The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

(Louis) Frederick Nebel (1903–1967) was born on Staten Island, New York. He began his adult life as a blue-collar worker, working on the New York docks and on a tramp steamer. He lived in Canada for a while, selling his first pulp fiction to Northwest Stories before becoming a regular and prolific contributor to Dime Detective, for which he wrote the long-running Cardigan series, and, most of all, Black Mask, for which he created the Donny Donahue series and his most important works, those featuring tough captain Steve MacBride and the wisecracking and drunken crime reporter Kennedy.

Nebel sold the MacBride series to Warner Bros., which made nine films. However, Kennedy became a female journalist, Torchy Blane, and MacBride the object of her affections. The first film in the series, Smart Blonde (1937), was based on the Black Mask story “No Hard Feelings,” though the remaining films simply used the characters without basing them on Nebel’s stories. Other films were also based on his work, notably Sleepers West (1941), which became a Mike Shayne film, based on Nebel’s novel Sleepers East (1934); Fifty Roads to Town (1937), based on his crime novel of the same name; and he wrote the story for The Bribe (1949), which starred Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Charles Laughton, and Vincent Price. The radio series Meet MacBride, based on the stories, made its debut on CBS on June 13, 1936.

“Doors in the Dark” first appeared in the February 1933 issue.

Everyone said it was suicide, but Capt. MacBride smelled murder, and went on the trail alone.

The sounds of motor traffic on Marshall Drive rose in a muted, not unpleasant medley to the topmost floor of Tudor Towers. Eastward, the glow of midtown hung like a will-o’-the-wisp in the crisp winter sky. A breeze plucked fitfully at the northeast turret apartment.

MacBride, admitted by the oldish maid, brought with him into the warm apartment a breath of the cold outdoors and a vital sense of his own personality. He shook his head when the maid reached for his hat. His windy blue glance flicked her frightened gargoyle’s face, darted away and leaped nimbly about the foyer as he trailed her short, rapid footsteps towards the living-room entry.

He saw Halo Rand standing at the far side of the room. The room was dimly, discreetly lighted. A parchment-shaded floor lamp stood back of the woman and built an amber halo about her amber hair.

“I’m so glad you came, Captain.”

The Aubusson muffled the blunt fall of his heels as he went towards her extended hand. His spare-boned head dipped; in his eyes was a candid, straightforward look.

“Got here as quick as I could, Mrs. Rand.”

The maid vanished with a breathless look flung over her shoulder.

Though Halo Rand’s tall, slender body was relaxed, one knee slightly bent, there was an air of repressed excitement in her face. MacBride, holding her hand for a brief instant, felt tension transmitted to his own. He was aware of a vague, well-bred perfume.

“What’s the matter, Mrs. Rand?”

She said: “Come.” She led the way across the dropped living-room, up three steps to a mezzanine; opened a door and motioned the skipper into a large room furnished with leathers and hardwoods — a man’s room.

“Dan’s room,” she said. “His den. Sit down, Captain.”

He was strangely moved, puzzled; but he sat down. Halo Rand chose to stand, resting the fingertips of one hand on a mahogany desk. The other hand toyed with a string of pearls suspended from her neck.

“I may be foolish,” she said, “but I’m afraid. I can’t help it. I’m afraid for Dan. It’s ten o’clock and he hasn’t come home yet.”

MacBride said: “Why are you afraid?”

Her violet eyes were luminous in the dim light. “He came home at noon today. I... I hardly recognized him. He looked — well, crushed. Dreamlike. And that isn’t like Dan. You know that. Well, he walked in quietly, kissed me, though I think he barely saw me, and then went to this room. I was disturbed. I came and knocked on the door and asked what was wrong, and he said nothing was wrong and asked to be left alone. So I didn’t bother him.”

“What do you think was wrong?”

She breathed deeply, said in a hushed voice: “I don’t know. But he was worried. That much I do know. For the past two months, every now and then, he would sit and stare absently — and suddenly ask me what I had said. When I appeared curious, he’d rouse up and be his own self.” She shook her head. “He never was the one to bring his business into the home.”

“Think it’s business?”

She shook her head wearily. “I don’t know. I feel so helpless. That’s why I asked you to come over. I knew you two were old friends. He’s been hit hard in the market, you know. And I guess you know he’s had trouble with the Colosseum. He is in debt heavily — but he hoped to pull out of it.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No, he didn’t. He came out of his room after an hour. I don’t think he’d even taken his overcoat off. He came out and stood for a moment at the window. Then he said he was going out. He kissed me good-bye and held my hand for a minute, and then he went out. He said he’d be back at six. Well, he hasn’t come.”

