Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

State Fair Murder

He was here again. He saw the bright new banners: Minnesota State Fair, and a wave of nostalgia swept through him. There was sunshine and the clacking of turnstiles. Along the Midway he saw the same faces, heard familiar voices; the Kewpie dolls the suckers never won, gleamed from their shelves. He saw all of this and was glad that he was again a part of it.

And so he turned into the Education Building and found a bench and, mounting it, began talking in a voice that was louder than the noises of the huge building, that drowned even the clamor of the Midway and the yells of fifty thousand throats at the nearby speedway.

“I am Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia!” he thundered. “I know the answers to all questions. I can answer anything anyone can ask, on any subject…”

A man rushed up and, grabbing Oliver Quade’s coat, tugged furiously.

“You can’t start that stuff in here!” he cried, in a thin, high voice. “I told you you had to work outside!”

A look of utter weariness came upon Oliver Quade’s face. “Mr. Campbell,” he said, “I do not think more of twenty-five dollars than you do of your right arm. Yet that is the sum I paid you and I insist therefore, that I be allowed to work wherever I choose. And I choose this building.”

“Quade,” gritted Campbell, who was secretary of the Fair, “I dislike grease joints because they sell bad food and clutter up the grounds, yet I do not detest them one-hundredth as much as sheet-writers. And I would rather sleep in bed with a sheet-writer than live on the same street with a pitchman. And you, sir, are a pitchman. Do I make myself clear?”

So Oliver Quade took his case of books and went outside the Education Building. The noises of the Midway, the eighteen racing cars on the speedway, the fifty thousand persons in the grandstand could have been equalled only by eight tornadoes, three earthquakes and a 21-gun salute from the Pacific Fleet.

Yet Quade went into competition with it all — and held his own.

“I am Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,” he roared again. “I know the answers to all questions. I can answer anything anyone can ask me, on any subject — history, science, mathematics…”

An angry-looking man waved a book at Oliver Quade and yelled: “Who was the Republican nominee for president in 1848?”

“Ha,” said Quade, “you jest. The Republican Party did not come into existence until 1860. Abraham Lincoln was its first nominee.” He waved his arms dramatically and yelled at the throng that was gathering around him. “Now, try me on something else. Any subject, history, science, mathematics, sports—”

It was a hell of a time for murder.

The man who had asked the question about the Republican Party cried: “Ohmygawd!” and fell against Quade — dead.

Quade lowered the man to the ground and saw a little dart sticking in the small of his back. He picked up the book the man had dropped and noted the title: “Arnold’s American History.”

“A ringer,” he said.

And then — confusion.

For fifteen minutes the chief attraction of the fair was the corpse lying between the race-track and the Education Building. A couple hundred of the Fair’s special police made a solid, semi-circular fence.

Inside the circle twenty or thirty police from St. Paul milled about. Scattered among them were a half dozen private citizens. Oliver Quade was one of the unfortunates. A Lieutenant Johnson had him up against the Education Building and was giving him some law.

“I don’t like your story,” Lieutenant Johnson said for the fifth time.

“You don’t, eh? All right. I’ll give you a better one. A pink-eyed guy eight feet tall came along, riding a female zebra, with a six-shooter in each hand—”

“Wise guy, huh!” snarled the police lieutenant. “Wasn’t there an audience around I’d paste you a couple.”

“What’d you expect?” demanded Quade. “I’m a total stranger here. I was making a pitch to five hundred people and one of them got killed. I never saw the man before in my life. I’m just an innocent bystander.”

The lieutenant knew that very well, but he hated to give up on Quade. He was the only tangible connection with a man who had been killed. He was the only one of all the persons who had been in the crowd who had remained to be grabbed by a policeman. Crowds are that way.

A sergeant came up with an open notebook. “Here’s what we’ve got, Lieutenant. His name was L. B. Arnold and he was president of the Arnold Publishing Company, of Anoka. There was $36.53 in his pockets, besides some letters and papers. The dart, well, the doc says there was some strange poison on it, but he won’t be able to say what it is until he makes a chemical analysis.”

The lieutenant sawed the air impatiently. “All right, we’ll go into that later.” He turned back to Quade, glowering. “I could take you to Headquarters.”

“What good’d it do you?”

“None, I guess. Where you staying?”

“At the Eagle Hotel in Minneapolis.”

The lieutenant wrote it down. “Don’t you check out of there without letting me know. And while you’re here on the grounds check in at the secretary’s office every couple of hours in case we want you.”

“I’ll do that,” said Quade. “And Lieutenant, here’s something. This book. I picked it up from the ground. It seems to have been the dead man’s.”

The lieutenant tore it from Quade’s hands. But when he looked at the title, he sniffed. “Yeah, it was his, but it don’t mean nothing. You heard the sergeant say he was president of the Arnold Publishing Company. They publish school books and they got an exhibit inside the building. I saw it myself. They got five hundred of these books.”

“Then let me have this one. I’m interested in history.”

“This is evidence. Go buy yourself a book.”

Quade snorted and picked up his case, which contained a good many copies of The Compendium of Human Knowledge. He had hoped to sell these books here today. That was his business — selling these encyclopedias.

