Murder Up My Sleeve

6

Terry stopped twice on the way back to his apartment to call the number of Vera Matthews’s studio. Neither call was answered. As he left the second of the call boxes and returned to his waiting cab, he said to the driver, “Wait here for a minute,” and settled back against the cushions.

The driver stared at him curiously. “You mean you want me to wait right here at the curb?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I shut off the motor?”

“No.”

Terry focused his eyes upon the glittering metal bracket which held the rear-view mirror in place over the windshield, and sought to apply the lessons in concentration he had learned in the Orient.

To his chagrin, he was momentarily unable to overcome the distraction of his surroundings. The throbbing vibrations of the cab, the pounding heels of streaming pedestrians, the raucous blast of horns, the shrill of traffic whistles, all impinged upon his consciousness. And, when he sought to focus his mind into a narrow beam of concentration which he could turn at will upon the various subjects which he wished to consider, he found those distractions sufficiently insistent to split his attention into the minor foci which his Oriental teacher had warned him to avoid as a mental plague.

His consciousness jumped unbidden back to the surroundings of the monastery, the forbidding bleak walls, the barren snow-capped mountains in the distance, the rushing cataracts... the interior of his cell... the monotonous diet of rice and dried fish... the little Russian girl whose laughing eyes and red lips haunted his memory with the illusive vagueness of incense smoke wafted by a sudden draught.

Then his thoughts ran through the whole gamut of memories, the treasure of the old city, the journey to the monastery, the bandits, the strange personality of the master: the calmly serene forehead, the steady eyes, the aura of power which clung to him as the misty clouds hung of a morning to the snow-capped mountain peaks. Terry recalled the teachings this man had expounded in the calm monotone of one who relies upon a logic so powerful that he needs no trick of expression to drive his statements home... “The mind is a good servant, but a poor master. Undisciplined, it is like a child who has never been taught obedience. Memory should be the servant of the consciousness. Too often it becomes the master. The undisciplined mind refuses to focus upon any one thing, but splits itself into hundreds of minor foci. These foci are fed by observation and memory, sapping from the reason a part of its latent power, just as irrigation ditches take water from rivers. Any man past forty, who lives in the environment of modem civilization, has acquired so many parasitic thought foci that he cannot concentrate with more than thirty per cent of his conscious attention. Anxiety over business, the memories of domestic inharmonies are thin trickles of wasted mental energy which sap the power from his mind.”

Terry had never been able to penetrate the past of this mysterious Master. Nor had he ever learned the man’s age. The man could speak faultless English when he chose, and could converse with equal fluency in several of the Chinese dialects. He apparently had experienced and learned to scorn the environment of civilization. He spent his days, serenely tranquil, in the mountain fastness, teaching such pupils as were sufficiently earnest in their pursuit of knowledge to make the long and difficult pilgrimage to the monastery.

The cab driver shifted in his seat, and surveyed Terry’s scowling concentration with apprehensive eyes.

Abruptly, Terry laughed.

“What is it?” the driver asked, his voice showing relief at the sound of Terry’s amused, tolerant laughter.

“I just happened to catch sight of my face in the rear-view mirror,” Terry explained. “It frightened me.”

The cab driver nodded. “It looked sorta like... well I didn’t know... I seen a crazy guy stare that way once... No offence, mister!”

“What’s your name?” Terry asked.

“Saffi Lebowitz.”

“Well, Sam,” Terry said, “if you ever want to learn to concentrate, one of the first things to remember is that the frowning scowl is not a sign of concentration, but an evidence of weakness. True concentration comes with complete physical and mental tranquillity. The face which is twisted into a frown is merely reflecting the futile efforts of a mind which is filled with turmoil — if you get what I mean, Sammy, my boy.”

The cab driver said, “Jeez, buddy, if you want to go to a doctor...”

Terry chuckled and settled back against the cushions. “It must have been that last cocktail,” he explained, and was amused to watch the expression of relief which flooded the face of the cab driver. “Just wait here a minute or two longer, Sammy, and give me a chance to collect my faculties.”

Lebowitz settled down in the seat, fished a cigarette from his pocket, looked at the clicking meter with satisfaction, and said soothingly, “Just as you say, boss.” He was accustomed to taking drunks in his stride.

Terry once more raised his eyes to the rear-view mirror. This time there was no frown on his face. He might have been sleeping with his eyes open, so far as any outward evidence of muscular attention was concerned.

He breathed with steady rhythm, making no effort whatever to concentrate his attention, until he had first gathered all his mental forces into a pooled reserve of calm concentration. Then — when the mental irritants of marginal consciousness had been blotted from his attention, when he became completely oblivious of the streaming pedestrians, the waiting cab driver, the idling motor — Terry brought up before his mind, in orderly sequence, the things which he wished to consider, with the care of a biologist examining slides under a microscope.

