The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Frank Gruber (1904–1969) was born in Elmer, Minnesota, and worked as a bellhop, ticket taker at a movie theater, writer and editor of trade journals, and creative writing teacher at a correspondence school before he became a full-time writer. He was still in his twenties when he sold his first story, beginning a career that produced more than four hundred stories, sixty novels, and more than two hundred film and television scripts, mainly in the mystery and Western fiction genres. Among his mystery novels are The Silver Jackass (1941, as Charles K. Boston), The Last Doorbell (1941, as John K. Vedder), The Yellow Overcoat (1942, as Stephen Acre), and, under his own name, more than thirty others, including Simon Lash, Private Detective (1941), about a bibliophile private eye, filmed by PRC as Accomplice in 1946, starring Richard Arlen as Lash. He also wrote more than a dozen novels featuring the amateur detective Johnny Fletcher and his partner, Sam Cragg, a pair of always broke con men who made their debut in The French Key (1940), which Gruber wrote in seven days yet which made most of the year’s top-ten lists; it was filmed by Republic in 1946, with Albert Dekker as Fletcher and Mike Mazurki as Cragg. Perhaps his most beloved character, however, is Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia, whose seemingly infinite knowledge of even the most arcane subjects helps him solve crimes in a long series of pulp stories. Ten of the tales were collected in Brass Knuckles (1966).

“Ask Me Another” was published in the June 1937 issue.

Oliver Quade was reading the morning paper, his bare feet on the bed and his chair tilted back against the radiator. Charlie Boston was on the bed, wrapped to his chin in a blanket and reading a copy of Exciting Confessions.

It was just a usual, peaceful, after-breakfast interlude in the lives of Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia, and Charlie Boston, his friend and assistant.

And then Life intruded itself upon the bit of Utopia. Life in the form of the manager of the Eagle Hotel. He beat a tattoo upon the thin panels of the door. Quade put down his newspaper and sighed.

“Charles, will you please open the door and let in the wolf?”

Charlie Boston unrolled himself from the blanket. He scowled at Quade. “You think it’s the manager about the room rent?”

“Of course it is. Let him in before he breaks down the door.”

It was the manager. In his right fist he held a ruled form on which were scrawled some unpleasant figures. “About your rent, Mr. Quade,” he said severely. “We must have the money today!”

Quade looked at the manager of the Eagle Hotel, a puzzled expression on his face. “Rent? Money?”

“Of course,” snapped the manager. “This is the third time this week I’ve asked for it.”

A light came into Quade’s eyes. He made a quick movement and his feet and the front legs of the chair hit the carpeted floor simultaneously.

“Charles!” he roared in a voice that shook the room and caused the hotel manager to cringe. “Did you forget to get that money from the bank and pay this little bill?”

Charlie Boston took up Quade’s cue.

“Gosh, I’m awful sorry. On my way to the bank yesterday afternoon I ran into our old friend John Belmont of New York and he dragged me into the Palmer House Bar for a cocktail. By the time I could tear myself away, the bank was closed.”

Quade raised his hands and let them fall hopelessly. “You see, Mr. Creighton, I just can’t trust him to do anything. Now I’ve got to go out into the cold this morning and get it myself.”

The hotel manager’s eyes glinted. “Listen, you’ve stalled—” he began, but Quade suddenly stabbed out a hand toward him. “That reminds me, Mr. Creighton, I’ve a couple of complaints to make. We’re not getting enough heat here and last night the damfool next door kept us awake half the night with his radio. I want you to see that he keeps quiet tonight. And do something about the heat. I can’t stand drafty, cold rooms.”

The manager let out a weary sigh. “All right, I’ll look after it. But about that rent—”

“Yes, of course,” cut in Quade, “and your maid left only two towels this morning. Please see that a couple more are sent up. Immediately!”

The manager closed the door behind him with a bang. Oliver Quade chuckled and lifted his newspaper again. But Charlie Boston wouldn’t let him read.

“You got away with it, Ollie,” he said, “but it’s the last time. I know it. I’ll bet we get locked out before tonight.” He shook his head sadly. “You, Oliver Quade, with the greatest brain in captivity, are you going to walk the streets tonight in ten below zero weather?”

