The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Cleve F(ranklin) Adams (1895–1949) was born in Chicago and had a variety of jobs, including copper miner, art director for films, life insurance executive, and detective, all of which helped provide background details for his fiction.

His first work appeared in such pulp magazines as Detective Fiction Weekly and Double Detective, but his major creation was private detective Rex McBride, who appeared in his first novel, Sabotage (1940), and subsequently in And Sudden Death (1940), Decoy (1941), Up Jumped the Devil (1943), The Crooking Finger (1944), as well as the posthumously published Shady Lady (1955). Unlike Philip Marlowe’s ethos of a private detective being the equivalent of a knight, McBride borders on being a fascist, screaming that “an American Gestapo is what we goddamn well need” in a fit of extreme pique, and a racist, with ethnic slurs abounding in McBride’s adventures. It is evident that Adams was neither, as he goes out of his way — oddly, it must be said — to make his own protagonist seem ridiculous and boorish.

Adams published three pseudonymous works as John Spain: Dig Me a Grave (1942), Death Is Like That (1943), and The Evil Star (1944), as well as a collaboration with Robert Leslie Bellem, The Vice Czar Murders (1941), as Franklin Charles.

“The Key” features the Los Angeles cop team of Lieutenant Canavan and Lieutenant Kleinschmidt; it was originally published in the July 1940 issue of Black Mask.

Lieutenant Canavan’s trouble was dames — toward whom he behaved as a sort of cross between Walter Raleigh, Galahad and a bull in a china shop. It was a rare gal indeed who could appreciate his interesting efforts to be helpful when murder was on the loose.

Chapter One Night-Court Galahad

She didn’t look like the sort of girl they usually hauled into Night Court. There was nothing tawdry about her, nor defiant, and Canavan, always on the alert for the unusual, paused on his way up the far aisle for a second look. The courtroom was packed, every seat filled and perhaps fifty or sixty spectators lapping over into the U-shaped aisle surrounding the rail. These last made a sort of human picket fence against the walls. Canavan, trying not to obstruct someone else’s view, found himself wedged between George Kolinski and Terence O’Day.

Kolinski, known around town as Big George, was really big. Taller even than Canavan, and a hundred pounds heavier, he was a jovial, opulent picture of what the rackets could do for the man at the top. Dewey, being three thousand miles away, hadn’t gotten around to him yet.

Terry O’Day ran a daily column in the Meteor called “Night and O’Day.” Night Court was only part of his beat. He was believed to have a speaking acquaintance with every crook, cop and play-boy in the whole city. He wore expensive clothes sloppily, as though he didn’t give a damn what people thought — which he probably didn’t — and his long, horsily waggish face was as apt to be seen in the Biltmore Salon as in Tony the Greek’s Greasy Spoon. His stuff was brilliant and cynical and, on occasion, could tear the heart right out of you. A lock of thinning sandy hair usually straggled out from beneath a hat that was as familiar as the face under it.

Making room for Canavan he whispered: “Hi, flatfoot. You’re a long way from headquarters.”

Canavan nodded. “I had to bring a mug over here to keep his lawyer from finding him.” He looked sidewise at Kolinski. “This time it isn’t one of your boys.”

Kolinski’s fat face mirrored pleased surprise. “Thanks, pal. Thanks too much.” A three-carat diamond twinkled merrily as he laid a pudgy finger alongside his nose. “Glad to know you’re using Jefferson Heights as cold storage again.”

Canavan kept watching the girl. She sat on the prisoners’ bench together with two street-walkers, a giant scarred Negro and a kid in grimy overalls who looked as though he had been hauled off a freight train. An aged Mexican was being questioned by Justice Marie Tarbell. Canavan, on sudden impulse, left his place against the wall and leaned over the rail separating him from the clerk’s table.

Justice Tarbell banged her gavel. “Lieutenant Canavan!”

Straightening, he waved at her. “Yes, ma’am?”

She glared at him. “This is a courtroom, not a thoroughfare. I wish you would remember that!”

The crowd tittered. Canavan, completely unembarrassed, begged the Court’s pardon. He had all he wanted, anyway. His whispered colloquy with the clerk had given him the girl’s name and the charge against her. She was accused of beating a dinner check at the Cathedral. Canavan’s right eye, the one away from Judge Tarbell, drooped a little, and the clerk rearranged the charge slips so that the one concerning Miss Hope Carewe was on the bottom of the batch. Miss Carewe herself, unaware of the interest being taken in her, tried unobtrusively to put another inch between herself and one of the street-walkers. Against that drab back-drop, perhaps because of it, she looked like a million dollars.

Canavan went back up the aisle and into the main lobby of the jail, and from one of the public booths called Luis Renaldo, who ran the Cathedral. “Luis? This is Bill Canavan. You filed a complaint against a gal named Hope Carewe.”

Renaldo’s voice was smooth as silk. “For eight bucks I’d file a complaint against my own grandmother.”

“Maybe your grandmother,” Canavan said. “Not against this gal, unless she wouldn’t let you take it out in trade. Personally, I don’t think she would.”

Renaldo laughed softly. “Such a suspicious nature. So what, Lieutenant?”

“So I want you to call up and kill the charge. I’ll take care of the eight bucks.”

“Meaning she’d prefer you to me?”

Canavan cursed. “Listen, heel, this gal don’t even know I’m alive. But for eight bucks I wouldn’t have her spend the night in a tank full of tramps and worse. You get on the phone and kill that complaint.”

“O.K.” Renaldo sighed. “O.K., copper, but just the same I want the eight bucks. Tonight, not next payday, savvy?”

“You’ll get it!” Canavan snarled. He suddenly felt like a fool. Pronging the receiver with a vicious swipe, he banged out of the booth and went down the tall steps to the street.

It was perhaps fifteen minutes later that the girl came through the swinging doors. Silhouetted against the light from within she seemed taller. She was wearing a street suit of some dark blue material, no topcoat. Beneath the matching hat with the little green feather her hair showed coppery gold, and Canavan guessed her eyes would have gold flecks in them too. The property clerk had given her back her bag.

Canavan stepped out of the shadows, lifting his hat. “Take you someplace, Miss Carewe?”

She descended the steps. Her eyes were, as he had suspected, golden brown. They were also faintly contemptuous. “You’re the man whom the judge reprimanded. Lieutenant Canavan, wasn’t it?”

He admitted this without shame.

She said, still distantly aloof: “Aren’t you presuming a little bit on the badge you carry?”

He had the grace to flush. “Maybe I am, at that.” He put on his hat, turned away. Then, because he was a persistent sort of guy, he again faced her. “Listen, I can’t exactly explain it, but when I saw you there in a place you’d no business to be—” He broke off as the full implication of her question hit him. “Hell’s fire, if you think I make a business of rescuing ladies in distress—”

“Oh, so it was you who rescued me!”

“Well—”

She stood there a moment, considering him. “I can’t quite make up my mind whether to be angry with you or grateful.”

He gave her one of his very best smiles. “Couldn’t you sort of compromise and just be friends? I’m not on the make. It’s just that — well, a night in a Jefferson Heights tank is like the ill wind that blows nobody good. I knew a guy once that had to burn his clothes afterward.”

