The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Hugh B(arnett) Cave (1910–2004) was born in Chester, England, but his family moved to Boston when World War I broke out. He attended Boston University for a short time, taking a job at a vanity publishing house before becoming a full-time writer at the age of twenty. At nineteen, he had sold his first short stories, “Island Ordeal” and “The Pool of Death,” and went on to produce more than a thousand stories, mostly for the pulps (at one point, in the 1930s, his work appeared in more than fifty different magazines in a single year) but also with more than three hundred sales to national “slick” magazines such as Colliers, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, and The Saturday Evening Post. Although he wrote in virtually every genre, he is remembered most for his horror, supernatural, and science fiction. In addition to the numerous stories, he wrote forty novels, juveniles, and several volumes of nonfiction, including an authoritative study of voodoo. His best-selling novel, Long Were the Nights (1943), drew on his extensive reportage of World War II in the Pacific and featured the adventures of PT boats and those who captained them at Guadalcanal. He also wrote several nonfiction books chronicling World War II in the Pacific theater.

Cave was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Living Legend Award from the International Horror Guild, the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association, and the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award.

“Smoke in Your Eyes” was published in the December 1938 issue.

The girl in a red cape pursues trouble and stumbles onto a plot where life means little.

John Smith gazed with exaggerated tolerance at his fair companion. Of course it was not difficult to exercise patience with a young lady so scandalously lovely. He was, in fact, used to it.

“Ever so many men, Angel,” he declared, “smoke long black cigarettes. Even I do at times.”

“The heat, Mr. Edgerson, has made you lazy. Otherwise you’d jump at a thing like this.”

Smith’s other name was Philip Edgerson. He hated it because it brought to mind too many memories of birthdays, Christmases and people sick in bed. He was head of a greeting card company. Now he put down his cocktail and leaned back.

They were dining in Polinoff’s, and it had not been a good idea. Polinoff’s on an August afternoon was far too hot, too stuffy, for the enjoyment of pig knuckles and spiced red cabbage.

“I’m thinking of abandoning Trouble, Incorporated, Angel.”

“Said he, lying,” she retorted.

“No, I mean it. Look, I’ve paid rent on that ninth-floor cell for eleven months now, and not a customer. Not a single client. A man’s hobby, as I see it, should be more productive than that.”

“It has been,” Angelina said simply.

“Not financially.”

“Mr. Philip Edgerson,” she said, “makes quite enough money to support the hobby of John Smith. It’s the heat, that’s all.”

“I suppose it is.”

He reached out then and picked up the letter she had read to him. It was a neat little thing, written delicately in green ink on ten-cent-store paper which bore the gilt initials M.A.B. It read:

John Smith, president of Trouble, Inc., carefully folded the letter and passed it back. “Do you get many like that, Miss Kaye?”

She frowned at him. Her name was not Katherine Kaye any more than his was John Smith. Her name, when she was not opening letters from love-sick wives at her desk in the Star office, was Angelina Copeland. Angel to her friends.

“You think it’s a rib, Philip?”

“As phony, Angel, as some of the sentiments I’m guilty of perpetrating.”

“I don’t. I think it’s on the level. I’m going out there. After all, Philip, you’ve bored me to death for months about that fool professor who smoked black cigarettes and here we have a guy who—”

“You know the address?”

She took from her purse an envelope which matched the letter. “Spencer Street, 154. You could drive me out there,” she said. “Otherwise I’ll have to go by trolley.”

Edgerson heaved an elaborate sigh. It was a hot, sticky afternoon. From nine to twelve he had faithfully perspired through his duties as president of the Edgerson Greeting Card Company, watching the clock and looking forward to a long, cool drive into the country with Angel, a dip in some shady lake, dinner and dancing at some quiet roadhouse far from the city’s heat.

Now he was to be John Smith again. It was inevitable.

He disliked this silly Margaret Arnold Burdick intensely. He resented the fact that she had found it necessary to mention a large foreign person who incessantly smoked long black cigarettes. Because, after all, the thing was ridiculous. Dubitsky was dead. Dubitsky had been dead for at least four months. The Dubitsky whose strange death had intrigued him was gone forever. Margaret Burdick’s foreigner would turn out to be a wrestler or a man selling carpets. Or a myth.

“I’ll drive you,” he said sourly, “but you’ll regret it. Mark my words, Angel, you’ll regret it.”

At least half a dozen times since the birth of Trouble, Inc., Edgerson had been on the verge of closing the tiny office in the Mason Building and chucking the whole thing to the dogs. On each and every one of those occasions, Angelina had popped up with something “hot.” It was she, not he, who kept his hobby, Trouble, Inc., going. He half suspected that the Trouble idea had been hers in the first place anyway.

When they reached Spencer Street on the outskirts of town, and found the house, he was relentlessly gleeful. He pointed to the sign in the window and said: “You see? I told you so.”

The sign said, “For Rent.”

Angel frowned at it. The frown was most becoming to her beauty. Edgerson gently patted her shoulders. “We still have time for the ride into the country, the swim, the—”

“Apply at 27 Brook Street,” Angel said.

“What?”

“That’s what it says. ‘For rent. Apply 27 Brook.’ That’s the next street over, Philip.”

He said nothing, merely groaned and put the car in gear. Angel was silent, too, until he stopped the machine in front of a small brown cottage on Brook Street. “The trouble with you, Mr. Smith,” she said then, sweetly, “is that you give up too easily.”

He followed her up the walk, between beds of marigolds. She rang the bell. In a moment the door was opened by a plump female in a flowered apron.

“How do you do?” Angel said in her nicest Sunday voice. “I’m Mrs. Smith. This is my husband.”

The woman said, “How do you do?” wonderingly, and glanced at Edgerson and stared at Angel. Women usually stared at Angel. And envied her her slimness, her remarkable blond hair and her more than pretty face.

“We noticed a house over on Spencer Street, for rent,” Angel said.

“Oh, yes.”

“Is it occupied at present?”

“No.” The woman shook her head. “We had a nice young couple living there, but they’ve moved out.”

Edgerson, recovering from his shock at so casually being called “my husband,” smiled slyly. He was John Smith now, and John Smith was at times a pretty fair detective. Angel, fishing for information about the nice young couple on Spencer Street, was going to encounter difficulties. The plump lady in the flowered apron was obviously not a talker.

“We’ve looked so long for a house,” Angel said, “that I really don’t know what I want. You know how it is, I’m sure. You go from one place to another and simply get all worn out.”

The woman nodded sympathetically. There were chairs on the porch and she moved toward them. “Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Smith?”

“Thank you,” Angel breathed. “Thank you so much!”

“It’s really a very nice house,” the woman said. “My husband and I built it ourselves and lived in it four years. Then last year Mr. and Mrs. Burdick, the nice young couple I mentioned to you, moved in.”

Angel looked thoughtfully at the tips of her fingers. “They didn’t stay very long, did they?”

“No, they didn’t. It wasn’t because of the house, though. Mr. Burdick worked for the Glickman Company and lost his job. He had to go to another city to find work.”

“Oh,” Angel said. “That’s too bad. And they’d only been married a year?”

“Only a year.”

Angel widened her large brown eyes and looked soulfully at Edgerson. “You know, dear,” she said, sadly shaking her head, “when you hear of the misfortunes that beset other married people, it makes you realize how terribly fortunate we’ve been.” She turned the soulful eyes on the woman again. “Married only a year, and so in love with each other! I just know they were!”

“Well,” the woman said dubiously, “well, yes, I guess they were.”

“And are they coming back some day? To visit you?”

“Well, I don’t know. Theodore, that’s Mr. Burdick, said they were moving to some place near Boston. Margaret went last Wednesday to put things in order, and he went Saturday, with the furniture truck. They may come back, but of course I couldn’t hold the house for them. Now if you’d like to look at it, Mrs. Smith...”