“Of course not, Charles,” sighed Quade. “I was just about to tell you that we’re going out to make some money today. Look, it’s here in this paper. The Great Chicago Auditorium Poultry Show.”

Boston’s eyes lit up for a moment, but then dimmed again. “Can we raise three weeks’ rent at a poultry show?”

Quade slipped his feet into his socks and shoes. “That remains to be seen. This paper mentions twenty thousand paid admissions. Among that many people there ought to be a few who are interested in higher learning. Well, are you ready?”

Boston went to the clothes closet and brought out their overcoats and a heavy suitcase. Boston was of middle height and burly. He could bend iron bars with his muscular hands. Quade was taller and leaner. His face was hawk-like, his nose a little too pointed and lengthy, but few ever noticed that. They saw only his piercing, sparkling eyes and felt his dominant personality.

The auditorium was almost two miles from their hotel, but lacking carfare, Quade and Boston walked. When they reached their destination, Quade cautioned Boston:

“Be sharp now, Charlie. Act like we belonged.”

Quade opened the outer door and walked blithely past the ticket windows to the door leading into the auditorium proper. A uniformed man at the door held out his hand for the tickets.

“Hello,” Quade said, heartily. “How’re you today?”

“Uh, all right, I guess,” replied the ticket-taker. “You boys got passes?”

“Oh, sure. We’re just taking in some supplies for the breeders. Brr! It’s cold today. Well, be seeing you.” And with that he breezed past the ticket-taker.

“H’are ya, pal,” Boston said, treading on Quade’s heels.

The auditorium was a huge place but even so, it was almost completely filled with row upon row of wire exhibition coops, each coop containing a feathered fowl of some sort.

“What a lot of gumps!” Boston observed.

“Don’t use that word around here,” Quade cautioned. “These poultry folks take their chickens seriously. Refer to the chickens as ‘fine birds’ or ‘elegant fowls’ or something like that... Damn these publicity men!”

“Huh?”

Quade waved a hand about the auditorium. “The paper said twenty thousand paid admissions. How many people do you see in here?”

Boston craned his head around. “If there’s fifty I’m countin’ some of ’em twice. How the hell can they pay the nut with such a small attendance?”

“The entry fees. There must be around two thousand chickens in here and the entry fee for each chicken is at least a dollar and a half. The prize money doesn’t amount to much and I guess the paid admissions are velvet — if they get any, which I doubt.”

“Twenty thousand, bah!” snorted Boston. “Well, do we go back?”

“Where? Our only chance was to stay in our room. I’ll bet the manager changed the lock the minute we left it.”

“So what?”

“So I get to work. For the dear old Eagle Hotel.”

Quade ploughed through an aisle to the far end of the auditorium. Commercial exhibits were contained in booths all around the four sides of the huge room, but Quade found a small spot that had been overlooked and pushed a couple of chicken coops into the space.

Then he climbed up on the coops and began talking.

The Human Encyclopedia’s voice was an amazing one. People who heard it always marveled that such a tremendous voice could come from so lean a man. Speaking without noticeable effort, his voice rolled out across the chicken coops.

“I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,” he boomed. “I have the greatest brain in the entire country. I know the answers to all questions, what came first, the chicken or the egg, every historical date since the beginning of time, the population of every city in the country, how to eradicate mice in your poultry yards, how to mix feeds to make your chickens lay more eggs. Everything. Everything under the sun. On any subject: history, science, agriculture, and mathematics.”

The scattered persons in the auditorium began to converge upon Quade’s stand. Inside of two minutes three-fourths of the people in the building were gathered before Quade and the rest were on their way. He continued his preliminary build-up in his rich, powerful voice.

“Ask me a question, someone. Let me prove that I’m the Human Encyclopedia, the man who knows the answers to all questions. Try me out, someone, on any subject: history, science, mathematics, agriculture — anything at all!”

Quade stabbed out his lean forefinger at a middle-aged, sawed-off man wearing a tan smock. “You, sir, ask me a question?”

The man flushed at being singled out of the crowd. “Why, uh, I don’t know of any... Yes, I do. What’s the highest official egg record ever made by a hen?”