“I see,” she said. Then with the faintest of shrugs she came down the last step. “I think I shall avail myself of your kind offer. There’s nothing like a police escort when you are thinking thoughts like mine.” Her golden eyes had angry little glints in them. “Who knows? You may keep me from committing murder.”

Canavan thought she was beautiful as hell, but he carefully refrained from saying this. Instead, he opened his car door for her, went around to the other side and climbed in under the wheel.

“Where to, lady?”

“The Hotel Wickersham,” she said.

They rode in silence for a little while.

North Broadway was a magic lane of lights, weighted with the sounds and smells of Little Italy and, later on, with those of the new Chinatown. Canavan, leisurely threading his way through ten-o’clock traffic, watched the girl’s ungloved hands. They were good hands, indicative of character. Presently he said: “Care to tell me about it, Hope?”

At the use of her given name she shot him a swift glance. Then, apparently satisfied, she once more looked straight ahead. “I was to meet a man at the Cathedral, ordering dinner for both of us if he happened to be late.” She shrugged. “He didn’t show up at all and I had less than a dollar in my bag.”

Canavan growled deep in his throat. “Didn’t Renaldo proposition you?”

She shivered. “So you even know about that!”

“I know Luis Renaldo.” Canavan swung the car west on Seventh Street. “Listen, Hope Carewe, I’m not trying to pry into your affairs—”

“Oh, aren’t you?”

“All right,” he said savagely, “then I am! Just the same, there’s something about this business that smells. How come, if you stay at a place like the Wickersham, you haven’t got eight bucks to square a dinner check? Who was the guy you were supposed to meet? Why didn’t you contact him?”

“I couldn’t,” she said, answering the last question first. “I don’t know who he is. As for the money, I left all I had in my room. They say it isn’t there anymore.”

“Who does?”

“The management.”

Canavan took his eyes off the road long enough to stare at her. “You mean you’ve been robbed?”

She nodded. “That’s what I mean. The hotel people seem to think it’s all a figment of my imagination, that I never had any money.”

“Well,” Canavan said decisively, “we will certainly have to look into this.”

He ran the car into the curb before the pretentious portal of the Wickersham. Getting out, the girl dropped her bag and the contents spewed all over the car floor. Canavan scooped up the miscellany and dumped it back in the bag. They entered the lobby.

There were quite a few people around, well-dressed, important-looking people. The Wickersham was that kind of hotel. Hope Carewe crossed directly to the desk. “See here, if there has been anything taken from my room I’m going to hold you responsible.”

The clerk just looked at her. He was a tall, languid young man with the manner of a diplomatic attaché. His words, however, were not exactly diplomatic. “Valuables are supposed to be checked at the desk, Miss Carewe. If, as you claim, there really were any valuables.”

She was outraged. “If I were a man I’d—”

Canavan leaned on the counter. “Look, punk, if the lady says she had some stuff in her room, then she had it.”

The clerk examined him. “You sound like a policeman.”

Canavan reached across and got a handful of coat lapels. “You said it, Lord Fauntleroy. I am a policeman.”

A second man now made his appearance from behind a glass partition. This man was portly, dignified. He pointed a plump pink forefinger at Canavan’s nose. “I take it that you are interested in Miss Carewe?”

Canavan pushed the finger aside. “And if I am?”

“Then perhaps you would like to pay her bill here.”

“Meaning you’re asking her to vacate?”

The portly man’s mouth curved downward. “Exactly. We do not care for guests who have been in jail. Nor can I release her baggage until the account is cleared up.” He coughed. “A matter of some eighteen dollars only. I am sure that—”

The girl’s face was as white as paper. “Lieutenant Canavan, I think—”

“Shut up!” Canavan said. He fished a twenty-dollar bill from a pants pocket. “Change back, Shylock. And the key to Miss Carewe’s room.” He got both. Then, cursing under his breath, he took the girl’s arm and piloted her across acres and acres of carpet to the elevators. “A fine business!”

In the third-floor corridor she faced him. “See here, why are you doing all this for me?”

He glared at her. “What do you think?” He unlocked the door to 327 and they went in. Even to an untrained eye it would have been obvious that the room had been searched. Hope Carewe gave a little cry and ran to the dresser.

Something hard and heavy as an anvil clunked Canavan behind the ear. He went suddenly and definitely bye-bye.

Chapter Two A Couple of Ghouls

Canavan awoke to the realization that he had been tricked, and that there was a guy bending over him who could not possibly be anybody but the house dick. This man was small and neat and as inconspicuous as Mr. Average Citizen. Beyond him was the portly and pompous manager. Canavan propped himself on an elbow. “So who let you in?”

“I just sort of drifted in,” the house dick said. His brown eyes were laughing. “Looks like you’ve been suckered into something, copper. Did the girl hit you?”

Canavan saw then that Hope Carewe was not among those present. Swift anger made him forget the aching lump behind his ear. He pushed himself to his feet. “Listen, what kind of a flophouse are you running around here?”

The manager’s face purpled. “Are you insinuating that any of this is our fault?”

“You’re damned right I am! This room has been prowled. Not only that, but the mugs that did it were still here when we walked in.”

The house dick made disparaging noises. “Then you saw them?”

Canavan suddenly was aware that he was in a swell spot to be ridiculed by every antiadministration newspaper in town. The knowledge did nothing to improve his temper. “Get out of here, both of you! And if you think all the signs about the hotel’s liability will keep you from being sued you’re crazy. I’ll back up the girl’s complaint myself!”

“By the way,” the manager said, “just where is the young lady?” His tone implied that Hope Carewe was not a lady at all.

Canavan controlled himself with an effort. “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind. This is police business now.”

“Monkey business,” the house dick said.

Canavan stabbed him with a hard forefinger. “Let’s have your side of it. What do you know about the girl?”

The house dick shrugged. “She fooled us, all right. She looked like class, and” — he indicated the rifled luggage — “her bags were class. Registered from San Diego. Been here two days.” He spread his hands. “Take it from our angle, Lieutenant. Renaldo, at the Cathedral, calls up and tells us she’s trying to beat a dinner check. She claims there’s money in her room to cover. So we come up and it looks like she’s taken a powder on us, grabbing the best of her stuff and leaving the rest. There is no money.”

Canavan took a deep breath. “The room was like this when you first saw it?”

“That’s right.”

Canavan had no choice but to believe it. The house dick’s theory was plausible enough, when you came to think about it. The girl could have been taking a run-out on her bill. As a matter of fact, her story about meeting an unknown man at the Cathedral was pretty thin. The only thing was, she herself had certainly not been the one who conked Canavan. Still, she could have had an accomplice. But suppose she had? Where was the percentage? Canavan had paid her bill. He had aided her to get out of jail—

Quite suddenly he snapped his fingers. That was it! He had been instrumental in springing her, but instead of being free she found herself saddled with him. So she had just tolled him along till the psychological moment and then — Swift hands rummaged his pockets. His wallet was gone!

The house dick grinned slyly. “So she rolled you too!”

Spots swam before Canavan’s eyes. He had never been so furious in his life. To cover up he made a great business of pawing through the girl’s effects. Silken underwear, stockings, handkerchiefs, everything bore the subtle perfume she used. He kept seeing her golden-brown hair, and her eyes, and her hands, the hands he had thought so indicative of character. He laughed harshly. “She get any phone calls, or make any?”

