Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

Words and Music

Oliver Quade was in the dough. His hotel bill was paid, he had fifty-three dollars in his pocket, and Charlie Boston, his friend and assistant, had a ticket on the Irish Sweepstakes.

It was something to celebrate and they were doing it in the bar and cocktail lounge of the Midtown Hotel. They’d had two beers apiece and were at that expansive stage where they were willing to listen to the beef of the little fellow who’d had a good many more than two beers.

“I’m a song writer,” the little fellow insisted drunkenly. “I can prove it.”

“That’s fine,” said Oliver Quade. “I knew a song writer once who ate crackers in bed. Too bad, he was a nice guy.”

The song writer swiveled about and leered at the pasty-faced professor who was banging away at the dwarf piano at the other side of the room.

“Bah,” he said, “listen to that bilge. They call that music! I wrote the best little damn song that’s been written in this damn town in the las’ five years. Y’wanna hear it?”

“No,” said Charlie Boston.

“Tha’s fine,” said the little man. “I’m glad to oblige, and when you hear it, remember the name’s Billy Bond. ‘Words and Music’ by Billy Bond. Tha’s me, Billy Bond.”

He whipped a folded sheet of song manuscript from his inside breast pocket and, holding his glass of beer in his other hand, began to navigate the perilous sea between the bar and the piano.

Oliver Quade winked at Charlie Boston. “This may be good.” He followed Billy Bond.

The little song writer waved his sheet of music in the piano player’s face. “Here, chum! Play this. It’s good. I wrote it myself.”

“Well, well,” said the piano pounder, “a member of the perfession. Shake!”

Billy Bond ignored the outstretched hand. “Play it in slow tempo. With feeling. It’s a sad song, see. About a cottage by the shore, a summer day, a soft wind…”

The man at the piano hummed a few notes. “I gotcha, pal. I gotcha. Yeah, sure…”

“I’ll sing it,” said Billy Bond. “You play.”

He cleared his throat noisily and sang:

“Say, dear, you’ll come with me to the shore…

We’ll leave our little cottage… never more…”

Billy Bond banged his fist on the top of the piano. “Slower!” he yelled at the piano player. “I told you slow tempo. Try it again!”

Oliver Quade saw the glint in the piano player’s eyes and laid a hand on Billy Bond’s arm. “Maybe this isn’t just the place for your kind of song, Billy boy. But it’s a swell number!”

“Sure, it’s swell!” snapped Billy Bond. “That’s why I want you to hear it. I want everybody to hear it.”

He picked up his beer glass from the top of the piano where he had set it. “I’ll sing it,” he said. He gulped a mouthful of beer and started to set the glass back on top of the piano.

Quade, looking at Billy Bond, saw the horror that swept across his face.

“Gawd!” said Billy Bond. His mouth fell open and the glass of beer fell to the floor. Billy Bond clawed at his throat — and fell forward, into Oliver Quade’s arms.

Quade let him gently to the floor. A film of perspiration suddenly formed on his forehead as he looked into the song writer’s glazing eyes.

“He’s passed out!” said the man at the piano.

“No,” Quade replied. “He’s… dead!”

The piano player snorted. “Naw!” he pushed back from the piano and came around it. He prodded Billy Bond with his toe. “Hey, souse! It’s time to go home.”

A two-hundred-pound waiter came forward. “Shame on your pal, mister,” he chided Quade. “One beer and he passes out!”

Quade said tightly, “You oaf, he’s dead!”

“Dead drunk,” cracked the piano player.

“If you don’t want to be bothered with him,” said the waiter-bouncer, “just slip me his address and I’ll pour him into a taxi. No extra charge.”

He stooped and turned Billy Bond over. With his face almost in Bond’s, he stiffened. “Jeez!” he cried. “He is dead!”

The piano player reeled back. His pasty face turned the color of sour dough.

And then pandemonium reigned in the cocktail lounge. After pandemonium, came the police. Several of them. Also several men from the medical examiners’ office. Photographers and reporters.

The pride of the force, Detective Sergeant Vickers, was in charge of the police detail. He looked almost too young to be a detective sergeant. He was tall and slender, wore a tailor-made London drape suit, a green snap-brim Alpine hat and French-toed tan shoes.

He was brusque and thorough. “He had a glass of beer,” he said to Oliver Quade. “He took a drink of it and keeled over — dead. Why?”

“You’re the detective,” Quade retorted.

The sergeant’s eyes roamed over Quade and finally came to rest on Quade’s middle vest button.

He said, “What’s your name? And occupation?”

“The name is Oliver Quade. I’m a human encyclopedia.”

Sergeant Vickers’ eyes came up to Quade’s necktie. “What was that last?”

“I said I was a human encyclopedia. Is there any law against that?”

The sergeant’s lips puckered. “No,” he said, “there’s no law against it. And none that says you have to talk. Only… I can take you down to Headquarters where we have a little room with a big light in it and some very hard-boiled cops who sometimes disobey police regulations. So let’s try again; what’s your occupation?”

“I’m a human encyclopedia. I make my living telling people the answers to questions. I sell books of knowledge. And I know what’s in them. Take The Compendium of Human Knowledge. Twelve hundred pages of information, condensed, classified — everything the human race has ever learned since the beginning of time. And only $2.95—”

“Hey! You trying to sell me a book?”

“Well, I’m really on a vacation, but I’ve got some books in my room upstairs. If you’d like to give me an order—”

Sergeant Vickers snarled, “Cut it!”

“For example,” said Quade, “do you know our American woods are full of a plant with narcotic qualities and no one does anything about it?”

“Sure, that’s easy,” said Vickers, answering in spite of himself. “Marijuana.”

“And you call yourself a detective!” Quade said pityingly. “Don’t you know something is done about the marijuana weed? It’s the mandrake, or may-apple, famed in fable, and said to groan when uprooted. It has a grotesque shape, formed almost like a man, and the ancients considered it a cure for barrenness.” Quade took a deep breath and started in again. “Do you know—”

“Shut up!” cried Vickers. He shifted to Charlie Boston and glowered at him. “What’s your name?”

“Charles Boston. I’m an assistant human encyclopedia.”

Sergeant Vickers chopped the air with his fist. “The dead fellow, what’s his name?”

Quade answered that. “He said it was Billy Bond. He was a song writer.”

“Billy Bond, a song writer? I never heard of him.”

“Do you know all the song writers in New York?” Quade asked.

Vickers loosened a bit. “I cover the Broadway beat. I know just about all the hoofers, the bookmakers, song writers and all the other riff — ah, Broadway regulars.”

“And you never heard of Billy Bond? Well, maybe he was just breaking in. I never heard of him myself until he introduced himself here at the bar, less than five minutes before he died.”

“You mean you didn’t come here with him?”

“Hell, no.”

A white-coated intern came over and whispered into Sergeant Vickers’ ear. Quade saw the sergeant’s eyes widen.

He looked at Quade through smoldering eyes. “So you were just a bar-pickup acquaintance of Bond’s, huh? Would you be surprised to know then that Bond died of poison? Hydrocyanic acid. It was dumped in his beer!”

Quade moistened his lips with his tongue. His nostrils flared slightly, but otherwise he showed no emotion.

Sergeant Vickers said softly, “You don’t seem very surprised?”

“I knew he was dead,” Quade replied evenly. “He fell against me and I got a whiff of the hydrocyanic acid.”

Vickers pounced on that. “How do you know it was hydrocyanic acid?”

“Because I’m a human encyclopedia. I know everything. Hydrocyanic has an odor very similar to bitter almonds. It is made by adding sodium gradually to sulphuric acid.”

Vickers’ lips parted slightly. “What the — You know a lot about poisons? You must have had a damn good reason—”

“Sure. I’ve got good reasons for knowing a lot of things. For example, that a proteus is a blind, water-breathing, tailed amphibian, inhabiting the limestone caves to the east of the Adriatic. You still refuse to believe that I’m what I told you, a human encyclopedia? Now, look, you’re sniffing around the wrong telephone pole. And while you’re at it, the real culprit has beat it. The one you want is the chap who changed the beer glasses.”

“Whoa! What’re you getting at?”

“Someone changed glasses with Billy Bond. I wasn’t paying too much attention to it at the time, because Bond was getting into an argument with the piano player and, anyway, I wasn’t attaching any significance to a little thing like that — then. After Bond was dead, the fellow was gone.”

“Yes?” said Sergeant Vickers, through bared teeth. “And just what did this beer-swapping gent look like?”

