. Without warning he suddenly turns up here. The insurance companies have the idea he’s over here to contact Hater. They think he’s going to do a deal with Hater somehow or other.’

Olin stared.

‘What sort of deal?’

‘They think Hater would be glad to sell the stuff back to the Rajah at a price. They argue the Rajah could get rid of it far easier than Hater could. From what they hear about the Rajah they think he’s quite capable of sticking to both the jewels and the insurance money. Personally, I think it’s a lot of phooey, but you can’t tell these insurance birds anything. They’ve hired us to watch the Rajah, and report to them who he’s seeing while he’s here. Up to now the only two he has seen are the man and woman who left his hotel in this LaSalle. I want to know who they are.’

‘Well, I guess I’d better do something about it,’ Olin said, reaching for his phone. ‘Purvis has done me a lot of good in the past. How is the lug, anyway?’

‘Just the same,’ Dal as said gloomily. ‘Doesn’t spend a nickel more than he can help, and still thinks a woman’s place is in the kitchen, and no place else.’

‘That’s Purvis all right. He gave me a box of cigars last Christmas I swear he made himself.’

‘You can consider yourself lucky,’ Dal as said, grinning. ‘He didn’t give me a thing. How about a little action on that car number? I haven’t got all night.’

Olin spoke into the phone, listened, waited, grunted and hung up.

‘The car belongs to a bird named Preston Kile. He has a house on Roosevelt Boulevard which puts him in the money. Does that help you?’

‘Not much. You wouldn’t like to ask Records if they’ve anything on him?’

Olin sighed, dialled, spoke again into the phone. While he waited, Dallas crossed over to the window and stared down at the two-way stream of traffic flooding the main street. He spotted the Herald truck unloading a pile of newspapers at the corner. The boy snatched them from the driver and began running along the sidewalk, yelling excitedly.

‘Looks like your murder’s hit the headlines,’ he said.

‘It’s going to make a sweet stink,’ Olin said, grimacing. He spoke into the telephone again, then hung up. ‘We’ve got nothing on Kile. We don’t know him.’

‘Well, okay and thanks,’ Dal as said. ‘I guess I’ll have to do a little more leg work. This job gives me the hives. So long, George. Hope you find your killer.’

‘I will,’ Olin said, scowling. ‘The drag-net’s out for him now. It’s just a matter of time. If your job gives you the hives, my job gives me ulcers. So long. Drop in when I’m too busy to see you.’

Dallas grinned and walked quickly along the corridor, down the stairs to the street. He took another taxi to the Herald offices, made his way through a maze of corridors to Huntley Favell’s office, rapped and pushed open the door.

Favell was the Herald’s gossip column writer. He made it his business to know everything about anyone in town whose income ran into four figures.

Dallas was a little startled to find Favell and a pretty red-haired girl wrapped together in an embrace worthy of the best traditions of Hollywood. They sprang apart on seeing Dallas, and the girl slid past him, her face scarlet, and fled from the office.

Favell, completely unruffled, eyed Dallas coldly. He was a tall, thin Adonis, with a Barrymore profile, who lived well above his income and was glad to augment his earnings by selling information to the International whenever the opportunity arose.

‘Don’t you know better than to burst into a private office like that?’ he asked tartly as he sat down behind his desk.

‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Dal as said, grinning. ‘Accept my apologies. The next time I’ll let off my gun before coming in.’

‘There’s no need to be facetious,’ Favell said, wiping his mouth careful y with a handkerchief. He eyed the smear of lipstick that appeared on the handkerchief with a grimace of displeasure and tucked the handkerchief away. ‘And don’t go getting any wrong ideas,’ he went on, distantly. ‘She had something in her eye.’

‘Sure. I always get things out of a girl’s eye in the same way.’ Dal as sat on the edge of the desk and offered Favell his cigarette-case. ‘I dropped in for a little information.’

Favell’s acid face brightened, but he didn’t say anything. He lit the cigarette, leaned back in his chair and waited.

‘Know anything about a guy named Preston Kile?’ Dal as asked.

Favell seemed surprised.

‘Why? Is he in trouble?’

‘Not to my knowledge. I spotted him with a blonde who interested me. Is he likely to be in trouble?’

‘He’s seldom out of it,’ Favel said. ‘I haven’t time to waste talking to you, Dal as. I’ve got my column to polish up.’

Dallas took out his wallet, selected two tens and dropped them on the desk.

‘That should cover five minutes of your precious time,’ he said. ‘I want to know as much about Kile as you can tell me.’

Favell hurriedly pocketed the bills.

‘I don’t know a great deal,’ he said, relaxing. ‘By the way, you can keep your trap shut about that red-head. She has a husband in the wrestling racket, and he’s been waiting to pick on me.’

‘Never mind about her: tell me about Kile.’

‘He comes from San Francisco. Hasn’t been here more than a couple of months. He’s bought a big house on Roosevelt Boulevard which he hasn’t paid for yet, and probably never will. Three years ago he was a successful market manipulator and cleaned up a packet, but since then he seems to have dropped out of business. He spends a lot of his time on the race-tracks. He must win more than he loses, as he doesn’t seem to have any other means of making a living.’

‘What’s this about trouble?’

Favell stubbed out his cigarette, and helped himself to another from Dallas’s case.

‘Scandal more than trouble. The guy’s never grown up. His theme song’s wine, women and irate husbands. He specialises in married women, and a couple of husbands have taken shots at him in the past. One of them winged him. It was hushed up, but it didn’t teach him a lesson. He gets into brawls as easily as you get into bed. He drinks too much, and when he’s lit up, he gets tough. For a man of his age he should know better, but he just won’t learn.’

‘Who’s the blonde he’s going around with?’

‘Eve Gil is. Quite a dish, isn’t she? He took her out of the Follies about a month ago and set her up in an apartment on Roxburgh Avenue. It can’t last long. He’s a love ’em and leave ’em Joe, but from the look of her she’ll get what she can out of him before he gives her the gate.’

‘They cal ed on the Rajah of Chittabad about an hour ago,’ Dal as said thoughtful y. ‘From what you tell me they don’t sound like people a Rajah would entertain.’

Favell looked interested.

‘They’re not. Are you sure?’

‘Yeah; I saw them go to his suite.’

‘You still working on that jewel robbery?’

‘Sure; it’s Purvis’s main source of income.’

Favell thought for a moment, his polished nails tapping on his blotter.

‘You may be on to something here,’ he said at length. ‘I’ve heard rumours that Kile is in contact with the underworld. Just rumours, mind you; nothing concrete. I’ve never been able to get any proof. He spends a lot of his time at the Frou-Frou Club. It’s run by a wop named Ralph Rico, a small-time fence.

Rico’s slowly moving up in the world. It wouldn’t startle me to hear Kile’s behind him. It might pay off to keep an eye on Rico.’

‘The police haven’t anything on Kile,’ Dal as said, frowning.

‘I know that. I tell you at one time Kile was in the money in a big way. Some of his deals were a little questionable, but then most big-shot financiers do edge over the line sometimes. What puzzles me is he’s been out of business now for two years. Admit edly he’s probably worth a lot stil , but he certainly knows how to spend his money. You could do worse than to look into his association with Rico. He may be planning something.’

‘Okay, I wil .’ Dal as slid off the desk. ‘If you hear anything you think’d interest me, give me a buzz.’

‘Don’t blame me if there’s nothing to it,’ Favel said, reaching for a pile of copy in his In-tray. These rumours about Kile may be a lot of phooey.’

‘I know. Half the tips I get lead nowhere,’ Dal as said gloomily. ‘That’s the hell of this job. Well, so long. Next time you stage an eye operation, better lock the door.’

He went out, tipped his hat to the red-head who was busily typing in the outer office, grinned to himself when she tossed her head at him, and made his way rapidly down to the street.

III

So she was dead!

Verne Baird crushed the newspaper between his big, powerful hands. His pale eyes ranged over the noisy saloon, packed with people, cloudy with cigarette smoke and strident with voices, laughter and the jangle of a juke-box. No one was looking his way, and he dropped the newspaper on the floor, kicking it out of sight under the booth seat.

Damn her! he thought savagely. To have died like that! It wasn’t as if he had hit her more than once.

A broken neck! It was unbelievable!

He would have to get out of town now. Olin would be certain to pick on him. What a fool he had been to waste a precious hour in this saloon! He should have gone as soon as he had got his get away stake from Rico. Now it wasn’t going to be easy to get out. Every cop in town would be looking for him.

He signalled to the Negro bartender, who came over, his face glistening with sweat.

‘Another beer with a shot of rye,’ Baird said, ‘and snap it up.’

While the Negro went back to the bar, Baird lit a cigarette. He had no qualms about killing this woman. This wasn’t the first time he had killed. The act of taking a life was of no consequence to him. If someone got in his way, he killed them. Even his own life was of no value to him. He knew, sooner or later, the police would corner him, and it would be his turn to die. But so long as he had life in him, he would rage against any interference, any break in his planned routine, and this woman’s death was going to upset his plans. He wouldn’t be free to wander the streets or sit in a saloon or drive the battered Ford along the highway when the mood was in him to escape from the noise and the congestion of the city’s streets. He would have to watch his step. He couldn’t walk into a saloon now until he had carefully checked what exits there were, if a copper was lurking inside, if someone was planning to reach for a telephone the moment he was seen.

He drew his thin lips off his teeth in an angry snarl. Damn her! To have a neck as brittle as that!

He became aware that the Negro was whispering to the barman as he levered beer into a pint glass.

Baird slid his hand inside his coat. The touch of the Colt was reassuring. He watched the Negro carry the drinks across the room, and he could see the excitement of unexpected news in the Negro’s rol ing eyes.

The Negro set the drinks on the table. As he did so, he whispered, ‘A couple of dicks coming down the street, boss. They’re looking in every saloon.’

Baird drank the rye down in a hungry gulp, pushed the beer towards the Negro.

‘Got a back exit?’ he asked, without moving his lips.

The Negro nodded. Baird could see the sweat of excitement running down the ruts in the Negro’s black skin.

‘Through the far door, down the passage,’ the Negro said, and grinned delightedly as Baird flicked a dollar over to him.

‘Take care of the beer,’ Baird said, got up and walked without hurrying across the smoke-filled room to the door the Negro had indicated.

As he pushed open the door someone shouted, ‘Hey! Not that way, mister. That’s private.’

Baird felt a vicious spurt of rage run through him, and he had to restrain himself not to turn and go back to smash the face of the man who had called out. He didn’t look around, but stepped into a dimly lit corridor and walked quickly to the door at the far end.

A fat little Wop in an under-vest, his trousers held up by a piece of string, appeared from a room near by. He was sleepily scratching his bare, hairy arms, and his red, unshaven face was still puffed by sleep.

‘Can’t come this way,’ he said, waving a hand at Baird. ‘The other way, please.’

Baird looked at him, without pausing. The Wop stepped back hurriedly, his mouth falling open. He stood stiffly still, watching Baird as he opened the door and peered into the dark alley beyond.

Baird didn’t like the look of the al ey. It had only one exit, and that into the main street. At the other end of the alley was an eight-foot wall; above the wall he could see the outlines of a tall, dark building.

He loosened the .45 in its holster, then stepped into the alley, closing the door quietly behind him. He stood for a moment listening to the roar of the traffic on the main street, then he walked quietly to the wall, reached up, hooked his fingers to the top row of bricks and pulled himself up. He hung for a moment looking down at a dark, deserted courtyard. Then he swung himself over the wall and dropped.

Across the courtyard he spotted the swing-up end of an iron fire escape. He decided it would be safer to go up the escape and over the roofs rather than risk the main street.

He just managed to touch the swing-up on the escape and hook his fingers in it. The escape came down slowly, creaking a little, and bumped gently to the ground.

He went up it, swiftly and silently, pausing at each platform to make certain no one was concealed behind the darkened window, overlooking the platform. He finally reached the roof without seeing anyone or hearing any sounds below. He crossed the roof, bending low to avoid being seen against the night sky, dropped on to a lower roof, climbed down a steel ladder to a garage roof, and from there, he scrambled down to a dark street that ran parallel with the main street.

He paused in a doorway to look right and left. He saw nothing to raise his suspicions, and walking quickly, he crossed the street and dodged down an alley that brought him to within a hundred yards of the walk-up apartment house where he had a couple of rooms.

