The Adventures of Paul Pry

“I’ll see that the undertaker gives you the breaks when it comes to the music,” said “Mugs” Magoo as Paul Pry started out. For he knew his friend was about to dance with death. Pry’s very costume was enough to turn any fancy-dress ball into a murder masquerade.

1. The Smuggled Letter

Looking very uncomfortable in his evening clothes, “Mugs” Magoo rolled his glassy eyes and nodded across the table to Paul Pry.

“The place is full of crooks,” he said.

Paul Pry, the very opposite in appearance of his companion, wore evening clothes as though they had been moulded to fit him. He looked at Mugs Magoo with eyes that glittered with attention.

“What sort of crooks, Mugs?” he asked.

“Well,” said Magoo, “it’s a funny set-up. I’ve got a hunch if you knew what was going on here tonight, you’d know where the Legget diamond is.”

“What do you mean, Mugs?”

Mugs Magoo gestured with a fork. “That guy over there,” he said, “is Tom Meek.”

“All right,” Paul Pry said, “who’s Tom Meek?”

“A letter smuggler.”

“A letter smuggler, Mugs?” asked Paul Pry. “I never heard of such a thing.”

Mugs Magoo manipulated his fork so as to get a mouthful of food. His right arm was off at the shoulder and his left hand had to do the work of both cutting and conveying food while he was eating, gesticulating while he was talking.

“Tom Meek,” he said, “smuggles letters out of the jail. That’s where he picks up his side money.”

“He’s a jailer?” asked Paul Pry.

“Yeah, sort of a deputy, third-assistant jailer. He’s hung around the jail through three administrations. He smuggles letters out for prisoners.”

Paul Pry nodded and filed the information away for what it might be worth. His keen eyes stared at the man Mugs had indicated. A small inconspicuous individual, with grey hair, high cheekbones and watery eyes.

“Looks harmless, Mugs,” said Paul Pry.

Mugs Magoo nodded casually. “Yeah,” he said, “he don’t do anything except smuggle letters. That’s his racket. He won’t touch anything else. He won’t even take hop in to the prisoners.”

“All right,” persisted Paul Pry, “why do you think that Tom Meek, the letter smuggler, knows anything about the Legget diamond?”

“He don’t,” Mugs Magoo agreed readily enough. “But you see that heavy-set fellow over there at the table, with the jaw that’s the blue-black, in spite of the fact he’s been shaved not over two hours ago, the guy with the black hair and the big chest?”

“Yes,” said Paul Pry, “he looks like a lawyer.”

“He is a lawyer. That’s Frank Bostwick, the criminal lawyer, and he’s attorney for George Tompkins, and Tompkins is the man that’s in jail for pulling the robbery that netted the Legget diamond.”

“All right,” said Paul Pry, “go on, Mugs.”

Mugs swung his head in the other direction. “And the tall dignified coot over there with the starched collar and the glasses is Edgar Patten, and Patten’s the confidential representative of the insurance company that had the Legget diamond insured.”

Paul Pry watched Mugs Magoo thoughtfully, his eyes glittering with interest despite their preoccupation.

“Well, Mugs,” he said, “give me the low-down on it and perhaps I can turn the information to some advantage.”

Paul Pry lived by his wits alone. He would have indignantly denied that he was a detective in any sense of the word; on the other hand, he could have demonstrated that he was not a crook. Had he been called upon to give his business, he might have described himself as a professional opportunist.

Mugs Magoo, on the other hand, had a definite status. He was confidential adviser to Paul Pry.

Mugs never forgot a name, a face, or a connection. At one time he had been “camera-eye” man on the metropolitan police force. A political shake-up had thrown him out of employment. An accident had taken off his right arm at the shoulder. Booze had done the rest. When Paul Pry found the man he was a human derelict, seated on the sidewalk by the corner of a bank building, holding a derby hat in his left hand. The hat was half filled with pencils, with a few small coins at the bottom.

Paul Pry had dropped in half a dollar, taken out one pencil and then been interested in something he had seen in the rugged weather-beaten face, in the flash of gratitude which had filled the unwinking glassy eyes. He had engaged him in conversation and had learned that the man was a veritable encyclopaedia of underworld knowledge.

That had been the last day Mugs Magoo had known want. It marked the formation of a strange association by which Mugs furnished Paul Pry with information and the chain-lightning mind of Paul Pry translated that information to pecuniary advantage.

Mugs Magoo rolled his glassy eyes in another survey of the room and then turned once more to Paul Pry.

“Here’s probably what’s happening,” he said. “Frank Bostwick, the lawyer, is making a deal with Edgar Patten, the adjustor for the insurance company, to get Tompkins out with a light sentence or maybe get him turned loose without even a trial. The price he’s going to pay is the return of the Legget diamond.

“The cops have got a dead open-and-shut case on Tompkins but they haven’t been able to find the diamond. Tompkins is an old hand at the game and he’s sitting tight.”

“Then,” said Paul Pry, “you think that Bostwick knows where the diamond is?”

Mugs Magoo stared at the table where Tom Meek was dining in solitude. “I wouldn’t doubt,” he said, “but what Bostwick has worked up a deal with Patten and smuggled a letter in to Tompkins by Meek. Then Tompkins has sent a reply back and Meek has got it to deliver.”

“Why doesn’t Meek deliver it then?” Pry wanted to know.