“He had a scar on his chin.”

“A scar, eh? Go on.” There was a jeering note in the sergeant’s voice.

“The scar was about the size of a dime. Rather odd design. It looked almost like a figure nine. That is the top part of it was almost a circle. And the circle had a tail—”

“Soup Spooner!” exclaimed Vickers.

“Eh?”

“Fella I know has a scar something like that. Was this fella tall or short?”

“About five feet, thin and he weighed around one sixty. There was something else that was peculiar about him. His eyes were kind of — vacant.”

Sergeant Vickers inhaled softly. “He looked a little goofy? That’s Soup Spooner. Hold it a minute.” He stepped briskly to the bar and crooked his finger at the bartender. “Paddy, was Soup Spooner in here?”

Paddy’s forehead washboarded. “Soup Spooner? Why, I don’t think….”

“Cut that,” Sergeant Vickers snarled. “You haven’t had this dump all these years without knowing Soup. The description he,” jabbing a finger at Quade, “gave, fits Soup. Now, was he here?”

Paddy still looked worried. “Well, Sergeant, as you can see, there were quite a few people here and I was pretty busy and—”

Sergeant Vickers cut him off, savagely. “Was Soup anywhere near this Bond fellow at the bar?”

The bartender shook his head. “To tell you the truth, Sergeant, I hardly ever look at the faces of customers.”

Vickers swore and turned back to Quade. “All right, it was Soup Spooner. It fits in with the rest of it. Soup knows about poisons and things.”

“He mixes a neat Mickey Finn?”

Vickers grunted. “He’s a chemist who went bad. He got his name from making soup for petermen. That’s how he got goofy, too. A batch of nitroglycerine exploded on him. Too bad. The guy was a genius with chemicals. If he’d gone straight you’d be reading about him in those encyclopedias of yours.”

“Well,” said Quade, “if you know him, I imagine you’ll have no trouble picking him up?”

“Naw. We’ve got his record down at Headquarters. We can round him up inside of two hours. Not that it’ll do us any good. Soup knows people. Lawyers and politicians. We can put him on the scene — and it doesn’t mean a thing.” He laughed shortly. “For that matter, we’ll have a helluva time proving murder anyway. This song writer might have got tired of it all, you know. Only I don’t think so. Not if there was poison in his beer and Soup was in the same building. But try and convince a jury of that.”

“Tough,” Quade sympathized. “O.K., then, if my pal and me scram?”

Vickers whipped out a notebook. “Where do you live?”

“Right here, at the Midtown. Room 707. One week’s rent paid in advance.”

“Well, stick around. You’ll be wanted for the inquest in a couple of days. I’ll let you know.”

Oliver Quade, followed by Charlie Boston, walked smartly out of the cocktail lounge. There was a worried look on Charlie’s face, but he said nothing until they had closed the door of their room. Then he exploded.

“Dammit, Ollie! Can’t we go anywhere without getting mixed up in trouble?”

“No trouble, Charlie. A little misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“All, hell!” Charlie said bitterly. “You think I didn’t see the look in your eyes? You’re going to play cop again and I’m going to get slapped around and we’re both going to wind up on the sidewalk, without our luggage and not a dime in our pockets. Just when we’re ahead of the game, for the first time in months!”

“Hush, Charlie!” Quade chided. “None of that’s going to happen. Not any more. I’m through with it. Billy Bond was a perfect stranger to me. I’m not interested. Only a little curious.”

Charlie Boston groaned. “Curious! Here we go again!”

Quade grinned crookedly. “What was he so sore about? You’d think if he’d just had a song published, he’d be happy about it. And poison in beer. Wow! That’s a new one. Ummm…”

He stepped between the twin beds and scooped up the telephone. “Give me Mr. Billy Bond’s room, please. Eight twelve, isn’t it?”

“No, nine one four. I’ll ring him.” She did. There was no response, of course. Quade said then: “Never mind. But look, would you have a bellboy bring me up a copy of The Showman, from the newsstand downstairs?”

As he hung up the receiver, Charlie Boston flung himself down on a bed and sulked. Quade chuckled. “What’s good in the fourth at Rockingham, tomorrow?”

Charlie Boston’s head jerked up. “The fourth. Daisy Q… Aw, hell!” He let his head fall back to the pillow.

“So I have to give up what little fun I get out of life to play stooge to your pet crime waves!”

“Right!” said Quade.

A few moments later there was a knock at the door and Oliver Quade let in a bellboy. He took the copy of The Showman and exhibited a quarter and a five dollar bill.

The bellboy, who was thirty-five and partially bald, riveted his eyes on the bill.

Quade said, “What would you do for this?”

“No,” said the bellboy. “I wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“Very well. Bring me the key to Room 914 and the bill’s yours.”

“It’s a lie!” the bellboy cried. “I didn’t rob that room last week. You can’t pin it on me!”

Quade chuckled. “You dope, I’m not a cop. I’m a book salesman. I want to take a look into Room 914. I’m not going to take anything out of it, and I’m not trying to frame you for the robbery you didn’t commit last week. You can stand outside the door while I’m inside.”

“Gimme the fin,” said the bellboy. “If somebody walks by your room in a couple of minutes and accidentally drops a key, it wasn’t me, because I’m down in the basement chinning with the engineer.”

The bellboy departed with the bill and Quade shook his head in admiration. A couple of minutes later, he opened the door of his room and sure enough, there lay a key, with a tag on it which was the number 914.

“Coming along, Charlie?” Quade asked.

Charlie Boston got up from the bed. “If you’re set on going to jail, I might as well go along, so I can say, ‘I told you so.’”

They climbed the stairs to the ninth floor, and a moment later slipped into Room 914. It was a mere cubbyhole of a room, one of the nine-dollar-a-week affairs.

Quade went straight to the cheap chest of drawers. Scattered among two or three shirts and some underwear were several letters, addressed to William Bond, Midtown Hotel, New York City.

Quade looked at the postmarks and found one dated only a few days previous. He slipped out the contents, a single sheet of notepaper, at the top of which was printed, apparently with a rubber stamp.

Bond’s Meat Market

Quality Meats and Sausages

Waverly, Iowa

The letter was in a scrawling hand and written in pencil. It read:

Dear Son:

Your year is up. Since your heart is so set on becoming a song writer, your mother wants I should let you stay another six months, but I do not see how I can afford it. Business is not very good in the shop and since I’ve had to hire a boy to take your place, in addition to sending you the $15.00 every week, we have been pinched ourselves.

If you insist on staying in New York I cannot continue to send you the money. You will have to support yourself. I am sorry. I think it would be better if you came home and went to work in the meat market and forgot all about that song writing.

Your father,

Joseph Bond.

Quade refolded the pathetic little note and put it back in the envelope. “Poor guy,” he said soberly.

“What’s wrong with the meat business?” demanded Charlie Boston, remembering meals he had missed.

“I didn’t say anything about the butcher shop. I said it was tough about Billy. He finally clicked, just when his time was up and — bingo!”

“Bingo to you,” said a calm voice at the door.

Quade whirled. He had not heard the door open. Nor did he hear it close, now, as the man who had come into the room pushed it softly shut.

He was a rather slender man, slightly above medium height, and had a scar on his chin that looked very much like a figure 9. His eyes were slightly bulging — and vacant.

A draft of wind seemed to fan Quade’s spine. He said, “Hello, Soup.”

The intruder’s dull eyes fixed themselves on Quade’s face. “How d’you know my name?”

“Somebody mentioned it in the cocktail lounge downstairs, a while ago.”

Soup Spooner’s thin lips curled. “Maybe you’re the guy who mentioned it… Hold it, lug!”

The last was an admonition to Charlie Boston who had started to edge forward. Soup’s right hand came carelessly out of his coat pocket and there was a .32 caliber automatic in it.

“What the hell you snoopin’ in here for?” he demanded.

“Why, I was just — uh, trying to get this fellow’s home address. Notify his folks, you know?”

“Hand them over — the letters. Maybe I’ll notify the family myself. How about your families?”

“Hey!” exclaimed Charlie Boston, in alarm.

“Ha-ha,” Quade laughed mirthlessly. “I guess we better be going — minding our own business.”

He took a tentative step forward. Soup Spooner made no objections and Quade tried another step.

Then the door was flung violently open and Sergeant Vickers of the Homicide Squad stepped into the room. “What the hell?” he cried. “Soup, drop that rod!”

Soup reversed his automatic and held it by the muzzle. “I got a permit, Vickers.”