He paused again at the end of the alley. Keeping in the shadows, he looked over at the apartment house. There were a few personal things in the apartment he wanted: a book of photographs, a suitcase of clothes, another gun. He was prepared to take the risk of returning to his rooms for the photographs alone. To anyone else the photographs were valueless; snaps he had taken when he was a kid of his home, his mother, his brother, his sister and his dog. They were the only links in a past long blotted out.

His mother had been killed by a police bullet in a battle between G-men and his father. His sister was walking the streets in Chicago, and at this moment was probably inveigling some drunk into her apartment. His brother was serving a twelve-year stretch at Fort Leavenworth for robbery with violence.

His dog had run out of the house when the G-men had come and had never been seen since.

Baird didn’t want to remember them as they were now. He wanted to remember them as they were before his father hooked up with Dillinger, when the farm was a happy place, and his mother was always laughing, in spite of the endless hours of work.

But if Olin suspected him, he would have the house covered by now, and he wasn’t going to walk into a trap, no matter how much he wanted that book of photographs.

He remained in the shadows, watching the house. There was no one in sight, and there was nothing suspicious about the house. His two windows, overlooking the street, were in darkness, but for all that, instinct warned him to take no chances.

After five long minutes of standing motionless, he decided it would be safe to cross the street. He pulled the Colt from its holster and held it down by his side. As he was about to step into the light of a street standard, he saw a movement from a dark doorway opposite him.

He froze, his pale eyes searching the doorway. It was several minutes before he made out the dim outlines of a man, standing against the wall.

Baird showed his teeth in a bitter, mirthless smile. So Olin was on to him, and he had nearly walked into a trap. Very possibly there were coppers in his apartment waiting to put the blast on him as he opened his front door. Cautiously he edged back, then when he was out of sight of the house, he turned and walked quickly back the way he had come.

At the other end of the alley was a drug store. He pushed open the door and crossed over to a row of pay booths. There was no one in the store except a young girl in a white coat, reading a paper-backed book, behind a soda fountain. She glanced up to give Baird an indifferent glance, then went on reading.

Baird shut himself in the booth and dialled Rico’s number. He had to be sure Olin was covering the house. It would be infuriating to be stampeded by some loafer waiting for his girl. He would never forgive himself if he were panicked into leaving those photographs when it would be so simple to cross the street and get them.

Rico came on the line.

‘Are they looking for me?’ Baird whispered, his lips close to the mouthpiece. He heard Rico catch his breath in a startled gasp.

‘Who’s that?’ Rico asked feverishly. ‘Who’s talking?’

‘Did Olin call on you?’ Baird said, still keeping his voice low.

‘Yes,’ Rico said. ‘Get off the line, you fool! They may be listening in! They’re after you! Olin says he knows you did it! Don’t come near me! He’s after me too!’

‘Don’t lose your head,’ Baird said, seeing in his mind’s eye Rico’s twitching, terrified face. ‘They can’t prove anything. They’ve got to have proof…’

But he found himself speaking over a dead line. Rico had hung up.

Baird replaced the receiver. The muscle under his right eye was twitching. As he turned to leave the booth his quick, suspicious eyes spotted a movement at the drug-store entrance. He ducked down out of sight behind the panel of the booth door, his Colt jumping into his hand. He heard the drug-store door open and heavy feet walk over to the counter.

‘Police, Miss,’ a curt voice said. ‘Anyone been in here within the last few minutes?’

Baird eased back the safety catch. They must have spotted him while he was retreating down the alley. He wondered if there were any more of them outside.

He heard the girl say, ‘There was a big fell a in here about three minutes ago. He must have gone.’

‘In a brown suit?’ the detective asked. ‘A tall, broad-shouldered guy with a white, hard face?’

‘That’s right. He used the phone over there.’

‘Which way did he go?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see him leave.’

There was a sudden sharp silence. Baird knew in a split second the detective would guess he was still in the pay booth. He didn’t hesitate. Reaching up, he took hold of the door handle, turned it gently and flung the door open.

He had a glimpse of a short, stocky man facing him, whose hand was flying to the inside of his coat.

He saw the girl in the white coat, jumping off her stool, her mouth opening, her eyes sick with terror.

The Colt boomed once as the detective got his gun out. The heavy slug smashed a hole in the detective’s face, hurling him violently back against the counter.

Baird shifted the gun to cover the girl as she screamed wildly. The fear of death wiped the pert sophistication, the undisciplined sensuality and the old-young worldliness from her face. She looked suddenly pathetically child-like as she huddled into the corner formed by the wall and the counter with no hope of escape. The rouge on her cheeks and the lipstick on her mouth brought a sharp picture into Baird’s mind of his sister when she was seven, plastering her face with a stolen lipstick, and laughing at his uneasy disapproval.

It was partly because of this sudden, bitter vision of his sister, and partly because he knew this girl mustn’t be allowed to give the police a description of him that he shot her.

He was able to watch without a qualm the girl arch her body in agony as the bullet hit her. She slithered along the wall, her eyes rolling back, her outstretched arm knocking over a row of Coke bottles that fell with a crash of breaking glass to the floor. As she disappeared behind the counter her breath came through her clenched teeth the way the breath leaves the body of a rabbit when its neck is broken.

Baird left the booth, looked swiftly around the drug store, spotted a door behind the counter, jumped over the counter and wrenched open the door.

Outside, not far away, he heard the shrill blast of a police whistle. He ran down a dimly lit passage and up more stairs. He was cold and unflurried, and his one thought was not to be seen. So long as no one saw him, Olin couldn’t pin the killings on him. Already his calculating brain was at work on an alibi that would fox Olin. As soon as he could safely do it, he must get rid of his gun. That, and that alone, so far, could take him into the gas-chamber.

Ahead of him he saw a glass panelled door that led to the roof of the building. As he opened it, he heard a sudden clamour of police sirens outside the building. He ran to the edge of the roof, and peered cautiously over it into the street below. It was alive with running police. Prowl cars were skidding to a standstill, and from them poured more police, guns in hand. Rushing around the corner came a truck, carrying a searchlight which went on before the truck came to a standstill. The great white beam of light flashed up the side of the building and lit up the roof with blinding intensity.

Baird didn’t hesitate. He swung up his Colt and fired down the long beam. There was a crash of glass and the light went out. The darkness that followed was as blinding as the previous intense light.

Someone down below let off with a sub-machine-gun, but Baird was already running across the roof to the shelter of some chimney stacks. He ducked behind them, looked right and left, decided to go for a higher roof, and bending double, ran swiftly to a steel ladder, swarmed up it and reached fresh shelter as the first of the police came bursting on to the lower roof.

Still unruffled, Baird made his way silently across the roof, keeping the chimney stacks between himself and the police. He could hear them whispering together, unwilling to show themselves, not sure if he was waiting for them or getting away.

‘Well, get on with it!’ a voice bawled up from the street.

Looking down, Baird spotted Olin standing up in the middle of the street, gun in hand. He was glaring up at where his men were sheltering.

Baird was tempted to shoot Olin as he stood there, but realising his chance of escape depended on keeping the police foxed as to where he was, he resisted the temptation, and made his way across the roof to look below on the far side of the building.

Another roof, fifteen feet or so below him, stretched out in a gentle slope, terminating in a low wall.

There was no escape that way. He looked to his left. A higher roof seemed more inviting, and he could see a ladder that would take him up there.

Bending double he ran towards the ladder. Half-way up it, he heard running footsteps, and looking back over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the silhouette of a policeman’s flat cap against the night sky. The policeman was going to the lower roof, and apparently hadn’t seen Baird on the ladder.

Baird swarmed up the remaining rungs of the ladder. In his haste to get under cover, he forgot to keep low, and for a second or so he was outlined against the sky as he reached the top of the ladder.

From the opposite roof came a crack of a rifle. Baird felt a violent blow against his right side a split second before he heard the shot. He staggered, went down on one knee, got up again, and swerving to right and left, ran blindly across the roof to the shelter of more chimney stacks.

The rifle cracked again, and he heard the slug whine past his head.

‘He’s up on the upper roof,’ a voice bawled from the opposite building. ‘I’ve winged him.’

Baird felt blood running down his leg, inside his trousers. Jagged wires of pain bit into his side as he moved unsteadily across the roof to the far edge. Below was a flat roof with a skylight.

He swung his legs over the edge, dropped heavily on the lower roof. He caught his breath in a gasp as the pain in his side grabbed at him.

He put his hand to his side, feeling the wet stickiness of his bleeding. He was losing a lot of blood, and he began to be worried.

They were close behind him. He couldn’t go on like this, running from roof to roof. If he didn’t stop the bleeding he was going to pass out.

He went over to the skylight, hooked his fingers under it and pulled. It came up soundlessly, and he peered down into a dimly lit passage.

He lowered himself awkwardly down into the passage. It was as much as he could do to reach up and close the skylight. Sweat was running down his face. He leaned against the wall, the .45 heavy in his hand, while he struggled against the feeling of faintness that gripped him.

Making the effort, he began to move slowly along the passage, aware he was leaving a trail of blood behind him. It came to him with a sour bitterness that this was the end of him. Even if he hid somewhere in this building, they’d search him out. They knew they had winged him, and the blood would give him away. He would be cornered and shot down like a mad dog.

Well, he wouldn’t go alone, he told himself. If only he could stop this damned bleeding, he might still give an account of himself. He wasn’t afraid; only bit er at the thought of ending it this way. He wouldn’t have cared if he hadn’t been wounded. If he could have shot it out with them, knowing his aim was straight and he was taking some of them with him, he would have rather glorified in such an end.

But as it was, his gun was now growing so heavy it was as much as he could do to keep it level, let alone shoot with it.

He approached a door. His hand, creeping along the face of the wall, guiding and supporting him, touched the door which swung open.

He paused, drawing back his lips off his teeth as a bright light came from the roof into the passage.

He leaned against the doorway, staring into a bright but sparsely furnished room. His eyes took in the divan bed, the threadbare rug on the stained boards, a sagging armchair covered with a cheap but gay chintz, the cream-painted walls and the screen that probably hid the toilet basin.

He wedged his shoulder against the doorway, trying to give his buckling knees support. The shaded electric lamp hanging from the ceiling was beginning to spin around. He felt his fingers opened against his will, and heard a far away thud of the Colt as it dropped on the floor.

This was how they would find him, he thought savagely. Helpless and unable to hit back. They would drag him down the stairs, handcuffed, into the street for the crowd to gape at: there was nothing now he could do about it.

As he began to fall into the black chasm of unconsciousness, he had a vague idea that a hand came out of the darkness and caught hold of his arm.

IV

As he poured whisky into a glass, Preston Kile noticed his hand was unsteady, and he frowned. He shouldn’t be drinking this, he told himself. He was drinking too much these days. But what else could he do? A man must keep himself going somehow. He wasn’t sleeping well. There was a woolliness in his brain that alarmed him. He had felt it coming on slowly like a deadly, creeping paralysis over the past year. It was blunting his mind. It made thought an effort. At one time he had been able to make lightning decisions, and the right decisions at that. He had also been willing to take any risk, no matter how dangerous it had seemed. He had had a shrewd recklessness, if you could put it that way, that had carried him from a poorly paid desk job in a bank to a position that had made him the most feared man on the Stock Market. But that was two years ago. He had gone to pieces. He wasn’t the same man. His confidence had gone. He had lost his guts for a fight. Risks frightened him now. He found himself putting off making a decision until it was too late. And now, to worry him still more, there was this fantastic Rajah business.

He drank the whisky greedily, drained the glass and immediately refilled it. His heavy, bloodshot eyes moved to the mirror over the dressing-table, and he stared at himself.

Well, at least he looked as strong, handsome and ruthless as he had ten years ago when he was at the height of his career. Of course his hair was grey at the temples now, and he was getting a little thick around the middle, but his figure wasn’t bad for a man of his age. What was he thinking of? Age? Why, damn it, he wasn’t fifty-six yet! But at this moment he felt like an old, feeble man instead of a man in his prime. There was this dull ache under his heart. That worried him. He was afraid to consult a doctor: no news was good news. If his heart was bad, he didn’t want to know it. Probably indigestion, he told himself, his hand touching the smooth face of his evening dress shirt.

