Lay Her Among the Lilies

I

A buzzer buzzed, and the platinum blonde unwound her slinky form from behind her desk and came over to me. She said Mr. Willet would see me now. She spoke as if she were in church, and looked as if she should have been in the front row of Izzy Jacob’s pretties at the Orchid Room Follies.

I followed the sway of her hips across the outer office to the inner sanctum. She tapped on the door with an emerald green nail, opened it and tucked up a stray curl the way women have as she said, “Mr. Malloy is here.”

She stood aside as my cue to enter. I entered.

Willet was entrenched behind his super-sized desk and was staring dubiously at something that looked like a Last Will and Testament, and probably was. A fat, gold-tipped cigarette burned between two brown fingers. He waved me to a chair without looking up.

The platinum blonde went away. I watched her go. At the door she managed to snap a hip so it quivered under the black sheen of her silk dress. I was sorry when the door closed on her.

I sat down, and looked inside my hat and tried to remember when I had bought it. It seemed a long, long time ago. The hatter’s imprint was indecipherable. I told myself I’d buy myself a new hat if I could persuade Willet to part with any more money. If I couldn’t, then I’d make do with this one.

I thought these thoughts to pass the time. Willet seemed lost in his legal film-flammery: a picture of a big-shot lawyer making money. You could almost hear the dollars pouring into his bank.

“Cigarette,” he said suddenly and absently. Without taking his eyes off the mass of papers he clutched in his hand, he pushed the silver box towards me.

I took one of the fat, gold-tipped cigarettes I found in the box and lit it. I hoped it would make me feel like a moneymaker too, but it didn’t. It looked a lot better than it tasted: that kind of cigarette usually does.

Then suddenly, just as I was getting ready to doze, he tossed the papers into the out-tray, hitched forward his chair, and said, “Now, Mr. Malloy, let’s get at it. I have another appointment in ten minutes.”

“Then I had better see you some other time,” I said. “We won’t be through in ten minutes. I don’t know how much you value the Crosby account, Mr. Willet, but it must be worth a tidy sum. Without shouting it from the house tops it wouldn’t surprise me if you won’t have the account much longer.”

That jarred him. He stared at me bleakly, crushed out his half-smoked cigarette and leaned halfway across his desk.

“What exactly do you mean?”

“Do you want it in detail or do you want just a quick peep at it?” I asked. “It’s bad either way, but in detail it sort of creeps up on you.”

“How long will it take?”

“A half an hour, maybe more; and then you’ll want to ask questions. Say an hour, maybe a little longer. But you won’t be bored.”

He chewed his lower lip, frowning, then reached for the telephone and cancelled three appointments all in a row. I could see it hurt him to do it, but he did it. A ten-minute interview with a guy like Willet would he worth a hundred bucks, maybe more—to him, not to you.

“Go ahead.” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Why haven’t you been in touch with me before?”

“That’s part of it.” I told him, and laid my hat under my chair. I had a feeling I might he buying a new one before very long. “I’ve spent the past five days in an asylum for the insane.”

But I wasn’t going to jar him so easily again. He made a grunting noise, but his expression didn’t change.

“Before I get started,” I said, “maybe you might tell me about Miss Crosby’s banking account. Did you get a look at it?”

He shook his head.

“The bank manager quite rightly refused. If he had shown it to me and the fact had leaked out, he would have lost the account: it’s worth a lot of money. But he did tell me the insurance money had been converted to bearer bonds and has been withdrawn from the account.”

“Did he say when?”

“Soon after probate.”

“And you have written to Miss Crosby asking her to call on you?”

“Yes. She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“When did you write to her?”

“Tuesday: five days ago.”

“Did she answer by return?”

He nodded.

“Then I don’t think she’ll keep the appointment. Anyway, we’ll see.” I tapped the ash into his silver ashtray. “All right, that covers the points we made together. Now I’d better get on with my tale.”

I told him how MacGraw and Hartsell had called on me. He listened, sunk down in his chair, his eyes as anonymous as a pair of headlights. He neither laughed nor cried when I described how they had beaten me up. It hadn’t happened to him, so why should he care? But when I told him how Maureen had appeared on the scene, his brows came down in a frown, and he allowed himself the luxury of tapping on the edge of his desk with his fingernails.

That was probably the nearest he would ever get to a show of excitement.

‘“She took me to a house on the cliff road, east of San Diego Highway. She said it was hers: a nice place if you like places that cost a lot of money and are smart enough to house movie stars in. Did you know she had it?”

He shook his head.

“We sat around and talked,” I went on. “She wanted to know why I was interested in her, and I showed her her sister’s letter. For some reason or other she seemed scared. She wasn’t acting: she was genuinely frightened. I asked her if she was being blackmailed at that time, and she said she wasn’t, and that Janet was probably trying to make trouble for her. She said Janet hated her. Did she?”

Willet was playing with a paper-knife now; his face was set, and there was a worried look in his eyes.

“I understand they didn’t get on: nothing more than that. You know how it is with stepsisters.”

I said I knew how it was with stepsisters.

Time went by for a few minutes. The only sound in the room was the busy tick of Willet’s desk clock.

“Go on,” he said curtly. “What else did she say?”

“As you know, Janet and a guy named Douglas Sherrill were engaged to be married. What you probably don’t know is Sherrill is a dark horse; possibly a con man, certainly a crook. According to Maureen, she stole Sherrill from Janet.”

Willet didn’t say anything. He waited.

“The two girls had a showdown which developed into a fight,” I went on. “Janet grabbed a shot-gun. Old man Crosby appeared and tried to take the gun away from her. He got shot and killed.”

I thought for a moment Willet was going to jump right across his desk. But he controlled himself, and said in a voice that seemed to come from under the floor, “Did Maureen tell you this?”

“Oh. yes. She wanted to get it off her chest. Now here’s another bit you’ll like. The shooting had to be hushed up. I was wrong about Dr. Salzer signing Crosby’s certificate. He didn’t sign it. Mrs. Salzer signed it. According to her she is a qualified doctor, and a friend of the family. One of the girls called her and she came around and fixed things. Lessways, who isn’t the type to make things awkward for the wealthy, accepted the yarn that Crosby was cleaning his gun and shot himself accidentally. He took their word for it. So did Brandon.”

Willet lit a cigarette. He looked like a hungry man who’s been given a pie and finds nothing inside it.

“Go on,” he said, and sat back.

“For some reason or other, a nurse named Anona Freedlander was in the house at the time of the shooting, and she saw the accident. Mrs. Salzer wasn’t taking any chances. She locked the nurse up to make sure she wouldn’t talk. She’s been in a padded cell at Salzer’s sanatorium ever since.”

