The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

George Harmon Coxe (1901–1984) was born in Olean, New York, and attended Purdue and Cornell before becoming a journalist and advertising man. His first stories were about his (undistinguished) college career, which appeared in American Boy, and then his mystery tales in Detective Stories. Although known today for his detective stories, he was also a prolific writer of sports, romance, adventure, and sea stories for a variety of pulp magazines. Later, he wrote for the top slicks, mainly war stories that he imbued with rich background material gleaned from his years as a special correspondent in the Pacific theater.

Coxe’s first mystery novel, Murder with Pictures (1935), featured Kent Murdock, a newspaper photographer who was to be the protagonist in twenty-three of his more than sixty published novels in a career that spanned more than forty years. The novel served as the basis for a film of the same title, released by Paramount in 1936 and starring Lew Ayres and Gail Patrick.

Jack “Flashgun” Casey, Coxe’s other famous detective character, was also a newspaper photographer, though tougher and less educated than Murdock. He made his debut in the March 1934 issue of Black Mask, and had successful careers in radio with Flashgun Casey (later Casey, Crime Photographer), running for more than a decade after its 1943 debut, and film, with Women Are Trouble (1936, MGM, starring Stuart Erwin) and Here’s Flash Casey (1938, Grand National, with Eric Linden).

“Fall Guy” was published in the June 1936 issue.

Somebody had to take it and Flashgun Casey was a natural.

I

It was the fag end of a dull day, and Casey was slouched behind his desk in the anteroom of the photographic department of the Express arguing with Tom Wade about the pennant chances of the Red Sox. When the telephone rang, he scowled at the interruption, hesitated, reached reluctantly for the offending instrument.

“Trouble, I’ll bet,” he growled.

He flipped the receiver into his hand and said: “Hello... yeah. Who? Norma?”

O’Hearn, who was leafing through an old movie magazine in search of the more undraped studies, winked at Wade and said:

“Umm. Norma.”

“Sure,” Casey was saying, grinning now. “I saw in the paper you were in town.” He listened a few moments, added: “A favor? Sure. Anytime... Now? Okey, I’ll be right over.”

He planted the telephone on the desk with a flourish, gave a downward tug at his battered brown felt and swept his trench coat from a hat rack.

“Is she any good?” O’Hearn asked doubtfully. “This Norma.”

“Quiet, Mugg,” Casey said. Then, turning at the doorway: “If the Mayor wants me I’ll be at the Carteret.”

“Can you get in?” Wade asked, grinning.

“Listen,” Casey said. “When I step in that hotel the manager nods.”

“Yeah,” cracked O’Hearn. “To the house detective.”

Casey swung into the hall with a spring in his stride and a twinkle in his eye. He flipped a hand to the office boy who crossed his path, had good-natured answers for the elevator boy, the overalled pressmen in the car and the two circulation hustlers who got on at the second floor.

Without knowing it Casey sat, temporarily at least, upon that mythical and precarious spot known as the top of the world. There was no reason for this. It was just a mood. The mood was catching, and when the car stopped everybody was grinning.

Casey was like that. Big, thick through the chest and flat across the stomach, he was a burly figure with a rugged squarish face and craggy jaw. Gray peppered shaggy brown hair over the ears; his clothing was baggy but not cheap. His manner was often blunt, crabby; his dark eyes, without much illusion, were frequently sober. Sometimes he wore a grouch as a protective garment, but when he smiled he did a good job and seemed, somehow, to reflect a friendliness that was vital and genuine.

Whistling tunelessly, he bumped his cream-colored roadster out of its parking space at the curb, slid down Tremont Street through the gathering dusk of the June day. An afternoon rain had turned to a stubborn mist, leaving the pavement glossy and making shimmering red and green and orange lights of the traffic signal ahead of him.

He caught a green arrow at Boylston, and ten minutes later he was pounding briskly through the entrance of the Carteret. Answering the doorman’s lofty, “Good evening, sir,” he strode hard-heeled into the lobby as though he owned the place, bogged down slightly in ankle-deep carpet and bounced skilfully from a fat man’s stomach when he winked at a marcelled blonde behind the magazine counter.

A silent elevator cushioned him to a stop on the ninth floor and he rapped a hard fist against a pastel-blue door marked Suite 9-B. He had a momentary wait; then the doorway was filled with a woman’s silhouette and a vibrant contralto voice said:

“Flash.”

“Norma.” He got his hat off and took the firm, warm hand. “Gee, it’s good to see you.”

Silently she drew him into the entryway, took his arm, and they went into the room side by side. He saw from opened doorways beyond that there were at least three rooms to the suite. This first, the drawing room, was cream and green — hangings, upholstery, rug. Near the windows a man sat at a knee-hole desk which had apparently been moved in, because it did not go with the period furniture. There was a portable typewriter on the desk, a lot of scattered papers, a briefcase on the floor.

“Could you finish that some other time, Fred?” Norma asked.

“Surely.” The man stood up, a slender, dark fellow with good clothes that he wore expertly. Definitely handsome in a rather brittle way, he gave Norma a reserved nod and a perfunctory smile as he withdrew.

“Martin — my husband — uses this as his office while he’s in town,” she explained, leading Casey to a Queen Anne love seat. “That’s Fred Gilbert, his secretary.”

Casey moved a damp polo coat from the chair, tossed it across the seat-back, sat down and studied briefly the woman opposite him. She was still just as attractive. Full-sized and meaty — the show-girl type — with auburn hair and liquid brown eyes. At least thirty, she remained beautifully put together; her jaw was clean and determined, with a rather pointed chin that was firm and smooth.

He had known her first as Norma Lamont, artist’s model. Eight years ago that was. But even then she had been the sort that knew what she wanted and worked to that end. She had tried burlesque for a while, found she had a fair voice to go with her figure, and done a turn in vaudeville. Her first marriage, to her piano player, had not been much of a success from her viewpoint and she had gone West with a musical comedy after her divorce.

It was in Chicago that she met and married Martin Patten. Sure-shot Patten, they called him. Casey didn’t know the man, but he knew of him. A well-known promoter and State Boxing Commissioner, Patten’s name stood high in sporting circles, and his Eastern affiliations included a half interest in Norfolk Park, the local racing plant.

“I’m in trouble, Flash,” Norma Patten said, and Casey, seeing her eyes upon him, knew that she spoke the truth.

A new and unaccustomed nervousness had put a jerkiness into her voice and tight lines around the mouth. She rose abruptly, went into an adjoining room and came back with a half dozen eight by ten photographs.

Standing in front of him she looked at them a moment, then fanned them out and showed them impulsively.

Casey’s jaw went slack and his eyes widened. The photographs were of Norma Lamont in nude, or almost nude, poses. In two of these she grasped a bit of flowing chiffon about her; one showed her with a bath towel, apparently getting out of the tub. They were old, these pictures. Casey saw that her face was younger, knew that they had probably been posed for various advertising clients.

Norma Patten whisked the pictures behind her. Casey stood up. In spite of himself he compared the rounded lines of this woman in her tailored dress with that glimpse of the nude pictures, and thought: Her figure is just as good now as it was then.

He was ashamed of the thought when he saw the trouble in her eyes, the way she tortured her red lower lip between her white even teeth.

“Blackmail?” he asked finally.

She nodded, then whirled and took the pictures into the adjoining room. When she returned she had a thick sheaf of fifty-dollar bills in her hand. She sat down and tapped them nervously against an open palm.

“A man brought the pictures yesterday,” she began hurriedly. “He wants $25,000. Sorenson took them — years ago. I want you to take this ten thousand and see if you can buy the negatives back direct.”

Casey’s former jauntiness of manner and spirit fled and left his thick face somber, his dark eyes brooding.