He bucked the throng held at bay by the circle of special police and broke through, to a lunch stand that was next door to the Education Building. There was a whole string of these grease joints along the Midway, some operated by professionals, some by amateurs. This one was an amateur’s stand. It bore a banner: “South Side Church.” A half-dozen attractive girls were inside the booth.

Quade caught the eye of the best looking girl. “Coke,” he said.

The girl brought the bottle, opened it and put a straw in it. “You’re the man — uh…”

“I am,” said Quade, “but I didn’t do it. This is Labor Day and I never kill a man on Labor Day. Haven’t for years.”

The girl was easy on the eyes. In her early twenties, blonde and rather tall. The white uniform she wore added to, rather than detracted from, her appearance.

He said, “My name’s Oliver Quade.”

She smiled, finally. “You announced it loud enough and often enough when you were making that — pitch, I guess you call it.”

He grinned. “What’s your name?”

She shook her head. “I have no name. I’m just one of the girls from the church. Reverend Larsen warned us—”

“That you were doing this for the church and not to get picked up by fresh young men.”

“Exactly.”

“All right. Let’s keep it on a business basis then. You were listening to my pitch—”

“What else could I do? You drowned out even the noise from the grandstand.”

He chuckled. “You can’t make money by whispering. Look at your own business here. You’ve got a cleaner stand and serve better food than Joe Grein over there, but look at the way he drags them in.”

She saw the logic of what he said and frowned. “What with that yelling of his and cane waving—”

“Cane,” said Quade. “That reminds me. I’ll see you later. I’ll leave my case here, to make sure I come back.”

He heaved it over the counter and set it by her feet, then grinned at her open-mouthed face and walked off quickly.

A hundred yards down the Midway Quade spotted a concession and muttered under his breath. He stopped behind a burly man in a checked suit, who was trying to drive a twenty-penny spike into a pine log. He wasn’t having much luck with it. He swung lustily, but somehow the hammer always slipped off the nail, or struck it a glancing blow, bending it.

Quade made a clucking noise with his tongue and the big man whirled. His angry face relaxed when he saw Quade. Then he winced.

“Uh, hello, Ollie. I was just comin’.”

“Is that so, Mr. Boston?” Quade asked sarcastically. “Tell me, my friend, how much money have you spent here trying to win one of those lovely, lovely canes?”

Charlie Boston scowled. “Not much. Maybe a couple bucks.”

“For a cane you could buy in town for thirty cents.” Quade sighed and signalled to the concessionaire. “Hi, Johnny! Let me have your hammer a minute. I want to show this oaf how to drive in a nail.”

The concessionaire chuckled. “I didn’t know he was a pal of yours. He’s gone for about four bucks. I’ll give it back—”

“No, let him pay for his fun.”

Johnny grinned crookedly. He tapped a spike about a half inch into the log, then handed Quade his own hammer. With one half the energy Boston had expended on a blow, Quade drove the nail two inches into the wood. With the second blow he sent it to within a half inch of the block. The third, a light one, drove the nailhead flush with the log.

Johnny Nelson sang out: “And the gentleman wins a cane!” He handed him a yellow stick. Quade winked at him, then pulled Boston away from the booth.

“Charlie,” he chided the burly man, “how often have I told you not to try to beat the other fellow at his own game?”

“Aw, you don’t have to rub it in,” growled Boston. “Anyway, you were lucky, that’s all. My hammer kept slipping.”

“Of course it did. It was supposed to slip. The ball had been rounded on an emery wheel. You’ll recall Johnny handed me his own private hammer. With it even you might have—”

“Why, the dirty crook!” Charlie Boston turned to plunge back to the cane concessionaire, but Quade grabbed his arm.

“We’ve no time for that. While you were frittering away your time I got mixed up in a murder mess.”

Boston gasped. “Murder!”

“Yes. I was making a pitch and someone tossed a dart into a prospective customer’s shoulder. There was poison on the dart.”

“Is that what all that commotion was about awhile ago?” cried Charlie Boston. “Gawd! I saw everyone rushing but I figured it wasn’t nothing more than a dip lifting someone’s poke.” He whistled as astonishment overwhelmed him. “A murder at your pitch!”

“While you were trying to win a cane!”

Boston sulked. “All right. All right.”

“Got a job for you, Charlie. One that suits your peculiar talents. Next to the Education Building there’s a grease joint, run by some girls from a church. Go down there with that nice, new cane of yours and give the girls your personality.”

Boston looked suspiciously at Quade. “Is this a rib?”

“No. This murder happened right next door to them. Pump the girls. Find out if they saw anything. Wait there for me. I’ll be back in a little while.”

Boston walked off briskly. The assignment was one he relished. Quade shook his head dolefully after his pal and went off in the other direction.

A few minutes later he stopped at a tent concession. There was a board backdrop in the tent, over which was spread a sheet of canvas, with red hearts painted on it. One or two customers were throwing darts at the hearts.

“Abe,” Quade said to the concessionaire, “did you lose a dart here today?”

Abe Wynn, a bald, fat man, grunted. “I lose a dozen every day. The yaps swipe ’em.”

“The cops been here yet?”

