Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 6, May 1963

The Nameless Clue by Helen McCloy

Not only was Benda a vicious racketeer posing as a reputable business man... he had the police under his thumb. And that called for a special kind of murder probe.

Alec Norton was startled. He could only incredulously echo his chief’s words. “You mean you want me to sleep in a room where murder has just been committed?”

“Why not?” Dave Tanner, feature editor of the Syndicated Press, stood in his office his back to a window overlooking the harbor. His head was dark against the pale winter sky. A smile tugged one corner of his hard mouth. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts.”

Norton, grinned wryly as he stared at Tanner. “Fun’s fun, chief, but I’m no Mike Shayne. I’m a feature writer and—”

“You won’t be a feature writer for long unless you learn to take assignments without squawking!” snapped Tanner. “Listen, Alec, this may be a big story — bigger than you think. There’s been too many unsolved murders in Pearson City lately.”

“Okay, I’m a wage slave,” Alec Norton said, grumbling. “Let’s have the dope.”

“Diana Clark was murdered in a suite at the Hotel Westmore in Pearson City. There were signs of a violent struggle — chairs overturned, blood on the rug, blood in the bathtub where the murderer appears to have washed his hands. But there were no clues — absolutely no clues of any kind.” Dave Tanner paused.

Norton said slowly and distinctly, “Nerts!”

“That’s what I think. Where there’s been a struggle there are bound to be clues. But the police have dropped the case. I want you to go to Pearson City and find out why. Take the same plane Diana Clark took and get there at the same time. Go to the same hotel and occupy the same suite. Eleven hundred and five.”

“Will the hotel let someone have it so soon after the crime?”

“Why not? The police have finished with it. When a murder is committed in a hotel, the scene of the crime is always rented sooner or later. The number of the suite hasn’t been published in any newspaper. To the hotel people, you’ll just be an innocent transient who happens to ask for that particular suite. Once inside, keep your eyes open!”

“For what?” Norton was frankly skeptical. “The police will have gone over every square inch of the place with a fine-tooth comb. The hotel people will have scoured and vacuumed it. Ten to one, it’s been redecorated!”

“I’m betting on the chance they may have overlooked something,” said Tanner. “Interview the bellboy and chambermaid who waited on Clark. Study the topography of the suite. Try to imagine you’re going to be murdered yourself the night you arrive between eleven p.m. and one a.m.”

Alec Norton smirked. “Cheerful way to spend an evening! Hey,” he said, “suppose the murderer should return to the scene of the crime!”

Tanner’s eyes gleamed. He spoke softly. “That is exactly what I’m hoping for. After all, the murderer is still at large. And the key to the suite is still missing.”

A couple of hours later, on the plane, Alec Norton refreshed his memory of the Clark case by reading teletype flimsies — spot news stories about the crime sent out by the Pearson City Star, a member of the Syndicated Press.

Diana Clark was a promising young actress living in New York. Two weeks ago she had gone to the Texan border town of Pearson City. Daniel Forbes, her divorced husband, lived there. So did the firm of lawyers who had got her the divorce, Kimball and Stacy. She reached Pearson City at nine p.m. and went straight to the Hotel Westmore. She telephoned the junior partner of her law firm, Martin Stacy, and asked him to call at her hotel that evening.

At the time of her divorce Forbes had promised to pay her a lump sum in lieu of further alimony if she re-married. According to Stacy, Diana Clark told him she was planning to remarry and she wanted him to ask Forbes for the lump sum. Stacy replied that it would bankrupt Forbes who had just sunk all his money in a real estate venture.

Stacy said he left her hotel suite at nine forty-five p.m. She was in good health and spirts, but still determined to get the money from Forbes. No one saw Stacy leave. No other visitor inquired for Diana Clark that evening.

Next morning she was found dead in her suite with a bullet from a .22 calibre Colt revolver in her brain. According to the medical examiner, she was shot between eleven p.m. and one a.m. Her door was locked and the key was missing. So was the gun.

When Norton finished reading, his hasty surmise was that either Forbes or Stacy had killed Diana Clark. Forbes had a motive and Stacy an opportunity. Find a motive for Martin Stacy or an opportunity for Daniel Forbes and the case would be solved.

Arriving in Pearson City, Alec Norton found the Hotel Westmore to be one of the older hotels in town. Norton’s first impression of the lobby was gloomy, Victorian dignity — black walnut and red plush, a black and white tiled floor and Persian rugs.

He studied the night clerk as a man measures an adversary. “I’d like the suite I had the last time I was here.”

“Certainly, sir.” The clerk was young and limp with a tired smile. “Do you recall the room number?”

“It was eleven-o-five.”

The clerk’s smile vanished. “That suite is taken.”

Norton’s glance went to a chart of guest names and room numbers hanging on the wall behind the clerk. Opposite the number 1105 stood one word: Unoccupied.

The clerk’s glance followed Norton’s. “We have better rooms vacant now,” he protested. “Larger and more comfortable, and at the same rate.”

Norton leaned on the desk, holding the clerk’s eyes with his. “Suppose you tell me the real reason why you don’t want me to have that suite,” he said. “There might be a story in it.”

“Story — what do you mean?”

“I’m with the Syndicated Press. A newspaper feature service. Either I get the story — or I get the suite.”

It was blackmail and the clerk knew it. “There is no story,” he said tremulously. “Front! Show this gentleman to eleven-o-five.”

Norton followed a bellhop across the lobby to the elevator. He could feel eyes on his back. He wished it had not been necessary to announce the number of his suite quite so publicly.

The corridor on the eleventh floor was dimly lighted by electric globes at intervals of thirty feet. A thick, crimson carpet muffled every footfall. At the end of the corridor Norton noticed a door marked: Fire Stairs. It was a neat setup for a murder trap.

The bellhop unlocked a white door numbered, 1105. The room was dark but a neon sign flashed and faded beyond the window. A few snowflakes sifted down through the theatrical red glow, languid as falling feathers. Hastily the bellhop switched on a ceiling light. The room looked normal and even commonplace.

Norton played the part of a curious tourist. “Tell me something,” he said. “Is there anything wrong with this room?”

“N-no.” The bellhop dropped his eyes.

“Afraid you’ll lose your job if you talk?”

The bellhop raised his eyes. “Listen, mister. If you want my advice, pack up and take the next plane back to New York.”

“Were you on duty here two weeks ago?”

The bellhop hesitated. Then, “I’m not talking. But I wouldn’t spend a night in here for a million bucks!”

He was in a hurry to get out of the room. Norton gave him a fifty-cent tip and let him go.

Alone, Norton examined the doors. There were three — one leading to a bathroom, one to the hall and the one to the room next door was immovable — locked or bolted on the other side. He locked the hall door and put the key with his watch on the bedside table. It was just a quarter of nine.

Norton glanced into the bathroom. He remembered what Dave Tanner had told him — Blood in the bathtub where the murderer appears to have washed his hands. It seemed clean now, but Norton decided against a bath. He crawled into bed and switched off the light.

In the darkness he could see the crimson reflection of the neon sign on the wall opposite the window. It winked steadily as a metronome — on, off... on, off. In less than five minutes, he was asleep.

Norton never knew just what woke him. Yet suddenly he was wide awake. There was no sound and apparently no movement in the room but the noiseless pulsation of the red light on the wall.

He lay still, listening to the silence, watching the light. Somewhere in the city a big clock sounded twelve solemn notes — midnight. According to the medical examiner she was shot between eleven p.m. and one a.m.

Alec Norton heard a faint sound. It was inside the room. He let his eyelids droop and breathed heavily, feigning sleep. The sound was coming nearer. A large shadow fell across the illuminated wall, distorted and indefinable.

Cautiously, Norton tensed his muscles, ready to jump. The bed-springs betrayed him with a creak. The shadow vanished. Someone had moved beyond the range of the light from the window.

Abandoning caution, Norton leapt out of bed and groped for the light switch. Before he could snap it on, a stinging blow caught him in the ribs. He lashed out blindly with his right.

There was a thick, squashy crack of fist on flesh. Something hard grazed his knuckles. He put everything he had into the next blow and aimed down where the stomach ought to be. Rough cloth rasped his fist. There was a grunt, curiously inarticulate, like an animal in pain. Something heavy shook the floor as it dropped.