“Wait a minute. How about your husband?”

“He knows. I had to tell him to get the money. He gave it to me — all of it.”

“Then why doesn’t he—”

“You don’t know him, Flash.” Norma Patten put a hand on his arm. “He doesn’t know where the pictures came from, and I didn’t dare tell him the name of the man who brought these copies. I told him I didn’t know. We’ve been battling about it all day. If Martin knew where to go, well — I’m afraid of what he might do.

“I think he’s planning some way to trap this man when he comes back, and he can’t take the chance. If these pictures were printed, the publicity, the ridicule, would ruin him at home — everywhere. He—”

“Nobody’d dare print those,” Casey argued. “You could sue.”

Norma Patten shook her head wearily, spoke gently.

“No, Flash. Those were advertising studies, mostly. I was young, I needed the money. I had no great background; about all I had was a good figure and a determination to get to the top of the heap in any way I could. To collect on those pictures, I had to sign a release. Every model doing that sort of thing has to sign one — as a protection to the client.

“Well, Sorenson must have kept those negatives and the release. I’ve got to have both — particularly the release. I finally talked Martin into paying. I have the money. But if you go direct, Sorenson might take ten thousand. It would help to save that fifteen, and then I know Martin can’t get mixed up in any trouble.”

“I don’t like it,” Casey said. His brows drew down in a scowl and he rubbed the hinge of his jaw. He had never been intimate with Norma in the old days; she had always aimed a little higher than his prospects seemed to warrant. But he knew her, and had been at parties with her, accepted her as she was.

“Please. For old time’s sake, Flash.” The brown eyes were pleading, the lips parted, waiting breathlessly.

“I’m a chump to try it,” Casey growled, “and a mug if I don’t.” He screwed morose eyes upon her. “Damn it, Norma! Why did you have to think of me?”

“I don’t know anyone I could trust as I do you,” the woman said simply. “And you couldn’t be fooled about the negatives. You will try, won’t you? Just try. It may not work. Sorenson may not have the negatives now. I don’t know. But I’ve got to do something.

“The man, his name is Ambrose, who brought those prints, will call tomorrow and tell me what to do. He says if my husband is in on it, the deal is off. But Martin will try to be in on it and—”

“Okey,” Casey grumbled, and snatched the sheaf of fifty-dollar bills. “But don’t expect a miracle. Sorenson’s a heel and if he’s got the stuff maybe I can persuade him.”

II

The mist had cleared and stars were a hazy counterpane against the dark blue sky. Along the quiet emptiness of Barlow Street two rows of ancient brown stone fronts marched in sedate columns that, under the cover of darkness, gave no inkling that most of them had gone commercial and been converted into small apartments and studios.

Casey parked his roadster in front of number 22 and stared morosely at the dimly lighted vestibule. Still grumbling over the job at hand, yet knowing there was no decent way he could have refused Norma Patten, he stepped to the sidewalk and started up the worn stone steps.

Scanning the vestibule mail boxes, he was about to reach for the inner door when it pulled away from his hand and a man popped through the opening. Without so much as a glance, he rushed past Casey and ran down the steps with coat tails flying. Casey grunted, stepped inside a musty-smelling hall and began to climb the ancient staircase.

Sorenson apparently rented the entire right side of the floor. A small sign directed Casey to enter at the door at the front of the hall, and he knocked here, noticed that light slid from a crack at the bottom and turned the knob.

He went in confidently, hesitated a moment as he noticed the disordered appearance of the office-like interior. Closing the door, he stepped towards the flat-topped desk flanked by barricades of steel filing cabinets, and had nearly reached the desk when he saw Sorenson.

The man was on his back on the floor with his neck cocked forward by his head, which was propped against one of the cabinets. Casey stiffened with his hands flat on the desk top, stared without breathing, then said:

“Sorenson.”

The spoken word was not as silly as it sounded, because at that moment Casey was not sure. He swung around the end of the desk, knelt quickly beside the small, swart man with longish hair and a black tie that suggested a certain artiness, real or affected.

The black suit was mussed, disarranged; the collar was torn and there was a lump on one corner of the jaw, a bruise over the eye. It was not until Casey reached for an outstretched wrist that he saw the blood on the fabric of the coat. Opening this, he saw the wide reddish spot on the vest completely surrounding two tiny holes about four inches apart. There was no pulse.

Conscious, at last, that he was holding his breath, Casey exhaled noisily and stood up. For a moment a jumble of disordered thoughts vortexed crazily and he glanced about as he sought an answer.

Beyond the filing cabinet, the room had been arranged as a sort of waiting-room. There was a green rug, a leather divan, a few chairs, a table and two floor lamps. One of the chairs was overturned; so was one of the lamps. The drawer of one filing cabinet had been pulled clear out so that its load of manila folders had spilled on the floor; other drawers were open but still in the cabinets.

Ordinarily Casey’s first move would have been to telephone the police. He had never kidded himself that he could outsmart the detective bureau, and he found it paid dividends to co-operate with fellows like Logan, Manahan, and Judson. But this time he was held back by his thought of Norma Patten.

Murder was something he wanted no part of. He cursed himself for coming here, cursed Norma for calling him up in the first place. Yet, now that he was here, he decided to look for the films. If he called the police first he might not get the chance to look, and he’d have too much explaining to do.

He went through the two connecting rooms of the studio, found them empty and came back to the waiting-room. As he passed the magazine table, he noticed an ashtray, and when he stopped to inspect the cigarette butts, he saw that one was of an ivory color. Scowling, he picked it up, sniffed it. It was a medicated brand. He stared at it, twisted it in his fingers, finally put it back. Still scowling he stepped to the filing cabinets and began his search.

He had gone through one drawer and was starting on the second when he heard the quick rap of footsteps in the outer hall. Before he could do more than shut the drawer and jump to his feet, the door swung back and four men barged into the room and slid to a stop on the threshold.

The first man was the fellow who had run through the downstairs vestibule five minutes previous. Behind him stood Sergeant Haley and two plain-clothesmen.

“Well, well,” Haley said and seemed to take a sneering enjoyment in the moment.

Trouble and dismay settled over Casey and he stood there, a burly, somber-eyed figure, as Haley approached.

Haley inspected the body briefly, glanced about, and said: “Looks like a .25. Got the gun?”

Casey said: “That’s very funny,” sourly.

Haley stood in front of Casey and bobbed his head. He was a tall, skinny man with shrewd green eyes and a perpetual sneer that fed on an ingrown grudge. His apparent dislike of the world in general became acute where Casey was concerned, and the animosity was mutual and of long standing; both men had long since accepted it.

“Well,” Haley said again, “what’re you waiting for? Let’s have it.”

“Have what?” Casey grunted.

“First — how you happen to be here?”

Casey did not hesitate long on his question. Possibly, had Lieutenant Logan been the questioner, Casey might have told the truth. But under Haley’s sneering methods a sullen stubbornness welled up and he said:

“I got a tip — a phone call — and I came down to have a look.”

Haley glanced about. “Where’s the camera then?”

“I wasn’t sure what it was so I didn’t bring it.”

“Baloney,” lipped Haley. “What were you searching for?”

“Who was searching?” Casey bluffed.

“You were. Look at these drawers.”

“You look,” Casey said. “They were that way when I came.” He glared at the wiry little man who stood looking on with eyes popping and jaw slack.

“You saw me downstairs,” he rapped.

“Yes,” the fellow gulped. “I... I’m a photographer. I do work for Mr. Sorenson now and then, and I had an appointment at nine o’clock. I came up here and—”

“There you are,” Casey told Haley.

“He saw you downstairs,” Haley leered, “but that ain’t no alibi.”