Wynn winced. “No, but I heard — and I’ve been expectin’ them. I don’t know a damn thing. It happened at your pitch, huh?”

Quade nodded. He picked up a handful of darts and began tossing them at the red hearts. “And the dart had your trademark. I s’pose you wouldn’t remember the people who tossed here today?”

“No. It’s been a good day and there’ve been two-three hundred. Any one of them could have slipped a dart into his pocket. But, Ollie, you know damn well one of these darts wouldn’t kill a man unless it struck a big vein or the heart.”

“There was poison on it. A deadly poison.”

“That lets me out, then. None of these darts have poison on them. I know because I wipe them with an oily rag every day to keep them from rusting.”

“Well, I was just asking. If a Lieutenant Johnson talks to you, he’s tough.”

Quade worked his way to the front of the Fair Grounds, to the Administration Building. He located the secretary’s office and had scarcely stepped inside, than Lieutenant Johnson grabbed him. “I was just going to look for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Some people have been picked up. I want you to look them over and give me the nod if any of them were in that crowd when you were selling those books.”

“There were five hundred. I wouldn’t know them all.”

“You might remember some of the faces…. In here.”

In the secretary’s office were eight or ten men and one woman. Quade’s eyes ran quickly over the gathering. He whispered to Lieutenant Johnson. “The stocky fellow in the gray suit — I’m sure of him. And the girl, she was there for a minute, although I think she left before it happened.”

The detective smacked his lips and stepped up to the middle-aged man in the gray suit. “Mr. Colby, you were Arnold’s office manager, weren’t you?”

Colby nodded. There was apprehension in his eyes. “I’m also a stockholder in the company. I thought a great deal of Arnold. I’m sure Ruth will bear me out in that.” He nodded toward the girl.

The girl’s eyes were tear-stained and she was wadding a moist handkerchief in a gloved hand. “My father always spoke very highly of Mr. Colby.”

She was, then, the dead man’s daughter. Which puzzled Quade. She had been in the crowd when he’d started, but she hadn’t been with her father — and had left before he was killed. Or had she left?

Lieutenant Johnson was still working on Colby. “Today’s a legal holiday. But you can save us time, Mr. Colby. We’re putting an auditor into the business tomorrow. You can save yourself a lot of trouble right now by telling for how much you tapped the till.”

Colby exclaimed angrily. “I resent that question. If I’m under arrest I demand to be allowed to telephone my attorney. If I’m not under arrest, I insist on courteous treatment.”

“This is a murder case, Mr. Colby,” snapped Johnson. “If my questions seem pointed, please bear in mind the gravity of the crime. It’s my business to ask questions, so could you venture an opinion as to why someone would want to murder Mr. Arnold?”

“I could not,” retorted Colby. “The Arnold Publishing Company is a corporation. L. B. owned sixty percent and I believe ten percent is in Miss Arnold’s name. She will naturally inherit her father’s stock. I stand to gain nothing by Arnold’s death.”

“Is that right, Miss Arnold?” the detective asked.

The girl nodded. “I believe so. Father told me only yesterday that the business was in bad shape.”

“That’s right!”

The exclamation came from a stocky man with huge, black eyebrows and a Hitler mustache. Lieutenant Johnson whirled on him. “Your name?”

“Wexler. Louis Wexler.”

“You were a friend of Arnold’s?”

“Creditor would be a better word. He owed me for printing.”

Colby interrupted. “Do you have to advertise it to the world? You got plenty of money from Arnold over a period of years. That he was a little hard pressed at the moment…”

“Hard pressed?” cried Wexler. “What about me? I’ve got a plant and a payroll. I got to lay it out every week—”

“So you were sore at Arnold?” Lieutenant Johnson said softly.

Wexler glared at the detective, then seemed to realize that he had laid himself open. Abruptly, his manner changed. He even attempted a smile. “Just in a business way, you understand. After all, you don’t kill a man who owes you money. You can’t get it back, then.”

Quade nudged the lieutenant. “Ask the girl why she slipped away from my pitch,” he murmured.

Johnson inhaled softly. Then he pounced on Ruth Arnold. “You were at the scene of your father’s murder. Did you leave before or after he was killed?”

Ruth Arnold’s hand flew up to her mouth and her eyes popped wide open. The tall young man beside her gripped her arm. He scowled at the detective. “Ruth was with me all afternoon.”

“Let her answer my question!” Johnson thundered.

“I left before,” Ruth Arnold whispered.

“Why’d you leave — because you saw your father?”

That question scored, too. But the girl’s supporter answered, “She left to meet me. It’s all right, now, Ruth. They’ll find it out anyway.”

“That you and Miss Arnold are engaged?” cut in Oliver Quade.

The girl gasped, but the man beside her, nodded. “Yes. Ruth’s father objected to her having anything to do with me.”

“What’s your name?” demanded Johnson.

“Jim Stillwell.”

Oliver Quade cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask Mr. Stillwell a question?”

Lieutenant Johnson shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“All right, Mr. Stillwell, who was the first man in American history to win the Republican nomination for president?”

“What the hell!” snorted Lieutenant Johnson angrily. “You playing games?”