“You mean—against her will?”

“Not only against her will, but for two years they have been pumping drugs into her.”

“You’re not suggesting Maureen Crosby is aware of this?”

“I don’t know.”

Willet was breathing heavily now. The thought that a client as wealthy as Maureen Crosby might be charged with kidnapping seemed to shock him, although Anona Freedlander’s predicament hadn’t made him turn a hair.

“Incidentally, in case you’re working up some sympathy for her,” I said, “we got Anona out of the sanatorium last night.”

“Oh?” He looked disconcerted. “Is she likely to make trouble?”

I grinned unpleasantly.

“I should think it’s more than likely. Wouldn’t you want to start something after being kept locked up for two years just because some rich people are shy of appearing in the newspapers?”

He fingered his chin and did some heavy thinking.

“Perhaps we could give her a little compensation,” he said at last, but he didn’t look very happy. “I’d better see her.”

“No one sees her until she’s ready to see anyone. Right now, she doesn’t seem to know whether she’s coming or going.” I crushed out the cigarette and lit one of my own. “This kidnapping should be reported to the police. If it is, then the whole sordid story will hit the headlines. It will be your job then to hand over the Crosby millions to the Research Centre. They may or may not want you to handle the account: probably not.”

“All the more reason why I should have a talk with her,” he said. “These things can usually be arranged.”

“Don’t be too sure about that. Then there’s this little incident that happened to me,” I said mildly. “I was also kidnapped and held prisoner for five days, and also had a certain amount of drug pumped into me. That’s another little thing that should he reported to the police.”

“Why talk yourself out of a good job?” he returned, and for the first time since I had been in the room he allowed himself a slight grin. “I was about to suggest an extra retainer: say another five hundred dollars.”

That made my new hat a certainty.

“That tempts me. We might call it an insurance against risks,” I said. “But it would have to be over and above the fee you will pay for the work we are doing.”

“That’s all right.”

“Well, perhaps we might leave Anona Freedlander for the moment and go on with the story,” I said. “There’s quite a bit more; it gets better as it goes along.”

He pushed back his chair and got up. I watched him cross to a cellaret against the opposite wall and return with a bottle of Haigh & Haigh and two small glasses.

“Do you use this stuff?” he asked as he sat down again.

I said I used it whenever I could.

He poured two drinks, pushed one across the desk towards me, tossed the other down his throat and immediately refilled his glass. He put the bottle midway between us.

“Help yourself,” he said.

I drank a little of the Scotch. It was very good: quite the best liquor I had had in months. I thought it was wonderful how a big-shot lawyer could unbend when he sees trouble coming towards him with his name on it.

“According to Maureen, Crosby’s death preyed on Janet’s mind,” I told him. “Maybe it did, but she certainly had an odd way of showing it. I should have thought she wouldn’t have felt like playing tennis or running around at a time like that, but apparently she did. Anyway, also according to Maureen, Janet committed suicide about six or seven weeks after the shooting. She took arsenic.”

A tiny drop of Scotch wobbled out of Willet’s glass on to his blotter. He said, “Good God!” under his breath.

“That was hushed up, too. As it happened Mrs. Salzer was away at the time, so Maureen and Dr. Salzer called in Dr. Bewley, a harmless old goat, and told him Janet was suffering from malignant endocarditis, and he obligingly issued the death certificate. Janet had a personal maid, Eudora Drew, who possibly overheard Salzer and Maureen cooking up this yarn. She put on the bite, and they paid her. I got a line on her and went to see her. She was smart enough to fob me off and get on to Salzer, telling him I was offering five hundred bucks for information, and if he liked to raise the ante she would keep her mouth shut. Mrs. Salzer had an answer to that. She sent along an ex-gunman who was working at the sanatorium to reason with her. According to Mrs. S. he got rough and killed her.”

Willet drew in a long, slow breath. He took a drink like a man who needs a drink.

“The family butler, John Stevens, also knew something, or suspected something,” I went on. “I was persuading him to loosen up when he was kidnapped by six Wops who work for Sherrill. They got a little tough with him, and he died, but that still makes murder. Two murders. Now we get to the third. Are you liking this?”

He said in a gritty voice, “Go on.”

“You will remember Nurse Gurney? Mrs. Salzer admits kidnapping her, only, according to her, Nurse Gurney fell down the fire escape and broke her neck. Mrs. Salzer hid her somewhere in the desert. That’s murder, too.”

“This is fantastic.” Willet said. “It’s unbelievable.”

“It’s unbelievable only because of the motive. Here we have two people, Mrs. Salzer and Sherrill, committing three murders between them, to say nothing of kidnapping Anona Freedlander and myself, to protect a girl from newspaper publicity. That’s what makes it unbelievable. I think there’s a lot more to this business than we know about. It seems to me these two are desperately trying to keep a very lively cat from hopping out of the bag, and I want to find out what kind of cat it is.”

“It’s not newspaper publicity they’re worrying about,” Willet said. “Look at the money that’s involved.”

“Yeah, but I still think there’s a strange cat we haven’t found yet. I’m going to hunt for it. Anyway, I’ll get on. I haven’t finished yet. The punch line comes last. Maureen told me when she came into her money, Sherrill reverted to type. He turned blackmailer. He said he would circulate the rumour that because she stole him from Janet, Janet shot her father and killed herself. But if Maureen bought the Dream Ship for him, he would keep quiet. She bought the Dream Ship: that’s why she converted the insurance money into bearer bonds. She gave the bonds to Sherrill. Imagine how the newspapers would scream if it got out that Maureen Crosby was the backer of a gambling-ship. Wouldn’t that drop the whole of the Crosby money into the Research Centre’s lap?”

Willet managed to look green without actually turning green.

“She bought the Dream Ship,” he said in a stifled voice.

“That’s what she tells me. She also said she was frightened of Sherrill, and at that dramatic moment Mr. Sherrill made a personal appearance. He announced he was going to put Maureen where no one would find her and dispose of me in the same way. I was beginning to argue with him when someone from behind bent a sap over my head, and I woke up in Salzer’s sanatorium. We won’t waste time going into what happened there. It’s enough that my assistant kidded Lessways he was a well-known writer and got himself invited to the monthly visit to the asylum with the City’s councilmen. He spotted me, and got out and we took Anona Freedlandcr with us. What we have to find out is whether Sherrill has carried out his threat to hide Maureen away. If she doesn’t show up tomorrow, my bet is she’s hidden away: probably on Sherrill’s ship. But if she does show up, then I’ll be inclined to think she’s in this business with the rest of them, and she took me to her house so Sherrill could get at me.”