“There were a couple incoming,” the house dick said. “Besides the one from Renaldo at the Cathedral. I can get you the numbers of any outgoing calls.” He went to the phone.

The pompous manager plucked nervously at his lower lip, eyeing Canavan worriedly now. He was beginning to see that no matter what happened the hotel was due for a certain amount of notoriety. “See here, Lieutenant, we can forget this if you can.” He appraised the girl’s bags. “We might even refund your eighteen dollars.”

“Keep it,” Canavan said nastily. “I’m going to get this dame if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

The house dick replaced the phone. “Only one outgoing. Kester 5-6943. Want me to look it up?”

“No,” Canavan said. He put on his hat, wincing as the sweatband bit into the lump at the back of his head. “No, thanks, I’ll take care of it.” He picked up the phone and called headquarters and filed a general alarm for Miss Hope Carewe. He was surprised to find that he could describe her so minutely, even down to the little feather in her hat.

Lieutenant Roy Kleinschmidt came on the wire. “Listen, we got a complaint from a undertaker. The old man says we should look into it.” Kleinschmidt was Canavan’s working-partner. “This guy was bopped on the head. Says somebody was trying to steal a corpse or something.”

“The hell with that,” Canavan said. “I’m busy trying to locate somebody I can make into a corpse.” He thought a moment. “Look, Roy, send a couple of print men out to the Wickersham, will you? Tell ’em to see the house dick. I want every piece of baggage covered, just in case this dame has been mugged before.”

“Well, sure, but—”

“And get me the address of this phone, will you?” Canavan repeated the number the house dick had given him. Waiting, he tapped his foot impatiently. He’d show her, by God. Kleinschmidt came back. The number was the Saints of Mercy Hospital. “But look, Bill, I still think we should ought to see this — now — undertaker. This Egbert Weems.”

“You see him,” Canavan said. “My regards to all the stiffs.” He hung up, glared at the grinning house dick and the smugly pompous manager, went out and down to his car.

Ten minutes later Canavan walked into the lobby of the Saints of Mercy Hospital. He had cooled off sufficiently to be quite polite, yet strictly official with the nurse at the information desk. She was a red-head, and at another time Canavan might have been interested. Now she was just a white starched uniform among a lot of others. He showed his badge. “We are trying to check on a Miss Hope Carewe, who apparently called your number some time late this afternoon.”

The red-head too, was quite official. “Do you know the reason for her calling us?”

“No,” Canavan said frankly, “I don’t. Perhaps your records—”

“I’ll see.” The red-head went away to confer with someone behind a glassed-in partition. Canavan watched people come and go through the tall doors. On a bench beside the elevators there was a little guy who looked as though he were about to become a father. He was sweating.

Presently the red-head came back. She had a file-card in her hand. “Miss Carewe must have been calling about her brother.” She wrinkled her nose. “Odd, though. His name is given here as Carroll.”

Canavan felt a pleasurable little tingle at the base of his scalp. He was getting warm. “Fine, that’s just fine. I’ll talk to her brother.”

The nurse shook her head. “I’m afraid you can’t do that, Lieutenant.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s dead. He died at two oh five this afternoon.”

Canavan said a very naughty word indeed and snatched the file-card. There it was, as plain as the nose on your face. Edward Carroll, admitted 1:18 p.m., Tuesday the 26th — that would be yesterday — operated on for ruptured gastric ulcers at 11:00 p.m. Died 2:05 p.m. Wednesday.

Canavan drew a deep breath. “O.K. I’ll take a look at him anyway. And his things.”

The red-head giggled. “You evidently didn’t finish reading the card, Lieutenant. His sister paid his bill, his personal effects were released to her, and his body has been taken to a mortuary.”

Canavan turned the file-card over. The mortician’s name seemed somehow vaguely familiar. Then he got it. Egbert Weems was the undertaker Kleinschmidt had been talking about, the one who had been having trouble with his corpses. Canavan left rather hurriedly.

The Weems Mortuary was, even as the neon sign on the lawn stated, a place of beauty, though the chaste Old English rectory effect was slightly spoiled by an inordinate amount of mercury tubing. Under the blue lights even the grass looked faintly magenta. A tall stained-glass window did its best to maintain an air of dignity despite the encroachments of modern advertising. There was a police car at the curb.

Canavan, still breathing a trifle unevenly, as though he might have run all the way from the Saints of Mercy Hospital, got out and went up the walk and punched the night bell. The door was opened by Big George Kolinski, no less.

Canavan’s jaw dropped. “Well, for crying out loud, what are you doing here?”

Big George’s fat face was wreathed in smiles. “Hel-lo, Lieutenant! I see we can always count on the police — eventually.”

Canavan glared at him. “What do you mean by that crack?”

Kolinski moved his well-tailored shoulders. “Mr. Weems reported the incident at least two hours ago. You boys are just beginning to take an interest.”

“And what’s that to you?”

Again that exasperating shrug. “Mr. Weems is one of our clients — the Morticians’ Protective Association, you know.”

“Another of your rackets?”

“A protective association,” Kolinski said. “Naturally when the police department didn’t function, Mr. Weems called us.” The big diamond on his hand twinkled as he laid a fat finger alongside his nose. “Not me directly, you understand. I am merely a director of the association. But when I heard about it — well, the case was so unusual that I went down to headquarters to see why a taxpayer like Mr. Weems wasn’t getting service. Lieutenant Kleinschmidt was just leaving, so I rode out with him.”

Canavan almost choked. “It’s getting so you can’t even die without running into a racket. What do you do if the undertakers don’t pay up — yodel at the funerals?” He pushed past Kolinski as Lieutenant Roy Kleinschmidt came through a door at the end of the short hall.

Kleinschmidt was big and blond and red-faced — a good cop, though without brilliance. He seemed relieved to see Canavan. “Look, Bill, this don’t hardly make sense—” He paused as another man came through the door. “Mr. Weems, this is my — now — partner, Lieutenant Canavan.”

Weems was a smallish, twittery man with a perpetually quivering nose. He had a bandage wrapped around his head. His harried eyes went from Canavan to Big George Kolinski. “I’ve paid my dues. I don’t know why you should do this to me.”

Kolinski’s tremendous bulk seemed to solidify. “Look, punk, I told you before that we didn’t do it. You think I’d be here if—”

“Shut up!” Canavan said sharply. He looked at Kleinschmidt. “You tell it, Roy.”

Kleinschmidt coughed apologetically. “Well, of course, like Big George, here, says—”

“Never mind Kolinski!” Canavan yelled. “What happened? Was it — was it a guy named Edward Carroll?”

Kleinschmidt blinked stupidly. “How did you know that? It wasn’t in the report.”

Canavan could feel Kolinski’s eyes on him, alert, questioning. He suddenly became quite calm. “Skip that for now.” He looked at Egbert Weems. “Maybe you’d better tell me exactly what happened.”