“That’s the stuff,” smiled Quade. He held out his hand dramatically. “That’s a good question, but an easy one to answer. The highest record ever made by a hen in an American official egg-laying contest is three hundred and forty-two eggs. It was made in 1930 at the Athens, Georgia, Egg-Laying Contest, by a Single-Comb White Leghorn. Am I right, mister?”

The sawed-off man nodded grudgingly. “Yeah, but I don’t see how you knew it. Most poultry folks don’t even remember it.”

“Oh, but you forget I told you I had the greatest brain in the country. I know the answer to all questions on any subject. Don’t bother to ask me simple poultry questions. Try me on something hard. You—” He picked out a lean, dour looking man. “Ask me something hard.”

The man bit his lip a moment, then said:

“All right, what state has the longest coastline?”

Quade grinned. “Ah, you’re trying the tricky stuff. But you can’t fool me. Most folks would say California or Florida. But the correct answer is Michigan. And to head off the rest of you on the trick geography questions let me say right away that Kentucky has the largest number of other states touching it and Minnesota has the farthest northern point of any state. Next question!”

A young fellow wearing pince-nez put his tongue into his cheek and asked, “Why and how does a cat purr?”

“Oh-oh!” Quade craned his neck to stare at the young fellow. “I see we have a student with us. Well, young man, you’ve asked a question so difficult that practically every university professor in this country would be stumped by it. But I’m not. It so happens that I read a recent paper by Professor E. L. Gibbs of the Harvard Medical School in which he gave the results of his experiments on four hundred cats to learn the answer to that very same question. The first part of the question is simple enough — the cat purrs when it is contented, but to explain the actual act of purring is a little more difficult. Contentment in a cat relaxes the infundibular nerve in the brain, which reacts upon the pituitary and bronchial organs and makes the purring sound issue from the cat’s throat... Try that one on your friends, sometime. Someone else try me on a question.”

“I’d like to ask one,” said a clear, feminine voice. Quade’s eyes lit up. He had already noticed the girl, the only female in his audience. She was amazingly pretty, the type of a girl he would scarcely have expected to find at a poultry show. She was young, not more than twenty-one, and she had the finest chiseled features Quade had ever seen. She was a blonde and the rakish green hat and green coat she wore, although inexpensive, looked exceedingly well on her.

“Yes, what is the question?” he asked, leaning forward a bit.

The girl’s chin came up defiantly. “I just want to know why certain poultry judges allow dyed birds to be judged for prizes!”

A sudden rumble went up in the crowd and Quade saw the sawed-off man in the tan smock whirl and glare angrily at the girl.

“Oh-oh,” Quade said. “You seem to have asked a delicate question. Well, I’ll answer it just the same. Any judge who allows a dyed Rhode Island Red to stay in the class is either an ignorant fool — or a crook!”

“Damn you!” roared the little man, turning back to Quade. “You can’t say that to me. I’ll — I’ll have you thrown out of here.” He started pushing his way through the crowd, heading in the direction of the front office.

“If the shoe fits, put it on,” Quade called after him. Then to the girl, “Who’s he?”

“A judge here. Stone’s his name.”

“Well, let’s get on with the show,” Quade said to the crowd. “Next question?”

Quade had lost nothing by his bold answer to the girl’s question. The audience warmed to him and the questions came fast and furious.

“Who was the eleventh president of the United States?”

“What is the Magna Charta?”

“Who was the 1896 Olympic 220-meter champion?”

“How do you cure scaly legs in chickens?”

“How far is Saturn from the Earth?”

Quade answered all the questions put to him, with lightning rapidity. But suddenly he called a dramatic halt. “That’s all the questions, folks. Now let me show you how you can learn all the answers yourselves to every question that has just been asked — and ten thousand more.”

He held out his hands and Charlie Boston tossed a thick book into them which he had taken from the suitcase they had brought with them. Quade began ruffling the pages.

“They’re all in here. This, my friends, is the ‘Compendium of Human Knowledge,’ the greatest book of its kind ever published. Twelve hundred pages, crammed with facts, information every one of you should know. The knowledge of the ages, condensed, classified, abbreviated. A complete high-school education in one volume. Ten minutes a day and this book will make you the most learned person in your community!”