First, he reviewed, in order, the persons who might have possessed themselves of his sleeve gun: Yat T’oy, whose loyalty was unquestionable, but who would have thought little of murdering someone who was trying to harm either Terry or someone dear to him: Levering, whose cunning enmity would stop at nothing; Sou Ha, who would have given her life to have protected him, yet who might have been trapped by some unforeseen development into committing a murder — for Sou Ha, despite her Western veneer, was of the Orient, and her mental processes placed the saving of “face” far above anything else. Had Mandra sought to humiliate Chu Kee, her father, by getting Sou Ha into his power, it was quite possible that the Chinese girl would have gone to Mandra’s apartment, ostensibly demure and complacent, but in reality armed with a truly Oriental weapon, and determined to use it.

Then there was Alma Renton, who would have gone to any lengths to have kept her sister, Cynthia, from being called upon to pay the price which life so inexorably extracts from those who would take it too lightly.

Then, lastly, there was Cynthia Renton, a volcano of primitive complexes, an emotional enigma who would no more submit to mental domination than an eagle would permit itself to be caged.

Terry’s consciousness, considering each of these five in turn, realized that, in every instance, there were logical grounds for suspicion, and with the calm finality of a logic which is functioning impersonally, knew that he could never possess himself of the answer until he had first learned far more of the background which surrounded the dead bail-bond broker than had so far been contributed by any of the persons with whom he had talked.

As Malloy had so truthfully observed, Mandra had built up his knowledge of character by ferreting out and capitalizing upon human weaknesses, and Mandra’s most ingenious application of mental torture had been applied through the leverage of a certain William Shield, a mysterious and shadowy individual who had been an essential part of Mandra’s influence over Cynthia.

Clane brought his mind to focus on the manner in which Mandra had obtained his hold upon Cynthia. Cynthia Renton was high-strung, impulsive, and nervous, but she was not a fool, and Mandra had certainly been far too clever to have played her for one.

Moreover, it was improbable that so elaborate a scheme had been worked by the dead broker merely in order to give him a hold over some one woman who had perhaps fascinated him. It was a scheme which demanded a smoothly functioning organization which, once built up, would offer possibilities of continued operation. There must, of course, be some man whose spine had been injured, since Cynthia had been taken to see this man and her own doctors would apparently have been permitted to have made an investigation.

Obviously, a man so seriously injured would hardly be one to go out on the highways and execute extemporaneous acrobatics in front of oncoming motor cars. The fact that a doctor had been so readily available to pick up the “injured” person, leaving the driver of the car in such an advantageous position for guilty flight, spoke of carefully laid plans, and painstaking attention to detail.

Such a scheme would, then, necessitate the co-operation of one of those doctors who practiced in the twilight zone of professional ethics. This doctor would be a point of continuing contact with the victim. There would, therefore, be a man who had suffered a severe spinal injury at some time in his life, a trained tumbler who could mimic the motions of a man struck by a speeding automobile, and a clever, disreputable doctor. The doctor and the tumbler would have been carefully selected because they had, among other things, the cunning intelligence necessary to enable them to mulct their victims. The man with the spinal injury could not have been chosen in advance. He would be some person whom fate had thrown into Mandra’s path. Obviously, then, he should be the weakest mental link in the chain of deception.

Having decided that such was the case, Terry promptly mapped out a plan of campaign. He leaned forward and told Sam Lebowitz to go to the eighteen-hundred block on Howard Street. Arriving there, he instructed the cabby to wait for him, and started a tour of exploration. There was a cigar store a few doors from the corner, and Terry, casually purchasing cigarettes, said, “I’m looking for a William Shield.”

“Don’t know him,” the watery-eyed individual behind the counter said as he gave change.

“He’s a cripple, lives here in the block somewhere.”

“Oh, I think I know the chap you mean. Try the lodging-house in the middle of the block on the left.”

Terry thanked him, stood in the doorway of the tobacco shop long enough to tear open the package and fill his carved ivory cigarette case, while he located the house the man had referred to. He walked to it, entered a musty corridor, and knocked on a door, marked “OFFICE”, which opened a scant two inches, to disclose a ribbon-wide view of a big-boned woman with lustreless blonde hair, holding a soiled wrapper tightly about her throat with a big flabby hand.

“You have a William Shield here?”

“What do you want with him?”

“I want to see him.”

“What about?”

“Business.”

“What kind of business?”

“I have some good news for him.”

“What sort of good news?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you Mr. Shield’s private affairs.”

“Oh, you can’t, can’t you?”

“Is Mr. Shield here?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“One of Mr. Shield’s investments has turned out rather well,” Terry ventured.

“Investments! You mean one of his lottery tickets?”

Terry shrugged his shoulders.

The door opened another inch or two. The woman’s glittering eyes surveyed him from head to foot. Suddenly she said:

“He ain’t here any more. Try the Shamrock Rooms on Third Street.”

The door slammed.

Terry’s cab took him to the Shamrock Rooms on Third Street, where he learned that William Shield was a cripple who had been there for two weeks and had moved without leaving a forwarding address.