There really was not much to it. Weems was on duty, relieving his regular night man. A couple of guys had walked in and asked to see the body of Edward Carroll. Also his clothes and personal effects. Mr. Weems, becoming suspicious, had objected and been knocked on the head for his pains. Awakening some time later he had found his mortuary something of a mess, what with a couple of corpses dumped from their caskets and everything else topsy-turvy. He could find nothing missing, however, and it was probably this admission which accounted for the lack of hurry on the part of the police. His description of the two men was completely vague. It amounted to one tall man and one shorter man. Was there anything unusual about either? Not that Mr. Weems could remember. “I was naturally quite agitated,” he explained. He breathed noisily and bent a jaundiced eye on Big George Kolinski. “Pure vandalism!”

Kolinski scowled. “Listen, punk, you try blaming this on the Association and you’re liable to really run into something.” He looked at Canavan. “You know who this guy Carroll is? He’s Ed Stengel!”

Canavan took a deep breath. Stengel was, or had been, big-time. The police of half a dozen cities wanted him for twice as many very high-class jobs indeed. Kleinschmidt confirmed Kolinski’s identification. “That’s who, Bill.”

“Let’s have a look at him,” Canavan said.

They all went through the door at the end of the hall, into a room of smells and gleaming porcelain and a table that would have been suggestive even without the sheeted figure on it. A pair of bare feet, toes pointed ceilingward, protruded from beneath the sheet.

Mr. Weems, with that curiously hallowed air peculiar to morticians, uncovered the face, and Canavan stared down at it, trying to find some resemblance to that other face of which he was so conscious, Miss Hope Carewe’s. This Stengel, alias Ed Carroll, had the same golden-brown hair and, in repose, the features had that same indefinable air of breeding. But there was a hardness, even in death, about the mouth and eyes. Of course, the man was older than the girl. Canavan placed him as around thirty-five.

Kleinschmidt said suddenly: “There was a girl made the arrangements with Weems, here! Claimed she was this guy’s sister.” He looked at Canavan with swift suspicion. “That explains it, by golly. Her name was the same as the one you— Hey, so that’s how you knew who he was!” A slow, angry flush suffused his heavy face. “By God, Bill, you been holding out on me!”

Big George Kolinski pounced. “What was her name again, Weemsie? Carewe?” He smacked his thick lips. “That the girl you rescued from Night Court, Canavan?”

Canavan scowled. “What do you mean, I rescued her?”

Kolinski chuckled nastily. “I was there, remember? I happened to see her leaving in your car. And now it turns out that she is the sister, or the moll, of a guy so hot he was burning up.” He rubbed his fat hands in pleasurable anticipation. “This is going to make swell reading in the papers, pal. Unless you can turn her up and offer a damned good reason for playing around with her.” He stabbed a finger at Weems. “Take a good look at this guy. Could he be one of the mugs who knocked you over?”

Weems, startled, blinked his eyes at Canavan. “Well—”

“Don’t say it!” Canavan yelled. “Don’t even think it!” He balled his fists. “Listen, you fat baboon, why the hell would I be chasing a corpse?”

“Somebody is,” Kolinski said significantly. “Or something the corpse had.” He centered his attention on Roy Kleinschmidt. “Look at it this way, Lieutenant. Here we have a man who is notably big-time. Isn’t it conceivable that he might be holding something worth heavy sugar? Obviously the girl knew about it, or suspected. She was in a hell of a hurry to get the body away from the hospital.” He let his eyes slide up and down Canavan’s length. “Then we have a supposedly honest copper practically hijacking the gal out of court. Why do you suppose he would do that?”

Kleinschmidt was still sore. “Where is the girl, Bill?”

“I don’t know, I tell you! Why do you think I called in and had her description put on the air? Would I do that if I knew where she was?”

“You might,” Kleinschmidt said. “You could have faked it to cover up her disappearance.” His fist slid unobtrusively toward the gun in his holster clip. “Maybe you even killed her, Bill.”

Canavan couldn’t believe it at first. It was all too ridiculous. “You damned fool!” He sucked in his breath. “Listen, I happened to be passing through Night Court and I saw this gal. Obviously she didn’t belong there, so I checked with the clerk and found she was charged with beating an eight-buck dinner check. Sure, I squared it! Any guy with half an eye would have done the same thing.”

“Why?” Kleinschmidt said. Kleinschmidt was not a romantic man. “Why would they, Bill?”

Canavan resorted to heavy sarcasm. “Why, because I recognized her, of course. I knew she was Ed Stengel’s sister, and that he had a double fistful of diamonds, so I planned to make her tell me where he was. Only she knocked me out first and got away. Nuts!”

“Maybe she didn’t knock you out, Bill. Maybe you just made it look like she had.” Kleinschmidt was definitely going for his gun now. “I hate to do this, Bill, but—”

Canavan hit him. He might not have done it if he’d stopped to think, but he was too mad to think. His fist connected with the Dutchman’s chin, and even as the big guy went down Canavan snatched out his own gun and waved it at Kolinski and the stupefied Mr. Weems.

“Take it easy, you two lugs. And when Kleinschmidt wakes up tell him I said to use the few brains God gave him.” He backed to the door. “And you, Kolinski, you’d better watch your step. When I get through with this little job I’m going to make it my business to tear your Morticians’ Protective Association wide open.”

He went out to his car. Neither Kolinski nor Mr. Weems made any attempt to stop him.

Chapter Three The Corpse in the Folding Bed

The address given on the hospital card turned out to be one of those mediocre bungalow-courts just off Hollywood Boulevard where anything can happen. Broken-down character actors choose these places for some reason, and extra girls and bartenders and car-hops. There were half a dozen parties going on in as many different units. A man like Ed Carroll, alias Ed Stengel, could have found no better place to remain incognito.

Canavan went along the flagged walk till he came to 1217-A. There were no lights on inside, and he stood there in the shadows a moment, listening to the medley of sounds from adjacent units. Offhand, he couldn’t have told you just what he expected to find here. It was just that the girl was indubitably bound up with the affairs of one Ed Stengel, and Bill Canavan was intent on again meeting Miss Hope Carewe. This place, having been the temporary residence of Ed Carroll, might possibly offer a clue to the girl’s present whereabouts.

He wondered if they really were brother and sister. The name Carroll lent a certain amount of credibility to this. The first syllable of both names was identical. Canavan frowned a little, remembering Big George Kolinski. Was Big George’s interest merely what he had stated? Or was the business of the Morticians’ Protective Association just a blind for a much deeper interest in Ed Carroll, alias Ed Stengel? Canavan was suddenly struck with Kolinski’s own words. Obviously someone was looking for something, and rather seriously too. The search had encompassed not only Hope Carewe’s hotel room, but also the corpse. Conceivably it would extend, or had already extended, to include this second-rate bungalow.

Canavan went up the three shallow steps and tried the door. It opened under his hand, and he went in quietly, closing it behind him before he turned on the lights. It was even as he had expected. The place had been combed thoroughly, and certainly not too carefully. Evidences of hurry were scattered all about. Canavan decided there was not much use in his doing the job all over again. Whatever was being sought for had either been found or was never there at all.

He went to the phone and called headquarters.

“Hey,” the sergeant yelled, “we got a pickup order on you!”

Canavan cursed Kleinschmidt. “That heel!” He took a deep breath. “Listen, Donny, what did the boys find out about that girl?”

It appeared that the boys had found out nothing at all from the hotel room. There had been plenty of fingerprints, but none of these were on record at headquarters. “And anyway,” the sergeant said gloomily, “I don’t know where you got the idea she was hot. We checked with San Diego, where she registered from, and you know what?”