Quade lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. “Friends, I’m going to astonish you by telling you the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard: The price of this book. What do you think I’m asking for it? Twenty-five dollars? No, not even twenty... or fifteen. In fact, not even ten or five dollars. Just a mere, paltry, insignificant two dollars and ninety-five cents. But I’m only going to offer these books once at that price. Two-ninety-five, and here I come!”

Quade leaped down from his platform to attack his audience, supposedly built up to the buying pitch. But he was destined not to sell any books just then. Charlie Boston tugged at his coat sleeve.

“Look, Ollie!” he whispered hoarsely. “He got the cops!”

Quade raised himself to his toes to look over the chicken coops. He groaned. For the short man in the tan smock was coming up the center aisle leading a small procession of policemen.

Quade sighed. “Put the books back into the suitcase, Charlie.” He leaned against a poultry coop and waited to submit quietly to the arrest.

But the policemen did not come toward him. Reaching the center aisle, the man in the tan smock wheeled to the left, away from Quade, and the police followed him.

Quade’s audience saw the police. Two or three persons broke away and started toward the other side of the building. The movement started a stampede and in a moment Charlie Boston and Quade were left alone.

“Something seems to have happened over there,” Quade observed. “Wonder what?”

“From the mob of cops I’d say a murder,” Boston replied dryly.

The word “murder” was scarcely out of Boston’s mouth than it was hurled back at them from across the auditorium.

“It is a murder!” Quade gasped.

“This is no place for us, then,” cried Boston. “Let’s scram!”

He caught up the suitcase containing the books and started off. But Quade called him back. “That’s no good. There’s a cop at the door. We’ll have to stick.”

“Chickens!” howled Boston. “The minute you mentioned them at the hotel I had a hunch that something was going to happen. And I’ll bet a plugged dime, which I haven’t got, that we get mixed up in it.”

“Maybe so, Charlie. But if I know cops there’s going to be a lot of questioning and my hunch is that we’ll be better off if we’re not too upstage. Let’s go over and find out what’s what.”

He started toward the other side of the auditorium. Boston followed, lugging the suitcase and grumbling.

All of the crowd was gathered in front of a huge, mahogany cabinet — a mammoth incubator. The door of the machine was standing open and two or three men were moving around inside.

Quade drew in his breath sharply when he saw the huddled body lying on the floor just inside the door of the incubator. Gently he began working his way through the crowd until he stood in front of the open incubator door.

The small group came out of the incubator and a beetle-browed man in a camel’s hair overcoat and Homburg hat squared himself off before the girl in the green hat and coat. The man in the tan smock, his head coming scarcely up to the armpits of the big man, hopped around like a bantam rooster.

“I understand you had a quarrel with him yesterday,” the big man said to the girl. “What about?”

The girl drew herself up to her full height. “Because his birds were dyed and the judge — the man behind you — refused to throw them out. That’s why!”

The bantam sputtered. “She — why, that’s a damn lie!”

The big detective turned abruptly, put a ham-like hand against the chest of the runt and shoved him back against the incubator with so much force that the little man gasped in pain.

“Listen, squirt,” the detective said. “Nothing’s been proved against this girl and until it is, she’s a lady. Up here we don’t call ladies liars.”

He turned back to the girl and said with gruff kindness, “Now, miss, let’s have the story.”

“There’s no story,” declared the girl. “I did quarrel with him, just like I did with Judge Stone. But — but I haven’t seen Mr. Tupper since yesterday evening. That’s all I can tell you because it’s all I know.”

“Yesterday, huh.” The detective looked around the circle. “Anybody see him here today?”

“Yes, of course,” said a stocky man of about forty-five. “I was talking to him early this morning, before the place was opened to the public. There were a dozen or more of us around then.”

“You’re the boss of this shebang?”

“Not exactly. Our poultry association operates this show. I’m Leo Cassmer, the secretary, and I’m in charge of the exhibits, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” replied the detective. “You’re the boss. You know the exhibitors then. All right, who was here early this morning when this Tupper fellow was around?”