Terry frowned thoughtfully and decided to switch his attack to the doctor, who, Cynthia had said, was listed in the telephone directory. William Shield might change his residence with each case, but Dr. Sedler would, at least, be permanent. He would, however, be of sufficient intelligence to be a dangerous adversary. Any advantage to be gained from Dr. Sedler’s accessibility would be more than offset by the cunning intelligence of a medical man who made his living by keeping one jump ahead of legal retribution.

Terry Clane paid off his taxicab in front of a three-storied house which had, with the passing years, lost its status as a “palatial residence” and degenerated into a semi-business property. It still maintained its impressive lines, but the cheek-by-jowl proximity of tailoring establishments and delicatessen stores conspired to emphasize the atmosphere of unpainted neglect which surrounded it.

The huge plate-glass windows of what had once been a living-room now blazoned, in letters which were just a bit too large, the sign “P. C. SEDLER, M.D.” There was also a painted metal sign attached to iron uprights which were thrust into a strip of lawn in front of the building.

Terry Clane climbed the short flight of steps which led to the cemented porch and opened a door marked “Waiting-room to Surgery”. A jangling bell in an inner room signaled Terry’s passage across the threshold.

The entrance room was a huge affair, with chairs to accommodate patients crowded arm to arm along the wall. There were only two people in the room: two girls who might have been sisters, despite the fact that they sat at opposite corners of the room. They were both young, slender, attractive. Both were holding magazines. Both raised anxious eyes as Clane opened the door, then abruptly shifted their eyes back to the magazines, apparently finding the reading matter of absorbing interest. Clane walked towards the centre of the room, stood by the table, and waited. Neither of the young women looked up.

The door marked “PRIVATE” opened to disclose a tall bony man of forty-five, about whose forehead was strapped a circular eye-shade. He wore a clean white smock with short sleeves, and his bare thin arms and hands were redolent of antiseptic. A cross light on his face emphasized the high cheek-bones, the cat-fish-like mouth, and the bony jaw.

“Dr. Sedler?” Terry asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m in a hurry,” Terry said, glancing uncertainly at the two young women. “I want to see you at once.”

“A professional consultation?” Dr. Sedler inquired in cold, measured tones.

Terry said, “Both yes and no.”

“Come in,” Dr. Sedler invited.

He stood to one side, and Clane walked the length of the reception room, through the door, and into an office containing tiers of steel filing cases banked against one wall. An open door beyond showed a white-tiled operating-room where lights beat down upon a surgeon’s operating-table. Dr. Sedler jack-knifed himself into a chair in front of the desk, motioned Terry Clane to another chair, and surveyed his visitor with shrewdly calculating eyes.

Clane seated himself and assumed an air of nervousness.

“Go ahead,” Dr. Sedler said, “we’re alone.”

Clane said, “Evidently you don’t remember me, Doctor.”

The eyes searched his face as Sedler said, “What’s the name?”

Terry shook his head and said, “The name won’t help you, Doctor. Surely you must remember that night when the man got in front of my headlights. You were coming along behind me, picked him up and brought him here for treatment. You told me to follow you here, but... I... I...”

Dr. Sedler’s mouth was a long, thin, straight line, which gave no hint of sympathy. His eyes studied Clane as though seeking to find the most advantageous spot for a surgical incision.

“You were drunk,” he said.

Clane shook his head, and said, “No, I wasn’t drunk.”

“I distinctly smelled liquor on your breath. Don’t tell me you weren’t drunk, young man. I’m a physician and surgeon. I’ve followed my profession too long not to recognize intoxication when I see it. You had no business driving a car. You were even too drunk to follow my car, as I instructed. Now you show up and, I presume, want to make a lot of explanations and excuses. I don’t care to listen to them.”

Terry said contritely, “I wanted to make certain that the man was all right. You see, Doctor, you were wrong about my condition, and after I walked back to my car I looked it over carefully. There wasn’t so much as a dent on the buffers. I couldn’t possibly have struck this man much of a blow. He showed up right in front of the headlights and stood there. I swerved to try and avoid him. He jumped to one side and I thought he was clear, but I felt a jarring impact and looked back to see him rolling over in the street. He must have lost his footing when he tried to jump, and my buffer barely grazed his shoulder. He couldn’t have been seriously injured.”

The surgical calm of impersonal appraisal with which the doctor stared at Terry was as effective as though he had openly sneered.

“Not injured, eh?” he said.

“Not seriously. He couldn’t have been.”

The doctor took a leather key container from his pocket, selected a key, unlocked a drawer in his desk, pulled out three negatives.

“Come over here to the light,” he said.

Terry stepped over to the light and peered over the doctor’s shoulder at the X-rays.

“See those? Those are vertebrae. See this?” indicating a shadowy line with the point of a pencil. “That’s a fracture-dislocation. Do you know what that means?”

“You mean it’s...?”