“That’s not the way Meek works,” said Mugs Magoo. “He’s one of those cagey individuals that never comes out with anything in the open. He’ll sit around there and eat his dinner. Then he’ll get up and leave the place. The letter will be planted under his plate or under his napkin somewhere, and Bostwick will go over and get it. Then Bostwick will get in touch with Patten and they’ll fix up the deal between them.”

Paul Pry surveyed the dining-room of the speakeasy with wary eyes that missed nothing.

“I could,” said Mugs Magoo plaintively, “stand another bottle of that wine.”

Paul Pry summoned the waiter. “Another pint,” he said.

Mugs Magoo made a grimace. “A pint,” he said, “is a half-bottle.”

“A quart, waiter,” Paul Pry remarked.

Mugs Magoo nodded his satisfaction. “Gonna telephone,” he said. “Be back by the time the wine gets here.”

He scraped back his chair and started in the general direction of the telephones.

It was at that moment that Tom Meek summoned the waiter, paid his check, and arose from the table. He was halfway to the door when the light dimmed to a pale blue effect of imitation moonlight and the orchestra struck up a seductive waltz.

In the confusion of the milling couples on the floor and other couples rising spontaneously from tables and twining into each other’s arms, Frank Bostwick, the lawyer, got to his feet and unobtrusively started toward the table which Meek had vacated.

Paul Pry took instant advantage of the opportunity and the confusion. As swiftly and noiselessly as a trout, gliding through the black depths of a mountain pool, he slipped over to the table where Meek had been sitting. His hands made a questioning exploration of the table. The tips of the searching fingers encountered some flat object beneath the tablecloth and within a very few moments the flat object had been transferred to Paul Pry’s hand.

It was a letter folded and sealed, and Paul Pry made no attempt to read it but folded it once again and thrust it into his shoe. Then he swung slightly to one side and paused before a table where a woman was seated.

The woman was one of a trio who had entered the speakeasy, either the mother or the older sister of the young woman who accompanied her, and who was at the moment sliding into the first steps of the waltz with the young man of the party. She was amazed and flattered at Paul Pry’s attention and, after a moment, when startled surprise gave way to simpering acquiescence in her expression, she permitted herself to be guided out to the centre of the room which was reserved for the dance floor.

Paul Pry moved gracefully in the steps of the waltz. He had an opportunity to peer over the woman’s shoulder and see that Frank Bostwick, the lawyer, was seated at the table that had been vacated by Tom Meek, the letter smuggler.

And Paul Pry’s smile became a chuckle as he realized that the attorney had not observed the surreptitious theft of the missive that Tom Meek had left beneath the tablecloth.

Paul Pry was a handsome individual. Moreover, he had a ready poise and a magnetic manner. His companion was grateful and pleased. And, as Paul Pry returned her to her table at the termination of the waltz, he gave to the older woman the triumph of waiting a few moments until the younger couple had returned to the table. Nor did the sharp eyes of Paul Pry miss the sudden look of incredulous surprise on the face of the younger woman, or the expression of triumphant elation upon the face of the woman with whom he had been dancing.

Then Paul Pry bowed from the waist, muttered his pleasure, and returned once more to his own table.

The chair in which Mugs Magoo had been sitting was now occupied by a woman some twenty-seven years of age. She had a willowy figure, a daring backless gown, and blue eyes that stared at Paul Pry with frank invitation.

Paul Pry paused. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

The woman’s eyes rested upon his face with a directness of gaze that was frankly seductive. The sensuous red lips parted in a smile.

“You should,” she said.

Paul Pry raised his eyebrows.

“Not,” said the young woman still smiling, “that I object so much to your appearance, as to the stereotyped manner in which you have tried to pick me up. I presume you will pretend that this was your table and—” She broke off abruptly with an expression of dismay suffusing her features. “Good heavens!” she said. “It is your table!”

Paul Pry remained standing and smiling.

“Oh!” she said. “I’m so sorry. I had left the room and the lights went down. You see, my escort was called away on a business matter and I returned to my table alone. I just became confused, I guess.”

She made a motion as if to rise, but her wide blue eyes remained fastened steadily upon Paul Pry’s face.

“Well,” he said, “since you’re here, and since, apparently, your escort has left, why not finish the evening with me?”

“Oh, no!” she said. “I couldn’t. Please don’t misunderstand. I assure you it was just an accident.”

“Of course it was an accident,” Paul Pry said and pulled out the other chair, sat down and smiled across at her. “The sort of an accident,” he went on, “that fate sometimes throws in the way of a lone man who appreciates wide blue eyes and coppery hair.”

“Flatterer!” she exclaimed.

Paul Pry, glancing up at that moment, saw Mugs Magoo walking toward the table. And Mugs Magoo abruptly became conscious of the woman who was seated opposite Paul Pry.

The camera-eye man stopped dead in his tracks while his glassy eyes flickered over the features of the woman. Then Mugs Magoo raised his left hand to his ear lobe and tugged at it once, sharply. Then he turned and walked away.

In the course of the association which had grown up between the two adventurers, it had been necessary to arrange an elaborate code of signals, so that, in times of emergency, Mugs Magoo might convey complete ideas to Paul Pry by a single sign. And in their code, the gestures Mugs had just completed meant: “The party who is talking to you knows me and is dangerous. I’m getting under cover so I won’t be recognized. You must extricate yourself from a dangerous position at once.”

2. As a Highwayman

It was as Mugs Magoo turned away, that the cooing voice of the young woman reached Paul Pry’s ears.