MacBride slapped his knee. “Well, Mrs. Rand, I wouldn’t get all worked up, if I were you. Maybe—”

“Wait,” she said, and opened a desk drawer. “An hour ago I came in here. I don’t know why. I don’t think I expected to find anything. It was just chance. I... I opened this drawer. You remember the gun you gave him two years ago?”

“Yes.”

“It’s gone,” she said. “It’s not in his drawer.”

MacBride stood up, muttered: “H’m.”

“Emma, our maid, straightened this room yesterday. She said she saw the gun in this drawer yesterday. Now it’s gone.” Her eyes stared fixedly across the room. “That’s why I’m afraid,” she said. “That’s why I asked you to come over.”

She slumped a bit where she stood, brushed a hand across her forehead. MacBride’s eyes were thought-fixed on the amber casque of her hair. He remembered the day she had ceased to be the première danseuse of Dubinoff’s Ballet and had become Dan Rand’s wife.

He said: “Just be calm, Mrs. Rand. You’re imagining things. No use taking this thing so hard. I’ll find him. He’ll be okey. I’ll phone you when I find him.” There was a rough note of reassurance in his tone. A smile cracked his lean, spare-boned face. “Just take it easy.”

They went into the living-room and she laughed brokenly. “I suppose I am a little fool. But I kept thinking about his finances. So many men nowadays, when they can’t see their way ahead...” She made a limp, hopeless gesture.

“Not Dan,” MacBride said. “He can take it. He always could take it and come up smiling.”

She nodded. “I know. But lately — he hasn’t been smiling.”

They passed into the foyer and the oldish maid with the gargoyle’s face appeared mysteriously and stood by the door.

The phone rang. The maid left the door and answered it and then said: “It’s for you, Captain.”

He went towards it, saying: “I left word at the office I’d be here.” He picked up the instrument. “Hello... Yeah, Otto.” He listened, and presently his brows bent, a shine appeared in his eyes. His low voice said: “Okey, Otto.” He hung up, put the instrument down, staring hard at it.

Then he raised his bony head and looked at Halo Rand. A corner of his wide mouth twitched.

Kennedy, the eyes and ears of the Richmond City Free Press, slammed into the dusty little office at the base of the pier, ricocheted from door to wall to chair to desk, where he finally sprawled with a relieved sigh and calmly placed the telephone receiver to his ear, using the same hand to prop his head.

“Central 1000.”

An astonished watchman stood spellbound against the wall. “Hey,” he said. “Hey!”

“Now, now,” Kennedy said with wrinklebrowed remonstrance. “Shush, shush. Don’t you see I’m on the telephone?” He rolled over languidly on his back, propped his heels on the edge of the desk, his knees in the air, and held the telephone transmitter above his mouth.

The watchman dried his hands on a soiled towel. “This here is a private office and I’d like to know who the hell give you permission to use that phone!”

Kennedy said into the mouthpiece: “City desk, flower.” He looked sidewise at the watchman. “Pardon me. I’m Kennedy of the Free Press. May I use your phone?”

“Sure — go ahead.”

“Thanks... Hello, Abe,” he said into the transmitter. “Kennedy. Dust out your ears and get a load of this. Daniel Cosgrove Rand, sportsman, fight promoter, owner of the Colosseum; dead, by his own hand, at 9:50 tonight, on River Road, near the foot of Pokomoke Street, in an abandoned warehouse. Shot heard, body found, by Patrolman Henry Pflueger. No witnesses. Got that?... Okey. More later.”

He hung up, turned over on his stomach, put the phone down and pushed himself back off the desk to his feet. He was calm again, a little sallow-faced beneath his battered fedora. His roving, world-weary eyes alighted on a pint flask standing on a shelf above the desk.

“Is that,” he said to the watchman, “something to drink?”

“Nah. Nah. That’s rubbing alcohol.” Kennedy reached up, took down the bottle, uncorked it and smelled it. He took two long swallows, corked the bottle, sighed and replaced the bottle on the shelf.

“Somebody’s been kidding you, my good friend. That’s gin.” He buttoned his flimsy topcoat, said cheerfully: “Thanks for the use of your phone,” and went out.

Winter wind, freighted with river damp, smote him and he shivered beneath his inadequate topcoat. He strode, a scarecrow figure, along the edge of the river wall; saw red and green lights of tugboats moving, heard deep-toned whistles. Up ahead, in front of the abandoned warehouse, the red-tinted lights of an ambulance glowed like swollen eyes. Figures moved in the glare of a spotlight, paced by their elongated shadows. Breath spumed whitely and hard heels struck and scraped on cold cobblestones.