“Find out when he was killed,” Casey said, “and I’ll have an alibi.” He tugged at his hat brim, buttoned his trench coat and started for the door.

“Hey,” Haley called, “I’m not through with you. You’ve been here alone about five minutes. If you were on the level you’d’ve called Headquarters. I want to know things and you’re gonna stick around until—”

“I am, huh?” Casey said. “Is it a pinch?”

“Never mind. Just do as I say.”

Casey smiled, a mirthless gesture that, with the look in his hard, narrowed eyes, was ominous. The effect was part of his act. He wanted to get out, to have time to look around before Haley checked up on him, and he kept on with his bluff.

“Any time you want me at Headquarters to answer your questions you know where to find me,” he said defiantly. “But I don’t stay here and watch you fiddle around. I’ve got work to do.”

Casey seldom bluffed. When he did he had the build and the manner to do it convincingly. And right now Haley wasn’t quite sure of his ground. He advanced slowly, his thin face red and frustration in his eyes.

“You want to get tough about it?” he challenged.

“I don’t have to,” Casey said flatly. “I know my rights. If you want to keep me here, pinch me.” He cocked a disdainful brow. “Otherwise—”

No more sure of his rights or his ground than Haley, Casey saw the sergeant hesitate. Then he opened the door and went out quickly with Haley’s baffled threat ringing in his ears.

III

The Hut is on the wrong side of Beacon Hill. The street it fronts is narrow, one-way, and hardly worthy of the term — street. The immediate neighborhood is sordid and decadent, with cubby-hole store fronts here and there, and two or three floors of tenements above. In the daytime, the cobblestones form a playground for smutty-nosed urchins; at night, to a casual passerby, it is just an alley.

Yet to the initiate, the Hut is a restaurant. There is a long, low room, dimly lighted and generally smoke-filled. The floor is rough planking and the tables are a hundred years old and look older. The food is good, and more expensive than the surroundings would lead you to believe. The only entertainment is a piano, presided over by the Professor, and, more recently, a girl who sings.

At a quarter of ten, there were but four tables occupied. Casey slid into one of the oaken booths and ordered rye and soda.

The girl was singing. In the half-light she seemed young and nice-looking rather than pretty. Her voice, although not strong or cultivated, was sweet. The accompaniment was soft, swinging, sort of dreamy and full of chords. Both local and visiting orchestra leaders came here for dinner frequently because the Professor could play; he had a left hand that piano players liked to match.

When the number ended, Casey summoned the waiter and told him he wanted to speak to the Professor. Shortly a stringy, sandy-haired fellow shuffled up to the booth. Seeing Casey, he smiled and said:

“Hello, Flash. How’s it?”

“Sit down, Les. What’ll you have.”

The Professor — Les Boyden — slid down on the opposite bench and put up a palm. “Nothing, thanks,” he said.

Casey lit a cigarette, studied Boyden over the match flame. The face was pleasant, but tired, with a look of a man who is not very well. A half smile was quite constant, but the blue eyes were pale and dull, and there was a weakness, somehow, to the mouth and jaw.

Norma Patten had once been Mrs. Les Boyden. Back when they had been a vaudeville team. Casey remembered this, and, seeking some lead on the Sorenson murder that might connect with Norma Patten, he had come here to see Boyden. He wanted time to think about this man, and he kept his voice casual and did not come to the point directly.

“How long you had the girl?” he asked.

“About three months.”

“Where’d you get her?”

“She just came in.” Boyden flipped a thin-fingered hand in an aimless gesture: “She came in and wanted to sing for her dinner. Honest.”

He smiled at Casey, then looked away when the photographer eyed him questioningly without speaking.

“She was down to her last dime. Desperate. I guess this was her last stop on the way to the river. Anyway, she came in and was standing by the piano when I saw her.”

There was a far-off look in Boyden’s eyes and he continued in the absent tones of a man talking to himself.

“Well, I couldn’t throw her out. She stuck around until I started another piece and then, damned if she didn’t start to sing anyway.” His eyes came back to Casey’s. “She’s been here ever since. She can sing, can’t she?”

Casey nodded, and Boyden’s manner brightened.

“And she’s getting noticed. I’m dickering now for a spot on the radio. I think we might go places some day. She’s got something. I don’t know what it is. Something sort of genuine and sweet in her voice, like Kate Smith. I want you to meet her.”

“Wait,” Casey said.

But Boyden had already stood up, and in a minute or so he came back with the girl.

Boyden introduced Flash to her — Mary Nason.

She stood at the end of the booth as Casey rose. Her smile helped his first impression. Nice-looking, genuine. Her hair was dark and wavy and simply done. She had a trim little figure and nice hands and a rounded chin that looked firm and smooth. After a moment of conversation, Boyden said:

“About ten minutes, Mary, and we’ll do a number for Flash.” He watched her walk across the floor, then turned. “How do you like her?”

“She’s nice,” Casey said. “You like her too, huh?”

“Yeah,” Boyden said, flushing slightly. “But I thought you might give her a plug sometime.”

“You know Norma’s in town?” Casey asked after a pause.

“Yes, I saw in the paper she was.”

“Seen her?”

Boyden shook his head. Casey said casually: “Got a cigarette?”

“Only these.” Boyden took out a brown paper package, shook out a cigarette wrapped in ivory-colored paper. “You wouldn’t like them.”

Casey took one, rolled it absently and said: “I always had a feeling she gave you a dirty deal.”

“Perhaps — perhaps not. I guess it was my fault. I was in love with her and I married her. She was ambitious and had the determination to get what she wanted. When she made her mind up to do anything she went right ahead. She had what it takes and I didn’t, that’s all.

“I had ambitions too, but I wouldn’t sacrifice everything else for them. I guess I never had enough guts or backbone to step with Norma.” He shrugged, smiled weakly. “But that’s all over. And no hard feelings. She saw a chance to get ahead alone and took it.”

“You don’t hold a grudge, do you?”

“No. Why? What’re you trying to prove?”

“Somebody’s been blackmailing her,” Casey said, and his eyes narrowed in his study of Boyden’s loose face. “With some old nude pictures Sorenson took. He was murdered tonight.”

Boyden was smiling when Casey spoke, and the smile remained, a ghastly thing. It took him seconds to freeze out that smile and say:

“I asked you what you were tryin’ to prove.”

“I don’t know,” Casey said, and went on to tell how he had gone to try and buy the negatives and release from Sorenson. “And,” he finished, “I think you were at Sorenson’s place.”

“Don’t rib me, Flash,” Boyden said, his face chalky. “Not about a thing like that.”

“I wouldn’t rib you,” Casey said. “But I found a cigarette butt at his place.” He lifted the cigarette in his hand. “Like this one.”

Boyden swallowed with an effort. “Plenty of guys smoke them besides me.”

“Some, but not plenty.”

“It doesn’t prove anything.”

“Not a thing,” Casey said. “That’s why I came to ask.” He sighed, pocketed the cigarette. “I may be wrong, but I always thought you had a yen for Norma in spite of the fact that she used you to climb. I thought maybe you might be helping out or something — like I was — and spill what you knew.

“But then again,” he added dryly, “maybe you were just waiting for a chance to pay her back. You knew Sorenson. A few large coarse banknotes — say a cut of twenty-five grand—”

“Twenty-five?” Boyden husked.

“Yeah?” Casey said curiously, unable to analyze this new reaction. “A piece of that would help to put you and your singer over in a big way, wouldn’t it?”

Boyden straightened up. His lips drew down; his eyes grew frosty.

“You’re wasting your time,” he said, “on a newspaper. You oughta go after Edgar Hoover’s job.”