Willet poured another drink with a hand that wasn’t too steady.

“I don’t believe that’s likely,” he said.

“We’ll see. If Sherrill is holding her, have you any power to stop her money?”

“I haven’t any power over her money at all. All I can do is to advise the other trustees that she has broken the terms of the will.”

“Who are the other trustees?”

“Mr. Glynn and Mr. Coppley, my chiefs, who are of course, in New York.”

“Should they be consulted?”

“Not at this stage,” he said, and rubbed his jaw. “I’ll be frank with you, Malloy. They would follow out the terms of the will without hesitation, and without taking into consideration the girl might be innocent. To my way of thinking the will is over-harsh. Crosby has stipulated that if Maureen figures in the newspapers the money goes to the Research Centre. I imagine he got a little tired of her pranks, but he didn’t realize he was giving an unscrupulous blackmailer a weapon to use against her. And that’s what has probably happened.”

“It’s occurred to you we are covering up three murders?” I said, helping myself to another drink. All this talk made me dry. “So far Brandon isn’t digging too deep because he’s scared of the Crosby’s money, but if the facts turn out that Maureen’s hooked up in these murders, he’ll have to forget about her money and take some action: then you and I will be out on a limb.”

“We’ve got to give her the benefit of the doubt,” Willet said uneasily. “I’d never forgive myself if by acting too previously we caused her to lose her money unfairly. How about this Freedlander woman? How long will it be before she can talk?”

“I don’t know. Some days from the look of her. She can’t even remember who she is.”

“Is she in hospital?”

I shook my head.

“My secretary. Miss Bensinger, is looking after her. I’ve called in a doctor, but there’s nothing much he can do. He says it’s a matter of time. I’m going to San Francisco to-day to see her father. He may help her memory.”

“We’ll pay any expenses involved,” Willet said. “Charge it up to us.” He lit another cigarette. “What’s the next move?”

“We’ll have to wait and see if Maureen turns up. If she doesn’t, I’ll go out to the Dream Ship and see if she’s on board. There are other angles I’m looking into. At the moment I have a lot of loose strings that need tidying up.”

There was a tap on the door and the platinum blonde came in and swayed her way to Willet’s desk.

“Mrs. Pollard is getting impatient,” she murmured. “And this message has just come in. I thought you should see it at once.”

She gave him a slip of paper. He read what was written on it and his eyebrows shot up.

“All right. Tell Mrs. Pollard I’ll see her in five minutes,” he said. He looked at me. “Miss Crosby won’t be coming tomorrow. Apparently she is going to Mexico for a trip”

“Who phoned?” I asked, sitting forward.

“He didn’t say who he was,” the platinum blonde told Willet. “He said he was speaking for Miss Crosby, and would I give you the message right away.”

Willet raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head.

“All right, Miss Palmetter,” he said. “That’s all.”

I fished up my hat from under my chair and stood up.

“Looks like a visit to the Dream Ship,” I said.

Willet put the Scotch and the two glasses away.

“You’d better not tell me about that,” he said. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“You’ll be surprised how careful I will be.”

“She may have gone to Mexico,” he went on doubtfully.

I gave him a little grin, but he didn’t grin back.

“Be seeing you,” I said, and went into the outer office.

A fat, over-dressed woman, with pearls the size of pickled onions around her neck, sat breathing heavily in one of the lounging chairs. She gave me a stony glare as I picked my way past her to the door.

I looked back at the platinum blonde and tried my grin on her.

She opened her eyes very wide, stared emptily at me and then looked away.

I went out, my grin hanging in space, like an unwanted baby on a doorstep.

II

Jack Kerman was demonstrating to Trixy, my switchboard girl, how Gregory Peck kisses his leading ladies when I tramped in. They came apart a little slower than a flash of lightning, but not much. Trixy whipped to her seat and began to pull out plugs and push in plugs with an unconvincing show of efficiency.

Kerman gave me a sad smirk, shook his head sorrowfully, and followed me into the inner room.

“Do you have to do that?” I asked, going over to my desk and yanking open a drawer.

“Isn’t she a mite young?”

Kerman sneered.

“Not by the way she was acting,” he said.

I took out my .38 police special, shoved it in my hip pocket and collected a couple of spare magazines.

“I have news,” Kerman said, watching me a little pop-eyed. “Want it now?”

“I’ll have it in the car. You and me are going to ‘Frisco.”

“Heeled?”

“Yeah. From now on I’m taking no chances. Got your rod?”

“I can get it.”

While he was getting it I put a call through to Paula.

“How is she?” I asked, when she came on the line.

“About the same. Dr. Mansell’s just been in. He’s given her a mild shot. He says it’ll take a long time to taper her off.”

“I’m on my way to see her father. If he’ll take her over it’ll let us out. You all right?”

She said she was.

“I’ll look in on my way back.” I said, and hung up.

Kerman and I rode in the elevator to the ground floor, crossed the sidewalk to the Buick.

“We’re going out to the Dream Ship tonight,” I said as I started the engine.

“Officially or unofficially?”

“Unofficially: just like they do on the movies. Maybe we’ll even have to swim out there.”

“Sharks and things, ugh?” Kerman said. “Maybe they’ll try to shoot us when we get aboard.”

“They certainly will if they see us.” I edged past a truck and went up Centre Avenue with a burst of speed that startled two taxi-drivers and a girl driving a Pontiac.

“That’ll be something to look forward to,” Kerman said gloomily. He sunk lower in his seat. “I simply can’t wait. Maybe I’d better make a will.”

“Have you anything to leave?” I asked, surprised, and braked hard as the red light went up.

“Some dirty post-cards and a stuffed rat,” Kerman said. “I’ll leave those to you.”

As the light changed to green, I said, “What’s the news? Find anything on Mrs. Salzer?”

Kerman lit a cigarette, dropped the match into the back seat of the Pontiac as it tried to nose past us.

“You bet. Watch your driving, this is going to knock you sideways. I’ve been digging all morning. Know who she is?”

I swung the car on to Fairview Boulevard.

“Tell me.”

“Macdonald Crosby’s second wife: Maureen’s mother.”

I swerved half across the road, missed a truck that was pounding along and minding its own business, and had the driver curse at me. I edged back to the near side.

“I told you to watch it,” Kerman said, and grinned. “Hot, isn’t it?”

“Go on : what else?”