He took out a cigar-case from his inside pocket, hesitated, then put it back. Perhaps not just now. He was smoking too much. He would wait until Eve came out of the bathroom. What an interminable time she spent in the bath!

He sat down amid the confusion of her clothes. She had thrown them off, leaving them scattered on the bed and floor, saying she wanted to think, and she thought best in a bath. A beautiful woman like her had no right to think!

He picked up the sheer silk stockings and pulled them slowly through his fingers, thinking of Eve.

He had known her for two months. At first, he had thought of her merely as a woman to amuse him in his leisure moments. He had got rid of that dark girl — he had to think a moment to remember her name

– Cora Hennessey.

Eve had moved into the apartment five days later. He was glad to be rid of Cora. She had demanded so much of him. He supposed she was too young for him, and he frowned uneasily at finding himself admitting such a thing. But how she had tired him! A week of her, and his nights became something to dread. There had been no satisfying her.

She hadn’t been easy to get rid of, and it cost him much more than he could afford. She had gone eventually, taking his gold and diamond cuff-links, his cigar cutter, and the little jade statue of a naked boy he had bought in a San Francisco brothel, an amusingly obscene bit of carving, and which he valued. He wanted these things back, but it would mean going to the police, and just now he was particularly anxious not to attract the attention of the police.

His mind shied away from this unpleasant channel, and he began to worry about Eve. What an extraordinary girl! How completely mistaken he had been about her! He had imagined she was an empty-headed little beauty whose only asset was her body. For the first six weeks he had no reason to believe otherwise. Then suddenly he realised she had been lulling him into a position of false security while she had been digging into his private affairs. Her apparently innocent questions about his past and present mode of life hadn’t been, as he had thought, the idle chatter of an empty-headed blonde. She had been building up a picture of him until she knew him almost as well as he knew himself. She had managed to find out about his financial position. How she had got the information he couldn’t imagine.

He supposed a girl with her looks could find out anything if she made the effort. Someone must have talked: someone possibly at his bank.

She had surprised him horribly one night by saying in her quiet, cool voice, ‘What’s the matter with you, Preston? Why are you drifting like this? You could be making piles of money instead of loafing here with me. Have you lost your ambition, or what is it?’

Startled, he had told her abruptly he had no need to work.

‘I have all the money I want,’ he had said sharply. ‘I’ve retired from business. Besides, so long as I give you what you want, I really can’t see it’s any business of yours what I do.’

But that hadn’t touched her. She had gone right on confounding him.

‘Why do you lie to me?’ she had asked; her big blue eyes seemed able to see right inside his mind.

‘You don’t have to pretend with me. I want to help you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said irritably. ‘I don’t need anyone’s help.’

‘You’re broke,’ she said calmly, and put her hand on his. ‘Already the tradesmen are talking about you. You owe thousands. Whatever money you did have, you’ve spent. Isn’t it time you did something about it?’

He had been so shocked that he had said nothing for some moments. True, he had immediately begun to bluster, but the expression in her eyes told him she was sure of her ground, and the bluster died sourly in his mouth. Instead, he tried to defend himself, though why he should make excuses to her he couldn’t imagine. After all, it was no business of hers. He could have told her to pack up and get out if she didn’t like him as she found him. But deep down, tucked away in his innermost being, Kile was afraid. He knew he was slipping. He knew unless a miracle happened, the slip would turn into a slide, and he would go down and down to the final crash where a revolver bullet would be his only way out.

There was something about this girl — not yet twenty-five, very beautiful to look at, detached and quietly determined — that gave him a sudden feeling of hope: something he hadn’t had for the past two years: not since they had told him to get out of the Stock Market or they’d prosecute.

He told her he hadn’t been feeling wel .

‘It’s not that I’m a young man,’ he said lamely. ‘Perhaps I’ve lived too hard. I’m burned out, Eve. Not for long, but right now, I’m tired and disillusioned. In a little while I’l begin again. I just want to rest.’

He could see at once she didn’t believe him, although she gave him a sympathetic smile.

‘I think I can help you,’ she said. ‘Something I happened to overhear…’

That was how he had been committed to this Rajah business. At first he had thought she was joking.

‘My dear girl,’ he had said, pat ing her long, sleek leg as she lay across his lap, her head against his shoulder, ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing. It’s fantastic, and there’s nothing I could possibly do about it. Even if I could, I don’t think I’d care to dabble in such a venture. It’s quite out of the question.

Besides, this Rajah wouldn’t want me to interfere.’

‘He might,’ she had said thoughtful y. ‘I think I’l ask him.’

Kile didn’t believe for a moment she would approach the Rajah. He had dismissed the whole thing from his mind, and he was startled when she told him a few days later that the Rajah would see them at his hotel that evening.

Immediately he had refused to go, but she had persuaded him.

‘At least let’s hear what he has to say,’ she had said, her face against his, holding his hand over her breast. ‘He may not agree. He may not offer enough. Even if he does agree and offers something reasonable, we don’t have to go through with it if we don’t want to. We can always say it wasn’t possible.’

Reassured by this argument, and a little flattered to be received by a Rajah, Preston allowed himself to be persuaded. The meeting had turned out far easier than he had expected.

It was pretty obvious that Eve had already laid a solid foundation for the interview. The Rajah said he would be delighted if they could help him recover the jewels. They were, he said, heirlooms of the utmost value. If they found them and returned them to him he would pay the sum of half a million dollars and their expenses; the only condition being the deal must be secret.

Kile realised the Rajah was out to gyp the insurance companies, but that didn’t worry him unduly. If he had the chance he wouldn’t hesitate to gyp any insurance company himself. He considered them fair game. But five hundred thousand! Why, with such a sum he could make a new start; he could even get back on to the Stock Market.

Those were the immediate thoughts that had chased through his mind when the Rajah had casually mentioned the sum, but as the Rajah went on talking, Kile’s latent shrewdness and caution asserted themselves. The undertaking was impossible. The Rajah was only offering this sum because he knew he would never be called upon to pay it. The whole thing was an absurd pipe-dream that no one in his right mind could or would take seriously.

Eve had apparently convinced the Rajah that if anyone could get the jewels, Kile could. How she had done it, what arguments she had used, Kile couldn’t think, but it was obvious the Rajah was impressed by him, even before they met.

‘I don’t expect miracles,’ the Rajah had said, holding Eve’s hand and looking at Kile as they stood at the door at the end of the interview. I’m afraid you are setting yourself a very difficult task. But I believe in supporting the long chance. I will pay up to five thousand to cover the expenses of — shall we say — an examination of the prospects. Naturally you will require help, and you will have to pay well. I think five thousand should be enough to start with. The amount will be paid into your bank tomorrow.’

Kile had recoiled, like a man seeing the ground suddenly open before his feet. If once he accepted the money, he would be seriously committed to this fantastic plan. He wasn’t fool enough to imagine the Rajah would give him such a sum without extracting full value for his money.

But Eve hadn’t given him a chance to refuse. She had told the Rajah the name of Kile’s bank, prevented Kile from breaking into the conversation, and got him out of the Rajah’s suite before he could gather his startled wits together.

On his way down to the hotel lobby, he had protested, but again she had reassured him.

‘We needn’t spend it,’ she had said. ‘If we can’t think of a plan we can return it to him. It won’t do any harm, Preston, for your bank to get that money; even if it is only a loan.’

When they had got back to Eve’s apartment, Kile had patiently pointed out the impossibility of such a task.

‘The jewels have been missing for fifteen years,’ he had said. ‘The trail’s cold. Every detective in the country has been searching for them, and as far as I know, is still searching for them. What chance have we got?’

‘That’s something we have to think about,’ she had said briskly. ‘I’m going to take a bath. I think better lying in hot water. Sit down and think, too, Preston. It’s worth five hundred thousand, and that’s a lot of money.’

He hadn’t thought. The whole thing was absurd and fantastic. Admittedly the money would be a life saver, but he couldn’t search the whole country like a damned detective. He hadn’t the faintest idea where the jewels might be.

He had finished his second whisky and was pouring a third when Eve came out of the bathroom. She was wearing a lilac-coloured silk wrap that suited her and emphasised the gold in her hair and the blue in her eyes. She went over to the dressing-table and sat down.

‘Is that your third or fourth?’ she asked, beginning to brush her hair.

He was immediately furious with her. What right had she to say such a thing to him?

‘Oh, be quiet!’ he shouted, banging his fist on the table. ‘God damn it! I won’t be questioned like this! I’l drink as much as I like!’

She went on brushing her hair, her face thoughtful, her eyes serious.

‘We’re going to talk to Rico tonight,’ she said. ‘It’s important that you shouldn’t be drunk, Preston.’

Kile set down his glass, took hold of Eve by her arms and pulled her to her feet. He gave her a hard, little shake. His face was red and congested, and his bloodshot eyes gleamed furiously.

‘I won’t be spoken to like this!’ he said in a loud bul ying voice. ‘I’m master here, and you’d better remember it! I’m not seeing Rico tonight. And if I want to get drunk, I’l get drunk!’

‘You’re hurting me, Preston,’ she said, and her steady, quiet look was like a douche of cold water in his face.

He released her with an impatient exclamation, turned and walked heavily across the room to stand with his back to her, his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets.

‘Don’t be like this, Preston,’ she said patiently. ‘I only want to help you. You know as well as I do if you don’t take yourself in hand the crash is bound to come. This is your chance. Five hundred thousand!

It’s a tremendous sum. Think what you could do with it!’

He turned.

‘What’s the use of talking like that?’ he snapped. ‘It’s impossible to find those jewels. It’s ridiculous to think about it. Why do you imagine he offered such a sum? He knows perfectly well he won’t have to pay out.’

‘He said it was a long chance. Well, he’s not the only one who’s wil ing to back a long chance. I know it won’t be easy, but it’s not impossible.’ While she was speaking, Eve had got up and walked over to sit on the bed. She began to pull on her stockings, and Kile watched her, fascinated by her beauty and her swift movements. ‘I have an idea. We must see Rico tonight. We’ve got to have someone to do the dangerous work. He might know of someone who would do it.’

Kile came over and sat on the bed by her side. He was thinking that of all the women he had had in this apartment she was by far the most beautiful.

‘Dangerous work?’ he repeated, frowning. ‘What dangerous work?’

She stood up and undid her wrap.

‘Let me get dressed, darling, and on the way to the club I’l tel you my idea. It’s get ing late, and we must talk to Rico.’

She slipped out of the wrap and reached for a flimsy underthing. Kile’s eyes dwelt on her naked loveliness. He reached out and caught her arm, pulling her down beside him.

‘You’re too beautiful to bother your head about such things,’ he said, his heart beginning to beat violently and jerkily. ‘I’m not going out tonight: nor are you.’

She made a quick, impatient movement to break free, but immediately checked it. Instead, she slipped her arms around his neck and hid her face against his silken lapel, so he couldn’t see her expression of loathing and revulsion.

V

Although it was after nine-twenty, a light still showed through the glass panel of the door leading to the inner office of the International Detective Agency. That meant Harmon Purvis hadn’t yet gone home.

Ed Dallas pushed open the door and looked into the large airy office.

Purvis, a tall stick of a man, sat behind a desk, busy with a pile of papers, a pencil held between his teeth. He glanced up, nodded briefly, laid down his papers and took the pencil out of his mouth.

‘Come in,’ he said, waving to a chair by the desk. ‘I guessed you’d be in so I waited for you.’

Dallas sat down, laid his hat on the floor, and ran his fingers through his crew-cut brown hair.

‘I might have something with those two,’ he said. ‘The guy’s Preston Kile. Ever heard of him?’

Purvis thought a moment, then nodded.

‘That’s the San Francisco market manipulator,’ he said, putting his finger-tips together and staring up at the ceiling. ‘About two years ago he pul ed a very shady deal. A bunch of brokers decided to chip in and cover him rather than scare the market with a scandal. They forced him to get out of the market and stay out. He came here…’

‘I know, I know,’ Dal as interrupted. ‘I thought I was going to tell you. I got the dope from Favell.’

It never ceased to surprise him how much Purvis seemed to know. There wasn’t anyone in town who was connected in some way or the other with shady deals or crime that Purvis didn’t know the details about. He could trot out his information as easily as the most complicated card index system, and as fast.

‘I hope you didn’t pay Favell anything,’ Purvis said anxiously. ‘That vampire is sucking up all my profits.’