Canavan admitted that he didn’t know what.

“Why, she’s one of the Carewes. Her old man is worth around seventeen million bucks.”

“The hell he is!”

“Well, he is.” Lieutenant Canavan became suddenly conscious that the sergeant was prolonging the conversation unnecessarily. Obviously they were trying to locate Canavan by way of the phone he was using. He banged the receiver down and whirled as there was a creaking noise behind him. The folding-bed, apparently insecurely fastened, swung slowly down from its niche in the wall. Restraining springs allowed it to settle quite gently. There was a man on the bed. He was Luis Renaldo, who ran the Cathedral and to whom Canavan owed the sum of eight dollars. He was so dead that it hurt to look at him. Someone had cut his throat. The job had been done very thoroughly indeed and there was a lot of blood.

Canavan just stood there for a moment, fascinated by the sight. Not that he was morbid, but this happened to be the first dead man he had ever found folded up in a disappearing bed. Also there was the fact that he was more than intimately acquainted with the corpse, that he had spoken with him but an hour or so ago.

He wondered to whom he would now owe the eight dollars.

It was some little time before he attempted to rationalize Renaldo’s being there at all, dead or otherwise. So far as Canavan knew, this latest dead man’s contact with Miss Hope Carewe had been slight. It was beginning to be quite apparent, however, that any contact at all was the same as taking cyanide.

She was absolutely and positively poison.

Look what just a speaking acquaintance had got a guy named William Canavan. He had been conked, and robbed, and was now even a fugitive from his fellow cops. Indeed he was accused of violating the sanctity of the Weems Mortuary and the person of yet another corpse, though at least it seemed agreed by all that Ed Stengel, or Ed Carroll, had not been murdered. He had just died. Of stomach ulcers.

Canavan, remembering suddenly that headquarters had probably traced his phone call, and that a prowl car was due any minute, had just decided that he had better get the hell out of there when the doorbell rang. It sounded loud enough to wake even Luis Renaldo. Canavan considered vanishing by the rear exit, but in case the bell-ringer was a cop he more than likely had his partner posted at the back door, and an attempted escape would make things look even worse than they were. Canavan compromised by folding Luis Renaldo and the bed back into the wall. He then opened the door. The caller was Terence O’Day, he of the horsily waggish face and caustic wit. He looked slightly drunk, but then he usually did. He did not seem surprised at finding Canavan here.

“Hello, handsome,” he said.

Canavan stared. “Well!”

O’Day used his spread hand to push his disreputable hat farther back on his head. “Aren’t you going to invite me in? I’m the Press, you know. The good old Meteor.”

Canavan breathed gustily. “How did you find out about this place?”

O’Day grinned. “Everybody knows about this place, pal. Or almost everybody. And about you too,” he added cheerfully. “You’re getting quite famous, really you are, Bill, going around rescuing damsels in distress, and robbing corpses and one thing and another.”

“I did not!” Canavan yelled.

“Well,” O’Day said, “I’m only repeating what I heard. Kleinschmidt called in and my legman at headquarters passed the facts on to me. It was a simple matter to phone the hospital and get this address. Probably even Kleinschmidt has thought of it by this time.”

Behind Canavan there was a tell-tale creaking. That damn bed was coming down again! Rather desperately he tried to close the door in O’Day’s face, but he wasn’t quick enough. O’Day put his foot against it. “Oh-oh, what have we here?”

Reluctantly Canavan stood aside. “Now look, don’t go getting ideas. It wasn’t me that killed him.”

“Certainly not,” O’Day said. He went over to the bed. “My, my, that prince of heels, Luis Renaldo!” He lifted a quizzical eyebrow at Canavan. “Didn’t you owe him eight bucks?”

Canavan shook with impotent rage. “So you know that too!”

“Of course,” O’Day said equably. His breath smelled of Sen-Sen. “When you escorted the little lady away from the bad, naughty jail I was just curious enough to find out how you did it.”

“Someday,” Canavan snarled, “your curiosity is going to get you a swift sock in the nose!” He mopped sweat from his upper lip, though the night was not cold. “Look, Terry, be a good egg and forget you ever saw me, will you? And let’s get the hell out of here.”

O’Day rocked back and forth on his heels. “Tell me about the little lady, pal. Is it true that she’s Stengel’s sister? Has her old man really got seventeen million dollars? Does she love you, or does she not?”

Canavan lifted a threatening fist. “All right, heel, you’re asking for it!”

Behind him a harsh voice said: “Hold it, Lieutenant!”

Canavan whirled. There was a harness bull in the doorway, and the harness bull was holding his service gun as if he meant business. Out in back, someone was fumbling at the kitchen door. That indicated at least one other cop. The bull in the doorway caught sight of the corpse on the bed and he let out a yell and charged. Terence O’Day stuck out a foot and tripped him. Then, winking owlishly, he jerked a thumb at the open door. Canavan’s lips formed a soundless thanks. He ran out.

From far down the street came the wail of a siren. That would probably be Kleinschmidt, and of all people Canavan did not want to meet the Dutchman. Especially with a murder victim at hand. He headed at top speed down the flagged walk, reached his car and had the righthand door open when two enormous shadows closed in on him. Something that certainly was not a frankfurter rammed him in the right kidney.

“Be nice, copper.”

Canavan was in no humor to be nice. With a sound like a maddened bull he pivoted and swung a devastating left at the nearest face. The face merely slid to one side and the momentum of the blow, missing, carried Canavan into a pair of outspread arms. “Sock him,” the owner of the arms said. The second guy socked. Canavan had already been knocked cold once tonight. This second attack was just too much. Blackness as absolute as the bottom of a coal mine engulfed him.

Chapter Four The Letter

He awoke with a sense of unreality, as does one who has been under an opiate for a long, long time. Blurred objects swam before his eyes, as though seen through layers and layers of gauze, or the opalescent depths of a gray-green sea. Once he had had a tooth extracted, a molar whose roots were wrapped around the jawbone, and the exodontist had given him several successive shots of novocaine. Canavan had passed out, awakening later with almost these same sensations. There was no pain, only the vague discomfort of incipient nausea. Voices were blurred too, and then the sharply insistent fumes of ammonia bit at his nostrils and the fog cleared away.

The guy with the ammonia flask said: “Jeeze, he looks green!” He was a small chunky man with eyes almost as naive as Kleinschmidt’s. Canavan tried to hit him in the mouth but for some reason he couldn’t get his hands up. Later he found that this was because they were tied to the chair he was sitting in.

Beyond this first guy there was a second, also small, though not so chunky. He had sallow skin and a habit of sucking air into his lungs through the right-hand corner of his mouth. Canavan figured him for a reefer smoker, and this conclusion was borne out by the faintly sickening odor of burning weeds which saturated the atmosphere. It smelled like the inside of an incinerator after the gardener leaves.

The room belonged in a decrepit and abandoned farm house. The floor was of well-worn pine, the walls covered with stained and moldy wall-paper, with here and there a cleaner area where once had hung a picture. Aside from Canavan’s chair, a cumbersome Morris, there was only one article of furniture in the room. This was a chipped iron bed with a stained and lumpy mattress. On this unbeautiful couch lay Miss Hope Carewe, wearing only shoes and stockings and a slip. She was not there from choice apparently. There was adhesive on her mouth, and presumably there was more around her wrists and ankles, though Canavan couldn’t be sure of this. Her eyes looked at Canavan with horrified fascination.