“No, I’m interested in history and I thought I’d ask—”

“I don’t mind answering,” said Jim Stillwell. “John C. Fremont, in 1856, was the first Republican nominee. Right?”

“Surprisingly, yes.”

“You got any more questions?” the detective lieutenant asked, sarcastically.

“Yes, who was vice-president during Lincoln’s first term?”

“Get out of here!” cried Johnson.

“In one minute. Did you find out what poison was on the dart?”

“Well, the doc says it was dipped in some hydrocyanic acid. But where the devil would they get that stuff?”

Quade said: “In a drugstore — or if a fellow was real smart he could go out into a cornfield where there was some Indian corn. He could pick out a stunted stalk, and in some crotch find enough hydrocyanic acid to kill fifty people. It forms in stunted Indian corn and—”

The lieutenant sawed the air. “Yeah, I know you’re a smart guy. But get out of here!”

Quade left the room. On his way out, he picked up, from a desk, a copy of Arnold’s American History.

At the grease joint operated by the girls from the church, he found Charlie Boston in command of the situation. He was leaning against the counter, twirling his new cane and chatting with a dark-haired girl.

“Hi, pal,” he greeted Quade. “It’s all fixed. This is Mildred Rogers. She’s mine. Yours is the blonde. Her name’s Linda Starr.”

The blonde was the girl who had repelled Quade’s advances a while ago. He shook his head at her. “So you’d accept a blind date — after turning down my own noble advances.”

“You beat about the bush instead of getting down to business,” she retorted. “Anyway, I’d seen you and I hadn’t the blind date.”

“Where’ll we pick you up at seven-thirty?” he asked.

She gave him a number on South Lindell. “And if you don’t show up, I’m knitting some ear muffs for my regular boy friend who’s at West Point and I’d like to stay home an evening and finish them.”

“Ear muffs are against army regulations,” he replied. “So we’ll be around at seven-thirty.”

They moved away from the lunch stand and Quade whispered to Boston. “Well, what’d you find out?”

“Why, nothing. They didn’t see a thing. But they are real nice girls and we didn’t have anything to do this evening, anyway.”

Quade swore softly. “Nothing except earn money. Do you realize that the four bucks you threw away trying to win that cane was our grub money? I had to shell out all of mine to pay for the Fair privileges.”

“But it’s only three o’clock. You can still make a pitch or two and get some money.”

“I’m not in the mood, now.”

Boston groaned. “So that’s coming on again. You weren’t in the mood all summer. That’s why we’re away up here in Minnesota at the last fair of the season and without a dollar of get-away money.”

“Stop it, you’re breaking my heart. All right, I guess I’ll have to make a pitch. We can’t stand up the dear girls!”

He made the pitch, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sold four books at $2.95 each, working to a crowd of four hundred. Ordinarily, he would have disposed of twenty books to a crowd that size.

It was six o’clock when they climbed into the heap of tin and wheels they had parked in a parking lot outside the Fairgrounds.

On the eight-mile drive to Fourth and Hennepin in Minneapolis, Quade passed two red lights and almost ran over a traffic cop.

Charlie Boston groaned when the last blasts of the cop’s whistle died out. “I think he got your number!”

“Is that so?” Quade asked, absent-mindedly.

Boston snarled. “If you’re going to daydream, let me take the wheel. You know damn well our insurance lapsed on this buggy three months ago.”

Quade roused himself. He grinned crookedly at Boston. “Charlie, tell me — who was Thomas Hart Benton?”

“I don’t know. There was a Doc Benton in my home town of What Cheer, Iowa, but I don’t think he had any relative by the name of Thomas Hart Benton.”

Quade sighed. “Your abysmal ignorance is sometimes appalling, Charlie. Thomas Hart Benton was senator from Missouri from 1821 to 1851.”

“If you knew, why did you ask me? I only carry your books. I don’t read ’em.”

“You’ll read one this winter, in Florida, if I have the strength to make you. Now here’s an American history I picked up today. A very interesting subject. Americans don’t study it enough. Would you believe there were people who didn’t know who won the War of 1812?”

“I’m one of them,” said Boston, sarcastically. “But there’s things I know you don’t know. One of them is the swingeroo. We’ve got a date with a couple of jitterbugs tonight and you’re going to be an awful disappointment to them.”

“Why, Charlie, I’m sure that nice Linda girl would rather discuss cultural subjects than jump around a crowded dance floor.”

“Nuts!” said Charlie Boston.

At Fourth and Hennepin, Quade made a left turn and drove the flivver two blocks south. Then he squeezed it in between a taxi and a fireplug.

They climbed out and went into the Eagle Hotel, a fourth-rate firetrap, that was patronized by lumberjacks, farm hands and traveling citizens who could not pay more than a dollar a day for a hotel room.

Quade called for his key and when the clerk handed it to him, he said jokingly: “Julius, in what year was fought the Battle of Hastings?”

Julius said: “1066. It established the supremacy of the Normans in England.”

Quade gasped. “Why, Julius!”

The hotel clerk grinned. “Try me on Ancient history. I’m particularly good on Phoenician and Chaldean.”

Quade fled to the elevators.