“Exactly,” Dr. Sedler snapped. “I mean it’s a broken back. And you can thank your lucky stars that it wasn’t the third cervical; otherwise there would have been an impingement of the phrenic nerve, a complete respiratory paralysis and suffocation due to inability to actuate the motor reflexes of the diaphragm. Young man, you’re in a most unenviable position. Your failure to follow me to my office or to report the accident to the police is an additional fact which will militate against you.”

“But I’m insured...”

“Insurance be damned!” Dr. Sedler interrupted. “I’m not dealing with dollars and cents; I’m dealing with human lives. Do you know what it means for a man to be bedridden all the rest of his life, to have his legs paralyzed, to have to wear his neck in a cushioned brace so he can’t turn his head? — to be unable to eat, sleep, relax with any normal enjoyment? You make me sick, talking about insurance! I’ve given this man medical attention because I picked him up, and became interested in his case. But you, young man, have a criminal responsibility. The prognosis is not at all certain. In the event of death, you’ll be guilty of manslaughter. In any event, you’re a hit-and-run driver, and an intoxicated driver... What’s your name?”

Terry evaded the question. “Of course, Doctor, I...”

“What’s your name?”

Terry said slowly, “If you’re going to adopt that attitude, Doctor, I don’t think I care to disclose my name.”

Dr. Sedler’s face showed incredulous surprise.

“You have struck down a man while driving while intoxicated; you have failed to show even the human interest in him which a decent human being would have shown an injured dog; and now you have the temerity to stand before me and tell me you are not going to give me your name!”

“Exactly,” Terry said, getting to his feet with some show of indignation. “I wasn’t drunk, and if you’d taken time to make a reasonably thorough examination of me, you’d have known it. You smelled liquor and jumped to the conclusion I was drunk. I’d had one or two cocktails, and that’s all. I was able to drive then, just as well as I can now. But you wouldn’t listen to me. You started shooting off your face. I didn’t think then, and I don’t think now, that the man was seriously injured. I don’t know just what your racket is, but I propose to find out. Personally, I think that man jumped up in front of my headlights. How do I know that the whole thing isn’t a fake? How do I know that it isn’t some sort of frame-up? Those X-rays, for all I know, could be fifty years old!”

Dr. Sedler got to his feet with the calm, deliberate finality of an executioner. He took off his smock, hung it up, put on a coat and hat.

“I have,” he said, “just one answer to make to that. I’m going to show you the results of your criminal carelessness. My car’s at the curb. We go out this way.”

He led the way through the operating-room, through a series of treatment rooms, and out by a back door. It was growing dark, a fog swirled overhead on the wings of an ocean breeze. A light sedan was parked at the curb. Dr. Sedler jerked the door open, slid in behind the steering-wheel, switched on the headlights and ignition. Terry seated himself and jerked the door shut.

Dr. Sedler gave his attention to piloting the car. Terry settled back against the cushions, lighting a cigarette. Sedler turned into a main boulevard, drove rapidly for a dozen blocks, slowed, turned to the left, into a street given over for the most part to dingy one-story business establishments. A glass-enclosed sign bearing the letters “ROOMS”, and illuminated by three incandescents, protruded from a sombre two-story building which stretched the length of a deep lot. An occasional front and side window showed as an orange-colored oblong. Towards the rear, a row of dull red illumination marked the location of a fire-escape. Dr. Sedler slid his car in close to the curb and said, “We get out here. If you wish, you can pose as a doctor. It may help you to realize there’s nothing I’m trying to conceal.”

He led the way into the lodging-house, up a flight of stairs, past a desk on which appeared the painted legend, “ring for Manager”. Dr. Sedler marched down a long, smelly corridor, paused before a door and knocked twice, then, after a moment, twice more. He stood waiting, frowned, and said:

“I wonder...”

A querulous voice from behind the door called “Come in. It’s unlocked.”

Dr. Sedler opened the door.

“I brought a man to see you, Bill,” he said.

Terry stepped through the open door and into the room. Dr. Sedler closed the door behind him. The room was cold, cheerless, and drab, furnished with a cheap iron bedstead, painted table, rickety chairs, and faded carpets. An electric light, hanging from a twisted green drop cord, furnished meager illumination. An emaciated form was half-reclining in the bed. The face seemed as drably white as the painted metal of the bed. A leather-padded, steel brace, clamped around the man’s shoulders, held his head firmly in position.

In the far corner of the room, occupying a straight-backed chair, which had been tilted so that its back was against the wall, a man sat with the heels of his shoes hooked over the rungs of the chair.

He looked up from a movie magazine he had been reading. His eyes showed interest. His jaw, chewing gum with nervous rapidity, hesitated for a second, and then went on with its rapid, mechanical mastication.

Dr. Sedler nodded to the man in bed and said, “Bill, here’s a man come to look you over. He thinks he may be able to help you.”

The cripple said, in the drab tone of one who has been bedridden for a long time, “Do you suppose he can do anything for me, Doc?”

