Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

Dog Show Murder

The secretary of the Westfield Kennel Show said to Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia: “The price of a small booth is seventy-five.”

“No,” said Oliver Quade. “You misunderstood. I don’t want to rent this booth for the entire year. I want it only for the duration of the dog show — four days.”

“That’s what I quoted you on,” retorted the secretary. “Some of our larger exhibitors are paying as much as five hundred dollars. What are you exhibiting? Remedies, dog foods?”

“No,” said Quade. “Nothing commercial. Mine is an educational exhibit. That’s why I can’t pay any fancy prices for booth space. How about five dollars?”

Ten minutes later they compromised on twenty dollars. Quade paid the money and stowed away his receipt. Then he said to a burly man who had stood by patiently during the dickering, “All right, Charlie, prepare the exhibit.”

Charlie Boston picked up a heavy suitcase and started for the main part of the building. Quade followed along.

“Ollie,” said Boston. “You know I’m not terribly happy. I never am around dogs. I can’t for the life of me figure out why you want to work this dog show. Last week you wouldn’t work the Elks’ Convention in Buffalo. And now,” he shuddered, “look at that whole row of English bulldogs. Gosh, if they should get loose—”

“Nothing to it. The only way to handle a dog is to let him know you’re not afraid of him.”

“I tried that once. That was the time I lost the seat of my pants.”

The dog exhibit building had a small arena, containing about two hundred seats, built around a tanbark pit, where the dogs were put through their paces. The rest of the building was crowded with rows of stalls, separated by wooden partitions. Each stall contained a pedigreed dog. Around the outer edge of the room were commercial exhibits, dog remedies, foods, supplies, equipment.

Oliver Quade’s booth was wedged in between one displaying dog biscuits and another featuring a line of disinfectants and remedies.

Boston set the suitcase on the floor outside the booth. Oliver Quade stepped on it to the counter. Then he began talking.

“I am Oliver Quade,” he boomed in a stentorian voice that rolled out across the auditorium and bounded back from the far walls, “Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. I have the greatest brain in the world. I know everything. I know the answers to all questions: What came first, the hen or the egg; the age of Ann; the batting and fielding average of every big and minor league baseball player; every date in history. Everything under the sun.”

A group of youths had stopped in the aisle before Quade the moment he had started to talk.

“Oh, yeah?” one of them said.

“Oh, yeah?” Quade retorted. “I can answer any question you can ask me. On any subject — history, science, mathematics, sports, anthropology. Go ahead, ask me a question and see.”

The wise-cracking boy looked puzzled. His pals urged him on. “Go ahead. You started it.”

“All right,” grinned the boy. “Here’s one. How does a fox rid itself of fleas?”

The other boys began tittering, but Quade threw up his hands. “That was supposed to be a brain teaser. But I can answer it correctly. Br’er Fox’s reputation for cleverness is justly earned. When he’s bothered with fleas he takes a piece of wool or wood into his mouth and lets himself into a pool of water, tail first. The fleas don’t like to be drowned so they scramble further up on his body. Pretty soon only the fox’s nose and mouth are above the water and the fleas get into the wood or wool he’s got in his mouth. Then the fox drops the thing into the water and removes himself promptly from the vicinity.”

A roar of laughter swept the crowd that had now gathered on the aisle. Quade’s eyes gleamed and he went on: “Try me on something else. Anything, anyone!”

“What kind of dogs are these?” The interrogator was a young woman and she had them on leash; two huge animals, only a little smaller than St. Bernard dogs, and infinitely ludicrous. Long, woolly hair covered their faces, their entire bodies. They looked more like sheep than sheep themselves.

Quade chuckled as he replied, “Those, Madam, are Old English sheep dogs. Once when I was lost in a wild section of England, near the Scottish border, I killed one of those dogs, thinking it a sheep. It was not until later that I learned of my mistake and I haven’t been able to eat mutton since.”

Again the crowd roared. The questions came fast and furious after that. Everyone seemed to want to play the new game.

“How far is it to the moon?”

“What is the population of Talladega, Alabama?”

“When was the Battle of Austerlitz?”

“What is ontology?”

Quade answered all the questions, promptly and accurately. The audience applauded each time he gave a prompt answer. Then, after ten minutes, Quade called a dramatic halt.

“Now,” he bellowed, “I want to tell you how you can learn the answers to all the questions you’ve asked me. All those and ten thousand more. I’m going to give every one of you the opportunity to do what I did — have at your fingertips the answer to every single question anyone can ask you. Every one of you can be a Human Encyclopedia…”

Charlie Boston opened the suitcase at Quade’s feet. He brought out a thick volume and handed it to Quade.

“Here it is, folks,” Quade said. “The compendium of human knowledge of the ages. The answers to all questions. A complete college education crammed into one volume. Listen.” Quade leaned forward and lowered his voice to a confidential bellow.

“I’m not asking twenty-five dollars for this marvelous twelve-hundred-page book. I’m not even asking fifteen dollars, ten or five. Just a mere, paltry, insignificant two dollars and ninety-five cents. Think of it, folks, the knowledge of the ages for a mere pittance…. And here I come!”

He leaped down the from the counter and grabbed an armful of books. Then he attacked the crowd, talking as he went through. He sold the books, twenty-two of them. Then, when the remnants of the crowd still lingered to hear more entertainment, Quade blithely walked off. There was no use wasting time on dead-heads. In a little while there’d be a new crowd and Quade would attack them. But now, he had a half-hour intermission.

He was walking through a dog aisle when a biting voice said to one side of him: “Sheep!”

It was the girl who had asked Quade to identify the sheep dogs. He grinned. She was very easy on the eyes, blonde, and with the finest chiseled features Quade had ever seen on a girl, a complexion of milk and honey and eyes that danced with blue mischief. She was not more than twenty-one or two.

“Sorry I had to embarrass you,” Quade apologized. “But I ask you in all fairness, do those creatures look like dogs?”

He pointed at the one in the stall. The girl surveyed the dog critically. “Well,” she conceded, “the man I got them from told me they were dogs. Sometimes I’m inclined to disbelieve him. But say, what’s the trick about that question and answer stuff you pulled back there?”

“No trick at all, it’s on the level.”

“Oh, come now, you don’t really know everything.”

“But I do. I have a smattering of every subject under the sun.”

“I don’t understand. No one person could know everything.”

“You heard my pitch. I sell small encyclopedias. They’re pretty good, worth the money. But I didn’t get my knowledge from them. I got it from a twenty-four volume set. I’ve read it from cover to cover, not once, but four times.”

She looked at him in awe. “How long—”

“Fifteen years. And I remember everything I read. For example, in the premium list of the Westfield Kennel Show I remember the name of Lois Lanyard as the exhibitor of a pair of Old English Sheepdogs…”

“And you’re Oliver Quade. And now we’re introduced.”

Quade’s eyes sparkled. The friendliness of the girl delighted him. He talked for a moment more with her, then a sleek-haired young man in white flannels came up.

“Freddie,” said Lois Lanyard, “this is Mr. Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. Mr. Quade, my fiancé, Mr. Bartlett.”

Quade started to put out his hand but Bartlett nodded shortly and turned to Lois. “The judge is going to place the awards on the pointers in a few minutes,” he said. “Shall we watch?”

Lois flashed an angry look at her fiancé but Bartlett bluntly took her arm and walked off with her. Quade shrugged and walked down the aisle containing the English bulldogs. He made friends with a couple of the dogs, although he had some uneasy moments while doing so.

“Maybe,” Quade said to himself, “they’ll judge the pointers today. Then again maybe they won’t!”

When he walked away, the snap fastening the biggest bulldog to the wall was loose. The dog, however, didn’t know it yet. Later, instinct and nature would take its course.

Quade went quickly back to his booth, climbed up on his stand and began his pitch. And if he had talked loud before he shook the rafters now. The noise was too much for the dogs and they set up a terrific racket. Inside of thirty seconds bedlam reigned in the building. Men and women began rushing about. That excited the dogs even more. And then, Quade, on his perch, saw a big bulldog leap out of his stall. He went no further than the neighboring one, which contained a bulldog almost as big as himself. Also a male.

The fight created a riot in the building. A hundred people clamored, screamed and yelled. A half dozen dog handlers had to use water and burning newspaper to get the dogs apart.

Quade watched the fight, but Charlie Boston was conspicuous by his absence. He had taken flight outside the building the moment he’d heard one of the bulldogs was loose.

When the dogs were back in their stalls and the crowd began dispersing, Quade strolled into the pointer aisle. “Going to judge the pointers today?” he asked Freddie Bartlett.

Bartlett glared at him, “No, some damn fool let one of the bulls loose and it’ll take two hours for the dogs to quiet down.”

“Next time,” Quade said to himself, “maybe Freddie will be more particular who he snubs.”

Charlie Boston dashed up, wild-eyed. “Oliver,” he croaked. “Come over here a minute. I gotta tell you…”

Quade followed Boston to one side. “In your booth,” gasped Boston. “Gawd, a dead man!”

“Hell, I just left that booth five minutes ago.”

“Maybe so, but there’s a stiff there now.”

Quade’s lips tightened. He distanced his partner, reaching the small booth a dozen steps ahead of him. He leaned over the four-foot counter, looked down into the small space behind — and caught his breath.

A man wearing white flannels, white doeskin shoes and a black and white striped sweater was lying there in the tanbark. And a dark brown liquid had trickled from a spot over his left eye down over the bridge of his nose.

Quade turned. “Call the show secretary and the police.”

“But he’s in our booth.”

“Call the cops,” Quade repeated sharply.

Charlie Boston had a policeman at his side and, in their wake, coat-tails flapping, the dog show secretary.

“Murder!” bleated the secretary. “Murder, here! Oh, my God!”

The dogs started barking again and Quade slumped in disgust. The fool secretary was starting another riot. It lasted for a full ten minutes, then a dozen Westfield police arrived and herded everyone in the building into the aisle before Quade’s booth.

Chief Costello of the Westfield Police Department was in command. “This is your booth, I understand,” he began on Quade.

“Yes, it’s my booth and you want to know what I know. The answer is, nothing. There was a dog fight and I joined the crowd to watch it. My assistant here, Charlie Boston, found the body and told me about it. That’s all I know.”

“Zat so?” The chief turned on Boston and put him through a bad few minutes. But Boston defended himself ably. He had left the building when the dog fight started because he didn’t like dog fights. When the dogs had quieted he’d returned and found the body here in the booth. He’d gone to tell Quade immediately. He stuck stoutly to that story.

The coroner come and examined the body inside the booth. He came out in a few minutes. “Shot with a .32 caliber bullet, I’d say.”

“And no one heard the shot?” the chief said sarcastically. “A hundred people in here, too.”

“And five hundred dogs,” added Quade. “All of them barking. You couldn’t have heard a machine gun.”

The chief glared at him. “I’ll talk to you some more.” He turned to the coroner. “S’pose you’d better take him to town. We’ll give the notice to the papers and someone may come down and identify him.”

“That’s not necessary,” said the coroner. “I know him. His name is Wesley Peters.”

“Wesley! My God!”

The scream came from a gorgeously blonde young woman in the front of the crowd. Quade stepped quickly toward her, but couldn’t quite catch her as she sank to the tanbark. He dropped to his knees and bumped into a slender, dark-haired chap who was also stooping to pick her up.

“I beg your pardon!” the man exclaimed. “It’s my wife.”

Quade pushed a path through the crowd to a booth with a long table in it. The young fellow brought his wife behind Quade, deposited her gently on the table. The coroner came through but the woman had already revived and was struggling to sit up. She moaned. “Wesley! He’s dead… dead!”

Lois Lanyard came up, put her arm around the girl and spoke soothingly.

“I’ll take her home,” said the young husband.

“Hmm. Guess it’s all right,” grunted the chief of police. “I know both of you.”

But the woman who had fainted protested at being taken home and after a moment insisted she was quite recovered.

“Thanks for trying to help,” the young fellow told Quade.

“Quite all right.”

“My brother, Bob,” Lois Lanyard said. “And his wife, Jessie.”