In lieu of more authentic names Canavan dubbed his jailers Tubby and Reefer. Tubby smelled of the ammonia bottle. “Jeeze!”

Reefer’s eyes narrowed. “Cut the clowning! You gonna go back and find a phone or will I?”

Tubby licked his lips. “Let’s ask the punk a couple of questions first.” He looked at Canavan. “Where’s the letter?”

“What letter?”

Tubby made a V of his first two fingers and gouged Canavan’s eyes. Canavan essayed a kick, but here again he was thwarted. His legs were also bound to the Morris chair. All he could do was yell, and he did this quite effectively. Nobody seemed to mind. Obviously there was no possibility of a rescuer within earshot. Canavan ceased yelling. “Listen, lice, this is the first I’ve heard about any letter.”

Tubby winked at Reefer. “He says he don’t know about no letter.”

“I heard him,” Reefer said. “You don’t have to translate.” He now addressed Canavan directly for the first time. “Why don’t you make this easy on yourself, copper? You ought to know we can’t afford to let you circulate again, but a good clean slug in the right place is a lot nicer than some of the things we could think up.”

Canavan, strangely enough, was quite calm. He could blow his top over some little inconsequential thing, but in an emergency he took the breaks as they came. “I know what you guys can do to me. The thought turns my stomach.”

Tubby managed to look actually sympathetic. “Then why don’t you spill?”

“Because I can’t, you fool! Believe me, I’d give you all the letters in the Los Angeles post-office if I had them. I’m a cop, not a hero.”

“Sure,” Reefer said, “sure.” He stared meditatively at Miss Hope Carewe on the bed. “Funny, she says she don’t know about any letter either.”

“Maybe there isn’t any,” Canavan said brightly.

Tubby considered this. “Matter of fact, there might not be, at that.” He twirled the cylinder of his gun. “Only if there ain’t we’re all going to a hell of a lot of trouble for nothing.” He looked at Reefer. “We’d better get in touch with the boss.”

“Kolinski?” Canavan said.

Both Reefer and Tubby ignored him. Presently they held a whispered conversation and finally, after flipping a coin, Reefer went out. Somewhere there was the sound of a starting car.

Tubby sat on the edge of the bed beside Hope Carewe, nursing his gun and a cigarette. The utter silence was enough to set your teeth on edge.

After a while Canavan said: “Look, you didn’t mind my yelling. Certainly the girl can’t yell any longer. Why don’t you take that damn tape off her mouth and let her breathe comfortably?”

“Why not?” Tubby said. He reached over and worked a none-too-clean thumbnail under a corner of the adhesive. Then, with a sort of sadistic enjoyment, he ripped the strip free and watched the tears start from her golden-brown eyes. “How you like it, babe?”

“I’d like to carve you into seven hundred small pieces,” she said frankly. She tried to wipe her eyes on a bare shoulder, without much success because her hands were tied behind her. Giving up the attempt presently she regarded Canavan. “I seem to have caused you no end of trouble.”

“And that’s a fact,” he agreed. “For a gal whose father owns seventeen million dollars you do get in the damndest jams.”

Tubby became suddenly alert. “What’s this about seventeen million dollars?”

“Didn’t Kolinski tell you?” Canavan said.

Tubby looked positively sick. “Kolinski! That’s twice you’ve — You mean to tell me Big George is...?” He broke off to leer cunningly at Canavan. “Let’s hear some more about this seventeen million bucks, copper.”

Canavan, feigning a sincerity he did not feel, framed his next words carefully, like an artisan laying bricks. “It’s no skin off my nose, monkey, but I hate to see even a punk like you suckered into anything. How much are you and your side-kick getting paid for all this?”

Tubby’s pale eyes shifted. “A grand.”

“There you are!” Canavan said triumphantly. “The boss gives you a cock-and-bull story about looking for a letter. Because why? Because if he told you this was a snatch job involving millions you’d want more dough!” He snorted. “Here you are, risking the G-heat and worse, and all for a lousy thousand bucks.”

Tubby brooded on this for a moment. Then, muttering obscenities, he stood up. “Thanks, copper. Thanks too much.” He went out, banging the door behind him.

Hope looked at Canavan. “You didn’t believe a word of that.”

“No,” Canavan admitted.

He considered the possibility of escape, but there seemed little chance for it. His hands weren’t even tied together. They were bound at the wrists, each to one of the rear legs of the Morris chair, and his arms were practically numb from being bowed over the broad arms of the chair. “No, I didn’t believe it, but when in doubt it’s always a good idea to get the other team fighting among themselves.”

“You’re a smart man, Canavan.”

He made a bitter mouth. “Yeah, that’s why I’m here.” He glared at her. “Look, babe, I don’t know how long this respite will last, but it would please me if I knew a little more than I do now. Is this Ed Carroll, this Ed Stengel, really your brother?”

A slow flush crept up around her eyes. “Yes, Canavan. His real name, as you may have guessed, is, or was, Edward Carewe.”

“But when the cops checked back on you they found no record of a brother!”

“They will,” she said, “if they check back far enough.” She rolled a little on the bed to ease her cramped muscles. “Edward got into trouble when he was just a boy. He kept on getting into trouble. My father is a proud man. Finally he just erased Edward from the family album, and we didn’t even speak of him any more.”

“How old were you then?”

“Fifteen. Edward was eighteen.”

“But you kept in touch with him?”

“I heard from him occasionally,” she admitted. “Indirectly. I didn’t know he was the much-wanted Ed Stengel. And then, on a shopping trip to Los Angeles, I ran into him. He was ill, and he told me he was going to the hospital for an operation.” She caught her breath. “You know what happened after that.”

“Damned if I do,” Canavan said. “I know he died, but beyond that—”

“He was broke,” Hope Carewe said. “I didn’t have a great deal of money either, and I couldn’t make up my mind to wire my father. Finally I decided to get him to an undertaker’s at least.”

“But he said nothing to you of a letter? What about his personal effects?”

“I got those,” she said dully. “There was nothing. Some keys, the usual stuff a man carries in his pockets, a bag with a change of linen. Then, early in the evening, I had a phone call — the one asking me to go to the Cathedral. The man said I would learn something to my advantage — something to do with Edward. So thinking that possibly there might have been some money after all—”

Canavan took a deep breath. “So you ended up in Night Court!” He laughed a little wildly. “My God, that must have been a blow to somebody!”

She stared at him. He said: “Look, from what has happened since then it’s perfectly obvious that the dinner date was just to get you out of your room while it was searched. But whatever it is they’re looking for wasn’t found. So they came after you and discovered you’d been pinched. After that — well, we’ve all been going around and around.”

“And for what?”

“A letter,” he said. He was quite sure by this time that there was a letter. “A lousy piece of paper that is dangerous as hell to somebody.” His mind went back over the trail.