‘Wel , I had to give him something. How was I to know you had the information?’ Dal as said wearily. ‘Two tens won’t break us.’

Purvis winced.

‘The trouble with you…’ he began, but Dallas broke in hurriedly, ‘I know, I know. My mother told me the same thing. Want to hear about the girl — Eve Gillis?’

‘I know about her,’ Purvis said coldly. ‘She won a five-thousand-dollar beauty prize a couple of years ago. She persuaded the Follies to give her a chance, got top billing after a year, and has been a hit ever since. She has a brother — a twin if I remember rightly — who’s been in India for the past three years. I believe he’s back now. This Gillis girl suddenly chucked the Follies about a couple of months ago and became Kile’s mistress. Why she should have done that I can’t imagine. It’s not as if Kile can do anything for her. He’s going broke fast, and isn’t expected to last the year. I should have thought she would have found that out before giving up the Follies. They were paying her pretty well from all accounts.’

Dallas groaned.

‘It beats me why you employ me when you know so much,’ he said a little irritably. ‘I’ve been walking my legs off…’

Purvis looked smug. He was childishly pleased with his phenomenal memory, and was inclined to ram its efficiency down Dallas’s throat.

‘I don’t pay you to find out about the past. I pay you to keep tabs on the present,’ he said. ‘We can’t all keep facts in our minds. I just happen to be gifted that way. So these two have talked with the Rajah?’

‘They have. They were with him about an hour.’

Purvis slid lower in his chair. He placed his finger-tips along the edge of the desk and began to play an imaginary piano; a trick of his that irritated Dallas almost beyond endurance. Dallas considered the habit to be the height of affectation.

‘Now I wonder why,’ Purvis said, executing a tril . He then commenced a complicated movement that ended in a showy crossing of hands.

‘Could you stop acting like Beethoven for a moment?’ Dallas said, breathing heavily through his nose. ‘Or would you like me to stand up and conduct?’

Purvis placed his finger-tips together again and stared at Dallas from over them. His eyes reminded Dallas of two sloes on white saucers; his face of an inverted pear. There was nothing attractive about Harmon Purvis, but he gave the impression that he would deliver the goods no matter how difficult the job.

‘I’ve always thought I should have been a professional pianist instead of a private eye,’ he said gloomily. ‘One of these days I’ll buy myself a piano.’

‘That’l be the day,’ Dal as said tartly. ‘Maybe it’l convince you you’re better at blowing a trumpet.’

Purvis waved this away with a chilling frown.

‘We’ve got to watch our step,’ he said. ‘We might be within throwing distance of grabbing those jewels. I’ve always thought the Rajah could find them quicker than anyone. I’m surprised he hasn’t tried before.’

‘How do you know he’s after them?’ Dal as said impatiently. ‘Just because the insurance companies are suspicious of him there’s no reason why we should be — or is there?’

‘They’re suspicious of him because I told them to be,’ Purvis said quietly. ‘Knowing what I do about the man and his reckless spending, it’s obvious that as soon as he realised he was get ing through his money, and there wouldn’t be any more, he’d think of the jewels. He’s the type who wants his cake and wants to eat it as well. You mustn’t forget that the jewels now belong to the insurance companies. They paid out the insurance, but the value of the jewels has enormously increased now. At a guess I’d say they were worth three times as much as the insurance companies paid for them, and that fact must stick in the Rajah’s throat. It’s my bet if he finds them he’ll stick to them. He could get rid of them in India without questions being asked. Most of the stuff would be snapped up by Indian princes, and no one would be any the wiser. He must lay his hands on some money soon. From what I hear he’s down to his last million.’

‘You don’t say!’ Dal as said sarcastical y. ‘Why, the poor fel a must be starving!’

Purvis pursed his lips. He considered such comments about money in poor taste. Money was Purvis’s god.

‘Never mind that,’ he said. ‘If we handle this right we stand to pick up four grand.’ He played a scale up and down the edge of his desk. ‘It’s my bet the Rajah wil take us to the jewels if we’re patient and don’t tip our hand. Mac-Adam and Ainsworth are covering him at night. Burns is sticking with him during the day. I want you to watch Kile. The Rajah won’t go for the jewels himself. He’ll have someone to do the work for him. That someone might easily be Kile. Keep on his tail, but don’t let him have an idea you’re watching him. If he doesn’t show signs of get ing into the game by the end of the week, drop him, and we’l wait for someone else to show.’

Dallas grunted. His lean brown face didn’t show any enthusiasm.

‘You could be barking up the wrong tree,’ he pointed out. ‘The easiest way to handle this is to sit tight and wait for Hater to come out of jail. He’s the one who’l lead us to the jewels.’

Purvis made a wry face.

‘He won’t be out for two years!’ He leaned forward and rapped on his desk. ‘I can’t afford to wait two years. We’ve got to produce something before then.’

‘What’s the hurry?’ Dal as said, yawning. ‘We’ve been at this off and on for fifteen years. Why not concentrate on other jobs and wait until Hater gets free?’

‘Don’t you realise how much we stand to pick up…?’

‘Yeah, you told me. I don’t know if you’re using the royal ‘we’, but I’m damned sure I’l never smell that four grand, or even a dollar of it.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ Purvis said hurriedly. ‘We haven’t got it yet. The insurance companies have been paying us a retainer for the past fifteen years, and we’ve done precious little to earn it. We can’t afford to wait until Hater comes out. We’ve got to get busy right now.’

Dallas looked at him suspiciously.

‘Have they been belly-aching?’

‘They’ve been doing more than that. They’ve stopped the retainer. It was as much as I could do to persuade them to let us represent them for another three months. We’ve got to get things moving or some of us will have to look for another job.’

Dallas unfolded his lanky frame out of the chair. He picked up his hat and slapped it on the back of his head.

‘Don’t kid yourself you’re scaring me,’ he said. ‘I could get me a better job than this one any day of the week. The only reason why I stick with you is because you’ve become a bad habit. Okay, I’l watch Kile. Maybe he’l lead us to the jewels, but I very much doubt it. There’s only one man who knows where they are, and that’s Hater. So long as he’s in prison they never will be found.’

‘That’s defeatism,’ Purvis said severely. ‘We haven’t two years to wait: we’ve only three months.

Keep after Kile, and watch that girl. She may know something.’

Dallas’s face brightened.

‘Watching her won’t be hard work,’ he said, making for the door. ‘It’s going to be a pleasure. If I didn’t think you’d take me up on it, I’d say I’d do it for free.’

As an eager look came into Purvis’s eyes, Dal as ducked out of the office and hurriedly closed the door.

VI

At half-past ten, Rico left his office and walked across the restaurant to the bar. There were not more than twenty couples dining in the restaurant, but that didn’t worry him. It was seldom the club got busy until after eleven o’clock.

Rico bowed when he thought he recognised a face, but he didn’t stop to chat as he usual y did. He noticed some of the diners were looking curiously at his bruised face, and he felt a little self-conscious.

Besides, he didn’t feel up to his usual suave, gossipy round of the tables. He was still horribly shaken by Baird’s telephone cal . Baird must have been crazy to have used the telephone: the kind of slip that put a man in the gas-chamber!

With an uneasy grimace at the thought, Rico entered the bar. There were only a dozen or so people at the tables around the dimly lit room. Rico ordered a double whisky. He approved of the barman’s good manners. He had taken a quick look at Rico’s bruised face, and then had kept his eyes studiously away from it.

As Rico sipped the whisky he once more glanced at the people in the room. He noted with satisfaction that all but two of them were in evening dress. When the Frou-Frou Club had first opened, a year ago, you wouldn’t have found anyone there in evening dress: even Rico hadn’t worn it. Only the rougher element of the town patronised the club, but as soon as he could afford to take a risk, he raised his prices and gradually squeezed them out. Now, by careful advertising and recommendations he had attracted what he liked to call ‘the carriage trade’, and evening dress was the rule instead of the exception.

Among his numerous clients were wealthy business men who knew they could pick up a girl at the club without being involved in any awkward complications, a half a dozen or so not-so-well-known actors and actresses, several con men, crooks and prostitutes, and a small army of tough-looking characters who didn’t advertise what they did for a living, but who brought their women to the club regularly and had money to burn.

Rico glanced at the two men not in evening dress. One of them was sitting up at the bar; the other was alone at a corner table, reading a newspaper.

The one at the bar Rico knew by sight. He was tall, slightly built, fair and distinctly handsome. There were dark smudges under his blue eyes that gave him a worn, dissolute look. He was fine drawn as if he didn’t get enough to eat, and his mouth drooped unhappily.

Looking at him, Rico thought sourly that women would be mad about him. He was just the shiftless, pathetic type women would insist on helping. He was not only shiftless, but completely untrustworthy, Rico decided.

He had seen him in the club off and on now for more than a month. His name was Adam Gillis: not what you could call a good customer, but more often than not he brought some girl with him who bought champagne.

Rico wondered how he managed to get hold of these girls: they were all very young, rich and stupid.

He had seen them pass money to Gillis, when they thought the waiter wasn’t looking, to pay for the champagne they invariably ordered.

At the moment Gillis wasn’t drinking. He sat on the stool, staring bleakly at himself in the mirror, his charm switched off, and his years of shabby living plainly written on his face. He looked as if he needed a drink badly, and Rico assumed he was waiting for someone — probably another stupid girl — to buy him one.

With a shrug of contempt, Rico turned his attention to the man reading the newspaper. He hadn’t seen him before, and Rico was a little puzzled by him. He wasn’t the nightclub type. He was tall and lanky and deeply tanned. His eyes were bright and healthy looking. His crew haircut made Rico think of the tennis player, Budge Patty. This fella, Rico thought, had the same out-of-door look: probably a salesman passing through town on the look-out for some fun.

He finished his whisky and went into the entrance lobby to check the register, which was carefully kept by Schmidt, the doorman.

‘Who’s the guy with the crew haircut?’ he asked, as Schmidt drew himself up and saluted. ‘I haven’t seen him in here before.’

‘Name of Dal as,’ Schmidt told him. He was a giant of a man, with a red, cheerful face and enormous moustaches. ‘Had an introduction from Mr Rhineheart so I let him in.’

Rico nodded.

‘That’s okay. Thought I’d check on him. First time he’s been here, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir. He’s a nice guy, but I don’t reckon he’s got much money.’

‘The nice guys never have,’ Rico said, shrugging. ‘Okay, Schmidt. Let me know when Mr Kile arrives. I want to see him tonight.’

He wandered back to the bar and paused to look in. Dallas was talking to a red-head in a green evening dress: one of Rico’s hostesses: a girl named Zoe Norton. Rico nodded his approval when he saw the half bottle of champagne on the table. Zoe wouldn’t rest until she had had the other half: she was a keen saleswoman.

Adam Gillis watched Rico in the mirror. He wondered how he had bruised his face so badly. He wished he knew more about Rico: that Rico was coming up in the world was beyond doubt, but how far would he get? What were his nerves like? Had he the guts for a big job?

When Rico went away, Gillis looked at his wrist-watch and frowned. What could be keeping Eve?

She said she’d be here with Kile at ten o’clock. It was get ing on for eleven now. He wondered if he should phone her, but decided it wouldn’t be safe. Kile might answer. No point in making Kile suspicious at this stage of the game.

How he wanted a drink! He looked longingly at the row of bottles along the chromium shelves behind the bar. He hadn’t two dol ars to rub together! Looking thoughtfully at the barman he wondered if he could get credit. Reluctantly he decided not to try. He didn’t want to attract any at ention to himself. The barman was certain to consult Rico.

He felt in his hip pocket for his cigarette-case, opened it and found it empty. Oh, damn Eve! Why couldn’t she come? Angrily he replaced the case in his pocket and began to drum on the counter with his finger-tips.

The barman came over to him and offered him a cigarette from a crumpled pack.

‘I get caught myself like that some nights,’ he said amiably. ‘Makes me want to walk across the ceiling. Help yourself.’

Gillis stiffened with mortification and rage. A damned lackey offering him a cigarette! The blasted cheek of the man!

‘I don’t smoke a barman’s cigaret es,’ he said venomously, ‘Kindly mind your own business and let me mind mine!’

The barman flushed. He looked as if he wanted to hit Gillis, but he swallowed his anger with an effort and put the pack back in his pocket.

‘If that’s the way you feel about it,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry I spoke.’