Quade had already guessed the relationship. The family resemblance between Bob and Lois Lanyard was striking, but whereas Lois was wholesome and vital, her brother seemed to be the ascetic, brooding type. His wife was dressed expensively, her hair was burnished gold and her coiffure marvelous. Lois’ clothes had probably cost as much as Jessie Lanyard’s but didn’t look it. Which was the difference between them. Lois was born to money, Jessie had married it.

The chief of police became brusque. “All right, we know who he is. Now let’s see if we can’t find out who killed him. You,” pointing at Quade, “you say this is your booth. I don’t see nothin’ in it.”

“I do not display samples.”

“Naw? What’s your racket?”

The show secretary stretched up on his toes and whispered to the chief. There was a light in the chief’s eyes when he tackled Quade again. “A book agent, huh!” he snapped in glee. “So you’re the bloke who’s been making all the racket around here today. Come on now, talk and talk fast.”

“Why would I want to kill this man? I never saw him before in my life.”

“So what? Does every robber and thug have to be introduced first to the people he robs?”

“Has he been robbed?”

A startled look came into the chief’s eyes. He turned away hurriedly and pulled the coroner into the booth. He emerged a moment later, crestfallen.

“He wasn’t robbed.”

“Ah, his money is still on him, eh? How much?”

“Over a thousand dollars,” admitted the chief. “And there’s a watch and stickpin. But — maybe you didn’t have time.”

“No? You forget that I was the one who sent for the police?”

The chief swore roundly. “Say, who’s the policeman here? You or me?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Why you—!” The chief started to swing a punch at Quade, but caught himself with an effort. “Enough of that stuff now. We’ve got to find the gun.”

He signaled to a couple of policemen and barked orders at them. They scattered through the neighboring booths. And inside of two minutes one of them yelled in discovery. He came back carrying a nickel-plated .32 caliber revolver in a handkerchief. The chief’s eyes gleamed.

He sent policemen scurrying about getting the name of everyone present. Then he allowed everyone to depart. He dispersed the exhibitors too and posted policemen at each door.

“No one’ll be allowed in here until we’ve had time to go over the building,” he announced. “Three o’clock in the afternoon anyway.”

Oliver Quade and Charlie Boston strolled toward a restaurant a short distance from the dog building. “Don’t look now,” said Boston as they entered. “But there’s a flatfoot shadowing us.”

“Naturally. The chief hasn’t forgotten that it’s my booth.”

Lois Lanyard, her brother and his wife and Freddie Bartlett were in the restaurant, seated at a large table. The only vacant spot was at a small table next to theirs. Quade and Boston sat down at it.

Lois introduced them all around.

A waitress came to take their order, then Quade leaned back in his chair and studied the group at the next table. Lois was chattering gaily with Freddie, but every now and then she cast a sharp glance at her brother who was biting his lips and staring moodily at the tablecloth. Jessie Lanyard was trying to make conversation with her husband, but wasn’t having much success. She seemed to have recovered entirely from her faint, but her conversation, it seemed to Quade, was high pitched and forced.

Quade sat up. “Look, folks,” he said, “I seem to be Murder Suspect Number I and the chief of police is going to ask me some mighty embarrassing questions this afternoon. Mind if I talk about it?”

Lois made warning signals with her eyes and Freddie drew himself up stiffly, but Lois’ brother came out of his lethargy. “Yes, let’s talk about it. We’re all thinking about it anyway. Why did my wife faint when the coroner said it was Wesley Peters? Is that what you want to know?”

“No. I want to know why Mrs. Lanyard pretended to faint?”

All four of the people at the adjoining table gasped. Jessie’s face went white, then red. “What do you mean by that?” she snapped.

“I mean that you were no more faint than I,” Quade replied. “I saw your eyes. And your muscles were tensed, not relaxed, when your husband picked you up.”

“Mr. Quade,” said Freddie Bartlett. “I don’t think this is a matter that concerns you.”

“But it does,” cried Lois’ brother. “Jessie put on a scene over there and I want to know the meaning of it. Jessie, why did you faint? Or pretend to faint?”

Jessie’s eyes flashed sparks. “Very well, if you must have a public scene, I’ll tell you. You know very well that I knew Wes before I married you. Naturally it was a shock to learn that he was murdered — under such peculiar circumstances.”

“Why peculiar?” snapped Bob Lanyard. “The dog show was as good a place as any for him to die. He was a — a dog, you know.”

“Bob!” Jessie cried indignantly.

“Why did you have to start this?” exclaimed Lois, looking at Quade.

“Because I wanted to make you all mad,” retorted Quade. “When people are mad they tell things, and I think there are some things to be told. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Lanyard?”

Jessie Lanyard’s eyes slitted, “All right, Wesley was in love with me once. And I almost accepted him before I married you, Bob. I didn’t want to tell you that, but you insisted on having it. So take it.”

Charlie tugged at Quade’s sleeve. Quade turned and saw Chief Costello bearing down on the group.

“Hello, folks,” said the chief. “Thought I’d find you here.”

“You mean your shadow told you we came here,” Quade retorted.

“Still at it, young fella, huh? Well, I got some news for you. I found out who owned the gun that Wesley was killed with.”

Jessie Lanyard rose so suddenly that she bumped the table and knocked over a water glass. Quade saw panic in her eyes.

“It was his own gun,” continued the chief. “He bought it a year ago, got a license to carry it.”

The panic remained in Jessie’s eyes. Quade hesitated, then suddenly pointed a lean forefinger at her. “But didn’t he give you that gun, Mrs. Lanyard?” he asked softly.

Jessie screamed suddenly. She pushed back her chair and it crashed to the floor. Her face was suddenly twisted into a weird gargoyle. “Yes, he gave it to me. Yes, and I killed him. I killed him with his own gun! I’d do it again because I hated him!”

Jessie’s dramatic confession exploded like a bombshell in the crowded restaurant. The place seethed with excitement. Lois sat up in her chair, her eyes aghast. Freddie was frozen stiff in his chair.

Bob Lanyard sprang to his feet. His arms encircled Jessie and he caught her tightly to him. “Jessie!” he cried in anguish. “You mustn’t! You’re over-wrought. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Jessie began sobbing as if her heart was breaking. Her husband soothed her.

Chief Costello stood back uncertainly. It was obvious the social standing of these people impressed him, made him uncertain. Then he ordered his policemen to clear the restaurant.

Bob Lanyard’s soothing quieted Jessie. In two or three minutes she was able to pull herself together, although she still kept a handkerchief covering her mouth and most of her face.

The chief cleared his throat noisily. “I’m mighty sorry about this, Mrs. Lanyard,” he said. “But you understand…”

“You fool!” gritted Bob Lanyard. “Don’t you know she said that to shield me? Wesley was an old sweetheart. She knew I was intensely jealous of him and when she knew he was murdered, she naturally jumped to the conclusion that I did it.”

“Did you?” the chief asked, taken aback.

Quade almost held his breath, waiting for the answer he was sure would come. It did.

“Yes!” exclaimed Bob. “I killed him. I found the gun in Jessie’s dresser, took it to the dog show with me and killed him during the excitement of the dog fight. He — he was annoying Jessie again.”

“Bob!” That was Lois. “You — you couldn’t have! You were right behind me all that time.”

“No, you were with Freddie.” Bob Lanyard refused to accept the alibi offered him.

Freddie Bartlett blundered in. “Oh, come now, Bob, you know very well we were talking together when the excitement began and I remember your being with us when the dog fight was over.”

“Say, what is this?” cried the chief. “Two confessions inside of five minutes. Is there anyone else here who wants to confess?”

“If I wasn’t afraid you’d take me seriously I’d toss in my hat,” said Quade.

The Lanyards and Bartletts were wealthy local residents who could embarrass Chief Costello in his own bailiwick. He had to treat them with the utmost respect. But Quade, the chief knew, was an outsider and a mere book agent. Fair bait. He turned savagely upon him.

“That’s the last damn crack I’m takin’ out o’ you, fella!” he snarled. “You make just one more yip and I’ll not only throw you in the clink but I’ll see that you get worked over plenty with the rubber hose. Get me?”

“I get you, Chief.” Quade subsided, but his mind worked furiously over the problem. He had a strange hunch that this case had just begun. There had been a hundred or more people in the building at the time Wesley Peters had been killed. And the place had been in an uproar. No one had paid any attention to anyone else because of the commotion. Alibis weren’t worth a dime a dozen.

And Wesley was known in Westfield. There could easily have been a dozen people in the building at the time who knew, and perhaps disliked him. Jessie Lanyard was a neurotic. She might say or do anything under stress of emotion. Her husband was a moody, sensitive type.

Chief Costello made a sagacious deduction. “Maybe we’d better not decide anything just yet. All of us know each other and there’s plenty of time for getting together. Anyway, it would be much better for all of you to think things over and maybe discuss them with your families and lawyers. If you’ll give me your word not to leave town suddenly, I’ll make my report and we’ll get together later this evening.” He departed, taking his policeman with him.

Lois came over to Quade. “I’ve been greatly disappointed in you, Mr. Quade,” she said.

He flushed. “I’m sorry, Miss Lanyard.” He rose, turned stiffly and followed Charlie Boston out of the restaurant, although neither of them had been served yet.

Outside, Charlie Boston whistled softly. Quade turned angrily on him. “Cut it, Charlie.”

Boston stopped whistling. He walked beside Quade without saying a word. After a moment, however, Quade apologized. “Sorry, Charlie. Nerves. I made some fool plays and I’m sore about them.”

Boston grunted assent. “We’re out of our class, Oliver. That’s all that’s wrong. Shall we ditch the books and clear out? It’s only thirty miles to New York City. Once there no one from here’d ever find us.”

“It’d probably be the smartest thing we could do, but you know how I am. I’m too stubborn to quit something I’ve started.”

In the dining-room of the Westfield Hotel, Quade and Charlie discussed the case.

“That thousand dollars Peters had, that worries me. It’s too much money for him,” Quade said between bites.

“I wouldn’t know myself,” replied Boston. “But I’ve heard there’s lots of folks have a thousand dollars.”

“Not ham actors. I read Variety, and I know that Peters hasn’t been in a show for four years or more. I wish I knew how he got his money. He dressed well.”

“Is that the important thing in this case? Seems to me some of those people haven’t told all they know.”

“Some of them don’t know any more than we do, if as much. Hmm, wonder who that is?”

The head waiter was pointing out Quade to a man who had just come into the dining room. He would have been more at home in a Greenwich Village bar than the Westfield Hotel. He was perhaps thirty, tall and hollow-cheeked. There was a three days’ growth of beard on his face. His cinnamon-colored coat didn’t match his trousers and his shirt had evidently been washed in some communal bathroom and worn unpressed.

He came up to Quade’s table. “Mr. Quade? My name’s Renfrew, Felix Renfrew. I read in the afternoon papers about — about Wes Peters and came out here.”

Quade said, “Have a seat; you interest me.”

Renfrew sat down. “Wes Peters,” he declared, “was my best friend. The minute I heard he had been killed I grabbed a bus and came out here.”

“You may have been Peters’ best friend,” said Quade, “but I bet you didn’t hear about Peters’ death in the city.”

Renfrew glared for a moment, then shrugged. “All right, I came out with Wes this morning. What difference does it make? Wes was killed, his body found in your booth. There’s a lot of talk going around town about your knowing something.”

“I do know something. More than you ever will. What’d you come to me for?”

“To find out who killed Wes, that’s why!” snapped Renfrew. “Wes was the best pal I ever had and I’m going to stick around until his murderer is found.”

Quade gave Renfrew the once over, his eyes insolently staring at the unmatched suit and unpressed shirt. “You were Peters’ pal, eh? Roommate perhaps?”

Renfrew flushed. “No, we didn’t room together. But—”

“You live in Greenwich Village?”

“Yes, but what’s that got to do with it?”

“Perhaps nothing. Wes Peters, if you’ll pardon the inference, put on the dog. And when he was found this afternoon he had a thousand dollars on him. Would you be knowing how he got that much money?”