But Angel was looking at her “husband” again. “You know, darling, perhaps Mrs. — er—”

She glanced helplessly at the woman who said, “My name is Crandall.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Crandall could recommend someone to move our furniture. Those last people we had were simply unbearable. I’ll just never forgive them for ruining our twin beds.”

Edgerson gulped.

“Could you recommend someone, Mrs. Crandall?” Angel cooed.

“Well, we like the Hartley people ourselves. If you’re just moving a short distance, that is. The Burdicks used the McCullen Warehouse people.”

“You saved her a lot of trouble,” Edgerson thought. “She was going to ask you that in a minute. Twin beds! Of all things, twin beds!”

Angel stood up. “Would you like to look at the house now, dear, or come back tomorrow? It’s quite late, and we did promise to meet the Burrs.”

“Tomorrow,” Edgerson said.

“Will that be all right with you, Mrs. Crandall?”

“Well, yes,” Mrs. Crandall agreed.

“Then we’ll see you tomorrow...Come, darling. I really think we’ve accomplished something!”

In the car, Edgerson drew a slow deep breath and said, “You little hellion!”

She grinned. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“It worked, but I’ve a mind to put you across those mythical twin beds and spank you.”

Gnomes and pixies would have danced to her laughter. But then she was suddenly sober.

“This thing sounds ugly to me, Philip.”

“Why?”

“First, that letter. I received it Wednesday, the day she left. She must have written and mailed it Tuesday. Then, more important, why the sudden departure? If she’d known that they were leaving the city, she wouldn’t have written the letter at all. I never answer letters personally. When people write to my lovelorn column they expect to see the replies in print.”

Edgerson, silent for a moment, said, “Would it be all right with you, Angel, if I did a little detecting myself for a change? After all, I’m president of Trouble, Inc.”

“You’re not a very ambitious president.”

“I might surprise you.” He turned the car onto a main street. “The McCullen Warehouse is on Canal Street, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Why?”

“We’re going there. Between your nutty curiosity and my interest in any guy who smokes black cigs like Dubitsky did...I’ll never believe that guy’s really dead.”

It was a huge red-brick building growing out of the damp, sticky smells of the waterfront. Smith went in alone and was gone a half-hour. Returning, he had a triumphant smirk on his angular face.

“They didn’t move out of town,” he said. “Their furniture is in storage, most of it. A studio couch, two easy chairs, a table and a large double bed — not twin beds, Angel — were trucked over to this address as soon as the van reached the warehouse.” He passed her a slip of paper.

She peered at it. “Gayland Avenue. That’s an apartment house district. Very snooty.”

“You know,” Smith said, putting the car in gear, “this is beginning to show signs of promise. Maybe your lovelorn wife was in trouble.”

Gayland Street was in a district of fancy dress shops, delicatessens and Pomeranians, and the figure on the slip of paper was the number of an imposing structure housing a nest of apartments. This time Angel refused to sit in the car while he investigated. She went with him up the gleaming steps into the hallway with its glittering brass mail-boxes, and she looked with him at the long list of names beside the long row of bells.

Bell number 17 had no name beside it, but Smith pushed it anyway. The studio couch, chairs, table and bed had been delivered to suite 17.

He pushed again and frowned. “They don’t answer.”

“I’ve been wondering something,” Angel said.

“Yes? What?”

“If you were a young man fresh out of a job, Philip, would you feel able to afford an apartment in this neighborhood?”

Smith shrugged. “If we wondered at all the queer things people do, we’d wind up in a chuckle college.”

“I’m serious, Philip.”

“So am I. They don’t answer.”

Angel looked annoyed. She walked up two white steps and tried the door and it was locked. She said, “Damn!” and stood there glaring at it. All at once her eyes widened; she turned quickly, beckoned with an outstretched hand and said, “C’m’ere, quick!”

At her side, Smith peered through the thick clear glass of the door and saw a man backing out of an apartment at the end of the hall. A suitcase lay beside the open door and the man was lugging out another. He closed the door and picked up both pieces of luggage and plodded down the corridor with them, staggering a little because they were heavy and he was a small, thin-legged, bald little lad without much strength.

Plouffe, by gosh! Plouffe, of all private dicks.

The little dick kept his head down until he reached the door, and by that time Smith had faded back on one side, Angel on the other. Plouffe put down his burdens, opened the door, held it open with a foot and picked up the suitcases. He squirmed out and the door clicked shut behind him. Then he saw Smith.

He dropped the suitcases again and said, “Well, my, my! Look who is here!”

Smith looked at the luggage. It was expensive but old. It was initialed.

“So you’re demoted to bellhop,” Smith said.

“Huh?”

“You make a very handsome bellhop, don’t you, Mr. Plouffe?” said Angel sweetly.

Nick Plouffe pulled a large moist handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. He frowned, using his whole face, and said sourly: “At least I don’t have to give myself no fancy name like Trouble, Incorporated, to get business.”

“Of course you don’t,” Angel said.

“And I ain’t a bellhop, see?”

“Of course you’re not. You live here.”

“Me? Live here? Say, are you nuts?”

“We’re looking,” Angel declared solemnly, “for my aunt Agatha. Apartment eighteen. We have a key to Aunt Agatha’s apartment — she’s in Bermuda, you know — but no key to the door you’re leaning against. Could you let us in, maybe?”

Nick Plouffe blinked, registering suspicion. It was hard for him to register suspicion, or anything else, because his moist little face was small and V-shaped and not very elastic. He did his best, though, and then grumbled: “Well, all right.”

He fumbled for a key and unlocked the door.

“Thank you so much,” Angel cooed. “Come, John.”

She and John Smith paced down the hall without a backward glance at the suspicious Plouffe, and Smith said dryly, “There, my dear, is a scraping from the lowest stratum of the private detecting profession. Dumb but dangerous. A mouse, but a mean mouse. I met up with him on another case and caught him pretending to be a G-man. He asked me to promise not to tell on him. Did you note the initials on the two suitcases?”

“I did. M.A.B. and T.L.B.”

“The Burdicks.”

“Or a monstrous coincidence, because Plouffe came out of this apartment,” Angel declared, stopping beside a door, “and it happens to be suite 17.”

Smith glanced back, then, to make certain Plouffe had departed. Satisfied, he knocked. After a moment’s wait he knocked again.

“They don’t answer.”

“Perhaps we should tail Mr. Plouffe,” Angel suggested. “Or is it too late?”

Smith leaned against the door of apartment 17 and scowled at her. Scowled fiercely, because he knew from past experience that Miss Angelina Copeland — she had once been his secretary and had since become both the bane and the beacon of his existence — would talk him out of it unless he were savagely stubborn. “It’s too late,” he said firmly, “for absolutely everything except that drive into the country, that swim, and—”

“But tomorrow we start in again. Promise?”

“No!”

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and tapped a toe on the tile floor. “No promise, no ride. It’s for your own good, darling. If I didn’t keep jabbing you, you’d turn into a Christmas card, and that would be such a waste of talent.”

She took his arm. Smith sighed and went with her, muttering under his breath.

Miss Miggsby, who wore large rimless glasses, placed a sheaf of papers on Edgerson’s desk and said, beaming: “We think, Mr. Edgerson, that these are simply delightful!”

Miss Miggsby had been Edgerson’s private secretary since the departure of Angel. She possessed some of Angel’s brains, none of Angel’s disturbing physical attraction, and was very, very easy on the nerves.

Edgerson gravely accepted the papers, glanced at them. The door of his private sanctum opened at that moment and he looked up. Looked up and groaned. He could tell by the grim little smile on Angelina’s lips that something had happened.

Miss Miggsby fled. Angel, radiant in something ultra modern and startlingly yellow, came around the desk and looked over Edgerson’s shoulder.

“Christmas?” she asked innocently. “Or just happy birthday to my ex-wife?”