“Oh, sure,” the doctor said cheerfully. “It’s just going to take a little time, that’s all, Bill.”

The man who had been reading the movie magazine pushed the back of his head against the wall, made a quick jerking motion with his neck, and flipped himself forward. He was standing erect before the front legs of the chair hit the floor. Dr. Sedler said, more by way of explanation than introduction, “Fred Stevens, a friend of Bill’s who’s acting as nurse. How are you feeling, Bill?”

“Just about the same, Doc. I don’t seem to get no better.”

“Well, you aren’t getting any worse, are you?”

“I couldn’t get no worse, Doc.”

Dr. Sedler pulled the covers up from the foot of the bed, to expose the man’s feet, waxy-white and seemingly inanimate. “Let’s see you wiggle your toes, Bill.”

The face of the man on the bed twisted in a spasm of effort. The feet remained utterly without motion.

“That’s fine!” Dr. Sedler exclaimed enthusiastically. “You’re getting a little motion there now. Did you see his big toe wiggle, Fred?”

Fred Stevens said mechanically, as though he had been reciting something he had learned by rote, “Yeah, I seen it move, Doc.”

The patient said dubiously, “I couldn’t feel it move.”

“Of course not,” Sedler assured him. “That will come later.”

“When can I walk?”

“Well, I can’t tell exactly. That’s going to be quite a little while, yet.”

“When can I take this steel harness off?” the bedridden man asked, in that same expressionless voice. “I get so tired of having to be in one position all the time. I just feel numb all over. Honestly, Doc, these muscles have got so badly cramped they feel just like my legs — you know, no feeling at all.”

“Oh well,” Sedler said cheerfully, “you could be a lot worse, Bill. You could be dead, you know.”

“I wouldn’t be so bad if I was dead, Doc. This business of being dead but still being alive is what gets me.”

Fred Stevens came forward. He walked with the smooth co-ordination of a restless panther crossing its cage.

“Listen, Doc,” he said, vigorously chewing gum, “would you mind stepping in my room for a minute before you go? I’ve got a pain I want to ask you about.”

“Sure, Fred, sure,” Dr. Sedler said. “In fact we’ll go in there right now. I just wanted to look in on Bill and see how he was coming along. I’m pleased to see the improvement he’s making.”

Stevens opened a door which led to another room similar to the one in which Bill lay. Dr. Sedler, following Stevens into that room, said casually to Terry, “Would you mind stepping in here?”

When Terry had joined them, Stevens carefully closed the door and said in a low voice, “I ain’t got no pain, Doc. That was just an excuse. I want you to tell me about Bill. You know as well as I do those toes didn’t move.”

“Of course they didn’t,” Dr. Sedler admitted, “I’m afraid they’ll never move, but we’ve got to keep his mental outlook hopeful.”

“How much longer?”

Dr. Sedler shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, listen, Doc. I’ve got to get out and get some work. I can’t just stay here twenty-four hours a day. I’ve used up all the dough I had salted away for a rainy day. Gee, I don’t ever get out no more. I’m just here with him all the time. I have to wait on him hand and foot. He can’t get up. He can’t do nothing.”

Dr. Sedler pulled a wallet from his pocket. “I’m hoping we can get some kind of a settlement so we can put him in a hospital where he can have the right kind of attention. Here’s some money that’ll help carry you over, Fred. Make it last as long as you possibly can. And, above all, don’t let Bill think his case is hopeless. We’ll go out through your door, Fred.”

“Thanks for the dough, Doc. Gee, I hate to take it from you, because I know all you’re doing to help Bill. And, after all, it ain’t any funeral of yours. But it’s just one of those things that can’t be helped. I’ve been buying the eats for both of us, and Bill can’t seem to get no nourishment out of slum any more. He has to have real chow — steaks and that stuff.”

Dr. Sedler placed a sympathetic hand on Stevens’s shoulder. “I know, Fred,” he said, “I know. We’ll just have to be patient and put up with it a little while longer. I don’t think it’s going to be very much longer. And remember he needs nourishing food.”

“Okay, Doc, anything you say.”

Dr. Sedler caught Terry Clane’s eye, nodded and said, “Well, we’ll be getting on. I’ve got a couple of calls to make, and it’s getting late.”

Stevens was folding the bills Dr. Sedler had given him, as the Doctor opened the corridor door and, followed by Terry, walked down the long corridor, where the threadbare strip of carpet was so thin that the boards beneath echoed to the pound of their feet. Dr. Sedler said nothing until Terry was once more seated beside him in the automobile. Then he said, “That, my dear young man, is the effect of a moment’s careless driving on your part. That’s what comes of starting out with one cocktail too many and that pleasant feeling of well-being which comes with a little too much alcohol.”

Terry looked thoughtful.