“Okey,” Casey said. He beckoned the waiter and paid his check. “But I was at Sorenson’s looking for the negatives when the police crashed in. They didn’t like my story — it wasn’t very good. Sometime pretty soon I’ve got to give ’em the details.

“So” — he stood up — “I was just checking to see if I could find something to help my story.”

There was a telephone in the dimly lighted foyer, and Casey stepped inside and called Norma Patten. When he had told her what had happened at Sorenson’s he said:

“It’s gonna be a mess, Norma, but there’s one place I might try before I call it off. Who is this guy Ambrose that made the touch yesterday?”

“I think his name was Sol Ambrose,” Norma Patten said.

“Oh, that one,” Casey growled. “The shyster, huh? Okey, I’ll see if I can find him on the way back to the Carteret.”

“Please, Flash,” Norma pleaded, “don’t make it worse.”

“I won’t,” Casey said. “I’ll just give him a scare and see what happens.”

IV

The so-called office building that served as Sol Ambrose’s business address was a gloomy brick walk-up not far from Atlantic Avenue. Light from a frosted glass door spread an elongated rectangle across the dusty third-floor hall and up the cracked wall opposite. Casey opened the door without knocking and stalked in aggressively.

A plump, red-faced man with two chins and a shiny bald pate was hunched behind a book-filled desk. Small black eyes, nearly lost in the shadows, blinked angrily while Sol Ambrose half rose, poised, dropped back in his seat.

“Why don’t you knock?” he asked resentfully.

Casey moved up to the desk, pushed some books out of the way and slid a thick thigh across one corner.

“Hello, Sol,” he said levelly.

“I don’t know you,” Ambrose said.

“Don’t let it bother you,” Casey said. “I just stopped in to get those pictures you’re holding for Norma Patten.”

Ambrose blinked and his head seemed to shrink between hunched shoulders. He wet his lips and his eyes mirrored alarm as they swiveled helplessly about the room.

“Huh? What pictures?” he blustered.

“The ones you thought you’d get twenty-five grand for. I want the negatives and the release. And snap it up, I’m in a hurry.”

Ambrose tried to outstare the burly figure perched on his desk, dropped his glance when he saw the bad look in Casey’s eyes. Finally he cleared his throat, and with forced authority said:

“Beat it or I’ll call the cops!”

“I said, snap it up!” Casey growled.

Ambrose reached for a telephone in nervous alarm. Casey slid off the desk, slapped the lawyer’s hand aside. One long step put him behind the desk and, reaching down, he grabbed Ambrose’s vest and jerked him erect with one hand.

“You’ve got two chances,” Casey said, shaking the lawyer a bit for emphasis. “If you want to pass that stuff over I might pay you ten grand for it. If not, I’m gonna beat hell out of you, search this joint and drag you down to Headquarters.”

Ambrose swallowed and his eyes bulged. Casey was still bluffing and he was still convincing — and here the odds were all his. Ambrose was not in a very good spot to argue. Thrice on the brink of disbarment he had a shady reputation and barely enough legitimate business to pay his rent. He opened his mouth, shut it; then Casey shook him again and rapped:

“Make up your mind!”

“I don’t know nothing about it,” Ambrose whined.

“You put the touch on her, didn’t you?” Casey countered. He held the lawyer at arm’s length and drew back his fist.

“But I haven’t got those negatives.”

“You know where they are.”

“Suppose I do. What—”

That word was chewed off short. It was the last word Sol Ambrose ever spoke.

Casey was staring right at the lawyer’s face. He saw that face jerk sidewise, the red spot jump out on one corner of the forehead, the spatter of blood on the hand that gripped the vest; yet it was a full second before he realized what had happened.

There had been no warning, no sound of the door opening; even the roar of the gun seemed late. Somehow he was still waiting for Ambrose’s next word: waiting, and staring into suddenly vacant eyes, and supporting a sagging weight with his left arm.

Casey broke the grip of surprise with latent action that tried to recover the lost second. He dropped Ambrose, forgot him and spun towards the door.

It was ajar. He thought he saw a wisp of powder smoke in the opening as he raced towards it. With no preconceived plan except to get a glimpse of the killer, he yanked the door open and dashed into the hall.

Too late he saw the out-thrust foot and realized the man had waited with his back against the wall for just such a headlong rush. Casey stumbled, crashed into the opposite wall and dropped to the floor. Before he could lift his head a gun muzzle jabbed into the nape of his neck.

“Up!” a whispered voice commanded. “Up. Easy, and with your face in the wall.”

Casey stood up.

“Pull your hat down,” the voice directed. “Over your ears.”

Casey, prompted by the pressure of the gun and the knowledge he could not hope to reach the hand that held it, pulled his battered felt down over his ears with both hands. Another hand reached in front and tugged at the brim to make sure it was over his eyes.

“Now into the office — and keep your chin down or I’ll knock it down.”

Casey felt his way into the room. The gun was withdrawn. After the door closed he heard the man behind him, and a hand began to pat his trench coat pockets. Again the gun pressed against his spine while the hand tapped his hip pockets.

“No cannon?” the voice whispered.

Casey stiffened as something inside him froze. For the first time he was conscious of the bulging bulk in his inside coat pocket; that ten thousand dollars seemed to press against his chest and make it hard to breathe.

The hand moved up. Slapping the armpits and chest it tapped the pocket two or three times experimentally. And Casey stood there with the sweat coming out on his face, afraid to move lest he betray himself.

“What’s this?” the voice said coolly, and a hand slid inside the coat.

The bulge vanished. Casey shot his eyes down past the rim of his hat at the bridge of his nose. All he could see was a gray coat sleeve, a lean, thin-fingered hand — and that sheaf of fifty-dollar bills.

Outraged anger rather than the fear of what might happen when he confessed his loss to Norma Patten motivated Casey’s next move. It was a foolish play, risky, without much hope of success; but then when Casey was mad he was not always reasonable.

Whirling with a savage grunt, he ducked and dived behind him, arms outstretched. Apparently the man moved with the skill of an adagio dancer. Casey smacked the floor on his knees, brushed a slender leg but failed to grasp it; then the gun rapped down on his head and he went flat on the floor.

“Get up, chump!” the voice ordered grimly.

Casey heard a door open as he obeyed. Presently he felt the gun in his back again and he was being pushed through a doorway into what he felt was a closet.

He sensed the movement behind him. It was like a swish of air, intuitive rather than actual. He tried to duck; then pain exploded in his brain from a smash back of his ear. His knees crumpled and he went down. Behind him he thought he heard the door close and the bolt snap home.

At no time was Casey entirely unconscious. Half-stunned at first, he fought the dizziness in his head, wrenched off his hat and got to his knees. He remained that way a minute or so, and when the roaring in his ears abated, he could hear the killer searching the office. He stood up and oriented himself in the darkness, but he made no attempt to break out until he heard the man slam the outer door; then he put his shoulder against the closet door and tried to smash the panel or the lock.

He kept to these tactics for several minutes. The closet was so small he could not draw back for a real charge, could get no momentum.

Finally he rested, and while he devised another method he heard the office door open again. He listened. Someone was moving about. He could hear desk drawers open and close; a filing cabinet rasped on its metal slides.

Casey rapped on the door. The only result was a slap of heels on the floor and the clicking of the outer door. He cursed, arched his back against the rear wall of the closet, put one foot at a time beside the lock and, bent almost double, strained to straighten out.

The door creaked under the thrust of his powerful muscles. He rested, still wedged clear of the floor, took a breath and tried again. This time the lock ripped from the panel. The door flew open and he dropped heavily on his back.

Picking himself up, he went straight to the telephone and swept it into his hands. He barked a number, stood there, a burly, impatient figure with a trickle of blood on one ear and his eyes sultry and brooding.