He made sure that the door between Miss Miggsby’s office and his own was closed before he answered. Then he said firmly, “Whatever you’ve found out, it’s no go. I’m busy. I got in this morning with a prize hangover, thanks to your mania for daiquiris last night, and found enough work piled on my desk to keep three men busy for a week.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t you ever work?”

“Uh-huh. I just finished my column. Look, Philip. I’ve discovered the whereabouts of Margaret Burdick.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You’ve got to be. It’s terribly important.” She cleared a space for herself on his desk and sat down, swinging a most attractive leg.

“First I went over to the Glickman Company where Mr. Burdick — Teddy, that is — used to work. I smiled my prettiest and found out that Teddy wasn’t fired; he quit. He told them he had a better job offered to him in Boston. I deserve credit for that. The Glickman outfit is a big concern. They make chemicals and do a lot of work for the government. It took talent to go in there stone cold and come out with information.”

“I’m still very busy,” Edgerson muttered.

“So then,” she continued, “I went over to that little dumpy hotel where your little Plouffe lives. The clerk told me he was in, so I slipped into a phone booth and called him and talked the way you’d expect Margaret Arnold Burdick to talk — after reading that letter she wrote me — and I told Plouffe to come right over because I needed him. And he fell for it.”

Edgerson was not sufficiently surprised to show it.

“He fell for it,” Angel declared, “and when he left the hotel I followed him. He didn’t go far. He went to another grimy little hotel, the Lester, and that, Philip, is where Mrs. Burdick is hiding out.”

“You saw her?”

“No, but—”

“What about her husband? Is he living there, too?”

“After all,” she said, “I’m not the president of Trouble, Inc. I’m just an underpaid hireling. Don’t expect too much.”

“I can’t see that you’ve done too much.”

“But I haven’t confessed all. Not yet. I’ve been to the morgue,” she said.

That got him. His mouth sagged and he gaped at her.

“The newspaper morgue,” she explained softly, “to check on Dubitsky. Do you know why I did that?”

He said nothing.

“Because,” she went on, “I discovered over at the chemical company that young Mr. Burdick is a graduate of our nice big university here where Dubitsky taught. And when I found that out, I got to thinking about the foreigner who smoked the long black cigarettes, and so I went over to the university and did some snooping. Guess what I found.”

“If you don’t stop beating around the mulberry bush,” Edgerson said, “I’ll fire you!”

“Young Mr. Burdick was a student in some of Dubitsky’s classes.”

“You mean it?”

“It’s the truth. He was an honor student. One of Dubitsky’s pets.”

“I’m not,” Edgerson said, “as busy as I thought. Go ahead.”

“You mean it?”

“Go right ahead. I’ve always been intrigued with Dubitsky. The Christmas ditties can wait.”

“Well,” she said, “I’ve brought you some of the newspaper accounts of Dubitsky’s death.”

“I don’t need them. I know the details by heart.”

“Do you? Lead on, Macduff.”

“The great Dubitsky,” Edgerson said, “left his bachelor apartment about six-thirty that night, intending to drive to a little camp he owned on Loon Cry Lake, sixty miles north of here. It was a miserable night, and he was alone. He stopped in Midville for gas, and the attendant warned him not to try the Loon Lake road because it was inundated and dangerous, and an electrical storm was coming up over the mountains.

“He went, and was caught in the storm. His car went over a cliff and caught fire, probably struck by lightning before it went over. The charred remains of Dubitsky were identified by a watch and a couple of rings.”

“And I’ll wager my next year’s salary as nonpaid vice president of Trouble, Inc.,” said Angel calmly, “that you believe Professor Dubitsky is still very much alive. Now don’t you, Mr. Smith?”

Edgerson scowled at a tiny image of Santa Claus which sat on his desk. It was a birthday gift from Miss Miggsby. “Now why,” he insisted, “should a self-respecting professor of foreign languages, including the Malaysian, wish to plunge himself into oblivion?”

“What nationality is Dubitsky?”

“Darned if I know. German, Czech, Russian, Polish — he might be most anything.”

“The point is,” she said, “he’s not American. He came to this country six or seven years ago, to take up his duties at the university. No one knows much about him, except that he’s a mental giant. Put two and two together, Philip. Dubitsky. A mysterious accident. The Glickman Chemical Company. Young Burdick. It’s positively sinister; that’s what it is!”

“What,” Edgerson said, “do you propose to do about it?”

“Have a talk with Burdick’s wife. And you’re coming with me. This, Mr. Smith, is the biggest thing that ever fell into the lap of our little organization, or I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

“I think a better move,” Smith declared thoughtfully, “would be to call on Plouffe.”

“Plouffe?”

“The girl might be a bit difficult. Plouffe, on the other hand, would hardly dare to be. I know too much about him. I might still talk about him impersonating himself as a G-man.” He smiled, pushing himself out of his chair. “Trouble, Incorporated, is at work again,” he said.

Nick Plouffe, when not at his hotel, could generally be found between bottles of beer in his office or between martinis at the Andolf Tap. He was in his office this time, suffering from the heat. A cheap fan sent the hot air surging about the room and Plouffe’s handkerchief was sodden from face-mopping.

He peered suspiciously at his visitors and said: “Well, my, my! Look who is here!”

“You’re surprised,” Smith said.

“I am pop-eyed!”

Smith shut off the fan and eyed the half-empty bottle of beer on the detective’s desk. He sat down without awaiting an invitation. Angel followed suit. Nick Plouffe stood beside the desk, mopped his pleasant little face again and registered uneasiness.

“So what can I do for you?”

“You’re not going to like this, Nick.”

“I feel it in my bones.”

“What we’d like to know, Nick,” Smith said, “is how you got mixed up in this Burdick business.”

Plouffe sat down. His tie was askew and his striped shirt was open down to the third button, revealing a moist undershirt and a few chest hairs. He said plaintively: “On a hot day like this you should come here to ask questions! What did I ever do to you?”

“Give, Nick.”

“Give! Do I ask you to hand out professional secrets? Do I come barging into Trouble, Incorporated, and act like I was a partner?”

“You wouldn’t want to be a partner,” Angel said sweetly. “There’s no money in it.”

“Give,” Smith said.

“So why should I?”

“Must we go through all that again? About how unhealthy our local jails are, and how bad the food is? Nick, you surprise me.”

Nick Plouffe slumped lower in his chair. The desk hid most of him but his eyes were little gray bugs just visible over the rim.

“The Burdick girl is a client of mine,” he mumbled.

“How come?”

“You would not be interested. So help me it would bore you, I swear it.”

“I’ll risk it. Go right ahead.”

“Well, it is like this. It is very ordinary. The Burdick girl comes up here and says she sees the name of my agency in the phone book. Then she spills a sob story into my ears, and so help me, Mr. Smith, it is nothing that would interest you. It is like every other sob story you ever heard.”

“I’ll hear it again,” Smith said.

“But it will bore you stiff!”

“The food,” Angel chimed in gently, “is really atrocious, Mr. Plouffe. They feed you bread and mush three times a day, and sometimes the mush is maggoty. If it isn’t, I’m sure Mr. Smith can arrange to have them inject a few maggots, just for your benefit.”

Plouffe mopped his face. “She has a husband, see? And he stays out late at night, and sometimes he doesn’t come home at all. She says to me, he is keeping bad company and will I look into it? So help me that’s the whole story.”

“The bell-hopping was just your own idea, eh?” Smith said.

“Huh?”

“If that’s all there is to it, Plouffe, why’d you move her from a swank apartment house to a frowsy dump of a hotel?”

“She... she couldn’t pay the rent them vultures was asking.”

“Maggots, Plouffe, are apt to make you hellishly sick.”

“Well,” Plouffe muttered, avoiding Smith’s steady gaze, “I had to get some dough out of this business somehow, didn’t I?”

“Meaning what?”

“She pays me to tail her husband. There wouldn’t be no dough in that even if I could locate the husband, which I can’t. So I have to tell the dame something, don’t I? Would you want me to let her down and have her get a wrong idea about the private detective business?”