He walked to the other end of the bar and began to polish glasses, his flush deepening as he appreciated more fully the snub he had received.

Gillis got off the stool and walked out into the lobby.

‘Mr Kile hasn’t been in yet, has he?’ he asked Schmidt casual y. ‘I’ve been in the bar and I might have missed him.’

‘He hasn’t been in yet, sir,’ Schmidt said cool y. He had had a lot of experience of the men and women who came to the club, and he prided himself on spotting the wrong one. He hadn’t any use for Gillis; a sponger if ever there was one.

Gillis went into the gentlemen’s retiring room. He washed his hands under the disapproving eyes of the Negro attendant who knew from experience he wasn’t going to be tipped, poured lavender water on a towel and touched his temples with it. While he was combing his blond hair, the door pushed open and Dallas wandered in.

He stood near Gillis and began to wash his hands. Their eyes met in the mirror and Dallas grinned.

‘That red-head I’m with is trying to take me to the cleaners,’ he said breezily. ‘I guess you wouldn’t know if I am wasting my time and money?’

Gillis switched on his charm. It was remarkable how his face changed when he smiled. He looked almost boyish; certainly not twenty-five, and the worn-out look of dissipation seemed to melt away.

‘You’re on to a good thing,’ he said. ‘Zoe rates a little high, but she doesn’t shirk her responsibilities.

If she asks you home, you go. Of her kind, she’s unique.’

Dallas, who had seen the by-play at the bar, took out his cigarette-case and offered it.

‘As good as that, is she? I’m obliged to you. This is my first visit here, and I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I’m in town for a couple of weeks on business, and this seemed the place to come to.’

Gillis lit the cigarette and inhaled gratefully.

‘It is,’ he said. ‘If you want a little fun and an accommodating girl you couldn’t do better.’

They stood talking for a few minutes about the club, then Dallas said, ‘Wel , maybe I’l be seeing you again. My name’s Ed Dal as.’

‘Mine’s Adam Gil is. Sure, I’l look out for you, but don’t let me keep you away from Zoe. You have a treat in store. She certainly knows how to please a guy when she feels that way,’ Gil is said. ‘I’m here three or four times a week. Maybe we can have a drink together some time.’

‘Glad to,’ Dal as said, sure now this blond man was Eve Gil is’s brother. The likeness was remarkable. He had the same blue eyes, the same shaped face.

‘Before you go, I wonder if I could possibly ask a favour of you,’ Gil is said, smiling. ‘If you hadn’t been a member of the club I wouldn’t dream of mentioning this, but I’ve stupidly forgot en my wal et, and until my friends arrive I’m stuck for money. I suppose you couldn’t lend me ten dol ars for an hour or so?’

‘Why, sure,’ Dal as said, concealing his surprise. ‘I’d be glad to.’ He took out his wal et, extracted two fives and handed them to Gillis. ‘I’m in no hurry. Let me have it the next time we meet.’

Gillis slipped the bills into his pocket.

‘I can’t thank you enough. As soon as my friends arrive I’l pay you back. Thanks a lot. It’s real y very kind of you.’

‘Forget it,’ Dal as said, moving towards the door. ‘I’ve forgotten my wallet myself before now. It’s no joke to be stuck for money.’

They walked back to the bar.

‘Don’t let me take you away from Zoe,’ Gil is said as they entered the bar. ‘I’l buy myself a drink and wait for my friends.’

Dallas spotted Eve Gillis standing with Kile at the bar. She was wearing a sea-green backless evening gown, cut so low in front that he could see the deep furrow between her breasts.

He nudged Gillis.

‘Some girl,’ he said under his breath. ‘Some dress she’s nearly got on.’

Gillis looked at Eve, who glanced at him and then looked away. Neither of them gave any sign of recognition.

‘The club is noted for its beautiful women,’ Gil is said indifferently. ‘But you should remember, in the dark, one woman is very much the same as another.’ He gave Dal as’s arm a friendly pat and walked over to the bar, where he climbed up on a stool within a few feet of Eve and Kile.

Dallas returned to where Zoe was waiting for him, and sat down.

‘Sorry to have been so long,’ he said, smiling at Zoe, ‘but I got caught up with the blond profile. He has quite a way with him, hasn’t he?’

Zoe’s pert little face hardened.

‘That cheap chisel er?’ she said scornful y. ‘Al he’s got are his looks, and they won’t last him much longer from the way they’re wearing. Did he try to bite your ear?’

‘He did more than that; he succeeded to the tune of ten dol ars. At the moment he’s buying a double whisky with the proceeds. How do you like that?’

Zoe stared at him.

‘Wel , you don’t look a sucker,’ she said. ‘For heaven’s sake, why did you give it to him?’

‘Oh, I felt sorry for the guy. He was in a bad way for a drink, and I hadn’t the heart to refuse him,’

Dallas said, shrugging. ‘Besides, he said some nice things about you.’

‘Did he?’ Zoe said scornfully. ‘He once gypped me out of fifty bucks: the little rat!’

Dallas was eyeing Eve as she stood at the bar.

‘That’s a nice shape that girl’s wearing, or maybe you wouldn’t have noticed.’

Zoe looked Eve over critically.

‘She’s good,’ she said grudgingly. ‘At least she doesn’t have to wear falsies. In case you don’t know, she’s his sister, and it’s my bet they’re two of a kind. She was in the Fol ies for some time until she decided she could get along just as well in a bed.’

‘His sister?’ Dal as said, pretending to be surprised. ‘They don’t act that way.’

‘Maybe she doesn’t want to introduce him to Kile,’ Zoe said indifferently. ‘She’s Kile’s mistress, and she’s welcome to him. How about another bot le of champagne? I’ve a thirst that’d slay a camel.’

‘Sure,’ Dallas said, wondering what Purvis was going to say when he put in his expense sheet at the end of the week. ‘Everything I have is yours, honey.’

Zoe gave him a suspicious glance.

‘That sounds as if you haven’t so much,’ she said, signalling to the barman. ‘How about buying me a dinner, if you’re going to be al that generous?’

‘Just a figure of speech,’ Dal as said hastily. ‘Maybe I’l buy you dinner tomorrow night, but I’l run to a sandwich if you’re that hungry.’

Zoe sighed.

‘I’ll settle for a sandwich.’ She looked at him and smiled. ‘Are you working up to come home with me tonight?’

Dallas wrestled with the temptation, decided reluctantly not to spend any more of Purvis’s money, and shook his head.

‘That’s something I’l look forward to at a later date. I’l need to break into my kid sister’s money-box before I can go home with you.’

Zoe giggled.

‘You know, I like you,’ she said, and pressed her knee against his. ‘You leave your kid sister’s money-box alone. You won’t need it.’

Dallas was only half listening. He had seen Rico come into the bar.

Rico crossed over to where Kile and Eve were standing and said something to Kile in a low voice.

Kile’s face was flushed as if he had been drinking heavily. He turned to speak to Eve, who nodded.

Then he went out of the bar with Rico, leaving Eve alone.

Dallas saw Gillis raise his eyebrows at Eve and jerk his head to the door.

‘I’ve got to run away,’ Dal as said quickly. He took out a twenty-dollar bill and dropped it in Zoe’s lap. ‘Just remembered a pressing appointment. See you tomorrow night. Okay?’

‘You leaving me flat?’ Zoe asked, startled.

‘Got to,’ Dal as said, get ing to his feet. ‘Business. I’l dream of you tonight, sugar. So long for now.’

He walked quickly out of the bar as Eve finished her drink. He went into the gentlemen’s retiring room.

A moment or so later Eve came into the lobby. She collected her wrap and went out into the street.

Dallas reappeared and sauntered after her. He saw her get into the LaSalle parked in the big parking lot at the side of the club. He concealed himself behind another car and waited.

Five minutes dragged by. He saw Eve light a cigarette. The flame of her lighter lit up her face for a brief moment. Dallas decided she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

‘And where does that get you, Dallas?’ he said to himself. ‘She’s way out of your class. If you’re going to get those sort of ideas, you’d better stick to Zoe.’

Then he spotted Gillis coming into the parking lot. He saw him look to right and left, then walk quickly over to the LaSalle, open the door and get in beside Eve.

Moving silently, Dallas left his hiding-place and crept towards the LaSalle.

VII

For the first time in two years, Preston Kile felt confident and excited about his immediate future. Eve had convinced him that the plan she had thought of to find the Rajah’s jewels might work. He hadn’t been hard to convince because, once explained, it was obvious that it was the only possible way. It was daring and brilliant, and he felt drawn to it in spite of knowing that it could end in disaster if he made a false move. It was the kind of plan he would have given his whole-hearted support to ten years ago: a gamble against enormous odds, but with a tremendous prize if it succeeded.

What an extraordinary girl this Eve was! She had lain in his arms, her face against his, while she had outlined the plan. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t arrived at the solution himself. The more she talked the more he had realised that the Rajah’s offer of half a million was not now entirely out of reach. With such a sum to play with, he was positive he could win back his old position in the Stock Market, and wouldn’t he make them suffer for what they had done to him!

The plan depended on organisation and nerve and the right man to do the job. He had agreed with Eve that Rico should be consulted. He might know of someone who would handle the dangerous part of the job. Rico might also be useful in the organisation of the plan: it was too big and complicated for Kile to handle alone. It wasn’t going to be easy to bring Rico into this, and at the same time keep from him the amount involved. He would have to be paid well, and the Rajah would have to foot the bill. Rico’s money wasn’t going to come out of the half a mil ion. Kile intended to keep every nickel of that for himself.

He watched Rico make two highballs. When Rico came over to the desk and put one of the highballs near Kile, Kile said, ‘That’s a nasty bruise you’ve got there. How did you get it?’

Rico sat down.

‘I had an accident. It’s nothing. It looks worse than it feels. I hoped you’d be in tonight, Mr Kile. I’ve something I wanted you to see. Unfortunately it’s as hot as a stove at the moment, but in a year or two it’l fetch three or four grand; probably more.’

Kile pursed his lips.

‘I don’t think I’d be interested,’ he said, ‘but let me see it.’

Rico walked over to the office door and turned the key. Then he went to the wall safe, opened it and took out the bracelet. He put it on the desk in front of Kile.

Kile studied it without touching it. He glanced up at Rico’s anxious face.

‘How hot is it?’

‘The woman who owned it was murdered,’ Rico said in a hushed voice.

Kile made a wry grimace.

‘Jean Bruce?’

Rico nodded.

‘I’m surprised you touched this,’ Kile said. ‘How did you get hold of it?’

‘By accident,’ Rico lied glibly. ‘It wasn’t until I saw tonight’s paper I knew it belonged to the Bruce woman.’

‘Think the police would believe you?’

‘I said it was hot,’ Rico pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t give you a wrong impression, Mr Kile. I thought one of your rich friends might have it. It’d have to be re-set, of course, but it’s a beautiful piece.’

Kile picked up the bracelet and studied it closely.

‘Yes; it’s nice. What do you want for it?’

‘Twenty-five hundred,’ Rico said promptly. ‘It’s worth at least six grand.’

‘It’s worth five,’ Kile said. ‘At the moment it isn’t worth a dime. I’d have to keep it for some time: maybe a year. It’s a dangerous thing to keep. I might give you a thousand for it, but not a dollar more.’

‘Make it two, and you can have it,’ Rico said hopeful y, then as Kile pushed the bracelet back to him, he went on hastily, ‘Wel , okay. I’m losing money, but I want it out of my place. I’l take a grand.’

Kile nodded.

‘You’l have to wait for the money, Rico. I’l let you have it in a week or two.’

‘That’s okay,’ Rico said, sit ing down. ‘I trust you, Mr Kile. Two weeks is okay with me.’

Kile nodded again and put the bracelet in his inside pocket.

‘There’s something I want to talk to you about, Rico,’ he said, paused to take a long drink from his glass, stared across at Rico, trying to make up his mind how much to tell him. He decided to say as little as possible. ‘There may be a big job coming along in the near future,’ he went on. ‘If it comes off you could make yourself fifteen thousand. It’s in the air at the moment, but I’m trying to get two or three good men together. Would you be interested?’

Fifteen thousand! Rico’s eyes gleamed. This was big-time stuff!

‘Why, sure,’ he said, leaning across the desk. ‘You know I want to work with you, Mr Kile. What would you want me to do?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Kile said. ‘I haven’t even started to organise the job, and it’l need a lot of organising. I wanted to be sure I could rely on you.’