Big George Kolinski had been in Night Court. He, or his punks, could have trailed Canavan and the girl back to her hotel. Later he had turned up at the Weems Mortuary. All of these things together couldn’t be called mere coincidence. First the girl had been caught, then Canavan, because it was thought that if Hope Carewe didn’t have the letter, Canavan might. The murder of Luis Renaldo was a little more obscure, though it was possible that he too had scented something important in the furor created over the girl. It would not have been hard to trace back to the bungalow-court address of Ed Stengel. The record was there for all to see, and certainly the police department itself had made no attempt at secrecy.

Canavan stiffened at a sudden thought. Renaldo’s killing was merely a protective measure. He had recognized, and been recognized by, someone else in that unit at the bungalow-court. So he had got his throat slit. Canavan said a very naughty word indeed. “Have you seen anyone else in this case but the two punks, Hope?”

Hope shook her head. “They were the ones who were in my room at the hotel.” She added with a measure of pride: “It took both of them to handle me too. I fought like a wildcat and before we were through I’d lost all the buttons that kept my clothes on. One of them put his coat around me and they carted me off just as I am.”

“Look, hon, these monkeys aren’t going to stay away forever. Think you can hop, wiggle or roll over to me?”

At another time her efforts would have been ludicrous. Now they were just painful as hell. The sweat stood out on Canavan’s brow as though he himself were going through all those contortions. Her wrists were strapped behind her and her ankles bound together. Every time she would attain her feet she would fall down again. It was heart-breaking. But finally, after what seemed like hours, she reached Canavan’s side, stood up, teetered drunkenly a moment and fell across the arms of his chair. He attacked the adhesive on her wrists with his strong white teeth. Presently she was free and was busy freeing him.

He stood up, flexing his cramped muscles. Outside and below, as if this room might be on the second floor, there was the muted roar of a car motor and the creak of protesting springs. Probably Reefer coming back, Canavan thought. The single lamp at the end of a cobwebbed drop-cord glowed yellowly. Naturally Canavan’s gun was gone. He had expected that. But at least he was free, and for this he was properly grateful.

Two pairs of feet climbed the stairs beyond the door, and there was a whispered colloquy. Canavan motioned Hope to a spot behind the bed. Then, for want of a better weapon, he caught up the leather cushion from the Morris chair and waited, one hand on the snap-switch of the light-socket. It was odd that in that moment he should see humor in one old leather pillow against a couple of guns, but he did. He was actually grinning when Tubby opened the door.

There was just the fraction of a second that Tubby, paralyzed by surprise, forgot the gun in his hand. Canavan hurled the cushion and followed it with a plunging dive for the chunky man’s knees. He didn’t know that he was carrying the light bulb and the drop-cord with him until he hit. The bulb banged loudly, then a gun, and Tubby came down like a ton of lead on Canavan’s back. Another gun banged, two or three times, and Tubby quit kicking suddenly. Canavan crawled out from under in time to see Reefer, backing away from what he had done to Tubby, lift his gun with a shaking hand.

“Stand still, you!” Canavan said, just as though he had a cannon in each fist. He was propped on his spread hands, with Tubby’s body weighting his legs, as defenseless as a man could possibly be. But Reefer, who had just killed his own partner, was in no condition for careful analysis. He kept on backing away, nerveless fist trying to steady a shaking gun, and quite suddenly there was no floor under his feet. He went down the stairs, end over end, and the gun banged just once. Reefer only screamed once too; then there was a sound like a snapping stick, and silence.

Inside the room, Hope Carewe whimpered like a thoroughly frightened child.

Canavan got to his feet and examined Tubby. Reefer couldn’t have done a more thorough job on purpose. All three slugs had entered Tubby’s heart from the back. Cursing a little, Canavan went down the stairs. He felt no pride of accomplishment in finding that Reefer had suffered a broken neck. That was Reefer’s own doing, not Canavan’s. Swiftly he searched the hood’s pockets, without result. Nor was he any more successful with Tubby. There was not a thing on either of the men to finger their employer.

Canavan stood up presently and draped his topcoat around the shivering girl.

“Come on, hon,” he said. “Let’s go bye-bye now.”

She nodded a wordless acquiescence. They went down the stairs and out to a weed-grown yard. The car was Canavan’s own.

Chapter Five The Key

Canavan stood for a moment, considering the car and its implications. There was no other car in sight; consequently Reefer had used it a little while ago when he had gone out to find a telephone. Just as obviously, then, it was the one in which they had brought Canavan away from the Hollywood bungalow-court. With a little tightening of the lips he remembered the exact scene. Then, putting the girl in the car, he recalled something else, a ridiculous, everyday happening that was so common it had been forgotten in the press of events. “Look, hon, when you got out of the car in front of your hotel you dropped your bag, remember? You happen to mention that to anybody?”

She stared at him. “Why, no!”

He flicked on the dashlight and searched the floor. At the moment he couldn’t have told her what he was looking for. It was just a hazy idea that in scooping up the bag’s contents he might have missed something. Presently he slid the floor mat out from beneath the seat and a tiny object, bright and shiny, lay there winking up at him. It was a key — perhaps the key to the whole frantic chase. He held it up. “Yours?”

She shook her head. “It could be one of the three or four that Edward had. What is it?”

“Safety deposit box,” he said shortly. “Only trouble is, we don’t know which one. There isn’t anything on the key but a number. It’ll take hours, maybe days, to check up on it.” He put the key in the fob pocket of his pants, looked at the gun he had taken from Tubby, finally put that in his pocket and climbed in.

Canavan started the motor and they bumped out over a rutted road to the main artery. Hope Carewe said: “Bill?”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t it possible that whoever is behind all this will come out here?”

His mouth made a thin hard line. “Meaning we should stay here and wait?” He shook his head. “I’m not much good at waiting. Besides, we’ll stop in Arcadia and send a couple of troopers back.”

After a while he pulled up at an all-night café where a couple of white motorcycles bore evidence of the presence of coppers. He went in and used the telephone. Then, in passing, he mentioned almost casually that he thought he had heard shots over by one of the abandoned rock crushers. The cops made a hurried exit.

It was almost one o’clock when he parked beside the Club del Rey. “I want you to stick close to me, Hope. Close and a little behind. I wouldn’t take you at all, only I’m afraid to leave you alone.”

“Isn’t this a job for the police?”

“I am the police,” Canavan said. “Not that you’d think it, the way I’ve been pushed around tonight.” He pushed in through double glass doors with the girl. On the right, through an arch, was the bar, and on either side of the main salon broad stairs climbed by gradual stages to the mezzanine.

The lights were romantically dim. Canavan, ignoring a beckoning headwaiter, pretended he had business in the men’s lounge and went past the private dining-rooms to a blank white door. He was about to knock when the door opened suddenly and he was face to face with Big George Kolinski. “Hello, George,” he said. His fist was wrapped around the gun in his pocket, but his face gave no sign that he was on edge.

Kolinski’s eyes opened wide, sighting the girl behind Canavan. Then, ponderously polite, he stood aside. “Why, hello, Lieutenant! Come right in.”

Canavan went in sidewise, watchfully. He was not too surprised when a weasel-faced man in a snap-brim and midnight-blue Chesterfield stepped from behind the door. “Hello, Maury.” Maury’s right hand was buried in the side pocket of the Chesterfield.

He didn’t say anything.