Cassmer, the show secretary, rubbed his chin. “Why, there was myself, Judge Stone, Ralph Conway, the Wyandotte man, Judge Welheimer and several of the men who work around here.”

“And Miss Martin — was she here?”

“She came in before the place was officially opened, but she wasn’t around the last time I saw Tupper.”

“Who’re Welheimer and Conway?”

A tall, silver-haired man stepped out of the crowd. “Conway’s my name.”

“And the judge?” persisted the detective.

A long-nosed man with a protruding lower lip came grudgingly out of the crowd. “I’m Judge Welheimer.”

“You a real judge or just a chicken judge?”

“Why, uh, just a poultry judge. Licensed by the National Poultry Association.”

“And you don’t hold any public office at all? You’re not even a justice of the peace?”

The long-nosed chicken judge reddened. He shook his head.

The detective’s eyes sparkled. “That’s fine. All that talk about judges had me worried for a bit. But listen, you chicken judges and the rest of you. I’m Sergeant Dickinson of the Homicide Squad of this town. There’s been a murder committed here and I’m investigating it. Which means I’m boss around here. Get me?”

Quade couldn’t quite restrain a snicker. The sergeant’s sharp ears heard it and he singled out Quade.

“And who the hell are you?”

“Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,” Quade replied glibly. “I know the answers to all questions—”

Sergeant Dickinson’s face twisted. “Ribbing me, ha? Step up here where I can get a good look at you.”

Quade remained where he was. “There’s a dead man in there. I don’t like to get too close to dead people.”

The sergeant took a half step toward Quade, but then stopped himself. He tried to smooth out his face, but it was still dark with anger.

“I’ll get around to you in a minute, fella.” He turned belligerently to the show secretary. “You, who found the body?”

Cassmer pointed to a pasty-faced young fellow of about thirty. The man grinned sickly.

“Yeah, I got in kinda late and started straightening things around. Then I saw that someone had stuck that long staple in the door latch. I didn’t think much about it and opened the door and there — there he was lying on the floor. Deader’n a mackerel!”

“You work for this incubator company?” the sergeant asked.

The young fellow nodded. “I’m the regional sales manager. Charge of this exhibit. It’s the finest incubator on the market. Used by the best breeders and hatcherymen.”

“Can the sales talk,” growled the detective. “I’m not going to buy one. Let’s go back on your story. What made you say this man was murdered?”

“What else could it be? He was dead and the door was locked on the outside.”

“I know that. But couldn’t he have died of heart failure? There’s plenty of air in that thing, and besides there’s a ventilator hole up there.”

“He was murdered,” said Quade.

Sergeant Dickinson whirled. “And how do you know?”

“By looking at the body. Anyone could tell it was murder.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe you’ll tell me how he was killed. There ain’t a mark on his body.”

“No marks of violence, because he wasn’t killed that way. He was killed with a poison gas. Something containing cyanogen.”

The sergeant clamped his jaws together. “Go on! Who killed him?”

Quade shook his head. “No, that’s your job. I’ve given you enough to start with.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” said the sergeant. “So much so that I’m going to arrest you!”

Charlie Boston groaned into Quade’s ears. “Won’t you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?”

But Quade merely grinned insolently. “If you arrest me I’ll sue you for false arrest.”

“I’ll take a chance on that,” said the detective. “No one could know as much as you do and not have had something to do with the murder.”

“You’re being very stupid, Sergeant,” Quade said. “These men told you they hadn’t seen Tupper alive for several hours. He’s been dead at least three. And I just came into this building fifteen minutes ago.”

“He’s right,” declared Anne Martin. “I saw him come in. He and his friend. They went straight over to the other side of the building and started that sales talk.”

“What sales talk?”

The little poultry judge hopped in again. “He’s a damn pitchman. Pulls some phony question and answer stuff and insults people. Claims he’s the smartest man in the world. Bah!”

“Bah to you!” said Quade.

“Cut it,” cried Sergeant Dickinson. “I want to get the straight of this. You.” He turned to Cassmer. “Did he really come in fifteen minutes ago?”

Cassmer shrugged. “I never saw him until a few minutes ago. But there’s the ticket-taker. He’d know.”

