The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Stewart Sterling, the pseudonym of Prentice Winchell (1895–1976), was born in Illinois but lived for many years in Florida. He began his career as a journalist and editor of trade publications before becoming the writer and producer of more than five hundred programs for radio, mostly mystery series, as well as writing for film and television. Among his many radio shows were Bill Lance (which ran on West Coast stations in 1944 and 1945) and the early series The Eno Crime Club, which first aired on CBS on February 9, 1931, as a five-times-a-week show; it underwent several format and title changes during its five-year run. Written by Sterling, it featured pure detective stories about Spencer Dean, known as “the Manhunter”; beginning in 1954, Sterling wrote a series of nine mysteries under the Spencer Dean pseudonym. His best-known screenplay was Having Wonderful Crime (1945), very loosely based on the 1943 John J. Malone novel by Craig Rice, starring Pat O’Brien, George Murphy, and Carole Landis.

Of his more than four hundred mystery stories, forty are about Chief Fire Marshall Ben Pedley, the tough investigator who hunts down arsonists with single-minded intensity; he also starred in nine novels, beginning with Five Alarm Funeral (1942). His other major series detectives are Gil Vine, a hotel dick at the Plaza Royale, in eight books, and department store detective Don Cadee in the Spencer Dean novels. Other Winchell pseudonyms are Jay de Bekker and Dexter St. Clair.

“Ten Carats of Lead” was published in the August 1940 issue.

It was a case for the Homicide men according to all the rules, but Mike Hansard of the headquarters hockshop squad knew it had germinated under the three gold balls of his own special province, and that it could only end when he pulled the correct “blue card” from his “suspected” file.

Chapter One Death on the Diamond Exchange

Mike Hansard stood just outside the door as two white-clad interns wheeled the operating carriage into the wardroom. They left the room silently without bothering to transfer the man in the short-sleeved hospital shirt to the cot.

A grave-eyed nurse touched Hansard on the sleeve. “He won’t be out of it for half an hour. You might have a little while with him, then.”

The plainclothesman eyed the strained, weather-beaten face on the pillow. “No chance to pull through?”

She shook her head. “An ordinary man would’ve died on the table. He...”

“Yeah.” Mike’s jaw was rocky. “Guy gets toughened up after twenty years on a beat. Makes it that much harder to check out.”

The nurse moved quietly down the long corridor. Mike sat down on the cot.

The dying man groaned, stirred a bandaged arm uneasily. Mike had a similar bandage on his own arm, where they’d made the transfusion. But he didn’t have three bullet holes in his guts, the way Tom MacReady did. Mike would have given a lot more than a pint of blood to help Tom, if he’d had the chance.

MacReady had gone to bat for him plenty of times. There was that night when Mike was new to harness, and the Cassati crowd had cornered him in a blind alley and put the lead to him. Tom hadn’t even been on duty, but he’d heard the gunfire and come in blasting, just as Joe Cassati was about to dot Mike’s eye. There would be a three-inch scar, somewhere on MacReady’s chest, under those bandages, that the older man had carried ever since as a memento of Cassati.

Mike had been close to Tom in those rookie days. They both reported to the reserve-room in the same precinct house. Both had similar ambitions. But Mike had passed his qualifying examinations and gone on up. Tom just couldn’t seem to make the grade, but that was just because some of the gold-braid boys couldn’t get it through their thick skulls that MacReady had what it takes to be a first-class detective and then some.

They knew now — too late. And they’d be out in force at the funeral, to give honor to a cop who’d faced a murderous pistol fire in performance of his duty. Hansard ground out his cigarette and cursed helplessly. A hell of a lot of good official honors would do Tom’s widow and ten-year-old kid!

The man on the pillow muttered incoherently and rolled his head from side to side. He opened his eyes, stared vacantly up at the detective. It was another five minutes before there was a light of recognition in his gaze; then he reached out feebly for Hansard’s hand.

“Hello, Mike,” he whispered hoarsely.

“How you feel, Tom?”

MacReady grimaced. “Not so bad. I guess they... fixed me up O.K.”

“Sure.” Mike grinned cheerfully. What they had fixed Tom up with had been a load of morphine. That was all they could do. “Feel like telling me what happened?”

The wounded man closed his eyes. “Ain’t much I can tell, Mike. I’m coming along Hester Street. To see if old lady Kruger got her coal from the relief. When I get to the corner opposite Dumont’s jewelry store—” He groaned, tried to put a hand to his belly, fumbled at the bandages for a little, then stiffened and lay still.

Hansard lit a cigarette, held it to MacReady’s lips. “Take a drag, Tom.”

The patrolman inhaled greedily, let the smoke dribble slowly from his nostrils. “I see these two punks and a dame huddled in front of Dumont’s window. When they spot me, they move on kind of sudden. So I go over to give a peek.” His voice was weaker, his lips looked like blue steel. “When I get up close, I see this Red Cross poster stuck on the outside of the window... Ah! It does hurt!”

“Take it easy, old-timer.”

“The old gray mare, Mike, ain’t what she used to be.” Sweat glistened on MacReady’s face. He went on, slowly. “Knew that poster was screwy. Stuck over hole in the glass. They’d used a glass cutter and a suction cup. Half the junk was gone out of the window. So I... went after ’em.”

“You get a look at them, Tom?”

MacReady licked his lips. “Couldn’t see ’em clear. Light was bad. They went... up the Bowery. Turned in that alley. Middle of the block.” A trickle of pink saliva ran out of the corner of his mouth. “When I hit the corner... they jumped me. Didn’t get a chance...” His voice trailed off into nothing, but his lips continued to work.

Hansard put his ear close to MacReady’s mouth.

“Be a while,” the patrolman was gasping, “before I... get back... to roll call.”

“A little while, Tom. Yeah.”

“You’ll have to... look after it, Mike.” MacReady’s eyes opened suddenly, very wide. He hoisted himself up convulsively, on one elbow. “They assigned you... to the case... didn’t they, Mike? It’s a hockshop case... ain’t it?”

“Sure it is. Inspector put me on it personal.”

“That’s O.K... then.” The patrolman fell back limply. “Long as... you’re on it, Mike.” His eyes glazed. He fought to focus them on the man bending over him. “When’ll... Mary and Steve... be over... to see me?”

“Ought to be here any minute, Tom. Any minute, now.”

There wasn’t any answer. The faded blue eyes stared fixedly up at the ceiling.

Hansard took out his watch, rubbed the back to mirror brightness on his vest, held it to MacReady’s lips. After a minute he put the watch back in his pocket.

“You sure got lousy breaks, pal. You sure did. I don’t know if anything can be done to balance the books for you, but I’ll give it a try, Tom.”

He rang the bell on the wall.

In the shadow of the El, the street was dark and gloomy, but the opposite side of the Bowery was a blaze of naked electric bulbs over dazzling displays of silverplate and glittering rows of gaudy gems. One jewelry store crowded against another, elbowing for space in this brilliant white light of Little Maiden Lane.

As Mike stalked toward the sign — DUMONT’S — DIAMONDS — he saw a bulky-shouldered man lounging in the doorway. When Hansard angled toward the Red Cross poster on Dumont’s window, the man stepped out into the light. His eyes were narrow slits in a brick-red face. He had his right hand in his coat pocket and his voice was brusque.

“Keep movin’, mister... right along, now. Right along.”

Hansard didn’t even bother to show his badge. “Crysake, don’t you Ames dummies know a cop when you see one?”

The representative of the Ames Patrol took his hand out of his coat pocket. “I ain’t takin’ no chances. Buddy of mine had the switch snapped on him a little while ago, right up there on the corner.”

“Yeah. An’ he might be alive now if you stuck to your post, way you’re supposed to, shamus,” Mike said curtly. “What’s your name?”

“Brundage.” The Ames man was surly. “Don’t be telling me my business. I know what I’m supposed to do and what I ain’t. I been assigned to this corner for two years. Me an’ Tom MacReady always got along jake. He never made no complaint. An’ none of our subscribers got any squawk—”

“MacReady ain’t exactly in a position to complain. Far as your customers are concerned, why should they holler? They’re covered by insurance, aren’t they?” Hansard went over to the window, ripped off the poster, looked at the six-inch hole the glass-cutter had made. “But that isn’t saying there aren’t going to be plenty of beefs about this. There’ve been too many of these glass-cutter jobs in the last two-three weeks. It’ll be the same mob back of all of ’em. Now they’ve gone up against a chair job, everybody’ll get put on the pan about it. Where was you when the fireworks went off?”