Rico felt a twinge of uneasiness. He was too cautious to commit himself without knowing something of what Kile was planning.

‘But can’t you give me some idea, Mr Kile? For instance: is it dangerous?’

‘Could be,’ Kile said mildly, thinking how horribly dangerous the whole idea was, ‘but you wouldn’t be in on that end of it. You could get yourself a ten to fifteen year stretch if it turned sour. You see, you’re not the only one who doesn’t want to give a wrong impression.’

Rico showed his teeth in a mirthless smile. Ten to fifteen years! He wasn’t going to walk into that without knowing where he was going!

‘What are the chances?’ he asked. ‘I don’t take unnecessary risks, Mr Kile. I’m not saying the pay isn’t good — it is, but ten to fifteen years!’

‘I can tell you about the risks better later on,’ Kile said. ‘It’l depend largely on the man who does the outside work. If he’s a good man, has plenty of nerve and plays his cards right, there won’t be any risk.

But if he slips up, loses his head, then we’re al sunk.’

Rico nodded.

‘Who’s the man, Mr Kile? Anyone I know?’

‘I haven’t found him yet,’ Kile said, taking out his cigar-case. He made motions of offering it to Rico, who shook his head. ‘It occurred to me you might know someone. He must have nerve. This isn’t an easy job, Rico: it’s damn near impossible, but I think the right man could pull it off. He’d have to be reliable, quick-witted, and a killer.’ He noticed Rico winced when he mentioned kil ing. He didn’t blame Rico for that. ‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ he went on. ‘I dislike killing as much as you do, but we’ve got to face facts. If this man is to be of any use to me, he’s got to have the qualities of a killer. That doesn’t mean to say he has to kill anyone.’

Rico looked relieved.

‘I know the man,’ he said. ‘His name’s Verne Baird. He’s only been in town a couple of months. He and I’ve done jobs together. He’s reliable, and he’s got al the qualifications you mentioned.’ He lowered his voice as he said, ‘It’s my bet he’s responsible for the Bruce killing. I don’t know for sure, but I think he is.’

Kile rubbed his fleshy jaw.

‘He’s got to be right, Rico. I’ve already warned you. If he isn’t, you and I wil go to jail.’

‘I’d rather have him than anyone else I know,’ Rico said. ‘What has he to do?’

‘That’s something we’l talk about later,’ Kile said. ‘I want to see him first. Can you get him here tomorrow night?’

Rico shook his head.

‘I’m afraid not. The police are looking for him. I think he’s left town.’

‘Any idea where he is?’

‘I haven’t, but he’l let me know in a day or so. He said he would. As soon as I hear I’l make arrangements for him to meet you. Will that be all right?’

‘It’l have to be,’ Kile said, frowning. He stood up. ‘You’re sure this man’s al right?’

‘I’m positive,’ Rico said. ‘There isn’t anyone else to touch him.’

‘Al right. I’l go ahead with my part of the job. There’s a lot to do yet. But the sooner I meet Baird the better.’

‘I’ll fix it,’ Rico said eagerly. ‘You leave it to me.’ He hesitated, went on, ‘He’d want to know what the job is worth. Could I give him some idea?’

Kile tapped ash into Rico’s tray.

‘If he pul s the job off it’l be worth ten thousand to him,’ he said. ‘If he fails I’l give him five.’

Rico’s eyes opened.

‘Ten thousand. This must be a pretty big job, Mr Kile.’

‘It is,’ Kile said.

VIII

As Adam Gillis got into the LaSalle, he said angrily, ‘You’ve kept me waiting over an hour! You said ten o’clock. Why can’t you be punctual?’

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ Eve said. She put her hand on his. ‘I couldn’t help it. He was in one of his mauling moods. I didn’t think I’d get him to come at al . Oh, Adam! I’m so sick of al this! How much longer have I to go on with it? You don’t know what it means to live with him.’ She shivered. ‘I wish I’d never agreed to help you.’

Gillis looked at her in alarm.

‘Don’t be difficult, for God’s sake,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘I’ve enough on my mind without you sounding off. I know it isn’t easy for you, but we’ve got to have Kile in on this. You and I couldn’t swing it on our own.’

‘But the whole thing’s dangerous and crazy,’ she said, twisting around to face him. ‘I must have been insane to let you talk me into it. We’l never get away with it!’

‘Of course we wil ,’ Gil is said sharply. ‘It’s just a matter of nerve. I don’t see what you’ve got to worry about. I have all the responsibility. I’m the one who has to lie awake at night, making plans. All you have to do is to do what I tell you.’

‘I suppose you think it’s nothing to me to have to let that old roué make love to me just whenever he feels like it?’ Eve said hotly.

‘I wish you’d concentrate on the big things instead of the little things,’ Gillis said. ‘Don’t you realise this means a half a million? For heaven’s sake, don’t you think most girls would sleep with Kile for that money?’

‘No, I don’t!’ Eve flared. ‘That’s a beastly thing to say! We haven’t even got the money, and I don’t believe we ever will get it!’

Gillis studied her; a sudden venomous look in his eyes.

‘Al right,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way you feel about it, there’s no sense in going on with it. There’s plenty of other girls who’l help me, and I dare say wil make a better job of it than you. I’l make other arrangements. You’d better tel Kile you want to go back to the Follies.’

Eve felt a little chill run through her.

‘Don’t be angry, darling,’ she said quickly.

‘I’m not angry,’ he returned. ‘If you can’t carry on, then you’d better chuck it before you make a mess of it.’

‘If I went back to the Fol ies,’ she said slowly, ‘would you come and live with me again?’

‘If you go back to the Fol ies,’ Gil is said deliberately, ‘you’ve seen the last of me. I mean that, Eve.

I’l have to find some other girl to help me. I’m not going to be cluttered up with two women. If you haven’t the guts to go through with this, I’l be damned if I ever want to see you again.’

He saw the fear jump into her eyes. Long experience of similar scenes in the past made him confident of his whip-hand over her. Threats, arguments and made-up quarrels marked their lives like milestones along a dark, twisting road. He had only to threaten never to see her again for her to capitulate. The chain that bound her to him had been forged in the womb.

‘Please, Adam, don’t talk like that,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Of course I’l go through with it.

Forget what I said. I guess I’m feeling a little depressed tonight.’

He was quick to meet her half-way, now he had won his point.

‘I do understand, Eve,’ he said. ‘It won’t be for much longer. I promise you that. If you’l only stick it for another month. After that you needn’t ever see Kile again.’

‘I hope not,’ she sighed, acutely aware of her defeat.

He put his arm round her and pulled her to him.

‘Snap out of it,’ he said lightly. ‘Everything’s going to be fine and dandy. Think of the things I’m going to buy you when we get the money!’ His sudden good humour didn’t deceive her. She knew how untrustworthy, how shiftless and dishonest he was. There was nothing she could do about it. He was part of her: the Hyde to her Jekyll; something she was helpless to rid herself of. ‘You told Kile tonight? He knows now?’

‘Yes. I told him.’

‘How did he take it?’

‘Oh, he’s enthusiastic’ She felt the thin cloth of his suit. It had been pressed again and again. It was threadbare. Only he could have worn it and made it look something. On any other man it would have been a rag. ‘Didn’t you buy the suit, darling?’ she went on. ‘I was hoping you’d wear it tonight.’

‘Oh, yes, I bought it,’ he said glibly. ‘If I’d known you were going to be so late I’d have stopped to change.’

She knew at once he was lying: that he hadn’t used the money she had given him to buy a suit. She knew from past sordid experience that the money had been spent on some woman.

‘But never mind the suit,’ he went on. ‘Is Kile going to approach Rico?’

‘Yes, of course. I told him Rico should be consulted. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘Rico knows this chap Baird. If anyone can pul this off, Baird can. I’ve watched him for weeks now.

He’s terrific. Nothing wil stop him once he’s made up his mind. I wish I could say the same of Rico. Of course he may be all right, but I wish I was sure of him. Kile’s not tel ing him the details, is he?’

‘No. He’s just asking Rico if he’d come in with him, but he’s not tel ing him much.’

‘Did Kile say if he was going to give you anything for the idea?’ Gil is asked.

Eve laughed bitterly.

‘Of course not. It never entered his head. He’s quite sure I’l be with him to spend it with him.’

‘Oh, wel , he’s due for an unpleasant surprise,’ Gil is said carelessly. He glanced at his wrist-watch.

‘You’d better get back. For the moment there’s no point in let ing him know I’m in this. I’ll drop in tomorrow night. I might be a little late; about half-past twelve. Leave the shade down if he’s there.’

‘He won’t be. He’s going out to dinner. Can’t you come earlier, Adam? I’ll be alone from eight o’clock.’

Immediately he became shifty.

‘I don’t know if I can. I’l try. I might get round by nine. Yes, I think I could manage nine.’

Again she knew he was lying, but she hid her knowledge from him. It would be stupid and dangerous to warn him that his lies were so transparent to her. So long as he wasn’t on his guard, she knew she could spot his lies, but if he took more trouble to deceive her, he might succeed. She told herself that one day he might tell her a serious lie; a lie that might affect them both. It was this lie she knew she had to recognise when it came.

‘Al right, darling,’ she said, trying to make her voice sound gay. ‘Then, if I don’t see you at nine, I’ll expect you at half-past twelve.’

‘You’l see me at nine,’ he said, deciding that half-past twelve was quite early enough. He had no wish to sit with her all the evening. There were times when she bored him to distraction. She would be so serious all the time: she would fuss over him.

She opened the car door.

‘Oh, Eve…’

Holding the door half open, she glanced quickly at him. She knew what was coming: every parting of theirs had this sordid little postscript.

‘How much do you want?’ she asked gently.

‘Oh, damn it! You make it sound as if I were always sponging on you,’ he said irritably. ‘But you wait… in another month I’l have al the money I need. I’l pay you back. I know exactly how much I owe you. I’ve writ en it down in a book.’

‘How much, Adam?’ she asked again.

‘Well, I owe a fella thirty dollars. I had to borrow off him tonight. You were so late I had to settle an account…’

‘Never mind the details, darling, just tell me how much.’

‘Would fifty ruin you?’ he said sullenly. He liked to explain why he wanted the money. He justified himself in his own eyes when he gave her a fictitious list of debts.

She opened her bag and checked the amount of money she had in it.

‘I’ve only forty.’

‘That would do. I’l be seeing you tomorrow night. Can’t you squeeze something substantial out of Kile? I hate this continual asking. Three or four hundred would see me through to the end of the month.

He should be good for that if you’re nice to him.’

‘You mean if I behave more like a tart than I usual y do?’ she said quietly.

‘There’s no need to talk like that!’ he snapped. ‘I didn’t mean anything of the kind. You can persuade him your expenses…’

‘But don’t you understand he hasn’t any money?’ she said impatiently. ‘It was you who told me he owes thousands.’

‘A man like Kile can always raise money. People trust him. That’s why I picked on him. Hasn’t he made a hit with the Rajah? A man with his looks and reputation can always get money.’

She gave him four ten-dollar bills.

‘You must try and manage with that,’ she said. ‘I can’t ask him for any more just yet. I don’t know how I’m going to manage myself: I’m cleaned out.’

He touched the gold chain bracelet around her wrist.

‘I could hock that for you,’ he said, obviously pleased with the idea. ‘You must have a lot of junk you could raise money on. I could handle it for you. I know all the best places.’ There was a boast in his voice. He was proud of his knowledge of pawnshops. ‘We can get the stuff back when we’ve hit the jack-pot.’

‘I’ll think about it.’ The note of misery in her voice made him look sharply at her. ‘Have you forgotten this belonged to mother?’ Her fingers touched the bracelet lovingly.

‘Well, she wouldn’t mind,’ Gillis said, scowling. ‘She hocked it herself, if I remember rightly, when the old man wouldn’t give me a new suit.’

‘Good night, Adam.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t look so damned miserable at times,’ he said crossly as he got out of the car. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night. You might look through your things. That fur coat he gave you… you don’t need it until the winter…’

‘Good night, Adam,’ she repeated.

They stood facing each other for a moment. She was glad he couldn’t meet her eyes. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

‘Try and come early,’ she pleaded. ‘I want to talk to you, darling.’