When he got his connection he said: “Police Headquarters? Lemme speak to Lieutenant Logan.”

V

Suite 9-B at the Carteret had acquired a different aspect. Cigar smoke hung in a blue haze from the ceiling and the air had a stale, stuffy smell. Two plain-clothesmen, who looked bored and indifferent, leaned against the wall adjacent to the doorway. In the center of the room Sergeant Haley and Captain Judson were looking down at a slender hard-muscled man of forty-five or so; nearby, on the love seat, sat Norma Patten.

Casey, entering with Lieutenant Logan, stopped short and his surprise was apparent on his thick face. Because he trusted Logan, he had given him the whole story in Sol Ambrose’s office; but he was unprepared for this sort of scene. Haley gave him the clue as to why the police were here in his first greeting.

“So—” He leered. “A tip was what took you to Sorenson’s place, huh? I knew you were lying and I checked you. They told us at your office you’d come to the Carteret for a date with Norma.” His green eyes narrowed scornfully and he turned to Logan. “Glad you picked him up.”

Casey took a deep breath and anger boiled up inside him.

“He didn’t pick me up,” he grunted. “I called him.”

“Sol Ambrose, the shyster, was knocked off about a half hour ago,” Logan said quietly.

Haley gaped. Judson, a tall, long-jawed veteran, muffled a curse and sucked in his lips. The man in the chair gave no outward reaction at all, but Norma Patten gasped audibly and color drained from her cheeks, leaving them chalky except for the rouge spots.

“Tell them, Flash,” Logan said crisply.

Casey told his story, told it with a smoldering stubbornness when he related how the ten thousand had been taken from his pocket. Norma Patten’s eyes were sharp and accusing when he began to talk, and he avoided them until he finished; then he walked over to her and said thickly:

“I’m sorry, Norma. I guess I should have come back here from Sorenson’s. But I thought I had a chance with Ambrose.”

His voice got thready as memory recalled that moment when he felt the money leave his pocket.

“I did have a chance,” he added sullenly. “Ambrose would’ve talked. That’s why the killer plugged him when he did. He would’ve spilled something and—”

“It doesn’t matter, Flash,” Norma Patten said wearily. “Not now.” She tried to smile, failed and dropped her eyes to the folded hands in her lap.

Judson rubbed his chin thoughtfully, pulling his lower jaw to one side. Haley bobbed his head and his eyes were gloating.

“What time did Ambrose get it?” he asked.

“About ten-thirty, I guess,” Casey said glumly.

“And he took the ten grand, huh? Sure you didn’t misplace it?”

Casey’s eyes smoldered deep and hot beneath narrowed brows, but he said nothing. Haley turned to the man on the chair.

“Where were you at ten-thirty, Patten?”

“I don’t remember exactly,” Patten said levelly.

“There’s ways of makin’ guys like you remember,” Haley threatened.

“And there’s ways of putting smart cops in their places.”

“Say, listen, you—” Haley began angrily.

“Pipe down!” Judson snapped. He glanced irritably at Haley and turned back to Patten. There was a worried look on his competent face and he seemed to be choosing his approach.

Casey thought he understood this uncertainty. Patten carried a lot of weight; even here in the East. Sitting there in the chair, apparently unconcerned about his position, he was a slender, gray man with a hard, tight mouth above an angular jaw. His suit was gray, so were his eyes; gray and icy hard. His straight hair and clipped mustache were gray-black.

To Casey it seemed that this man had something in common with his wife; they gave the impression that they got what they wanted out of life. And about Patten there was a quiet confidence, a surface covering for an inner hardness, and an air of one who was accustomed to success and could not be bluffed or pushed around.

Then Casey remembered something else. The hand that had taken the ten thousand dollars — slender, long fingered with a gray sleeve. Suspicion darkened his eyes. Patten had that kind of a hand and sleeve and — so had Les Boyden. The long, supple fingers of a piano player. The color of his suit Casey could not remember.

“Never mind this Ambrose thing now,” Judson said finally. “What I’m interested in is Sorenson. You’ve got no alibi, Patten. Or if you have, you won’t tell it. And that hand” — Judson reached down quickly and lifted Patten’s right hand. From where he stood Casey could see that the knuckles were skinned. Patten smiled and his brows climbed. “What about it?” he asked easily.

“You knew about those pictures,” Judson said. “And you went down to Sorenson’s place to get them. You had a fight with him. Before you got through you plugged him.”

“No!” Norma Patten cried. “He couldn’t have — he didn’t know where to go. I didn’t tell him and—”

“He saw the pictures, didn’t he?” Judson cut in. “He gave you the ten thousand?”

“Yes, but he couldn’t know—”

“Why couldn’t he?” Judson picked one of the photographs from a table, held it up to the light, tossed it back with a shrug. “Sorenson had a small stamp that perforated his pictures. He probably made these some time ago, and stamped them for identification. There’s an S in each picture. If anybody was interested it wouldn’t be hard to find out who S is in the photo studio line.”

Norma Patten’s eyes were wide and she gave her husband a quick enigmatic glance before she looked away.

“You’ve got your wires crossed, Captain,” Patten said. “Mrs. Patten and myself both made mistakes on this thing. For obvious reasons I wanted those negatives and release.” He gave his wife a cold, hard stare and Casey, seeing it, wondered how much he meant by it. “And I gave her the money, foolishly, because I thought I could get to the contact man when he came back. What I should have done was have her tell this guy that he’d have to do business with me.”

He gave Judson a direct look from under his brows. “I can assure you if I had known about the details I wouldn’t have bothered with the photographer; I’d have gone right to this Ambrose lad and—”

“Maybe you did,” Haley cut in.

Judson turned with a grunt of irritation. Haley shrugged and looked away. Patten continued evenly.

“Her mistake was to call this photographer in.” He eyed Casey skeptically and sucked on his lips.

“Because it was my fault in the first place,” Norma Patten said sharply, “and I thought maybe I could save you fifteen thousand.”

“The point is,” Patten added, “that we’re out ten thousand — apparently — and haven’t anything to show for it.” He stood up, tall and straight and impressive in his unruffled manner. “Now if that fact, or anything else you have, leads you to believe that I killed Sorenson, or Ambrose for that matter, go ahead and arrest me. If not—”

He shrugged, waited a moment, his manner indicating that he considered the interview at an end.

“We’re not ready for an arrest — yet,” Judson said irritably. “But maybe we will be when we get through checking up on you.”

“Any time you say, Captain. Just let me know and I’ll be glad to come down to Headquarters — with a lawyer.”

VI

An assignment that took Casey out of town to cover a kidnapping trial kept him busy most of the following day, and it was late afternoon before he returned to the city. A half hour later he trudged down the third-floor corridor at Police Headquarters to Logan’s office and went in without knocking.

Logan was standing with his back to the door, staring out the lone window at the court below. He turned slowly, scowled, then returned to his window gazing without a word.

Casey put down his camera and plate-case and dropped wearily into a straight-backed chair beside the desk. His mood was grouchy and irritable. The work of the day had yielded but one routine picture, and at no time had he been able to shake off the blanket of resentment that had wrapped around him since last night.

His worry was no longer about Norma Patten or her husband, or who had killed Sorenson and Ambrose. Now that the matter was no secret it was, as far as he was concerned, a strictly police case — except for the ten thousand. That, no matter how he looked at it, seemed to be his fault, and he could not forget it.

The story of the killings had been fairly well hushed up. No newspaperman but himself knew of Patten’s connection — or about the photographs. And since neither Sorenson nor Ambrose were of any great importance in the life of the city, the newspapers’ accounts were not unduly lengthy, and there was little more than a hint that there might be a connection between the two deaths.

“Well, what the hell do you want?” Logan asked finally, coming over to the desk.