Kennedy said: “I thought I recognized your Harvard accent, skipper.”

“Oh, you, huh?” MacBride said. He had just stepped from a police squad car. He blew his nose loudly into white, crisp linen. His cheeks were reddened by the cold; his eyes flashed like dark coals in the beam of the spotlight. “You always go where I go, huh?”

“Only this time I was here first. You’re slipping, Cap.”

A rotund man appeared in the entrance of the old warehouse. He blinked in the glare of the spotlight, then came forward with a bobbing, cheerful walk, a small black bag swinging in his hand.

“Hello, Doc,” MacBride said.

“Dead, Steve — very dead,” the ambulance doctor said. “In fact, he must have died instantly. Shot in the heart... Well, I must get going.”

MacBride nodded. He set his jaw and suddenly started off in a hard-heeled stride. The sound of his footfalls echoed in the large, bare warehouse. Far beyond, near the head of the wharf, he saw a lantern and several hand torches glowing; they made a wan, lonesome aureole of light around the shapes of several men. He walked through chill, damp air that seeped to his marrow; heard, beneath the floor, the lapping of water among pilings.

He saw, as he drew nearer, the narrow chalky face of Eggleson, the Deputy Medical Examiner. Eggleson was standing spread-legged, torchlight spraying upward over his gaunt body to his narrow face; and he was writing absentmindedly in a book. Patrolman Pflueger was in silhouette, arms akimbo, his back to MacBride. Moriarity and Cohen were kneeling, getting two lights from a match.

No one said anything as MacBride came up. He stopped, stood with hands thrust in overcoat pockets, slouching a bit, the torch-and lantern-light picking out sharply the bony irregularity of his face, the slitted eyes.

Then Kennedy’s quiet voice from behind: “You knew him well, huh, skipper?”

“Yeah.”

Patrolman Pflueger pointed: “There’s the gun, Captain — layin’ there.”

“Yeah.” MacBride’s voice had a dull flat sound. “Yeah. I can recognize it from here. I gave it to him. You can see on the barrel: ‘From Steve MacBride to Dan Rand.’ ”

Eggleson, the D.M.E., looked up from his notebook. “Suicide, Steve. Tough.” He shook his head profoundly. “Tough, tough. He got pie-eyed drunk and then did the Dutch.”

“Drunk, huh?”

“Pie-eyed. Can’t you smell it?”

“Yeah.”

Kennedy touched his arm. “Snap out of it, Steve.”

“I liked him, Kennedy. I grew up with him. It’s kind of swell to see a guy you grew up with make a name for himself. It ain’t exactly the nuts when you find him dead.” He wagged his bony head. “I never figured Dan would do the Dutch. He wasn’t that kind. Not him. But...” He sighed, moved his broad shoulders. Then he flexed his hands, his voice picked up: “Moriarity, get the lead out of your pants. Get the Morgue bus down... Hey, Pflueger, did you touch that gun?”

“Just by the barrel.”

“I trained you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir.”

MacBride looked at Kennedy. “Hear that?” He bent down, caught hold of the gun by the barrel and lifted it. He wrapped the gun in a fresh handkerchief and slipped it carefully into his pocket.

“Who trained you, skipper?” Kennedy said.

“Experience... Hey, Moriarity, I thought I told you—”

“Okey, okey!” Moriarity started off at a fast walk.

Eggleson scoffed: “Suicide! It’s as plain as the nose—”

“On my face.” MacBride nodded. “I know. But I also knew” — he leveled an arm at the dead man — “Dan Rand. I guess if I want to take prints off this gun I have a right to!”

“What a man!” Eggleson sighed; then said: “Okey, Steve. Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

Police photographers came and took flashlight pictures of the body on the floor.

MacBride roamed through the warehouse, picking his way with the help of a torch borrowed from Pflueger. He pushed through a small door and stood on the pierhead, in the wind, watching the lights of river traffic. Kennedy came out and huddled in his topcoat, using MacBride’s bulk to break the wind.

“Don’t be a sap, Cap,” he argued. “It was suicide plain and simple. You know Dan was in a bad way financially. Ever since he refused to let the Ricks-Gowanus boxfight take place in his Colosseum Cardiac boycotted him. It’s cost Dan a lot of dough. He couldn’t afford to lose it. Well, he lost it. And what happened?” He shrugged. “A Dutch out. He got drunk as hell and getting drunk either weakened or strengthened him to rub himself out. Depends on how you look at it.”