“Well,” she said, “since you’re so attractive and so nice about it, perhaps I will make an exception just this once. Won’t it be a lark going through the evening pretending that we’re old acquaintances, and each of us not really knowing who the other is. You may call me Stella. And your name?”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Paul Pry with enthusiasm. “You may call me Paul.”

“And we’re old friends, Paul, meeting for the first time after an absence of years?”

“Yes,” he said, “but don’t make the absence too long. It doesn’t sound plausible. Having once known you, a man would never permit too great an interval of separation.”

She laughed lightly. “And so you believe in fate?” she asked.

Paul Pry nodded, his lips smiling but his eyes watchful.

“Perhaps,” she said, “it was, after all, fate.” She sighed, and for the first time since she had sat at his table, lowered her eyes.

“What is fate?” asked Paul Pry.

“The fact that I should meet you just when I needed someone...” Her voice trailed off into silence and she shook her head vehemently.

“No,” she said decisively, “I mustn’t go into that.”

The orchestra struck up a rollicking one-step. The blue eyes once more impacted full upon his face.

“And do we dance, Paul?” she asked.

He nodded and rose, taking the back of her chair in his hand, moving it away from the table as she swung up, in front of him, her arms open, her lips smiling invitingly.

They moved out onto the floor, a couple well calculated to catch the eye of any connoisseur of the dance. Paul Pry, moving as gracefully and lightly as though his feet had been floating on air just above the floor, the girl well curved but willowy, straight limbed and radiating a consciousness of her sex.

“Do you know,” she said, “that I was contemplating suicide earlier in the evening?”

Paul Pry tightened his arms in a gesture of protection. “You’re joking,” he exclaimed.

“No,” she said. “It’s a fact.”

“Would you care to tell me about it?” he asked.

“I think,” she said slowly, “I would.”

They danced for a few moments in silence and in some subtle way she managed to convey the impression that she had thrown herself entirely upon his masculine strength as a bulwark of protection. “But,” she added after the interval of silence, “I couldn’t tell you here.”

“Where?” he asked.

“I have an apartment,” she said, “if you care to come there.”

“Splendid,” Paul Pry said enthusiastically.

“Let’s go then,” she told him. “I was here only for the excitement. Only to get my mind away from myself. Now you’ve given me just the stimulus that I need to restore my perspective.”

The music stopped.

She gave just the faintest hint of pressing her body close to his and then managed to forestall the intimacy of the moment and become, once more, respectably distant, standing with her hand on his arm, her frank blue eyes smiling into his.

“A wonderful dance,” he said applauding.

“You dance divinely,” she breathed.

There was no encore. She gently exerted pressure on his arm.

“Would you care to leave now?” she asked.

“Yes, indeed,” he told her.

Paul Pry lived by his wits and he was an opportunist. Moreover, he was, as Mugs Magoo so frequently pointed out, entirely without prudence. Paul Pry would walk into any danger which offered a reasonable amount of excitement, and do it with the utmost sangfroid, trusting to his ingenuity to extricate himself from any untoward complications.

Paul Pry, upon this occasion, took only a reasonable amount of precaution to ascertain that he was not being shadowed as he left the cabaret. Having satisfied himself that no one was on his trail, he handed the young woman into a taxicab, followed her, and was lighting a cigarette as the cab driver slammed the door and nodded his comprehension of the address the young woman had given him.

It was but a short ride to the apartment and Paul Pry followed docilely into the elevator, out of the car again, and down a corridor. A close observer would have noticed that his right hand hovered near the left lapel of his coat as the young woman opened the door of the apartment and switched on the lights. But a moment later his hand was back at his side, for the apartment was, quite apparently, empty, unless someone were concealed behind a closed door. And Paul Pry always claimed that he could get a gun from its holster long before a person could twist the knob of a door, open it and draw a bead.

“My God, Paul,” she said, “I’m glad that I met you!”

Paul Pry watched the outer door of the apartment move slowly shut until the spring lock automatically clicked into position and then smiled at her. “It was,” he said, “a real pleasure to me, Stella.”

“And,” she said, smiling at him with half-parted lips and steady eyes, “we’re old friends. Wasn’t that the understanding, Paul?”

“Yes, Stella.”

“Very well then,” she said, “I’m going to get out of these clothes and get into something comfortable. Wait here and make yourself at home.”

Paul Pry’s hand once more hovered about the lapel of his coat as she opened the door of the connecting bedroom, but the door closed without event and Paul Pry moved to a chair which gave him a commanding position, sat down, crossed his knees and lit a cigarette.

Five minutes later the bedroom door opened and Stella came out, a vision of filmy loveliness. And it may or may not have been accident that she had placed a very bright light directly behind her, that she stood for a long moment in the doorway of the bedroom before switching out the light, and that the brilliant illumination transformed her silken coverings into a mere filmy aura which served to frame, without concealing, her every curve.

She switched out the light and came to him.

She perched on the arm of his chair; her fingers smoothed his hair; one leg swinging free in a pendulum-like arc, swung clear of the filmy silken covering.

“Paul,” she said, “really and truly I feel as though I’ve known you all my life.”

“Go ahead then,” he said, “and confide in me.”

She sighed and her hands dropped from his hair, brushed lightly along his cheek and then came to rest on his shoulders.

“Paul,” she said, “don’t look at me while I tell you. I can’t bear that. Sit just as you are and listen.”

“Listening,” he told her.

“Did you ever hear of a man called ‘Silver’ Dawson?”

“No,” said Paul Pry. “Who is Silver Dawson?”

“The worst fiend unhung,” she said with vehemence.