Up in their room, Quade took a quick shower, then brushed his suit and touched up his shoes with a towel. Boston went into the bathroom and when he came out, Quade was sprawled on the bed, reading Arnold’s American History.

Boston scowled. “Why don’t you take it along tonight?” he asked.

“A very good idea, Charlie.” Quade rose and tucked the book under his arm. “Let’s go.”

Quade followed Hennepin to Lindell, then turned into the south boulevard and cruised along for more than a half-hour.

Finally he pulled up before a two-story frame house. “Here’s the number.”

He blew the horn and the girls, Mildred Rogers and Linda Starr, came out. They were dressed in semi-formal evening dresses. “Ha,” said Quade, “you should have told us and we’d have got our dinner jackets out of the mothballs.”

The girls were looking dubiously at the ancient flivver. Linda said, “I suppose your chauffeur has the limousine tonight?”

“Never judge a man by the car he drives,” retorted Quade. “Climb in and we’ll be off to a nice Greasy Spoon and a quiet country road.”

“The road’s all right,” retorted Linda Starr, “as long as you don’t stop on it before we get to The Poplars, which is halfway between here and Lake Excelsior. And if you don’t have at least three gallons of gasoline in the car and ten dollars, we don’t step into this pile of junk.”

“By a coincidence,” laughed Quade, “we have just that much money. So climb in.”

They arranged themselves in the flivver. Boston and Mildred in front and Quade with Linda in the rear. Linda saw the book in Quade’s hands.

“Your homework?”

“My history lesson. D’you know, Linda, who won the Battle of Gettysburg?”

“The United States.”

“Ha, I had in mind a more specific answer, such as which general.”

“Abraham Lincoln.”

“Perhaps we’d better skip the history lesson.”

“Hooray! I never liked it myself. I always got D’s. Now it’s my turn. What do you think of Benny Goodman?”

He told her and she sulked all the way out to The Poplars, which turned out to be a huge roadhouse with great neon signs and a parking lot that already contained more than a hundred cars.

They went in and got a table for four and when they had seated themselves, Quade saw Colby, the manager of the Arnold Publishing Company. He was in a booth with a blonde; a blonde on the voluptuous side.

Colby’s face looked a bit sick when he saw Quade. He whispered to the blonde, then signalled to a waiter. A moment later he paid the check and the two of them got up and started for the door.

Quade pushed back his chair. “Will you excuse me a moment?”

Without waiting for a reply, he followed Colby and the blonde. They got outside before he reached the door and when he stepped out into the night, he saw them moving in the ghostly light shed by the neon signs, toward the parking lot.

He went after them, calling, “Hey, Colby! Wait a minute!”

Instead of stopping, they started running.

“Damn!” Quade said. He bounded after the fleeing pair. When he reached the first line of cars, someone rose up out of the gloom. Quade, thinking it was the parking lot attendant, swerved to the left. A battering ram lunged out of the darkness and smacked him in the forehead. Quade went down like a log.

Some time later he crawled to his hands and knees. He shook his head and pain darted from his head down into his body. He winced and began swearing.

After a minute he climbed to his feet. He got out a packet of matches from his pocket and began lighting them. By their feeble light he searched the ground around where he had fallen. When he had used up the last of the matches he quit in disgust.

He returned to the roadhouse.

Linda Starr saw him first. “So he gave you what you deserved! Imagine trying to flirt with a man’s girl!”

“And two shiners!” guffawed Charlie Boston.

Linda Starr opened her purse and handed Quade a small mirror. “Look at yourself!”

Quade looked and winced. The punch he had taken in the darkness had caught him right between the eyes, a little high or both eyes would already have been closed. As it was, they were decidedly puffy. They would be black by tomorrow.

“What did you do with your book?” Linda asked.

“Somebody swiped it. I was on the ground looking for it. That was a very interesting book.”

“What was interesting about it?” asked Mildred Rogers. “I used the Arnold History in high school, only four years ago.”

“Yes?” said Quade eagerly. “Then, do you remember — was William Clarke Quantrill a famous Confederate colonel?”

“I don’t remember,” frowned Mildred. “I guess I was like Linda about history.”

“You girls!” said Quade bitterly.

Linda Starr reached again into her purse. “Here’s something may interest you, Mr. Quade.” She brought out a handkerchief, unrolled it on the table and revealed a feathered dart, with an inch and a half of pointed needle.

Quade exclaimed, “Where did you get that?”

“From the back drop of our lunch stand. Someone threw it at me. It missed my head by about one inch.”

Quade inhaled sharply. “When did that happen?”

“Right after you two left this afternoon — after the murder.”

“What is it?” Charlie Boston asked, reaching for the dart.

“Let it alone!” Quade slapped Boston’s hand away before it could touch the dart. Then he picked it up himself, handling it gingerly. The point, for about a half-inch, was covered with a greenish, sticky substance.

He looked sharply at Linda. “Have you any idea what this stuff is on the point?”

Her eyes met his, steadily. “I handled it very carefully.”

He stared at her. She was a flippant, light-headed girl. Or was she?

He asked softly: “When that murder happened this afternoon, were you looking?”

“I was,” she replied. “The man who threw the dart was standing right at the edge of our stand.”