“About twenty-three years ago she was a throat and ear specialist in San Francisco. Crosby met her when she treated Janet for a minor complaint. He married her. She kept her practice, over-worked, had a nervous breakdown and had to quit. Crosby and she didn’t hit it off. He caught her fooling with Salzer. He divorced her. When he moved to Orchid City, she moved too, to be near Maureen. Like it?”

“Well, it helps,” I said. We were now on the Los Angeles and San Francisco Highway, and I had my foot hard down on the gas pedal. “It explains quite a lot of things, but not everything. It accounts for why she took a hand in the game. Naturally she’d be anxious her daughter should keep all that money. But for the love of Mike! Imagine going to the lengths she’s gone to. It’s my bet she’s crazy.”

“Probably is,” Kerman said complacently. “They were cagey about her at the Medical Association. Said she had a nervous breakdown and wouldn’t enlarge on it. She chucked a dummy right in the middle of an operation. One nurse I talked to said if it hadn’t been for the anesthetist she would have cut the patient’s throat: as bad as that.”

“Salzer any money?”

“Not a bean.”

“I wonder who promoted the sanatorium: probably Crosby. She’s not going to get away with Nurse Gurney’s death. When the police find the body I’m going to tip Mifflin.”

“They may never find her,” Kerman said. He had a very low opinion of the Orchid City police.

“I’ll help them, after I’ve seen Maureen.”

We drove for the next ten minutes in silence while I did some heavy thinking.

Then Kerman said, “Aren’t we wasting time going to see old man Freedlander? Couldn’t we have telephoned?”

“You get bright ideas a little late, don’t you? He may not be anxious to have her back. A telephone conversation can be closed down too easily. I have a feeling he’ll need talking to.”

We crossed the Oakland Bay Bridge a few minutes after three o’clock, turned off 3rd into Montgomery Street, and left into California Street.

Freedlander’s place was halfway down on the right-hand side. It was one of those nondescript dwelling-houses: six storeys of rabbit warren, blaring radio and yelling children.

A party of kids came storming down the stone steps to welcome us. They did everything to the car except puncture the tyres and drop lighted matches into the petrol tank.

Kerman picked out the biggest and toughest of them and gave him half a buck.

“Keep your pals off this car and you’ll get the other half,” he said.

The boy hauled off and socked a kid around the ears to show his good faith. We left him booting another.

“Nice neighbourhood,” Kerman said, stroking his moustache with his thumb-nail.

We went up the steps and examined the two long rows of mail-boxes. Freedlander’s place was on the fifth floor: No. 25. There was no elevator, so we walked.

“It’s going to make me a happy day if he’s out,” Kerman panted as he paused on the fourth landing to mop his brow.

“You drink too much,” I said, and began to climb the stairs to the next floor.

We came to a long, dingy passage. Someone’s radio was playing jazz. It blasted like a hot breath the length and breadth of the passage.

A slatternly looking woman came out of a room near by. She had on a black straw hat that had seen its best days, and in one hand she clutched a string shopping-bag. She gave us a look full of inquisitive interest, and went on down the passage to the head of the stairs. She turned to stare again, and Kerman put his thumbs to his ears and waggled his fingers at her. She went on down the stairs with her nose in the air.

We walked along the passage to No. 25. There was no bell or knocker. As I lifted my hand to rap, a muffled bang sounded beyond the door: the sound a paper bag makes when you’ve blown it up and slapped it with your hand.

I had my gun out and my hand on the door handle before the sound had died away. I turned the handle and pushed. To my surprise the door opened. I looked into a fair-sized room: a living-room if you judged by the way it was furnished.

I could hear Kerman breathing heavily behind me. I took in the room with a quick glance. There was no one to see. Two doors led off the room, and both were closed.

“Think it was a gun?” Kerman murmured.

I nodded, stepped quietly into the room, motioning him to stay where he was. He stayed where he was. I crossed the room and listened outside the right-hand door, but the noise from the blaring radio killed any other sound.

Waving to Kerman to get out of sight, I turned the handle and set the door moving with a gentle push, and at the same time stepped aside and pressed myself against the wall. We both waited and listened, but nothing happened. Through the open door drifted the strong, acid smell of cordite. I edged forward to peer into the room.

Slap in the middle of the floor lay a man. His legs were curled up under him, and his hands were clenched into his chest. Blood came through his fingers, ran down his wrists and on to the floor. He was a man around sixty, and I guessed he was Freedlander. As I looked at him, he gave a choking sigh and his hands flopped on the floor.

I didn’t move. I knew the killer must be in there. He couldn’t have got away.

Kerman sneaked into the living-room behind me and flattened himself against the other side of the door. His heavy .45 looked like a cannon in his fist.

“Come on out!” I snarled suddenly. My voice sounded like a buzz-saw cutting into a wood knot. “And with your hands in the air!”

A gun went off and the slug ploughed through the doorway, close to my head.

Kerman slid his arm around the door and fired twice. The crash of his gun rattled the windows.

“You can’t get away!” I said, trying to sound like a tough cop. “We’ve got you surrounded.”

But this time the killer wasn’t playing. There was silence and no movement. We waited, but nothing happened. I had visions of the cops arriving, and I wasn’t anxious to be involved with the Frisco cops: they were much too efficient.

I motioned to Kerman to stay where he was and sneaked over to the window. As I pushed it up, Kerman fired into the room again, and, under cover of the noise, I got the window open. I leaned out. A few feet away was the window of the inner room. It meant getting on to the sill, stepping across to die other sill with about a hundred-foot drop below. As I swung my leg out of the window I looked back. Kerman’s eyes were popping and he shook his head at me. I jerked my thumb to the next window, levered myself on to the sill.

Someone let off a gun from below and the slug splashed cement into my face. I was so startled I nearly let go of my hold, looked down into the street at the up-turned faces of a sizeable crowd. Right in the centre was a beefy-looking cop, taking aim at me.

I gave a strangled yell, flung myself forward and sideways, lurched against the window of the next room and crashed through the glass to land on all fours on the floor. A gun went off practically in my face, and then Kerman’s cannon boomed, bringing down a chunk of ceiling plaster.

I flattened out, wriggled desperately to get behind the bed as more shots shook the room.

I had a sudden vision of a dark, snarling face peering at me over the top of the bed, and a vicious blue nose automatic pointing at my head, then the hand holding the gun disappeared with a crash of gunfire and reappeared again as a spongy, red mess.

It was my pal the Wop with the dirty shirt. He gave a howl, staggered to the window as Kerman rushed at him. He hit Kerman with the back of his hand, dodged past him and ran out of the door, through the other room and into the passage. More gunfire broke out; a woman screamed: a body thudded to the floor.