MacBride remained silent, staring at the river lights.

Kennedy raised a cigarette to his mouth. The wind whipped sparks from its red end. His tone was lazy, ruminative: “He had an expensive wife... his apartment at Tudor Towers set him back $500 a month... a front to keep up.” He shrugged. “A guy like Rand would have hated to take one backward step in the scale of living.”

“Yeah,” said MacBride. “He hated defeat. And he could take it. I’ve seen him take it before.”

“Sure. But a man can take it just so long, skipper, and then the lights go out. A short circuit in the nervous system.”

MacBride turned. “I know, I know, Kennedy. You’re using your head, you’re reasoning things out. Swell! But I can’t reason the same way because I knew Dan, I know he had guts. It’s not like him to pull a stunt like this. It’s all goofy! It’s a cap that don’t fit his head!”

Kennedy leaned back on his heels. “Listen, am I talking to a hard-headed cop or am I talking to a fat-head?”

MacBride growled, swung on his heel, yanked open the door and heaved into the warehouse. The lantern was swinging now in someone’s hand. The Morgue bus had come and they were carrying out the body of Dan Rand.

Kennedy caught up with MacBride and said: “So don’t make a horse’s neck out of yourself just because you happened to play at cowboys and Indians with this guy when you were kids.”

“I’m in the dark right now,” MacBride ground out. “In the dark, get me?” His eyes shimmered between narrowed lids. “In a dark house. But I’ve got a feeling that there’s a lot of doors around me in the darkness — and if I look hard enough, and take your wisecracks as just so much bushwha, I might find a streak of light — you know, at the bottom of a door.”

“Listen to the man!”

“Razz me, sweetheart. I could take the razzberry when you were just a hope in your father’s chest.”

Cohen was sitting on the desk, swinging a leg, flipping a coin in the air, when MacBride strode into the office next morning. The skipper removed his conservative blue overcoat, his conservative gray fedora, and hung them on a costumer in the corner. Crossing to the desk, rubbing his chilled hands smartly together, he stared down at the morning edition of the Free Press. Dan Rand Commits Suicide, the headlines said. MacBride looked at Cohen. Cohen continued flipping the coin.

“What’s that, Ike, a new kind of endurance contest?... Come on, come on — with six chairs in this office, do you have to park yourself on my desk?”

Cohen stood up. “So I dusted the town last night, Cap. Rand hit The Panama at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, stayed an hour drinking alone. At 3:40 he walked into Joe Paloma’s place, in Senate Street. Joe says he knocked off three highballs and left there about four o’clock. Plenty looking-glass drinking. At 4:30 he landed in Nick Raitt’s place, on Division Hill. Rye highballs again; three. Nick said he didn’t talk, didn’t say a thing. Just looked at himself in the mirror and took on the liquor. Nick says he bailed out at about 5:30.

“At about a quarter of six he walked into the Old English Grill and got himself a meal and Al says he drank rye there. He was pretty crocked when he came in, but the food kind of straightened him out. He left the Old English at a little past seven and went down to Elmo Street, to Mike Cahill’s place. He threw dice with Mike, but Mike says he kept his trap shut except to open it to pour in rye. He left Mike’s place at 8:30.

“Tony Gatto, down in Jockey Street, says Rand sloped into his joint between eight and nine. He was pretty drunk. He took two highballs fast and left at about 9:15. Tony says Rand said: ‘Well, Tony, I think I’ll go home to my wife. Listen, Tony; never give up ship. Stick to it.’ Tony didn’t know what he meant. ‘Some of us slide out, Tony,’ Rand said. ‘Some of us stick, hang on. I guess I’m that kind, damn my guts.’ And he went out.” Cohen shrugged. “So I guess Tony Gatto was the last guy to see him alive.”

MacBride said: “Good work, Ike. Did you mark those places and times down?”

Cohen scaled a slip of paper onto the desk.

MacBride studied the memoranda, mused aloud: “What did Dan mean by that speech, Ike?”

“Hell, do drunks mean anything by the speeches they make? I read a book once—”

“Okey, okey. Suppose we don’t go into that. Here” — he pointed to the telephone — “call McGovern and ask him if he got the prints off that gun yet.”

Cohen telephoned the Bureau in the basement. Hanging up, he said: “In about half an hour.”

MacBride took a turn up and down the room; stopped, eyed Cohen darkly. “You’ve got an idea I’m nuts, haven’t you?”