“You saw his face?” Quade exclaimed.

“Unfortunately, no.” She sighed. “I didn’t pay any attention to him, until I saw his arm whip forward. And then he sprang quickly around the corner. I had no more than a glimpse of him. I don’t think I could identify him.”

“He wouldn’t know that, though,” said Quade, half-aloud. “And he must have seen me talking to you. He must’ve prepared two darts instead of only one in case he either missed the first time or had to get rid of a witness.” He laughed shortly. “And Johnson, storming all around!”

“Look, Ollie,” said Charlie Boston. “Are you playing detective again? You promised me the last time that you were through. We always come out the wrong end on it.”

Quade looked around the table. “Well, you’ve had a drink apiece…”

“Why not?” retorted Boston. “You were gone twenty minutes. What’d you expect us to do, sit around twiddling our thumbs?”

“So, inasmuch as I don’t want to embarrass the girls with my shiners, let’s pull out.”

“Let’s,” said Linda Starr.

Quade rolled the dart into Linda’s handkerchief and stowed it carefully in his breast pocket. Then he called the waiter.

A few minutes later they reached the flivver in the parking lot. “I’ll drive this time,” Quade volunteered.

Boston had no objections. He was even enthusiastic about the suggestion as he climbed in the back with Mildred. When they were in the car, Quade whispered to Linda.

“Which way do I go to get to Anoka?”

“Left,” she whispered back. “There’s a cut-off road about two miles from here. It’s about ten miles to Anoka. You’re going to follow up on that — business?”

“Yes, but — sh!”

But they were whispering in the rear seat, too. And after a mile or so they were quiet. Linda moved closer to Quade. There was a chill in the September air and she shivered a little.

On the outskirts of Anoka, Quade pulled in at a filling station. “Got to get some gas,” he announced.

Charlie Boston yawned elaborately. He did not even know where they were; did not care.

When the attendant had filled the tank, Quade went into the station with him and paid for the gas. Then he asked: “By the way, can you tell me how to get to the residence of L. B. Arnold?”

“Turn right on the second street. It’s the big white house in the middle of the block.”

“And Mr. Colby, who works for Arnold?”

“He lives at the hotel — the Fortner House.”

“Thanks,” Quade stepped to the door, then turned back. “Ever hear of a man named Wexler?”

“Yeah, sure, he owns the printing plant here. It’s on the other side of town.”

Quade went back to the car. Linda nudged him gently and looked inquiringly at him. But he shook his head. He turned the car right in the second block and drew up before the Arnold house. He climbed out alone.

Jim Stilwell opened the door to Quade.

“What do you want?” Stilwell demanded truculently.

“I’d like to ask Miss Arnold a question. She lives here, not you. Or have you moved in since her father got killed?”

Stilwell blocked the doorway. “You’re not a cop. It’s none of your business. Miss Arnold’s gone through enough today. Clear out of here.”

Quade heard movements in the house behind Stilwell. He tried to push past Ruth Arnold’s fiancé. Stilwell snarled and swung his fist. Quade ducked and used his head as a battering ram. He drove the young fellow into the house, but Stilwell was only recently out of college and had evidently played football. He chopped down and hit Quade on the back of his neck, smashing him to the floor.

Quade clawed at the big fellow’s ankles. He heard Charlie Boston coming up the porch stairs and tried desperately to hang on until he got there. Stilwell drew back his foot to kick Quade and then Charlie Boston roared. Quade rolled aside in time to hear a loud smack. It was followed by a thump.

When he got to his feet, Jim Stilwell was sitting on the floor and Charlie Boston stood over him.

“Come on, get up!” Charlie invited.

“O.K., Charlie!” said Quade. Then to Stilwell, “I only wanted to ask Miss Arnold a couple of questions.”

Ruth Arnold was already in the vestibule, gasping at Stilwell on the floor. “What — what happened?”

“Nothing much, Miss Arnold. I just want to ask you a question.”

“He isn’t a cop, Ruth!” exclaimed Stilwell. “You don’t have to tell him anything.”

“You don’t,” admitted Quade, “but it will save you trouble if you do. How much insurance did your father carry?”

“Not much, only about five thousand dollars.”

“See, wise guy,” exclaimed Stilwell. “You think Ruth killed him.”

Quade shook his head. “I know she didn’t. I’m merely trying to establish a motive for the real killer.”

“Well, you’ll have to look somewhere else. Ruth didn’t kill her father, not for a measly five thousand dollars insurance!”

“I’d forgotten!” said Ruth Arnold. “Before the Depression, when business was good, Father took out a fifty-thousand-dollar insurance policy as president of the Arnold Publishing Company. That policy is still in effect, but it wouldn’t help me any at all, because the insurance money would go into the firm which isn’t doing well at all.”

“You could liquidate, couldn’t you?”

“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t. Father was proud of the business. When he took out that insurance policy, the company did a million-dollar business. It’s gone away down, but Father always said it would come back, some day.”

Quade nodded. “Thank you, Miss Arnold.” He turned and walked out of the house.

Out by the flivver, Linda Starr said, “So you got a few more wallops? Nice going.” He grinned and slammed into the car.