Norton waited a moment, on guard. Nothing happened. Again he groped for the light switch. This time he snapped it on.

The blue rug had been rolled up and stacked in one corner of the room. On the bare floor boards a man lay face down. He had a short powerful body. Norton turned him over and discovered a round, lumpy face with narrow slanting eyes.

There was a slight bulge under the left armpit. It proved to be a shoulder holster and Alec promptly removed the gun. A professional gunman would not have killed Diana Clark with a weapon of such small calibre as a .22. Nor would he choose a respectable hotel as the scene for a killing when it would be so much safer to take his victim for a one-way ride on a lonely country road.

The man’s eyelids fluttered. He opened his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Norton asked.

The man made no reply. His eyes were dazed. His lips were bruised and swollen where Norton had hit him.

“Did you kill Diana Clark?”

Norton expected an indignant denial, but there was no response at all.

“Snap out of it or I’ll turn you over to the police!” The silence was getting Norton’s nerves.

The man opened his mouth, but no words came. Only that curious, animal grunting Norton had heard during their fight.

The man’s forefinger pointed toward his mouth. North realized the man was a mute. For a moment pity made Alec Norton forget everything else. A moment was all the man needed. His right shoulder rose and a blinding blow crashed against Norton’s jaw. Darkness was spangled with a rain of stars. Then there was only darkness...

Alec Norton seemed to be swimming through heavy seas. He could hear the pounding of the surf. His eyelids were made of lead. He was lying on the floor. The neon sign was turned off. A gray dawn lay beyond the window, but even that wan light seared his raw eyeballs. The pounding of the surf was the throbbing of his own pulse in his ears.

Gingerly, his fingertips explored his jaw. It was swollen and tender but not broken.

He got to his feet slowly. He looked about the room. No one else was there. The rug was still rolled and stacked in a corner. The furniture had been moved out from the walls as if the intruder had been searching the floor for some small object that might have-lodged under the rug or between wall and furniture.

Nothing else was disturbed. His belongings were ranged on the bureau just as he had left them. Bedclothes and mattress were intact. The cushions of the upholstered chairs were not even turned over.

Norton crossed the room and looked into the bathroom. Nothing disarranged. He tried the door into the hall. It was still locked. He tried the door that communicated with the next room. Also locked. The uninvited guest must have used a skeleton key — or the key that had been missing ever since the murder.

Norton picked up the phone. “Will you send some black coffee to eleven-o-five as soon as the restaurant opens? And a morning paper — the Star.”

He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The impact made him wince, but he forced his aching head under the stream of cold water with the rest of his body.

When he climbed out a few minutes later a blast of cold air from the open window in the next room shivered his wet body. He slammed the door, grabbed a rough towel and rubbed himself vigorously. A glow of warmth ran through his veins. He felt almost human again as he wrapped himself in a flannel dressing-gown and slid his feet into leather bedroom slippers. Hand on the doorknob, he paused.

There was a sound of movement in the room beyond. Was it the bellhop with coffee or the uninvited guest again? He balled his right hand and threw the door open with his left.

Abruptly he was conscious of bare shins and damp hair. A girl knelt in the middle of the room examining the floor.

“Oh.” She rose. “I’m sorry. I must’ve mistaken your room for mine.” Her startled eyes were a deeper brown than her hair. There was character in the firm line of her chin, tenderness in the soft curve of her mouth.

Norton appreciated her, but his eyes remained wary. “Looking for something?”

“No. I just dropped my... my handkerchief.”

He was sure she was lying. There was no handkerchief in her hand. Yet she didn’t look like a common sneak thief. Everything she wore was the best of its kind — dark brown to match her eyes except for a tweed coat that matched the light, tawny brown of her hair. She thrust one hand in a pocket of the coat and drew out a key with a hotel tag.

“This is my own key,” she said. “It must fit your lock as well as mine.” His unsmiling stare kindled a flush in her cheeks. “You don’t believe me!”

“No.” There was a ripple of amusement around his mouth.

“You’re insulting!” She was through the hall door in a flash. It slammed behind her.

Norton’s ripple became a grin. But only for a moment. His face was sober enough as he began to dress. In less than twenty-four hours two people had searched for something in this room. And both had searched the floor.

As soon as he was dressed, Norton went down on his hands and knees. Now that the rug was rolled aside, he could see a dark, irregular stain in the middle of the floor boards. It was streaky where a half-hearted attempt had been made to remove it with some solvent. But nothing else about the floor boards suggested murder. He was still studying them when someone tapped on the door.

“Coffee, sir!”

Norton scrambled to his feet. A bellhop came in with a tray balanced on one hand and set it down with a flourish. Then he pulled a folded newspaper from his pocket and laid it beside the tray. His blue eyes were bright as his brass buttons. He had sandy hair that curled close to his head. Norton fished a half-dollar out of his pocket and tossed it to him.

The bellhop missed the catch. The coin rang as it hit the floor and rolled away. The bellhop went down on his knees and scanned the floor boards Indian fashion, eyes level with the surface.

“Under the radiator,” he said. He slid a hand back of the valve that connected with the pipe from the furnace. “Say, this ain’t the half-dollar!” The bellhop held out his hand, palm up.

A disc lay there, the size and the thickness of a half-dollar; round, except for two slots opposite each other shaped like tiny keyholes; black, with a smooth, hard-rolled finish. There were no fingerprints on it, only smudges.

Even in Norton’s strong fingers it wouldn’t bend. It weighed less than a half-dollar. When he dropped it on the table it rang faintly as it spun and settled. But it was not the shrill resonance of metal.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” said Norton. “Never mind the half-dollar. Here’s something better.”

“Five bucks!” The bellhop eyed the bill Norton was peeling from his roll.

“That’s not for bringing breakfast. That’s for answering questions.”

“But I haven’t answered any questions.”

“No. But you’re going to.” Norton smiled. “What’s your name?”

“Gus — Gus Williams.”

“Were you on duty here when Diana Clark was murdered?”

The bellhop’s face changed. “Are you a cop?”

“No.”

“Then I ain’t talking.”

Norton held up the black disc between thumb and forefinger. “Ever see anything like this before?”

“No.” Gus rubbed his curly head. “You think maybe it’s a clue of some kind?”

“It might be.”

“Then I don’t want anything to do with it!” Gus said, and backed away.

“I know how you feel,” said Norton. “The killer is still at large. I believe he was in this room last night.”

“Last night?” A constellation of freckles stood out vividly as Gus’ face whitened. “It couldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

“They got him last night.”

“The devil they did!” Norton’s hand went to his swollen jaw. “What time?”

“Six p.m. But they only gave it to the papers this morning.”

Norton’s eyes searched the bellhop’s face. “If the murderer is in jail why are you still afraid to talk?”

“Listen, mister. I’m no hero. This case is dynamite. I don’t want to be mixed up in it. If you know what’s good for you, believe me, you’ll leave it alone! I guess I’ve earned that five bucks by telling you so!”

He edged out the door. Norton turned to the morning paper.

Alec Norton could. He’d been a police reporter and he knew that prisoners don’t fall downstairs unless they are pushed.

He let his coffee grow cold as he studied the black disc once more. Could it have been dropped by the intruder during the struggle last night? Then why did the intruder roll back the rug prior to the struggle? Both man and girl had been looking for something on the floor.

The disc was the sort of thing you would expect to find on the floor if it were lost — a round, flat object that would drop and roll out of sight like a coin. It had been hidden behind the radiator valve, the one piece of furniture that could not be moved out from the wall during an ordinary search of the room. The disc could easily have lain there for two weeks, unnoticed by anybody.

But would they have been wiser if they had found the black disc? What was it used for? What was it called? A clue without name or function was not much of a clue! It must be evidence — but evidence of what?

Whistling tunelessly, Norton slipped the nameless clue into his wallet and reached for his hat. In the long, dim corridor he passed a linen closet. A chambermaid was sorting clean towels and sheets.

“Hello! What’s your name?”

“Marie Chester.”