“Well” — Cohen leaned on the desk — “it looks like suicide to me, Cap. Of course, if you want to make a case out of it, okey. I know about seventeen guys I could pick up, frame, box and deliver—”

“Do drunks mean anything by the speeches they make?... You asked me that, Ike. And I’ll tell you. They do! Dan would, anyhow. He was going home to his wife. He might have thought about doing the Dutch. But in the end, tight as he was, he changed his mind.” He leveled an arm. “When Danny Rand walked out of Tony Gatto’s he was going home to his wife. He might have been flat broke, up to his ears in debt — but he was going to stick, kid — he was going to stick.” He struck the desk with his fist. “Danny Rand didn’t commit suicide!”

Cohen was unimpressed. He shrugged. “Okey, skipper, okey. He didn’t commit suicide. Okey. Now tell me who bumped him off and I’ll go out and pinch the guy—”

“Cut it, Ike!” MacBride chopped in savagely. In a quieter voice he said: “Scram. I’ll call you if I want you.”

He crammed a pipe, lighted up. He had fought the Medical Examiner’s office tooth and nail for an autopsy. Halo Rand had sobbed. “An autopsy’s cruel on his poor dead body,” she had said. The Medical Examiner had chided, wheedled, opened a bottle of Napoleon brandy. But MacBride had stood his ground — grim-faced, obstinate, on a single track of thought and purpose.

He smoked out his pipe, knocked the ash into a tray. He sailed out of his office, went down to the central room, on down to the Bureau of Criminal Identification. McGovern, the fingerprint man, chewed a cigar beneath a brilliant light. The smoke foamed and rolled beneath the green eyeshade he wore, and he spoke laconically:

“No prints but Rand’s on this gat, Steve. Nice gun. I always did like a .32.”

MacBride muttered: “You’re sure of that, Mac?”

“That’s my business — being sure. But wait.” He picked up the gun. “Smell it.”

MacBride leaned down, sniffed. “What?” he said.

McGovern shrugged. “Smells — that’s all. Can’t you smell it?”

“I think I can. What’s that mean?”

“Oh” — McGovern shrugged — “nothing, I suppose.” He slapped palms softly together. “Suicide, Steve. You can’t get away from it.”

MacBride pointed: “Turn the gat over to Lewis. We ought to have that slug from the Morgue this morning.” He turned on his heel, strode away; stopped, returned to the desk and picked up the gun again. He sniffed along the barrel, along the butt; sighed, shrugged and walked away again, a puzzled frown shadowing his forehead.

In the central room, Otto Bettdecken lowered a half-eaten liverwurst sandwich behind the desk and called: “Cap, a guy just called up from 313 Diamond Street. His name’s Rossman. He said if you could come down there maybe he can tell you something.”

“About what?”

“Well, he said he’d read the paper this morning—”

“Okey. Thanks, Otto.”

The skipper hiked up the steps two at a time, barged into his office and saw Kennedy sitting at the desk. Kennedy was holding a glass in one hand, a bottle in the other; and he was grimacing painfully.

He said: “Honest, Cap, this last batch of liquor of yours is crummy — absolutely crummy.” He was indignant.

MacBride grinned tightly, nodded. “I know, sweetheart. You got it out of that lower left drawer, didn’t you? Swell! The good stuff is in the lower right — under lock and key. And I” — he thumbed his chest — “have the key!”

“Ah, my pal, my pal! Is it true that Rand was shot down by four Chinamen disguised as Princeton professors? I understand that there is a certain captain in Headquarters who insists that they were not four Chinamen; he says they were four dwarfs disguised as two dark, swart men wearing false hair eyebrows. This captain is principally known as an oboe player.”

MacBride slapped on his hat, shrugged into his overcoat, said scornfully: “I hope you choke, Kennedy. And I hope if you ever get married your kids’ll turn out to be saxophone players. In three words” — he reached the door, yanked it open — “nerts to you!”

In the central room he ran into Eggleson, the Deputy Medical Examiner. Eggleson’s chalky face wore a dry, broad grin. “I hear, Steve, that only Rand’s prints were on the gun. Tsk, tsk!”

MacBride said grimly: “You’re just breaking down with regret, ain’t you.” And he went on, red-faced, warm with chagrin.

Cohegan was waiting at the wheel of the shabby squad car.

MacBride said: “Down to 313 Diamond Street, Bert.”

“Okey.”

MacBride climbed in, slammed the door. “The razzberry market is cheap these days,” he rasped out.

“Me,” said Cohegan soberly, “I like blueberries. My wife, now, she likes strawberries; but take a good bowl of blueberries—”

“You take ’em.” MacBride sighed. He nipped savagely at the end of a cigar, cupped hands in the wind and lighted up.