“The light begins to dawn,” Angel murmured.

Plouffe looked at her gratefully and forced a grin. “Sure. She wanted service, so I gave it to her. There wasn’t no harm in that, was there? All I told her, I checked up on her husband and found out he was mixed up with some tough mobsters, and things looked pretty bad, and her own life could easily be in danger unless she put herself in my care for a few days until I got things straightened out.”

“And she believed you?” Smith asked.

“Sure she believed me.”

“And to make it more realistic, you moved her out of the apartment and obtained a room for her at the Lester.”

“Yeah. Hell, if these dumb dames want adventure, Nick Plouffe sells it to ’em. Why not?”

Smith stood up. “I’m hiring you, Plouffe.”

The gray little eyes grew to twice their normal size. “Huh?”

“You say you tried to locate Burdick and failed. Is that right?”

“Sure I tried.”

“Hard?”

“I done all I could,” Plouffe insisted. “I checked every lead the dame gave me.”

“And you couldn’t find him. Very well, Plouffe, he’s missing. Something has happened to him. And if we’re not careful, something may happen to the girl. Therefore, I’m hiring you to keep an eye on her.”

“Listen,” Plouffe said. “This don’t make sense.”

“It might, later. You’re to watch the girl and keep in touch with me, report to me every move she makes. I’d do it myself, Plouffe, but I’m going to be busy. Very busy. So is Miss Copeland. And our staff at Trouble, Inc., is limited.”

“Say, what’s back of all this?”

“A certain crack someone once made,” Angel replied quickly, flashing a smile, “about twin beds.”

“Huh?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Plouffe. Don’t worry about it. Someday Mr. Smith is going to write a treatise on it. Then you’ll know.”

Smith turned to open the door. “You can get in touch with me, Plouffe, at Trouble, Inc. If I’m not there, Miss Copeland will be. And I’ll expect your first report about an hour from now.”

Outside, Angel said sweetly: “What I like about you, Mr. Smith, is your uncanny faculty for persuading people to work for you — for nothing. Including,” she added, taking his arm, “me.”

Smith was busy the next day. Visiting the university, he spent two hours investigating the history of Professor Benedetto Dubitsky and another hour on the records of Mrs. Burdick’s Teddy. To his work as president of Trouble, Inc., he applied the same tenacity which had made him president of a prosperous greeting card concern.

He then visited the Glickman Company’s huge chemical plant and learned that Mr. Theodore Burdick, formerly employed there, had been hired in the first place because of flattering recommendations tendered by the university.

It dovetailed nicely. Just what it meant, Smith was not sure.

With Angel, in the tiny office of Trouble, Inc., he had a dinner which consisted of cold lobster and ginger ale, purchased at a delicatessen.

Angel was dressed, Smith thought, more like a devil. She had on a handsome evening dress that gleamed under a brilliant red opera cape. Its tiny hood was made to be drawn over her sleek hair.

“Why the fancy set up?” he asked.

“I thought you were going to buy me a dinner and dance. Instead I get this and a ride, I guess.”

About that time Nick Plouffe, who had been calling every hour to make his report, phoned in again.

Nick Plouffe was excited. “Only two minutes ago,” he wailed, “she give me the slip! I was watchin’ the Lester, see? Like I been doin’ right along. I’m standin’ there earnin’ the salary you don’t promise me, and all of a sudden she comes out with a couple of guys, and they get into a car.

“This car is parked in front of the Lester ever since around eight o’clock, and there’s a ticket on it. I myself see the cop put the ticket on it. So they get into it, Mrs. Burdick and these two guys, and I pile into a taxi and tail them. And I lose them. On account of the taxi driver is dumb as all get-out, I lose them. Up around Mitchell Street and the Avenue is where I last see them.”

“You get the number of that car?” Smith snapped.

“Yeah, sure. C-3145.”

“Where are you now?”

“In a drug store on Mitchell.”

“Get into your cab,” Smith ordered, “and come over here as fast as you can. You may be needed.” He cradled the phone and gazed solemnly at Angel. “C-3145, Angel. Think you can find out to whom that car is registered?”

“I can try.”

She called her newspaper and four minutes later reported: “The car belongs to Alvin McKenna, 92 Follett Street, vice president of the Glickman Company. Something?”

Smith, at his desk, wrote the name and address on a pad and stared at them, clicking the pencil along his teeth as a small boy would rattle a stick along a picket fence.

“McKenna — the Glickman Company — a ticket for parking,” he mused. “And two men. Not one man, Angel, but two. Dammit, what’s keeping Plouffe?”

There was a knock at the door. Angel opened it and Plouffe entered, out of breath.

“I got here quick like you told me, Mr. Smith.”

“Now let’s have it all, Plouffe. Slowly. Begin with the car. Did you see it pull up?”

“Sure I seen it.”

“Two men in it?”

“Now that’s funny,” Plouffe said. “When the car drove up there was only one guy in it. I was standin’ right there and I couldn’t’ve made no mistake. The guy parks the car in a one-hour space and goes into the Lester.”

“What kind of a car?”

“A Packard coupé.”

“A man as wealthy as McKenna,” Angel declared, “would have more than one car, Mr. Smith.”

“I realize that. Now, Plouffe, how long was that car there?”

“More’n two hours.”

“And when the two men came out, with Mrs. Burdick, there was a ticket on it?”

“That’s right.”

“One of those men was the driver?”

“Yep. One was the guy who parked it there.”

“Did you get a good look at Mrs. Burdick? Did she look scared?”

“Without bein’ no authority on women’s looks, I would say she did. Definitely I would say she was at least uneasy.”

Smith stared into space and drew meaningless circles and triangles on a desk calendar. The Smith brain was hard at work; you could tell by the roadmap of wrinkles that spread away from his eye-corners. He reached suddenly for the phone book, ran a finger down the long line of McKennas and impulsively snatched up the phone. Then slowly replaced it, shaking his head.

“If you want my opinion,” Plouffe ventured timidly, “I’d say—”

“Quiet,” snapped Angel. “He’s thinking.”

“Oh.”

Smith seized the phone, dialed a number. Angel relaxed. “McKenna?” she asked softly. He nodded, waiting for the connection.

“I still think,” Plouffe insisted, “that—”

“Quiet.”

Smith registered impatience while waiting. He looked worried. Finally he slapped the phone down and stood up. “They don’t answer,” he said curtly. “Let’s go.”

“Out there?” Angel asked.

“Yes! Don’t you see through it? McKenna’s car — first one man, then two — and a deliberate ticket? It’s plain as day!”

“Not to me it isn’t,” Plouffe complained.

Smith favored him with a scornful glance and went past him, grabbing at Angel’s hand as he jerked open the door. Plouffe followed, not knowing what else to do.

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking,” Angel said on the way down the corridor, “I’ll bet my year’s pay that you’re wrong. It’s just your evil mind at work.”

“You mean it’s yours,” Smith retorted. “Mine’s way ahead of you. Come on, you two.”

McKenna’s house was a twenty-room affair with an acre of manicured lawn cut by a driveway and a colored fountain out front. Alvin McKenna, forty-nine, was a widower worth plenty.

The house was in darkness. The car crunched up the drive and stopped, and Smith jumped out. Before ringing the bell he tried the front door. It was locked. After ringing the bell he waited only a moment, then broad-jumped a flower-bed and hurried around the side. Every window he tried was locked.

He paused, baffled, and Angel caught up with him. “Sometimes,” she said pleasantly, “you surprise me, Philip. So athletic!”

He ignored her. To Plouffe he snapped: “How do we get in here?”

“You want to get arrested?” Plouffe gasped.

“I want to get in!”

“Well, it could be done easy enough, but—”

“Do it!”

Plouffe looked around, shaking his head, and then sidled to a window. It wasn’t easy but in a few minutes with a penknife he managed it. With a boost he was over the sill.

“I still don’t like this,” he complained.