Renfrew shrugged. “Peters always had money. We didn’t live together but he paid my rent and visited at my place a lot.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well, because there was always something doing there. I’m a playwright, you know.”

“I didn’t know. What plays have you written?”

Renfrew scowled. “I’ve written eight or ten, but none have been produced. But they’re good plays. Only the capitalistic—”

“Oh, so it’s like that. Anyway, you always had a crowd of the Village folks at your diggings. Poets and writers and artists. And Peters liked to pose as a big shot. So he paid your rent and hung around your dump. Right?”

“Something like that.”

“And you’re worried because your patron has shuffled off? Kinda puts you on the spot. Tell me, where’d Peters get his money?”

“He never told me.”

“Where’d he come from originally?”

“I don’t know. New York, I guess. I’ve only know him four or five years. But I always guessed that he got his money from relatives. Who else would send him money regularly?”

“Ah, he got it regularly?”

“Yes, I happen to know because at times he was broke but he didn’t worry about it. And he didn’t work. Not for the last four years. Before that he was on the stage. He played the juvenile lead in Hidden Faces, I know.”

“Jessie Lanyard played in that, too, didn’t she?”

Renfrew looked puzzled. He said: “I don’t know her.”

“Well, that wasn’t her name then. She’s the woman who fainted when Wes Peters was found dead. Or weren’t you around then?”

Renfrew flushed. “No, I left right after — well, right after you got through selling books.”

“Because you saw Wes Peters coming in and didn’t want him to see you around?”

Renfrew chewed at his lower lip, then suddenly rose. “I’ve got to catch my bus back to the city.”

Quade did not try to detain him. When he was gone, Charlie Boston snorted. “Wonder what the hell Peters saw in that.”

“The only difference between Peters and Renfrew is that Peters had money these last few years. Before he got the money, I’ll bet, he was just like Renfrew. Dirty finger-nails and all. Well, I guess it was a tough blow to Renfrew at that. He may even have to go to work now.”

“It won’t hurt him,” growled Boston. “Say, what did you say that made him run out so sudden-like?”

Quade grinned reflectively. “I guess I got a little too close. Renfrew had gotten curious about Peters, or maybe, he hoped to find out how and where Peters got his money. So he followed him out here today but didn’t want Peters to spot him… You know, this Renfrew interests me.”

“Not me,” said Boston. “I can find his kind anywhere. What do we do now, go see a movie or something?”

“They’ve got a crime thriller at the Bijou,” Quade said. “But I don’t think it’ll be as interesting as the one we’re in ourselves. Instead, let’s go stir up the porridge a bit.”

“Back to the dog show?”

“No, I thought we’d brace some of the suspects and others in their own backyard. The Lanyard house.”

“Ouch! After the trimming we took from the Lanyards this afternoon?”

Lanyard, Senior, had money. He must have had scads of it, to keep up the estate that Quade and Boston entered a little while later. It was about a mile out of Westfield and was surrounded by a low, trimmed hedge. The house was Georgian style and contained at least twenty rooms. A smaller house nearby was evidently the servants’ quarters. There was also a four-car garage behind the house and a long, low building with wire-enclosed runs in front of it. A dog kennel.

There were a half-dozen cars on the graveled driveway leading up to the house; the smallest a Packard. The cars didn’t phase Quade, however. He squeezed his old flivver in between a Packard and a large foreign car and leaped lightly over the hingeless door.

And there was no hesitation in his manner as he rang the front doorbell of the big house. Charlie Boston had the good grace to hang back a bit.

“They got company, Ollie,” he protested. “Listen to the music.”

Quade had already heard the music, recognized it, too. Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. That and the several cars outside told him what it was. A wedding rehearsal. Evidently the scene in the restaurant hadn’t been allowed to interfere with the Lanyards’ plans.

The door opened and a liveried butler looked questioningly at Quade.

“Mr. Lanyard,” Quade said.

“Which Mr. Lanyard?”

“Senior. Tell him it’s Mr. Oliver Quade.”

“Very well, I’ll see if he’s at home.” The butler closed the door.

“It’s the suit,” Quade said. “I’ll have to get a new one. Can’t go around society homes with the checkerboard pattern.”

The door opened again and a dignified, gray-haired man with a short clipped mustache held out his hand to Quade. “Come in, Mr. Quade. I’ve heard about you. Glad you dropped out.”

Quade winked triumphantly at Boston.

“This way,” Guy Lanyard said, leading the way to a room on the right side of the foyer. Quade looked to the left where the organ was playing, but followed Lois’ father to the right.

In the library, Guy Lanyard said, “Have a seat, won’t you? I presume you want to talk to me about that affair this afternoon. Pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

“It was. This is Charles Boston, my friend.”

“Ah, yes, how are you, Mr. Boston? You were there too?”

“Me, I found the body,” Boston said proudly.

Guy Lanyard winced. “The children have told me about it. And our chief of police left me only a few minutes ago. He’s considerably disturbed about the matter. I’m glad to have this chance of talking it over with you, Mr. Quade. From what Lois and Bob told me about you, I gather that you’re a man of some — ah, perspicacity.”

Quade grinned at the blank look on Boston’s face. “Forsaking modesty for the moment, Mr. Lanyard, I’m probably the smartest person in this State. I’m the Human Encyclopedia.”

Guy Lanyard didn’t seem to know just how to take that, but finally he grinned. “Maybe I’m saying the wrong thing, but if so, forgive me, because I’ve never met a Human Encyclopedia before. But as I have this opportunity now I’d like to take advantage of it. Can you tell me if Mid-City Service is a good buy right now?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Quade replied. “I’m not a fortune teller. I impart only knowledge, and the devil himself couldn’t tell you if Mid-City Service is a good or bad buy right now. I can tell you that it was a good buy a year ago. That’s a matter of knowledge. Anything else I could help you on?”

Guy Lanyard’s eyes snapped. “Yes. Who killed Wesley Peters?”

Fortunately Quade was spared answering the question. Lois Lanyard burst into the room. “Dad!” she cried and then came to a stop when she saw Quade.

“Hello,” she said.

“I didn’t know you were having a dress rehearsal,” Quade apologized. “I wouldn’t have come out.”

“Quite all right,” replied Lois. “We’re finished now. Dad, the reason I burst in — don’t you think Honolulu would be more interesting than Europe?”

“Borneo is charming at this season,” Quade volunteered.

Lois Lanyard sighed. “We’re at it again. Well, let’s entertain the others, too. Come along, Mr. Quade.”

Guy Lanyard frowned but Quade was willing. “Fine, I’d like another chance to talk with Freddie Bartlett.”

Lois passed him in the doorway. She whispered fiercely, “Don’t start any more trouble. I’ve had enough for one day.”

The large living-room was full of people; a half-dozen girls, the minister and several well-dressed young men. And Mrs. Lanyard, an older edition of Lois, who still retained most of her youthful beauty. The years had endowed her with added warmth and charm.

Bob Lanyard was walking in and out of the crowd, his ascetic face strained in a frown. His beautiful wife, Jessie, seemed to have quite recovered from the afternoon, for she was chatting gaily, surrounded by several young men.

Freddie Bartlett was in an expansive mood. With most of the girls around him he was expounding on the merits of different honeymoon spots. “Honolulu,” he was saying, “has become too common. Singapore is the place today. A month there, then Yokohama in cherry-blossom time.”

“How about the county jail?” Quade asked. “I’ve been told that it’s charming at this season.”

Freddie Bartlett scowled. “Ah, it’s you, Mr. Shade. Always clowning. How’s the — what do you call it in the vernacular — the pitching business?”

“Fair to middling,” Quade shrugged. “I’ve forsaken it for the nonce. I’m in the detecting business now.”

“Then you’ll be interested to know you’ll have some competition tomorrow. Bob has engaged a famous sleuth — Christopher Buck.”

Quade’s eyelids lowered thoughtfully. Christopher Buck had a reputation that was more than local. He had a good press agent too, for there was seldom a week that some mention of him didn’t appear in the newspapers.

Quade drifted over to Bob Lanyard. “I understand you’ve hired Christopher Buck to do some investigating for you,” he remarked casually.

Annoyance came into young Lanyard’s eyes. “Yes, with all due respect to Chief Costello, I don’t believe he knows what it’s all about and I don’t believe he’ll ever find out who killed this — this Wesley Peters, do you?”

“Not unless the murderer confesses voluntarily.”

Bob Lanyard winced.

“I’m sorry,” Quade apologized quickly. “I forgot.”

“It’s all right. But that’s just why I phoned to the city and engaged Mr. Buck. Unless the case is solved beyond a shadow of a doubt a few people will still have ideas — and I don’t want any reflection to hang over Jessie.”

Jessie must have heard her name mentioned for she suddenly excused herself from her circle of admirers and came over.

“Oh, Mr. Quade, I’m so glad you dropped in. You know I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, you know I was in the show business before I married Bob. Your little spiel out at the dog show this afternoon; have you ever thought of going on the stage?”

Quade’s lips peeled back in a wide smile, too wide. “No, and I’m sorry to say that no Hollywood scout has approached me either.”

Jessie Lanyard didn’t catch the sarcasm. “Why that act — you know that question and answer stuff — that’s great. Properly handled it should be a wow on the stage. I’ve a friend in Mr. Kent’s office and, if you like, I’ll give you a note to him.”

“Jessie,” said Bob Lanyard, “perhaps Mr. Quade doesn’t want to go on the stage.”

“Why not? With his personality and that gift of gab? Say, I’ve seen hoofers with less than he’s got make good on the big time.”

Quade pursed his lips. “You mean I’d have to take up dancing?”

That was a bit too strong. Even Jessie Lanyard caught the sarcasm. “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t know I was being funny.” She put her pretty nose into the air and went back to her covey of admirers.

“At it again,” said Lois Lanyard.

Quade walked to one side with her. “What’s this I hear about your brother employing a private detective?”

Lois frowned. “Bob seemed to think Jessie’s reputation has been besmirched and he’s determined to clear it. Well, she did throw quite a scene today.”

“When’s Buck coming?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’ve heard he’s a very astute man-hunter. He comes high, at any rate.”

“Hmm. You’re really going through with your marriage?”

She looked coolly at him. “Of course I’m going to marry Freddie Bartlett. We’ve been engaged for almost a year and the date has been set for four months.”

“I apologize, Miss Lanyard. Shall we wave the white flag?”

“You’ll keep it white?”

“Of course. I’m sorry I interrupted this evening. I must be going now.”

Christopher Buck was not burdened with good manners. He banged on the door of Oliver Quade’s room at the ungodly hour of eight A.M. Quade, cursing under his breath, climbed out of the bed and opened the door.

“I left a call for nine o’clock, not eight!” he snarled.

“I’m Christopher Buck,” the detective announced grandly.

“So what? I’m Oliver Quade and that gorilla yawning over in the bed is Charlie Boston. A good morning to you.” Quade started to shut the door in Buck’s face.

But the detective must have worked his way through college selling magazines. He put a foot in the doorway. “Hey!” he yelped. “I’m Christopher Buck, the detective.”

Quade opened the door again. “A detective?” he pretended to be amazed. “Why didn’t you say so? Come in.”

Christopher Buck stepped angrily into the room. “Hey, Charlie,” Quade called. “Get up. There’s a cop from the local police force here.”

“I’m not from the Westfield Police,” Buck called. “What’re you trying to do, rib me?”

Quade blinked. Then: “I’ll be damned. Of course, I’ve read about you in the newspapers. You’re the famous detective, Christopher Buck!”

Buck was so lean that he had to stand twice in order to cast a shadow, but he made up for it in height. He was at least six feet four and his huge, bushy eyebrows and stooped figure gave him a sinister appearance.

“I was engaged by Robert Lanyard to solve the murder that was committed out at the dog show yesterday,” he said. “I came to you because I’ve been told you’re the chief suspect.”

“Right to the point, that’s what I like,” said Quade. “Have a seat, Mr. Buck. You don’t mind if I dress while you grill — I mean, question me. Take a chair.”