The car purred across town, hit Broadway Avenue and weaved through traffic. It pushed westward past midtown hotels, shops, theaters. Its canvas top clapped and pattered in the wind, and the wind kept MacBride’s cigar at a bright glow, tore smoke from his nostrils and whipped it away, reddened the right side of his face. Winter sunlight glittered on plate-glass windows, automobile radiators, the shields and buttons of white-gloved traffic officers. Pedestrians hurried. Discarded newspapers skipped and planed and looped above the sidewalks.

Cohegan made a left turn into Diamond Street, a narrow thoroughfare that sloped downhill, walled on either side with food shops, noisy radio stores, cut-rate drug-stores, pawnshops, novelty stores, cheap haberdashers. Number 313 was a pawnshop.

“Park here, Bert,” MacBride said.

He climbed out, made a half-turn against the driving wind and strode into the pawnshop. Inside it was dim. Lights glowed dimly. Counters and showcases were cluttered with cheap odds and ends; and behind a brass wicket a small, pink-cheeked man was studying the inside of a watch.

“Your name Rossman?”

The little man was cheerful, bright-eyed. “Yes... yes, I’m Rossman.”

“I’m Captain MacBride—”

“Oh, yes!” The little man laid down the watch, turned and shouted: “Charley! Charley, come here and take care a minute.” And to MacBride: “Right in the back, Captain, if you don’t mind.”

MacBride strode to the rear of the store. Rossman met him at the end of the counter and bowed him into a small office where a coal stove glowed warmly. He closed the door quietly, changed spectacles and picked up a copy of the Free Press. A smile twinkled in his eyes, tugged at his lips.

“This,” he said, pointing to the Rand story. “I read about it this morning, and I thought it over. I saw your name connected with it. I remembered that once you were kind to my son-in-law, Benny Lisk, and I thought maybe this would interest you.” He paused, darted a shrewd, smiling look at MacBride. “I read here about the gun — the gun it says you gave him. I looked a long time at Mr. Rand’s picture here. Sit down, Captain.”

MacBride sat down.

“This man,” went on Rossman, striking the picture of Dan Rand, “came into my store at about two o’clock yesterday afternoon. I’m sure. I remember the face. And, Captain” — he dropped his voice significantly — “he wanted to buy a gun.”

MacBride’s face remained expressionless, but his eyes steadied on Rossman’s cherubic face.

Rossman nodded. “So I sold him one. A .32 Colt automatic. And a box of 73-grain, metal case cartridges.” He paused. “You see, Captain, I want no trouble with the police. Usually I don’t sell guns to anybody, but this man had a permit to carry one. He loaded the gun here, and then, after he left, I found he didn’t take the rest of the cartridges.”

MacBride’s eyes glowed. “Thanks, Mr. Rossman. I appreciate this a hell of a lot.” He stood up, shook Rossman’s hand vigorously. “This will help. This will help, Mr. Rossman. Any time you feel you’re in a jam, let me know. I don’t forget.”

Leaving the room, he strode briskly through the shop, a hard windy glitter in his eyes and a firm jut to his jaw. Outside, he found the shabby squad car empty. He sent a sharp glance about the street, took a few steps, swore irritably; and then he saw Cohegan stroll casually out of a fruiterer’s, eating a banana.

“Bert!”

Cohegan reached the car with his mouth full of banana.

MacBride jerked his chin, growled: “In, bozo!” And as they drove off: “Always on the muscle! Always on the make! If it’s not fruit you’re mooching, it’s cigars, or socks, or candy for some jane you know, or liquor!”

Cohegan said soberly: “Where was we headed for now?”

There was a note of vengeance in MacBride’s short laugh. “Back to H.Q., you racketeer!”

Moriarity and Cohen were rolling dice on MacBride’s desk when the skipper breezed into his office. His two aides did not look up. The dice clicked, tumbled; coins rang on the desk.

“Hot-cha!” Cohen exclaimed. “After it’s over, Mory, you can borrow from me — at seven percent.”

“What I found,” MacBride said, rocking on his heels, “was that Dan Rand bought a gun. Bought a .32 Colt auto from a guy named Rossman in Diamond Street. Yesterday afternoon. And loaded it and walked out!”

The dice clicked and Cohen said: “You should never roll the bones, Mory; you were born unlucky.”

“Now why did he buy that gun?” MacBride said impressively. “Why did he buy a gun when he had a perfectly good gun of his own? And how come the gun we found on him was the gun I gave him and not — not, you understand — the gun he bought? What happened to the gun he bought? Boy, oh, boy, if I–Lisyou apes!” he suddenly exploded. He caught up the dice and flung them against the wall.