Norton leaned against the door of the linen closet. “I’m in Eleven-O-five. Are you the maid for that room?”

“Yes.” Her eyelids dropped when she heard the number. She went on sorting linen. Black hair framed her pale face, thin and worn as a profile on an old coin. It was a mature, intelligent face with a discontented mouth.

“Do you dust behind the radiator?” asked Norton.

She paused and braced herself, one hand against a shelf. Her brows knotted, her narrow lips hardened. She had a temper. “If you have any complaints, sir—”

“Oh no,” said Norton. “But I found something behind the radiator this morning. I thought it might have been dropped by a maid.” He fished the black disc out of his wallet. “Is this yours?”

There was no gleam of recognition in her eyes. “I don’t even know what it is,” she said carefully. “It certainly doesn’t look valuable.”

“No.” He tossed the disc into the air and caught it with one hand. “Was it there the last time you dusted behind the radiator?”

His casual tone caught her off guard. “I haven’t dusted behind the radiator since—” She stopped short.

“Since when?” he prompted gently.

“So you’re a cop! I might have known!” Naked fear looked out of her eyes. The work-roughened hand on the shelf began to tremble. Even her voice shook. “Two weeks ago I tried to tell the police my story. They wouldn’t even listen. If there’d been a woman detective working on the case; she’d have listened. But nobody can tell men anything! The reporters listened, but they didn’t print a word I said.”

“I suppose there were no women reporters either?” said Norton with a half smile.

“If there were they wrote all their stuff in the office. They never came here. And the men weren’t interested in me. If I’d been ten years younger with bleached hair and a come-hither eye— But perhaps it’s just as well I’m not.”

“Why?”

“That room has been vacant ever since the cops cleared out. But yesterday morning when I went in there the furniture was all moved around and the rug rolled back. Do you think I’d stop to dust behind radiators in a place like that? It hasn’t had a real dusting since the morning before the murder. The housekeeper won’t go in there at all and I wouldn’t myself without the bathmaid!”

“Was there a black disc behind the radiator when you dusted there the morning before the murder?”

“No!” She was almost pleading. “Now will you leave me alone?”

Norton studied the mature, intelligent face. “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of him.”

“Him?”

Her answer came in a whisper. “Leo Benda.”

“Who’s that?”

“I’ve said too much already.” Her thin lips clamped together. “Please, let me alone!”

Outdoors, winter sunshine was pale and thin as lemonade. Norton picked his way through drifts of dingy city snow to the offices of the Pearson City Star. The newspaper’s morgue was a long, light airy room filled with filing cabinets. Three men sat at a table clipping stories from yesterday’s paper.

“Syndicated Press,” announced Norton. “Got a file on Diana Clark?”

One man thought the case was too recent. But another intervened, “Sure there’s a file. I just sent it up to the city room. If you’ll wait a while you can have it when it comes back.”

After twenty minutes, a copy boy trotted in carrying a manila envelope stuffed with newspaper clippings. Norton dumped them out on the table and rearranged them in chronological order.

It was the cuts illustrating the various stories that interested him. One picture was obviously a snapshot enlarged for newspaper use. It showed a boy and girl arm in arm. The girl was hatless, short hair blowing in the wind. Her eyes were darker than her hair. There was character in the firm line of her chin, tenderness in the soft curve of her mouth. He looked at the caption.

Last Man To See Diana Clark Alive — Martin Stacy with his sister, Jean, at the opening of the Melbrook County sheep dog trials.

Alec turned to other clippings: The police are leaving no stone unturned... Miss Clark’s death is a great loss to the American stage and motion pictures...

One item was not clipped from a newspaper. It was a strip of galley proof.

On the wide margin of the galley proof four words had been rubber-stamped in red ink: KILLED IN FIRST EDITION.

Norton showed it to one of the men at the table. “How come?”

The man grinned irreverently. “The big boss himself phoned down to the printer just as we were going to press and said to kill the story.”

“Why?” asked Norton.

“The police psychiatrist says Marie Chester is an unrealiable witness subject to hallucinations, sex antagonism and spots before the eyes. Rumor says the yarn was killed because Mr. Leo Benda doesn’t like to read about anything that worries him when he opens his morning newspaper.”

“Who is this Leo Benda anyway?”

The man stared. “People around here never have to ask. I’m surprised New York hasn’t heard of him. He owns Pearson City lock, stock and barrel. Everything from slot machines and clip joints to bucket shops and poultry markets.”

“And the police department?”

The Star man laughed and winked. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

Norton’s next stop was the district attorney’s office. His press card from the New York police department gained him admittance to the property clerk.

Diana Clark’s belongings were spread out on a table; one coat, red velveteen with a fox collar; two dresses, day and evening; one hat, also red velveteen; some flimsy rayon underthings and shabby toilet articles. No wonder she had wanted that lump sum from Forbes! She must have been living through one of those financial crises that come so often to stage people.

The sun had set when Alec Norton reached the sprawling white frame house in the suburbs where Jean Stacy had been living with her brother Martin. A golden afterglow lingered in the west as Norton crossed a windswept terrace and pressed the doorbell. The door was opened by a maid in a spotless white apron.

“Please tell Miss Stacy I’d like to speak to her about her brother. It’s important. I think I can help him. My name is Alec Norton.”

“Yes sir!” A tremulous smile on the maid’s face told Norton that Martin Stacy was well-liked by his household.

Norton waited in a broad hall furnished like a living room, shadowy in the early winter twilight. Jean Stacy came down the wide stairs alone.

“Did Marty send you?” She peered through the shadows. “Oh!” She had recognized Norton. Her lips grew as firm as her chin. “What are you doing here?”

Norton produced his New York press card.

Her anger turned to scorn. “I thought women did the sob stuff. Or do they just use rubber-stamps?”

“Oh, I get more than space rates,” said Norton, lightly. “And I’m not here for sob stuff. I really can help you — if you’ll let me.”

“What’s Marty to you?” Her voice shook with repressed feeling.

“Nothing.”

“Then you’re just a reporter looking for a story?”

“Say a trouble-shooter.”

“What’s the trouble in Pearson City?”

“Too many unsolved murders lately. My chief suggested I look into it. So I’ve been working on the latest — the murder of Diana Clark.”

“But—” Jean’s lips lost their firmness. “The case is solved now. I mean, they think it is. They think Marty did it.”

“They?”

“The police.”

“I wonder if they really do?” said Norton. “They seem to be suppressing the testimony of a chambermaid who saw a woman leave Clark’s suite the night of the murder. Your brother wasn’t arrested until I reached Pearson City. There were plenty of people in the lobby last night when I asked for Clark’s suite. I said I was with the Syndicated Press.

“Someone in the lobby crowd may have reported my interest in the case to the police. They may have decided it was time to provide press and public with a scapegoat. So your brother was arrested.”

Her face twitched. “You mean they’re just going to... to railroad him?”

“They’re going to try.”

“Oh, God!” The exclamation was a prayer. “As long as they believed him guilty, all we had to do was to prove him innocent. But if they don’t care whether he’s guilty or not, what can be done?”

“Appeal to public opinion. If the Syndicated Press publicized evidence of his innocence throughout the country the police here couldn’t railroad him.”

“You’re right.” Her expression changed. “I’m going to take you on trust!” she cried impulsively. “I have nobody in the world but Marty and Uncle Kim and Uncle Kim’s too old to handle this.”

“Uncle Kim?”

“Clement Kimball, Marty’s senior partner. We call him uncle and we call his wife Aunt Margaret. Our real parents died when we were in our teens. What can I do?”

“First, answer some questions,” he said. “What were you looking for early this morning when I discovered you in Diana Clark’s suite?”

“The papers said there were signs of a struggle when the body was found and the rug was rolled back as if the murderer had searched the floor for something after the murder. Little things do come loose in a struggle — buttons, ear-rings, things like that.

“I hoped there might be something the police had overlooked, some little thing that would point to the real murderer and clear Marty. I never dreamed the room would be rented to anyone else so soon after the murder. So I bribed the night chambermaid to let me use her passkey.”

“That was taking a big risk.”