“Ow, oh-wuh!” said Charlie Boston, yawning and stretching.

Quade drew his pajama coat off, then unblushing slipped off the trousers. Nude as the day he was born, he searched around for his underwear.

“Sitting on my drawers, Mr. Buck?” he asked. “No, here they are.” Calmly he began dressing. Charlie Boston scooted for the bathroom.

Christopher Buck drew a stubby pipe from his coat pocket and filled it. “I’ve already talked to Mr. Lanyard and Chief of Police Costello. There seems to be some difference of opinion as to just what happened yesterday.”

“Some of the dogs got loose and raised a ruckus,” Quade said. “Of course everyone in the building gathered around. I left my stand. Then when the dog fight had been stopped and the dogs chained up, I started to go back. Charlie, here, told me then that there was a dead man in our booth.”

Buck grunted. “You say some of the dogs got loose? I hear there was only one loose.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, he got into the next stall and tangled up with another dog. The second dog was chained, but it didn’t affect his fighting ability. It was a swell fight.”

“I’m not interested in the dog fight,” said Buck, severely. “I’m interested in the man who was killed. He was an old sweetheart of the wife of my client. Tell me more about this Peters fellow. How long had you known him?”

Quade sighed. “He was in the audience when I made my first pitch out there, but that’s the only time I ever saw him alive. I know nothing about the murder. And I think I’ll have breakfast now.”

Christopher Buck scowled. “I don’t like it. No one seemed to know this Peters fellow, yet someone hated him enough to kill him. Why?”

“You said you were the detective,” Quade reminded him. “Me, I’m only a book salesman.”

“Yes, but I’ve heard about your bragging yesterday. About what a smart fellow you were. Claim to know the answers to everything. Well, who killed Wes Peters?”

“I don’t belong to the detectives’ union.”

Buck started to get up from the chair. It was quite a job, because he was so lean and tall. “You’re not leaving Westfield, are you, Quade?”

“No, I’m going out to the dog show today and make a few dollars. Any time you think you’ve got the goods on me you’ll know where to collar me!”

Christopher Buck closed the door ungently behind him.

“I think I’ll blow myself and have about four eggs and some ham,” Boston said dreamily, coming out of the bathroom.

“O.K., Charlie, better fatten up while you can. It’s been a lean stretch. I think we’ll get us each a hand-me-down, too.”

“Gonna get yourself a nice blue serge?” asked Boston, looking wisely at Quade.

“Why blue?”

“Oh, I dunno. Just thought maybe a loud suit was undignified.”

Quade made a pass at Boston, which the big fellow ducked easily. “She’s getting married today, you sap.”

“Going to the wedding?”

“I wasn’t invited.”

But Quade did buy a blue serge, after all. It fitted him well and changed his appearance considerably. He finished the job by getting some black oxfords, a blue striped shirt and brown felt hat.

He had a good day at the auditorium, running out of books when there were still some prospective purchasers in the crowd. His pockets stuffed with money, he closed his pitch and strolled out of the building.

He saw a hamburger stand nearby and went over to it. As he stuffed the last of a sandwich into his mouth a voice behind him said:

“Ah, Mr. Quade, I was hoping to find you here this morning.” It was Jessie Lanyard, wearing a floppy picture hat and a flowered organdy dress. Her blonde hair was smartly coiffured.

“How d’you do, Mrs. Lanyard?” Quade greeted her. “Won’t you have a hamburger?”

“Why, I don’t mind if I do. It’s a long time since I’ve eaten one. Not since I got married.” She laughed. “You know, one time, when I was out of work I ate nothing but hamburgers for a solid month.”

“They didn’t spoil your figure,” Quade complimented her. He ordered a couple of hamburgers.

“I’ve decided to overlook your kidding last night,” Jessie Lanyard said brightly. “I really like you, Mr. Quade. You’re — you’re my sort of people.”

“Thanks.”

“You know some of the people out here in Westfield are awful snobs,” Jessie prattled on. “My in-laws still don’t treat me any too well. But I don’t care. Even if the in-laws and some of Lois’ girl friends give me the turned-up nose, the men like me. You saw them last night.”

“I did. You were pretty well surrounded.”

Jessie sighed. “Yes, they always rush me. Some of them even — well, that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s about this detective Bob hired.”

“Didn’t you urge him to do that?”

Jessie smiled prettily. “Well, I did suggest it, I guess. But Bob was so worked up. Seemed to think I had been carrying on with Wes — Mr. Peters. Goodness, I hadn’t seen Wesley Peters for a long time. Not alone, that is. Of course he hung around a lot out here in Westfield, but I couldn’t very well chase him away, could I?”

“No, of course not. By the way, what’d Peters do for a living?”

“He was on the stage. I played with him in a show about five years ago. I was just beginning then,” Jessie hastened to say. “I started very young, you know.”

Quade took a deep breath. Then he said, “Mrs. Lanyard, how long is it since you saw Bill Demetros?”

Ketchup dripped from the hamburger to Jessie Lanyard’s organdy dress, but she didn’t notice it. She was staring too intently at Oliver Quade. “Where did you hear about — him?” she asked, slowly.

“I’ve always been a great newspaper reader and I never forget anything I read. Your name was mentioned with his several years ago. They even ran your photos together. You were Janet Jackson then.”

“I haven’t seen him — for five years,” she said, looking relieved.

“Since he went to jail? You haven’t seen him since he got out?”

“No, and I–I hope I never see him again. I don’t even want him to know where I am.”

“You changed your name even before you married Bob. Demetros probably wouldn’t know where to look for you if he wanted to.”

“No, but there wouldn’t be any reason for him to look me up. The newspapers were wrong. We were never more than casual acquaintances. I–I must go now.”

Quade looked thoughtfully after Jessie Lanyard as she walked to the dog building. Then he left and caught a taxi. Charlie had taken his car to replenish their supply of books.

Quade rode back to Westfield, paid off on the main street of the village, then stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes. A five-and-ten-cent store across the street caught his eye. Smiling grimly, he bought an ordinary toy, shaped roughly like a mature, lethal gun. He had the clerk wrap it in paper and put it in a mailing box. At the stationery counter he bought a box of adhesive address labels.

Then Quade went back to his hotel room. He got a jar of Vaseline from the bathroom, smeared a light coat of it on the water pistol, then wrapped it in paper and put it in the box. He tied the package, addressed a label and stuck it to the package.

He walked with it to the post-office, had the box weighed there, then mailed it first-class.

Returning to the dog show he found Boston fuming because he had been unable to find Quade.

“I brought the books back here an hour ago,” he exclaimed. “Where you been?”

“Attending to some business,” Quade replied shortly.

Quade made a pitch to a small noon-day crowd and took in thirty-five dollars. He and Boston drove to the hotel and had a late lunch. When they got the key for their room the clerk handed Quade a package. “Mailman just brought this.”

“Who’d be sending us a package?” asked Boston as they rode in the elevator to their floor.

“One of my female admirers probably,” Quade said.

In the room he cut the string of the package. Quade opened the box, lifted out the paper-wrapped contents and unwrapped it. He exhibited the water pistol.

Boston examined the gun, then snorted. “Someone’s ribbin’ you!”

Quade scarcely looked at the gun. He was examining the inside of the wrapping paper. The Vaseline on the gun had made recognizable outlines on the paper. He nodded in satisfaction.

“Look, Charlie,” he said “run down to the telegraph office and send a wire to the Blake Publishing Company in New York. Have ’em rush us two hundred more copies of our book. We’re going to need them before this dog show is over.”

“But what about the gun?” protested Boston. “Why would anyone send it to you? I don’t like it, I tell you. It’s — it’s a threat.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty head about the gun, Charlie. Go ahead, send that telegram.”

The moment Boston had left the room Quade took out a knife and scraped the address label from the box in which the gun had been mailed. He addressed another label, glued it to the box, then left the hotel.

He threw the toy pistol into an ashcan a couple of blocks from the hotel. Then he walked three blocks more, entered an alley and sought another ashcan behind the third building from the corner. Into it he tossed the paper box and the wrapping paper in which he had mailed the gun to himself. He’d torn the address label from the box, but left the postmark.

He chuckled. “Maybe a smart detective can make something of a box with a local postmark and paper bearing a little oil and imprint of a gun.”

Quade rejoined Boston at the hotel an hour later and the big fellow had his finger-nails chewed half-way to his wrists. “What’s all the mysterious stuff, Ollie?” he cried. “You got rid of me on a phony excuse, then you go off somewhere.”

“Can’t a man attend to his private business affairs?

“Yeah, sure, but — ah, never mind. What do we do now?”

“You can take the afternoon off, Charlie. I think I’ll do some visiting.”

“At the Lanyard place?… Well, I hope you don’t get burned.”

“It’s a cold world without some heat,” Quade said reflectively. “I’ve just discovered that I’ve been cold all my life.”

A couple of cars were parked in the curved drive of the Lanyard estate. Quade parked his own car, then circled the house to the kennels. The dogs started a terrific barking and Quade was about to retreat when Lois Lanyard called from a window in the rear of the house. “Look out! Those sheep dogs bite.”

“Ever hear of a man biting a dog?”

Lois disappeared from the window but reappeared at a rear door a moment later. She was dressed in a pink and yellow sport sweater suit and her eyes were dancing with mischief. Quade tightened about the mouth.

“Did you come here to see the dogs?” she asked. “There are more of them at the dog show, you know.”

“The dog show? Oh, you mean the dog show where you said you’d be today.”

She sobered for a moment. “I couldn’t very well get away. Some last minute fittings and — other things.”

“Ah! The marriage, of course.”

The moment was a tense one, but then a Gordon pointer came dashing out of a dog kennel and bounced up to the wire fence, putting his nose between the mesh. Quade snapped his fingers at the dog.

“Who does he belong to? Bob?”

“Yes, that’s Duke, his favorite. I’ve got the sheep dogs that are at the show. And Jessie has two Eskimo Dogs, huskies. Come, take a look at them.”

She led Quade to a pen and whistled. A tawny face appeared in the door of a kennel and after a careful examination was followed by a head. Another dog followed.

“They’re beautiful, I think,” said Lois, “But pretty shy.”

A voice called from the house. “Lois!”

“Yes, Mother?” Lois replied.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to come in for that last fitting.”

“I’ll be right in.” Lois turned to Quade. “I have to go now. It’s been nice seeing you. Come and see us when we get back.”

“From Borneo?” he couldn’t help cracking.

She laughed and ran into the house.

Quade drove thoughtfully back to the dog show. Charlie Boston wasn’t around the booth and had probably gone to see the rest of the show. Quade ran into Christopher Buck and Chief of Police Costello, engaged in heavy conversation.

The chief did not look cordially at Quade. “Ah, here you are,” he said in greeting. “What’s the big brain man know today?”

“I know that the prenadilla is a South American fish that travels for hours on dry land,” he retorted. “And I know other things. What do you know? About the police business, for instance. Have you pinched the murderer yet?”

“When I do, maybe you won’t be so cocky,” hinted the chief.

“Still barking up my alley, eh? Well, just for that I’ll let you worry over the thing by yourself.”

He walked off, but less than two minutes later Christopher Buck popped out in front of him. “Say, Quade, what did you mean about letting us worry by ourselves? You know something?”

Quade looked around mysteriously. “I got an anonymous phone call at the hotel this noon. A man’s voice told me to take a look around Bartlett’s house — the ashcan for example. What do you suppose he meant by that?”

Buck’s lean, lank frame quivered with excitement. “The killer’s thrown something away, something important. A clue!”

“What sort of clue would he throw away? The murder gun was found here. It’s just an ordinary .32. Peters’ own gun. But maybe Peters loaned the gun to someone else and that person loaned it to Fred — to the murderer.”

There was no holding Buck after that. He tore off in a lather of excitement. Quade looked at his watch, then sought out Charlie Boston.

“Look, Charlie, in the city the poor people hang around the church door to get a look at the bride. Let’s go down to the church in Westfield and get a gander at the folks.”

“I could smell that coming,” said Boston. “How about the rice, you want to throw some?”