Cohen whistled, picked up the money and dropped it into his pocket. Moriarity lighted a cigarette and said reasonably:

“It must have disappeared.”

“It means this,” MacBride hammered out, shaking a fist. “It means that I’m no fat-head! It means that maybe all the razzberry you and a lot of other guys shoveled at me is going to be dumped right back at you! It means,” he said, thinning his voice, “that when Dan Rand walked out of his house at noon yesterday he didn’t carry a gun. He went and bought one—”

“And with it,” nodded Cohen, “committed suicide.”

MacBride barked: “No!” He walked around the room and came back and barked again: “No!” He folded his arms. “This is murder. I know what to do about murder, wherever I find it. We’ll see what kind of bullet they’ve taken out of Dan Rand and—”

The phone rang and MacBride scooped it up. “Okey,” he said. He hung up. “Come on down. That was Lewis.”

They went down to the basement. Lewis, the ballistics expert, was wiping off a gun.

He said: “There’s the slug they took out of Rand. I matched it with this gun you gave him. It matches. There it is — a lead slug. Came out of a ninety-eight-grain Smith and Wesson cartridge.” He laid the revolver down. “Suicide, I guess.”

MacBride picked up the slug, studied it closely, then rolled it round and round between thumb and forefinger. His eyes flashed, his lips warped. He tossed the slug back to the desk.

“Murder,” he clipped.

“Suicide suits me,” Lewis said.

But MacBride was striding away. Moriarity and Cohen went along, exchanging hopeless glances. MacBride stopped short, swung about, returned to Lewis’ desk and picked up the gun, thrust it into his pocket. He bore down on Moriarity and Cohen with a hard, preoccupied stare.

“Look at it this way, Cap,” Moriarity said. “Maybe this guy Rossman made a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t Rand after all.”

“I’ll bet that’s just what happened!” Cohen said decisively.

MacBride went past them with his hard, fixed stare. He picked up Cohegan in the central room and they went outside and climbed into the car. MacBride sat motionless, staring ahead, while Cohegan started the motor and waited. After a while MacBride relaxed, looked about them as though surprised, then said:

“Okey, Bert. Drive to the Metals Building in Simpson Street.” He leaned back, sighed as the car started. “I’m a sap,” he muttered. “I get all steamed up over nothing.”

The Metals Building was a seven-story brick affair, not new. The elevator was large, old, tarnished, and wheezed on the way up to the fifth floor. MacBride got out, slapped his heels down a linoleum covered corridor floor and stopped before a ground-glass door bearing the inscription: Acme Sporting Enterprises, Inc.

“Yes, sir?” chirped a blonde over a noisy typewriter.

“Mr. Cardiac.” He champed the tip off a cigar. “MacBride’s the name.”

The girl flounced into one of two inner offices; reappeared in a moment and said: “Okey.”

MacBride swung into the inner office, scaled his hat on the desk and flopped down into a leather-upholstered armchair; scowled down at his cigar and then licked a piece of the wrapper back into place.

“What do you think about Rand’s suicide, Cardiac?”

Cardiac said: “Shocked. I was shocked. Sorry as hell to hear of it.”

“Yes, you were!” MacBride chuckled sardonically.

Cardiac was a tall, handsome man, blond and rounded about the head. He had broad, neatly tailored shoulders, a jaw shaped like a spade, big white hands.

“Okey, then. I’m not sorry.” He chuckled.

“That sounds better. With Dan Rand out of the way I suppose things will be easier for you, huh?”

“In what way?”

“Oh... I suppose it’ll be easy for you to get control of the Colosseum. Listen, Cardiac.” MacBride leaned forward. “Dan Rand hated you and you hated him. I’ll tell you why he hated you. He didn’t like your business methods. He kept you and your stable of fighters out of the Colosseum because he didn’t believe in robbing the fight public. He had no use for set-ups. He believed the Ricks-Gowanus thing was a set-up.

“Before that, he crossed you on a number of other deals. He lost money doing it but he was willing to lose money to keep the fight game clean. You tried to stage fights in the old Hessler Arena. He stopped that by proving the place was a fire-trap. The only place big enough to make money in was the Colosseum, and he shut you out of there. You got back at him by talking other sport promoters into taking their jobs elsewhere — the smaller jobs, hockey, bicycle racing, wrestling. The Colosseum became an empty barn. He lost money and kept on losing it but no matter what you did you couldn’t make him change his mind. Dan could always take it.”