Her eyes looked enormous as she went on, speaking rapidly: “I was frantic. The police took Marty away yesterday evening at nine o’clock. They wouldn’t let me or Uncle Kim see him all night long. We knew they must be giving him a third degree, because they had no warrant for his arrest. I just couldn’t sit still and think about it. I had to do something. But, of course, it was silly to do what I did. The police don’t overlook things.”

“They did this time.” Norton brought out the black disc.

Jean Stacy was puzzled. She turned it over with one long, pink varnished nail as it lay on the palm of his hand. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me. I found it on the floor in Clark’s suite behind the radiator. The chambermaid said it wasn’t there before the murder. Someone else besides you tried to search the suite last night — a man who looked like a crook. He paid particular attention to the floor.

“I couldn’t question him because he was a mute. He outwitted me and got away, but he may have been looking for this.”

“Then we’ve got to find out what it is!”

“We can begin by finding out what it’s made of. Do you know any industrial chemists?”

“There’s one on Water Street!” Jean sprang to her feet, eyes shining. “I’ll drive you back to town. Just wait till I get my coat.”

It was an exhilarating drive in a little car open to the burning chill of the January evening. Jean didn’t seem to feel the cold in her fleecy tweed coat. Her light brown head was bare to the wind. Her shapely hands were ungloved as they rested on the wheel. A nice girl, thought Norton.

The chemist received them in a musty little anteroom. He seemed more anxious to get home to his dinner than to collect a fee for analysis. He took the black disc to a strong light and studied it under a magnifying glass. “Good Lord! You don’t want me to analyze this, do you?”

“Why not?”

“It’s nothing but cardboard!”

“Are you sure?” cried Alec. “It looks harder and smoother than cardboard!”

“Ordinary pasteboard is soft, pulpy stuff,” said the chemist. “But there are better grades of cardboard almost as hard as vulcanite. This is one of them. Any paper manufacturer can tell you which. I don’t know the commercial name for it.”

“And the black color?” asked Norton.

“Some dye, probably tar.”

“Can you tell us what purpose this disc is used for?” Jean asked.

The chemist looked at her and thawed a little. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t. It looks as if it were a small part of some larger object. By itself, it’s hard to identify. If you saw the inside of a golf ball without the rest of the ball you wouldn’t be likely to recognize it People always identify a part by its relation to the whole.”

“Then this disc may be part of something we see every day of our lives?”

“Quite possibly.”

Alec Norton and Jean went outside. They had left the street in twilight; they returned to find it night. Jean slid under the steering wheel. Norton stood on the sidewalk. She said, “What now?”

“I’d like to meet the other people involved in this case — your brother and his lawyer, and Diana Clark’s divorced husband, Daniel Forbes. Could it be managed?”

“Of course. Uncle Kim will do everything he can to help us. You can meet him at his office tomorrow morning at ten.”

“Okay.” Norton smiled down at her. “Don’t give up hope until we see how Forbes reacts to the black disc!”

She returned the smile with steady lips. “Don’t worry about me. I’m no quitter. Can I drop you anywhere?”

Norton’s eyes were on the rearview mirror. He saw a man standing just behind him. The face was in shadow, but there was something unpleasantly familiar about the short, heavy body wrapped in an overcoat too broad across the shoulders and. too narrow at the waist. Norton’s one idea was to get Jean out of the way.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I want to explore the city on foot.”

“All right.” Her car moved forward. The light from a street lamp turned her light brown hair to bronze and touched the chromium fixtures of the car with the shine of silver. Then darkness swallowed both.

Norton started to turn around. Something hard and round prodded his back just over the kidneys. A heavy hand pushed him toward a car parked at the curb. It was all done quietly, neatly, professionally.

Norton had read and written about things like this. But nothing of the sort had ever happened to him before. He looked at the dark street bright with lights, mobile with men and women who hurried about their business unaware of his plight. He wondered if he would ever see all this again.

The car was sleek and long and black. The man with the gun prodded Norton inside and pulled the door shut. It wasn’t like a car. It was more like a large taxi with its two extra seats.

The car did not move. The man with the gun shoved Norton into one of the little seats and sat himself in the other. He was the mute whom Norton had fought with in his hotel room. He didn’t bother to look at Norton.

Facing them both, on the back seat, was a man with a puffy, pasty face; white hair, brows and lashes. His dull, round black eyes were like two raisins set in floury white dough. “What is your interest in the Diana Clark case?” he asked softly.

“Nothing personal.” Norton was a little surprised at the firmness of his own voice. “I’m a reporter for the Syndicated Press doing a modem crime series and it’s one of the crimes.”

“Is that the only reason you insisted on occupying suite eleven-o-five at the Hotel Westmore last night?”

“The only reason.”

Before Norton could go on, a voice came from outside. “What do you think this is? A parking lot? You’ve been here thirty-five minutes if you’ve been here a second! Don’t you know nobody can park on Water Street longer than twenty minutes?”

The man on the back seat lowered the window. A big policeman stood just outside. “Were you speaking to me?” said the man on the back seat.

“Oh—” Norton had never seen a blustering cop so swiftly deflated. “I sure am very sorry, Mr. Benda.”

“You should’ve recognized my license plates.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Benda. I’m sorry.” The cop saluted and retreated, yelling at a truck driver to cover his own confusion.

“So you are Leo Benda!” murmured Norton.

“Yes.” A smile hovered around the colorless lips. “I am Leo Benda, thirty years ago a poor immigrant boy and now—” His gloved palm stroked the rich fur of the laprobe that lay across his knees. “And now one of the most successful business men in Pearson City.”

Alec Norton suppressed a grin. Business man was good.

Benda went on, “Let that little incident be a lesson to you, Mr. Norton. The police have great respect for my judgment, and they know that I am entirely satisfied with their conduct of the Clark case.”

“How did you know my name?”

“I took pains to find out all about you after Max reported your presence in the hotel last night. He had visited the suite the previous evening and found it vacant, so he was greatly surprised to encounter you when he returned last night to search the place more thoroughly.”

A sardonic smile touched Benda’s lips lightly. “My men have been watching you all day, Mr. Norton. I am disturbed by their reports. I hope that I may persuade you to leave Pearson City at once. If you are wise, you will forget that you ever heard the name Diana Clark.”

“And if I don’t?”

“It would be a pity — a great pity.” The black eyes in the blanched face looked straight at Alec Norton. “I’m afraid you’re not taking this seriously enough, Mr. Norton.”

Norton knew that Benda was trying to frighten him. For that very reason, he no longer felt afraid. If Benda had wanted to kill him, he would have been a dead man by this time. Obviously Benda wanted him out of the way but Benda didn’t want to kill him — for reasons of his own.

“Do you expect me to take this seriously?” he asked.

“You are a brave man.” Benda’s voice was softer than ever. “I am sorry. I had hoped you would have what Meredith calls the grain of common sense at the heart of all cowardice. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to leave Pearson City, Mr. Norton. There’s a New York plane tomorrow evening at five fifty-three. I sincerely hope you will decide to take it. Max!”

Benda turned to the mute and spoke in a foreign language Norton did not understand. Max opened the door and got out.

“Good night, Mr. Norton,” said Benda.

Norton stepped down to the curb. Max climbed into the driver’s seat and the car glided away smoothly. There was nothing left but the mark of tires in the snow to show Norton that he had not been dreaming.

At ten the next morning Norton entered the offices occupied by Kimball and Stacy, lawyers, on the twenty-first floor of Pearson City’s tallest skyscraper.

A clerk showed him into a library walled with calf-bound tomes of the law. Already waiting there was a woman in a long, supple mink coat. She had dark hair turning gray and dark, tragic eyes. She waited restlessly, crossing and uncrossing slim ankles, playing with doeskin gloves, lighting one cigarette after another from a tortoise-shell case.

At last Clement Kimball appeared. He was a big, pleasant looking fellow in his early fifties, with shrewd eyes and a genial mouth. He was surprised to see the woman. “Why, Margaret!” he said.

She crushed her cigarette in an ashtray and crossed the room to his side. “Any news about Marty?” There was deep feeling in her voice.

“No.” Kimball’s answer came soberly.

“Isn’t there anything I can do? Anything?”