They drove down. The wedding was scheduled for five in the afternoon but curious townsfolk had gathered around the church at a quarter to the hour. Quade parked his car directly across the street, then, throwing one foot across the car door, settled down to wait.

At ten minutes to five a closed sedan pulled up to the chapel door and several people got out. Quade had a glimpse of Lois Lanyard wearing a black silk cape that did not quite cover the white dress underneath. The party moved quickly into the church.

Five minutes later another car drew up and Freddie Bartlett, surrounded by several of his intimates, climbed out and went into the church. Freddie was quite the picture in striped trousers, cutaway tail coat and silk hat.

Quade bit his lip. The ceremony was due to start in another five minutes — unless there was some unusual delay. He wondered if he would have to make the delay himself. But at two minutes to five an automobile siren screeched up the street.

“Now begins the fun,” he said, sitting up.

“It’s the cops,” said Boston. “Wonder who they’re going to pinch!”

“Maybe the bridegroom — or me. We’ll see. Ah, Christopher Buck is with the chief.”

The police car screamed up to the curb before the church. The lanky Christopher Buck sprang from it even before it stopped. He was clutching something under his arm. Chief Costello and a uniformed cop piled out after the private detective. They charged into the church.

“Holy smokes!” exclaimed Boston. “They’re busting right into the wedding and they don’t look like they’re going to kiss the bride, either. It’s a pinch if ever I saw one.”

It was. Almost immediately Chief Costello, Christopher Buck, the policemen and Freddie Bartlett came out. Bartlett’s clothing was disarranged and he was handcuffed. Even a Freddie Bartlett will become indignant at being arrested while the clergyman is saying the words of the marriage ceremony.

Behind the arresting party, swarmed the members of the family and the wedding guests.

“I don’t think there’ll be any wedding today,” said Oliver Quade.

“You knew something was going to happen here,” Charlie accused. “You were too calm about things. I know you, Oliver.”

Quade screwed up his face. “All right, I’ll confess, Charlie. I had a tip-off from Buck. He had a hot clue that pointed to Freddie. I had a hunch he would butt right into the wedding ceremony to make his pinch. For a while, though, I was afraid he wouldn’t make it in time.”

“Afraid? You mean you wanted him to bust up the wedding?”

Quade did not answer. Boston threw up his hands in disgust. “O.K., Ollie, if that’s the way she stands that’s the way she stands. C’mon, let’s beat it, they’re looking over here!”

Quade saw Lois Lanyard, very lovely in a white satin dress and bridal veil, pointing across the street at him. Christopher Buck, head and shoulders above the crowd, was looking, too.

Quade stepped on the starter and shifted into gear. The car leaped away from the curb. “They’re yelling at us, Ollie,” said Boston.

“Let ’em yell. I’ve had lots of people yell at me in my day.”

Fifteen minutes later Quade walked into the dining-room of the Westfield Hotel with Charlie Boston. They were on the soup course when the dining-room was invaded by several determined looking men.

“I’d hoped to get a good meal before going to jail,” Quade said to Boston, “but such is life…. Hello, Mr. Buck, what’s up?”

“Your number,” Buck snapped.

Freddie Bartlett, no longer handcuffed, pointed a lean finger at Quade. “You cheap book agent! Why’d you send this detective to look into my ashcan?”

“Tsk, tsk,” Quade clucked to Buck. “A detective should never reveal the sources of information.”

“That’s the last trick you’ll pull in this town, Quade,” said Chief Costello sternly. “The idea, trying to throw suspicion on an innocent man just to break up his wedding! Well, it brought out the truth and you’re under arrest!”

“What for? For giving information to a private detective instead of a policeman?”

“Cut out the stalling, Quade,” snapped Buck. “Miss Lanyard spilled the beans. She saw you unchain that bull-dog at the dog show — the dog fight. You started that dog fight to cover up your dirty work.”

“The red flag,” said Quade half aloud. “Ask no quarter and give none. All right, I’ll come quietly.”

Charlie Boston pushed back his chair and took up a fighting stance.

“Maybe you could lick them at that, Charlie,” Quade said, “but they’d only get me later. I’ll go along with them. Look me up after they’ve booked me.”

“I’ll get a lawyer. My cousin, Paul, in New York. He’ll put these small town cops through their hoops,” howled Charlie Boston. “He’s the smartest criminal lawyer on the east side.”

But Quade scarcely heard him. He was being dragged off to jail. It was the swankiest jail Quade had ever been in; quite in keeping with the town itself. It wasn’t a very large jail, neat cells, a wide corridor and a clean, large bull pen where the guests were permitted to exercise during prescribed periods.

The inhabitants of the jail unfortunately were not up to its standards. They were unfortunates from the city who had wandered out to rich Westfield hoping to better themselves and had fallen afoul of the law. There were eight or ten of them. As the cells adjoined one another and were separated only by bars, communication among the prisoners was easy.

The prisoners knew all about Quade by the time he was locked into a cell and they greeted him with the respect due a capital crime violator.

Quade bore up cheerfully enough that first evening in jail. He entertained the other prisoners for an hour or two with his fund of knowledge, then pleaded fatigue and they left him alone. Quade examined the bunk and blankets closely and sighed with relief when he found no spots that moved. He threw himself down on it.

An hour later he sat up. “Lord, why didn’t I tumble before?” he said, half aloud. He went to his barred door, cried out loudly, “Turnkey!”

The other prisoners took up the cry and a moment later a uniformed man came clumping into the cell corridor. “What’s all the racket about here?”

“It’s me,” Quade cried. “I want to talk to Chief Costello.”

“You wanta confess?”

“Confess, hell,” snorted Quade. “I didn’t kill that man. But I just thought of something I want to tell the chief.”

“Ah, do you now? Well, tell him tomorrow morning. This is the night the chief plays poker and he don’t like to be bothered with little things.”

“This isn’t a little thing. It’s important.”

“Nuts,” said the jailer. “If you keep up the racket I’ll turn out the lights on you even though it’s only eight o’clock.” He went out through the door and slammed it behind him.

Quade yelled for him to come back. The other prisoners, thinking to help him, yelled also. And then the lights in the entire jail went out. The turnkey had kept his threat. Quade cursed and threw himself on his cot. After a while he fell asleep.

A new jailer came around in the morning and asked the prisoners if they preferred the regular jail breakfast of oatmeal and coffee or a more complete breakfast sent from a restaurant, at their own expense. Quade stripped a ten dollar bill from the roll that had not been taken from him and ordered breakfasts for all the prisoners. He was roundly applauded for his generosity.

After breakfast the jailer came into the cell room and distributed a few letters. There were two for Quade. One from Charlie Boston, telling him that he was going to the city to get his lawyer-cousin, Paul, and not to worry about a thing. The other was an unsigned note, written the evening before. It said merely:

“That was a very detestable thing for you to do. I hope you stay in jail for keeps.”

Quade winced as he read the note. He had treated Lois Lanyard pretty shabbily, but still he couldn’t regret it. Given time to think things over, Lois couldn’t help but realize that she shouldn’t marry Freddie Bartlett. In innumerable ways she’d shown that she didn’t love him; she was going through with the marriage merely because it had been rather expected of her and because several people, including her family, had been opposed to it. Quade had taken a high-handed way of helping her out of her quandary and sooner or later, he believed, she would appreciate it.

The prisoners’ cells were unlocked a little while later and they were herded into the bull pen. The men crowded around Quade then, thanking him for the breakfasts and assuring him that he was the Number One man of the jail as far as they were concerned.

“That’s very fine of you, boys,” Quade thanked them. “But I’m expecting to get out of here today.”

One of the prisoners had not joined in the eulogy to Quade. He was a surly, dark man, who sneered when the others crowded around Quade, but a little later he came up alone.

“Here’s something for you,” he said.

His hand came out of his pocket and Quade threw himself backwards. The gleaming knife blade ripped his coat sleeve from elbow to shoulder.

The prisoners in the bull pen began yelling, but the knife wielder received the surprise of his life. Quade was totally unarmed, except for his quick wits and lean, strong body. But even with a knife the attacker was no match for him.

He side-stepped the man’s second rush and, snaking out a hand, imprisoned the knife wrist. He jerked swiftly on the wrist, then smashed the forearm across a raised knee. The knife clattered to the concrete floor and the prisoner yelped in agony.

Quade stepped back from the prisoner and brought up his right fist in an uppercut. The blow caught the man under the chin, lifted him from the floor and deposited him on his back on the concrete.

Quade scooped up the knife. The prisoners crowded around him.

“What the hell’s the matter with the Greek? He go nuts?” asked one.

“Greek, huh?” Quade rubbed his chin. “I think I know what’s wrong with him. He got a letter this morning, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” replied one of the men. “He tore it up in little pieces and flushed it down the toilet.”

Quade filled a tin cup with water and sloshed it on the unconscious man’s face. The prisoner gasped and began moaning. In a moment he sat up.

“All right, partner,” Quade said. “Who told you to carve me up?”

“No one,” grouched the prisoner. “I just didn’t like your looks.”

Quade reached down, caught hold of the man’s shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Fella,” he said, glaring into the man’s face. “I asked you a question and I want a straight answer. Was it Bill Demetros?”

The prisoner looked at the fist that Quade shook in his face and said, “Yeah. He said you was getting in his hair.”

Quade threw the man away from him. “I ought to report you and you’d get a good deal more than you’re due to get now, but I can’t be bothered with small fry.”

The turnkey stormed into the bull pen. “Quade, Mister Quade, you’re wanted up front.”

Quade brushed off his new blue suit, frowned at the slashed sleeve, and followed the turnkey to the front part of the jail. Christopher Buck and the chief of police were both there and both looking serious.

“I guess we’ve got to let you go, Quade,” Costello said.

“You’re convinced that I didn’t kill Wesley Peters?”

“Yeah. Bob Lanyard confessed that he did it.”

“What? Why, he confessed that a couple of days ago. You don’t believe him this time, do you?”

“Got to,” grouched the chief. “He left a letter.”

Quade became rigid. “What do you mean, he left a letter?”

“He shot himself last night.”

Quade gasped. “Bob Lanyard shot himself? He’s dead?”

Both the chief and Buck nodded. Quade shook his head in bewilderment. “The letter — could I see it?”

Chief Costello pointed to a piece of paper lying on the desk before him. Quade looked down at it. It was just an ordinary sheet of white bond paper, crumpled, as if it had been clutched in a dead hand. There were two lines of typing on it. They read:

“I killed Wes Peters. He was annoying my wife. Forgive me, Jessie, for making this exit.

Bob.”

“When was he found?” Oliver Quade asked.

“About five-thirty this morning,” replied the chief. “The caretaker heard the dogs whining and howling and when he went to see what was the matter, there he was. The gun was in his hand.”

“He was found in the dog kennels?”

“Yeah, in the vacant stall where Miss Lanyard usually kept those woolly dogs she’s got at the show, now.”

Quade’s forehead wrinkled. Then suddenly smoothed. “Buck, you still interested in this?”

“I’ve lost my client,” growled the cadaverous detective. “But I haven’t been paid off yet. What do you want me to do?”

“Go out there and point out things to me.”

Buck looked at the chief, who nodded. “My men should be through by now. Let him look around.”

They rode out to the Lanyard home in the private detective’s expensive roadster. Quade looked at the drawn shades of the house and shook his head. Lois had been fond of her brother. And it would be a terrible shock to the parents, too.

The backyard was still swarming with newspapermen, but a couple of police were keeping them out of the dog kennels. Buck was known to them and they let him pass through with Quade.

The dog house was a long, low building, divided into three individual stalls. There was a door at each end of the building and connecting doors between the stalls. Quade had to stoop to enter and the tall detective had to walk bent almost double. Quade’s eyes were gleaming by the time they had entered by the small door into the wire runs.

They passed through the huskies’ kennel to where Bob Lanyard had been found in the vacant woolly kennel just beyond. The body had already been removed but the coagulated blood on the floor was mute proof of where the body had lain.