“Nothing,” Casey said, “except the guy that lifted that ten grand from me.”

“Then there really was a guy, huh?”

Casey shoved out his legs and eyed Logan morosely. “What’re you sore at. I suppose when Norma Patten told me her story last night I shoulda grabbed a phone and let you in on it.”

“You’d been better off.”

“Damned if I wouldn’t,” Casey admitted disgustedly.

“You oughta know better than to try this amateur detective stuff.”

“Detective stuff, hell!” Casey growled. “I was just a contact man — and I got a hunch Ambrose would’ve got knocked off whether I’d stopped there or not.”

“Yeah,” Logan said. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

He sat down opposite Casey, sighed and lit a cigarette, a tall, good-looking man with black eyes and black hair. His oxford gray suit was immaculate, his linen was fresh and his shoes were neatly polished. Competent, hard without making a fuss about it, he knew his job — and he knew Casey.

There was, between these two, a mutual respect and admiration founded upon experience and a long association; and for once their glum and somber moods seemed to synchronize. Presently Logan got comfortable in his chair and began to talk.

“Why didn’t you tell us you went down to the Hut to see the Professor last night?”

Casey looked up, momentarily startled.

“I don’t know,” he said, and sounded as if he meant it. “I wasn’t sure where he fitted and—”

“We aren’t sure now,” Logan muttered. “But someplace, son; someplace. We found he’d been at Sorenson’s studio earlier in the evening.”

“And what’s he say?” Casey asked, interested now.

Logan’s brows knotted at the bridge of his nose and he waved the cigarette in a gesture of resentment and defeat. “We don’t know. We can’t find him. All we know is that he was packing a gun last night — a waiter saw it when he sat down at the piano once. But he is in this someplace or he’d be around.”

Casey told about his talk with Boyden the previous night, and then asked: “How does Patten stand?”

“Number one,” Logan said. “We’ve got a lot of things on that baby.” He ground out his cigarette and sat up, eyes thoughtful. “We had him down here all morning. We’re pretty sure he was at Sorenson’s and we found a taxi-driver that took him to Ambrose’s office building somewhere around ten-thirty. The driver can’t be sure about the time.”

“Pinch him?”

“Not yet.” Logan spread his hands. “We’ve got to be careful. That guy is no lightweight. He knows a lot of right people around here, including the D.A. And the D.A. says watch him and see what happens.

“We’ve got a hundred plain-clothesmen out snooping around checking up; and every man in the department is looking for Les Boyden. When we find him we might be ready to go to town. Somebody besides Sorenson and Ambrose is in on this job and—”

“Figure it for me,” Casey said.

Logan cocked a brow and his dark eyes were searching. “You haven’t got any ideas, have you?”

“I don’t want any,” Casey said. “I’m just an amateur.”

Logan grinned at the big photographer’s grumbling manner and went on with his story.

“I figure it this way: Sorenson, Ambrose and the Professor cooked up this touch. The Professor got a dirty deal from Norma Patten. She used him as a stepping-stone, and she’s the sort of woman that would get what she wants. And if he got the chance my guess is the Professor would grab an angle to pay off.

“He probably knew of those old modeling days, maybe about those same pictures. It was in the paper she was in town. So maybe he got in touch with Sorenson, or the other way around, and the two of them got Ambrose to make the touch.

“And” — Logan’s voice got crisp and precise — “the only thing wrong with the picture was Sure-shot Patten. Nobody’d push that guy around much. I think he went gunning when he got the tip-off from the S-mark on those photographs.

“He probably didn’t go to Sorenson’s to kill him, but things happen like that sometimes. And after he got Sorenson he had to see Ambrose. When he found you there — bingo. He didn’t know what Ambrose had to say and he was afraid to let him talk — to you.” Logan hesitated thoughtfully. “I don’t say that’s right, understand. But it could be.”

“So now,” Casey said thoughtfully, “you’re wondering if Patten got to Boyden, or whether Boyden is hiding out.”

“Something like that.”

Casey stood up and retrieved his plate-case and camera. “Well,” he said, “I don’t want any part of it. I got banged around, lost ten grand and didn’t even get a picture out of it. All I want is to know where that dough is.”

VII

Casey went back to the office to leave his camera and plate-case. He had dinner on his way home, arriving there about eight o’clock, and when he opened his apartment door he found Mary Nason, the singing girl he’d met at the Hut, sitting bolt upright in his wing chair, her hands gripping the arms.

She rose quickly when he shut the door and met him in the center of the room, a small, white-faced girl with a tightness around her lips and alarm in the depths of her brown eyes.

“Now what?” Casey said, and was rather gruff about it because he’d had enough trouble.

“It’s Les. You’ve got to find him.”

“Not me,” Casey said. He detoured around the girl, went into the adjoining bedroom and got his pipe.

“But you’ve got to,” the girl said, following at his heels. “He’s in trouble and—”

“How do you know?”

“Because — well — he is.”

“Then go to the cops. That’s their business.”

He went back to the living-room and sat down. The girl dropped into the wing chair, fumbled with the handbag in her lap for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was low and pleading.

“Please. You can help us.”

“I gave him a chance last night,” Casey said bluntly. “He wouldn’t talk. You know what he was tryin’ to do, don’t you?” The girl shook her head, mute, and Casey told about Logan’s theory of the twenty-five-thousand-dollar blackmail effort.

“I... I don’t believe it,” she gasped when he finished.

“Then why is he in trouble?” Casey’s brows pulled down suspiciously. “You know where he is?” he added.

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you go to him?”

“I don’t know which apartment he’s in. And... I’m afraid. I thought you would help me — I thought you were a friend of his.” She leaned across the chair arm and went on hurriedly. “I don’t know why he’s gone. But it’s something wrong. I know.”

“It’s a police job then,” Casey said. Ordinarily he would have been more receptive to this plea, but at the moment the remains of his grouch still festered and the girl had not yet penetrated his protective shell. “In fact,” he added, “I’ll call ’em right now and then you won’t need to worry any more.”

He stepped to the telephone. Behind him as he lifted the receiver he heard the girl’s gasp; then her voice, thin and cold, saying:

“Put that down or I’ll shoot!”

Casey turned slowly, amazement in his eyes.

Mary Nason stood rigidly in the center of the floor, her young face taut and her mouth tight. A little .25 automatic trembled in her hand.

Casey frowned, made his voice casual. “Okey. If that’s the way it is.” He put down the telephone and came towards her slowly, the frown changing to a tolerant grin.

“You can’t go to the police until I know why he has gone,” Mary Nason breathed.

“Suit yourself,” Casey said. He stopped in front of her, glanced down at the gun. “Can’t you hold it steady?” he asked. And as her eyes dropped to watch her hand, he reached down quickly and twisted the automatic gently from her grasp.

The change in the girl was startling. She looked up at him and a whiteness came around her quivering lips. Then she was trembling, as though long, racking shudders passed through her. The sight of this raw emotion, the realization that her motive was so important that, knowing nothing of the game, she had forced herself to pull a gun, cracked Casey’s callous crust.

He was at once ashamed of himself; yet troubled now on her behalf. Because he knew now that he liked her, her simple genuineness, and he was afraid Les Boyden was involved more deeply than she dreamed. Drawing her back to the chair, he pushed her gently into it and said:

“Tell me the rest of it.”

She began to sob softly, and Casey let her alone until she had recovered some of her composure. When at last she looked up, she began to speak hurriedly.

“Last night a man came to the Hut. I didn’t see him at first because he talked with Les out in the foyer. When I went to look for Les and didn’t see him, I went to the door. He was just getting into a taxi.”

“Did you get a look at the man who was with him?” Casey asked her sharply.