“My dear, we’re doing everything we can.” Kimball’s big hand lay gently on her shoulder. “Better go home. Get some rest.”

“I’ll go home. But I can’t rest.” She pulled her coat collar up around her face and left without another word.

Kimball turned to the reporter. “Mr. Norton? That was my wife. Forgive me for not introducing you but she’s in a highly keyed-up state. She couldn’t be more worried if she were Martin Stacy’s own mother. I am ready to leave with you right now.”

“Let’s see Stacy first.”

Kimball drove Norton to the city prison where Martin was being held. An officer led them down a long, bleak corridor with the cool, earthy smell of a cellar. They entered a small room divided by a grille of steel.

On the other side of the grille stood the man Norton had seen in the newspaper picture with Jean. His tumbled hair made him look younger than he actually was. There was still a bruise under his right eye where he had “fallen downstairs.” No wonder he looked dazed and uncertain of himself.

“I have just one question to ask you,” said Norton. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” He held out the black disc.

Martin strained his eyes through the grille. Police regulations forbade him to approach within ten feet of it. “No,” he said at last. “What is it?”

“Are you sure you saw nothing like this in Diana Clark’s suite when you were there the night of the murder?”

“Quite sure. If it was there I didn’t see it.”

Outside again in the pale winter sunshine Kimball turned his car toward Wickford, the real estate project promoted by Diana Clark’s divorced husband, Daniel Forbes.

Kimball drove in silence until Norton spoke. “Have you any idea who the man was Diana Clark planned to marry?”

Kimball frowned. “The police think it was Martin. They got to know each other when Martin and I handled her divorce from Forbes three years ago. The police claim that they were lovers — that Martin got tired of her and killed her when she threatened suit for breach of promise. Of course it’s nonsense. She was seven years older than Martin. He barely noticed her.”

Wickford was a raw, new development. Tarred roads and asphalt sidewalks divided meadow and wasteland into checkerboard squares. There were only two houses — one finished, the other in the lathe and plaster stage.

Kimball halted his car before the finished house, a naked cube of white stucco without shrubbery or trees. A billboard proclaimed the office of Daniel Forbes, dealer in real estate.

Forbes himself answered the doorbell. He was young, but his face was set in a permanent frown of worry. He wore practical country clothes — shoe packs laced to the knee, an old pair of riding breeches and a mackinaw.

“Oh, it’s you.” His face fell when he saw Kimball. “I thought it was somebody come to buy a lot.” He led the way into a roomy, plainly furnished office.

“How’s business?” asked Norton after introductions had been made.

“Not so good.” Forbes’ grin twisted wryly. “I suppose that gives, me a motive. I could never have paid the lump sum Diana wanted. And I haven’t an alibi either. My wife and I were alone together all evening and a wife’s testimony doesn’t carry much weight in a case like that. Everybody assumes she’ll lie like a lady to save her husband’s life. But I didn’t do it.” His grin faded. “Diana must have got her claws into some other poor guy and he shot her. I don’t believe it was Marty Stacy.”

“Why not?”

“He’s just starting his career. Not enough money for Diana. He’s too much like me. She wouldn’t make the mistake of marrying a poor man the second time.”

When Norton and Kimball rose to go, Forbes accompanied them to the front door. Two people were coming up on the porch — a little girl in a scarlet ski suit and a woman in a shabby old rabbit’s fur coat. Both were pink-cheeked, wholesome and gay. Forbes introduced them with pride. “My wife and daughter.”

The little girl had trouble curtsying in her ski suit. “My pants are too stiff,” she explained solemnly.

Mrs. Forbes hailed Kimball with outstretched hands. The seam of one glove was mended with tiny, looped stitches. There was a neat darn in one stocking. Obviously she did all her own mending. She didn’t seem to mind. But Norton thought: If she belonged to me I’d hate asking her to go without things so I could pay Diana Clark alimony. Forbes had a double motive: Clark was driving him to bankruptcy and he couldn’t face it with a second wife and a child to support...

Norton showed Forbes the black disc, casually, as if it were an afterthought instead of the purpose of this interview.

Forbes eyed it without apparent interest. “Doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

Norton looked up and met Mrs. Forbes’ gaze. Her cheeks were a bloodless white now. Her eyes were glazed and stony, fixed on the black disc.

“You recognize this, Mrs. Forbes?” asked Norton.

“No.” Her lips formed the word, but only the thinnest sound came from her throat. She tried again. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Norton knew she was not telling the truth.

As they drove back to Pearson City, Norton gave Kimball a detailed account of the finding of the black disc.

“I’d like to hear the chambermaid’s story from her own lips,” said Kimball. “She’s an important witness.”

But when they stopped at the hotel, the management couldn’t find Marie Chester. None of the staff had seen her for hours.

“She must be out at luncheon,” suggested the housekeeper. “Try again after one o’clock.”

Norton and Kimball lunched at the Stacy house with Jean. Coffee was served in a long room with windows overlooking a winter landscape of pale sunshine and yesterday’s shopworn snow.

They sat around a roaring fire of birch logs that gave the room color and light as well as warmth. Norton told them about his interview with Benda.

“Mr. Norton, you must take the next plane back to New York,” said Jean.

Norton laughed and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s only two p.m. Benda gave me until five fifty-three. A lot can be done in nearly four hours, perhaps more than he realizes.”

“I wish you would go.” Jean’s voice wavered. “I can’t help feeling Benda is up to something. I saw him once in a night club. He was—” She searched for a word. “Evil.”

“I’ve had the same feeling,” said Kimball. “I’ve seen him in the Criminal Courts when his men were on the witness stand. He looks like a sadist, a man who enjoys cruelty for its own sake. Perhaps it would be better if you did go back to New York, Mister Norton.

“I can take the black disc to John Bates, the district attorney, and tell him the whole story. He’ll jump at the chance of getting something on Benda. The governor appointed him for that very purpose and he has a staff of trained detectives who should be able to identify the black disc more quickly than you could.”

“When was Bates appointed?” asked Norton.

“Six months ago.”

“And he hasn’t got anything on Benda yet? He must be either bribed or incompetent! Our Mr. Benda doesn’t hide his light under a bushel. I wouldn’t trust a district attorney like that with the one concrete clue in the case.”

“Then you’re going on with this?” Jean asked.

“I’m not a quitter either!” Norton said. “You should be glad of that. Your brother is still in grave danger. The fact that Benda wants me to leave town proves that he is in the plot to protect the real murderer and railroad your brother. But I don’t believe Benda will dare to try any tricks on me.

“After all, he’s only a racketeer with police pull in a middle-sized Texas border town and I am an employee of a national organization. If I were killed or injured the Syndicated Press would make things so hot for him he’d have to stand trial. His battery of high-priced legal experts couldn’t save him and he knows it. That’s why he didn’t dare lay a finger on me yesterday.”

“Just what are you going to do?” Jean’s voice was taut and brittle.

“Identify the black disc and trace it back to the murderer who dropped it in Diana Clark’s hotel suite.”

Jean rose. “When do we start?”

“We?”

“Sure. I’m in on this. Marty is my brother. My car’s in front of the house.”

Norton shook his head. “It’s one thing to take chances for myself, but I’m not going to take chances for anyone else.”

“You’re not taking chances for me — I’m taking them for myself.” Jean lifted that firm little chin. “And you said there was no danger to an employee of the Syndicated Press. Can’t I be your temporary secretary or something?”

Norton admired her courage too much to refuse her. But Kimball shook his head, looking suddenly older and frailer. “I don’t like this,” he muttered. “I don’t like it at all.”

In the hall Norton consulted a classified telephone directory. From a dozen companies listed under cardboard he chose one at random — Elk River Mills Inc. As he climbed into the car, he gave Jean the address.

“Don’t look now.” Her eyes were on the rearview mirror. “But I believe there’s another car following us. I’ll make sure.”

She took the next corner on two wheels and just skinned through a changing light. Norton glanced back over his shoulder. A black Cadillac had halted for the red light.

“That settled their hash!” cried Jean gleefully.

“I hope so.”

The Elk River Mills had large offices in a modern building. Norton and Jean passed from secretary to secretary until they reached a “Mr. Grimes” — a small man with a big office all to himself.