“That still leaves a lot to my imagination,” Paul Pry reminded.

“He’s got the letters,” she told him.

“What letters?”

“The letters that I wrote to a man who betrayed my confidence.”

“Indeed?” said Paul Pry.

“Yes,” she said. “And you see I was married at the time.”

“Ah,” said Paul Pry in a tone of quickening interest, “and you’re married now?”

“No, my husband is dead.”

“I see,” he said, in a tone of one who waits for further revelations.

“But he left this peculiar will,” she said, “in which my inheritance was predicated upon my fidelity. The will contained a proviso that if it should appear I had been unfaithful to him during our married life, the inheritance was to go to a charitable institution.”

“I see,” said Paul Pry, “and the letters threaten to complicate things?”

“The letters,” she said, “would ruin me.”

“You shouldn’t have written them,” he told her.

She slid her palm under his chin, tilted his head so that her eyes could stare down into his. “Tell me,” she said, “did you ever do anything that you shouldn’t have done?”

“Lots of times,” he said.

“All right then. So have I.”

Paul Pry laughed and patted her hand.

“And,” she said meaningfully, “I intend to do other things that I shouldn’t do. It’s lots of fun. But I don’t like to lose an inheritance on account of an innocent affair.”

“Innocent?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

“Then the letters can’t be so very bad,” he told her.

“The letters,” she said archly, “are quite likely to be misunderstood. You understand I have always been a woman of restrictions and inhibitions. It goes back to the time of my girlhood. I was brought up by old-fashioned parents and I was the victim of a too puritanical training. As a result, when I started to write, all of my repressed desires came to the front and were manifest in the letters.”

“I take it, then,” said Paul Pry, “the letters would not listen well in front of a jury.”

“Well,” she said judicially, “unless the members of the jury were pretty well up on lovemaking they’d get some great ideas.”

“Therefore,” said Paul Pry, “you do not wish to have the letters read before a jury.”

“Naturally.”

“What,” asked Paul Pry, “does Silver Dawson say about it?”

“He’s a cold-blooded snake,” she said. “He’s called Silver because of his shock of white hair, that makes him look old, patient, dignified and sort of grand. But he’d steal the pennies off the eyes of a corpse.”

“Naturally,” said Paul Pry, “he has some proposition to offer.”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s ruinous.”

“Certainly,” said Paul Pry, “he wouldn’t want more than a percentage of what you inherited.”

“It isn’t money he wants,” she said. “He wants things that I cannot give.”

Her voice lowered until it was hardly more than a whisper.

“He said that I must go to Europe with him.”

Her face took on an expression of virginal, injured innocence. Her eyes seemed limpid with tears that were about to spring to the surface and she stared pathetically at Paul Pry.

“And what do you intend to do?” asked Paul Pry.

“I told you,” she said, “I was going to commit suicide.”

“Now you’ve changed your mind?” he asked her, petting her hand.

“Yes. I’ve so much to live for — now.”

“Well,” pressed Paul Pry, “haven’t you any scheme?”

She looked at him in impersonal appraisal. Just the sort of a glance which a scientist might give to an impaled butterfly before classifying it.

“Well,” she said slowly, “I have a scheme which I was thinking of while we were dancing. You seemed so graceful and well knit, so poised and completely able to take care of yourself, that a wild idea flashed through my head. But I’m afraid that it’s hardly practicable, and it’s something I have no right to ask a virtual stranger.”

“An old friend, Stella,” he said, patting her hand.

“Very well then,” she said, “as an old friend you’re entitled to hear the scheme, and — to have the prerogatives of an old friendship.”

She leaned forward and kissed him lingeringly, full upon the lips.

“Ah,” said Paul Pry. “The duties of such a friendship certainly cannot detract from its net advantage!”

She laughed and pinched his cheek. “Silly boy!” she said.

Paul Pry said nothing, but sat waiting.

Once more the blue eyes gave him that appraising glance, and then she spoke in low, throaty tones.

“Silver Dawson has a certain circle of acquaintances, not in the best class of society but, nevertheless, a wealthy class. He’s giving a masquerade party tomorrow night at his house. I just had an idea that you might capitalize on that. You see, the guests will be in all sorts of costumes. I thought it might be possible for you to go as a highwayman.”

“A highwayman?” asked Paul Pry.

“Yes. You know with a mask and a gun and everything. It would make an interesting costume.”

“But,” said Paul Pry, “what good would it do?”

“Simply this,” she said. “You could break away from the dance and move around the house. I could show you where the papers were. If you encountered any of the servants or anyone, you could pull your gun and act the part of a highwayman. If anything went wrong you could claim that it was merely in fun as a part of the masquerade.

“But nothing will go wrong. You can get in and get the papers. I know exactly where he keeps them. Then you could mingle with the guests, attract attention for your unusual costume, slip out and join me on the outside.”

“But,” said Paul Pry, “I have no invitation.”

“You wouldn’t need any,” she said. “There is a ladder in the back of the house and we could put it up to one of the second-storey windows. Those are always unlocked. You could climb in.”

“No,” said Paul Pry slowly, “that wouldn’t be such a good scheme. It would be better to try and crash the party. I might forge an invitation.”

“There’s a thought!” she exclaimed. “I could get you an invitation. You could walk right in the front door and then you could slip away from the crowd and go up to his study where he keeps the letters.”

“But they would be under lock and key, wouldn’t they?”

“No. That is, they’d be in a desk and the desk has a lock on it; but you could handle that lock easily enough. I think I could get you a skeleton key that would work it.”