“Not a good look. I just saw his back. He was about as tall as Les and slender. It seemed funny, his going out like that, but I didn’t think he’d want me to run out on the street after him. I thought it might be business.”

A dry sob interrupted her for a moment. “But he didn’t come back. He wasn’t at his rooms all night. And then I read about the Sorenson murder, and I’d heard Les say he was going to see Sorenson yesterday. So I didn’t dare go to the police until—”

“How do you know where Les is?”

“I recognized the taxi-driver. He gave me the address.” She gave a Randall Street number, adding: “And I thought you—”

Casey said: “All right,” and stood up, pocketing the little automatic and remembering that Sorenson had been shot by just such a gun.

“Promise you won’t tell the police,” Mary Nason begged.

Casey shook his head. The thing was too mixed-up for him to try and figure out now, but if he could find Les Boyden it might be worth a look. It would be a sort of backhand favor for the girl maybe; and there was a chance of finding where that ten thousand dollars went. But he’d have to tip off Logan. He knew that, knew he was in no spot to handle a case like this alone.

“I can’t promise that,” he said. “But I’ll look up this place, and then call up a personal friend of mine on the force. I’ll promise you this: I’ll get the best break I can for Les.”

“All right,” Mary Nason said weakly.

“If he’s in a jam he’s got to face it some time.”

“Yes.”

“You’d better run on home until—”

“I’d rather stay here,” Mary Nason said. “Can I?”

“Sure,” Casey said, making his voice confident. “And keep your chin up.”

VIII

The number Mary Nason had given Casey proved to be a three-story apartment house built in the shape of an inverted U with little patches of lawn crisscrossed by the walks that led to the three doors on each wing and the two doors at the end section.

Without difficulty he located the janitor, a squat, beetle-browed man with a thick Irish brogue, and learned that the renting agent had brought a tall, slender man to look at apartment 3-B the day before. With this information he went to the nearest drug-store and called police headquarters.

When he had talked with Logan, he came back to the apartment court and opened the second door on the right. The stairs mounted in short, square turns, and there were two facing doors on each small landing. At the third, Casey stared at the brass 3-B tacked to the panel and listened.

Here, right under the roof, it was hot and stuffy. Moisture glistened on his broad face as he took the little automatic out and palmed it. Below him, the stairwell was a welter of sound while three radios — a dance band, a political speech and a light opera — fought it out in a discordance that made it impossible for him to concentrate. After a moment he knocked.

He knocked again before he got an answer, and then a voice said: “Who is it?”

“ ’Tis the janitorr,” Casey said, trying to imitate the janitor’s brogue.

A lock clicked. The door swung back and Casey stepped quickly into the opening. The automatic flipped up in his hand and he turned sidewise, jabbing the gun into the man’s stomach as he slid up even with him.

For an instant as they stood there close together and immobile, Casey did not recognize this man. Then the handsome, dark face, the slender, immaculate figure clicked into place and he remembered. Norma Patten had introduced this fellow as her husband’s secretary.

He said: “Hello, Gilbert. Back up!”

Gilbert backed and Casey heeled the door shut. Gilbert wet his lips, made a grotesque effort to smile which was little more than a baring of the white, even teeth.

“What’s the idea?” he blustered finally.

“I don’t know,” Casey said flatly. “This is a big surprise to me; I was just looking for Les Boyden. Seen him?”

“Boyden?” Gilbert arched neat black brows, but his eyes weren’t in the effort. “I don’t think I know him.”

“I do,” Casey said. “Let’s look. Just keep your hands in sight and play nice. I don’t like trouble any more.”

Les Boyden was in the adjoining bedroom. He was lying on the bed with his hands and feet tied, and when Casey shook him he saw that the fellow had been drugged and was in a comatose condition.

Casey’s voice was hard and sultry when he pushed Gilbert back into the living-room.

“Well, that gives me one answer,” he said. “You’re the guy that called at the Hut for him last night. Why?”

Gilbert opened his mouth and shut it without speaking. His handsome face was very set and growing paler. His eyes were wary and uncertain and his hands moved nervously at his sides. Casey saw the bulge of a gun in one pocket, but he was content to keep this fellow covered until Logan arrived.

“You’ll talk pretty soon,” he added. “And then maybe we’ll see if you’re the louse that gunned out Ambrose and lifted that ten grand.” Casey sucked in his lips and his eyes took on a dangerous glint that was partly anticipation. He knew he ought to wait for Logan, but he hated to do it.

“Because if you are,” he added, “I’m gonna take a sock at you and even up for the grief and the raps you gave me. Suppose we go to Headquarters and talk it over.”

“Suppose you drop the gun!”

Casey’s nerves snapped taut at the curt authority in the new voice, and he stiffened rigidly, every muscle tense. Actually he was too startled to drop the gun. He didn’t drop it; he turned his head. In the half-opened door was the grim-faced figure of Sure-shot Patten; in his right hand was a .38 automatic.

Even then Casey did not drop his gun. He knew better than to argue, and he dropped his arm, but he continued to stare while Patten sidled into the room and shut the door.

“I said, drop it!”

This time Casey let go of the gun and blew out his breath.

Patten came forward very slowly, very cautiously, as though he expected some hidden menace. When he got close, Casey saw the cold fury in the man’s gray eyes. They seemed very small and bright and absolutely merciless; the lips and mustache had a flat, stretched look.

“So that’s it, huh?” Casey said bitterly. He didn’t know exactly what he meant, but he wanted to talk; and he felt the luxury of relief that he had called Logan. All he had to do was play along; so he thought of other things to say, and said them as they occurred to him.

“It was you and this louse, Gilbert, from the start, huh? Sorenson, Ambrose and Boyden ganged up for the touch and you slipped a cog and skidded into murder. Well” — his lids came down — “it’ll take more than a flock of friends to get you out of this.”

Patten’s reaction to all this was peculiar. If he heard, he gave no sign. Not once did his expression change, and all the time those cold gray eyes kept moving, searching every corner of the room.

“Where’s Norma?” he rapped suddenly.

“Norma?” echoed Casey hollowly; then glanced at the stone-faced Gilbert to see that the man’s eyes were bright with new alarm.

“She called me,” Patten pressed, “and I—”

A muffled pounding checked the sentence. Casey’s jaw went slack and his eyes slid to a closed door in an inner hall, apparently a closet.

“Open it!” Patten ordered.

Casey stepped up and tried the knob. When he opened the door Norma Patten half fell into his arms. Her eyes were wide and startled, her auburn hair disheveled. A blue-checked scarf made a makeshift gag and she had apparently nearly freed her hands of the belt of her camel’s-hair sport coat, which was wound around her wrists.

“Martin!” she gasped as soon as she could talk.

“Well,” Patten said stonily.

“I was afraid you’d come and — I had to call you.” Norma Patten stood with breast heaving and color high. She thrust her hands into her coat pockets and turned to face Fred Gilbert, the lines of her jaw hard and her eyes flashing. Then she turned back to her husband and began to talk.

“There,” she said, pointing an accusing finger at Gilbert, “is your blackmailer. I didn’t know it until he called me here. He made me telephone you. And if it hadn’t been for Flash Casey he would have killed you and Les Boyden to make it look—”

Gilbert’s voice cut like a whip.

“So I’m the sucker, huh?” He backed close to a chair, his chin out-thrust and his handsome face livid as he faced Patten. “Well, I don’t take this rap alone. I played the sap long enough; played the part and she made me like it. She’s right about framing you and Boyden, but she did the calling because—”

Gilbert stopped with his mouth open, the next word ready but unuttered. In that instant the gun barked.