The ticket-taker, whose post had been taken over by a policeman, frowned. “Yeah, he came in just a little while ago. I got plenty reason to remember. Him and his pal crashed the gate. On me! First time anyone crashed the gate on me in eight years. But he was damn slick. He—”

“Never mind the details,” sighed Sergeant Dickinson. “I can imagine he was slick about it. Well, mister, you didn’t kill him. But tell me — how the hell do you know he was gassed with cy... cyanide?”

“Cyanogen. It’s got prussic acid in it. All right, the body was found inside the incubator, the door locked on the outside. That means someone locked him inside the incubator. The person who killed him. Right so far?”

“I’m listening.” There was a thoughtful look in the sergeant’s eyes.

“There’s broken glass inside the incubator. The killer heaved in a bottle containing the stuff and slammed the door shut and locked it. The man inside was killed inside of a minute.”

“Wait a minute. The glass is there all right, but how d’you know it contained cyanogen? There’s no smell in there.”

“No, because the killer opened the ventilator hole and turned on the electric fans inside the incubator. All that can be done from the outside. The fans cleared out the fumes. Simple.”

“Not so simple. You still haven’t said how you know it was cyanogen.”

“Because he’s got all the symptoms. Look at the body — pupils dilated, eyes wide, froth on the mouth, face livid, body twisted and stiff. That means he had convulsions. Well, if those symptoms don’t mean cyanogen, I don’t know what it’s all about.”

“Mister,” said the detective. “Who did you say you were?”

“Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. I know everything.”

“You know, I’m beginning to believe you. Well, then, who did the killing?”

“That’s against the union rules. I told you how the man was killed. Finding who did it is your job.”

“All right, but tell me one thing more. If this cyanogen has prussic acid in it, it’s a deadly poison. Folks can’t usually buy it.”

“City folks, you mean. Cyanogen is the base for several insecticides. I don’t think this was pure cyanogen. I’m inclined to believe it was a diluted form, probably a gas used to kill rats on poultry farms. Any poultry raiser could buy that.”

“Here comes the coroner’s man,” announced Detective Dickinson. “Now, we’ll get a check on you, Mr. Quade.”

Dr. Bogle, the coroner’s physician, made a rapid, but thorough, examination of the body. His announcement coincided startlingly with Quade’s diagnosis.

“Prussic acid or cyanide. He inhaled it. Died inside of five minutes. About three and a half hours ago.”

Quade’s face was twisted in a queer smile. He walked off from the group. Charlie Boston and Anne Martin, the girl, followed.

“Do you mind my saying that you just performed some remarkable work?” the girl said admiringly.

“No, I don’t mind your saying so.” Quade grinned. “I was rather colossal.”

“He pulls those things out of a hat,” groused Boston. “He’s a very smart man. Only one thing he can’t do.”

“What’s that?”

Boston started to reply, but Quade’s fierce look silenced him. Quade coughed. “Well, look — a hot dog stand. Reminds me, it’s about lunch time. Feel like a hot dog and orangeade, Anne?”

The girl smiled at his familiarity. “I don’t mind. I’m rather hungry.”

Boston sidled up to Quade. “Hey, you forgot!” he whispered. “You haven’t got any money.”

Quade said, “Three dogs and orangeades!”

A minute later they were munching hot dogs. Quade finished his orangeade and half-way through the sandwich suddenly snapped his fingers.

“That reminds me, I forgot something. Excuse me a moment...” He started off suddenly toward the group around the incubator, ignoring Charlie Boston’s startled protest.

Boston suddenly had no appetite. He chewed the food in his mouth as long as he could. The girl finished her sandwich and smiled at him.

“That went pretty good. Guess I’ll have another. How about you?”

Boston almost choked. “Uh, no, I ain’t hungry.”

The girl ordered another hot dog and orangeade and finished them while Boston still fooled with the tail end of his first sandwich.

The concessionaire mopped up the counter all around Boston and Anne Martin and finally said, “That’s eighty cents, mister!”

Boston put the last of the sandwich in his mouth and began going through his pockets. The girl watched him curiously. Boston went through his pockets a second time. “That’s funny,” he finally said. “I must have left my wallet in the hotel. Quade...”