“Watch out!” I gasped. “There’s a gun-happy cop out there. He’ll shoot as soon as look at you.”

We stood still and waited.

But the cop wasn’t taking any chances.

“All out!” he bawled from behind the door. Even from that distance I could hear him breathing. “I’ll blast you to hell if you bring out a rod.”

“We’re coming,” I said. “Don’t excite yourself, and don’t shoot.”

We moved out of the room and into the passage with our hands in the air.

Lying in the passage was the Wop. He had a bullet-hole through the centre of his forehead.

The cop was one of those massive men, big in the feet and solid bone in the head. He snarled at us, threatening us with his gun.

“Take it easy, brother,” I said, not liking the look of him. “You have two stiffs on your hands already. You don’t want two more.”

“I wouldn’t care.” he said, showing his teeth. “Two or four makes no difference to me. Back up against that wall until the wagon arrives.”

We backed up against the wall. It didn’t take long before we heard the wail of a siren. Two white-coated figures came panting up the stairs, together with a representative group from the Homicide Bureau. I was glad to see Detective District Commander Dunnigan was with them. He and I had done business with each other before.

“Hello,” he said, and stared at us. “This your funeral?”

“Very nearly was,” I said. “There’s another stiff inside. Could you tell this officer we’re not dangerous? I keep thinking he’s going to shoot us.”

Dunnigan waved the copper aside.

“I’ll be out to talk to you in a moment.”

He went in to look at Freedlander.

“He’s a pal of ours,” I told the copper who was glaring at us. “You should be more careful who you shoot at.”

The copper spat.

“I was a mug not to have rubbed you two punks out,” he said in disgust. “If they had found me with four stiffs maybe they would have made me a sergeant.”

“What a charming little mind you have,” Kerman said and backed away.

III

We started hack to Orchid City at five o’clock after a couple of awkward hours in Detective District Commander Dunnigan’s office. He had done his best to dig into a case that kept snapping shut every time he thought he had worked the lid off, but he hadn’t succeeded.

My story was straightforward, and more or less true. I said Freedlander’s daughter had been missing for a couple of years. This he was able to check by calling the Missing People’s Bureau in Orchid City. I told him I had found her wandering the streets suffering from loss of memory, and, having taken her to my secretary’s apartment, had immediately got in my car to come to ‘Frisco to take Freedlander to her.

He wanted to know how I knew she was Freedlander’s daughter, and I said I read the Missing People’s Bulletin the police circulated and remembered her description.

He stared bleakly at me for some minutes, wondering whether to believe me or not, and I stared right back at him.

“Should have thought you had better things to do,” was his final comment.

I went on to tell him how I had arrived at Freedlander’s apartment, heard a shot, broke in, found Freedlander dead and the Wop trying to get away. I said he fired at us and we fired at him and handed Dunnigan our gun permits. I said maybe the Wop was a burglar. No, I didn’t think I had seen him before, although I might have. All Wops looked alike to me.

Dunnigan had a sneaking feeling there was much more behind all this than I was telling him. I could see that plainly on his big, square-shaped face. He said so.

I told him he must have been reading too many detective stories, and could I go now as I had a lot of work to do?

But he starred in from the beginning again, probing, asking questions, wasting a lot of time, and finally finishing up just where he had started. He looked like a baffled bull as he sat glaring at me.

Luckily the Wop had taken Freedlander’s money and his gold watch: the only things of value in the apartment, so it was a perfect set-up for a routine shoot-and-run stick-up. Finally, Dunnigan decided to let us go.

“Maybe it was a stick-up,” he said heavily. “If you two birds hadn’t been in on it, it would have been a stick-up, but you being there makes me wonder.”

Kerman said if he worried about a little case like this, he would be an old man and retired before he got to the big cases.

“Never mind,” Dunnigan said sourly. “I don’t know what it is about you guys. Whenever you show your faces in this City, trouble starts, and it usually starts for me. I wish you’d keep out. I’ve got all the work I want without you coming here and making me more.”

We both laughed politely, shook hands, promised we would attend the inquest and left him.

We didn’t say a word until we were in the Buick, and driving along Oakland Bay Bridge, heading for home. Then Kerman said gently, “If that guy ever finds out the Wop was the one who kidnapped Stevens, I have a feeling life may he a little difficult for you.”

“It’s difficult enough as it is. We’re now landed with Anona.” I drove along for a mile or so before saying, “You know, this is a hell of a case. All along I have had the feeling that someone is trying very hard to keep a big, strong cat from getting out of the bag. We’re missing something. We’re looking at the bag, and not at the cat, and the cat is the key to the whole set-up. It has to be. Everyone who has caught sight of it has been silenced: Eudora Drew, John Stevens, Nurse Gurney, and now Freedlander. And I have an idea that Anona Freedlander knows about the cat, too. Somehow we have to get her memory going again: and fast.”

“If she knows something why didn’t they knock her off instead of keeping her in that home?” Kerman said.

“That’s what’s worrying me. Up to now all of them have been killed more or less accidentally, but Freedlander was murdered. That means someone is getting in a panic. It also means that Anona is no longer safe.”

Kerman sat up.

“You think they’ll try to get at her?”

“Yeah. We’ll have to hide her some place safe. Maybe we could get Doc Mansell to put her in his Los Angeles clinic and I’ll get Kruger to lend me a couple of his bruisers to sit outside the door.”

“Maybe you have been reading too many detective stories, too,” Kerman said, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes.

I kept the Buick moving at high speed while I thought about Freedlander’s killing, and the more I thought the more jittery I got.

We reached San Lucas, and I pulled up outside a drug store.

“What now?” Kerman asked, surprised.

“I’m going to call Paula,” I said. “I should have called her from ‘Frisco. I’ve got the shakes.”

“Take it easy,” Kerman said, and looked startled. “You’re letting your imagination run

away with you.”

“I hope I am,” I said, and made for the phone booth.

Kerman clutched my arm and pulled me back.

“Look at that!”

He was pointing to a stack of evening newspapers on the magazine counter. Inch headlines smeared across the front page read:

“Get it,” I said, jerked my arm free and shut myself in the booth. I put the call through to Paula’s apartment and waited. I could hear the buzz-buzz note of the ringing tone, but no one answered. I stood there, my heart thumping, the receiver against my ear, listening and waiting.

She should be there. We had agreed Anona wasn’t to be left alone.

Kerman came to stare at my tense face through the glass door. I shook my head at him, broke the connection and asked the operator to try again.

While she was making another connection, I opened the door.