Ignoring him, Smith leaned out and gave a hand to Angel. She climbed. Half-way over the sill she said, “Oh!” and when inside she looked down at her legs and said: “I’ll send you a bill for that. My best stockings!” Then she said soberly: “What do you expect to find here, Mr. Smith?”

“I don’t know. I’m just full of premonitions.” He produced a flash-light, drilling the darkness with a thin sliver of illumination. “I hope,” he said grimly, pacing forward, “I’m at least half wrong.”

It was a bedroom. With Plouffe and Angel trailing, he went down a long hall to the front of the house, through two huge living-rooms, along another hall to a library. The house was a tomb.

Its owner was in the library.

Smith’s light missed him at first. It played over the walls, yellowing rows of books, a small wall safe, a few large portraits. There was no need to illuminate the floor until he began to pace forward. Then he almost stepped on the thing because it lay just a few feet from the threshold.

He looked down, holding the light on McKenna’s face, and behind him Plouffe said explosively: “Hey!” Angel put a trembling hand on Smith’s arm and was silent. McKenna gazed at the ceiling.

He was a big man, wearing an expensive blue dressing gown over white flannel trousers and a white sport shirt. The white sport shirt was now a Jap flag, with its red moon of blood.

Smith stared a moment, then bent over him. “Shot,” he said softly. Then he straightened and focused the light on the wall to his left.

The tiny beam came to rest on the wall safe. Smith strode forward, looked at the safe, looked down at McKenna again.

“Have you a finger-print outfit at your office, Plouffe?”

Plouffe nodded solemnly.

“Take the car and go get it,” Smith directed. “Come back as fast as you can and don’t say a word about this to anyone.”

“But the cops oughta know about it! We’ll get in trouble!”

“They’ll know in due time. You do as I say.” Smith glared at him and he went out wagging his head, mumbling protests. Smith and Angel heard him fumbling along the hall in the dark.

“Who did it, Philip?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you know something, or you wouldn’t have come here.”

“I think I know who’ll be blamed for doing it. That’s all.”

“Who?”

“Burdick.”

She stood there in the dark, scowling at him. “But why?”

“It wasn’t McKenna who visited the Lester Hotel tonight,” Smith declared softly. “It could have been, of course, but it probably wasn’t. That’s where you had me wrong when you tried to read my mind, Angel. This isn’t any tencent clandestine love affair. Can’t be. Too many angles.”

“You think someone borrowed McKenna’s car?”

“And deliberately got a ticket.”

“Why?”

“Look. Burdick is missing. His wife goes to Plouffe for assistance. Guided by Plouffe, she takes a room at the Lester. Meanwhile this other thing — whatever it is — is moving on relentlessly to some kind of climax. Part of that climax is the planned murder of McKenna here. And McKenna’s murderers are clever, clever enough to plan the alibi before the crime. They swipe McKenna’s car, take it to the Lester, leave it parked where it’s bound to catch a ticket. No one can deny now that McKenna’s car was parked in front of Mrs. Burdick’s hotel; the proof is down in black and white. You see? McKenna visits Mrs. Burdick at hotel with a bad reputation. McKenna is found dead. Angry young husband is arrested for murder.”

“You’re guessing.”

“It’s the best I can do. We’ll know more when Plouffe gets back.”

She was silent a moment, and the silence of the big house crept in to take possession. Then she said, “Why the finger-print outfit, Philip?”

“Why is McKenna dead?” he countered.

“You mean the safe?”

“It’s possible.”

“A man as brainy as McKenna wouldn’t keep any big amount of money in a house like this.”

“Maybe not, Angel. But money isn’t the only thing worth stealing. You’re forgetting that McKenna was vice president of a chemical company.”

Angel voiced a little snort. “You’ll be telling me next that you’re a G-man, tracking down scurrilous agents of a mysterious foreign power!”

“I’m not, really. I’m waiting for a street car.”

Very shortly Plouffe returned, with a small black case wedged under his arm and a flash-light gripped in his left hand.

“You have any trouble?” Smith asked.

“Me? Oh, no.”

“Get to work then. What I want to know is this: Has anyone recently opened that safe, and if so, who.”

Plouffe opened his finger-print case and timidly stepped up to the safe. While he worked, Smith held the light for him, cupping it carefully to keep the glow from striking the room’s only window.

Plouffe was good at this sort of thing. In a few moments he said definitely: “It’s been opened all right. There’s fresh oil from the hinges smeared down the side. Not long ago, either.”

“I thought so.”

“You see, Plouffe,” Angel said sweetly, “Mr. Smith is really very smart. He sees all, knows all, tells nothing.”

“This here,” Plouffe declared, ignoring her and handing Smith a thin sheet of celluloid, “is a pretty fair thumbprint.”

“Good. Can you get a print of McKenna’s thumb?”

“I guess so.”

“Be careful,” Smith warned, “where you leave your own prints around here.”

“You’re damn right I’ll be careful!”

Finished with the safe, Plouffe knelt beside the dead man. In a moment he rose, handed over a slip of paper. As an afterthought he stooped again and with a handkerchief carefully wiped a smudge of ink from the dead man’s thumb.

“Looks the same to me,” he said, “though I ain’t no expert.”

“So it was McKenna who opened the safe. Probably forced to and then killed so he could never identify the thief. We can go now, Angel. We’ve a job to do. A most important job, and one that may take a long time. We’ve got to find Mrs. Burdick. And her husband.”

Angel twisted her lovely mouth into a scowl. “All we have to go on,” she said, “is that car. The one Plouffe trailed.”

Smith shook his head. “No go. It’s probably right here in McKenna’s garage by now.”

“It is,” Plouffe said. “I seen it when I come back. I was meaning to tell you.”

“Then,” said Angel, “we’re stymied. Unless,” she added, glancing suspiciously at Smith, “that brain of yours is working overtime again. Sometimes that brain amazes me.”

Edgerson did some serious thinking as he drove away from the elaborate home of the slain McKenna. It was high time, he realized, to do some thinking. Up until now this affair had been little more than a pleasant diversion, a relief from the monotony of being president of a greeting card concern. A hobby, like amateur theatrics or peephole photography. Now it was murder.

He scowled at the windshield and mentally fitted together the pieces of the puzzle as he saw them. The pattern was a bit startling. “You know, Angel,” he said, “the safest thing we could do right now would be to go straight to the police, tell them all we know and then go for a nice long ride into the country.”

“Nonsense!” she said scornfully.

He sighed. “We’ll do the next best thing. Plouffe, we’ll leave it to you to phone the police and report McKenna’s death. You can do it from a booth somewhere without leaving a trail.”

“And what’ll you two be doing?” Plouffe demanded.

“Pushing our noses deeper into affairs that don’t concern us.”

“Well,” Plouffe said, “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.”

Smith stopped the car at a restaurant. “There should be a phone inside,” he said. “Use it, then go home. If we need you again, I’ll call you.”

“I still don’t like it,” Plouffe muttered, but he got out.

“And now,” said Angel, when the car was under way again, “just what do we do?”

“What time is it?”

She looked at her watch. “Four-ten. Fine time of night to keep your best girl out.”

“We drive to Warren Avenue now,” Smith declared calmly, “and get out of bed a young man named Timothy Kenson. I don’t believe you know Timmy.”

“Who is he?”

“He works at the office. But for the past several hours he’s been working at the Krashna Tobacco Store, downtown.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” Smith said, “in due time.”

She didn’t like that. She glared at him. “He knows all, sees all, tells nothing.” Smith ignored her and she adjusted her red cape about her angrily.

He drove in silence. The streets were deserted, and it was difficult to realize that on so calm and peaceful a night murder had been done. But Smith’s mind, agile now, was ahead of the murder and groping for the motive.

He knew, or thought he knew, the elaborate steps leading up to McKenna’s death, and the probable aftermath. But the motive still evaded him. Unless, of course, the answer lay at the Glickman Company.