Quade’s eyes made a sweeping, searching tour of the sheep dog stall, then he nodded to Christopher Buck. “All right, let’s go.”

Buck looked at him with narrowed eyes. “That’s all?”

“Yes. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t commit suicide.”

“But he did,” protested Buck. “The gun was in his hand.”

“Placed there by the murderer. If Bob Lanyard wanted to kill himself, why would he come out here? He could have done it in his room just as well. Someone forced him in here, probably at the point of a gun. Didn’t want the people to hear the shot.”

“Quade,” Buck said thoughtfully, “there may be something in what you say. That confession note was typed, but not signed. Anyone could have written it. I’m going to check up on the typewriters around here.”

“That won’t prove anything. Almost all the people interested in this matter could have got to one of the Lanyard typewriters. You forgot they almost had a wedding yesterday and there were plenty of guests.”

Christopher Buck swore. “I’m still on this case. Christopher Buck never quits until he gets his man, even if his client is murdered!”

Quade almost grinned at the man’s dramatic self-appreciation. He left the building and almost bumped into Charlie Boston who was arguing with one of the policemen.

“Ollie!” cried Boston. “I just got back and they told me at the jail that you’d been let out. I brought my cousin, Paul.”

“Jail?” cried a cameraman nearby. “You’re Oliver Quade, the man who was jailed last night?”

Quade gritted his teeth and smiled. “All right, boys, Oliver Quade was never modest. Bring up your cameras.”

They did with a will. They snapped Quade from all angles. It was ten minutes before Boston could drag up his lawyer cousin, a mousy looking man of indeterminate age, who was, in Boston’s own words, “the best lawyer on the east side.”

“Sorry you won’t be needed,” Quade said to him. “But as you see, I’m a free man. Give me your card though and I’ll give you a ring the next time I’m pinched.”

“It’ll be a pleasure to defend you, Mr. Quade.”

The liveried butler came up then and spoke to Quade in a low voice. “Beg pardon, sir, but could you come into the house for a moment?”

“Yes, I could. Charlie, wait out front by the car.”

Quade trudged behind the butler to the house. In the living-room, his face strained and white, was Guy Lanyard. And Lois. Lois, in a black dress and clutching a wadded handkerchief in her hand. Her eyes were dry, but they had been wet before, Quade knew. Quade mumbled his sympathies and Guy Lanyard nodded.

“Mr. Quade,” Lois said. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have told the police about seeing you unchain that dog.”

“I had it coming to me. It was a dirty trick I pulled on you.”

Guy Lanyard cleared his throat. “Lois had the idea that Bob didn’t shoot himself.”

“He didn’t,” said Quade.

Guy Lanyard gasped. Lois sprang to her feet. “I told you so, Dad. I knew Bob wouldn’t do that. He was moody and all that, but I know he’d never take his own life.”

“Someone killed Bob,” Quade said.

“Mr. Quade,” said Guy Lanyard. “My son had employed — that detective person, who hasn’t impressed me much. I wonder if I could persuade you to do some investigating for us. I’d expect to pay, of course.”

“That won’t be necessary. After the things that have happened nothing could stop me from running down the killer.”

Lanyard heaved a great sigh of relief. “That will be some small satisfaction. Even though it won’t bring back Bob. Perhaps you suspect someone already?”

“I don’t suspect. I know. I’ve known right from the start, but I couldn’t prove it. I can’t yet.”

“Who is it?” cried Lois. “Tell me and I’ll—”

Quade shook his head. “It isn’t time yet. I’m going into the city today — on this case — but I expect to be back this evening. Don’t worry.”

Outside, Christopher Buck pounced on Quade. “What’d the family want, Quade?”

Quade shook his head, continued walking. Buck swore, caught hold of his arm. “Come clean. I just heard through the grapevine about that fellow who tried to kill you in jail.”

Quade stopped. “So?”

“Where does this Demetros fit into the picture?”

“Demetros and Wesley Peters were brothers!”

Christopher Buck gasped. “Say, this Peters fellow was dark complected. I get the picture now. Lanyard killed Peters because he was hanging around his wife, and then Demetros killed Lanyard.”

“Then all you have to do is find Demetros.”

“Yes, but where? Where are you going?”

“To the city. To find Demetros.”

Christopher Buck ran back to his own car. He would burn up the roads to the city, knowing that he could get there an hour before Quade could make it in the dilapidated flivver. Quade wondered what Buck would do if he found Bill Demetros, ex-racketeer and ex-convict.

“First though,” he said to Boston and the latter’s cousin. “I’m going to the hotel and clean up. The facilities in the Westfield jail aren’t as good as those at the hotel.”

Seated in the lobby of the hotel, a big Eskimo dog at her feet, was Jessie Lanyard. She sprang up when she saw Quade. “I slipped out of the house when you were out there, Mr. Quade,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”

The hotel lobby was hardly the place for a private talk. “Come up to my room, Mrs. Lanyard,” Quade said. He introduced her to Charlie’s cousin, then all three of them crowded into the elevator.

Jessie had the husky on a leash, but the dog was skittish and growled ominously. Charlie Boston promptly backed as far away from the dog as he could. Charlie wasn’t afraid of anything in the world except dogs.

In Quade’s room, Jessie said, “It’s about Peters. You asked me yesterday about him. Well, I came to tell you that he was really George Demetros, the brother of Bill Demetros.”

“If you’d told me that yesterday,” said Quade, “it would have been news. But I figured it out for myself last night, in jail.”

She sat up stiffly.

Quade said, without looking at her, “Tell me, Mrs. Lanyard, wasn’t Peters blackmailing you?”

“That was the other thing I came to tell you. Yes, the dirty rat! He blackmailed me. I gave him thousands of dollars and he kept wanting more and more.”

“He threatened to tip off his brother about you. Your new name and your whereabouts. Isn’t that it?”

Her eyes dropped. “Bill will kill me if he finds me. He’s that sort. I was afraid to tell Bob about him. And so I paid all that money to Wes Peters, to keep him from talking. Oh, I know Demetros was in prison all these years, but that didn’t mean I was safe. He had friends on the outside, members of his gang who’d do anything he ordered them to, even though he was in prison.”

“I can believe that,” said Quade. “This morning, here in the local jail, a prisoner got a note from Demetros and inside of a half-hour tried to murder me.”

Jessie cried out. “He — he knows then! Oh, I was afraid he did. I hadn’t even seen him for five years, but I thought I recognized him yesterday at the dog show!”

It was Quade’s turn to be surprised. “Demetros was at the show when Peters was killed?”

“There was a man there I’d have sworn was him. He didn’t talk to me and kept his distance but I’m sure it was him!”

Quade looked at her with clouded eyes. Then he sighed. “Thanks for telling me all this, Mrs. Lanyard.”

She rose. “I’m going away after the funeral. I couldn’t stand it here without Bob — and Demetros loose.”

“Perhaps he won’t be loose very long. He’s known to the police and he’ll have a hard time hiding from them. I don’t think you have to worry about him, right now. Too much excitement around here and too many police and newspapermen.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Quade,” Jessie said. She smiled wanly at Boston who heaved a sigh of relief when the Eskimo dog padded out of the room.

“What do you make of that?” Boston asked when the door was closed.

“All roads lead to Athens — meaning Bill Demetros. So I guess we’ll have to find him.”

“Buck’s got a long headstart,” said Boston. “But somehow I’m not worried about him. From what I hear this Demetros fellow is a very hard customer, indeed.”

Buck was taking the easy way of finding Demetros. When Quade, Boston and the lawyer reached the city, the newspapers already carried screaming headlines: “Police Seek Demetros in Murder Quiz.”

The story mentioned Buck’s name in every other line. He had solved, he claimed, “The Westfield Dog Murders” as the papers called them. And he wanted Demetros. The city police knowing that Demetros made his headquarters here, started a search for him.

Quade bought the paper in the Bronx and read it as Boston tooled the car down to Manhattan. “Methinks Mr. Demetros is going to be rather hard to find from now on,” he said.

“That dumb dick!” snorted Boston. “What’ll we do now? Head back for Westfield?”

“No, drive down to Twelfth Street. Everyone seems to have forgotten Felix Renfrew. He was, after all, Peters’ best friend.”

Renfrew lived on the top floor of a five-story brownstone walk-up. He occupied a dingy room containing a studio couch, a couple of chairs, a rickety table and a gas plate. And a typewriter and stacks of paper.

Renfrew was home, but not overjoyed to see Quade and Boston.

“You knew that Peters was Bill Demetros’s brother?” Quade asked.

Renfrew shook his head. “I met Bill a couple of times through Wes several years ago, but Wes never told me Bill was his brother. Said he was just a friend. I knew Wes was a Greek though, but he was touchy about it and I never asked him his real name. After all, my own isn’t Felix Renfrew.”

“What is it?”

Renfrew reddened. “Obediah Kraushaar, but can you imagine a playwright putting that on a play?”

“Renfrew hadn’t brought you any big contracts.”

“No, but playwriting is a tough racket. I may quit it and go back to Hamburg, Wisconsin. With Wes gone the landlady may chuck me out any day.”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you about. Do you suppose Wes got his money from his brother Bill?”

Renfrew shrugged. “I don’t know, but I imagine so, now that you tell me Bill was his brother. Come to think of it, it was right after Bill went to jail that Peters began getting his money.”

Quade looked thoughtfully at Renfrew for a moment. Then he said, almost casually, “Would it surprise you to know that Wesley Peters got his money from Jessie Lanyard by blackmailing her? Threatening to tell Bill Demetros her whereabouts.”

Renfrew’s mouth fell open and his eyes bulged. If he had known those facts about Wes before, he was a good actor, Quade thought. “Lord!” gasped Renfrew. “I never dreamed that about Wes. But come to think of it, that’s why he was always running out to Westfield. He pretended to me he had some pals out there.”

“And that is why you went out there? To learn who his friends were?”

Renfrew’s mouth clamped tightly shut. And his bulging eyes suddenly narrowed to slits. “What are you trying to do? Spring something on me?”

“I’m trying to get information, that’s all.”

“Yeah? Well, get to hell out of here!” snarled Renfrew. “I’ve said the last word to you. Beat it!”

“Don’t get tough, fella!” cut in Charlie Boston. “I used to eat a couple of poets and playwrights for breakfast every morning.”

Renfrew backed away from Boston. But Quade held out a hand toward his pal. “We’ll let him alone, Charlie, for a while. Let’s go.”

Outside Quade said to Boston. “I got Peters’ address. He used to live near here, on Christopher Street. Let’s take a look at his place.”

They didn’t get into Peters’ apartment, however, for the very good reason that a hard-boiled policeman, who was parked in it, wouldn’t listen to reason or financial coercion. Christopher Buck had sold the New York Police on Bill Demetros.

Quade and Charlie climbed into the flivver, started off. As the traffic light turned red at the corner, a squat, dark-complected man stepped out of a doorway, crossed the sidewalk and stepped on the running-board of the flivver.

“All right, boys,” he said. “Drive around the corner and park the buggy.”

“Ah,” said Quade, “you’re Bill Demetros?”

“Yep. I been following you around since you left Renfrew’s joint. I knew you’d get around there and to my brother’s place sooner or later.”

The lights turned green. Demetros rode around the corner with Quade and Boston. The latter, his nostrils flaring, looked inquiringly at Quade. Quade shook his head.

They climbed out of the car. “You came to town looking for me, didn’t you?” asked Demetros, as they walked together up the street. The gangster kept his right hand in his coat pocket, a fact that Quade had noted from the moment Demetros appeared.

“Yes,” replied Quade. “And I guess we had better luck than the cops.”

Demetros raised his eyebrows. “Luck? All right, in here.” He pointed to a short flight of stairs which led to a saloon just below the level of the sidewalk.

There were two customers and a bartender in the saloon. The three looked at Demetros and his “guests” and went on with their conversation.

Demetros and Boston sat down. The gangster scowled at Quade. “Look, fella,” he said, “none of this business had really concerned you, so why do you have to butt in on it?”

“What about the lad in the Westfield jail who tried to stick a shiv into me?”