“Whoever gave you a permit?” Vickers demanded.

Soup shrugged. “Man I used to work for arranged it. The Swede.”

“The Swede, huh? Well, he’s pushing up daisies these days. And I’m going to see that your little permit is revoked, Soup. What’re you doing in here?” Vickers scowled at Quade. “And you, mister?”

“Believe it or not,” said Quade, “I was waiting for a stagecoach.”

“I was lookin’ for a pal,” Soup offered, “and I saw these guys friskin’ this room. That’s why I pulled the rod on them.”

“Yeah? Well, who’s this friend of yours?”

“Fella named Smith. Tom Smith.”

“What’s his room number?”

“Nine two seven.”

Vickers turned and stabbed a thumb at a detective standing by the door. “Step over and ask the party in room 927 if his name is Smith.”

Quade said, “This is the man who was in the cocktail lounge. I saw him coming up on the elevator and recognizing him, followed. Isn’t that so, Charlie?”

“Yeah, sure,” agreed Charlie Boston. “He’s the bird who’s doing the lying.”

“And what,” Vickers asked, pointedly, “are you doing with those letters?”

Quade said quickly, “They were lying on the bed here. I just picked them up.”

“You lie like hell!” said Soup Spooner.

The detective who had gone to Room 927 returned. “It’s a woman. Her name is Hoffnagel.”

Vickers bared his teeth. “Come again, Spooner.”

Soup blinked. “I musta made a mistake. This is the Keenan Hotel, isn’t it?”

“You know damn well it’s the Midwest!”

Soup passed a hand before his eyes, and when he removed it, his expression was more vacant than ever. “I–I get mixed up sometimes. Maybe it was Bill Jones I was going to see. Or Joe Coffee.”

“Or Captain Hitchcock at the station,” Vickers snapped. “Come along, Soup.”

He relieved Soup of the automatic and shoved him toward the door. Then he turned to Quade and Boston. “And you birds, I’m putting a watch on this room. Scram!”

Quade and Boston scrammed. Back to their own room where Quade attacked the copy of The Showman the bellboy had bought for him. After a few minutes intensive search, he exclaimed: “Here it is, Charlie. Listen: ‘Billy Bond’s song, Cottage by the Shore, has been accepted for publication, by the Murdock Publishing Company.’”

“So?” Charlie Boston asked. “We knew he had a song accepted. He was hollering it loud enough downstairs.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Quade. “But didn’t you notice something funny about his room?”

“There wasn’t anything wrong about it.”

Quade said wearily, “He was a song writer. He’s been trying to sell songs for a whole year. His father’s letter said so. But did you see one single song sheet around his room.”

Boston screwed up his face. “Maybe he’d just cleaned out his room.”

“Ah, hell! No song writer would ever chuck away his rejected songs. Not all of them. I knew a song writer in Dayton, Ohio, once whose whole house was full of manuscripts. They had them on the piano and in the kitchen. Even in the bathroom.”

“What’re you trying to make out, Ollie?”

“That someone had beat us to this Billy’s room. And cleaned it out.”

“They didn’t clean out his personal letters. You’d think—”

“No, I wouldn’t. There wasn’t any sense in trying to conceal his identity, because the hotel people would know him, anyway. But the songs….”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” He scooped up the telephone directory and, finding a number, asked the operator to get it for him. A moment later he had the offices of The Showman.

“Say,” he said, “in this week’s department, ‘Words and Music’, you got a piece about Billy Bond getting a song accepted by the Murdock Publishing Company.”

A man’s voice said, wearily, “Who’s this, Murdock again?”

“No. I — uh, I’m speaking for Oliver Quade’s Band. The boss thought he might — well, plug the song and I’m just calling—”

“No soap,” said the representative of The Showman. “The item was in error. The Murdock Company denies it.”

“Yeah? Well, where’d you get the dope?”

“From Billy Bond himself. We were victimized. It happens every week. Somebody wants some free advertising and sends us some baloney. We can’t check on everything that comes in.”

“No? Well, you ought to!” Quade banged the receiver on the hook.

“That’s screwy,” he said, to Charlie Boston. “They say Billy Bond sent that item in himself and it isn’t true. Why would he do a thing like that?”

“Maybe he had a dicker with another outfit and wanted to play the Murdock Company against them. They’re a well-known outfit.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Why, I’ve seen their ads. They’re all over.”

“All over where?”

Charlie Boston picked up a true confession magazine from the dresser. He ruffled the pages in back. “I’ve seen it in here. Lots of times. Here it is!”

Quade ripped the magazine from his hands. He scanned a column of small ads, then began reading:

Song poems Wanted. Fame and Fortune May be Yours. You Write the Words. We furnish the Music. Big Royalties! Murdock & Co. Monadnock Block, New York City.

“Do you smell anything, Charlie?” Quade asked.

“You mean that ad? They’re phonies?”

“Maybe. Some of these outfits are. I guess there must be a million people in this country trying to write songs. Most of them can’t write music, but anyone can write the words of a song. Joe Doak sees this ad and sends in his lyric. So what? So he gets a letter saying the lyrics are swell.”

“Form letter number 83, huh?”

“Yeah. Joe Doak falls for it. Murdock & Co. has ‘discovered’ other song hits — lyrics that came in the mail just like Joe Doak’s. Maybe Doak’s tripe will be a hit. His lyrics are swell. All he needs is a good tune for them. And guess what? Murdock and Company has a couple of the best tunesmiths in the business, right on their staff. One of them read Joe Doak’s lyrics and raved about them so much that the company’s willing to let said tunesmith arrange the music for practically nothing — just a mere fifty or sixty bucks.”

“Hell,” said Charlie Boston, “even I wouldn’t fall for that.”

“You would if you lived in the sticks and worked in a meat market. You wouldn’t let fame and fortune slip through your fingers for a measly little fifty smackers, would you?”

“Maybe not. So I send the dough to Murdock, huh? What then?”

“Then you’ve got lyrics and music. What good are they, if you can’t get the song published? Maybe your old man has a meat market and he kicks in with $200 to $250. Murdock publishes your songs. Prints five hundred, a thousand, maybe two thousand copies. All you got to do now is sell them.”

“Me? How would I know how to sell song sheets?”

Quade shrugged. “That’s no worry of the Murdock Company. They’ve lived up to their part of the bargain. It’s in the contract.”

“Not my contract. I holler police. I squawk to Jim Farley.”

“It won’t do you any good. These companies operate within the laws. They live up to their agreement.”

Quade picked up his hat. “Hold down the fort, Charlie. I’m going over and have a little chitchat with Mr. Murdock.”

“You might need me, Ollie!”

“Uh-uh, not in a music publisher’s office. I’d like you to stick around here. I’ve a hunch Sergeant Vickers will be popping in again. I’m curious as to what he’ll say.”

The Monadnock Block was on Madison. It had seen better days. Quade consulted the building directory and rode in the elevator to the sixth floor. The layout of the Murdock Company consisted of an anteroom and two private offices. A tall woman, wearing glasses, sat behind a desk in the anteroom.

“Mr. Quade calling on Mr. Murdock,” Quade said smoothly.

“You have an appointment?”

“No, but I want to see him just the same.”

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to tell me your business first.”

“It’s personal.”

The woman — she was in her early thirties — wore no makeup whatever. She sniffed at Quade. “I’m Mr. Murdock’s confidential secretary. You can tell me what it’s about.”

“You’re Miss Smith?” Quade asked.

“The name is Henderson,” the woman said primly. “Now, if you’ll state—”

Quade slowly closed one eye in a wink. “Tell him it’s about Ethel. He’ll know.”

Miss Henderson looked steadily at Quade. Then she rose and went into one of the private offices. She was inside for a long moment. When she came out, she nodded to Quade.

Murdock was about forty. A bluff, hearty type with not too much hair. “What’s this about Ethel?” he boomed. “I don’t know any woman with that name.”

“I didn’t say Ethel was a woman,” Quade said. “Ethel’s the name of a song. I wrote it myself.”

Murdock’s eyes glittered. “You’ve got the manuscript with you?”

“No, you see, I saw your ad in a magazine. It says you write the music for lyrics. That’s what I’ve got. A lyric.”

“Send it in. We’ll advise you if it shows merit.”

“Oh, it’s got merit all right,” Quade said. “You don’t have to be afraid of that. All my friends who’ve seen it said it was swell. It ought to be a hit.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything about it until I see it.”

“Well, I wanted to get your terms before I sent it in. How much royalty will I get?”