“No answer,” I said. “She’s trying again.”

Kerman’s face darkened.

“Let’s get on. We have a good hour’s run yet.”

“We’ll do it in better time than that,” I said, and, as I was about to hang up, the operator came on and said the line was in order, but there was no answer.

I rammed down the receiver, and together we ran out of the store. I sent the Buick whipping down the main street, and as soon as we were clear of the town I opened up.

Kerman was trying to read the newspaper, but, at the speed we were going, he had trouble in holding it steady.

“She was found this afternoon,” he bawled in my ear. “She took poison after Salzer had

reported Quell’s death to the police. No word about Anona. Nothing about Nurse Gurney.”

“She’s the first of them to get cold feet,” I said. “Or else someone fed her poison. To hell with her, anyway. I’m scared about Paula.”

Kerman said afterwards he had never been driven in a car so fast in his life, and he didn’t ever want to go through the experience again. At one time the speedometer needle was stuck at ninety-two, and kept there as we roared along the wide coast road with, the horn blaring.

A speed cop came after us, but he couldn’t make the grade. He stuck behind for two or three miles, then dropped out of sight. I guessed he would phone our description through to the next town, so I swung off the main road and went pelting along a dirt road that wasn’t much wider than twenty feet. Kerman just sat with his eyes closed and prayed.

We arrived in Orchid City fifteen minutes under the hour, and that was driving. We had done the sixty odd miles in forty-five minutes.

Paula had an apartment on Park Boulevard, a hundred yards or so from Park Hospital. We roared up the broad boulevard and braked outside the apartment block with a squeal of tyres like hog-day in a slaughter-house.

The elevator seemed to crawl to the third floor. It got there eventually, and we both raced down the passage to Paula’s apartment. I rammed my thumb in the bell-push and leaned my weight on it. I could hear the bell ringing, but no one answered. Sweat was standing out on my face as if I’d just come out of a shower.

I stood away.

“Together,” I said to Kerman.

We lunged at the door with our shoulders. It was a good door, but we were pretty good men. The third lunge snapped the lock and carried us into the neat little hall.

We had our guns in our fists as we went through the living-room to Paula’s bedroom.

The bed was in disorder. The sheet and blanket lay on the floor.

We went into the bathroom and the spare bedroom: the apartment was empty: both Paula and Anona had vanished.

I rushed to the telephone and got though to the office. Trixy said Paula hadn’t called. She said a man who wouldn’t give his name had telephoned twice. I told her to give him Paula’s number if he phoned again and hung up.

Kerman gave me a cigarette with a hand that shook slightly. I lit it without being conscious of what I was doing and sat on the bed.

“We’d better get out to the Dream Ship,” Kerman said in a tight, hard voice. “And get out there quick.”

I shook my head.

“Take it easy,” I said.

“What the hell!” Kerman exploded, and started for the door. “They’ve got Paula. Okay, we go out there and talk to them. Come on!”

“Take it easy,” I said, not moving. “Sit down and don’t be obvious.”

Kerman came up to me.

“You crazy or something?”

“Do you think you’d ever get near that ship in daylight?” I said, looking at him. “Use your head. We’re going out there, but we’ll go when it’s dark.”

Kerman made an angry gesture.

“I’m going now. If we wait it may be too late.”

“Oh, shut up!” I said. “Get a drink. You’re staying right here.”

He hesitated, then went into the kitchen. After a while he came back with a bottle of Scotch, two glasses and a jug of ice-water. He made drinks, gave me one and sat down.

“There’s not a damn thing we can do if they’ve decided to knock her on the head,” I said.

“Even if they haven’t done it now, they’d do it the moment they saw us coming. We’ll go out there when it’s dark, and not before.”

Kerman didn’t say anything. He sat down, took a long pull at his drink and squeezed his hands together.

We sat there, staring at the floor, not thinking, not moving: just waiting. We had four hours, probably a little more before we could go into action.

At half-past six we were still sitting there. The Scotch bottle was about half full. Cigarette butts mounted in the ashtrays. We were fit to walk up the wall.

Then the telephone rang: a shrill sound that sounded sinister in the silent little apartment.

“I’ll get it,” I said, and walked stiff legged across the room and picked up the receiver.

“Malloy?” A man’s voice.

“Yes.”

“This is Sherrill.”

I didn’t say anything, but waited, looking across at Kerman.

“I have your girl on board, Malloy,” Sherrill said. His voice was gentle; it whispered in my ear.

“I know,” I said.

“You better come out and fetch her,” Sherrill said. “Say around nine o’clock. Don’t come before. I’ll have a boat at the pier to bring you out. Come alone, and keep this close. If you bring the police or anyone with you, she’ll be rapped on the head and dropped overboard. Understand?”

I said I understood.

“See you at nine o’clock then,” he said, and hung up.

IV

Lieutenant Bradley of the Missing People’s Bureau was a thickset, middle-aged, disillusioned Police Officer who sat for long hours behind a shabby desk in a small office on the fourth floor of Police Headquarters and tried to answer unanswerable questions. All day long and part of the night people came to him or called him on the telephone to report missing relatives, and expected him to find them.

Not an easy job when, in most cases, the man or woman who had disappeared had gone away because they were sick of their homes or their wives or their husbands and were taking good care not to be found again. A job I wouldn’t have had for twenty times the pay Bradley got, and a job I couldn’t have handled anyway.

A light still burned behind the frosted panel of his office door when I knocked. His bland voice, automatically cordial, invited me to come in.

There he was, sitting behind his desk, a pipe in his mouth, a weary expression in his deep-set, shrewd brown eyes. A big man: going bald, with a pouch and bags under his eyes. A man who did a good job, had no credit nor publicity for it, and who didn’t want any.

The placid brow came down in a frown when he saw me.

“Go away,” he said without hope. “I’m busy. I don’t have the time to listen to your troubles; I have troubles of my own.”

I closed the door and leaned my back against it. I wasn’t in the mood for a Police Lieutenant’s pleasantries and I was in a hurry.

“I want service, Bradley,” I said, “and I want it fast. Do I get it from you or do I go to Brandon?”

The pale brown eyes looked startled.

“You don’t have to talk to me like that, Malloy,” he said. “What’s biting you?”

“Plenty, but I haven’t time to go into details.” I crossed the small space between the door and his desk, put my fists on his blotter and stared at him. “I want all you’ve got on Anona Freedlander. Remember her? She was one of Dr. Salzer’s nurses up at the Sanatorium on Foothill Boulevard. She disappeared on May 15th, 1947.”