‘About nine,’ he said, his voice flat and disinterested. Already he was thinking of more important things. He had forty dollars in his pocket. The night was still young. He might do worse than take Lois back to his room. He might persuade her to do that comic dance of hers again. She had wanted fifty dollars the last time: ridiculous! She might do it for twenty if he could convince her that was all she would get. Yes, he’d go along and pick her up. He felt in the mood for Lois’s kind of fun.

He watched Eve as she moved back to the club. She was an odd girl. Sometimes he wondered about her. She didn’t treat him as if he was her brother. There were times when she acted as if she were in love with him. He touched his pencil-lined moustache, frowning. Odd!

After he had left the parking lot, Dallas came out of the shadows and stood looking after him.

IX

Harmon Purvis had a small villa on East Boulevard: a modest, three-bedroom affair with a small garden crammed with roses and a Clematis Jackmanii over the front door.

A light showed in one of the downstairs rooms, and through the open window came the brittle notes of Chopin’s Etude in E Flat.

Dallas got out of his car, pushed open the gate and walked up the path. The night was hot and still, and the perfume from the roses was a little overpowering.

He dug his thumb into the bell-push, leaned forward to sniff at the purple flower of the clematis — as big as a breakfast plate.

Purvis came to the door and opened it. He was in his shirt sleeves and had changed his shoes for slippers.

‘You’re late,’ he said, giving Dallas a sharp look. ‘I was thinking of going to bed.’

‘You’re lucky to have a bed,’ Dal as said, fol owing him into the comfortable front room. It was lined with books and restfully lit by table lamps. Purvis was a bachelor, but he knew how to make himself comfortable. He had a Filipino boy to run the house and cook, and in his spare time he looked after the tiny garden himself. ‘I don’t get any time for my bed,’ Dal as went on, lowering himself gratefully into a comfortable easy chair.

Purvis wasn’t paying at ention. He was listening to the concluding passages of the Etude.

‘You should listen to this,’ he said, leaning against the radiogram and beating time with his finger.

‘It’s the most difficult of any of Chopin’s Etudes. Even Paderewski used to make some mistakes when he played it.’

‘Never mind Paderewski — he’s dead,’ Dal as said, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. ‘Turn it off for the love of Mike. I’m here on business.’

Reluctantly Purvis turned off the disc and sat down opposite Dallas.

‘Do you good to listen to some of the classics,’ he said, placing his finger-tips together and staring at Dallas from over them. ‘You’re losing your sense of culture.’

‘Never had one. Don’t offer me a whisky: I’d accept it.’

‘I haven’t any in the house,’ Purvis said happily. ‘I don’t touch the stuff: wastes money, dul s your perception and rots your liver.’

Dallas sighed.

‘So that’s what’s the matter with me. Maybe I’d better switch to gin.’

Purvis watched him light a cigarette.

‘You’ve been to the Frou-Frou Club tonight?’ he asked tentatively.

Yeah,’ Dal as said, ‘and I’m wil ing to bet my eye-teeth Kile’s get ing set to grab the Chit abad collection.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Purvis asked, sit ing forward.

‘He saw Rico tonight, but maybe I’d better start in at the beginning. Talk about a break! It fel into my lap,’ and he gave Purvis a detailed account of what he had seen and heard at the club, as wel as the conversation he had overheard between Eve and Gillis as they sat in the car.

Purvis was enthralled. He just sat still, staring at Dallas, drinking in every word, and not interrupting.

When Dallas had finished, he got up and began to pace up and down.

‘What a break!’ he said. ‘It’s unbelievable! I’ve worked on this goddamn case for fifteen years, and never thought I’d get anywhere with it, and then suddenly it’s handed to us on a plate.’

Dallas grinned.

‘I made it sound too easy,’ he said, stretching out his long legs. ‘If it hadn’t been for a hunch…’

‘Never mind that. These people must be after the collection,’ Purvis said, coming to stand over Dallas. ‘This morning Kile and the Gil is girl cal on the Rajah. In the evening Gil is talks in terms of half a million. The connection’s obvious. It looks as if the Rajah has offered Kile a half a million to get his jewels back, and Gillis plans to gyp him.’

‘The whole idea seems to have come from Gillis,’ Dal as pointed out. ‘Kile is being used as a stooge.

But how is Kile going to get the jewels? Think he knows where they are?’

‘I don’t know,’ Purvis said, sit ing down. ‘He must have some idea otherwise he wouldn’t have seen the Rajah this morning.’

‘Who’s this guy Baird, Gil is is so strung up about?’

‘If it’s Verne Baird,’ Purvis said, crossing his long, bony legs, ‘and I’d imagine it must be, he’s suspect number one for Jean Bruce’s kil ing.’

‘Is that right?’ Dal as said, startled. ‘Is he the guy Olin’s searching for?’

Purvis nodded.

‘A pretty dangerous character, according to Olin. I ran into Olin on my way home tonight. He’s had quite a night of it. As a routine precaution he put a couple of his men to watch Baird’s apartment house.

One of them spotted a big man watching the house and went after him. He cornered him in a drug store, but wasn’t fast enough with his gun. He and the girl in the store were shot to death, and the kil er escaped by way of the roof. Olin got some boys down there in double quick time, and one of them spotted the killer as he was crossing the roof. He winged him, but he got away somehow. They’ve cordoned off the area and they’re making a house-to-house search. Olin swears no one can get through the cordon, so with any luck, they’l catch him.’

‘Was it Baird?’

‘Olin thinks so, but no one has identified him. The cop who shot at him said the man was Baird’s build, but he couldn’t swear it was Baird. Olin says there’s no other hood in town who’d shoot it out with a cop, and then kill the girl so she couldn’t identify him. I think he’s right. We don’t run to types so ruthless as that.’

‘Well, if it is Baird and they catch him, Gillis’s plan may come unstuck.’

Purvis didn’t say anything. He was thinking, his hand covered his face. There was a long silence, then he looked up to say, ‘I’m going to put every man I have on this case, Ed. I don’t think we need bother with the Rajah for the time being. The people who matter now are Kile, Eve Gillis, Rico, Baird and Adam Gillis. They’re the ones who wil lead us to the jewels if anyone’s going to lead us to them.

You’ve already made contact with Gillis, who’s obviously the key-man of the set-up. Keep close to him, Ed. That’s your job from now on. Don’t lose sight of him. Get friendly with him. Get his confidence if you can.’

‘That guy’s as slippery as an eel,’ Dallas said, ‘and a first-class heel as well. The way he talked to his sister made me want to puke.’

‘Who’l I put on to Rico?’ Purvis said, frowning. ‘Burns must cover Kile. Ainsworth can go after Baird, unless the cops get him first, but what about Rico?’

‘There’s a girl at the club; her name’s Zoe Norton,’ Dal as said. ‘For some reason or other she seems to have taken a liking for me. I think I could persuade her to work for us. She would be in a much better position to report on Rico than anyone we could employ. That’s what we want more than anything at this stage of the game: someone inside and working for us.’

Purvis nodded.

‘That’s right. How do you persuade her?’

’I’d spread my charm before her and a purse of gold,’ Dal as’ said, grinning. ‘It’d cost you three or four hundred, but it’d pay dividends.’

Purvis winced.

‘Doesn’t say much for your charm,’ he said tartly. ‘I wouldn’t pay her more than a hundred. You seem to think I’ve money to burn.’

‘She wouldn’t do it for that,’ Dal as said. ‘It’l have to be three at least. But don’t let me persuade you to throw your money away — as if I could.’

Purvis brooded. He realised he would be getting value for money, and this wasn’t the time to cut corners.

‘Wel , talk to her,’ he said final y. ‘Get her as cheaply as you can, and not a dime more than three hundred.’

Dallas said he’d see what he could do.

‘Let’s get this straightened out,’ Purvis went on. ‘Everyone of us has got to watch his step. You’ve got the toughest job, Ed, and you’ve got to handle it as if it were dynamite. We can’t afford to let them have the slightest idea we’re on to them. Our job is to find the jewels. We’re not employed by the police.

I want you to understand that. Whatever we find out, we keep to ourselves. If any of you find Baird you’re not to report him to the police. We want Baird to take us to the jewels, and he won’t do that if he’s in a cel .’

‘Isn’t that making us accessories after the fact?’ Dal as asked mildly.

‘We stand to pick up four hundred grand,’ Purvis pointed out. ‘I’l split one per cent of that among you operators. That’s a thousand bucks apiece. Would that make you forget such things as accessories after the fact?’

‘A thousand isn’t much,’ Dal as said, scarcely believing his ears, but quick to bargain. ‘As I’ve got the heaviest job, how about making it two for me and one for the rest of them?’

Purvis shook his head.

‘No, that wouldn’t be fair to the others, but I tel you what I’l do. I’l give a cheque for five thousand to the first one of you who walks into my office and tells me where the jewels are.’

‘Do the big thing,’ Dal as said, ‘and give the boys a little confidence. Make it cash.’

X

The distant sound of an approaching police siren penetrated Baird’s brain. It grew louder until it filled the inside of his head with a vibrating scream of warning.

With an effort he forced back his eyelids and looked into darkness. He felt weak and cold, and there was a stiff, tight feeling of pain down his right side.

He turned his head. There was an open window to his left. He could see the dark night sky, pin-pointed with the white brilliance of the stars. The faint haze of reflected light from the street lamps climbed the wall of the building and outlined the cross sections of the window.

Below, a car skidded with a squeal of tortured tyres to a standstill. The siren died down in a slow and reluctant wail of sound. Car doors opened and slammed. Feet ran across the street.

Baird suddenly realised there was someone standing against the wall, looking cautiously out of the window into the street: a woman.

It was too dark in the room to see much of her: she seemed small, and her hair hung loose to her shoulders. She was pressing her hands to her breasts, and she stood very still.

More police sirens wailed in the distance. A car started up suddenly close by, and drove away with a noisy change of gears. A dog began to bark furiously.

Baird lifted his head, his hand groped for his gun holster, but it wasn’t there. He felt light-headed and weak, but the sound of the approaching sirens was like a spur to him, and he made an effort to sit up.

The woman at the window heard him and looked quickly in his direction.

‘Don’t move,’ she said, her voice coming across the intervening space in a frightened whisper.

‘They’re down there: hundreds of them.’

Baird got one foot to the floor. The bed on which he was lying creaked under his weight. He raised himself on his elbow. Pain rode through him, bringing him out in a cold sweat. He struggled against it, but it proved too much for him, and he dropped back on to the pillow, his mind seething with vicious, frustrated rage.

He was bad all right, he thought. He remembered the last time he had been shot. It had been nothing to this. This time he was cooked. He must have bled like a pig. The great strength he had always relied on to see him through in a jam had deserted him: he couldn’t have pul ed the wings off a fly.

More cars squealed to a standstill; sirens died down, car doors opened and slammed. A murmur of voices came up from the street.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked. His voice was so weak he didn’t recognise it. It was almost as if some other person had spoken.

‘They’re searching the houses,’ she said, not moving from the window. ‘They are split ing into groups of five, and each group is taking a house.’

Baird snarled into the darkness.

‘Where’s my gun? Where’ve you put it?’

‘It’s on the bed by your side.’ She didn’t look in his direction, but continued to stare down into the street, as if what she saw there held her with an irresistible fascination.

Feverishly he groped over the crumpled coverlet. His fingers closed round the butt of the Colt. He managed to lift it, but the effort made him pant.

‘You’d better get out,’ he said. ‘Go and tel them I’m here if you want to. They won’t get me alive.’

This time she turned her head and looked in his direction, although he knew she couldn’t see him in the dark.

‘They may not come here,’ she said. ‘If they do, I can tel them I haven’t seen you. They wouldn’t force their way in here, would they?’

For a moment he couldn’t believe he had heard aright.

‘Of course they would. They won’t take your word. Besides, I left blood in the passage. They’l find that.’

‘I’ve cleaned it up,’ she said simply. ‘It didn’t take long.’

Again he had a feeling he was dreaming this, and he peered at her, trying to see through the darkness.

‘You cleaned it up?’ His voice revealed his suspicious surprise. ‘Why? What’s your game? Don’t you know you’l get into trouble if they find out?’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘I was sorry for you.’

He bit down on his lower lip. No one had ever said that to him before. Sorry for him! He didn’t like that. He didn’t want her damned pity!