In the rear, Charlie Boston growled, “That’s what we usually get when we play detective.”

Quade drove back to the main street of the little town. He turned right in the next block and stopped before the hotel.

“I won’t need you this time, Charlie,” he said, as he climbed out.

In the lobby, he went into the telephone booth. He picked up the phone and said, “Will you give me Mr. Colby’s room.”

A moment later Colby’s voice said, “Yes?”

“This is Lieutenant Johnson of the St. Paul Police Department,” Quade said in a muffled voice. “I want to ask you one question.”

“Go ahead,” Colby said wearily.

“Was William Clarke Quantrill a Confederate colonel of cavalry?”

He heard Colby inhale sharply before replying. “No. He was a Missouri guerilla who pretended—”

“Thank you, Mr. Colby,” Quade said and hung up. He ran out of the hotel and said to Charlie Boston and the girls, “There’s a restaurant across the street. Let’s get that dinner we didn’t get at the roadhouse.”

“What’s the matter with you, Ollie?” exclaimed Boston. “Why should we eat in a dump like this after we walked out on that swell joint?”

“The food’s good here — I hope,” said Quade. “Come on, Linda.”

Linda came willingly, but Charlie Boston and Mildred still complained when they went into the restaurant. Quade selected a table near the window and seated himself so he could look out.

They ordered, and just as the waitress brought the food, Quade got up, abruptly. “Excuse me a minute.” He went out of the restaurant.

Across the street, Colby was walking rapidly northward. Quade followed on his own side of the street. In the next block, Colby stopped at the door of a two-story brick building. After a moment he went inside, and a light appeared in a window.

Quade crossed the street. Standing on his toes, he peered into the lighted room. It was furnished as an office with shelves of books on three sides. It was unoccupied. He moved to the door and found it unlocked. Drawing a deep breath, he opened the door and went inside.

He heard noise in the room beyond the lighted office. A drawer squeaked and, as Quade stopped and listened, he heard the rustle of paper.

He took a couple of quick steps across the office and entered the room beyond.

“Hello, Mr. Colby,” he said. A bundle of long, narrow sheets of paper fell from Colby’s hands.

“You!” Colby gasped. “How’d you get here?”

Quade said, “What do you know about Quantrill, Mr. Colby?”

The expression of fright on Colby’s face disappeared, and was replaced by a snarl.

“So it was you!”

Quade pointed to the long sheets of paper which were scattered on the desk before Colby. “Checking up on the galley proofs? So you were in on it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“History,” said Quade. “Specifically, Arnold’s American History, the favorite in hundreds of high schools. I should say was because the last edition is not a favorite. It contains too many historical inaccuracies, such as, Quantrill being a Confederate colonel of cavalry, and Zachary Taylor being the first Republican candidate for president.”

“Stupid proof readers!” exclaimed Colby.

“And because of the proof readers’ blunders, you came down in the middle of the night to find the galley proofs? What are you going to do with them?”

“He wasn’t going to do anything with them,” said a soft voice behind Oliver Quade.

Quade sighed. He moved carefully to one side and then turned. “Hello, Mr. Wexler,” he said.

There was a .32 automatic in Louis Wexler’s hand. He said, “Colby should have given it to you earlier tonight.”

“At the Poplars when he took the book from me?”

“Yes, then.” Wexler shook his head. “That just goes to show you, Colby, even the smartest plans can go screwy.”

Colby scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wexler.”

“Oh, it’s all right now, Colby,” said Quade. “You can let your hair down. This is just among us. It’s possible for an editor to get historical inaccuracies into a book, but a printer couldn’t do it alone, because the editor, who knows such things, reads the proofs. So I knew you had to be in on it.”

Wexler nodded admiringly. “You see, Colby, your scheme was no good. It’s a good thing I muscled in on you.”

“That explains one of the little things that puzzled me,” said Quade. “I could figure out that the Arnold Publishing Company had been staggering for some years because Arnold was conservative and didn’t want to take any chances. Mr. Colby wanted more money, so he thought if he helped to make things even worse, the creditors would force the business into bankruptcy and then he, Colby, would buy it in, at a bargain price. But Arnold got wise to Mr. Colby’s little plan, and so did you, Wexler. But why did you kill him, Wexler?”

“That’s a little secret between me and Colby,” said Wexler. “But I don’t mind letting you in on it. It’s not going any further! Arnold owed me a little money, not much. He could have cleaned it up if his last book had gone over. And then, what? I discover Mr. Arnold’s manager, Mr. Colby, has been changing history. You wouldn’t think, would you, Mr. Quade, that I am an expert on history? Yeah, it’s a hobby with me.

“So what? So I talk to Mr. Colby and he mentions that Mr. Arnold has a fifty-thousand-dollar corporation policy. It don’t do Colby any good, though. If Arnold dies, the money goes to the company. Arnold’s girl owns seventy per cent of the stock. She can liquidate the business — in which case Colby gets three-four thousand as his share.

“Or she can run the business indefinitely. In which case Colby gets nothing…. But suppose Arnold Publishing Company owes their printer forty thousand and Arnold dies? What happens then? The insurance is paid to the company and the company pays its creditors.”