“Let me pay for it,” said the girl, snapping open her purse.

Boston’s face was as red as a Harvard beet. Such things weren’t embarrassing to Quade, but they were to Boston.

“There’s Mr. Quade,” said Anne Martin. “Shall we join him?”

Boston was glad to get away from the hot dog stand.

The investigation was still going on. Sergeant Dickinson was on his hands and knees inside the incubator. A policeman stood at the door of it and a couple more were going over the exterior.

Quade saluted them with a piece of wire. “They’re looking for clues,” he said.

The girl shivered. “I’d like it much better if they’d take away Exhibit A.”

“Can’t. Not until they take pictures. I hear the photographers and the fingerprint boys are coming down. It’s not really necessary either. Because I know who the murderer is.”

The girl gasped: “Who?”

Quade did not reply. He looked at the piece of wire in his hands. It was evidently a spoke from a wire poultry coop, but it had been twisted into an elongated question mark. He tapped Dickinson’s shoulder with the wire.

The sergeant looked up and scowled. “Huh?”

“Want this?” Quade asked.

“What the hell is it?”

“Just a piece of wire I picked up.”

“What’re you trying to do, rib me?”

Quade shrugged. “No, but I saw you on your hands and knees and thought you were looking for something. Thought this might be it.”

Dickinson snorted. “What the hell, if you’re not going to tell me who did the killing, let me alone.”

“O.K.” Quade flipped the piece of wire over a row of chicken coops. “Come,” he said to Boston and Anne Martin. “Let’s go look at the turkeys at the other end of the building.”

Boston shuffled up beside Quade as the three walked through an aisle. “Who did it, Ollie?”

“Can’t tell now, because I couldn’t prove it. In a little while, perhaps.”

Boston let out his pent-up breath. “If you ain’t the damnedest guy ever!”

Anne Martin said, “You mean you’re not going to tell Sergeant Dickinson?”

“Oh yes, but I’m going to wait a while. Maybe he’ll tumble himself and I’d hate to deprive him of that pleasure... What time is it?”

“I don’t know,” Boston said. “I lost my watch in Kansas City. You remember that, don’t you, Ollie?”

Quade winced. Boston had “lost” his watch in Uncle Ben’s Three Gold Ball Shop. Quade’s had gone to Uncle Moe in St. Louis.

“It’s twelve-thirty,” the girl said, looking at her wristwatch.

Quade nodded. “That’s fine. The early afternoon editions of the papers will have accounts of the murder and a lot of morbid folk will flock around here later on. That means I can put on a good pitch and sell some of my books.”

“I wanted to ask you about that,” said Anne Martin. “You answered some really remarkable questions this morning. I don’t for the life of me see how you do it.”

“Forsaking modesty for the moment, I do it because I really know all the answers.”

“All?”

“Uh-huh. You see, I’ve read an entire encyclopedia from cover to cover four times.”

Anne looked at him in astonishment. “An entire encyclopedia?”

“Twenty-four volumes... Well, let’s go back now. Charlie, keep your eyes open.”

“Ah!” Charlie Boston said.

Dr. Bogle’s men were just taking away the body of the murdered man. Sergeant Dickinson, a disgusted look on his face, had rounded up his men and was on the verge of leaving.

“Not going, Captain Dickinson?” Quade asked.

“What good will it do me to hang around?” snorted the sergeant. “Everyone and his brother has some phony alibi.”

“But your clues, man?”

“What clues?”

Quade shook his head in exasperation. “I told you how the murder was committed, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, sure, the guy locked the bloke in the incubator and tossed in the bottle of poison gas, then opened the ventilator and turned on the fans. But there were more than a dozen guys around and almost any one of them could have done it, without any of the others even noticing what he was doing.”

“No, you’re wrong. Only one person could have done it.”

A hush suddenly fell upon the crowd. Charlie Boston, tensed and crouching, was breathing heavily. The police sergeant’s face became bleak. Quade had demonstrated his remarkable deductive ability a while ago and Dickinson was willing to believe anything of him, now.

Quade stepped lazily to a poultry coop, took hold of a wire bar and with a sudden twist tore it off. Then he stepped to the side of the incubator.