He turned the car into Warren Avenue and stopped. “You wait here,” he told Angel. Climbing the steps of a brown cottage, he put his thumb against the doorbell. In a moment a light winked on and the door opened. A young, red-haired man in wrinkled pajamas blinked at Smith and said, “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Edgerson.”

“Any luck, Timmy?”

“Sure thing. He came in late this afternoon. I been trying to get you ever since.”

“A tall, dark man, Timmy? With a beard?”

“Nope. He was a little runt. Crummy-looking.”

“Oh. You followed him?”

“Sure thing. He walked down the street a ways and got into a taxicab. So I did like you said. I jumped into another taxicab and told the driver to keep him in sight. He went into a house on Canal Street, down near the river. Wait a minute and I’ll get you the number. I wrote it down.”

He was back in a minute or two with a slip of paper which he thrust into Smith’s hand. “Here it is, Mr. Edgerson. Number 23 Canal. Just a couple of doors down from the McCullen Warehouse, if you know where that is.”

“Timmy,” John Smith said, “you’re a genius!”

“It was easy,” Timmy said.

“It was masterful. Tomorrow you get a raise in pay.”

Smith hurried back to the car, stuffing the slip of paper into his pocket. He said nothing to Angel, but the triumphant smirk on his face gave him away.

“You look,” she said, “as if you just ate the goldfish. What’s up? Where are we going now?”

“To the hideout of the dark foreigner who smokes long black cigarettes.”

“What?”

“It was really quite simple. While you were holding down the fort I visited the only two tobacco stores in the city where a man can buy long black cigarettes. They’re Cuban, you know. I discreetly asked questions. The man in the place on Fernald Street told me he used to carry them because he had a customer who came regularly, twice a week, for a large supply. The customer was Professor Dubitsky, and the fellow had sold no Cuban cigarettes since Dubitsky’s death. But in the second store I had better luck, Angel. The man there informed me that he did carry them. He hadn’t used to, he said, but about three months ago a customer placed a standing order with him, and the customer called twice a week to pick up his supply.”

“The original Sherlock Holmes!” Angel gasped. “And all this time I thought you were just plain Philip Edgerson!”

“I got quite chummy with the man,” Smith informed her, “and enlisted his aid. He agreed to let Timmy work for him. Timmy did so, and when the buyer of the Cuban cigarettes came in, Timmy followed him. That’s all there was to it. Quite simple, you see.”

“You mean Timmy followed Professor Dubitsky?”

“No. Dubitsky himself wouldn’t come out in the open like that. But if we fail to find him at the address to which we’re going, I’ll be a most crestfallen sleuth.”

She gave him a sidelong glance from beneath the red hood and then looked out the car window, noting the sinister section of town into which he was taking her.

“Are you armed, Philip?”

“I don’t own a gun. You know that.”

“Philip,” she said in a manner of confession, “I have one. I borrowed it from my office.”

He frowned. “Keep it,” he said bluntly.

The car had entered the waterfront warehouse district, and at this time of night the streets were black, deserted, ominous. A short-lived downpour had beaten to life sour smells of fish and fruit, and the dampness held those unsavory odors in suspension. You smelled trouble. Danger.

Smith pulled the machine to the curb. “For you, Angel,” he said firmly, “this is as far as the car goes. I may be a willing slave to my hobby, but I drag no hapless woman with me.”

“It’s not your hobby. It’s ours.”

“Nevertheless, you wait here — you and your silly popgun.”

“That,” she said, “is what you think.”

“It’s what I know,” he said. Then, suddenly serious: “Look here, darling. We’ve not even the vaguest idea of what we’re getting into. It may be as mean and dirty as the district it’s in. I’d be scared stiff if you came along.”

“So I’m to sit here and be scared stiff until you get back?”

“Or else,” he threatened, “we go straight to the police. Although any self-respecting cop would arrest you in that devil’s cape.”

She was angry. He looked at her and saw that she was staring straight ahead, her lips tight-pressed, her chin rigid. He patted her knee and got out, walked away.

Just once, as he went past the warehouse a hundred yards or so distant, he turned his head to look back. The car’s headlights owlishly stared at him. Uneasy about leaving Angel alone too long on a street so dark and unsavory, he quickened his step.

Number 23 was one of a row of tenements, all of which looked alike in the dark. A battered ashcan filled with refuse stood on the concrete stoop beside the door. The door opened when Smith pressed it.

He stepped over the threshold into a black, smelly hall. Stopped there, scowling, and realized that the house had three floors and he had no idea on which level to concentrate.

His flash-light winked, threading a narrow beam through the gloom of the lower hall. A baby carriage stood there. He went past it, past the door of the first-floor tenement, to the stairs. The building was a tomb, cold and damp and dark.

With the light cupped in his hand he climbed slowly, testing each ancient step before trusting it with his weight. The second-floor landing came level with his eyes and he stopped again. The light showed him a small and black cigarette stub lying by a door. He smiled a tight, twisted little smile and knew that the door was his destination.

He stepped beside it, scowled, and snapped out the light. There was no sound anywhere.

The fact that he was unarmed did not greatly worry him. It never had before. The day he began to carry a gun, he told himself, Trouble, Incorporated, would cease to be a hobby. Besides, he had no permit.

He tipped his hat back on his head and loosened his tie. He opened his coat, rubbed a hand over the floor and transferred the dirt thus collected to the front of his shirt, blackening it. For good measure he pulled off two buttons, to make the shirt sag.

He dirtied his face and rumpled his hair, and put on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, the lenses of which were clear glass.

Then he seized the doorknob and rattled it, and then he banged on the door and cursed it and began talking to himself.

Results were not long coming. A couch squeaked inside and a voice said sharply, “Who’s there? Who’s out there?”

“It’sh Percy,” Smith slobbered. “Lemme in.”

“Who? Who is it?”

“It’sh Percy! You lemme in or sho help me I’ll busht the door down!”

A key turned in the lock and the door opened. It didn’t open far. Just far enough to frame a short, thick-set man whose swarthy face was all scowl.

“Listen, buddy,” the swarthy man said. “You’re in the wrong place. Beat it.”

“Who’re you?”

“Never mind who I am. It’s the middle of the night, see? And you’re in the wrong alley. Scram!”

“Thish ish where I live,” Smith snorted. “Don’ you tell me I don’ belong here. I know different.”

The dark fellow was in no mood to argue with a drunk. He came a step closer, put his right hand flat against Smith’s chest, and pushed. He slammed the door as Smith staggered away from it.

Smith smiled that tight little smile again and resumed his assault. If he made enough noise, the occupants of the tenement would do one of two things: either slug him or try to reason with him. He didn’t think they would slug him. This was a hideout. They would want to avoid trouble.

And they most certainly would open the door if he hammered on it long enough.

It opened. The swarthy man said savagely, “Listen, buddy, will you for Gawd’s sake go away and leave us get some sleep? Or do I have to get rough with you?”

Smith’s eyes glowered at him out of a slack, stupid face. “You listen to me,” he said. “My name’sh Percy Smith an’ I live here. An’ nobody’sh gonna keep me out!”

Behind the swarthy man an impatient voice said, “Let him in, Max.”

“Oke, buddy.” Max sighed. “Come on in.”

“That’sh better,” Smith said. “That’sh much better.”

He walked in, weaving a little. Max closed the door.

“Now take a good look around, Percy,” Max said, “and you’ll see this ain’t the place you thought it was. You’re drunk and you’re in the wrong house.”

“Who saysh I am?”

“Look around. See for yourself.”

Smith looked around. The room in which he stood was a living-room, furnished with table, chairs and a couch. The swarthy man, Max, had evidently been sleeping on the couch, in his clothes. His clothes were wrinkled and he wore no shoes.

The other man was bigger. He wore gray pajamas which hung loosely from his lank frame, revealing a generous expanse of hairy chest. His hair was in his eyes and he stood with his hands hipped, feet spread wide, just back of the table. A door behind him led to what appeared to be a bedroom.