Brundage jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Down on Hester. Kid came up and told me somebody’d heaved a brick at Thomasini’s window. That We Buy Old Gold joint. So I beat it down there. It was a false alarm. So then I hear the shooting and hike back.” He shifted uneasily under Hansard’s cold stare. “I called an ambulance for MacReady.”

“Yeah?” Hansard morosely studied the vacant spaces in Dumont’s display. The robbers had been smart. They hadn’t taken any watches or any of the cheap “slum” that’s used to catch the eye of the passerby. The stuff that was missing was mostly rings, he decided.

“Got a key, Brundage?”

The Ames man produced a ring attached to his belt with a steel chain. “I ain’t s’posed—”

“Suppose my eye!” growled the plainclothesman. “Open up!”

Brundage used a key. Hansard went in first, inspected the alarm box on the wall, saw it hadn’t been tampered with. Then he found a phone, got through to headquarters.

“Extension four-oh-two... Ed Schmidt... Ed? I’m down at Dumont’s. Put through a thirty-one, will you? All cars. Rush. Have ’em contact every hockshop in the city. Notify us of anyone trying to pawn any solitaires worth over — say, fifty bucks. Or any unset stones more than a quarter carat. They’ll probably pry the stones out of the settings... I know, I know. It’s a hundred-to-one shot. Still and all, it’s one of those things we gotta cover, Ed.” He hung up.

Brundage shook his head dubiously. “You ain’t gonna lay the finger on the lads who did this job just by puttin’ the peep on the hockshops. This mob was from out of town.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I seen their car.”

“Where?”

“Couple of blocks down. Green sedan with Jersey pads.”

Hansard swore and reached for the phone again. “Why the hell didn’t you say so when I was talking to headquarters! How did you know it was their car?”

“Well, I don’t — for sure. But it was there when I beat it down on Hester, and it wasn’t there when I got back. Then that old hag selling pretzels down on the corner claims there was two guys and a frill came running over to the sedan and drove away like a bat outa—”

“Hello, Ed? Something to add to that alarm. All cars to notify all men on post. Pick up a green sedan... What make, Brundage?”

“Buick, near as I noticed.”

“...a Buick, maybe, Ed. Or any other green sedan with Jersey plates. Two men and a girl in it... Nah, this Ames dope I’m talking to never heard about getting a license number. So long.”

The headquarters man reached out, caught the private guard’s necktie, yanked him close. “How many times you been told to take the plate numbers of any car parks near the Diamond Exchange after closing hours?”

“Leggo,” snarled Brundage, “you’re chokin’ me! I don’t know when that sedan parked there. They’s a lot of Jersey hockers come over to do business before closing hours an’ leave their cars around here while they grab a bite. Anyhow, I told you I was in a hurry to check up on that rock throwin’. If it hadn’t been for that—”

“Yah!” Hansard sent him reeling back against one of the glass cases. “You don’t stay on your post. You don’t check on parked cars. You’d ought to have your watchman’s license revoked. You had sense enough to notify the proprietor, here?”

“I tried to get Dumont on the phone. He wasn’t home.”

“Where’s he live?”

“Over in Brooklyn.”

“Well, try him again. Send him a wire — collect. Ask the phone company to give him a bell every five minutes until they get him. But get him over here.”

“I’ll do the best I can.”

“And soon as you see him, get me a complete checklist of all the ice that was glommed. I want the number of stones in each ring, the carat weights, settings—”

“Sure, I know.”

“You don’t know your rump from a hole in the ground. If you get hold of anything phone it in to headquarters, extension four-oh-two. And don’t be leaving Dumont’s here to run around and see if you can locate somebody who can give you a description of those three. We’ll take care of that without any amateur kibitzing.”

Hansard got out of the store, up to the corner of the alley. He half expected some of the Homicide boys to be down there, but maybe the word hadn’t gotten through that MacReady had died. Or perhaps they’d come and snapped their photographs and were now combing the district for eyewitnesses...

The sharp contrast between the blinding brilliance of the row of windows at the Diamond Exchange and the utter pitch-blackness of the alley made it difficult for him to adjust his eyes quickly. He slipped on something greasy underfoot.

He put his flash on it and his nostrils flared in repugnance. This was where Tom had taken it. He swung the circle of light up and down the cobblestones. Besides MacReady’s blood, there was nothing to see except a couple of those small, white, slotted cards in which rings are displayed. Each card bore the caption — Absolutely Perfect Blue-White — 22-Carat Setting — Latest Style.

A couple of chunks of limestone had been chipped from the building wall by flying lead but there was nothing else.

Chapter Two The Girl in the Hockshop

Mike strode grimly through the alley, over to Centre Street, up to the block-long white stone building at Number 240.

He went down a freshly scrubbed corridor smelling of antiseptic, turned in at a door marked — DETECTIVE BUREAU — LOST PROPERTY DIVISION.

There was a long counter running across the front of the room, behind it half a dozen small oak desks. There was only one man in the office, a thin, sharp-featured individual with glossy black hair, shaggy eyebrows and an expression of perpetual surprise on his face. He sat in a swivel chair, with his feet up on the lower drawer of his desk. This was Ed Schmidt, Hansard’s working partner. He was drawling into a telephone.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Report by phone and pronto. That don’t mean you shouldn’t send in the regular descriptive cards on everything that’s been hocked in your shop today. If I don’t get a brown envelope with a bunch of those cards from you in the morning I’ll know you’ve either gone out of business or you’re trying to give us the runaround, Abe. But about those solitaires — it’s important. They’re hot as the electric chair.”

Hansard sat at his desk and gloomily fingered the day’s list of property, lost and stolen. There were wallets reported from the midtown section. Their only chance of recovery lay across the hall in the offices of the pickpocket squad. Another epidemic of lost dogs in the Washington Heights area probably meant that the old “dog racket” was being worked again. And there was the usual assortment of missing handbags, wrist-watches and briefcases — mostly testimonials to their owner’s forgetfulness.

None of these held any interest for Mike. He would let the other boys on the squad look after them. By that tacit understanding which goes without expression in the police department, it was accepted that Hansard was after the mob that had shot down his friend, and that he would let nothing interfere with that job until it was done.

He knew that the likelihood of his finding the killers was remote, unless he had a streak of luck. For there would be little doubt that this was the work of the same crowd that had bedeviled the pawnshop squad for nearly three weeks, with window-hole robberies from one end of Manhattan to the other.

“Mike,” called the other man, hanging up the phone, “I got that file of lugs who’ve been involved in window robberies, from the Bureau of Identification. Covers twelve years. About sixty guys. But more than half of ’em are doing their homework up at Stone College.”

“Let me have a look-see, Eddie.” Mike shuffled over the identification cards, with full-face and profile photos. “None of these answer the descriptions given by any of the bystanders at the other robberies, huh, Ed?”

“Not as near as I can make out. But we might as well go through the routine.”

“Let Homicide do it, Eddie. They can put more men on it than we can. And anyhow, I got an idea it’s a waste of time. I think this is a new mob, just organized.”

“The way they’re going at it, Mike” — Schmidt came over and put a police flyer from San Francisco headquarters on Hansard’s desk — “it looks to me as if they’re old hands. Seven jobs, they’ve pulled. Nobody’s caught ’em. Nobody’s even got a cast-iron description. That takes some experience.”

“Yeah. I guess so, Eddie.” Mike studied the flyer.

It was an old one. It stated that all police departments should be on the lookout for William Sexton, recently a resident of San Francisco. Sexton was an expert at window work, had cleaned out five jewelry stores in one night and departed for places unknown. His method had been to use a couple of stooges to stand on either side of him, apparently inspecting the contents of a show-window, while he used a window-glass cutter, calmly inserted a cane with a wad of chewing gum on it and picked up such items as his fancy dictated. After the desired merchandise had been abstracted, the busy Mr. Sexton would calmly paste a poster of some sort over the small hole and depart.

“This looks good,” Mike grunted. “Only there’s no photo.”

“Good reason why,” Schmidt pointed out. “They never caught him. They picked up that dope from stoolies. Wouldn’t you say this Sexton might be our man?”

“It’s a thought. All we got to go on is — five-feet-six or — seven, hundred and sixty pounds or thereabouts, brown hair, brown eyes. I can’t walk from here to Broome Street without bumping into half a dozen guys would answer that description. Tell you what, Ed. Wire Frisco. Ask ’em if they’ve got any later dope on this punk.”

“O.K.”

“And send out a teletype to all states we got working agreements with, giving his description. Include the green sedan in the Jersey notice. And warn all of ’em to be on the lookout for anybody trying to hock or sell unset ice.”