Paul Pry slipped an arm about her waist. “I’ll do it, Stella,” he said, “for an old friend.”

She laughed throatily. “Such a gallant creature,” she said, “deserves another — prerogative of friendship.”

She leaned forward.

3. Murder Masquerade

Mugs Magoo was seated in the apartment when Paul Pry latch-keyed the door and walked in. Magoo looked up in glassy-eyed appraisal. Then he reached for the half-filled whiskey bottle at this elbow, poured out a generous drink in a tumbler and drained it with a single motion.

“Well,” he said, “I never expected to see you again.”

“You always were a cheerful cuss,” said Paul Pry, depositing his coat and hat in the closet.

“Just a fool for luck,” said Mugs Magoo jovially. “You’ve had an appointment that’s six months overdue that I know of. There’s a marble slab all picked out for you and why you haven’t been on it for a long time is more than I know.”

“Mugs,” said Paul Pry laughing, “you’re a natural pessimist.”

“Pessimist nothing,” said Mugs. “You disregard signals, you walk into the damnedest traps and how you ever get out is more than I know.”

“How do you mean?” asked Paul Pry.

“The woman that was with you at the table,” Mugs Magoo said, “was ‘Slick’ Stella Molay, and she was covering Tom Meek. I saw you slip over and get the letter and she saw you, too. Frank Bostwick is just a lawyer. He’s all right to stand up in front of a jury and wave his arms and talk about the Constitution, but he isn’t fast on his feet. That’s why Tompkins had Slick Stella Molay follow Tom Meek to make sure that the letter got delivered.”

“I see,” said Paul Pry. “Then Slick Stella knew that I had the letter. Is that it?”

“Of course she did.”

“Why didn’t she accuse me of it, or try to steal it?”

“Because she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She knew that you were wise to the play and that you were going to read the letter.”

“What did she want with me then?” asked Paul Pry.

Mugs Magoo gave a snorting gesture of disgust. “Want with you!” he exclaimed. “She wanted to get you out of the way, of course. She wanted to put you where you’ll be pushing up daisies.”

Paul Pry grinned gleefully. “Well,” he said, “I’m still here.”

“Still here because of that providence which watches over fools and idiots,” Mugs Magoo told him. “With the chances you take and the way you walk into trouble, it’s a wonder you haven’t been killed months ago. Why, do you know that Slick Stella Molay is the one who got ‘Big’ Ben Desmond killed in Chicago?”

“Indeed,” said Paul Pry, raising polite eyebrows, “and how did Big Ben Desmond cash in? Did she shoot him or use poison?”

Mugs Magoo poured himself another drink of whiskey. “Not that baby,” he said. “She’s too slick for that.”

“All right,” said Paul Pry, “I confess to my interest, Mugs. Go ahead and quit keeping me in suspense.”

“Well,” said Mugs Magoo, “it was so slick there wasn’t a flaw in it. The grand jury looked it all over and couldn’t do anything about it.”

Paul Pry relaxed comfortably in a reclining chair, lit a cigarette and let his face show polite interest.

“Do you mean to say, Mugs, that a person could murder another, under such circumstances that a grand jury could look it over and couldn’t find anything wrong with it?”

“Slick Stella Molay could,” said Mugs Magoo.

“And just how did she do it?”

“She got Big Ben Desmond sold on the idea that he was to go to a masquerade ball dressed as a highwayman. Then she got him to go prowling around the house of the man that was giving the masquerade. That man was in his bedroom standing in front of a wall safe, putting some jewellery away, when he heard the sound of a door opening. He turned around and saw a man dressed like a crook, with gloves and a mask, a gun and all the rest of it.

“The guy who was giving the party was heeled, and he just snapped up his gun and plopped five shells into Big Ben Dawson’s guts before he found out that he was shooting a guest who had just been walking around the house in a masquerade costume.”

Paul Pry yawned and stifled the yawn with four polite fingers.

“Indeed, Mugs,” he said. “Rather crude. I had thought it might be sufficiently novel to be interesting.”

“Well,” said Mugs Magoo, “it was novel enough to get Big Ben Desmond out of the way; and the grand jury couldn’t do anything to the guy that killed him because they claimed the guy was entitled to shoot a burglar. And Slick Stella Molay was out in the clear. She put an onion in her handkerchief, went before the grand jury full of weeps and red-eyed grief. They say her eyes looked like hell when she was testifying, but she was damned careful her legs were all right. She wore the best pair of stockings in her wardrobe and when she crossed her knees the grand jury decided that, no matter what had happened, Slick Stella didn’t know anything about it.”

“And so,” asked Paul Pry, “you think she’d like to get me out of the way?”

“Sure she would. What was in the letter?”

“I don’t know.”

Mugs Magoo sat bolt upright in his chair and stared with protruding, glassy eyes at Paul Pry.

“You mean to say that you don’t know what’s in the letter?”

“No. I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Well, what the devil did you take the letter for?”

“To read, of course.”

“Well, why didn’t you read it?”

“I put it down in my shoe and haven’t had a chance,” said Paul Pry.

Casually, as if the matter were of minor importance, he took the envelope from his shoe, opened his penknife with great deliberation, and slit the envelope along the side. He shook out a folded piece of paper.

“What’s it say?” asked Mugs Magoo eagerly.

Paul Pry frowned.

“Rather a puzzling message, I should say, Mugs.”

“Well, what is it?”