“I know,” Bradley said, and his bush eyebrows climbed an inch. “You’re the second nuisance who’s asked to see her file in the past four hours. Funny how these things come in pairs. I’ve noticed it before.”

“Who was it?”

Bradley dug his thumb into the bell-push on his desk.

“That’s not your business,” he said. “Sit down and don’t crowd me.”

As I pulled up a chair a police clerk came in and stood waiting.

“Let’s have Freedlander’s file again,” Bradley said to him. “Make it snappy. This gent’s in a hurry.”

The clerk gave me a stony stare and went away like a centenarian climbing a steep flight of stairs.

Bradley lit his pipe and stared down at his ink-stained fingers. He breathed gently.

“Still sticking your nose into the Crosbys’ affairs?” he asked, without looking at me.

“Still doing it,” I said shortly.

He shook his head.

“You young and ambitious guys never learn, do you? I heard MacGraw and Hartsell called on you the other night.”

“They did. Maureen Crosby showed up and rescued me. How do you like that?”

He gave a little grin.

“I’d’ve liked to have been there. Was she the one who hit MacGraw?”

“Yeah.”

“Quite a girl.”

“I hear there was a shindig up at Salzer’s place,” I said, watching him. “Looks as if your Sports fund’s going to suffer.”

“I’d cry about that. I don’t have to worry about sport at my age.”

We brooded over each other for a minute or so, then I said, “Anyone report a girl named Gurney missing? She was another of Salzer’s nurses.”

He pulled at his thick nose, shook his head.

“Nope. Another of Salzer’s nurses, did you say?”

“Yeah. Nice girl: got a good body, but maybe you’re a mite old to bother about bodies.”

Bradley said he was a little old for that kind of thing, but he was staring thoughtfully at me now.

“She wouldn’t be any good to you, anyway; she’s dead,” I said.

“Are you trying to tell me something or are you just being tricky?” he asked, an acid note in his voice.

“I heard Mrs. Salzer tried to kidnap her from her apartment. The girl fell down the fire escape and broke her neck. Mrs. S. planted her somewhere in the desert, probably near the sanatorium.”

“Who told you?”

“An old lady fooling around with a crystal ball.”

He scratched the side of his jaw with the end of his pipe and stared blankly at me.

“Better tell Brandon. That’s a Homicide job.”

“This is a tip, brother, not evidence. Brandon likes facts, and I mightn’t be ready to give them to him. I’m telling you because you may or may not steer the information into the proper channels and leave me out of it.”

Bradley sighed, realized his pipe had gone out and groped for matches.

“You young fellas are too tricky,” he said. “All right, I’ll give it to my carrier pigeon. How much of it is true?”

“All of it. Why do you think Mrs. S. took poison?”

The clerk came in and laid the folder on the desk. He went away still at the slow deliberate pace. Probably his brain worked as fast as his legs.

Bradley untied the tapes and opened the file. We both stared at a half a dozen folded sheets of blank paper for some seconds.

“What the devil…” Bradley began, blood rising to his face.

“Take it easy,” I said, reached out and poked at the sheets with my finger. Only blank sheets: nothing else.

Bradley dug his thumb into the bell-push and kept it there.

Maybe the clerk scented trouble because he came in fast.

“What’s this?” Bradley said. “What are you playing at?”

The clerk gaped at the blank sheets.

“I don’t know, sir,” he said, changing colour. “The file was fastened when I took it from your out-tray.”

Bradley breathed heavily, started to say something, changed his mind and waved a hand to the door.

“Get out,” he said.

The clerk went.

There was a pause, then Bradley said, “This could cost me my job. The cram must have switched the papers.”

“You mean he’s taken the contents of the file and left that as a dummy?”

Bradley nodded.

“Must have done. There was a photograph and a description and our progress report when I gave it to him.”

“No copies?”

He shook his head.

I thought for a moment.

“The fella who asked for the file,” I said, “was he tall, dark, powerful; a sort of movie-star type?”

Bradley stared at him.

“Yeah. Do you know him?”

“I’ve seen him.”

“Where?”

“Do you want those papers back?”

“Of course I do. What do you mean?”

I stood up.

“Give me until nine o’clock tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll either have them for you or the man who took them. I’m working on something, Bradley. Something I don’t want Brandon mixed up in. You don’t have to report this until the morning, do you?”

“What are you talking about?” Bradley demanded.

“I’ll have the papers or the man by tomorrow morning, if you sit tight and keep your mouth shut,” I said, and made for the door.

“Hey! Come back!” Bradley said, starting to his feet.

But I didn’t go back. I ran down the four flights of stairs to the front entrance where Kerman was waiting for me in the Buick.

V

There were four of us: Mike Finnegan, Kerman, myself and a worried looking little guy wearing a black, greasy, slouch hat, no coat, a dirty shirt and soiled white ducks. We sat in the back room of Delmonico’s bar, a bottle of Scotch and four glasses on the table, and a lot of tobacco smoke cluttering up the air.

The little guy in the greasy hat was Joe Dexter. He owned a haulage business, and ran freight to the ships anchored in the harbour. Finnegan claimed he was a friend of his, but by the way he was acting you wouldn’t have known it.

I had put my proposition to him, and he was sitting staring at me as if he thought I was crazy.

“Sorry, mister,” he said at last. “I couldn’t do it. It’d ruin my business.”

Kerman was lolling in his chair, a cigarette hanging from his lips, his eyes closed. He opened one eye as he said, “Who cares about a business? You want to relax, brother. There’re more things in life than a business.”

Dexter licked his lips, scowled at Kerman and squirmed in his chair. He turned pleadingly to Mike.

“I can’t do it,” he said; “not a thing like this. The Dream Ship is one of my best customers.”

“She won’t be for much longer,” I said. “Cash in while the going’s good. You’ll make a hundred bucks on this deal.”

“A hundred bucks!” Dexter’s face twisted into a sneer. “Sherrill pays me more than that every month: regular money. I’m not doing it.”

I motioned to Mike to take it easy. He was straining forward, making a growling noise in his throat.

“Look,” I said to Dexter, “all we want you to do is to deliver this case of supplies to the ship tonight. Do that, and you’ll get a hundred. What’s scaring you?”

“And you’re going to travel inside the case,” Dexter said. “To hell with that for an idea. No one’s allowed on that ship without a permit. If they catch you—and they will —they’ll know I had something to do with it. The least Sherrill would do would be to shut down my account.

He’s likely to send someone over to crack my skull. I’m not doing it.”

As I refilled the glasses I glanced at my wrist-watch. It was half-past seven. Time was

moving.