“Anything else, Mike?”

“Yeah. Check over the lists of arrests MacReady made, the last four-five years. See if any of those bums had any jewelry-store robberies in their records. I have a hunch maybe this slob who shot him did it because Mike knew him and put the pinch on him at some previous time.”

The phone rang. Schmidt answered. “Yeah? Hold the line a second, Elias.” He put his hand over the receiver. “Litzman calling. Up on Sixth Avenue. Says there’s a floozie trying to put the bite on him for two hundred bucks on a rock worth six or seven C’s anyway. Wants to know what to do with her.”

“Tell him to stall her. Kid her along. Haggle with her. Tell him if he lets her go before I get up there, I’ll dig that old receiver charge up and slap him in the jug for sure.” Mike grabbed his overcoat, got to the door. “And, Ed—”

“Yuh?”

“Tell him to work it so he gets her prints. On his showcase. Or maybe a fountain pen.”

He got into the corridor before Schmidt yelled: “Want me to notify the radio Rollos?”

“No,” Mike called back. “I’ll do that. If I need ’em.”

Hansard’s coupe hit nothing but the high spots on the way uptown. This might be a wrong lead, of course. No telling whether the skirt at Litzman’s was the same one Tom MacReady had spotted down on Little Maiden Lane. But if she wasn’t, it was a damn queer coincidence. Women didn’t do much legitimate pawning late at night. That was a male trick, for booze money. Women usually did their hocking in the daytime, when they could buy something they needed with the money they got. But if this was the same dame, seconds might count. Litzman might not be able to stall her off for long. She’d be sure to get suspicious.

Still, there was something screwy about the set-up. That window-job had certainly been done by a professional mob of heisters. Yet no gem thief would be dumb enough to suppose he could get away with pawning a piece of glitter within a couple of hours after the stuff had been lifted.

It was ten minutes past nine when Mike got out, a block below Litzman’s. He forced himself to stroll leisurely toward the hockshop — past a couple of employment agencies.

It wouldn’t do to come tearing into the shop. There might be a lookout waiting outside, or across the street. That was why he hadn’t wanted the radio cars notified. A lookout would have spotted police cars before they could have closed in and given the alarm.

He turned in, hesitantly, under a dingy sign from which hung three tarnished gilt balls. The window was plastered, inside, with a miscellaneous network of watches, binoculars, shotguns, revolvers, banjoes, carpenter’s levels, flutes, fishing rods. Phony “flash wares” bought at auction, Hansard knew, for sale to overwise suckers.

The girl was still there. She was talking earnestly to Elias down at the far end of the counter. A bleached-out aluminum blonde with plenty of curves where they counted, and a pinched, sharp little face with too much rouge and lipstick on it. She wore a short seal jacket over a thin blue silk dress, and if Mike Hansard was any judge, she was scared silly about something.

“Won’t you please hurry,” she was saying, shrilly, to the two men behind the counter. “I tell you I’ve got to catch a train.”

Old Elias Litzman looked at her mildly over his steel-rimmed spectacles and fingered his scraggly beard thoughtfully. “In a transaction of this size, it is necessary to make out the papers correctly. I have my pawnshop license to protect—”

“I understand. But I’ve given you all the information you’ve asked for.”

“How do you spell your first name, Miss Sampson? Or here” — the pawnbroker deferentially handed her his pen — “if you will just fill this in yourself. Full name and address. Phone number, if you have one...”

The girl wrote eagerly.

Hansard rested his elbows wearily on the counter, took his watch out of his pocket as if he were greatly embarrassed.

The younger Litzman came up to him, briskly. “You wish to make a loan, gentleman?” He slid a slip of white paper under Mike’s hand.

“Like to get about five-six bucks on the turnip. It’s worth twenty-five, at least.”

On the slip he read—

Mike tucked the pawnbroker’s record unobtrusively away in his pocket. “I got to have five dollars, anyway.” Under his breath he added: “Nobody with her, Sol?”

Sol Litzman examined the watch’s movement with professional disdain. “Five I couldn’t let you have. Watches like them are positively a drag on the market, these days. Maybe three.” He whispered: “All alone, Mr. Hansard.”

“You can sell it for fifteen. A fella offered me fifteen.”

Sol shrugged, scornfully. “You should have taken it.”

“Gimme five seeds on it.” Mike murmured: “Ever seen her before?”

“Where’d you get this watch, mister? You’re so anxious to get rid of it, maybe it ain’t yours. Never laid eyes on her, so help me.”

“It’s mine,” Hansard grumbled. “Those are my initials, inside the case, there. What’s her say-so?”

“Claims she’s a showgirl. Used to be in burly. Out of a job. Claims she’s had the ring couple of years, guy gave it to her.” Sol laid the watch on the counter, with an air of finality. “Three-fifty is absolutely our outside limit, my friend. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll split the difference. Make it four, huh? You think she’s leveling, Sol?”

“Well, so I’ll do it. If you don’t come back and redeem it, I lose money, I’m telling you. We put the ring under the glass, Mr. Hansard. She’s lying, positively. Ring ain’t ever been worn by nobody. Anyway, showgirl’s rings always got a little greasepaint on ’em that hold the dust under the setting points. There ain’t no dust of any sort under the points on this ring. Write out your full name and address, please.”

Mike spoke without moving his lips. “How much will she take?”

“Here’s four dollars, mister. She come down to a hundred-fifty.”

“Much obliged. I’ll be back for the watch. Give it to her. I’ll be responsible for it.”

Sol turned toward the green steel cabinet back of the counter. As he did so, he nodded almost imperceptibly to his father. And as the plainclothesman slouched toward the door, he could hear old Elias saying: “I take a chance, young lady. Actual I ain’t got a right to let you have the money. But you say you got to get to San Francisco. You give me your word. Absolutely you redeem the ring, so I make an exception...”

Hansard glanced back through the intervening lacework of opera glasses, ukeleles, cocktail sets, drawing instruments. The girl’s head was thrown back. She was drawing a deep breath as if a terrible load had been lifted from her shoulders. This could be the frill MacReady had seen. It was the type of ring that had been stolen from Dumont’s place. He had been able to tell from the vacant spots in the jeweler’s window that most of the rings had been “engagement specials.”

He surveyed the street. Between Forty-sixth and — seventh there was only an elderly couple strolling leisurely. No cars at the curb, just a battered baker’s truck parked in front of a Coffee Pot, down at the next corner.

Mike slid into the doorway next to Litzman’s. He’d tail her, see who she met, where she went. Maybe the mob had been desperate for dough, had to make a fast touch to get out of town. In that case...

She was coming. She was almost running as she pushed open the door, but she glanced warily up and down the block before she walked quickly downtown.

She got about ten paces when the baker’s truck moved jerkily out from the curb.

The man behind the wheel was a horse-faced individual with an ugly scar slashing down from one corner of his mouth. Hansard saw the glint of metal in the driver’s hand.

That was enough warning for Mike.

“Hey, kid,” he yelled. “Watch that truck!”

She saw it at the same instant, screamed, turned and fled back for the shelter of the pawnshop doorway.

The truck speeded up. Little jets of orange flame began to spit from a hole in the side panel of the truck. Glass shattered above Hansard’s head as he put out a foot, tripped the girl so she sprawled flat on the sidewalk.

The staccato bark of an automatic rifle echoed hollowly in the empty street. The heavy flat report from Mike’s Police Positive crashed thunderously through the more brittle sound of the rifle fire.

Something licked out with a hot tongue at his cheek. He dropped to one knee and aimed carefully as the gray truck roared past.

The door and window of the pawnshop disintegrated in a jangling shatter of broken glass.

At his feet the girl squealed, once — and lay still.

Mike fired at the driver, saw the windshield smash, put another bullet halfway down in the front door by the driver’s seat. Then the truck was past. Lead smacked into the door jamb beside him as he thumbed fresh cartridges into his pistol, sent a burst of slugs at a rear tire. He heard the tire go, saw the truck swerve crazily around a corner.

A police whistle shrieked. Behind him, heavy feet pounded on pavement. Hansard stood up, flipped his left hand in the horizontal palm-up, fingers-back gesture that says, “I’m a cop,” everywhere.

A harsh voice behind him grated: “Which way they’d go?”

“ ’Round the corner,” snapped Mike. “Gray truck. Tire gone. Watch it. They got a chatter gun—”

The patrolman raced for the corner.

Hansard knelt beside the girl. His attempt to protect her had failed. One of those half-inch slugs from that automatic rifle had ricocheted from the metal casing of the pawnbroker’s window, caught her in the throat. She was still alive but when she tried to speak, a red froth bubbled from her lips and her eyes glazed.