“You got out of that, so why don’t you take the hint and stay out of it today? You know, I never liked buttinskys. I know of a few out in the ocean with concrete on their feet.”

Quade grimaced. “As a purely hypothetical question, what’s your own interest in this thing?”

“I just finished a five-year stretch in Atlanta,” Demetros said. “I didn’t like it there and I don’t want to go back. Or worse.”

Quade considered that. It sounded reasonable enough, but still, just how much did Bill Demetros know? Quade cautiously ventured to find out. “You know that Wesley Peters was your brother?”

“Of course,” snapped Demetros. “The louse! How the hell do you suppose I got into this?”

“I see,” said Quade. “Well, I think I’ll be going now.”

Demetros slammed to his feet. “You ain’t going nowhere.”

It was a swell fight while it lasted. Charlie Boston was a howling terror. And Quade was no slouch himself. But the addition of the bartender and the two customers, who turned out to be pals of Bill Demetros, was too much. They and the weapons they brought into the fight, to wit: a couple of blackjacks, a bungstarter and a chair or two.

Regaining consciousness with a splitting headache, Quade groaned and sat up. For a moment he thought he was blinded but then he realized that he was in a dark room. He groped in his pockets and found matches. Striking one, he saw that he was in a dingy room, littered with old furniture, junk and kitchenware. From the rough beams overhead he guessed that it was the basement of the saloon in which they’d met their Waterloo.

Charlie Boston lay supine upon the floor near Quade. He was twitching and mumbling, although still unconscious.

Quade saw a cord dangling from an electric light bulb and pulled on it. To his satisfaction it sprang into light. He rose and stood for a moment, shaking his head to clear away the cobwebs. He ached in almost every muscle of his body. And his blue suit was now ripped in a dozen places.

There was a dirty sink at one side of the room, beside an old coal range. Quade went to it and ran water. He laved his hands and face, then caught a peek of himself in a cracked mirror over the sink. He grimaced when he saw the mouse under his right eye.

Charlie Boston was mumbling louder and Quade sloshed water on Boston’s face. The big fellow shuddered and sat up.

“What the hell!” he gasped as he looked around.

Quade grinned through split lips. “I thought you were a good fighter, Charlie.”

Boston swore. “Fists against fists I’d have licked all four of ’em by myself. But those blackjacks and that chair the bartender conked me with!”

“Pipe down,” Quade warned.

The thugs had neglected to search them, probably figuring on doing that later. Quade still had his wrist-watch. It showed one fifteen. “We’ve been out over an hour,” he said.

“And we’ll probably be ‘in’ here until tonight,” replied Boston. “Then we’ll go on a one-way ride.”

Quade looked around the room. There was a trapdoor overhead and he guessed that recalcitrant customers had on occasion been unceremoniously dropped through the floor. There was another door at one side of the room, which no doubt led to an outer corridor and upstairs. There were no windows in the cellar. The only ventilation in it came from a narrow vent which led into another part of the cellar. The air was dank and laden with a thousand old smells.

“Looks like they used to do the free lunch cooking here in the old days,” Quade observed. “And there’s an awful lot of trash.”

“You mean we could start a fire?”

“We’d probably be roasted by the time the fire department got here. Because I don’t think our friends upstairs would dash to our rescue in the event we fired the joint. No, it’s got to be something better than that.”

He began poking around things in a corner. Thoughtfully he prodded a sack of cement, then a smaller sack containing a white substance. “Lime and cement,” he commented. “The boys mix a bit of concrete now and then.”

“I got a hunch they don’t mix the concrete for no building work,” scowled Boston. “You heard what Demetros said about pouring it on guys’ feet.”

“I remember it well. But lime has many uses. You haven’t forgotten, Charlie, that I’ve read my encyclopedia from cover to cover. There are some mighty interesting things in it…. Ah!”

He brought up a sheet of tough fiber board. He broke off a corner, tested it with his tongue. “Sulphur it is, Charlie. They soak this fiber with it to make it tough and waterproof. Lot of these advertising signs that have to hang out in all sorts of weather are first soaked in it. There’s just one more thing I’d like to find. Look through those bottles around here and see if you can find a bit of ammonia.”

A fifteen-minute search failed to produce any ammonia. Quade sighed. “I’ll have to try it without the ammonia. Build a fire in the stove, Charlie, and hope the damn chimney still works.”

There were plenty of old boxes and other fire material in the room. Charlie Boston soon had a nice fire going in the old coal range.

Quade then broke up the fiber board into small pieces and put them in a big, old cooking pot.

“With better tools I could do a better job, but this will do,” he said to Boston. “If I’d only found some ammonia or naphtha we’d have had some real fun.”

The pot on the stove began giving off a strong, biting odor after a while. Boston sniffed it. “Damn me if it don’t smell like sulphur, Ollie.”

“It is. I tasted it. Sulphur melts at 113 degrees Centigrade and boils at 444. But I don’t think we can get up a hot enough fire here to boil it. But maybe that won’t be necessary.”

Inside of twenty minutes the pot on the stove was half-filled with a brownish-green liquid in which floated pieces of fiber. Quade fished out the fiber as well as he could, then drained the hot mixture through a handkerchief into another pan that Boston had washed in the sink.

He let the stuff cool for a while, then stirred lime into it. The mixture began bubbling but Quade worked cautiously and kept it from bursting into flames. Finally when the mixture was completed and cooling, he poured it out on a sheet of newspaper in thin strips.

“Now, Charlie,” he said, “don’t spit on those strips or there’ll be trouble.”

Quade carried a sliver of the stuff to the sink and tossed it in. There was water in the sink and the instant the sliver touched it, it exploded into a bright yellow flame.

“I’ll be damned,” said Boston.

“If we’d had naphtha,” said Quade, “I could have made Greek fire, the stuff the old-timers used in their wars. Thinking of Demetros gave me the idea. But this will suit our purpose.” He looked at his watch. “It’s after three. Time we got out of here. Tear yourself a leg from that old table there. You may have use for it.”

Taking the thin brittle strips of lime and sulphur, Quade stuffed them in the cracks of the door leading to the outer corridor. Boston helped him and soon the wide crack was stuffed completely around.

“This isn’t going to be a cinch, Charlie,” Quade said. “When that stuff starts burning it’s going to be just about hot enough to melt the hinges off. We’re going to have to smash down the door then and jump through a regular furnace. If there isn’t a staircase or a quick outlet on the other side of the door we’re going to get roasted alive.”

Charlie Boston scowled. “And if we stay here and wait for Demetros to get back it’s a tubful of cement on our feet. I’ll take a chance on the fire, Ollie.”

“All right then, get ready.”

Quade took a deep breath, then, with a pan of water in each hand, suddenly doused the sulphur-stuffed cracks of the door.

The result was astonishing. The sulphur and lime exploded into a roaring thread of bright yellow flame. The fire was so hot that it almost seared Quade’s face even though he sprang back quickly. The flame, he knew, was only a few hundred degrees cooler than an oxy-acetylene torch.

Quade and Boston waited at the far end of the room, shielding their faces with their arms. Now and then Quade peered over his arm. Finally, after about a minute, he said, “The hinges are gone now, Charlie. A good stiff wallop or two and the door’ll go down. Then we’ve got to make it. And keep your fingers crossed.”

Boston caught up the table leg he had torn off and leaped forward. He struck the door a mighty blow and it fell completely off its melted hinges, dropping out into the corridor.

“Let’s go!” cried Quade. He covered his face and leaped straight through the inferno of fire. Scorching heat seared through to his body. For a fraction of a second Quade thought he had lost, but then he stumbled on a stair and began scrambling up it. Behind him he heard Charlie Boston, scuffling and swearing. They fled up the stairs, the fire crackling behind them. Quade beat out sparks on his clothes and he knew that his hair and eyebrows were singed.

A door at the head of the stairs was closed but not locked. They tore it open and burst into the saloon where they had been defeated earlier in the day.

The bartender and one of the two men who had come to Demetros’ aid were the only occupants of the saloon. The fight this time was all in Quade’s favor, Charlie using the table leg to knock both of the utterly surprised men out of the way. He and Quade left the saloon inside of two minutes.

“The building’ll probably burn down,” he exclaimed outside. “But damned if I care.”

Their battered flivver was still around the corner. Demetros hadn’t had it removed. Quade and Boston climbed into it and in a few minutes were bowling north along Seventh Avenue.

It was almost six o’clock when they reached the Westfield Hotel. Dirty, their clothing scorched and torn and their hair singed, they caused the hotel room clerk to exclaim in horror when they entered. But they breezed past him to the elevator.

Quade was putting on a clean shirt when someone in the corridor began a sledge hammer tattoo on their door.

“Christopher Buck, the world’s greatest detective,” Quade remarked. “I recognize his gentle knocking.”

He let Buck into the room. “Where’ve you been?” Buck cried.

“Talking to Bill Demetros.”

“You got him?” Buck cried eagerly. “Where is he, in jail?”

“Not that I know of,” replied Quade. “Matter of fact we lost an argument with him.”

Buck saw the remnants of Quade’s blue suit on the floor. “You were in a fight!”

“No, I got the black eye from a canary. It kicked me.”

Boston came out of the bathroom, several strips of adhesive tape on his face. “You shoulda been along, Mr. Buck,” he grinned largely. “You would have enjoyed it.”

Buck shuddered. “I abhor physical violence. A man with brains doesn’t have to resort to it.”

“Brains?” exclaimed Boston. “Man, where we were your brains would have got you a concrete block.”

Christopher Buck wrapped himself into knots and dropped into a chair. “What’re you going to do next, Quade?” he asked.

“Gather in the murderer,” Quade replied bluntly. “Before there is another killing.”

The telephone tingled. Quade picked it up.

“This is Felix Renfrew,” said an excited voice. “I’m over here at the bus station. I just got in. I’ve got something very important to tell you.”

“Come right over,” Quade told him. He hung up the receiver and turned to Buck. “Sorry, but I’m having a visitor. You’ll excuse me, won’t you?”

Buck scowled. “Holding out again, huh?”

“Look,” said Quade, exasperated. “You’ve fooled around on this case long enough. Your client is dead, so why the hell don’t you take a powder?”

Buck blustered but Quade shoved him through the door. Quade turned to Boston, his eyes gleaming. “This thing is breaking fast, Charlie. Felix Renfrew is coming up here. I think he’s going to give me the proof I’ve been trying to get.”

“That Demetros knocked off young Lanyard? Hell, I knew that long ago.”

Five minutes passed, but Felix Renfrew did not show up. Quade fidgeted. “Wonder if Buck ran into him and bought him off to spill it to him. That man would do almost anything to get credit for breaking a case.” He held up a hand suddenly. “Listen, isn’t that a police siren? Lord, I wonder…”

Quade bounded off the bed and out of the room. He took the stairs to the first floor, three at a time, and burst through the lobby. People were rushing by on the street, heading for a spot in the next block where a large crowd had gathered. Quade caught hold of a man’s arm. “What’s happened?”

“Man’s been shot!”

It was Renfrew, of course. Quade found Chief of Police Costello and his entire force herding the curious back from the huddled body.

Costello was very unhappy. “More killings!” he snapped. “It’s getting to be an epidemic around here.”

“How’d it happen?”

“No one seems to know exactly. He was crossing the street and someone took a shot at him from an automobile. Only one or two people around and they thought at first the noise was just a backfire. Only natural. Up to now, people haven’t been in the habit of firing off guns on our Main Street. What happened to you?”

Quade touched the mouse under his eye. “I got tough to the wrong man. Well, you still satisfied that Bob Lanyard committed suicide?”

The chief cursed roundly. “I been out to the Lanyard house. The old man and his daughter claim it was murder. This Renfrew killing makes me wonder now.”

Quade saw the lank figure of Christopher Buck forcing through the crowd and slipped away. He walked to the hotel and climbed into his disreputable flivver.

Ten minutes later he rang the bell at the Lanyard home.

“Miss Lois Lanyard,” he said to the butler.