“Listen, Joe,” Mike said, leaning forward, “this guy’s a friend of mine, see? He wants to get aboard that ship. If he wants to get aboard, he’s going to get aboard, see? Sherrill ain’t the only guy who can crack a skull. Do you do the job or do I have to get tough?”

Kerman pulled out his Colt .45 and laid it on the table.

“And when he’s through with you. I’ll start,” he said.

Dexter eyed the Colt and flinched away from Mike’s concentrated glare.

“You guys can’t threaten me,” he said feebly.

“We can try,” Kerman said calmly. “Give you ten seconds before we start something.”

“Don’t crowd the fella,” I said, and took from my wallet ten ten-dollar bills. I spread them out on the table and pushed them towards Dexter. “Come on, take your money and let’s get moving. Sherrill’s washed up. The cops will move in by tomorrow. Cash in while the going’s good.”

Dexter hesitated, then picked up the notes, and rustled them between dirty fingers.

“I wouldn’t do it for anyone else,” he said to Mike.

We finished our drinks, pushed back our chairs and went out on to the water-front. It was a hot-still night, with a hint of rain in the sky. Way out on the horizon I could see the lights of the Dream Ship.

We tramped down an alley to Dexter’s warehouse. It was in darkness. As he unlocked and pushed open the door the smell of tar, oil, damp clothes and rubber came out to greet us. The warehouse was big and cluttered up with cases and coils of rope and bundles tied up in tarred paper, waiting to be delivered to the ships at anchor beyond the harbour. In the middle of the floor was a five-foot square packing-case.

“That’s it,” Dexter said gloomily.

We got busy unpacking the case.

“I want a hammer and a chisel,” I told Dexter.

While he was getting the tools, Kerman said, “You’re sure this is the thing to do?”

I nodded.

“With any luck I’ll have nearly half an hour on board before they expect me to arrive. I can do a lot in that time. When you and Mike come alongside at nine o’clock I’ll start something to give you a chance to board her. After that, it’s each man for himself.”

Dexter came over with the tools.

“Careful how you nail me up,” I said to Kerman. “I want to get out fast.”

Mike waved Dexter away.

“We’ll see to this, pally. Just sit over there and behave.”

He didn’t want Dexter to see the Sten gun Kerman was taking out of the suit-case he had

brought with him. Under cover of Mike’s thickset body, Kerman put the gun at the bottom of

the packing-case.

“You have plenty of room,” he told me. “Sure you wouldn’t like me to go instead?”

I climbed into the case.

“You come with Mike at nine. If there are more than one with Sherrill’s boat, and you don’t think you can handle them, you’ll have to come alone. They’ll think you’re me, anyway. If you hear shooting on board, get Mifflin and a bunch of cops and come out fighting. Okay?”

Kerman nodded. He looked very worried.

“Mike, you come along with Dexter,” I went on. “If he fluffs his lines, knock him on the head and chuck him overboard.”

Scowling ferociously, Mike said he would do just that thing.

When Kerman fitted on the lid there was room enough in the case for me to sit down with my knees drawn up to my chin. Air came through the joints in the case. I reckoned it wouldn’t take me more than a minute or so to get out.

Kerman nailed down the lid, and between the three of them they got the case on to a sack barrow. The journey down to the water-front was pretty rough, and I collected a few bruises by the time they got the case into Dexter’s boat.

The outboard motor started up and chugged us out to sea. The wind, coming through the cracks in the case was sharp, and the motion of the boat as it slapped its way through the rollers bothered me.

Minutes went by, then Mike whispered that we were running alongside the Dream Ship.

A voice yelled from somewhere, and there was some cross talk from the boat to the ship. Someone seemed to be objecting to handling the case at this time of night. Dexter played up well. He said he had to see a sick brother tomorrow, and if the case wasn’t taken on board now, they’d have to wait for the stuff until the following day.

The man on the ship cursed Dexter, and said to stand by while he slung a derrick.

Mike kept me informed of what was going on by whispering through one of the air holes in the case.

After more delay the case jerked violently and rose in the air. I braced myself for a rough landing. It was rough all right. The case crashed down somewhere inside the ship and jarred me to the heels.

The man who had cursed Dexter cursed him again. His voice sounded close, then a door slammed and I was left alone.

I waited, listening, but heard nothing. After a while I decided it would be safe to break out. I tapped the chisel into one of the plank joints, levered the plank back. It took me less than a minute to get out of the case. I found myself in inky darkness. There was a smell like the smell in Dexter’s warehouse, and I guessed I was in the ship’s hold.

I rook out my flashlight and shone the beam around the vast cellar. It was full of stores, liquor and harrels of beer, and empty silence. At the far end of the cellar was a door. I went to it, slid it hack a couple of inches and peered out into a narrow, well-lighted corridor.

I held the Sten gun by my side. I didn’t want to be bothered with it, but Kerman had insisted. He said with a Sten gun I could argue with half the crew. I doubted it, and took it along more for his peace of mind than mine.

I began to edge along the corridor to a perpendicular steel ladder I could see at the far end, and which. I guessed, led to the upper deck. Halfway down the corridor I came to an abrupt halt. A pair of feet, then legs in white drill trousers appeared on the ladder. A second later a sailor stood gaping at me.

He was a big guy: nearly as big as I was, and tough-looking. I pushed the Sten gun at him and showed him my teeth. His hands went up so fast he took the skin off his knuckles against the low ceiling.

“Open your trap and I’ll rip you in half,” I snarled at him.

He stood motionless, staring at the Sten gun, his jaw hanging loose.

“Turn around,” I said.

He turned and I hit him with the butt of the gun on the back of his head.

As he fell I grabbed hold of his shirt and lowered him gently to the floor.

I was sweating and worried. I had to get him out of sight before anyone else showed up.

Right by me was a door. I took a chance, turned the handle and looked into an empty cabin.

Probably it was his cabin, and he had been going to it.

I caught him up under his arm-pits and dragged him into the cabin, shut and bolted the door.

Working fast, I stripped him, took off my clothes and put on his.

His peaked yachting-cap was a little big for me, but it hid my face.

I gagged him, rolled him in a sheet and tied the sheet with his belt and a length of cord I found in a cabin. Then I hauled him on to the bunk, left the Sten gun beside him, shoved my .38 down the front of my pants and went to the door.

I listened, heard nothing, opened the door a crack and peered out. The corridor was as empty as a dead man’s mind, and as quiet. I turned off the light, slid out of the cabin and locked the door after me.

I looked at my watch. It was twenty-five minutes past eight. I had only thirty-five minutes before Kerman showed up.