“That depends. Al Donnelley made twenty thousand dollars on his last song.”

“Al Donnelley? Say, he’s good.”

Mr. Murdock coughed. “Al sometimes does a little arranging for me. Just as a favor, you know. It’s quite possible, er, if your lyrics are good that I can persuade Al to write the music for you.”

“You could? That’d be great. We’d go fifty-fifty on the profits, huh?”

“Why… I don’t think Al would want to do that. He’d be satisfied just to know that he helped a new song writer make the grade. He’s a great guy, Al. Of course, I’d give him a little present or something. Maybe fifty-sixty dollars. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?”

“Me? I’ve got to shell out fifty dollars? Sure. I wouldn’t mind. I’d give it to him out of the first royalties.”

Mr. Murdock shook his head. “That’d make it — too commercial. Al wouldn’t like that. Give me the money when you bring in the lyrics and I’ll slip it to Al.”

“But I haven’t got fifty dollars. Not now.”

“How much have you got?”

“Well, that’s the trouble. I haven’t got any money. In fact, I had to borrow carfare to get—”

Mr. Murdock kicked back his chair. “Good afternoon, I’m very busy.”

Quade went to the door. With his hand on the knob, he turned. “You want me to send Ethel to you? The song, I mean.”

“If you send fifty dollars with it — yes!” Murdock said grimly.

Quade went out the door. He stopped at Martha Henderson’s desk. “He threw me out,” he complained. “For a lousy fifty bucks. I’ll show him. I’ll get my song published somewhere else.”

“You do that,” Martha Henderson said coolly. “I’ll listen to it on the radio. Goodbye.”

“What’re you doing tonight, sister?” Quade asked bluntly.

“I have a date with a girl friend,” Martha Henderson retorted. “Her name is Ethel.”

Quade winced and ducked out of the office…

Back at the hotel he bumped into Detective Sergeant Vickers stepping into the elevator. “I was just going up to see you, Quade,” the detective said.

“Did he confess?”

“Confess?” Vickers snarled. “Nick Darcy was in the station waiting for us. You know who Nick Darcy is? Just about the toughest criminal lawyer in this town, that’s all.”

They stepped out on Quade’s floor and walked to his room. Charlie Boston snorted. “You bring cops home with you?”

Vickers snapped. “What I want to know is how the hell Nick Darcy knew I’d be bringing Soup in? Did you tip him off?”

“I never even heard of Darcy,” Quade retorted. “I don’t keep up with criminal news.”

“The hell you don’t. I was checking up on you at Headquarters. Lieutenant Todd knows all about you. Gave you a big build-up. Says you go around the country pretending to sell books and somehow you always get mixed up in some murder case.”

“Is that all the lieutenant said about me?” Quade smiled. “I’m disappointed.”

“No, he said the helluvit was, you usually solved them and made monkeys of the cops. So that encyclopedia stuff isn’t a gag, eh?”

“Gag, hell!” Quade said indignantly. “I am the human encyclopedia. Ask me any question, any question at all.”

“All right,” Vickers said, aching to get even with him for the mandrake one. “See how smart you are about criminal things. How much stolen property is recovered and returned to the victims?”

“That’s easy,” Quade said. “It varies slightly, but during the first nine months of 1939, and taking in the whole country, a little over sixty-seven percent of all stolen goods — autos, furs, jewels, money, and the like — was reported recovered. In 1938, however—”

“All right! All right!” Vickers waved his arms. “Now about this Billy Bond affair… Soup may have had a friend with him who stayed downstairs and saw me taking him out. That’s how Nick got tipped off so quick. I had to let Soup go, on account of Darcy had a habeas corpus writ with him and there wasn’t enough evidence to hold Soup on a murder charge. He really had a license to carry the rod.”

“And he knows about poisons and such?”

“Yeah, sure. Oh, there’s no doubt that Soup slipped the stuff in Billy Bond’s beer. The question is, who hired him to do it?”

“Wouldn’t he be doing it on his own?”

“Naw. It’s a job of work with Spooner. That’s his business. Somebody wants to throw a stink bomb in a movie that’s lined up with the wrong union, they hire Soup to make the bomb. Soup’s got a reputation. People who want a job done, hire him to do it.”

“And you’ve never been able to pin a rap on him? I thought you said he was goofy?”

“Yeah. In some ways. He’s kill-crazy. Don’t think no more of a life than you do about stepping on a bug. And he’s got no nerves at all. But when it comes to other things — mixing up a bomb or a batch of poison, Soup isn’t crazy at all. He’s a genius.”

Quade put his forefinger under his collar and loosened it. “And he’s out walking the streets now. Uh, is Soup the kind that holds a grudge?”

Vickers smiled grimly. “Against you? Well, don’t go drinking beer with him. That’s all I’ve got to say. That’s why I stopped in, to warn you.”

He moved to the door. “You got any ideas about this business, Quade?”

“Only one, Sergeant. Bond was a song writer, but there were no song sheets or manuscripts in his room. It just struck me as funny.”

“Funny? Say!” Sergeant Vickers popped out of the room.

“Ollie,” said Charlie Boston. “The Danbury Fair opens in a couple of days. Remember? We were there in 1932 and sold a lot of books. Why don’t we run up there?”

“Maybe we will, Charlie. Maybe we will. After we clean up here.”

Charlie groaned. “You heard what the copper said. That guy, Soup, is kill-crazy. He might toss a pineapple at us. You can’t digest a pineapple, none a-tall!”

“We won’t go down any dark alleys. Come on, Charlie, forget it. We’ll go downstairs and lap up a beer.”

Charlie sprang up quickly from the bed. “Sure, but why downstairs? I–I didn’t like their beer.”

“Watch your glass and it’ll be all right. It’s not the beer they sell that’s poisoned. Come on.”

Paddy, the bartender, remembered Quade and Boston. He looked uneasily at them as he drew two beers.

Quade drank half of his beer and smacked his lips. “Good stuff, Paddy. By the way, where’s the professor?”

“The piano pounder? He ain’t on in the afternoon. Just around lunch time and after supper. Why?”

“No reason. I was just wondering.” Carrying his glass, Quade sauntered over to the little piano and began pawing over a stack of music.

“That’s funny,” he remarked. “He must have taken it with him.”

“What?” demanded Paddy, the bartender.

“Billy Bond’s song, Cottage By the Shore. Remember, he was singing it when he—”

“I don’t know anything about Cassidy,” the bartender said quickly, “or about Bond. He stopped in here once in a while for a glass of beer. That’s all I know.”

“I’m curious about that song,” said Quade. “Where does Cassidy live?”

“At the Mangner, across the street!” barked Paddy. “And that’s all I know about him.”

Quade drank the rest of his beer and put the glass on the bar. “Come on, Charlie, we’ll go see a movie. They’ve got Donald Duck.”

But outside, Quade headed obliquely across the street to the Mangner Hotel, a rat’s nest, if there ever was one. A sign outside stated: “Rooms. $1.00 a day, up.”

A wildcat bus company had its “depot” in the tiny lobby. Beyond it was a four-foot desk, over which presided a seedy-looking clerk. Quade put on his best brusque manner. “What room does Cassidy, the piano player, hole up in?”

The clerk avoided Quade’s eyes. “What’s he done?”

“Nothing, maybe! All right, what room?”

“Two-ten, but—”

Quade took the stairs two at a time, Charlie Boston pounding behind him. Two-ten was at the head of the stairs. Quade pounded on the door with his fist. “All right, Cassidy! Open up!”

There was no response. Quade shook the door knob and banged again on the thin panels. A colored maid poked her head out of an adjoining room. “Mistuh Cassidy takes a nap in the afternoon, mistuh!” she said. “He’s asleep now.”

“He sleeps sound,” exclaimed Quade. “Give me your pass key.” He strode toward the girl and whipped it out of her hand.

He unlocked the door of Cassidy’s room, pushed open the door — and stopped.

Charlie Boston crowded against him. “What’s the matter, Ollie?”

“We won’t go in,” Quade replied, “not until the cops get here. Cassidy’s got his throat cut!”

Some time later, Detective Sergeant Vickers moaned to Quade, “But why the devil should you go to his room?”

“Curiosity. You probably pumped him at the Midtown Cocktail Lounge. But I didn’t. I wanted to get his views.”

“He didn’t have any. Claimed he’d never seen Billy Bond before.”

“Paddy, the bartender, said Bond stopped in once in a while for a glass of beer.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Cassidy would know Bond. A bartender gets a better chance to remember customers than a piano player would.” Vickers screwed up his face and looked suspiciously at Quade. “Lieutenant Todd was right, you’re snooping around on this. Trying to make a monkey out of me.”