“I’m sorry, she’s not at home.”

Quade frowned. “Mr. Lanyard then.”

The butler led Quade into the living-room where Guy Lanyard was sitting by the rear window, moodily looking out toward the dog kennels.

“Where’d Lo — Miss Lanyard go?”

“To the dog show. I thought it best for them to get out for a while.”

“Them?”

“She and Jessie both went. Poor girls.”

Quade left abruptly and drove to the dog show — fast. It was around dinnertime and attendance was slight. Quade went swiftly from aisle to aisle but saw neither Lois nor Jessie Lanyard. He did, however, run into Freddie Bartlett. The wealthy playboy gritted his teeth at sight of Quade. “Here you are, I’ve been looking for you all day.” Freddie spoke as he would to a servant.

“The hell you have,” snapped Quade. “Where’s Miss Lanyard and her sister-in-law?”

“What business is it of yours?” sneered Bartlett. “You’ve been around them just about enough. I was looking for you today to see that you didn’t annoy any of us any longer.”

“Oh, hell!” snorted Quade. “Are you going to try to lick me?”

“Someone seems to have started the job,” Bartlett said ominously, “but I’m going to finish it. You didn’t know I was light-heavyweight champion of my university, did you?”

Quade sighed, stepped forward and smashed Bartlett a terrific blow on the point of the jaw. Bartlett staggered back against a dog partition. His eyes rolled wildly as he struggled to keep his feet.

“So you want to fight?” Quade asked. He lashed out with a left hook, and Freddie Bartlett hit the wooden partition and slid down it to a sitting position. He wasn’t out, but he sat there goggle-eyed. “And now,” Quade said, “where’s Lois?”

Bartlett looked up stupidly. “I–I don’t know,” he mumbled. “They were here, then they said they were going for a drive up River Road. Jessie said something about going where it was quiet. Woods down there—”

Quade left Bartlett sitting there. He dashed to the exit of the building, then on sudden impulse ran back. He found the Old English sheep dog aisle and stepped into one of the stalls, the one occupied by Oscar, Lois’ first-prize winner.

The dog was a bit skittish, but Quade spoke soothingly to it and unchained it. Leading it by the chain, he started again for the exit.

The show secretary was coming in just then. “Here, here, you!” he cried. “You can’t do that.”

Quade did not even answer. He brushed the man aside and rushed out to his car. He put the dog in the front seat and climbed in beside it. In a moment he was scooting out of the fair grounds.

Quade didn’t know the section of the country around Westfield, but during the last few days he’d seen the river several times and instinctively headed toward it. The road beside it was a winding one. There were a few houses and farms on both sides of the road, near town, but when he got out a mile or two, the farms gave way to thick woods. Quade cursed furiously. There was no fencing along the side of the road and every now and then there was a winding wooded lane or road, cutting off from the main drive. Jessie and Lois could have turned down any of these roads and he would miss them.

Quade stopped the flivver beside a small road and listened. There were fresh tire tracks leading into the road, but it did not necessarily mean anything. This was a populated country and someone used these roads every day. He stepped on the starter, but suddenly switched it off again. He strained his ears, but heard nothing. The dog beside him growled deep in his throat. Quade looked at it and his eyes flashed.

“Bark!” he cried, in a sudden command. The dog was startled and barked warningly. “Louder!” Quade cried, making a pass at the dog. The dog barked and bared his teeth threateningly.

And then Quade heard it — a wolf-like howl rising to a mournful note and dying out. It came from the woods ahead and not so far away. Quickly Quade stepped on the starter of the flivver and slipped the gears into second. He stepped on the throttle and the car leaped into the narrow winding road.

As he drove he bore down on the horn. The noise excited the dog beside him even more and it barked. And from ahead, came the answering howl of a dog. The flivver burst into a clearing and Quade brought it to a stop in a cloud of dust. Ahead was a bright yellow roadster, Lois’ own car. Oscar, the sheep dog, began barking excitedly and tried to get out of the car. Quade sighed in relief, kicked the door open beside the dog.

He saw the girls then. They were in the back of the clearing, near an old stone house. Jessie had the big Eskimo dog with her. It was bristling at the approach of the sheep dog and Jessie had to speak to it to keep it from attacking the woolly as the latter bounded across the clearing to his mistress.

“Hello, there!” Lois called as Quade approached. “How’d you happen to find us?”

Quade jerked his head toward the husky. “The dog. He howled.”

Lois looked at him in surprise. “You mean you recognized his howl? But you’ve only seen him once or twice.”

“I know, but this happens to be the only dog in this neighborhood that doesn’t bark. You’re a dog raiser; you ought to know that an Eskimo dog, being descended from the wolf, does not bark — he howls.”

“The Human Encyclopedia himself,” said Jessie.

Quade looked at her. Jessie was unsmiling. “Yes,” he said. “I got that information out of the encyclopedia. It was a good thing to know.”

“We were just about to start home,” said Lois. “Jessie wanted to explore this old house first. It’s deserted.”

“Some other time,” said Quade. “Let’s go back to Westfield now.”

“Why, has something happened?” Lois’ eyes clouded.

“I’ll tell you later,” Quade held out his hand to Jessie. “Let me have your bag.”

Her eyes widened, but he took the handbag firmly from her grasp. It was heavy and he could feel the outline of something hard in it.

Lois’ forehead was creased as they walked to the cars. Something seemed to be annoying her. Quade’s rudeness, no doubt. At the car he maneuvered to hand Jessie into the seat first, then took hold of Lois’ elbow.

“I’ll drive,” he said firmly.

He handed her into the car, then stowed the two dogs into the rumble seat, chaining each to a side, so they would not be forced together too much.

Quade walked around and slipped in under the wheel. He could feel Jessie beside him, her body tensed. She knew that he knew.

No one said a word until they reached the Lanyard house.

“Your father’s in the living-room,” he suggested, guessing that the old man would still be by the window overlooking the dog kennels. He was. By the look on Guy Lanyard’s face Quade knew that he had guessed the truth during his absence.

“Renfrew, Wesley Peters’ pal, is dead,” Quade said.

Lois gasped. “Dead!”

“The police captured this Demetros,” said Guy Lanyard. “Costello phoned just a few minutes ago. He resisted and is in a bad way. Probably won’t live. He’d come to Westfield to—”

Lois suddenly looked sharply at her sister-in-law. “Jessie,” she said slowly, “who was that dark man you talked to at the dog show this morning? I asked you about him before and you didn’t answer.”

“I’m going to my room,” Jessie said.

Guy Lanyard looked at Quade. The latter held his gaze for a moment, then looked at Jessie’s handbag in his right hand. He extended it to her. “Here’s your bag.”

Jessie’s teeth were sunk into her lower lip. She took the bag, turned and walked out of the room. Quade heard her heels as they clicked on the stairs going up.

“Thank God you got to Lois in time,” Guy Lanyard said.

Lois turned to Quade. “What does he mean? What’s the matter with her? Why wouldn’t she answer me about that man? Was he…?”

There was a sharp explosion upstairs. Quade relaxed. Guy Lanyard slumped into his chair.

“It’s best this way,” Quade said.

“That was a shot!” cried Lois. Her eyes were wide. “Jessie! Jessie!”

An hour later Quade dropped wearily onto the bed in his room at the Westfield Hotel. Charlie sat on the other bed, biting his fingernails. “The dame!” he swore. “You knew it was her all the time!”

“Not all the time, Charlie. She fooled me there at the start. That confession of hers. It was on the level and that’s what threw me off the track.

“If she’d stopped with Peters’ death she’d probably have got away with it.”

“What mistakes did she make?” asked Boston. “I didn’t get any. Hell, I never even suspected her.”

“But I knew she killed her husband the minute I read the suicide note he was supposed to have left. Remember what it said? ‘Forgive me for making this exit.’ Making an exit is an actor’s expression. Bob might conceivably have picked up such a phrase from his wife, but his speech ordinarily was scholastic and precise. In his most tragic moment he would not have used slang.

“But aside from the note, Jessie gave herself away by killing Bob in the dog kennels. Remember the layout?”

Boston considered that for a moment, then shook his head. “What’s wrong with that layout? She didn’t want to kill him in the house maybe on account of the noise.”

“It would have been far safer for her to have done so. Don’t you see, Charlie? The dogs are loose in their kennels. She could have forced Bob past the pointers, but after shooting him she could never have gone back that way. The pointer, Duke, would have torn her to pieces. Dogs smell blood quickly and sense death. And Bob probably cried out when she shot him. No, after shooting him she left by way of the husky kennels, her own dogs.

“Get it now. No one could have killed Bob and left by the pointer kennels. And only Jessie could leave by the Eskimo kennels. Those dogs are half wild and in the middle of the night would have attacked anyone but their mistress. So it had to be Jessie.”

“I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Boston. “But did she have to kill Bob?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. But one murder leads to another and after she killed Peters she had to kill her husband. You see, Jessie made her big mistake years ago when she tried to throw over Bill Demetros. Demetros wasn’t the sort of man who liked his women to leave him, at least not until he was through with them. And he wasn’t through with Jessie. She changed her name, but Bill would have caught up with her probably, except the Government caught up with him about then and sent him on that five-year visit to Atlanta.

“Then Jessie got into that show with Wes Peters. That was a bad break for her, because he turned out to be Bill Demetros’ brother. When Jessie found out she threw him over. Or maybe she met Bob Lanyard about that time. Lanyard meant real dough to her. And safety.

“She married Bob. And then it turned out that Peters, even though he was supposedly not like his gangster brother, was even worse. He blackmailed Jessie about her former association with a gangster and threatened always to tell Bill where she was unless she paid plenty.”

“You mean she paid heavy sugar just to keep that rat Peters from writing his brother that Jessie had married a rich guy?” demanded Charlie.

“That’s about the size of it. Jessie knew Bill pretty well. She knew that he would get word to some of his pals on the outside and it would be too bad for her. So she paid off… and then Bill got out. Inasmuch as Wes had played around with his brother’s girl he figured he’d better skip. He needed money for that. So he went to his mint, Jessie, and demanded one last big roll.

“She couldn’t get enough money. So she gave Peters that thousand that was on him when he was found dead and stalled him. She got an opportunity and gave him a lead slug instead of more money. She might even have taken to carrying the gun figuring to kill herself with it. But when she got such a swell chance in the dog show she up and let him have it.

“It was her first murder and she was pretty shaky about it, so when we went after her hot and heavy there at the start, she broke down, admitted it. Then when her husband tried to take the blame and she saw that no one really wanted to believe she had done it, she began covering up.

“But Bill Demetros must’ve got to her, because all of a sudden I found Demetros on her side. Which wasn’t at all according to Hoyle. Took me a little time to figure out. Demetros had been away for five years and I imagine his lawyers and fixers had come pretty high, so the old safety deposit box was probably pretty empty. He knew Jessie was scared stiff of him. So he showed her how she could come into a big chunk of dough and by splitting with him, live to spend it.

“It was smart figuring on Demmy’s part. By knocking off her husband Jessie could come into a half million or so. Then Lois happened to see Jessie with Demetros and questioned her. That made Lois next on her list. I didn’t know the reason when I went after Lois and Jessie today, but I knew Jessie was desperate and I wasn’t taking chances on Lois being the next victim.”

“That all sounds pretty straight,” said Boston. “But where’d this guy Renfrew fit into the picture?”

“Renfrew finally figured out Wes Peters’ soft thing, or maybe he didn’t see it until after we told him about it. Anyway, he suddenly got the bright idea of taking up where Wes left off, not knowing that Demetros had shuffled a new deal. Renfrew phoned Jessie to put the squeeze on her. Which signed his death warrant. Demetros got to him and told him a few things and then Renfrew got panicky and wanted to come to me, to blow up the thing and save his life. So Demmy killed him.”

“Uh-huh,” said Boston. “What about Lois’ romance you busted up?”

Quade’s ears turned red. “Why, she gave me an invitation to come out some time — What the hell you grinning about, you big ape?”

“Nothing,” said Boston, his face as sober as a Kansas prohibitionist’s.