‘You’d better get out,’ he said furiously. ‘There’l be shooting.’

She turned back to the window.

‘They may not come,’ she said.

Cautiously, Baird touched his wounded side. He wondered if he was still bleeding. His fingers moved over a wad, bound tightly against his side. He realised she must have taken off his coat and shirt. He touched the pad wonderingly.

‘Did you stop the bleeding?’ he asked.

‘Yes. You’d better not talk. You may be heard. The wal s are very thin.’

‘Is it bad?’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘It feels bad.’

‘It’s bad enough, but the bleeding’s stopped. You mustn’t move. It may start again.’

‘What are they doing now?’ he asked after a long pause.

The street was suspiciously silent.

‘They’re standing about,’ she said, watching intently. ‘One of them is looking up here. They seem to be waiting for something. Some of them have machine-guns.’

Baird grinned savagely. He remembered Chuck Fowler, who had been trapped in a house. He had been one of the crowd that time, watching the fun. He had seen the police shooting it out with Chuck. He remembered how they had sprayed the front of the house with their Thompsons. The stream of lead had smashed windows, broken window-frames, brought down plaster. It had been hell while it lasted. Then they had tossed in their tear-gas bombs and had gone in, shooting like madmen the whole time; wrecking the house, smashing down the front door, shooting their way up the stairs; and Chuck had been dead long before the final assault.

‘You’d better get out,’ Baird said. ‘I know what’s coming. They’l cut this room to ribbons.’

‘There’s nowhere for me to go,’ she began, then stopped, and he saw her stiffen, her hands going once more to her breasts.

‘What is it?’ he asked, knowing at once what it was.

‘I think they’re coming now,’ she said breathlessly.

Again he made the effort and raised himself on his elbow. This time he succeeded in getting both feet to the floor.

‘Help me up,’ he gasped. ‘I don’t stand a chance on the bed.’

‘You must stay there,’ she said, turning. ‘You must. You’l start the bleeding again.’

‘Help me up!’ he snarled. ‘Goddamn it! Do you want me to shoot you?’

She came over to him.

‘They’l hear you,’ she warned. ‘You must keep your voice down.’

He caught hold of her shoulder. His fingers felt the thinness of her. Her skin was tight over the bones.

He pulled himself upright and leaned heavily on her. He felt her wilt under his weight. She was only a tiny thing, he thought. Her head was just above his shoulder.

‘Get me against the wall near the door,’ he panted, ‘and then get out.’

A violent hammering sounded on the street door. A voice bawled, ‘Come on, open up!’

Baird felt a little trickle of sweat run down his face. Five minutes: no longer. Well, upright and on his feet, he wouldn’t go alone.

She helped him across the room and against the wall. The Colt hung heavily from his hand, too heavy to raise. He set his shoulders against the wall. The pain in his side made his breath hiss through his clenched teeth.

‘Get out!’ he said, giving her a feeble push. ‘Tel them I’m here. They won’t do anything to you if you tell them I’m here. Go on, get out.’

She went to the door, unlocked it and opened it. A shaft of light came in from the passage, and he saw her plainly for the first time.

He had only a quick glimpse of her. He saw the long, sensitive face, the wide, dark eyes and the firm, bitter mouth of a girl who was good-looking rather than beautiful: a girl of about twenty-three or four, whose young-old face had a force of character that had come from a life of hardship, poverty and sorrow.

She was wearing a white slip that clung to her thin but beautifully proportioned body, no stockings, and her narrow, long feet were thrust into a shabby pair of heelless slippers.

He watched her go out on to the landing, leaving the door ajar. From where he stood he could see through the opening without being seen.

A buzz of voices drifted up from the ground floor: men’s voices, and a woman’s voice screaming hysterically.

More hammering sounded on the front door. Then a hard, loud voice bawled, ‘Okay, okay, break it up! Get back to your rooms and stay in them. Hey, you! Seen a big guy in a brown suit around? He’l be a stranger, and he’s wounded. Come on, now! Open up! The guy’s a kil er!’

Baird ached to lie down on the bed again. The pain in his side was torturing him, and his legs began to sag. He pulled himself together, pressing his shoulders against the wall, his lips coming off his teeth in a snarl.

He watched the girl lean over the banister rail.

‘Toni! Toni!’ she cal ed sharply. ‘What’s happening?’

Baird stiffened. What was she up to? Why didn’t she get down stairs? The cops wouldn’t bother about her if there was any shooting.

‘Some killer loose,’ a man’s voice cal ed up to her. ‘The cops think he might be hiding in this house.

You got him under your bed, Anita?’ He laughed excitedly as if he had made the best joke in the world.

‘You bet,’ the girl said, and laughed. ‘I’ve got him right here. Want to come up and see him, Toni?’

‘I wil come up and see you, bambino.’

‘With the cops coming up, too?’

‘No cop stops me loving a girl,’ the man said, and laughed. ‘Not even a cop with a gun.’

‘That’s what you say,’ the girl said, and snapped her fingers. ‘You’re al talk, Toni.’

‘Yeah? This time I don’t talk. I come up.’

‘Bet er not,’ the girl jeered, ‘they’l take you away in their little black wagon.’

Baird heard quick, heavy footsteps on the stairs. He saw a fat, powerfully built fellow, going bald, with a blue-black growth of beard, come bounding on to the landing. He was wearing a soiled singlet and black trousers, and his face was shiny with sweat.

Laughing, he rushed at the girl, who avoided him. They dodged about on the landing. She was very quick, but she hadn’t much room to manoeuvre, and he finally trapped her in a corner.

‘No, Toni! I was only fooling,’ she said, trying to push him back as he crowded her, holding her arms and grinning like a mischievous monkey as she wrestled with him. ‘Not now. Some other night. Stop it!

They’l be coming up!’

‘It’s always some other night,’ the man said, giggling excitedly. ‘To hel with them! Al talk, you say.

I show you it’s not al talk!’

He grabbed her around the waist and under the knees and swung her off her feet.

‘Put me down, Toni!’ the girl said, keeping her voice low. She struggled to break away, but not so violently that he couldn’t handle her.

‘Not even a cop with a gun is going to stop me this time,’ he said, and there was a sudden change in his voice that made Baird stiffen.

‘No! Stop it, you fool!’

He ran with her across the landing, kicked open the door and blundered into the dark room. He kicked the door shut and stumbled over to the bed.

Invisible against the wall, Baird lifted the gun. He stood motionless, every nerve in his body tense, while he listened to the struggle going on on the bed.

‘You devil!’ he heard the girl gasp. ‘You mustn’t!’

‘Not even a cop with a gun!’ the man panted as he struggled with her. ‘You asked for it this time, bambino. You get it.’

Baird made a move towards the bed, then stiffened back as he heard a quick rush of feet on the stairs.

A voice shouted outside the door, ‘Open up!’

The door was flung open, catching Baird and pinning him behind it. The white light of a flashlight swept into the room and lit up the bed.

The man on the bed twisted his head around and glared along the beam of light. There was a savage, animal expression on his round, sweaty face.

‘Ain’t there any privacy in this goddamn world?’ he shouted violently. ‘Get the hell out of here!’

The two cops, one with a Thompson at his hip, the other with an automatic rifle, gaped at what they saw.

‘For crying out loud!’ one of them exclaimed, grinning. ‘If I’d known, mister, I’d’ve knocked.’

‘Get out!’ Toni shouted furiously. ‘Leave us alone!’

The two cops backed out of the room, laughing, pulled the door shut and Baird heard them clattering down the stairs.

‘You see,’ Toni said, ‘not even two goddamn cops with two goddamn guns!’

‘Let me go!’ the girl gasped. ‘Get out!’

‘Yeah?’ Toni said. ‘I go in a little while.’

Baird stood motionless, sweat running down his face, listening to the struggle going on in the darkness. He heard the girl catch her breath sharply. He slid the barrel of the gun into his hand, and took a step forward, but away from the support of the wall, his legs wouldn’t hold him, and he slithered down on hands and knees.

As he struggled to get back on his feet, Toni gave a sudden yell of pain.

‘You bitch!’ he shouted. ‘You’ve blinded me!’

‘Get out!’ the girl said, her voice low. ‘Let me go!’

The bed creaked; feet struck the floor.

‘I fix you for this!’ Toni snarled. He pul ed open the door.

In the light from the passage Baird saw blood running down Toni’s face. Four deep scratches, just missing his eyes, were like deep red ruts in his face.

The girl crouched on the bed. She was naked to the waist. Some of Toni’s blood was smeared on her shoulder. Her eyes smouldered as she glared at Toni.

‘Get out and stay out!’ she said, stil keeping her voice low.

Toni snarled at her, his hand to his face. He went out and slammed the door.

‘You all right?’ Baird asked hoarsely, crawling over to the bed.

He heard the girl slide off the bed on the opposite side.

‘I’m all right,’ she said curtly. ‘Are you bleeding again?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Baird pul ed himself up on to the bed and lay flat, his breath coming in long, painful gasps. ‘You didn’t have to do that for me.’

The girl didn’t say anything. He could hear her groping in the darkness. After a delay, the light went on.

She was fastening a shabby coat about her, and she looked sharply at him. They stared at each other for several seconds.

‘I’ll look at your wound,’ she said, coming over to him. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘A little,’ he said, watching her. ‘I don’t think it’s bleeding.’

She bent over him. Together they inspected the pad on his side. There was no sign of blood.

‘No. It’s al right,’ she said, and as she straightened he caught hold of her wrist. She remained bending over him, looking down at him.

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ he asked. ‘They could put you in jail for this.’

She pulled free.

‘I don’t like coppers,’ she said, her face hard. ‘They won’t get you now.’

‘I guess I owe you something,’ Baird said uneasily. ‘If it hadn’t been for you I’d be dead now.’

She smiled cynically.

‘I dare say you’d have been better off,’ she said, turning away. ‘And you don’t owe me anything.’

‘What’s your name?’ he said, wiping his damp face with the back of his hand.

‘Anita Jackson,’ she said. ‘You’d better try and get some sleep.’

‘I’m Verne Baird,’ he told her. ‘Those punks think I kil ed a copper.’

She looked at him, but didn’t say anything.

‘You’d better get some sleep,’ she said after a long pause.

‘You’re a knock-out,’ he said, shut ing his eyes. ‘What did the cops do to you to make you hate them like this?’

‘That’s not your business,’ she returned curtly.

‘I guess that’s right. Give me an hour, and I’ll get out.’ He touched his side and winced. ‘I owe you something.’

‘You’l have to stay here until you’re better,’ she said, sit ing in the armchair. ‘You won’t get far with that wound.’

‘What about you?’ he said, opening his eyes and staring at her. ‘The longer I’m here the bigger risk you’re running. Suppose that fat guy comes back?’

She shook her head.

‘He won’t. I know Toni. He won’t come here again. I’m out al day. It’s only the nights. I don’t care.’

‘You’ve got to have the bed,’ Baird said, a little surprised he was thinking more of her than himself.

‘I’l lie on the floor.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ she said crossly. ‘Go to sleep and don’t talk so much.’ She pul ed another chair forward and put up her feet. ‘I’m al right here.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I’l be okay by tomorrow.’

She reached out and turned off the light.

‘Go to sleep,’ she said.

Baird lay in the darkness, staring at the night sky through the open window. Below, the police still went on with their search for him. The voices, the trampling of feet and the hammering on doors became fainter as they moved farther down the street.

He felt an odd stirring inside him as he thought of the girl. She had saved him. Why? It was something right out of a book. He owed her something, and the thought made him uneasy. Gratitude was a new sensation to him. He felt restricted. No one had ever done anything for him up to now. He tried to push this feeling of indebtedness out of his mind, but he couldn’t. Sooner or later he knew he would have to do something about it. He felt in his hip pocket for the five hundred Rico had given him. He could always give her some of the money, he told himself. From the look of her, she could do with it.

Yes, he’d do that. But at the back of his mind, he was aware that money wouldn’t square himself with her. His mind recreated the struggle on the bed. That had been something no other woman he could imagine would have done, and she had done it for him. No, money wouldn’t square that.

The sound of her quick, light breathing told him she was asleep. She had guts, he thought: guts and nerve.

Eventually he fell asleep himself. He dreamed the girl in the drug store, with blood on her white coat, came and sat at the foot of the bed and looked at him. He wasn’t afraid of her.