Kolinski closed the door behind Hope Carewe. “Well— Miss Carewe, isn’t it?”

Hope admitted this. She was having trouble keeping behind Canavan and still avoiding Kolinski and Maury. Kolinski finally solved the problem himself by going over to his desk. He looked at Canavan out of sleepy-lidded eyes. “I take it you’re not here alone?”

“Kleinschmidt ought to be along shortly,” Canavan said. “He’ll probably bring a platoon with him.”

“I see.” Kolinski did not seem worried. The big red-leather swivel chair creaked under his weight. “You must have fixed up a pretty good story, cop.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Canavan said. He watched Maury from the corner of his eye.

Kolinski sucked at his fat lips. “We feel pretty bad about Luis Renaldo, Canavan. Matter of fact, Maury is Renaldo’s cousin. You think we ought to do something about it, Maury?”

Maury said: “It’s a thought.” The hand in the pocket of the Chesterfield began to shake.

Canavan said: “Here’s another thought, Maury. Maybe it was Big George who killed Renaldo.”

Maury was poised on the balls of his feet. “Don’t be silly, copper. Renaldo worked for Big George. Kolinski owns nine-tenths of the Cathedral.”

Canavan nodded as though he had half expected this. “In that case neither of you would be interested in what’s in Ed Stengel’s safety deposit box.” He took out the key and tossed it on the desk. “Or would you?”

The hall door opened and Terence O’Day stood there. He had a gun in each fist and he breathed as though he had been running.

“I’ll take that, pal. Don’t anybody move,” he said.

Canavan shot from his jacket pocket, twice.

It was probably only accident he got O’Day in the legs. The tall thin man went down, arms flailing, both guns making a hell of a racket, and then Maury, risking half a dozen slugs, went over and kicked him in the chin. Lieutenant Kleinschmidt barged in on the crest of the ear-splitting silence which followed. “Hell’s fire, Bill, I didn’t know things would move so fast!”

Canavan looked slightly sick at his stomach. “No,” he said. “No, you wouldn’t.” He bent and picked up Terence O’Day and carried him over to the divan. The columnist’s eyes fluttered open. His horse face was not waggish anymore, only very tired and disillusioned. His hat had fallen off and the lock of untidy sandy hair straggled down over his forehead.

“Sorry, Bill.”

Canavan felt like hell. “I’m sorry too, Terry. It’s just one of those things, I guess.” His mouth drooped. “You couldn’t have done anything with the key anyway. Not even the department could have. It’ll take a long search, and court orders and a lot of red tape to find that box and get it open. And—”

Big George Kolinski bellowed, “Shut that damned door!” and came out of his chair like a lumbering elephant. “You, Canavan, what’s this all about?”

Canavan shrugged tiredly. “By me, George. We’ll have to wait till we find the box — unless Terry wants to talk.” He looked down at O’Day’s legs. “Maybe you’d better, keed.”

O’Day was game. He asked for a cigarette and, getting it, propped himself on an elbow.

“First, tell me how you knew, Bill. You must have known. You were expecting me.”

“Sort of,” Canavan admitted. “I wasn’t sure. Nobody could have been sure without knowing what you or somebody else was after. Matter of fact, I’d built up a pretty good circumstantial case against Kolinski. That’s why I held the party here. I had to get his reactions first.”

Kolinski grunted. Canavan looked at him. “All right, you were in Night Court. Also, you were at the Weems Mortuary, and you are in a position to tap the police department for information, and hire any number of hoods. Also, with a finger in every pie you were the most likely guy to be in contact with a man like Ed Stengel. It didn’t occur to me till later that a lot of these counts against you could likewise apply to Terry O’Day.

“He too was in Night Court. He too knew plenty of hoods and had an in with the cops. As a newsman he could have known even before you that Stengel, or Ed Carroll, had died in the hospital.” Canavan took a breath. “But hell, I had no more reason to suspect him than you. Obviously Stengel had something of value, or inimical to the best interests of someone else. Because the girl had been in contact with him, and I with her, it was logical to cop us both off. Luis Renaldo just happened to be a chiseler who smelled something and started investigating on his own hook. He ran into a knife.

“Well, it was thinking back to this spot that finally brought Terence O’Day into it. He arrived at Stengel’s place just a couple of minutes ahead of the cops. At the time, it looked as though he had helped me to escape. But later on it began to appear that he might have done this, knowing I would run smack into the arms of his two hoods.”

Canavan stared down at O’Day.

“It was really the car that did it. When I got outside there were only three at the curb — yours, mine, and the cops’. The hoods used mine. Why? Because they had to leave yours and couldn’t start the prowl car. But the point I got to thinking about was how did the hoods get there in the first place? Certainly not in my car, or with the cops, and probably not in a taxi, because they were expecting trouble. That left only your car, and that meant that you knew them.”

O’Day exhaled a great cloud of smoke. “What happened to the hoods, Bill?”

Canavan almost told him. Then he decided that this was one more point he could use to sew up the case. “I got one of them cold. They’re sweating Reefer now, and he’s sore at you because I told him this was a million-dollar snatch and he was getting paid in pennies.”

O’Day closed his eyes and a spasm of pain twisted his mouth. “That was smart, Bill. I always said you were smart, remember?” He wiped the back of a hand across his lips. “So you called Kleinschmidt and had him drop a hint to me that you might be at Kolinski’s. He was to follow me if I fell for it.”

Canavan shrugged irritably. “It was a show-down. My only hope was to—” He broke off, coloring. “I mean, aside from cracking Reefer—”

O’Day grinned. “So you killed them both! In other words, your only hope was to trap me into some kind of admission.”

“I’ve still got the key,” Canavan said.

“But you might not have had,” O’Day said. “I figured I’d beat the cops here and clean up.” He looked at a hand reddened with blood from his legs. “Well, nuts to it. I may as well give you the works. Stengel and I did a job together when we were just kids.” His eyes crinkled in remembrance. “He was a smart guy too, Bill. He made me sign a joint confession. Oddly enough we became friends after that, but there was always that thing between us. After a while I decided to go straight. Ed kept on hitting the high spots.” He smiled tiredly. “Funny, after all the chances he took that he should just die — of stomach ulcers.” He looked faintly embarrassed as Hope uttered a little cry. “Sorry, sister.”

Kleinschmidt snorted. “Sorry! What about Luis Renaldo? You sorry about him too?”

O’Day looked him straight in the eye. “Not a damned bit, copper. The guy caught me prowling Stengel’s place and tried a squeeze play. He got what all chiselers ought to get.”

There was a lot of noise out in the hall now. Apparently Kleinschmidt’s platoon had really arrived. Maury and Big George Kolinski were in a close-mouthed huddle. Kolinski evidently trying to dissuade Maury from committing a neat job of murder.

Kleinschmidt glared at Canavan. “I’m not through with you, Bill. You knocked me cold in front of strangers.”

“And I’m not through with Kolinski!” Canavan yelled. “I’m seeing what makes the Morticians’ Protective Association tick. But for tonight—”

Miss Hope Carewe touched his arm. “Yes, Bill? For tonight — what?”

He put a big hand under her chin. “For tonight, hon, or at least for the rest of it, I’m going to try forgetting that your old man has got seventeen million dollars.”

Miss Carewe said she would like to forget it too.