“Sergeant,” Quade said, with elaborate innocence, “you wrong me. Naturally, I’m a little curious about who wanted to kill poor Billy Bond. That letter in his room… from his father….”

“I’ve sent him a wire. I guess we’ll be sending Billy home. Tough, but it’s part of the game. I only hope Soup slips up somewhere. If he does and we get him downtown, and Nick Darcy doesn’t show up with a writ, well — Soup’s going to change his appearance.”

“Me,” said Quade. “I’d rather take a poke at the guy who hired Soup. Can we go now?”

Vickers nodded wearily. “Yes, but don’t discover any more dead men.”

Quade and Boston walked back across the street to the Midwest Hotel. The bellboy who had obtained the key to Billy Bond’s room for Quade, stood outside the hotel, talking to the doorman. He winked at Quade, then followed him into the lobby.

“Mr. Quade,” the bellboy whispered, “are you a betting man?”

“Only on sure things.”

“This is a sure bet. For me. I’ll bet you five bucks I can tell you something interesting.”

Quade sniffed. “How do you know it’ll interest me? Five bucks worth.”

“Call it a bet, then. Billy Bond had a girl friend. Bet you didn’t know that?”

“I didn’t,” said Quade. “But what makes you think I’d pay five bucks for her name?”

“You didn’t want his key just to look at his neckties, did you? Is it a go?”

“And her address?”

The bellboy nodded. “The name is Lily Roberts. She warbles at the Club 38 on 52nd Street. O.K.?”

Quade slipped him five dollars. “O.K.”

Charlie Boston sulked all the way up to their room. “I’m surer than ever now that we ought to go to the Danbury Fair, Ollie,” he insisted.

“In due time, Charlie. In due time. Let’s get our suits pressed; we’re going out stepping tonight. To the Club 38.”

Charlie Boston groaned. “There goes the last of our bank roll! And what’ll we wear while these suits are getting pressed?”

“We’ll go to bed. Call a bellboy.”

The owners of the dilapidated brownstone building on 52nd Street had been about to tear down the building when a man came along and said he wanted to put a night club in on the ground floor. Builders ripped out partitions, splattered paint and paper and electric lights here and there and in a little while there emerged the Club 38. Inside of two years it became the snootiest night club on the street.

The headwaiter regarded Quade and Boston haughtily until the former slipped him five dollars. Then he led them to a tiny table not too far from the miniature dance floor.

They had scarcely seated themselves when the orchestra burst into a fanfare and the lights in the room became dim, to be relieved by a spotlight.

The master of ceremonies shouted, “That song stylist, Miss Lily Roberts!”

A statuesque blonde in a low-cut evening gown came out from behind the orchestra and walked into the spotlight. She began singing in a husky, throaty voice:

“Say, sweet, you’ll come with me to the sea…

You’ll stay there evermore… with me…”

She was singing the chorus when Charlie Boston suddenly exclaimed, “Ollie, that song!”

“I know,” Quade replied, grimly. “The words are practically the same as Billy Bond’s. It’s probably his song — and that’s his girl.”

Lily Roberts finished the song and was greeted with a tremendous burst of applause. She sang another number, then retreated, amid continued calls for more.

Quade signaled to a waiter. “Listen, chum,” he said confidentially, “what was the name of that first song Lily warbled?”

“Oh, that! Why, Cottage By the Sea.”

“Cottage By the Sea, eh? Well, look, you suppose you could get me one of the musician’s copies? For — this?”

He laid a folded five-dollar-bill on the table. The waiter pretended to wipe off the cloth with his napkin and the bill disappeared. It was a neat job.

Two minutes later he came back with a folded sheet of music. Quade looked at it and said softly, “What did Billy Bond say the name of his song was?”

“Cottage By the Shore.”

“That’s what I thought. The Showman gave that title, too. Well, listen to what it says here: ‘Cottage By the Sea, Words and music by Al Donnelley.’”

Charlie Boston gasped: “One of these guys is a robber!”

“The question,” said Quade, “is which one. I haven’t told you about my visit to Murdock & Company this afternoon. Murdock gave me a big song and dance; what pals he is with a famous song writer. The guy’s name is Al Donnelley!”

“Why, the dirty—!” cried Charlie Boston. “Did Murdock publish this song?”

Quade shook his head. “No. It says here, ‘Published by Wingate Music Company.’”

Boston sighed. “All right, Ollie. You’ve got me going now. Let’s go it whole hog. Bring on the blonde and we’ll give her a third-degree.”

“Lily Roberts, eh? You could go for her.”

“Well, she isn’t a bad looker. Not for my money.”

At that moment, Lily Roberts wandered out from behind the bandstand. She looked about the floor with an expression of boredom. Quade signaled to the waiter who had obtained the song sheet for him.

“Julius, do you suppose you could persuade Miss Lily to have a drink with us?”

The waiter stowed away the bill. “A man can only try, eh?”

He went over to Miss Lily Roberts and spoke to her. Lily looked over at Quade and Boston, and wrinkled her nose distastefully. Then she strolled over.

Quade and Boston both rose hurriedly. Quade offered Lily his chair and moved to one the waiter brought up.

“I drink only champagne cocktails,” Lily Roberts said abruptly.

“Waiter,” Quade said, “bring Miss Roberts a glass of beer! Domestic beer!”

Lily started to get up, but Quade said quickly, “Hold it, Lily! I want to talk to you, about — Billy Bond!”

She stiffened. “Cops?”

Quade didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no. He smiled. “That song you sang a while ago. Cottage By the Sea. It wasn’t bad. It’s new, isn’t it?”

Lily nodded. “Just came out a couple of days ago. The customers like it.”

“It reminded me very much of a song Billy Bond wrote. Ever hear his?”

“Naw,” said Lily. “I gave up listening to his songs months ago. He was a good kid, but he wasn’t a song writer. I told him he didn’t have the stuff.”

“I don’t imagine he liked you to say that.”

Lily sniffed. “So what? So he was just a fella I saw once in a while. Nice to kill an hour with, but he didn’t have what it takes. Not more’n enough to buy a beer with once in a while.”

“No champagne?”

The gorgeous Lily patted her red, red lips to conceal a yawn. “All right, I’m sorry. He wasn’t a bad kid, but can I help it if the Big Town was too much for him and he jumped off?”

“Oh, you think it was suicide.”

“What else? He was broke. A flop. He took the easy way out…. Are you cops, or aren’t you?”

“No,” said Quade. “We’re friends of Billy Bond.”

“Glad to have met you.” Lily pushed back her chair. “I’ve got to get ready for another number.”

“So long,” Boston said, but she merely glared at him.

She sauntered off.

Quade said, “Nice blonde, eh, Charlie?”

“And he wasted his dough buying beer for that cake of ice. A dame like that makes a man lose his faith in love.”

Quade grinned, but there was a glint in his eyes.

Soup Spooner lived on the top floor of an old brownstone house on Tenth Avenue. He cooked and ate here, slept and conducted his chemical experiments. He had an amazingly well-equipped laboratory.

Now and then Soup had visitors. They talked furtively and gave him commissions to execute. Soup read the newspapers later on, to learn of his success.

Soup was in his laboratory today. He was working and the ghost of a smile played about his mouth. It was an unusual thing and indicated that Soup was engaged in a particularly interesting experiment.

The biting odor of ammonia was strong in the room, but Soup was oblivious of it. Before him on a bench were a half-dozen, small steel discs. Soup put little pinches of powdered iodine on each of the discs. With a knife blade he took iodine from certain discs and added it to others. Finally he took a flask and let drops of ammonia drip on the discs. He worked each heap into the ammonia, making a plastic mixture which he spread out thinly on the discs.

He let them dry a few moments, then carried one of the discs to a table at the far end of the room.

Then he did a strange thing. On his bed lay a shining trombone. He got it and, returning to the table on which he had laid the single disc, stepped off a distance of six feet. Marking the spot, he got a telescopic music stand and spread on it the rough manuscript of a song.

He put the trombone to his lips and began playing. He played one bar of music, looked at the disc, and played another bar. Suddenly there was a sharp explosion and the brown stuff on the disc went up in a puff of smoke. Soup Spooner took a pencil from his pocket and marked one of the notes on the music manuscript.

Then he returned to the bench and obtained another disc. He repeated the business of playing on the trombone. He had to play four bars before there was an explosion.