He examined the edge of the black disc under a magnifying glass. Then he measured the thickness against a little steel gadget with adjustable jaws.

“Bindersboard,” Grimes explained. “Most cardboard is made by pasting two or more sheets of paper pulp together. That’s why it’s called pasteboard. But bindersboard is made from a single sheet compressed at a pressure ranging from two hundred to four hundred tons. The finished board is almost two and a half times thinner than the original sheet. Density gives it exceptional stiffness and a smooth, hard-rolled finish like vulcanite. What is this funny little disc used for?”

Jean groaned aloud. Norton said: “We were hoping you could tell us! Can’t you hazard a guess, now you’ve identified the grade of cardboard it’s made of?”

“Good heavens, no! Bindersboard is used for dozens of things. You’d better see Stubbs. He’s a jobber who buys all grades of cardboard from us and other mills in large quantities and then sells it in small lots to manufacturers of cardboard objects. He might give you a list of his customers for bindersboard and you might find some company among them who manufactures discs like this. Stubbs’ address is Ten Greenwood Lane.”

The sun had disappeared. The city was colorless as a black and white print, stone buildings and lifeless trees dark against a pale, pearl sky. As the car started, Jean said quietly, “That man’s here again.”

Norton looked in the rearview mirror. The black Cadillac was just behind them. In the treacherous half-light it was impossible to see the driver.

“Better go home and let me take over,” said Norton.

“Certainly not! Where is Greenwood Lane? It sounds rustic and quaint.”

It was neither. It ran through the older part of the city, a dusty region of small factories and warehouses. It was hardly more than an alley, paved with cobblestones. On either side stood dingy, brick houses that must have been comfortable homes seventy years ago. Now they were used as warehouses by distributors of wholesale goods. Delivery wagons parked before yawning double doorways made progress difficult.

Again Norton looked in the rearview mirror. No sign of the big black car now. He frowned. He liked his enemies to be where he could see them.

No. 10 was hardly more than a shell. Every floor and partition had been torn away leaving the house one big storeroom four stories high. Every window had been bricked up. A single, bald electric bulb made little impression on the cavernous darkness within. Workmen were loading a truck with rolls of pasteboard. A foreman in overalls was comparing a bill of lading with a ledger. Norton explained their errand to him.

“Boss ain’t here, but I guess there’s no harm in letting you know what companies use bindersboard, seeing as old Grimes sent you.” He flipped the pages of his ledger. “Fletcher Bindery uses it for bookbinding — Mannering Body Company for the insides of sedan cars — Singleton Brothers for boxes — Ashley and Marx for cartridges — Diamond Pattern Company for templet board — Machinists Accessory Company for gaskets — Fur Workers Supply Company for furriers’ accessories—”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Norton was scribbling frantically on the back of an old envelope, wondering what a templet was and what you did with a gasket. “Are there any firms connected with real estate or house construction that use bindersboard?”

“Blake and Brandt use it inside the walls and ceiling of a house.”

“Did they build any of the new houses at Wickford?”

“Couldn’t say offhand. But they probably did. They get all the fat construction jobs around here.”

“Ever see anything like this before?” Norton dropped the black disc on the ledger.

“No.” The foreman squinted as he held it up to the light. “Cut with a die. That’s funny.”

Norton’s attention quickened. “What’s funny about it?”

“Bindersboard is so tough it wears out the cutting edge of a die quicker than pasteboard. Manufacturers who die-cut cardboard into shapes like this here use pasteboard to save wear on the die.”

“But there are exceptions?”

“Never saw one before. But this disc is made with binders-board and it was cut with a die.”

Norton’s eyes brightened. At last he had discovered something unique about the black disc, something that might prove significant.

It was only five o’clock but the stars were out, the street lamps lighted.

“Let’s go to a drugstore,” said Norton. “I want to consult a telephone directory.”

Jean Stacy released the clutch. The car swerved to avoid a delivery truck and bumped over the cobblestones. At the corner where Greenwood Lane emptied into Brickett Street, Jean slowed down. At this hour there was little traffic in the neighborhood. Its factories and warehouses were empty except for an occasional night watchman. Street lamps were the only source of light.

Again Jean released the clutch. The car had hardly moved a yard when she stamped on the brake. A big, black car without lights shot out of another side street parallel with Greenwood Lane. The car cut in front of Jean’s compact, so close it almost grazed her radiator. Its door swung open. Something long, inert and shapeless fell before Jean’s front wheels.

The black car gathered speed. Like a wraith it disappeared into the darkness without noise or lights. The license number was veiled in shadow. But Norton recognized the now familiar silhouette of the Cadillac.

He pushed open the door beside him and tumbled out. Jean was at his heels.

“Don’t come,” he warned her. “This is going to be ugly.”

She stammered. “It... it was a body, wasn’t it?”

The headlights of the car shone like twin spotlights on a woman huddled face down in the roadway. Gently, Norton turned her over. Dark hair framed a pale face, thin and worn as a profile on an old coin. The eyes were glazed and vacant, the lips slightly parted. But she was still breathing.

“W-who is she?” Jean’s shaking hand was on his shoulder.

“Marie Chester, the chambermaid whose story was suppressed.” Norton was so angry that he forgot to be afraid. He would have made a splendid target kneeling in that blaze of light. But he wasn’t thinking of that.

“Were we meant to find her?” whispered Jean, huskily.

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Norton answered without looking up. Then he added, “Quick! We must drive to a hospital.”

At the hospital Jean waited in an anteroom while Norton interviewed the chief surgeon. When he returned his face was as bleak as granite.

“Marie Chester is dead. She was horribly tortured first. She insisted on leaving a written statement describing what she saw the night Diana Clark was murdered.”

Jean Stacy caught her breath. “It’s unbelievable that Benda would go to such extremes as to actually kill the girl.”

“Benda wanted to silence a witness,” Norton said. “He murdered in order to frighten other witnesses. These things do happen. Ask any police reporter. In the old days in New York she might have been sealed in a block of wet cement and dropped into the East River as soon as the cement had hardened. Its weight keeps a body from rising to the surface, so there’s no evidence of murder.

“Benda doesn’t care if there’s evidence or hot because the police department is under his thumb. There has to be a few honest cops or it wouldn’t function at all. But most of the top brass snaps to attention when he puts in a phone call. I’m sure of it.”

“He threatened you!” cried Jean. “You must leave Pearson City at once!”

Norton shook his head. “I thought I was pretty courageous defying Benda yesterday — the little tin hero! But now I see it differently. I was never really in danger. As I said this afternoon Benda would think twice before attacking an employee of the Syndicated Press. But my stubbornness put other people in danger — all the other obscure little people without pull or money who are involved in the case, people whom Benda is not afraid to attack.

“That’s what makes me angry! I’m responsible for what happened to Marie Chester. I’m going to get Benda if it’s the last thing I ever do and I’m going to get him quickly before he has time to hurt anyone else.”

Jean didn’t hesitate. “I’m with you. What can I do?”

“Too dangerous.”

“But—”

“No buts.” Norton rose.

“Won’t you tell me where you’re going?”

“I’m going to take you home first.”

“And then?”

“The less you know the safer you’ll be. I want you to go home and stay there, no matter what happens.”

“You’ll let me know what happens?”

“By eight p.m. at the latest.”

When Norton left Jean at her house his glance fell on the clock in the hall. It was just five fifty-four. Benda’s ultimatum had expired.

Norton walked to the nearest cigar store. In the telephone booth he found a classified directory and made a list of the companies listed under dies. Altogether there were eleven. He thought longingly of Jean’s little car, but it was too well-known to Benda’s men by this time. He hailed a taxi and set out to visit the die companies.

The first two were closed for the night. The third and fourth were still open but no one at either place recognized the black disc. The fifth was just closing as Norton reached the sales department.

“I need some information,” he explained to a clerk. “I want to know if this disc was cut by one of your dies?”

The clerk looked at the black disc and frowned. “Another complaint? Do you think I have nothing better to do than listen to your bellyaching? The die we sold you would have lasted years if you’d used pasteboard like everybody else! No die in the world will stand up to bindersboard for any length of time!”