Behind Hansard, old Litzman was screeching like a maniac. “Look, nu! Look what you done. A tip-off I give you and right away is shooting, is killing...”

“Shut up, Papa,” yelled his son. “You ain’t hurt. That poor girl, she’s dead.”

A radio car came down the avenue with a banshee wail, slid to a screaming stop. Two uniformed men came over cautiously, guns drawn.

Mike said: “Hansard. Headquarters hockshop squad. Shield one-seven-two-one.”

One of the officers had a sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve. He glanced down at the girl, looked up at the left side of Mike’s face. “They get you bad?”

Mike put his fingers up, touched his cheek. It was warm and wet. There was a jagged cut a couple of inches long where a splinter of glass had ripped him.

“Cut myself shaving,” he gritted. “Tell the broadcasting boys to put out a thirty-one for an old Ford truck. Gray panel job. Two men, both armed. One’s a guy with a long, narrow face. He’s got an inch scar at the right side of his mouth. I didn’t see the other guy. He’s the one hit this kid with the stutter gun.”

The sergeant motioned to his partner. “Phone inside. Headquarters, first. Then a meat-wagon.” The patrolman pushed open the shattered door, got in to the telephone.

The muscles in Mike’s jaws twitched. “Same two who put the clutch on a flock of stones in a Bowery jewelry store and knocked off Tom MacReady, coupla hours ago, Sarge. The blonde here was in on the heist. She pulled a fast one on her pals, must’ve wanted to take a powder. She tried to hock a piece of ice here with Litzman. They followed her. When she came out of the shop, they drove up and let her have it. I winged the lug who had the wheel.” He bent down and picked up the girl’s gilt-mesh bag.

The sergeant sheathed his gun. “Where’d this truck come from?”

Hansard jerked his head toward the Coffee Pot. “Parked in front of the scoff-shop down there. Might be some of the boys inside got an idea where it came from, but I doubt it. This was the same outfit who were supposed to be riding around in a green Buick sedan. The truck was probably stolen, half an hour ago.”

“I’ll drop in the lunch counter.” The sergeant bent over to get a good look at the girl’s face. “This dame didn’t work this part of town. I’ll guarantee that.”

“Might not be from New York at all.” Mike’s face was stern. “But the fingerprint boys’ll find out. This mob that knocked her off has gone kill-crazy. If we don’t put the clamps on ’em—”

“Yeah.” The sergeant pulled out his report book. “They might’ve holed in, right close by here. We’ll give this precinct a going over. Don’t worry about that. I knew Tom MacReady. He was a right cop.”

“One of the best,” Mike agreed.

The other officer ran out of the hockshop. “Tunnels and ferries and bridges all blocked. There’ll be an ambulance here in a couple of minutes.”

“Thanks.” Mike stepped over the girl’s body. “Get something to cover that up, will you? I’m going inside a minute. I’ll stick around till Homicide gets here, anyway.”

Chapter Three Lily Doesn’t Work Here Any More

Inside old Elias was blubbering incoherently, in a frenzy of fear. Sol was still trying to calm him. Mike spilled the contents of the girl’s bag out on the counter-top. Lipstick, cigarettes, gum, an address book full of phone numbers, a couple of old letters without the envelopes, a purse, some hairpins and a few keys.

Mike opened the purse. There was a roll of bills, a couple of dollars in silver. He tossed the currency across the counter.

“Tear up that ticket, Sol. Here’s the dough. Lemme have the ring.”

The younger Litzman took the money as if it was a scorpion, went to the safe. Mike pawed over the miscellany on the counter, put the stuff back in the bag. The letters were addressed to Dearest Daughter and were signed Mama. There wasn’t anything in them to tell who the daughter was, or where she lived or anything about her except that her mother was glad she was so well and happy with her work.

The names in the address book were Phils and Johns and Pauls and Bobs — no women. Most of the phone exchanges were in the midtown office section.

Tucked away in the back of the book, where he hadn’t noticed it before, was a little piece of blue paper about three inches long and an inch wide. It was a remitter’s receipt from the American Express Company for a money order. It was for twenty bucks, was made out to F. O. Marshal, signed by L. Marsh.

He went over to the telephone, worked the dial. After a second Schmidt came on.

“Ed? Saw some wood for me, will you?... Yeah... I want to know who L. Marsh was. The skirt who was with the two who put the burn on MacReady. They just fixed her up with a slug, too. L. Marsh is the name. I don’t know anything about her except she’s a five-buck floozie. But she sent an express money order to someone named F. O. Marshal on April twenty-second. Number is 1317522. Get me an address, Ed... Yeah, I’m still at Litzman’s.”

Outside the ambulance slid to the curb with bell clanging and bloodshot headlights. The emergency intern came in and swabbed off Mike’s cheek with something that stung like fire.

“Y’oughta come back to the hospital. Have this treated right, officer.”

“Later, maybe. Just do your stitch-in-time stuff, Doc. I got a rush job on hand.”

The intern got out the needle.

Sol brought the ring to the plainclothesman while the suture was being threaded into the flesh of Mike’s cheek.

“It ain’t the plate glass, Mr. Hansard, or the damage inside the shop here. But nobody’ll come near us now. A thing like this’ll ruin us, honest. Especially if it gets out that the poor girl was borrowing a little money from us and got murdered like that, right after. Couldn’t you tell those newspaper men that it was accidental, that she just happened to be in front of our place of business...”

Mike couldn’t talk back. He mumbled, “No,” as well as he could.

“There you are, Officer.” The intern slapped gauze and collodion over the wound. “Come around in a couple days and have it dressed.”

“Sure.” Hansard grinned lopsidedly. “That’ll be fun.”

The intern went out to help put the girl’s body on a stretcher.

Sol held out his hands, despairingly, to Mike. “Suppose those killers come back. Maybe they’ll think Papa and I could identify them.”

“They know damn well I can. So they’ll come after me first. Long as I’m alive you don’t have to work up a sweat about it. There’s your phone. Maybe that’s Ed Schmidt.”

It was. “Jeeze Mike, I just got the news over the short-wave. They get you bad?”

“Only a scratch, Ed. You get that address?”

“Yeah. I don’t know if it’s the right one. But the Express people say Lily Marsh lives at Four-seventy-eight West Seventy-second Street. Know what that is?”

“Riding academy, Ed?”

“That’s what they tell me. I wouldn’t know. I’m a married man, myself. But you’re white, single and over twenty-one, so—”

“Go to hell, Eddie. Any other stuff come in?”

“Not from hockshops. Word about the truck.”

“What?”

“Picked up what was left of it on West Forty-eighth. They’d folded it over a hydrant. Bloodstains on the upholstery of the driver’s seat. You must’ve nicked one of ’em.”

“I hope. That wouldn’t even up the score, either. Any report from that stupe in the Ames Patrol?”

“Yeah. He’s got Dumont down at the store. Want me to cover it?”

“No. Stick to that phone for the time being. I’ll have a look at the Marsh hangout and then run down to Dumont’s.”

The Homicide boys rolled up in two black cars, brought out their print kits and cameras, questioned Mike for a few minutes. Then he left them there, with the assistant medical examiner making chalk marks around the body. He got to his car, tramped on the button up through Central Park, turned west at Seventy-second.

The ground floor of Number 478 was occupied by a glorified lunch counter, with shiny red-leather stools and lots of chromium and glass brick. There was a big neon sign flashing over the door. Every couple of seconds the crimson-and-green tubing proclaimed — THE MEATING PLACE... Where Gourmets Gather...

There was a little hallway off at one side, a row of letter boxes with name cards in them. None of the cards bore the name of Marsh or Marshal.

Mike went up a carpeted flight. At the head of the stairs, behind an oval marble-top table, sat an enormously fat woman in a black lace dress. Her eyes peered out slyly from puckers of pink flesh. There was no way of telling where her chin ended and her bosom began. She patted a crown of permanent curls with pudgy fingers covered with diamonds, and leered ingratiatingly.

“Evening, sweetheart. Which one of the girls did you wanna see?”

Mike grinned amiably. “Lily Marsh. She in?”

The madame’s lips made an O! “She ain’t, honey. But maybe you’d like t’ make the acquaintance of a cute little redhead. She’s—” The fat woman stopped and squinted at the gold badge Mike was holding in the palm of his hand. Then she giggled. Her jowls shivered with merriment. “You’re a man who can take a joke, aren’t you, Officer? I like a man who can stand for a little kidding once in a while.” She reached down, pulled up her skirts, brought out a wad of bills from its stocking hideout.