His dull, vacant eyes almost showed life, for a moment. He nodded his head in satisfaction.

Oliver Quade bounced out of bed at ten o’clock the following morning, as frisky as a colt in clover. “Roll out, Charlie!” he cried. “I had a swell dream. We moved to a ritzy apartment house on Park Avenue.”

Charlie Boston rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “On what? The twenty-three bucks we got left?”

“Money isn’t everything, my boy!” Quade retorted. “It’s the grand manner that gets you by. Come on, get up. We’ll have a touch of breakfast, then run over to Park Avenue.”

“Huh? What for?”

“Why, to engage that apartment I was just telling you about. It’s in the Huyler Arms.”

“Are you crazy, Ollie? Why should we want to move over to the Huyler Arms?”

“Because last night when you started snoring you woke me up and I got to doing some thinking. Serious stuff. I thought of two things and I couldn’t give myself any answers. One — why did Billy Bond himself send in that item to The Showman?”

“Even I figured that one out,” Boston replied. “The kid was trying to work his old man for some more dough. He didn’t have anything to show for his year. So he got a phony news item printed about having a song published. He was going to send it to the old gent, to wangle some more cash.”

“You ought to be on the force, Charlie,” Quade said sarcastically. “So why did someone dump poison into his beer?”

“The blonde had an answer for that. Maybe the old man turned Billy down, so Billy decided to end it all.”

“Which leads you right down the street to Question Number Two that worried me. Why was Cassidy, the piano player, knocked off?”

“Maybe he saw Soup spill the poison in the beer?”

“Uh-uh, that contradicts your other theory. Besides, Cassidy wasn’t acting when Billy keeled over. He was plenty touched. Cassidy was killed because somebody, maybe Soup, wanted that song manuscript Billy had whipped out in the cocktail lounge. Remember? I looked for it when we went back. It wasn’t on top of the little piano, and it wasn’t in Cassidy’s room. I looked while Sergeant Vickers was fussing around. Let’s say Soup swiped it — but why?”

“You’re the Human Encyclopedia,” Boston said. “I’m only the stooge. I’d much rather be up at the Danbury Fair. It opens tomorrow and we ought to be there right now, finding a spot.”

“There’re always fairs, Charlie. Roll out, so we can get going.”

“You’re really going through with that Park Avenue stuff? What for?”

“Because Mr. Al Donnelley lives there. I looked him up in the phone directory. I’d like to meet Al. He must be in the chips to live at a jernt like the Huyler Arms.”

Charlie Boston groaned…

The Huyler Arms was even worse than Charlie Boston had imagined. The renting agent wore a cutaway coat and striped trousers.

“Just a little one-bedroom apartment,” Quade said, loftily. “I’m not going to bring many of my things. I can run out to the country easily if I need anything. And my secretary, Mr. Boston, here, will be going out there weekends, anyway.”

“Oh, quite!” said the manager. “We’ve a lovely little furnished apartment on the tenth floor, overlooking the Avenue. Would you care to see it?”

“I would, indeed.”

It was a very nice apartment, consisting of a living room, bedroom and kitchenette. The furniture was in excellent taste, if a bit shabby around the edges.

“Only two and a quarter,” said the renting agent. “Should you care to take a lease, it’ll be two hundred even.”

“I don’t believe I’d be interested in a lease. That’s why I came here. Because it’s an apartment hotel. I may be in town only two or three months. Florida, you know… and a bit of sport in Quebec.”

“Ah, yes, quite! The apartment is satisfactory?”

“Oh, quite! Charles, will you write out a check for the first month’s rent?”

Charlie Boston’s mouth moved two or three times before he could bring out any words. “I’m sorry, Mr. Quade, I do believe I left the check book in the country. The rush, you know.”

Quade looked annoyed. “That’s awkward! And I don’t believe I have any money with me. You’ll have to run over to the club later and get some. Umm, yes, here’s a little change. Will this tenner do for the moment, Mr. Holzshuh?”

“Oh, quite! At your convenience, Mr. Quade. And I do hope you’ll like it here.”

“I think I will. I’m a bit tired now. Rather large evening yesterday, you know.”

“Of course. Here are the keys.”

The renting agent left them alone in the apartment. Boston waited until he had closed the door, then snorted: “Secretary! Check book! Bah!”

Quade chuckled. “I told you it was the manner, Charlie.”

“How long you think we can get away with it?”

“Until the ten dollars are used up. A day or two, anyway. And I think that’ll be long enough to check up on Mr. Al Donnelley.”

The piano in the apartment above was banging steadily, not too loud, but enough to be heard in Quade’s newly-rented little place. After a while the tenant above gave his tonsils a bit of exercise. He didn’t sing very well, but he sang loud.

Quade looked at the ceiling. “That wouldn’t be Al Donnelley, would it, Charlie?”

“You know damn well it is, Ollie,” Boston said. “You checked up on the telephone before we came over here and worked the manager around into showing us this apartment, right underneath Donnelley’s hangout.”

“Oh, did I? How clever of me. Well, no wonder this apartment was vacant. Donnelley must have driven the previous tenants out with his racket.”

A trombone joined the piano and after a moment, a female voice joined the male.

Quade said, “Tsk! Tsk! Parties before lunch time. That’s a song writer for you, Charlie. Reach up and bang on the ceiling! We don’t have to put up with that racket, do we?”

Boston took off a number twelve shoe and stepped up on the sofa. He pounded lustily on the ceiling with the heel of his shoe.

In the apartment above, someone responded promptly by jumping up and down. Tiny bits of plaster fell on Charlie Boston’s face.

He snarled, “Fine neighbors!” He belabored the ceiling with increased vigor.

Three or four pairs of feet began stamping on the floor above. Quade said, in a tone of satisfaction, “That settles it, Charlie. We’ll go up and give them a piece of our minds.”

Boston said, crookedly, “Now comes the slapping around. I’ll bet a couple of them are heavyweight prize-fighters. All right, lead on.”

They left their newly rented apartment and ascended to the floor above and made their way to the door of Apartment 11-C. Quade leaned against the door buzzer.

A skinny, long-haired chap of about thirty, with bright eyes, opened the door. “Yeah?” he said.

“We’re the new tenants down below,” Quade said, pleasantly. “You’re making too much damn noise.”

Long-hair sneered. “I pay the rent of this apartment and I can make all the noise I like. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.”

A brawny chap with black, slick hair hove up behind Long-hair. “Trouble, Al?” he asked.

“Al?” said Quade. “Say, you wouldn’t be Al Donnelley, the famous song writer, would you? I heard he lived in this building.”

“Yeah, I’m Donnelley. What of it?”

Quade crowded Donnelley into the hallway, trying to peer inquisitively into the apartment. “That’s swell,” he said, “you’re our neighbor. Sorry about the beef. Forget it. Umm, having a little party, huh?”

“Yeah,” Donnelley conceded. “Have a drink?”

“Don’t mind if I do. This is my secretary, Mr. Boston.”

They pushed into the apartment. There were five or six men and about that many women of various ages and degrees of attractiveness.

They were mostly gathered around a grand piano, clutching drinks that were being served by a white-jacketed Filipino. Charlie Boston snagged drinks for himself and Quade.

A little girl whose lips matched her hair came up to Quade. “I’m Grace Evans,” she said. “I’m glad you joined the party. You live here in the building?” Without waiting for a reply, she went on: “You must have loads of money. I’ll bet you’re a stock-broker or something.”

“Or something,” Quade said. “And I’ll bet you’re in the chorus.”

She made an O with her mouth. “Why, how’d you know? My, but you’re clever. I just love clever men. Say something clever, will you?”

“I feel like singing,” Quade said. “Get Al to sing something. His new song, Cottage By the Sea. I like that.”

Al Donnelley was already at the piano. Grace Evans shrieked at him. “Al, play your new number.”

“Which one?” Al Donnelley asked, expansively.

Grace Evans trilled. “Isn’t he clever? He writes so many songs he doesn’t know which is his latest. What is it, again?”

“Cottage By the Sea,” Quade said. “I heard it the other day and it was swell.”

Al Donnelley pawed over some music sheets and finally found the one he was looking for. He spread it out, glanced at it and began pounding the grand piano.

The sleek-haired man began bellowing in a hog-calling voice and the others in the room took it up. Quade went through the motions of singing, but kept his eyes on Al Donnelley. The song writer played well enough, but when it came to vocalizing, he wasn’t so good.