“Look at this ventilator,” he said. “Notice that I can reach it easily enough. So could you, Lieutenant. We’re about the same height — five feet ten. But a man only five-two couldn’t reach it even by standing on his toes. Do you follow me?”

“Go on,” said Sergeant Dickinson.

Quade twisted the piece of wire into an elongated question mark. “To move a box or chair up here and climb up on it would be to attract attention,” he went on, “so the killer used a piece of wire to open the ventilator. Like this!” Quade caught the hook in the ventilator and pulled it open easily.

“That’s good enough for me!” said Sergeant Dickinson. “You practically forced that wire on me a while ago and I couldn’t see it. Well — Judge Stone, you’re under arrest!”

“He’s a liar!” roared the bantam poultry judge. “He can’t prove anything like that on me. He just tore that piece of wire from that coop!”

“That’s right,” said Quade. “You saw me pick up the original piece of wire and when I threw it away after trying to give it to the sergeant you got it and disposed of it.”

“You didn’t see me!”

“No, I purposely walked away to give you a chance to get rid of the wire. But I laid a trap for you. While I had that wire I smeared some ink on it to prove you handled it. Look at your hands, Judge Stone!”

Judge Stone raised both palms upward. His right thumb and fingers were smeared with a black stain.

Sergeant Dickinson started toward the little poultry judge. But the bantam uttered a cry of fright and darted away.

“Ha!” cried Charlie Boston, and lunged for him. He wrapped his thick arms around the little man and tried to hold on to him. But the judge was suddenly fighting for his life. He clawed at Boston’s face and kicked his shins furiously. Boston howled and released his grip to defend himself with his fists.

The poultry judge promptly butted Boston in the stomach and darted under his flailing arms.

It was Anne Martin who stopped him. As the judge scrambled around Boston she stepped forward and thrust out her right foot. The little man tripped over it and plunged headlong to the concrete floor of the auditorium. Before he could get up Charlie Boston was on him. Sergeant Dickinson swooped down, a Police Positive in one hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other. The killer was secured.

Stone quit then. “Yes, I killed him, the damned lousy blackmailer. For years I judged his chickens at the shows and always gave him the edge. Then he double-crossed me, got me fired.”

“What job?” asked Dickinson.

“My job as district manager for the Sibley Feed Company,” replied Stone.

“Why’d he have you fired?” asked Quade. “Because you were short-weighing him on his feed? Is that it?”

“I gave him prizes his lousy chickens should never have had,” snapped the killer. “What if I did short-weigh him twenty or thirty percent? I more than made up for it.”

“Twenty or thirty percent,” said Quade, “would amount to quite a bit of money in the course of a year. In his advertising in the poultry papers Tupper claimed he raised over eight thousand chickens a year.”

“I don’t need any more,” said Sergeant Dickinson. “Well, Mr. Quade, you certainly delivered the goods.”

“Not me, I only told you who the murderer was. If it hadn’t been for Miss Martin he’d have got away.”

Quade turned away. “Anne,” he said, “Charlie and I are flat broke. But this afternoon a flock of rubbernecks are going to storm this place and I’m going to take quite a chunk of money from them. But in the meantime... That hot dog wasn’t very filling and I wonder if you’d stake us to a lunch?”

Anne Martin’s eyes twinkled. “Listen, Mr. Quade, if you asked me for every cent I’ve got I’d give it to you right away — because you’d get it from me anyway, if you really wanted it. You’re the world’s greatest salesman. You even sold Judge Stone into confessing.”

Quade grinned. “Yes? How?”

She pointed at Quade’s hands. “You handled that first wire hook with your bare hands. How come your hands didn’t get black?”

Quade chuckled. “Smart girl. Even the sergeant didn’t notice that. Well, I’ll confess. I saw the smudge on Judge Stone’s hands away back when I was putting on my pitch. He must have used a leaky fountain pen or something.”

“Then you didn’t put anything on it?”

“No. But I knew he was the murderer and he knew it... only he didn’t know his hands were dirty. So...”

The girl drew a deep breath. “Oliver Quade, the lunches are on me.”

“And the dinner and show tonight are on me,” grinned Oliver Quade.