Hansard waved a hand. “Once in a while. But not tonight. Which is Lily’s room?”

She put both hands flat on the marble, levered herself erect. “You ain’t gonna get rough, or anything like that, are you?”

“Not unless I have to.” Mike’s smile was still agreeable but his eyes were frosty. “Which room?”

“Front, right.” The stout woman pointed. “Want a key?”

“I don’t want to kick the door down.” He held out his hand. From somewhere in the folds of her dress she produced a flat key. “Just sit right down there again. Act natural. Don’t bother to tip off anybody. Just go right on as if I wasn’t around. Probably in a few minutes I won’t be.”

“I always play ball, Officer. It’s the safest way.”

He went toward the front of the house, used the key. He kicked the door open, stood to one side. The room was pitch-dark, the shades were drawn in the windows looking down onto the street, although through them Mike could see the dull claret glare of the MEATING PLACE sign at regular intervals. There was an odor of musky perfume.

He held his gun in his right hand, felt around for the light switch with his left. An unseen hand gripped his left wrist, jerked him off balance!

Mike wrenched himself free, but not before a two-foot length of lead pipe had smashed down across the back of his neck, half stunning him. He crashed forward, to his knees. A foot stamped savagely on his gun-hand, crunching the knuckles. The shoe, which had come within the detective’s blurred vision, booted the revolver out of his grasp.

The door slammed behind him; light flooded the room from rose-shaded bulbs in the ceiling. Hansard gazed up, groggily. Two men stood over him. One was short and squat. His arms were so long his hands hung almost to his knees. His face was long and narrow. There was a scar twisting down the right corner of his mouth. The left sleeve of his coat had a jagged tear in it. The fabric was soaked with something that looked like port wine.

The other man was tall and slender, with a boy’s pink cheeks and flax-colored hair that waved as if it had been marcelled. He wore a suit of pearl-gray gabardine, a wine-red shirt and an apple-green tie. Neither of the two faces above him had been among the photographs Ed Schmidt had taken from the Bureau of Identification, Hansard decided.

The tall youth spoke languidly. “Don’t waste time giving him the toe, Gorilla. Use the pipe.”

The squat man grunted, swung clumsily with the chunk of lead. Mike did his best to roll away from the blow, but took it on the shoulder. His left arm felt as if it were paralyzed.

“He’s one of them he-guys, Babe,” spat the Gorilla. “Got guts.”

“Never mind his guts, George. I want his brains smeared on the carpet. And make it snappy. He might have a partner hanging around somewhere.”

Mike wished to God he’d had sense enough to lug Ed Schmidt along. Maybe he could summon help, if that fat dame in the hall wasn’t in on the play. He tried to cry out, but the smash on the back of his neck had done something to his vocal cords. He could only whisper.

The Gorilla could still talk all right, though. “Can’t I have a little fun with him, Babe? It ain’t every day—”

“Kill him! Kill him now,” insisted Babe in an ugly high-pitched squeak. “Cave his skull in. Knock his teeth out afterwards, for souvenirs, if you want to. I don’t give a damn. But finish him off, first.”

Gorilla George measured his distance, swung down his arm.

Mike twisted, rolled, stumbled to his feet.

Babe was leveling a gun at him, five feet away. The detective could see the bright blue eyes sighting along the barrel.

There was no time to make a decision. Babe would put a shot through his heart in another split second. And if the slug missed, the Gorilla would be on him and next time that lethal pipe would smash home.

Mike acted almost without thinking. As Babe’s finger tightened on the trigger and the Gorilla’s grunt of rage came close behind him, Hansard leaped.

Through the window...

He took shade, curtain and sash with him. The glass crash was loud enough to smother the crack of Babe’s gun. Mike didn’t feel the impact of a bullet. But at that particular instant he didn’t think it mattered much. One way or another, he was probably checking out. Unless his estimate of distance had been exactly right!

He could hear the warning yells of pedestrians below as he burst out over the sill. It wouldn’t do any good to brace himself, but he couldn’t help it. Something came up, slammed into him with terrific force. He grunted with the shock, but it wasn’t the sidewalk, and it hadn’t knocked him goofy.

He’d guessed right, then. The narrow, flat surface beneath him, that had stopped his fall, was the top of the MEATING PLACE sign. It was directly under Lily’s window.

Women screamed from below. Mike twisted around to look down. There was a vicious stab of agony at his right side. That must be a cracked rib. The pain made him dizzy. He put out a hand to steady himself, knocked aside a length of hot tubing, saw the sign beneath him flicker and dim.

He gritted his teeth, got his knees under him, crawled backward till his heels touched the building.

A traffic cop sprinted across Seventy-second Street, shouting: “Don’t move! Stay right where you are... Keep your head now. I’ll get you!”

Hansard stood up, teetered precariously on the foot-wide top of the sign. He knew the traffic man, hollered: “Never mind me, Allison. Watch below there. Don’t let anybody in or out.”

“Got you, Mike.” The policeman bellowed gruff commands at the gathering crowd.

Mike rested his elbows on the sill above him, muscled himself up. He hadn’t taken all of the windowpane with him. He had to kick some of it out before he could climb back into Lily’s room.

The light was still on, his gun still on the floor, over in the corner where Gorilla George had kicked it. He picked it up.

The fat woman stood in the doorway, dry washing her hands and whining: “I thought you said there wasn’t gonna be any roughhouse?”

Mike ignored it. “Where’d those two punks go?”

“Those men who ran out into the hall just now?”

Mike’s lips tightened. “Don’t stall. Where are they?”

She pointed to the stairs. “They went down. I didn’t know you were after them. I couldn’t have stopped them, anyway.”

“I’ll say you couldn’t. You know ’em!”

“Never saw either of them before tonight, in my life. Honest to God.”

“All right,” he growled. “If you see either of them again, and don’t report it to the precinct, you’ll take a good long vacation at the city’s expense.” He went up to third and top floor, made sure there was no trap to the roof.

Allison yelled up to him: “Mike! Janitor down here says a couple of mugs beat it out back into Seventy-first, through the basement, a minute ago. One was a kind of ape-man with a scar on his face. The other one just a real sweet thing. They the ones?”

“That’s the pair.” Mike came down, described Gorilla George and the Babe in lurid detail. “Phone that dope in to the dispatcher. Tell every man on duty to pick up either one of those lugs on sight.”

“They got guns, Mike?”

“They sure have. And they like to use ’em on a man’s back. They’d have used one on me, right away, except they didn’t want to attract too much attention here in a crowded district. The Babe shot at me, as it was.”

“You look like you been in another fracas, somewhere, Mike. Get chewed up a little?”

Mike put his hand up to his cheek. The cotton and collodion bandage was still there. “Rather be chewed up than boarded up, Allison. I still got my luck. Never mind filing an accident report. But after you finish with that alarm, you might phone Homicide and tell ’em what happened up here. Those punks must have a hangout in town somewhere. They know their way around too well to be strangers. So maybe some stoolie can help us out.”

He went back to Lily’s room, closed the door. There was no doubt this was the blonde’s “place of residence,” even if she didn’t always sleep here. There was another one of those letters in the bureau drawer, in the same handwriting, signed, Mama, but very little else. On the dresser was a pyroxylin toilet set in flamboyant lavender and gilt.

Mike thoughtfully stuck the hairbrush in his pocket, went out and locked the door. He’d never seen a set just like that one. The fact might be worth a little nosing around.

He tossed the room key on the marble table. The fat woman eyed him fearfully.

“Lily won’t be back,” Mike said, curtly. “She’s got a date with an undertaker. Keep everybody out of this room until an officer tells you different.”

Chapter Four Kredit Korner Clue

When he went down and climbed in his car, it hurt him to sit straight behind the wheel. He found he could get by if he twisted sideways a little. That rib would give the sawbones a little something extra to play with when he went to have his cheek dressed.

The part the girl had played in the robbery and killing had been cleared up a little. She had undoubtedly been a pickup, hooked into the crime without knowing what it was all about. Probably they’d given her the one ring as her part of the payoff. But when MacReady had spotted them, been murdered for his alertness, the girl got cold feet and tried to run out.

That still didn’t clear up the main problem. Who was behind this business? Neither the Babe or Gorilla George were more than cheap choppers. They wouldn’t be likely to have planned this whole series of window jobs on their own.

Mike stopped in at a bar opposite the News building and ordered rum — a double Demerara, straight. He felt better directly he’d downed it.