“I... I guessh I was mistaken,” Smith mumbled apologetically.

“Convinced, are you?”

“I musht’ve got mixed up somehow.”

“Well, if you’re convinced,” Max said, “just scram like a nice guy and don’t make any more noise’n you have to.”

Smith stood where he was. “I... I don’ feel sho good,” he said.

“O.K., O.K.,” the other man said tartly. “Beat it! Be sick outside!”

“I wanna shtay here. I wanna lie down somewheres...”

The two men exchanged glances. The man named Max took his right hand out of his pocket, where it had rested since Smith’s entrance. They stepped forward. “Sure,” Max said. “We’ll help you lay down, buddy. We wouldn’t think of puttin’ a nice guy like you out in the street at this time o’ night. No-o-o. Would we, Vick?”

“Of course not,” Vick said.

They took hold of Smith’s arms. That was their mistake. He had been waiting for it. Waiting to get them both together, both in reach at the same time. Any other way would have been fatal, because undoubtedly both men were armed.

Smith’s heel came down hard, piston-fast, on a shoeless foot that belonged to Max. At the same time he twisted, stabbed an arm out and caught the other man’s wrist. He was suddenly not drunk any more, and before his adversaries were over their amazement, Smith had the situation in hand.

You didn’t need a gun. All you needed was a slight knowledge of the fine art of Oriental wrestling, plus a fair to middling physique and a nickel’s worth of nerve.

Max yelped, bent double at the waist as pain streaked up from his tortured foot. He bent into an upthrust knee that smacked his chin and snapped his teeth together. He staggered against the table, dazed, and had sense enough left to reach gropingly for the pocket where his gun lay. But he was too slow.

Smith had hold of Vick’s wrist. He yanked Vick off balance, stooped, caught the arm above the wrist and pulled it. Not hard. Really not hard at all. But fast.

Vick’s feet left the floor. He lost his breath in an explosive grunt as his big frame looped through space. His hundred and eighty pounds crashed into Max and Max was finished. Vick sprawled to the floor, stunned, and Max fell over him.

Smith waded in. What little fight remained in Vick was dissipated quickly by a hard, clean punch to the button. For his trouble, Smith had nothing to show except a few minor beads of moisture on his face and forehead.

He stepped back and surveyed the wreckage, highly elated. Luck, he realized, had been with him. He turned then and strode into the bedroom. It was empty.

Scowling, he walked through the bedroom into a kitchen. That was empty, too.

He went back to Vick and Max, sorry now that he had knocked them so thoroughly out. There were questions he wanted to ask. Questions concerning the whereabouts of Mr. and Mrs. Teddy Burdick.

He stared at them for a moment, undecided what to do; then, stooping, he went through their pockets. Both men were armed. He removed the weapons and placed them on the table, careful not to blur any finger-prints that might be on them. One of those guns, Smith was reasonably certain, had murdered McKenna.

In Vick’s pocket he found a slip of paper. Penciled words, written in a stiff, marching hand, said: “Fix up the girl tomorrow night, provided the papers are in our possession by that time. The following night take care of the husband. Carefully now — suicide.”

Smith read it twice, then pocketed it. An ugly fear took hold of him. Fear that he might have come too late. That the thing had already been done. He went into the kitchen, found an empty tin can and filled it with cold water. Returning, he knelt beside Vick and poured the water over his face.

Behind him a voice said quietly: “We will omit that, please. We will stand up and put our hands high and turn around very slowly.”

It was a familiar voice. Quite a famous voice, in fact. Smith had heard it several times on the radio, had heard it also at university lectures. He knew, therefore, even before he obeyed the command, that at long last he had come face to face with the supposedly dead Dubitsky.

It was not a pleasant sensation. He turned, raised his hands, and stared glumly at Dubitsky’s face. The hall door was open and the professor stood just inside it, tall and stoop-shouldered and grim. The automatic in his hand was small but deadly.

“Your name, please?” Dubitsky said curtly.

“It’sh Percy Smith, mishter.” It was worth a try, anyway, Smith figured. “These two men shaid I didn’ live here an’ I had a dishcussion.”

“We will omit that, also,” Dubitsky snapped. “You were not drunk when you came from the kitchen!”

Smith sighed. “I’m not drunk now, either,” he said, hunching his shoulders.

“Why are you here?”

“Vick’s an old friend of mine.”

“Explain, please.”

“Sure. Back in the old days, Vick and I used to work together. So when I met him on the street a while ago, he invited me up here, just to talk over old times. Me and him and this other guy here, we got into an argument. That’s all.”

“You are lying,” Dubitsky said.

“So help me, it’s the truth!”

“Is it? Suppose, then, you tell me Vick’s full name.”

“Huh?”

“I thought so,” Dubitsky said. “You are an agent of the government.” He came a step closer, his eyes flashing. “Well, my meddling friend, you are too late. Most of the papers are already on their way to an agent of my government. Except for minor details, my work is finished. And you, my friend, will not interfere with those minor details, I assure you.”

Smith did not answer. His gaze was on the door and he was frightened. His upraised hands trembled and perspiration gleamed on his face.

Dubitsky misunderstood. He smiled. “You have good reason to be afraid of me, my friend,” he said.

Out in the hall, Miss Angelina Copeland placed on the floor the shoes she was carrying. They were her own shoes. She had removed them before ascending the stairs. She looked like Little Red Riding Hood, except Red didn’t pack a gun. She measured the distance now between her outthrust hands and Dubitsky’s broad back, and, still in a crouch, she set herself. Then she lunged.

The threshold creaked as she went over it, and Dubitsky whirled. He whirled too late. Angel threw herself at his knees and bucked him off balance. Smith closed in and caught him.

Smith’s hands closed over Dubitsky’s wrist and twisted. He hadn’t used that particular twist before. It was dangerous. In the gymnasium where he worked out, it was outlawed. You could break a man’s arm with it.

Smith put all he had into it, and the arm snapped. He stopped then and threw Dubitsky over his head, and when the professor crashed into the door frame something else snapped.

Dubitsky shuddered to the floor and lay in a sprawled, unlovely heap. Smith straightened, gasping for breath.

“Lord!” he said. “That was close! Angel, you were marvelous! Why didn’t you shoot, though?”

“I was scared to,” she declared, picking herself up and still clinging to the gun.

“I told you to keep out of here!”

“I know you did. So I drove the car up and parked it just across the street. You didn’t expect me to stay in the bleachers when the ringside was vacant, did you? Then I saw Dubitsky walk in here, and my woman’s intuition told me I’d be needed.”

Dubitsky had not moved. Scowling a little, Smith knelt beside him.

“Is it bad?” Angel asked.

“Bad enough,” he said, holding a hand over the professor’s heart. “I suppose he’ll live, though. They usually do.” Then he turned to her. “Put that silly gun away.”

“You’ll be answering a flock of awfully embarrassing questions, darling, if he doesn’t live,” Angel said, letting the gun swing loose in her hand.

He stood up, glancing at Vick and Max. “Speaking of questions, I still want to ask a few.” Vick, he saw, was coming to. The cold water had begun to take effect.

He put a hand on Vick’s neck, groped for a moment with one finger and then pressed.

“Hey!” Vick choked.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Smith said quietly. “Hurts a little.” He pressed harder.

Vick jerked clear of the floor and fell flat again with a spongy thud. There was a nerve back there that was really sensitive.

“You’re killin’ me!”

“I will, too,” Smith promised solemnly, “unless you cooperate. Tell me now — what have you done with the Burdicks.”

“I never heard of no Burdicks.”

Smith tickled the nerve. Not gently this time, but strenuously.

“They’re upstairs!” Vick gasped. “For Gawd’s sake, cut it out!”

“See if you can find some rope around here, Angel,” Smith said. “If not, rip up a bedsheet. Now, Vick, it’s my turn. I’ll tell you what I know, or guess, and you can supply the rest.”