There had been no warning. Casey heard the shot and saw Gilbert’s coat lift under the impact of the slug, but he didn’t know who held the gun until it crashed again. Then he saw it in Norma Patten’s hand. It was a little gun, a .25, like the one Mary Nason had; a woman’s gun.

Between those two shots was not more than a fifth of a second, but it was long enough for Casey to do a lot of thinking.

Norma Patten, the woman who always got what she wanted. The thing had been a frame from the start, and he was the fall guy when it backfired. He remembered the damp polo coat on the Queen Anne love seat when he went to the Carteret. Norma had already been out — and she had killed Sorenson. Why—

He didn’t know why. He was listening to the little automatic. It was still going off in snapping, spiteful barks. He heard the door open, sensed that it was Logan without turning. He dropped to one knee, groped for the gun he had dropped, found it, then didn’t know just what to do with it.

There was blood on Gilbert’s neck and shirtfront. He went back into the chair with a curious smile, a sagging jaw and a burning vacantness in his eyes. Then, suddenly, the rest of the drama happened all at once.

Gilbert straightened in the chair with a gun in his hand. Patten, who had wasted the first two seconds in openmouthed amazement, pulled his own gun towards his wife. Norma Patten screamed. Gilbert’s gun roared, jumped in his hand and he dropped it as he collapsed.

Simultaneously another gun crashed and Casey thought it was Patten’s until he saw the man’s shoulder jerk and the automatic fly from his hand.

Gilbert slumped back in the chair. Norma Patten staggered and a red spot stained the left side of her fawn-colored dress. She was dead before she fell, but even then she went down gracefully, silently and was lost to Casey’s sight behind the table.

For a long time no one spoke. The only sound was the noisy, tortured breathing of the unconscious Gilbert. Then windows began to bang up in the courtyard and excited voices bounced back and forth, raucous and shrill.

Logan stepped forward, gun in hand. Patten, holding tightly to his right arm, turned slowly and looked at the lieutenant while the fury died in his eyes. Blood began to show through his clenched fingers and he finally said:

“Thanks, Lieutenant, for that shot of yours. If you hadn’t got me I guess I’d’ve plugged her!”

“That’s what I thought,” Logan said thickly. “I couldn’t see Gilbert’s gun. I took you when I saw you meant business.”

Except in the flicker of his eyes Patten showed no emotion. His appearance was unruffled. He still looked like a man accustomed to success, a man who could not be shoved around. His voice betrayed no inner misgivings.

“She had it coming,” he said grimly. “She and that heel” — he nodded to the crumpled Gilbert — “have been chiseling for months. I had a private dick on their trail in Chicago and I was about ready to get clear.

“When she pulled this blackmail story I smelled a rat, and I gave her the money because I figured I could trap her and force the showdown. I thought I could persuade Sorenson to see it my way, but something went wrong and—”

He shrugged distastefully. “I’ll give you what I know when we get this mess cleaned up.”

Casey looked down at the little automatic in his hand. He put it away, wiped his sweaty face and blew out his breath with so much noise that Logan heard him and said dryly:

“And what’s your story?”

“Me?” Casey sighed wearily and spoke disgustedly. “Where would I get a story? This is a job for you cops to dig out; it’s too tough for an amateur like me.

“I get tangled up in all the grief and — hell, I don’t even get a picture out of it. I’m just the fall guy.”

IX

Later, in Logan’s office, Casey stared moodily at his fingernails and said grouchily: “So I can’t even tell the story to a rewrite man to make up for the pictures I didn’t get?”

“Nope,” Logan said cheerfully. “For once you’re out of luck.”

“For once, huh?”

“The D.A.’s clamping down,” Logan said. “The story we’re giving out is that Gilbert was the blackmailer. He shot Norma Patten and the police shot him.”

“What police? You?”

“Lots of different police,” Logan said, grinning. “Just the police.”

“Well,” Casey grumbled, “that gag has been worked before, I guess it’ll work again.”

“The truth,” Logan went on, “would just make a big stink, and it wouldn’t do any good. Patten was pretty clean from the start. Gilbert lived just long enough to clear him.

“Sorenson actually did blackmail Norma Patten. He came around with the story of the films and release and touched her for a thousand. Right then she and Gilbert got the idea. They had a hunch Patten was getting wise to them, and they saw a chance to get some getaway money.

“Norma figured Les Boyden was still sort of soft on her and she gave him the thousand and had him go to Sorenson and collect the negatives and release. We found ’em locked in her trunk. They thought that would be the end of Sorenson and Boyden. They intended to have Ambrose be a phony contact man and they planned to protect his identity from Patten.

“Well, Patten gave her the cash. When he saw the S-mark on the pictures he called on Sorenson, and beat hell out of him. The break was that for some reason Norma had gone to see Sorenson and was in the hall outside the door when the trouble was going on. When she went in Sorenson was picking himself up; Patten had told him he’d been touched for twenty-five grand and Sorenson, knowing the truth, got nasty and wanted half from Norma. Well, she plugged him when he got too tough.”

Logan lit a cigarette and cocked one eye at Casey.

“That’s where you came in. She played innocent to you because she knew she could trust you and because she wanted to have some help if she got in trouble. Your act was just to cover up. If anybody accused her she’d have your testimony that you went down with ten G’s to buy the pictures, and that she didn’t know he was dead.

“That was smart — until you ran into Haley and he traced you to her suite. Then the cat was out. Gilbert ran into you when he went to see Sol Ambrose and Patten got there too late, when you were in the closet. Gilbert had to silence Ambrose and he knew you carried the ten grand so he lifted it to get you in deeper and keep you in debt to Norma.”

“I can guess the rest of it,” Casey growled. “Norma knew that Patten was on the warpath. She and Gilbert were out the twenty-five grand they expected to collect. So they figured the best thing to do was to get Boyden, get Patten and make a plant that they’d shot it out.

“You’d’ve believed it too,” he added. “You thought Patten was the guy you wanted, and you were looking for Boyden. If you had found them dead in that apartment with guns in their hands—”

“I guess you’re right,” Logan admitted. “It was a good plan at the beginning. Patten tracing Sorenson busted it wide open for them; and — I hate to admit it — you messed up the second idea. If you hadn’t busted in on Gilbert while they were waiting for Patten, it would have been too bad for old Sure-shot. She was a tough baby, that Norma, but” — Logan grinned — “she sure had your number.”

“Yeah,” Casey groused. “Me, I’m just a softie. A fall guy. She rubs out Sorenson and then sends me down to make her look innocent. For old time’s sake, she said, and I bit. That’s what burns me.”

“And let it be a lesson to you,” Logan cracked. “After this, keep away from women — or get a chaperone.”

“Yeah,” groused Casey. “And you, you louse! I do all the work and dump the job in your lap and what does it get me? Grief — and funny answers.”

Logan’s black eyes mirrored a smile that was part admiration.

“But think of the fun you have.”

“Yeah — and the dough I make.”

The telephone shrilled, checking Casey’s tirade, and when Logan answered it he said: “For you.”

Casey groaned; “Oh, me.” Then, accepting the telephone: “Two to one it’s Blaine.”

“I don’t like the odds,” Logan said, thereby proving his sagacity, because the city editor’s voice cracked in Casey’s ears the instant he answered.

“What the hell’re you hiding out down there for?” Blaine demanded. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Why?” Casey said.

“Because I’ve got a job for you, you lug. There’s a three-alarm fire at Sherry and Walton. Eddie’s on his way down there with your stuff. Get going — and show something. You’ve been chasing around doing nothing for two days now, and I pay off on pictures.”

Casey hung up, cursing softly. Logan said: “Anything wrong?”

“Naw,” Casey said, buttoning up his coat in weary resignation. “Just the same old grief. That was the boyfriend reminding me that it’s about time I took some pictures.”