When he got down to Little Maiden Lane, Brundage, the Ames Patrol Service guard, was inside the jewelry store with a small, dapper, apple-cheeked man in pince-nez who wore a Vandyke that looked as if it were made of old manila rope.

He bobbed his head to Hansard, held out a neatly manicured hand and said: “I am Ramon Dumont. You are from headquarters, Lieutenant...?”

“Yeah. Just Detective Hansard. Hello, Amesy.”

“Hello.” Brundage stared. “Judas Priest! They marked you up, didn’t they? I heard about it from the harness bull who took MacReady’s beat.”

“I’m still a hell of a lot better off than Tom. You make out that missing property list, Mr. Dumont?”

“I have it here. The total amount is near seven thousand. But of course the thieves cannot realize any sum such as that.”

“Don’t bet on it,” said Mike. “They might have ways and means.” He put the list in his pocket, took out the hairbrush. “You sell this?”

Dumont examined it. “No. It is not an item we carry.”

The Ames man goggled. “Nobody’d be fat-head enough to risk ten years in the pen for a hunk of junk like that, Hansard.”

“I didn’t think it was stolen, shamus.” The detective tossed the brush on the showcase. “But it belonged to the skirt who was in on the robbery here. Figured maybe she’d bought it down here, used it as an excuse to case the store.”

The little jeweler laid a finger alongside his nose, cocked his head quizzically. “As I say, it is not out of our stock. But it is possible” — he dived under the counter, disappeared from sight — “I might, perhaps, be able to tell you who is the manufacturer.”

“That might help,” Hansard agreed.

Dumont began to paw over illustrated pages in a catalogue.

Brundage said in an undertone: “I phoned a copy of the loot list to our Jersey office.”

“Can’t do any harm,” Mike said wearily. “Won’t do any good, either.”

“That’s what you Centre Street wiseys think.” Brundage was nettled. “The Newark cops just give out with a stolen-car bulletin. Guess what car?”

“Don’t tell me,” Hansard said sarcastically, “it’s that green sedan you saw?”

“Exactly,” retorted Brundage. “And from the way you described that lug with the scar on his puss, I’d say he’s one of the old Newark mob. A rat called Chuck Scanlon.”

“You must be out of practice, Amesy. You’re not calling your shots so good. The crut who put the bump on that blonde is named Gorilla George. I don’t know if he comes from Newark or not, but I’ve good reason to believe he’s still in New York.”

“Well, for Crysake.” Brundage glowered angrily. “How you expect us to be any use on a job like this, if you keep all the info to yourselves?”

“I don’t, fella. I don’t. This is a cop case. A blue’s been knocked off. It’s a personal matter with those of us who knew MacReady, to get the guys who dropped him, Brundage. That lets you out.”

“In a pig’s whinny, it does. I been assigned by my office to follow through on this job. The insurance outfits are beginning to raise hell with Ames. So it’s a personal matter with us, too.”

The jeweler said excitedly: “Here it is. I’ve found it. It is a new design. The manufacturer is the Nik-Nak Novelty Company. They’re up in Attleboro, Massachusetts.”

Mike said briskly: “I hope they don’t go to bed before ten o’clock up in Attleboro.”

He reached for the phone and dialed headquarters. “Eddie,” he said, when he got his partner’s extension, “we might have a lead. Up in the Marsh mouse’s furnished room, I find a very gaudy piece of jewelry. A toilet set. It was made by Nik-Nak Novelty, up in Attleboro. According to their new catalogue, it’s listed as number 27VO and is called Passionelle. Hot stuff, eh? Well, I figure maybe one of the killers might have given it to her. If so, it might help a lot to know where he bought it. Or stole it. Get on to Attleboro. I know it’s late, but get the cops up there to locate somebody who can tell you who bought sets like that, around New York. And hustle, Eddie. Hustle.”

Then he went to work on the loot list.

“Twenty-two solitaires, up to one and a half carats,” he read. “Five bar-pins, mostly mellees. One platinum brooch with two rubies and six mellees. One yellow-gold brooch with a small cabochon emerald and five genuine pearls. One pair of diamond cuff-links, yellow-white stones, gold lovers’-knot setting.” He glanced up curiously at Dumont, who was stroking his beard daintily. “Didn’t look to me like there were that many empty spots in the display.”

The jeweler shrugged. “I do not dress the window myself, naturally. But here is the clerk’s notation for the close of business, last night.” He took a typed sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it on the showcase. “I have crossed off the items which are still in the window. Those which I have not checked are obviously missing. If there has been any mistake it is obviously... ah... simply an oversight.”

“You don’t say.” Hansard stuck the display record in his pocket, along with the list of stolen merchandise. “You want to be a little careful about oversights in a matter like this. Might get someone to wondering if maybe you don’t know more about the robbery than you’re telling.”

Dumont was horrified. “But not at all. The list I gave you is accurate, to the best of my knowledge, I assure you. I cannot permit you to make insinuations...”

Brundage tapped on the showcase with a scowl of importance. “The insurance companies will have to prosecute if you’re making a false claim, Mr. Dumont. I’m warning you.”

“So!” The jeweler hissed, resentfully. “You intend to intimidate me, to induce me to present a less complete list of my losses. Well” — his manila-rope beard stuck out at right angles to his neck — “you will not frighten Ramon Dumont. No. Not one little bit—”

The phone rang sharply. Mike got it.

“I caught the sales manager in his office, working late, Mike. He checked his order book, and the Nik-Nak people sold that particular number to twenty-four jewelers in the metropolitan area.”

“We haven’t got time to fine-tooth twenty-four stores, Ed. Look up their cards.”

“I already done it,” Schmidt announced. “There’s only two of the twenty-four on our blue list.”

“Which two?”

“Salvatore Monterro, down on Nassau Street, and that big outfit up in Harlem. Nathan Kutwik.”

“Ah! Maybe you got something there, Eddie. Grab your hat. I’ll pick you up down front, in five minutes.”

He left Brundage cross-questioning the jeweler, ran his coupe up to headquarters. Schmidt was waiting. “Pile in, pal.”

“Holy cats, Mike. What smacked you?”

“Glass out of Litzman’s window. I want to do a little smacking back.”

“Can’t blame you for that.”

“They laid for me up at the blonde’s hangout, too, Ed. Wanted to put me out of the picture because they weren’t sure how much the blonde had told me before she died.”

“How much did she tell you?”

“Not one damn thing. But I dug the Nik-Nak lead up in her room.”

“It smells like trouble, Mike. Wouldn’t it be an idea to let the Homicide babies do the dirty work up in Harlem?”

“A lousy idea. They’ll be on the Litzman end, anyhow. But this business is right down our alley. We know this Kutwik is a chiseling fence, or he wouldn’t be on the suspected file. Maybe he’s been engineering all of these window-hole jobs.”

“His place’ll probably be closed, this hour.”

“Might. Might be open, too. They do more business in Harlem around midnight than they do in the daytime.”

When they rolled up in front of a dazzling corner in the heart of Harlem Mike got out of the coupe. The luminous sign said — YOUR Kredit Is Good at Kutwik’s Korner.

“You can watch through the window, from here, Eddie. Don’t let anybody climb on my back.” Mike went inside.

There was only one man in the store, a tall, powerfully built individual with expressionless gray eyes and skin the color of tallow. “Something I can do for you, sir?”

“Maybe. I’m a police officer. You’re Nathan Kutwik?”

The big man’s eyes narrowed. “I am.”

“Then you’ll know about a girl who bought a dresser-set here a little while ago.”

Kutwik pulled down the corners of his mouth and rotated his head slowly, from left to right. “I can’t be expected to remember every person—”

“You remember this blonde. Friend of the Babe’s and Gorilla George.”

A pendulum clock on the wall ticked off several seconds before Kutwik answered. “These persons you mention. I can’t seem to recall—”

Hansard shrugged. “Maybe they’re the ones who’re lying, then. They claim to know you, all right.”

“That’s quite possible.” The expressionless eyes stared insolently at Hansard. “I have been here on this corner for several years now.”

“Yeah. We been watching you for several years, too. You shouldn’t have any trouble remembering these lads. They say they been doing business with you for quite some time.”

Kutwik picked up a cocktail shaker made of ruby glass in the shape of a barrel, ringed with silver hoops. “What sort of business?”

“Stones. Their statement says they just left a bunch of stuff with you.” Mike was casual about it. As yet there was no indication his bluff was working. “I’m just waiting for the search warrant to come over from the station.”

The proprietor of the Kredit Korner waved a bloodless hand. “Help yourself. You don’t need a warrant in my store. Go right ahead.”