Paul Pry read the letter out loud — “Tell Stella there’s a screw loose, it’s Bunny’s nutcracker and to make the play but spring me before you flash the take.”

“Is that all of it?” asked Mugs Magoo.

“That’s all of it,” said Paul Pry.

“Well,” said Mugs, “we know now why Stella was sticking around that lawyer. Frank Bostwick would never have known what that meant.”

“Do you know?” asked Paul Pry.

“Well,” said Mugs Magoo, regarding the diminishing level of amber fluid in the whiskey bottle with a mournful expression, “there’s some things about it I don’t understand. Bunny must be Bunny Myers and when Tompkins says to spring him before flashing the take, it means that he’s to actually be out of jail before they exhibit the diamond or turn it over to the insurance company.”

“Do you suppose that means that there’s something phoney about the diamond?” asked Paul Pry.

Mugs said: “Tompkins wouldn’t dare to deliver a phoney gem to the insurance company. But he’s just playing cautious. Lots of times the insurance companies make promises about what they’ll do with the district attorney if the crook will come through and tell the hiding place of the gem. Then, when it comes to a showdown, and the insurance company is in the clear, they lose all interest in the matter and the crook gets about twice as stiff a jolt as he would otherwise have drawn.”

“Tell me some more about Bunny Myers,” said Paul Pry.

“He’s an undersized guy with mild eyes and a big nose and rabbit teeth. They stick out in front and make you feel like feeding him a carrot whenever you see him. I haven’t run across Bunny for four or five years; but I know that he used to run around with Tompkins on some of the gem stuff.

“Bunny is a good man to have along because he’s so harmless. He looks like a regular rabbit and damned if he don’t act like one.”

“Any great amount of ability?” asked Paul Pry.

“Yes, he’s pretty fast with his noodle,” Mugs Magoo admitted, “and he’s a pretty good actor. He’s cultivated that manner of meekness because nobody ever expects a stick-up artist to have such a meek appearance.”

“Well,” said Paul Pry, “there’s no use bothering my head about it. The message is in some sort of code and it doesn’t seem to help us very much. I’ve got to get my beauty sleep, because I’ve got a hard night ahead of me tomorrow night.”

“Pulling a job tomorrow night?” asked Mugs Magoo, showing interest.

“No,” said Paul Pry, “I’m going out to a ball tomorrow night.”

“What sort of a ball?” Mugs Magoo inquired.

“A ball that Slick Stella Molay wants me to go to with her,” said Paul Pry. “She’s going to arrange for an invitation. I’m going in rather a unique costume. She’s worked it all out for me, Mugs. It’s rather novel. I’m going as a conventional burglar, dressed in a mask and carrying a gun and kit of burglar tools.”

Mugs Magoo whirled around and the whiskey bottle, struck by his shoulder, toppled for a moment and crashed to the floor.

“You’re what?” he yelled.

“Don’t shout,” said Paul Pry. “I’m merely going to a masquerade ball with Slick Stella Molay, dressed as a burglar.”

Mugs Magoo shook his head dolefully. His hand went to his forehead, as though trying to hold his brain to some semblance of sanity by physical pressure.

“Oh, my God!” he groaned.

“And, by the way,” said Paul Pry, “undoubtedly, you’re correct in your assumption that Stella knows I picked up the letter Tom Meek left for the lawyer. They’ll try to get another one smuggled out of the jail. How long will it take them?”

Mugs Magoo shook his head lugubriously from side to side.

“As far as that’s concerned,” he said, “it’ll probably take them a couple of days. They’ve got to smuggle a message in to Tompkins and then Tompkins has got to get another letter to Meek and have it delivered. But you don’t need to worry about it, guy. You won’t be here when it happens. You’ll be lying flat on your back with a lily in your hand. You were a good pal while you lasted but you’re like the pitcher that went to the well too often.

“I don’t want to intrude on your private affairs, but if you’d let me know the songs that you like best, I’ll see that the undertaker gives you the breaks when it comes to the music.”

4. Bunny’s Nutcracker

The cab driver swung in behind the line of cars that crawled along close to the kerb and Slick Stella Molay said: “This is the place.”

Within a few seconds Paul Pry was handing Stella out from the taxicab and receiving her gracious smile.

“Darling,” she said, “you look splendid. You make my heart go pitty-pat. You look exactly like a burglar.”

Paul Pry accepted the compliment and paid off the taxi driver.

“I’ll say he looks like a burglar,” said the taxi driver, pocketing the money. “It was all I could do to keep from shelling out instead of handing him the meter slip. You see, lady, I was stuck up a week ago and my stomach still feels cold where the gun was pointed.”

“And, so this,” said Paul Pry, “is the lair of the famous Silver Dawson?”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s the blackmail king of the underworld. He’s a fighter. I wish someone would kill him.”

“Will I meet him,” asked Paul Pry, “as we go in?”

“No,” she said. “Simply show your invitation to the man at the door and then we’ll go in and mingle with the crowd for a minute, have a drink of punch and perhaps a dance. After that you go upstairs. The study is the room on the front of the house on the second floor and the papers are there in the desk. I’ve given you the key.”

“Then what?” asked Paul Pry.

“Then,” she said, “we mingle around with the crowd a little longer and then go back to the apartment.”

“Without unmasking?” asked Paul Pry.

“Without unmasking,” she said. “I would have to unmask if you did, and if Silver Dawson saw me here he’d know right away something was wrong and that our invitations had been forged.”

“And if I should meet any of the servants?” asked Paul Pry.