Wexler chuckled. “And I am the chief creditor. I get the money and split with Colby — on account of I wouldn’t be such a big creditor if Mr. Colby don’t doctor up the company’s books.”

“A very nice scheme,” said Quade. “But what about the insurance company — weren’t you afraid of them?”

“Naw. What can they suspect? That Mr. Colby killed Mr. Arnold? No, because he owns only thirty per cent of the stock. Arnold’s daughter inherits sixty and already owns ten. She’s the likely suspect, but the insurance company wouldn’t dare say a nice girl would kill her father. Me, why would I kill Arnold? The insurance company don’t even know I exist.”

“But you’re the chief creditor of the firm. Most of the money the insurance company pays the Arnold Publishing Company goes to you.”

“Ah, that’s the sharp point. The insurance company don’t know I am a creditor. Naw, they don’t know that, because Mr. Colby, he don’t say nothing. Not right away. Later on — well, Mr. Wexler liked Mr. Arnold so much he didn’t want to press for payment of his bill right away. So in two-three months, when the cops and the insurance company have forgotten all about things, Arnold Publishing pays its bills…. It’s really all very simple. I’m sure there won’t be another human encyclopedia up in this neck of the woods, then, to figure out this and that.”

“No,” said Quade, “but it so happens I have three friends outside. They’re up the street waiting for me.”

A startled look leaped into Colby’s eyes. “You’re lying!” he said, but there was uncertainty in his tone.

“Am I?” smiled Quade. “You forget I was at The Poplars with a group.”

“To hell with that,” Wexler said.

“You can’t kill him, Wexler!” exclaimed Colby. “Not here. I—”

Wexler looked coldly at Colby. “Ah, you’re afraid of that, Colby. Afraid when there’s the least little chance of getting your toes in it. All right, go outside and see if those friends of his are waiting.”

“They’re in the restaurant across from the hotel,” said Quade.

Colby ran out of the proofroom. Quade heard the door outside slam. He thought Wexler might be scared enough to let him have it now.

“While we’re waiting, Quade,” said Wexler, “I could be more relaxed if you’d raise your hands.”

Quade brought his hands up to shoulder level. Then he sniffed and reached carefully for the white handkerchief in his breast pocket.

“Careful!” cautioned Wexler.

“Yeah, sure!” Quade drew out the handkerchief and showed Wexler the dart inside.

“Remember this?” he asked. “You threw it at the girl in the lunch counter.”

“Drop it!” cried Wexler. “Drop it, or I’ll plug you!”

“You can shoot,” said Quade, “and there’s a possibility the wound won’t be fatal, but a scratch of this, Wexler — well, you put the poison on it yourself. And I can surely hit you with it.”

He gripped the poison dart between thumb and forefinger. A quick flip and it would zip at Wexler. The distance was too short to miss.

Perspiration broke out on Wexler’s forehead. “Drop it, Quade!” he cried hoarsely.

He knew his own poison, but he knew that he had everything to lose and nothing to gain — except a few more months of life. Was it enough?

Surrender meant but a stay of death.

Quade was still casual outwardly, but inwardly he was like a coiled spring. He had to read Wexler’s intentions from his face, and act a fraction of a second before the killer.

“All right,” said Wexler, “you win.”

He lied. He was lowering his gun, but Quade saw it in his eyes. He was going to shoot. He was going to gamble on getting in the surprise, vital shot.

“Fine,” said Quade. He took a step back, smiled — and dropping his hand to the proofreader’s desk, lifted it up and shoved it at Wexler in a tremendous heave. At the same instant, he threw himself frantically sidewards and forward.

Thunder rocked the little room. The bullet from the automatic missed Quade’s face by less than one-sixteenth of an inch. He felt the wind as it zipped past him.

Then Wexler was down under the desk and Quade was swarming over it, slamming at the printer with his fist that was not encumbered by the dart. He put everything he had into the blow and it connected solidly with Wexler’s jaw.

Wexler collapsed.

When he recovered a few seconds later, Quade had the automatic. There were tears in Wexler’s eyes as he looked up at Quade. “The dart…” he muttered. It was sticking in his throat.

“Oh, that,” said Quade. He grinned crookedly and gave it a flip. It stuck in the overturned desk. “Why, you see, Wexler, I didn’t want to carry a thing around in my pocket with poison on it, for fear I might accidentally stick myself with it — so I carefully wiped the poison from it.”

Louis Wexler screamed incoherently.

The outside door slammed open, feet pounded through the office. Quade whirled, the automatic gripped in his fist. But it wasn’t Colby; it was Charlie Boston.

“Ollie!” Boston cried. “I heard a shot and I knew you had something to do with it.”

“I did,” said Quade. “But did you see a man running outside?”

“Yeah. He bumped into me and got tough. The squirt! I knocked him cold with one punch!”

“Good, Charlie! Now go out and collar him before he comes around. The local law ought to come around any minute.”

He came, a burly policeman with a huge revolver. With him came Linda Starr and Mildred Rogers.

Quade waved at the girls. “Be through here in a few minutes.”

“No more history, Mr. Quade?” asked Linda.

“No more history. The lesson’s finished for today.”