“The place for that,” Angel said, “is not here. Too much might happen. Let’s take him with us. First thing you know, someone will walk in here with a machine gun, and then where will you be with your Chinese wrestling?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yes, but even Steve Brodie didn’t try it twice, darling. I’m going upstairs and collecting the Burdicks.”

She walked out. Smith glared at Vick and said grimly, “One thing I do want to know. What’s so all-fired important about those papers?”

“You go to hell,” Vick snarled.

Smith found the nerve again. Vick shuddered to the tips of his fingers.

“It... it’s a formula,” he gasped. “It’s some screwy formula for a new high explosive. That’s all I know. I swear it!”

“I think,” Smith said slowly, “I get it. At least, I begin to. Our friend Dubitsky was sent here by a foreign government. He took his time. He planned things carefully. Through him, Burdick and one or two other students obtained jobs at the Glickman Company. Through Burdick, the learned professor obtained information on the whereabouts of the formula. But things were hot. He decided to vanish. As Professor Dubitsky he did vanish. How right am I, Vick?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Vick mumbled. “Lay off of me, will you?”

“He found out,” Smith said, “that the custodian of the secret was McKenna. With that to work on, he planned to rob McKenna’s safe, and also, very cleverly, figured out an alibi because he knew he’d have to kill McKenna after he got him to open his safe. To cover up the murder Dubitsky planned that the police would discover after a while that McKenna was paying attention to Burdick’s wife, and that Burdick himself, soon after McKenna’s murder, had committed suicide. It would appear to be the usual sordid triangle, leaving Dubitsky and the real motive thoroughly obscured. I like to reason these things out, Vick. It’s half the fun.”

Angel, appearing in the doorway, said impatiently: “Mr. and Mrs. Burdick are now in your car, Mr. Smith. Could you cut it short, perhaps?”

“One more thing, Vick.”

“Huh?”

“Who murdered McKenna?”

“You go to hell!”

Smith caressed the nerve again.

“He did,” Vick groaned. “So help me, I ain’t lyin’. Dubitsky did it. After gettin’ McKenna to open the safe with them papers in it Dubitsky had to kill him to keep him from ever identifying him.”

Smith sighed. “It really doesn’t matter who shot him, because I’m going to tie the three of you up, Vick, and as soon as I’m out of here I’m going to phone the police. You won’t escape before they get here, Vick. Doing tricks with ropes is another of my little accomplishments, and you won’t even wiggle when I’m through with you. So the police will come and find you, Vick, and find those two guns on the table; and if either of those guns fired the bullet that killed McKenna, the police will know it. Ballistics, you know.”

“Here,” Angel said, “are your ropes. Mr. and Mrs. Burdick were wrapped up in them, upstairs.”

Smith went to work tying them up while Angel stood by with her gun trained on them. Finished, he stepped back and surveyed the results of his efforts, and grinned.

He took Angel’s arm. “Let’s go, darling,” he said.

That’s right,” Mrs. Burdick’s Teddy said timidly. “I got the job through Dubitsky and then a couple of months later he died. And then he came to life again, and came to see me.”

“And told you he was a Federal agent?”

“That’s right, Mr. Smith. He told me he was a Federal agent, working to break down a spy ring. And I believed him. I guess I’d been reading too many stories.”

They sat, the four of them, in the tiny office of Trouble, Inc. Teddy Burdick, Mrs. Burdick, Angel and Smith. Burdick was limp with gratitude. Mrs. Burdick was exactly like her letter — small, scared, not too gifted with brains.

“Dubitsky asked you then to help him. He told you the officials of the Glickman Company were under suspicion, and asked you to find out which of them had been entrusted with the safe-keeping of the formula. That it?” Smith asked.

“That’s right. And when I did find out that Mr. McKenna kept it at home, he advised me to quit my job. He gave me a thousand dollars and told me to move to a small apartment somewhere and keep very quiet until the thing came to a head.”

“What happened then?” Smith asked.

“Well, at the last minute, just when we were all set to move, he sent for me. He called me on the phone and told me to come to that address on Canal Street. When I got there, those two men, Vick and Max, jumped on me.”

Smith leaned back in his chair, smiling. “You see it now, Angel?” he asked gently.

“There’s one thing,” Angel declared, “that still bothers me.”

“Yes?”

“Look, now. Dubitsky planned this business very nicely, but right smack in the middle of it he ‘died.’ There must have been, at that time, a fear in his mind that he was being watched. In other words, government agents were closing in on him.” She drew a deep breath and stared at the floor, marshaling her thoughts.

“Well,” she continued, “he came to life again and went through with his plans. He got the formula. If Trouble, Incorporated, hadn’t landed right ker-smack on the back of his neck, he and his buddies would have disposed of Mrs. Burdick, to keep her quiet, and then murdered Teddy, making it look like a suicide to give the police an answer to the McKenna kill and steer the investigation away from Dubitsky and his pals. You follow me?”

There was a knock on the door. Smith got up to answer it. “So far, yes,” he said. “Go ahead.”

He opened the door and Plouffe stood there.

“Well,” Angel said, scowling, “what I want to know is why the G-men, after getting close enough to scare Dubitsky into temporary oblivion, didn’t see through his phony death and ultimately get their hands on him.”

Plouffe, blinking his gray eyes at her, said: “So help me, Miss Copeland, you’re clairvoyant. Meet my friend here, Mr. Toomey.”

He stepped aside and a man walked past him. “Mr. Toomey,” Plouffe said, “is a G-man. It seems he’s been keeping an eye on me ever since Mrs. Burdick came to me for advice.”

“On all of you,” Toomey said quietly. He was a tall, gray-haired man with a pleasant smile. “You see, Mr. Smith, we were just warming up to this case when you stepped into it.”

Smith stood up, his face sheepish.

“What Dubitsky was after,” Toomey said, “was the formula for a new explosive being manufactured for the government by the Glickman Company.”

“And thanks to us,” Smith admitted, “he got it.”

“No. He never would have got it. What he took from McKenna was the original formula, long ago proved to be worthless. I doubt if Dubitsky even knew that the original has twice been revised, and that the only existing copy of the approved, final formula has never been out of government hands. What you did do, Mr. Smith, was save the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Burdick and save us a lot of work.”

“Oh,” said Smith.

“He’s really very smart,” Angel cooed.

“Thanks to you, Mr. Smith,” Toomey said, “the dangerous Dubitsky and his two associates are in custody. I’m here simply to offer congratulations.”

He thrust out his hand. Smith took it. Angel beamed.

“You know,” Plouffe said, “he’s really a pretty good guy. Maybe we should ought to tell him the truth, Toomey.”

“Truth?” Smith said.

“You owe me some money,” Plouffe declared, pacing forward to the desk behind which Smith stood. “I’ll match you to see whether I get it or not.”

He took a coin from his pocket and flipped it. Slightly bewildered, Smith did likewise.

“Heads,” Smith said.

Plouffe thrust out his hand with the coin on the back of it. It wasn’t a coin. Not exactly. It was a gold identification disc of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Smith gaped at it.

“A lot of things,” Plouffe said softly, with a smile, “are not what they seem. Believe it or not, when I let you hire me I thought you were after that formula, too. I deliberately let you believe I was impersonating an F.B.I. man so you’d feel you had something on me. That way I might get onto a lot of things. Sorry, pal.” He turned to Toomey. “Well, Toomey,” he said, “let’s go. And you and your wife, Mr. Burdick, if you’ll come along, too, and answer a few questions, you can go home afterward.”

They went out. Smith looked solemnly at Angel. “I,” he declared slowly, “will be damned.”

She said, “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

“I’ve another surprise for you,” Smith told her, smiling.

“Really?”

“I’m going to pay you for all the work you’ve done.”

“No! You don’t mean it!”

“But I do.” He put his arms around her.

“Like this,” he said, and kissed her.