The plainclothesman played his last card. “If it was only some hot ice we were after, I’d take you up on that. But this is a homicide case, Kutwik.”

“Oh!” The jeweler set down the shaker, softly. “Someone has been killed?”

“The girl I just told you about. And a cop. You know how it is with the commissioner. When a policeman’s been murdered we put on plenty of pressure, but we have to do everything strictly legal, to be sure no pratt of a lawyer can beat a conviction.”

Kutwik took out a silk handkerchief, wiped his mouth. “This killing, now. It was in connection with those diamonds?”

“That’s right. And the party who’s fencing them is going to be charged as an accessory. It’s a chair-job for someone. But of course, if you’re in the clear, it won’t worry you.”

“Suppose” — the big man put both palms on the top of the showcase, bent over until his face was only a foot from Hansard’s — “an honest business man had been deceived about the ownership of certain gems, and was quite unaware of the manner in which they came into the possession of certain parties attempting to sell them—”

“Go ahead. I’m supposing...”

“Do you think the police would take this fact into consideration, my friend?”

Hansard smiled tightly. “They might. If the business man could help us to get a conviction.”

Kutwik sighed. “I give you my word of honor I knew nothing of this killing. Naturally, under such circumstances, I would immediately have turned the stones over to the authorities.”

“I bet you would,” said Hansard, curtly. “Let’s see ’em.”

The jeweler emerged from behind the counter, walked with a curious shambling gait to the door of the Kredit Korner, locked it. Mike grinned to himself. That would give Schmidt something to fret about.

The big man came back, beckoned to Hansard, led the way to a partition at the rear of the store. On the way, the detective gave the once-over to the big steel safe which stood under an electric light out where any passing policeman could make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. Evidently the jeweler didn’t trust his privately purchased goods to its security!

There was a tiny cubbyhole of an office, a big glass-topped desk and a modernistic lamp of varnished wood and copper. Kutwik snapped on the light, sat down in a padded chair.

“Let’s be open and above-board, my friend.”

“Let’s,” Mike agreed.

“Perhaps there is... um... a reward for the arrest of these men you tell me about.”

Mike stared. “Sure. Jewelers Association reward. Twenty-five hundred bucks or so, last time I heard. For evidence leading to conviction. Why?”

“As I understand it, you policemen are not qualified for such a reward, if you capture the criminals?”

“So which?”

Kutwik spread his palms, blandly. “Possibly we could work out some arrangement. You and I, eh? I give you the information; you see to it that I receive the reward. Then we split—”

Hansard shook his head in admiration. “You got your nerve. Putting a program like that up to me. Why, you putty-puss, you’ll be getting all the reward that’s coming to you if you miss getting indicted for complicity in murder. Now cut out the horse and show me the glitter.”

Kutwick sighed, pulled the lamp over in front of him. “You cops are so stupid about money matters. Who will it hurt if you and I split that twenty-five hundred?” There was no answer from the hockshop cop, so the jeweler grasped the base of the lamp in his left hand, twisted the top with his right.

The lamp unscrewed, the top lifted off, and there was a niche in the wooden base about the size of a bird’s nest. There were a lot of shiny eggs in it, round little gold eggs with diamonds in them.

Hansard laid them out on the desk. “All here but one,” he announced. “I got that one in my pocket already.”

“They wanted three thousand dollars for the lot,” Kutwik murmured, resentfully. “Claimed they’d brought it over from Naples and smuggled it in.”

“Don’t give me any of that guff.” Hansard scooped up the jewelry, dumped it in his coat pocket. “You knew where it came from. Probably you bought it, at that.”

“Oh, I deny it, absolutely. I asked for time to make an appraisal.”

“Did, eh? Tell me why a crook should trust you with five or six thousand dollars’ worth of rocks. Unless, of course, they’d done business with you before on the same basis.”

The fence arched his eyebrows, superciliously. “I am a reputable dealer. I wouldn’t be likely to run away.”

“Not unless you could make a dollar by doing it. All right. When were these rats coming back for their cheese?”

“Tomorrow morning, Officer.”

“Didn’t they leave any address, anyplace you could get hold of them?”

Kutwik looked startled. “Why do you ask me? You have them under arrest, haven’t you?”

“I didn’t say so, mug. But I’ll have you in a cell in no time at all, unless you answer my questions.”

The jeweler groaned. “They mentioned a Nevins Street number. Over in Brooklyn 24781, if I remember correctly. But they were most particular that I shouldn’t attempt to contact them.”

Hansard wrote it down. “O.K., mister. I’ll get over there and give a gander. You better close up shop now.”

“I’d intended to.”

“One more thing.” Mike reached for the phone, dialed Spring 7-1000. When he got the switchboard man, he rattled off: “Hansard talking, hockshop squad... I’m up at 9744 Lenox Avenue. Jewelry store. Nathan Kutwik. Got that? The phone is Edgecombe 7-0741. Put a tap on the wire, right away, will you? Want a record kept of all conversations, numbers called, the works.”

He hung up with the operator’s comment still ringing in his ears. “What’s the matter with you, Hansard? You know we got to get a court order before we do any wire-tapping.”

Mike started for the front door.

“Where you live, Kutwik?”

“At the Concourse Savoy. On the Grand Concourse.”

“You better beat it right up there. Stay there till I give you a ring.”

The jeweler unlocked the door. “You won’t double-cross me, Mr. Hansard. After my helping you, this way?”

The detective clucked derisively. “Tchk, tchk. You’re a guy should talk about double-crossing! I’ll promise you nothing except an even break. And you won’t get that if you don’t keep your nose clean from here on in.”

Chapter Five Ten Carats of Lead

He went out, swung briskly past Schmidt, without speaking. After he’d gone halfway down the block, he flailed one arm in a come-on motion without turning around. His partner got it, slid the car up alongside.

“No dice, huh, Mike?”

“Plenty dice. I got the junk in my pocket.”

“Ain’t you going to arrest Kutwik?”

“Not yet, Ed. I’m not sure he’s really working with these choppers. But we’ll find out. You stick here, at this end of the block. I’ll drive around to the other end. We tail him. If he comes your way, I’ll see him and pick you up. If he heads my way, you’re on your own. You better check in with H.Q.”

Hansard dropped his partner, drove on around the block. The lights at the Kredit Korner were just going out as he hit the end of the street. A minute later the jeweler stepped out of the door. He glanced cautiously up and down the block, hurried toward Schmidt’s corner. Mike followed with the car, keeping well behind him.

Kutwik turned down Seventh Avenue. By the time Mike saw Ed Schmidt, the fence was nowhere in sight.

“That yellow,” Schmidt snapped. “Headin’ downtown. That’s him!”

Mike grunted. “He’s taking one hell of a roundabout route to get to the Concourse, isn’t he?”

Through the northwest corner of Central Park, they trailed the taxi to a short crosstown block between Columbus and Broadway. Mike stopped the coupe before the taxi ceased moving. When Kutwik got out of his cab and scanned the street, there was no indication anyone had been trailing him.

The jeweler paid off, hurried into a three-story brownstone house.

Schmidt said: “That’s one of those remodeled joints with a couple of apartments on each floor. How do we know which one he’s in?”

“We don’t, Eddie. You stay here. Collar him if he comes out. If you get rough about it, nobody could blame you. Cuff him to the wheel and then hit the hall. Wait there until you hear a racket, somewhere. That’ll be me. If you don’t hear a rumpus in a couple of minutes, make one yourself and get some help.”

“How’ll you know where to head in, Mike?”

“I’ll have to pull a Peeping Tom act. Up the fire-escape, at the rear. If he’s not in one of the rear flats I’ll go to the roof and come down inside.”

“Don’t climb into some dame’s room by mistake, pal.”

Mike told him to go to hell, got around back past a row of ash cans, using his flash, found the iron ladder leading up past the rear windows.

There were lights on all three floors. The voices on the first floor were female, those on the second an old man and a child.

But when Hansard put his ear to the window on the top floor he heard Kutwik say: “I don’t want any part of it, Babe. I don’t mind running a few legitimate risks. But this hot-squat stuff is too much for me.”

The high-pitched voice of the Babe cut in. “You soft-bellied—! What do you think you can do about it now?”

“All I want is my money back. I’ll give you the stuff. You can get rid of it outside the state.”

The Babe cursed him obscenely. “You got as much chance of getting back that grand as you have of staying in the clear if George or I get picked up, Nate. The junk was worth three thousand, any way you wanted to figure it. You chiseled us down to one and now you want to welsh on that.”