“Just a minute,” Norton said. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What else is wrong—?”

“Just tell me one thing,” interrupted Norton. “What company has been using your dies to cut discs like this from bindersboard?”

The clerk stared in astonishment. “Don’t you know? I thought you came from them!”

“Who is them?”

“Why, the Fur Workers Supply Company, of course!”

Samuel Stern of the Fur Workers Supply Company was just shutting up shop for the night. He received Norton in a low-ceilinged room behind the shop. On the work table were the tools of the furrier’s trade — rubber skulls and glass eyes for mounting fox heads, dyes and knives and needles and thread for working in fur, great bolts of heavy silk for lining fur coats, wadded cushions for lining muffs.

The little furrier was extremely cordial and invited Norton into his office.

“Can you tell me what this is?”

Stern took the black disc and smiled as if the question were absurdly simple. “It’s a button fastener.”

“And what is a button fastener?”

“A button is never sewed to a fur coat,” explained Stern. “Fur skin is so tender that the pull of the threads would soon wear a hole in it. So you take a flat disc with slots on either side, pass a narrow piece of tape around the disc, through the slots and knot it. Then you cut a small slit in the fur skin and slide the disc in edgewise. Once it is lodged between fur and lining you turn the disc so it lies flat and flush with the fur. Then the diameter is too wide for the disc to slip back through the slit it entered edgewise.

“The two ends of knotted tape hang down outside the slit on the fur side. They are passed through a loop on the underside of the button and knotted again. This holds the button firmly in place without wearing a hole in the fur. We call such a disc a button fastener. As long as it is in place, the button cannot fall off.”

“But if great force were exerted?” said Norton. “If someone seized a button and tugged with all his might? Wouldn’t the flat side of the button fastener press against the slit in the fur until it was split wider? Then wouldn’t button and tape and button fastener all come loose together and fall off the coat?”

Stern looked at Norton with eyes bright under bushy gray brows. “People don’t often indulge in a rough and tumble when they’re wearing fur coats.”

“What if someone wearing a fur coat committed a murder and the victim seized a button in the death struggle?”

“It would happen just as you described it.”

“And the button fastener might fall on the floor and roll away by itself?”

“Certainly, if the tape came unknotted.” Stern touched the nameless clue — no longer nameless. “I have heard of buttons being found at the scene of a crime. But a button fastener is something new.”

“One more question.” Norton was tense as he leaned across the worn desk. “Is their any way of distinguishing this particular button fastener from all others so it can be traced to the coat from which it was torn?”

Stern held the disc under a desk lamp. “You may call it luck, but this particular button fastener is unusual. So unusual that I believe it might be traced to one particular coat.”

“How?”

“Usually button fasteners are made of pasteboard or leather. Only one manufacturer of furriers’ tools was ever foolish enough to make button fasteners of bindersboard — myself. My son is just out of college and full of bright ideas that won’t work. This is one of them. Bindersboard makes fine button fasteners but it wore out our new die in a few days. We’ve gone back to pasteboard. So far we’ve only sold one sackful of button fasteners made from bindersboard. That sack went to Newton and Brill, retail furriers here in Pearson City. They are only a few blocks from here.

“They can give you a list of customers who have bought fur coats containing button fasteners made from bindersboard. As Newton and Brill only bought the sack a few weeks ago, there won’t be many names on the list. Indeed the changes are that only one of those names will be connected with the murder you are investigating.”

Norton looked at his watch. “The shop will be closed by this time. Can I reach Newton and Brill tonight?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until morning. I don’t know their home addresses.”

Norton was glad he had not dismissed his taxi. He was beginning to realize the folly of fighting Benda’s gang single-handed. He needed help and the only man who could help him effectively was Kimball. The district attorney would have to listen to a man as influential as Clement Kimball. It would be time enough to interview Newton and Brill in the morning, but he must see Kimball and if possible the district attorney tonight before Benda made another move.

Kimball’s house was near the Stacys’ on the outskirts of the city. The house faced the state highway at the top of a little hill. It was a solid, red-brick building with a white porte-cochere at one side. Norton dismissed the taxi at the bottom of the hill and made his way up the starlit drive.

The front of the house was dark but there was an oblong of light shining on the snow from an unshaded French window on the right side. Norton noticed he had to pass the window on his way to the front door.

He came to the window and looked inside. The room beyond was a library. Lamplight shining on wine red damask chairs and curtains looked warm and inviting to Norton as he stood outside in the windy winter night. Kimball was relaxing in an armchair with a book in one hand and a highball on the table beside him.

Mrs. Kimball had just come in from the street. She was casting her wraps aside on the sofa. As Norton watched she sank into a chair and lit a cigarette. They were talking but he could not hear what they said. It was like a scene from an old silent film.

Norton went on toward the front of the house and rang the bell. Kimball himself came to open the door.

“My dear Norton, what on earth are you doing here? You should have called. You’re lucky to find me home this evening. Come right in! You look as if you could use a drink.”

“I’ve had a busy and a tough time of it all day,” said Norton. “And I just had to see you immediately.”

Inside the comfortable living room Kimball turned to the reporter and said, “Mr. Norton — my wife.”

Norton shook hands with Mrs. Kimball. She smiled and said, “I was just going to my room. I can see that you want to talk to Mr. Kimball. I’ll leave you two together but I hope you can stay for dinner, Mr. Norton.”

“Thanks—”

She left the room and they heard her go upstairs.

Kimball gestured Norton to a large wing-chair and then walked across the room and unlocked an old-fashioned tantalus and brought out a cut glass whiskey decanter. Norton took a long pull at the drink Kimball handed him.

Kimball sat down behind his writing table and looked at Norton. “Well?”

“As I’ve just said, I’ve had a busy time,” Norton said. “But I believe I’ve got the murderer.”

Kimball was startled. “Are you sure? Suspicion is one thing and legal evidence another.”

“Here’s the evidence. You’re a lawyer and you can tell me if I’m right or wrong.” Norton produced the black disc. As he outlined its history Kimball grew more and more perturbed.

“Marie Chester has testified there was no black disc behind the radiator the morning before Diana Clark was murdered,” said Norton. “Diana Clark didn’t drop the button fastener herself because she didn’t have a fur coat with her. I saw all her belongings at the district attorney’s office. Her only coat was velveteen. The disc couldn’t have been dropped by a man. Men don’t wear fur coats. Or so rarely it can practically be ruled out.

“That eliminates two chief suspects — Daniel Forbes and Martin Stacy. It also rules out Max and Benda and the hotel men, bellboys, detectives, policemen and reporters who visited the scene of the crime after the murder. There were no women detectives or women reporters working on the case — that was one of Marie Chester’s grievances. The only women who have visited the scene of the crime were the hotel maids and Jean Stacy. Maids don’t wear fur coats when they’re cleaning a room. Jean was wearing a tweed coat.

“Therefore, the button fastener must’ve been dropped at the scene of the crime by some other woman who had no legitimate business there and everything suggests that this woman was the murderer. Diana Clark was shot with a woman’s gun — a twenty-two. Marie Chester saw a woman leave the Clark suite the night of the murder. She went down the corridor to the fire stairs and she was wearing a long, brown coat. It was doubtless a fur coat, though Marie didn’t recognize it as fur in the dim light of the hotel corridor.”

“It’s quite plausible as far as it goes,” said Kimball. “But there are so many women in Pearson City who own long, brown fur coats and this button fastener could have come from any one of them.”

“Oh, no, it couldn’t!” A gleam rekindled in Norton’s tired eyes. “That’s where I got a lucky break. That’s why I’m here now. This particular button fastener is made of bindersboard instead of the usual pasteboard or leather. Only one retail furrier in Pearson City has been using button fasteners of bindersboard — Newton and Brill. They’ve only been in use the last six weeks. It’s a cinch Newton and Brill have sold only one fur coat in six weeks to a woman who knew Diana Clark.

“As soon as we see Newton and Brill in the morning we’ll have the murderer’s name in black and white. This little disc of bindersboard is going to send her to the chair. I might be sorry, if I hadn’t seen Marie Chester after Leo Benda’s gang got through with her.”

“What did they do to her?” demanded Kimball.