“Then,” she said, “go ahead and stick a gun in their ribs. Tie them and gag them if you have to, or knock them out. You don’t need to worry, because if anybody should touch you, you could claim that you were looking for the restroom.”

She turned and flashed him a dazzling look from her wide blue eyes, a smile from her sensuous, parted lips.

“You see,” she said, “everybody would know that you had attended the masquerade in this costume so it would be all right.”

Paul Pry nodded. “All right,” he said, “let’s go.”

They walked into the house, surrendered their forged invitations to a doorman and mingled with the crowd. A dozen or more couples were already hilarious from the effects of a remarkably strong punch which was being dished out in quantities by an urbane individual in evening clothes, who had a napkin hanging over his left forearm.

Paul Pry escorted Stella to the punch bowl and, after the second drink of punch, she whirled him out to the floor as the orchestra struck up a dance.

She held herself close to him and whispered words of soft endearment in his ear as they moved lightly across the floor.

“Darling,” she said, “you’d be surprised at how grateful I’m going to be.”

“Yes?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “The prerogatives of a long friendship, you know.”

Paul Pry missed a step and suddenly tightened his arms about the willowy figure in order to let her understand his appreciation.

“I think,” she cooed, leaning toward him so that her lips were close to his, “we had better swing over toward this darkest corner by the door. That door leads to the hallway and you go up the stairs and into the front room. I think Silver Dawson is the man dressed in the red devil suit over there by the punch bowl. I’m quite certain there won’t be anyone on the upper floor. I’ve kept my eyes open, getting the servants spotted, and I’m sure they’re all downstairs.”

“You seem to know the house quite well,” said Paul Pry.

“Yes,” she said, “I have been here several times before. Sometimes as a guest and more recently as a suppliant, offering anything to get the letters back.”

“Anything?” asked Paul Pry.

“Almost anything,” she said softly.

The music stopped. Stella pressed her form close to Paul Pry’s for one tantalizing moment, then breathed softly: “Hurry, dear, and then we can leave.”

Paul Pry nodded and slipped unostentatiously through the doorway into the dark hall.

There were no servants in sight. A flight of stairs led to the upper corridor and Paul Pry took them on swiftly silent feet, moving with a light grace and catlike speed.

But Paul Pry did not turn to the left and go toward the front of the house. Instead he flattened himself against a door which opened upon the corridor near the head of the stairs, and listened carefully.

After a second or two he dropped to his hands and knees and tried the knob of the door.

The door swung inward and Paul Pry, lying prone on the floor, where he would be clear of the line of fire in the event anyone should have been standing in the doorway, peered into the dark interior of the room.

There was no sound or motion. The room was a bedroom and the light which filtered in from the hallway showed a walnut bed, a dressing table and bureau.

There was a ribbon of light which seeped through from the bottom of a door at the other end of the room.

Paul Pry got to his feet, moved swiftly and silently, stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Then he walked purposefully toward the door where he could see the ribbon of light.

He was more confident as he tried the knob of this door, but equally careful to make no sound. He leaned his weight against the door so as to remove any tension from the latch, turned the knob very slowly to eliminate any possibility of noise. When the catch was free, he pulled the door toward him a bit at a time.

The door opened and Paul Pry, peering through, saw that he was looking into a bathroom, sumptuously appointed. At the other side of the bathroom was a door panelled with a full-length mirror.

Paul Pry stepped into the bathroom and turned out the light by the simple expedient of unscrewing the globe a half turn. Then he devoted his attention to the knob of the opposite doorway.

That knob slowly turned till the catch was free and Paul Pry opened the door an inch at a time.

The bathroom was now dark, so that there was no light behind him, to pour into the room as the door was opened.

This door opened into the study which Stella had pointed out to him as being at the front of the house, and the place where the desk was located that contained the precious letters.

A floor lamp was arranged with the shade tilted so that the rays of light were directed full against a door, which Paul Pry surmised must be the door into the corridor and through which he had been supposed to make his entrance.

Standing in the shadows, back of that light, his eyes cold and grim, a heavy automatic held in his right hand, was an undersized man with a sloping forehead, a large nose and rabbit teeth that showed through his half-parted lips.

Noiselessly Paul Pry swung the door open and stepped into the room upon catlike feet.

He had made three steps before some slight noise or perhaps some intuition warned the man with the gun. He whirled with an exclamation of surprise and raised the weapon.

Paul Pry swung swiftly with his right fist. At the same time he leaped forward.

There was the sound of the hissing exclamation of surprise which came from the man with the gun, the noise of swiftly shuffling feet, the impact of a fist on flesh and then a half groan as the man with the rabbit teeth sank to the carpeted floor.

Paul Pry pocketed the gun. “Make a sound,” he said, “and I’ll slit your throat.”

But the man on the floor was limp and unconscious.

Paul Pry moved swiftly. A handkerchief was thrust into the man’s mouth, a bit of strong cord from his pocket looped around the man’s wrist and bit into the flesh. Then Paul Pry’s hands darted swiftly and purposefully through the man’s clothing.

He found a roll of bills, a penknife, cigarette lighter, cigarette case, a handkerchief, fountain pen, some small change, a leather key container well filled with keys, and a blackjack.

The blackjack, hung from a light cord under the left armpit, was worn and shiny from much carrying. It had a conventional leather thong looped around the handle so that it could circle a man’s wrists in time of necessity.