“I’m not going to say a word,” Dr. Sedler told him. “I’m not going to try to preach. I’m not going to try to find out who you are. I’m going to drop you at any place you say, and leave the matter entirely to your own conscience. Whenever you get ready to get in touch with me again, you may do so. On the other hand, young man, I’m going to warn you that the police are moving heaven and earth investigating this case. Once they’ve located you, it’ll be too late for you to make any financial adjustments in the hope of securing a lighter punishment. Every day that you allow this man to suffer without doing what you can to compensate him for your criminal carelessness is going to make your ultimate punishment that much more severe. Prompt action might accomplish something. There are a couple of European surgeons who have evolved a new operating technique which might effect results.”

“Look here,” Terry said contritely, “suppose I make a cash settlement. Would you be willing to help me cover up with the police?”

“Certainly not. I wouldn’t stultify my profession by compounding a felony. I might be willing to remain strictly neutral.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I wouldn’t say anything to the police about your visit. In fact, I’d consider the entire matter as between us, a professional confidence. In other words, your connexion with it would be a closed chapter so far as I was concerned. That’s the most I could do.”

“Thanks,” Terry said. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll get out here at the boulevard.”

Dr. Sedler promptly swung his car into the curb.

“I’m leaving you,” he said, as he reached across and opened the door, “to debate the matter with your own conscience. In the meantime, good night.”

As Terry reached the curb and closed the door of the car, Dr. Sedler, without once looking back, slammed the car into gear and shot out into traffic. Terry turned down the boulevard for a block, caught a cruising cab, and, four and a half minutes later, was climbing the creaking stairs of the lodging-house and pounding his way down the thinly carpeted corridor. He knocked twice. Then, after a moment, twice more. The thin, toneless voice said, “Come in, the door’s unlocked.”

Terry opened the door.

The emaciated individual, with his head clamped firmly in the steel brace, was propped up in bed. Fred Stevens, seated in the straight-backed chair, tilted against the wall, his heels hooked over the rungs, looked up from a movie magazine and temporarily ceased chewing gum.

“Hello,” Stevens said. “You’re back. What do you want? Where’s Doc?”

“Yes,” Clane remarked, seating himself on the foot of the bed, “I’m back. Doc’s gone back to his surgery for a while. We can just leave him out of it. I wanted to talk with you, Bill.”

Stevens let the front legs of the chair drop to the floor. His jaw came forward at a slowly belligerent angle. “Say,” he asked, “what’s the idea?”

Clane said casually, “Have you boys read about Mandra?”

Stevens’s eyes, nervous, glittering, apprehensive, shifted to the eyes of the emaciated man on the bed, and held them for a second or two. For a moment the silence in the room was intense. Then it was the man on the bed who said, in his thin, quavering voice, “I’ll do the talking, Fred. Who’s Mandra?”

“A bail-bond broker,” Terry said.

“I don’t know him. Am I supposed to have read about him?”

Fred Stevens got to his feet and took a stealthy, stalking step towards Terry Clane.

Terry caught Fred Stevens’s restless eyes and said, “Hold it, Fred.”

The man on the bed said in that same quavering tone, “I’ll handle this, Fred. Sit down.”

Stevens stood poised for a moment on the balls of his feet, then went back to his chair and resumed the nervous, rapid chewing of his gum.

“What about Mandra?” Shield asked in the querulous voice of an invalid.

“Bumped off,” Terry said.

“Want us to bust out crying?” Stevens asked.

“Shut up, Fred,” Bill said. “This is my meat.”

“Crying wouldn’t be such a bad idea, at that,” Terry said. “If a man bumped off, owing me a lot of money I couldn’t collect, I’d shed a few tears myself.”

Shield laughed bitterly and said, “Mandra was a millionaire. If he owed anybody money it wouldn’t be such a hard job to collect.” He moved his white, wasted hand in a sweeping gesture, which included the stained furniture, the wavy mirror, the spotted paper on the wall, the thin, cold carpet. “Does that look like a millionaire owed me money?”

Terry said calmly, “I don’t know how much he was paying you, but it should have been at least half. You were taking all the risk. And half of twenty thousand is ten thousand bucks. And that’s only one payment. I think there were a couple of others.”

Terry watched the pale, expressionless eyes of Bill Shield. Behind him, he could hear the moistly, snapping sound of gum-chewing increase in nervous tempo. Shield said, “Just who are you?”

“The name’s Clane.”

“A detective?”

“No.”

“Reporter?”

“No.”

“Lawyer?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“A business man.”

“You ain’t talking business.”

“I could talk business if I had the proper encouragement,” Clane said. “You’ve got some frozen investments with Mandra. If you try to collect, you’ll be thrown in jail, charged with conspiracy, using the mails to defraud, and a lot of that stuff.”

Fred Stevens ventured a comment, “You said something about twenty thousand...”

“Shut up, Fred,” Shield interrupted, “and stay shut up. We don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Clane.”

“I’ll cite just one case,” Terry said. “Take that Renton woman, for instance. Out of the twenty thousand she paid Mandra for a settlement, you should have got at least ten. She paid the money last week. I know of another that paid fifteen thousand.”