Norton told him. Kimball’s face, usually ruddy, turned deathly pale. He muttered incoherently, “Unspeakable... why did they also have to torture her!”

Norton nodded grimly. “Mrs. Forbes deserves all that’s coming to her.”

“Mrs. Forbes?” The name was a shock to Clement Kimball.

“What other woman had a motive for murdering Diana Clark? Mrs. Forbes was wearing a long, brown rabbit’s fur coat when I saw her and she recognized the button fastener the moment she saw it. She’s the sort of woman who would do anything to help her husband. Perhaps she rationalized the murder by telling herself she was protecting her child’s future.”

“No doubt, but—” Kimball passed a shaking hand across his forehead. “I’ve known Nancy Forbes all my life! I’m not a criminal lawyer and I’m not used to this sort of thing.” He rose. “I’d better phone the district attorney and see if he can come over at once. Excuse me—”

Alone, Norton finished his drink and helped himself to a cigarette from the box on Kimball’s writing table. As his gaze wandered around the room he wondered if he would ever be successful enough to own a home like this where hidden lights brought out ruby highlights in the gleaming surface of wine-red damask and old mahogany. Out here on the edge of the city it was extraordinarily quiet and peaceful. He heard no sound but the moaning of the wind outside.

Suddenly, Alec Norton saw the telephone on Kimball’s writing table — a perfectly ordinary dial telephone. Superficially, there was nothing alarming about it. But — Kimball had left the room in order to telephone the district attorney.

Why hadn’t he phoned from here?

Norton put the receiver to his ear. He heard the dial tone. The instrument was not out of order.

He replaced the receiver. Again his glance swept the room but this time it was alert, puzzled, searching. On the surface everything seemed normal — green-shaded reading lamp, book shelves rising row on row until they were lost in the shadows of the lofty, ceiling, cut glass decanter of whiskey glinting amber and gold in the lamplight.

Norton’s glance came to a halt. Mrs. Kimball’s wraps were still lying on the sofa where she had cast them down — a brown fur hat, brown suede gloves, and the dark, supple mink coat she had worn at Kimball’s office the first day he saw her. A long brown coat. A fur coat!

In four strides he crossed the room and seized the coat. Sewn to the rich brown satin lining was a label — Newton and Brill. In the pelt, under the button, where there should have been a neat slit, there was a wide, jagged tear. The button had been wrenched off and then replaced by someone ignorant of the furrier’s craft.

The lips of the tear were roughly basted together with brown silk and the tape on the under side of the button had been sewn to the surface of the fur. There was no button fastener inside. But the other buttons were held in place properly by a tape passing through a neat slit in the pelt to the inside of the coat. Under each button Norton’s probing fingers felt a round, flat disc concealed between fur and lining.

He snatched a pair of scissors from Kimball’s writing desk and sawed at one of the slits until it was two inches wide. Then he pulled the button. It parted company with the coat. On its under side, dangling from a loop of tape, was a button fastener — stiff and black, with a smooth, hard-rolled finish. Bindersboard!

A loud report shattered the stillness. Norton looked up. A bullet splintered a Florentine mirror on the opposite wall. The jagged glass distorted the reflection of a woman.

Margaret Kimball stood in the doorway behind Norton. She was aiming a small revolver at his back — a .22. Her painted mouth was crimson against cheeks that had gone chalk white. But the hand that held the gun was steady.

“You fool!” Her voice was as firm as her hand. “I heard everything you said to my husband. I came downstairs in my stocking feet and listened at the door. As soon as you mentioned the button fastener, I knew that you had to die.”

Norton summoned all his self-control. “Won’t you have trouble explaining a dead body in your living room?”

“My husband opened the door for you. The servants will swear they didn’t admit you by the front door. I’ll swear you attacked me and I shot you in self-defense.”

“I see.” Norton’s thoughts were racing. Any woman like Nancy Forbes who did all her own sewing and mending might recognize the black disc as a button fastener from a fur coat without knowing what particular fur coat it came from. She must have thought Norton knew the disc was a button fastener from a fur coat. She was wearing a fur coat herself and she had a motive for murdering Clark. She had been frightened for fear he would accuse her of the murder on the strength of those two things.

Lamplight struck a steady beam of light from a diamond ring on the hand that held the gun. Norton fixed his eyes on that beam. If he could say something to make it waver, just once.

He spoke calmly, almost conversationally. “So your husband was the man who loved Diana Clark — the rich man she wanted to marry. And you shot her because you were jealous.”

“He never loved her!” Margaret Kimball’s voice sharpened shrewishly. “That Clark woman was a passing fancy — nothing more!”

“Then why did you kill her?”

“Because she wanted him to divorce me and marry her. And he was so weak he might have done it!”

“You call that a passing fancy?” Norton managed to laugh.

“Kim wouldn’t have protected me after I shot Diana Clark if he hadn’t loved me!”

“Kimball wanted to be a United States Senator,” said Norton. “The Star said so in its first story on Martin Stacy’s arrest. A man whose wife has murdered his lover hasn’t a ghost of a chance of getting into the Senate. But do you suppose Kimball loved you after your crime forced him to frame his junior partner, in order to save you and himself?

“Kimball no more loved you than Leo Benda who only protected you because his racket depended on your husband’s political machine for police protection. Your husband framed Stacy to save his career — not to save you! He must have hated you!”

“That’s a lie!” The diamond ring flashed like a tiny heliograph. Her hand was shaking uncontrollably.

All in one motion, Norton turned and crouched and dived at her knees. A second shot rang out, reverberating in the closed room. Something as biting as a whiplash stung Norton’s neck. She was struggling in his grasp, lithe and fierce as a snake. The hand that held the gun twisted toward him. He grabbed at it and missed. He saw the muzzle aimed at his forehead. It was so close now he could smell the acrid fumes of cordite.

He heard voices and footsteps. A woman’s foot in a high-heeled shoe streaked into his range of vision and kicked Margaret Kimball’s hand. She screamed. Her fingers relaxed. The gun skated across the rug beyond her reach.

“Alec!” It was Jean’s voice. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Norton struggled to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

There were three men with Jean. Two of them lifted Margaret Kimball to her feet and snapped cuffs on her wrists.

“You said you’d come at eight.” Jean’s voice was taut and brittle. “When you didn’t come, I got worried. I knew the city police were under Benda’s thumb, so I phoned the district attorney, and— Oh, Alec!” Tears were in her eyes, “It seems the district attorney suspected Aunt Margaret all along. So we came here.”

One of the men interrupted. “I’m John Bates, district attorney, Mr. Norton. It was Kimball, not Mrs. Kimball we suspected. We knew there was a man higher up in Benda’s racket — some solid citizen with political pull and no obvious underworld ties. We thought Kimball was the man but we couldn’t prove it. That’s why we didn’t arrest Benda. We wanted Kimball, too.”

“You’ll never get him!” Margaret Kimball stood between two county detectives, reckless and defiant.

“We have got him,” said the district attorney. “When I heard Miss Stacy’s story I sent men to patrol the highway where it crosses the border a few miles south of this house. I thought Kimball would try to escape that way if things got too tough for him — and he did. He talked plenty when we nabbed him. He hadn’t known that Benda planned to torture and then murder Marie Chester.”

John Bates turned to Mrs. Kimball. “When Norton told your husband, it broke his nerve. When Norton explained the significance of the button fastener, Mr. Kimball realized the jig was up. He phoned a warning to Benda and made for the Mexican border in his fastest car. We caught Benda on the same road and now we’re rounding up the rest of the gang.”

Margaret Kimball’s face worked wryly. “He warned Benda, but he left me to face all this alone — without warning me.” She lifted tragic eyes to Norton. “You were right. He hated me.”

Jean Stacy drew Norton out into the hall. The air was fresher there. “You’ve saved my brother,” she said simply.

“And you saved me.” He looked at her quizzically. “Didn’t I say something earlier this evening about your going home and staying there, no matter what happened?”

“But I couldn’t!” she said. “I felt you were in danger and I was afraid you’d be hurt!”

“Did that make so much difference to you?”

Jean colored. Her lips were trembling but she forced them to smile. “What do you think?” she asked Alec Norton.