Paul Pry jerked the slungshot free and put it in his pocket. He also pocketed the roll of currency. Then he arose, took the keys and moved swiftly about the room, opening locked drawers and the cover of a roll-top desk.

It was at the back of a drawer of the desk that Paul Pry found a packet of letters tied with ribbon. He unfastened the ribbon and glanced swiftly at some of the letters.

The cursory examination showed that they were letters in a feminine handwriting, addressed to “Dearest Bunny” and signed “your own, Stella” in some instances, and “your darling red-hot mamma, Stella” in others.

Paul Pry slipped the letters into his pocket, gave a last swift glance at the figure on the floor and stepped into the bathroom. He walked across the bathroom, through the darkened bedroom, out into the corridor and down the stairs.

Stella Molay was standing in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. Her head was cocked slightly to one side, after the manner of one who is listening, momentarily expecting some noise to crash out on the stillness of the night. A noise which can well be followed by a feminine scream.

As Paul Pry crept lithely down the stairs she stared at him with wide incredulous eyes.

“Good God!” she said. “What’s happened!”

Paul Pry walked across to her and made a low bow. “Congratulations, dear,” he said. “Your honour is safe.”

He straightened to stare into the incredulous dismay of the wide blue eyes.

“Where’s Bunny?” she asked.

“Bunny?” he said.

“I mean Silver. Silver Dawson,” she corrected herself hastily. “A short man with funny teeth and a big nose.”

“Oh,” said Paul Pry, “he’s in the ballroom. Don’t you remember? The man in the devil suit standing over by the punch bowl.”

She looked at him with a sudden glint of suspicion in the blue eyes, but Paul Pry returned her stare with a look of childlike candour.

“Well,” he said, “let’s get out of here and go to the apartment.”

“Look here,” she said suspiciously, “there’s something wrong. You must have got the wrong letters.”

“What makes you think so?”

She bit her lip and then said slowly: “Just a hunch, that’s all.”

Paul Pry gently took her arm. “I’m quite sure it’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got the letters.”

She paused for a moment as though trying to think up some excuse and then reluctantly accompanied him through the door, across the porch, and down to the line of cars where Paul Pry summoned a cab that was waiting on the off chance of picking up a bit of business.

Once within the taxicab, Paul Pry switched on the dome light and took the letters from his pocket.

“You must be sure you’ve got the right letters,” she said. “Otherwise, you’ll have to go back. The letters that I wrote were — quite indiscreet.”

“Well,” said Paul Pry, pulling one of the letters from the envelope, “let’s see if this is indiscreet enough.”

He unfolded the letter while she leaned toward him to stare over his shoulder.

As her eyes saw the writing, she gave a gasp. “The damn fool,” she said, “to have saved those!”

Paul Pry, apparently heedless of the remark, read a line aloud and then broke into a chuckle. “Certainly,” he said, “that’s indiscreet enough for you.”

She snatched the letter from his hand, stared at him with blazing eyes.

“Come, sweetheart,” he said, “and give me another of those prerogatives of friendship.”

Mugs Magoo stood up as Paul Pry entered the room and gave a dramatic imitation of one who is seeing a ghost.

He swung his arm across his eyes.

“Go away!” he shouted. “Go away! Don’t hurt me! I was good to him in his lifetime! His ghost can’t haunt me! Get away, I say!”

Paul Pry dropped into a chair without bothering to remove either his topcoat or his hat. He lit a cigarette and thrust it in his smiling lips at a jaunty angle.

“What’s the matter, Mugs?” he asked.

“My God,” said Mugs, “it talks! A ghost that talks! I know it can’t be you, because you’re dead! You were killed tonight, but how is it that your ghost doesn’t have any bullet holes in its body? And it’s the first time in my life I ever saw a ghost smoke a cigarette!”

Paul Pry laughed and his hand, dropping to his trouser pocket, brought out a roll of bills. Carelessly, he tossed them to the table.

Mugs stared at the roll. “How much?” he asked.

“Oh, five or six thousand,” said Paul Pry carelessly.

“What!” Mugs exclaimed.

Paul Pry nodded.

“Where did it come from?”

“Well,” said Paul Pry, “part of it was a donation that was made to me by Bunny Myers. It was an involuntary donation and Bunny will probably not recall it when he wakes up, but it was a donation, nevertheless.”

“And the rest?” asked Mugs Magoo.

Paul Pry settled himself more comfortably in his chair.

“Do you know, Mugs,” he said, “I got the idea that possibly Tompkins didn’t trust even his own gang. He had concealed the gem where no one knew where it was. That was a funny crack he made in the note about Bunny’s nutcracker. So when Bunny Myers was making his involuntary donation to me, I examined the slungshot that he carried under his arm.

“Sure enough, there was a screw loose in it. Rather the whole handle could be unscrewed, by exerting proper pressure. Evidently, it was a slungshot that Tompkins had given to Bunny and one he intended to use in a pinch as a receptacle for something that was too hot for him to handle.

“When I unscrewed it, I found the Legget diamond, and a very affable gentleman by the name of Mr. Edgar Patten, an adjuster for the insurance company that handled the insurance on the gem, was good enough to insist that I take a slight reward for my services when I returned the stone to him.”

Mugs Magoo pursed his lips and gave a low whistle. “Just a fool for luck!” he exclaimed. “You sure picked two of the toughest nuts in the game, and you’re still alive! It ain’t right!”

Paul Pry chuckled softly. “Tough nuts to crack all right, Mugs,” he mused, “but, with the aid of Bunny’s nutcracker, I managed all right.”