“All right.” Kutwik sounded tired. “Forget the cash. Come up tomorrow and take the junk back. I don’t want it. It’s too hot for me. I’d rather take the loss and throw the stuff down the sewer.”

“Why didn’t you bring it with you tonight, if you’re so damn anxious to get rid of it?”

The jeweler said: “I don’t want to touch it again. Much less carry it around where they could frisk it off me. You come up in the morning and get it. If you don’t, I’ll heave it in the river. I’m telling you.”

Mike squatted on the fire-escape and grinned sourly as he patted the bulge in his pocket where the rings were. The old buzzard was still after that reward, figured that by getting Babe and the Gorilla to return to the Kredit Korner in the morning, he’d square himself with the authorities and be able to claim at least a part of the twenty-five hundred. He wouldn’t miss the thousand bucks he’d paid over to the Babe so much, then.

There was no more talking from within. Somewhere in the apartment a door slammed. Mike got out his jack-knife, went to work on the catch of the window. It was a gamble, busting into a crook’s flat this way. But it would be even more of a gamble if he and Eddie tried to crash the front door. And maybe this rear window wasn’t being watched.

It wasn’t. He slipped the catch with the blade, put his fingers on the pane, pushed up gently. The window came up with no noise. He got out his gun, shoved the shade aside, stepped quietly over the sill. Then he closed the window softly. The Babe might notice a draft from an unaccustomed source.

The room he was in looked like a boudoir. Rose-pink spread on the bed, fluffy drapes at the windows, a dressing-table with a vanity mirror. But no women’s clothes...

He stepped to the door leading into the hall. There was a rattling of ice in a glass, the sound of a syphon. Mike moved out into the hall.

The Babe, in a pair of vivid blue lounging pajamas, was mixing a drink. He was lifting it to his lips when Mike said: “Hang onto it, sweetheart. With both hands. Get both hands on that glass, fast!”

The Babe did as he was told, watching Hansard with sullen eyes.

Mike stepped close to him, jabbed him gently with the muzzle of his pistol. “Turn around, Babe. Up against the wall there.” He got the bracelets out of his hip pocket, clipped one-half of the nickeled cuffs to the killer’s left wrist.

There was a buzz out in the front of the apartment, another and another.

“That will be Georgie the ape-man, huh?”

Mike snapped the other half of the handcuffs around a steam riser in the corner of the kitchen. “You stay here, beautiful. I’ll go let him in. And if you yell or anything like that, I’ll put a dent in that classic nose of yours.”

Hansard went through the hall, past a daintily furnished living-room, to the front door. There was the sound of a key in the lock. Mike didn’t wait. He jerked the door open.

Gorilla George fell into the room, his jaw gaping in astonishment. Hansard had his share of the same feeling. For behind the Gorilla, a look of grim determination on his red face and an automatic clutched in his fist, was Brundage, the Ames patrolman!

Things happened fast. The Gorilla let the momentum of his plunging entrance carry him into a dive for Mike’s knees. Hansard chopped down with the barrel of his revolver, caught the ape-man beside the ear with force enough to crack the skull of an ordinary individual.

But the Gorilla didn’t stop. He got those long arms around Hansard’s knees, threw him heavily.

From the kitchen came a cry. “George. He’s got me cuffed here!” The words spurred the scar-lipped man to a frenzy. Mike shot him once, through the shoulder, but George smashed a clubbed fist to the plainclothesman’s jaw, wrenching his head to one side and sending a spasm of pain through him from the cracked rib.

Then Brundage took two quick steps, put the muzzle of his automatic in the Gorilla’s right ear, pulled the trigger. The body collapsed on top of Hansard.

“Crysake, Brundage,” Mike muttered. “You didn’t have to do that.”

The Ames man blew the smoke out of his pistol barrel. “He’d have killed you, wise guy. He was heading upstairs to do just that, when I ran into him.”

Mike got painfully to his feet. “Didn’t you run into my partner, too? I left him down there, on guard.”

“Sure.” Brundage turned the Gorilla over with his toe. “But he wanted to phone for some more of you John Laws, so I told him to go ahead. Then when I got in the building, I’m trying to find which apartment belongs to this Babe Tyler, who used to buddy around with Dumont, an’ who should come along but this rat? So I bring him up with me.”

“George!” screamed the Babe, from the kitchen. “Where did he hit you, George? If that — got you, I’ll burn his eyes out!”

Mike nodded toward the kitchen. “Georgie’s boy-friend, or something. The one who drilled Tom MacReady.”

Brundage stuck out his jaw belligerently. “I’d like a crack at that punk. I’ll run him over to the precinct house for you. You ain’t in no shape to manhandle him, fella.”

Hansard said: “I’ll be O.K. Bent a rib last time I had an argument with these two. But you can help me with him, unless you’ve got ideas about collecting any part of that Jeweler’s Association reward?”

The Ames man shook his head. “I ain’t eligible. All I’m doin’ is tryin’ to protect my job. That’s why I hammered Dumont until I dragged the Babe’s address outa him. Gimme the cuff-keys. I got a couple of new grips I want to show that scut.”

Hansard took a key from his vest pocket, tossed it to him. “Don’t bang him around too much. Prosecutor’ll give us trouble, if you do.”

Brundage went into the kitchen.

Mike waited until the private patrolman was out of sight, then followed on tiptoe. He peeked around the corner.

Brundage was having trouble with the lock on the handcuffs.

“Hurry up,” whispered the Babe. “And give me a gun.”

“Left-hand pocket,” muttered the Ames representative. “This key don’t fit.”

“Damn right it don’t,” Mike snapped. “You don’t think I was sap enough to fall for that line of horse, do you?”

Brundage snarled, fired. But his aim was spoiled by the Babe, who was desperately trying to tug the extra pistol from Brundage’s pocket.

Mike took his time, steadied himself against the door jamb, shot Brundage in the navel. He had to put another slug in the same place before the private cop sank to the floor and dropped his gun.

The Babe had managed to get the automatic from Brundage’s coat before the Ames man fell. He lifted it, sighted.

Hansard came in fast, knocked the muzzle aside, clipped the Babe once across the teeth with the barrel of his own .38.

The killer moaned and sagged limply against the chain of the handcuffs.

Brundage rolled over on his side. “They’ll get you for this, copper. My people’ll get you.”

“Sure they will, Amesy.” Mike ran water in the sink, put his head under it, said sputteringly: “They’ll get me to accept a medal for turning up a traitor. As well as a guy who’s wanted by the Frisco police.”

“You’re crazy. Ain’t... first time... cop’s gone... gun-crazy.” Brundage put a hand to his belly. Somehow the gesture reminded Mike of Tom MacReady on the operating carriage.

“No.” Mike wiped his face on a dish towel. “I might have been a little dumb. But not wacky. I had sense enough to figure out that the louse behind all these window-hole robberies must be somebody who knew a lot about the kind of stuff in jewelry-store windows and when the Ames men wouldn’t be around and what time the harness bulls would be on a different part of their beats. A guy like Dumont wouldn’t know all those angles. He wouldn’t be able to find out, either. And naturally, a couple of torpedoes like the Gorilla and the Babe here wouldn’t have that information. But you would. And working with Kutwik, you’d gotten away with it for a long time. Using a different mob of killers every so often and knocking them off yourself, when you were through with them, I suppose.”

The Babe whimpered: “George. You shot George?”

“Not me,” Mike said. “I would have, only your boss beat me to the punch.”

The youth in the pajamas reached over, clawed savagely at Brundage’s face. Mike bent down, clipped him.

“Mike! Where are you, Mike?” It was Schmidt’s worried voice, calling from the front door.

“In the kitchen,” Hansard shouted.

Schmidt came running in. “Holy cow!” he breathed as he saw the two men on the floor in the corner. “Good thing I sent for an ambulance, huh?”

“What’d you do that for, Ed?”

“That jeweler, Kutwik. I went away from the car and left that Ames gent to watch him. When I come back, the Ames lad is gone and Kutwik has a hole as big as your thumb, in his chest.”

“I hope he’ll live,” Mike growled, “to testify against this crooked private cop. His name isn’t Brundage, of course. It’s Sexton. But it won’t make much difference. The Babe will go to town on the stand. Brundage, or Sexton, bumped the Babe’s boy-friend.”

“Jeeze, Mike! What a shambles! Which one shot the blonde?”

“The Babe, there. On Brundage’s orders, no doubt. The girl got panicky when Tom was shot and tried to skip. They had to blot her out or the game was up.” He went over to the half-conscious youth, ran his fingers through the marcelled hair. “Know what I was wondering, Eddie?”

“What, Mike?”

“How this baby will look with his head shaved.”