Half-way through the song, the door bell whirred, but no one paid any attention to it. Quade saw the Filipino going toward the door, but did not turn until Donnelley finished with Cottage by the Sea.

Quade exclaimed, “That was swell, Al!”

“Wasn’t it?” a new girl asked Quade.

He looked at the girl with her hat on and for a moment he didn’t recognize her. It was the man behind her, that told him who she was. The man was Murdock, president of the Murdock Publishing Company. And the girl — in a silver fox jacket, brilliant make-up and the trimmings — was Martha Henderson, Murdock’s secretary.

She said, “I didn’t know you knew Al. You should have said so the other day.”

“I didn’t know him then. Uh, I live in the apartment below.”

“In this building. Why, you said—” She turned abruptly and, catching hold of Murdock’s arm, pulled him aside.

Al Donnelley got up from the piano. “Hi, Murdock,” he cried. “And Martha, old girl. H’ar’ya. Glad you came up.”

Quade caught Charlie Boston’s eye and motioned toward the door. He set down his glass. “Well, thanks for the drink, Al. Got to be going.”

Martha Henderson deserted Murdock and ran to Al Donnelley’s side. She whispered into his ear. Murdock’s face looked as if he’d just been told that his bank account was overdrawn.

“Hey!” he said, weakly. “Wait a minute, you two!”

Quade began moving toward the door. “Sorry, Al. We’ve got to be running along. Stop downstairs sometime and I’ll repay the drink. So-long.”

Al Donnelley made a running dive and landed on his hands and knees in the narrow hall leading to the door. “You can’t leave here!” he bawled. “Hey, Joe! Max! Help me!”

Quade tried to step over Al Donnelley, and the song writer jack-knifed and caught hold of Quade’s ankle. He yanked on it and dumped Quade on top of himself.

Charlie Boston roared and went into action then. He smacked the sleek-haired man who was charging and smashed him back into another man coming up behind.

Quade, sitting on the floor, reached out and clamped a half Nelson on Al Donnelley. He flopped him over on his back, let go of the half Nelson suddenly and cuffed the song writer along the side of his head. Al Donnelley’s head banged on the floor. He went limp.

Quade bounced to his feet, took a couple of quick steps and opened the door. “All right, Charlie!” he yelled.

Charlie Boston was just in the act of chopping down Mr. Murdock, president of the Murdock Publishing Company. He finished that little task very neatly, then leisurely joined Oliver Quade at the door. There was no pursuit and the two friends returned to their new apartment on the floor below.

“That,” said Charlie Boston, “was fun. Is there going to be any more like that?”

Quade shook his head. “No, this case is just about washed up. Al Donnelley washed it up. If Vickers is smart, he’ll throw Donnelley in the clink and give him the third-degree. He’ll kick through.”

“With what?” Charlie Boston demanded. “I didn’t see anything out of the way. Maybe he swiped that song from Billy Bond and maybe he didn’t.”

“Maybe he did? He didn’t even know it!”

“Whaddya mean, he didn’t know it? He played it.”

“With the music. And he had to keep reading it. Funny. You’d think if a fellow had written the song himself, he’d be able to play it without keeping his eyes on the music.”

Boston inhaled softly. “Jeez, I never thought of that. You think—”

“I think I’ll call Sergeant Vickers.”

Quade picked up the telephone and told the operator downstairs that he wanted police headquarters. The operator gasped. “Is there anything wrong, Mr. Quade?”

“Too damn much noise around here. I’m going to make a complaint about the people upstairs.”

“Oh, don’t do that, sir! We’ll take care of it!”

“Never mind. I’ll handle it myself. Just get me Headquarters. And make it snappy, or I’ll make a complaint about you, too.”

The girl made the connection. After being shifted to several departments, Quade finally got Sergeant Vickers. “This is Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. I’ve got that Billy Bond case washed up for you, Sergeant. Feel like making the arrest?”

“Are you kidding?” Sergeant Vickers cried.

“Of course not! Rush over to the Huyler Arms on Park Avenue and I’ll give you a lad who can tell you the whole thing with a little pressure.”

“You’re sure, Quade? I’ve got a little something myself today that’s damn funny. It came in the mail. The original manuscript of that song Billy Bond wrote.”

“What? Somebody sent you that in the mail?”

“Yeah. Sounds screwy, doesn’t it? There was a note with it, even screwier. It says: ‘Play this on your trombone.’ That’s what’s funny about it, Quade.” Vickers cleared his throat. “I do have a trombone. Play it a lot. But no one except my landlady knows I’ve got a trombone. Secret vice, you know. What do you make of it, Quade?”

Quade bit his lip. “Where do you live, Sergeant?”

“On West Forty-Sixth. I’ve got a little apartment—”

Quade cried, “Meet me on the corner of Forty-Sixth and Broadway, in front of Childs’, in ten minutes. And don’t go to your apartment first.”

“Why not? What’s it all about?”

“Meet me there and you’ll find out!”

Quade slammed the receiver on the hook. “Come on, Charlie. I’ve got an awfully funny feeling about something.”

“About what?”

“You’ll see!”

Outside the Huyler Arms, Quade signaled to a taxicab and inside of ten minutes paid it off at 46th and Broadway. They had scarcely taken up a stand than Sergeant Vickers climbed out of a police car and waved goodbye to his driver.

“All right,” Sergeant Vickers said to Quade. “What’s this about winding up the Bond case?”

Quade caught the detective’s arm. “First of all, let’s go to your apartment.”

“What for?”

“I want to see that trombone of yours. In the meantime let me see that song manuscript that came in the mail.”

A look of scepticism on his face, Vickers produced the manuscript. Quade scanned it closely. “Yes, as nearly as I can tell, it’s the same one Billy Bond handed to Cassidy, the piano pounder at the Midwest Bar.”

“But why would he send it to me, whoever it was? Soup, you figure?”

Quade shrugged. “I think I can answer that when we get to your apartment.”

They were already walking west on 46th Street, crossed Eighth Avenue, and near Ninth Vickers turned into a shabby building.

“I guess you live on your salary,” Quade murmured.

“Damn tootin’ I do,” Vickers retorted.

He led them down a half-lit corridor and finally unlocked a door, exposing a rather neat two-room-and-kitchenette apartment. “I call this home,” Vickers said.

Quade immediately began poking around the place. “Where’s this secret vice of yours, Sergeant?”

Somewhat sheepishly Vickers brought it out from a closet, a gleaming trombone. He started to put it to his lips, but Quade caught it from him. “Hold it!” he cried.

Startled, Vickers surrendered the instrument. “Say, you don’t think—”

Quade was examining the mouthpiece. He shook his head. Then he hefted the instrument gingerly. “It looks all right,” he said, “it must be something else.”

“What are you talking about?” Vickers demanded in bewilderment.

“Soup Spooner,” Quade replied. “That lad may be goofy, but he isn’t goofy enough to send you a bit of evidence that might point to himself — if he didn’t have a danged good reason. I thought for a minute…”

A look of horror suddenly spread across the sergeant’s face. “That he wiped some of that poison on the trombone. Good Lord!” He snatched the instrument from Quade and began examining it himself.

Quade asked, “Would Soup be apt to know where you live, do you think?”

Vickers nodded, vigorously. “Everyone around here knows me, and Soup holes himself up nearby, over on Tenth Avenue.”

“Then,” said Quade, “let’s go over this place. With a fine-tooth comb.”

It was Quade who found it. His sensitive nostrils led him to it. It was in a glass vase standing on the mantel piece — just a couple of feet from a raised music stand which the sergeant would no doubt use when practicing on his trombone.

Quade smelled the ammonia first, then when he took down the vase and looking in, saw that it was half-filled with a solid brownish cake, he sniffed again and knew that the composition also contained iodine.

A film of perspiration covered his forehead. “Sergeant,” he said, “if you’d played the trombone, you’d have made yourself a candidate for a harpist’s job — up above!”

Vickers came over and looked into the vase. “Who put that stuff in there?” he demanded.

“I think,” said Quade, “your friend, Soup Spooner.”

“What is it? Smells like ammonia.”

“Ammonia,” said Quade, “when mixed with iodine is perfectly harmless when wet, but when dry, it’s more devastating than T.N.T.”

Sergeant Vickers reeled back, his face blanching. “Soup—”

Quade nodded. “You were annoying him. So he sent you the music manuscript and suggested you play on your trombone.” Quade gasped. “Let me see that manuscript again.”