Terry took a carved ivory cigarette case from his pocket and focused his eyes upon the cigarettes as he snapped it open, so that Shield and Stevens could exchange glances over his head. Terry selected a cigarette, tapped it on the edge of the case, and lit a match.

Stevens got to his feet and said, “Listen, buddy, what the hell are you talking about?”

Shield tried to keep his voice steady, but it quavered with excitement. “She never paid any twenty thousand,” he asserted.

“My mistake,” Terry muttered politely.

“How do you know she paid twenty grand?” Stevens asked.

“We won’t argue about it,” Terry said, leaning back against the enameled white on the foot of the bed, and blowing out cigarette smoke.

Fred Stevens spoke so rapidly that the words all seemed to run together. “Listen, Billy,” he said, “if this guy knows about Mandra, and the Renton case, and Doc Sedler, we ain’t doing ourselves any good by keeping our traps closed, and if that Renton dame dug up twenty grand, Mandra was either crossing Sedler, or Sedler is crossing us.”

Shield, on the bed, said slowly to Terry, “What’s your interest in this?”

“I’m a business man.”

“So’s J. P. Morgan. What’s your proposition?”

“I think someone’s holding out on you boys. I’d like to handle your interests and I’d want half of what I got.”

“Half!” Stevens exploded. “My God, I’ll say you’re a business man!”

“Half a loaf is better than no bread,” Terry pointed out.

Stevens said, in an ominous voice, “Yes, but our bread box ain’t empty. We can collect our own bread.”

“You can’t if you don’t even know where the bread is.”

“Well, I can damn soon find out.”

Terry’s laugh was sarcastic. “Go ahead,” he said. “Play the sucker to the bitter end. It should come easy for you. You know what’ll happen, don’t you? About the time you boys get close to home they’ll decide they need a fall-guy, and you’ll be elected, Fred. You’ll be serving time, and all the bread you’ll get will be what they give you in solitary.”

Stevens moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and said belligerently, “Any time they try to make me a fall-guy, I’ll drag the whole shebang into...”

“Shut up, Fred,” Shield shouted in a shrill treble voice. “You talk too damn much!”

“No,” Terry said, “you wouldn’t drag anyone in, Fred. It’d be handled so it looked as though the tip-off had come from the outside; and you wouldn’t squeal. Sedler would tell you to sit tight; that he was going to get a mouthpiece and beat the rap, and you’d fall for it. Sedler would get a shyster who’d keep patting you on the back and telling you it was a cinch, until after the judge had refused your motion for a new trial, and you were safely on your way to the Big House.”

Shield’s eyes were half-closed slits of glittering concentration.

“Listen, Mister,” he said, “we’re not doing any more talking.”

“Well,” Terry said, “how about listening?”

“We’re not even listening.”

“You speak for yourself, Billy,” Stevens said. “I’m listening.”

“No,” Shield said, “we’ve got too many things to consider, Fred. Now listen, Clane, there’s a lawyer by the name of Marker in the Cutler Building. You go and make your proposition to him. Put all your cards on the table, and spread everything out cold turkey.”

Clane laughed and said, “You want me to be the fall-guy, eh? Nothing doing.”

“You can talk to a lawyer all right,” Shield told him. “That’s what lawyers are for. It isn’t going to hurt you to speak your piece to a lawyer. They can’t hang anything on you for that.”

Fred Stevens said, “Listen, Billy, why cut Marker in on this?”

“Because I’m afraid of this guy.”

“If Marker comes in on it, he’ll want his,” Stevens pointed out. “Let’s make this guy a reasonable proposition, and...”

“Shut up, Fred. You talk too damn much. You always did talk too damn much. This guy smells like a dick to me. How do we know the Renton woman paid any twenty grand? How do we know it ain’t just a stall to get us talking? And if it is, God knows, you’ve said enough already.”

Terry’s laugh was scornful. “Of course the Renton woman paid twenty grand,” he said. “And there were lots of others that paid plenty. And those were only the first payments. Did you think Mandra was making all this play for chicken feed? You certainly weren’t simple enough to fall for that bail-bond stall, were you? Take the Renton woman, for instance. She didn’t get any release, did she? Of course she didn’t. She came down and looked you over and went out frightened stiff. She paid Mandra twenty grand, just to square the thing. And she paid Sedler to see that you had the best medical attention money could buy. And she was going to keep on paying. Sedler told her there were a couple of European surgeons who’d worked out a new technique they could use in your case and...”

“Now you know this guy’s on the up-and-up, Bill,” Fred Stevens exclaimed. “You know that’s Sedler’s line...”

“Shut up,” Shield half-screamed. “Don’t you see the play, you damn fool? He’s a dick. Sedler brought him in here as a hit-and-run. Remember the knock Doc gave on the door, and this fellow gave the same knock when he came back. Of course he knows all about Sedler’s line, because Sedler pulled it on him. Now, will you keep your trap closed and let me handle this?”

Stevens hesitated, while he regarded Clane in frowning concentration, then slowly went back to his chair and sat down.

Shield said, “You go see Marker, brother.”

“I don’t want to see Marker.”

“We want you to.”

“I’m a sharp-shooter,” Terry told him. “If I’ve got to cut some shyster in on it, it’s just no dice. Now, I could talk with you boys and work out a nice little business arrangement. You couldn’t cross me and I couldn’t cross you, because we’d all be in the same boat. But the minute I go to a lawyer, there’s nothing to keep him from...”

“You go see Marker,” Shield interrupted. “We ain’t doing any more talking.”

“Well, you’ll listen, won’t you?”

“No, we won’t listen.”

Terry laughed and said, “You’ll have to listen. You...”

Stevens got to his feet, approached Clane with a cat-like tread. His hand rested on Clane’s shoulder and fingertips dug in as though a vice were slowly tightening.

“Listen, buddy,” Stevens said, “I’m for you myself. I think you’re on the up-and-up. What you say sounds like sense to me. But what Billy says sounds more like sense. You go talk with Marker. And you start now!”

“But,” Terry said, “can’t you see what a fool you’d be to cut a lawyer in...”

The fingertips seemed to push through clothes, skin, and muscle, and indent themselves in the bone. “Up,” Stevens said, “and out!”

Terry caught the significance of the growing suspicion in the glinting grey eyes, shrugged his shoulders, got to his feet and said nonchalantly, “Well, you boys take a few days to think it over.”

“Listen” Stevens said belligerently, “if you try to cross us...”

“Shut up, Fred,” Shield warned. “He knows where we stand. Put him out.”

Fred Stevens pushed Clane into the corridor.

“Buddy,” he said, “walk out of here, don’t come back, and don’t stick around the neighborhood. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go to see Ben Marker. We’ve got confidence in him, and you’d better have.”

Clane smiled affably. Freed of Stevens’s gripping fingers, he started down the corridor, pausing only long enough to say, “Once a sucker, always a sucker. Think it over, Fred.”

“You go see Marker,” Stevens repeated doggedly, stepped back into the bedroom and slammed the door.

Clane walked swiftly down the corridor, down the stairs and out into the foggy evening. He walked briskly to the boulevard, waved to a cruising cab, drove back to the corner across from the lodging-house and said to the cab driver, “Go over there against the curb and wait. Turn your lights off, but keep your motor running. Keep watching me. When I raise my right hand, swing round and pick me up. I’ll have a following job for you, and I want to be sure I have a cab ready.”

“Okay, buddy,” the driver told him, folding the two one-dollar bills Terry handed him, “I’ll be on the job.”

Terry went back to the corner and waited for the space of three cigarettes, at the end of which time he was rewarded by seeing the door of the lodging-house disgorge two figures. His head still clamped by the leather-padded brace, the emaciated form of Bill Shield hobbled along with such adept use of crutches and legs that Fred Stevens, who was walking with the light, quick stride of a trained athlete, was hard-put to keep up.

They had crossed the road, and Terry was about to signal his cab, when some whimsy of fate caused Stevens to turn his eyes towards the waiting taxi. He said something to the man at his side, placed fingers to his lips, and whistled. When the cab driver ignored the signal, Stevens ran lightly across the road and down the side street. Clane stepped apprehensively back into the shadows. He heard the mutter of low-voiced conversation between Stevens and the cab driver, then Stevens ran back across the road to confer with Shield in low, excited tones. Suddenly they both turned and retraced their steps to the lodging-house, the pound of Shield’s crutches bearing witness to the haste of their retreat.

When the door of the house had closed behind them, Terry crossed over to the cab driver.

“What happened?” he asked.

“The guy wanted to hire me, and I told him I couldn’t take him no place because I was engaged. He wanted to know what sort of a stall that was, and what had I been hired for, sitting here with my motor running, and I told him that was my business and not his. So then he asked me if the guy I was working for was a young, well-knit chap, dressed in a grey suit... In fact, he went on and described you to a T.”

“What did you tell him?” Terry asked.

“I told him Naw, that I was working for an old dame with glasses, but I don’t think it did no good. He looked at me like he wanted to bust me, and then he beat it back across the street and he and the crippled guy hobbled back to that lodging-house.”

“I know,” Terry said, “I was just watching them.” He opened the door, climbed into the car and gave the driver the address of his apartment house.

“You don’t want me to do that shadowing job?” the driver asked.

Terry shook his head. The merest whimsy of fate had served to alarm his quarry, sending them back into hiding, from which they would emerge only after adequate reconnaissance.

Terry had, however, sowed the seeds of discontent among the conspirators, seeds which he knew would sooner or later sprout in the soil of mutual suspicion, to bear fruit in the shape of action. It remained to be seen whether he could manage to capitalize upon such action, in the brief time which was at his disposal.

“No,” he told the cab driver, “we’ll forget the shadowing.”