The sergeant handed it over. Quade’s steely eyes scanned it again and slowly his mouth widened in admiration. “Sergeant, remember your saying Soup was a genius! Well, he is. When it comes to figuring out a devilish murder plot. This score’s been changed. I heard Lily Roberts sing it last night and this morning I heard Al Donnelley play it on the piano. Neither of them ever reached high G sharp. But here — see, in this fourth bat, a couple of notes have been changed. You hit high G sharp, suddenly and unexpectedly!”

Vickers stared. “I don’t get it.”

“Did you ever hear of the stunt old Caruso used to pull? He’d go into the bar of the old Knickerbocker Hotel, take a wine glass and hit it with his fingernail to get the pitch of it. Then he’d sing in that pitch, and break the wine glass. With his voice.”

A gleam came to Vickers’ eyes. “You think this bomb would explode if I played high G sharp on this trombone?”

Quade nodded slowly. “With iodine and ammonia you can make an explosive so sensitive a fly lighting on it will detonate it. Soup’s an expert on explosives. He experimented with this, mixed the stuff in just the right proportions. You can vibrate all you want and nothing will happen. But make a sound in high G sharp — and this house will go up!”

Without a word Vickers went into the bathroom. Quade heard him running the water in the tub and carried in the vase.

A few minutes later they returned to the living-room. “And now,” said Quade, “let’s round up a few people and see what’ll happen.”

Various detectives brought them to Sergeant Vickers’ little apartment on West 46th Street. There was Murdock, president of the Murdock Publishing Company, his secretary Martha Henderson, Al Donnelley and finally — brought in handcuffed to a cop — Soup Spooner himself.

Vickers got them all seated in his apartment, with detectives posted at strategic spots. The chairs, by prearrangement, all faced Sergeant Vickers’ music stand and the mantel piece. A red glass vase was prominent on the mantel piece.

Oliver Quade then took charge of the show. “Folks, you’ve all been brought here because you all had something to do with the death of Billy Bond, a young song writer; one of you committed the actual crime of murder.”

Murdock, pompous as ever, exclaimed, “I demand to be allowed to call my attorney.”

“Later,” said Quade, “and you’ll need him, too. You’re a damn crook, Murdock!”

“You’ll hear from my lawyer about that remark.”

“I don’t doubt it, yet, for the benefit of the other witnesses, I’ll repeat my statement. You’re a crook, Murdock.”

“I’ve got testimonials from hundreds of satisfied clients,” Murdock cut in. “Bona fide testimonials. I can prove—”

“Sure, you can. I could bottle salt water and sell it as a cure for cancer and a certain number of people would write and tell me how it cured their incurable cancer. People are like that. They’re gullible as hell.” Quade grinned crookedly. “And the most gullible of all are would-be song writers. The radio and the movies have made the people in even the most remote sections, song conscious. The words of a song are simple. A million people could write words for a song. And so a million people who read your cleverly worded ads are potential suckers.”

Quade picked up a magazine and turned to the ads. He read: “ ‘Song poems wanted. Fame and fortune may be yours. You write the words. We furnish the music. Big royalties. Murdock & Company, New York City.’”

“A sucker reads that ad,” Quade went on. “He sends you a song poem and you give him a form letter telling him the lyrics are swell and have all the elements of a potential hit. All Mr. Sucker needs with his lyrics is some good music and, by a strange coincidence, you have a famous song writer on your staff who was so impressed with the lyrics he’ll gladly write the music for them — for a mere $50.00.”

Al Donnelley began to squirm in his chair. Murdock snorted. “So what? Al does write the music for some of these — er — would-be song writers. We render a definite service. The small fee isn’t exorbitant. The postal authorities—”

“Okayed you on that, I know. They couldn’t say anything about your publishing enterprise, either. If you can get a few suckers to kick through for a song printing job, well — it’s perfectly legitimate to make eight or nine hundred percent profit on the printing, which you let out to a music printer.”

Murdock shrugged. “I’m listening. You’ll listen when Nick Darcy gets after you.”

“Oh, he’s your lawyer, too! O.K.! So the songs of nine hundred and ninety-nine of these suckers are tripe. But the thousandth song, or maybe it’s the ten thousandth, is a natural. Such a song was one called Cottage By the Shore, submitted by one Billy Bond.”

“All right,” conceded Murdock. “Bond sent me some lyrics. Tripe that he got back. You can’t prove otherwise.”

“I think I can. As it happened, Billy Bond wrote the music for his own song. You couldn’t hook him on that fee, but he fell for your ad, anyway, and sent you the song. Instead of clipping him for a printing fee, you told him the song was no good. You admit that. But it was good. And you knew it. So you changed a word here and there, turned a copy of the thing over to your dummy, Al Donnelley, who took it to Wingate, who in turn published it — adding to the string of song hits already produced by Al Donnelley!”

Al Donnelley opened and closed his mouth. He looked frightened. But over the face of Murdock came a grim look.

Quade went on: “The song was published only a few days ago. When Billy Bond heard it, he recognized it for his own and he came to you and squawked. Said he was going to sue you. You denied stealing his song.”

“Of course I did!” snarled Murdock. “I never even read his tripe.”

Quade proceeded relentlessly: “But Billy Bond sent in an item to The Showman and when you saw that, Murdock, you began to get scared. You could smell trouble, so you sent for Soup Spooner.”

Soup Spooner yawned. “Ho-hum, here we go again!”

Quade shot him a quick look. “Soup killed Billy Bond, then he cut Cassidy, the piano player’s throat, because Cassidy had picked up and taken home Bond’s original manuscript. You, Murdock, didn’t want that to be floating around. You made only one little mistake, Murdock. But you couldn’t help that. Because when Billy Bond first wrote his song, he made two copies.” Quade was making this up fast. “One of them he sent — to Iowa, to his father. It’s dated, and it proves that Al Donnelley’s version, called Cottage By the Sea, is a plagiarism!”

Quade reached into his breast pocket and took out a folded song manuscript. “This,” he said, “is another copy that we happen to have. As someone here knows, it was sent to someone else. I’m going to ask Sergeant Vickers here to play it on his trombone. And I want you all to listen and see for yourselves if it isn’t note for note like Al Donnelley’s Cottage By the Sea.”

He handed the music to Sergeant Vickers and the detective spread it out on his music stand. He picked up his trombone, blew a practice note or two.

Quade was watching Soup Spooner. The chemist-killer’s eyes were fixed carelessly on the red vase on the mantel and there was a mocking smile on his lips. Quade knew suddenly that Soup would not break. He had no nerves. Even though he knew he was within thirty seconds of eternity, that he could not escape it without confessing to two murders, he would say nothing. Soup Spooner was that sort of man.

Sergeant Vickers moistened his lips with his tongue, nodded and blew one note on the trombone.

Martha Henderson screamed. “Stop it! Don’t play!”

Quade stabbed his forefinger at Murdock’s secretary. “Why shouldn’t he play, Miss Henderson?”

“Because I don’t want to hear that song. If a man’s been killed because of it, I—” She trembled violently.

“Nonsense, Martha!” Quade said sharply. “The rest of us want to hear it. Don’t we, Murdock?”

“Go ahead,” said Murdock.

Vickers put the trombone to his lips again. This time he played two notes. Then Martha Henderson catapulted from her chair, heading for the mantel. Quade put out his foot and tripped her.

Martha Henderson hit the floor on her hands, screamed and came up to her knees. “Don’t!” she screamed. “Don’t play! You’ll kill us all and — and I don’t want to die!”

Quade stooped and caught her wrists. “Why not play it, Martha?”

She fought Quade, her eyes constantly on the vase on the mantel. She was completely hysterical now. “Because you’ll kill us. The bomb — if you play, the bomb’ll go off! We’ll blowup!”

Soup said disgustedly, “A dame! The finest chemical experiment I ever made and a dame spoils it!”

“Your iodine-ammonia bomb, Soup?” Quade asked softly. “It’s already gone down the drain. The vase is empty.”

Murdock, the music racketeer, was slumped in his chair, his eyes popping. “I–I don’t understand all this!”

Quade said, “So, you’re only a crook, Murdock. Not a murderer. You weren’t mixed up in the other. It was Martha Henderson, your trusted secretary. And Al Donnelley.”

Soup said, “Ah, that stuffed shirt! He didn’t know what it was all about. He couldn’t write a song if he had to. Martha slipped him the stuff now and then that he got published. Martha got it from the trash in the office and he cut her in on the profit.” He sniffed. “I shoulda known better than to trust a dame. Jeez! That woulda been swell if he’d played that piece. This whole place woulda gone — boom!”