“Sure.” Cardiac nodded. “Until finally he was flat broke and did the Dutch.”

MacBride’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “It always surprised me, Cardiac, the way all these small frys suddenly slid away from the Colosseum and pulled their stuff elsewhere. All of them!” He held aloft a rigid forefinger for a taut split-minute, then swung it levelly towards Cardiac. “I hope you’ve kept your nose clean, boy.”

Cardiac delivered a bland smile. “You’re steamed up about something.” An eyebrow went up. “Will a drink help?”

“No... I’m dumb,” he confessed. “When I look back, I see how dumb I am. The more I think of it, the funnier it seems... I mean the way all these enterprises — wrestling, bike races, hockey, smokers — the way they all slipped away from the Colosseum to outlying dumps. You’re the only man big enough in this town to’ve worked a racket like that, Cardiac!”

Cardiac looked bored. “Rave on, Skipper,” he said offhand, waving a cigarette languidly.

There was a thump — and the gun lay on the table. And there was MacBride’s blunt voice: “Ever see that?”

Cardiac folded his hands on his flat stomach, shook his head, said quietly: “No.”

“It’s the gat that killed Dan Rand.”

“So-so! H’m... nice-looking gun. Suicide’s queer—”

“Damn queer. So queer, Cardiac, that this time it’s not suicide.”

“Well, that is news!”

“Would you mind,” said MacBride, “letting me see that nice silk pocket handkerchief?”

Cardiac tensed, his eyes flickered. He flexed his lips, then shrugged, chuckled jerkily. “Sure! Here.” He tossed the handkerchief across the desk.

MacBride smelled it, making noises. Then he threw it back to Cardiac, rubbed his bony hand around the nape of his neck and sent a couple disgruntled smoke-puffs from one corner of his mouth. The skipper and Cardiac regarded each other for a long minute.

“Plan to get the Colosseum, don’t you?” MacBride asked.

“I plan to organize a holding company and try to do business with the executors of Rand’s estate.”

“You wouldn’t,” MacBride said, “by any chance have already formed this holding company?”

“I was just thinking about it.”

MacBride picked up a clipped sheaf of papers from a wire desk basket. “I’ve got good eyesight, Cardiac. It says here, ‘Prospectus of the Colosseum Holding Company.’ ”

Cardiac nodded. “Yes, I know. I was just playing around with the idea this morning. Got down to the office early and ran off my ideas on the typewriter before my secretary arrived.”

MacBride nodded, turned and went to the connecting door and opening it said to the blonde in the outer office, “Typewrite on a piece of paper, miss, one line — anything — and bring it in.”

Cardiac was annoyed. “Why all the horseplay, Captain?”

MacBride, reading the prospectus, made no reply. In a moment the blonde entered with a sheet of paper. MacBride took it, slowly read the single line.

“Miss,” he said, “how many letters have you typed since you arrived this morning?”

“Oh, about three.”

“Thanks. You can go.”

She went out, puzzled, a little frightened.

MacBride tossed the prospectus and the newly written sheet of paper on the desk.

“Take a look at them, Cardiac. You said you wrote that prospectus on the typewriter this morning. The girl said she’s written only three letters this morning. Yet — look close, Cardiac — the typewriting on your prospectus is in fresh, heavy black type made by a brand-new ribbon. The line the girl just wrote is very faded — the ribbon hasn’t been changed in weeks.”

“Oh, nonsense!” Cardiac scoffed.

“Nonsense your grandmother! That prospectus wasn’t written this morning, Cardiac. It was written weeks ago — maybe months ago. It was written because you had a good idea that pretty soon the Colosseum would be in the bag!”

Cardiac rose slowly, his mouth twisting, his pale eyes hard as chips of ice. “I’m getting tired of listening to a lot of hot air, MacBride!”

“You’ll listen, baby — and like it. You’re the only man big enough in this town to’ve wanted Rand’s scalp.”

Cardiac came around the desk, swaggering, a hard set to his spade jaw. “Watch those cracks, copper! I’m not taking dirty cracks from any cheap shamus.” He held his hands out, palms up. “These hands are clean, skipper. Suppose you tuck your tail between your legs and scram.”

The phone rang and Cardiac lifted it, growled “Hello” into the mouthpiece. Then his eyes blinked, he shook his head; clipped: “Call back. No, I’ll call you back when—... No... no, not now!” His face colored, he seemed uneasy; he shouted: “I said I’ll call you back!” He hung up violently. There were a few beads of sweat on his forehead.

MacBride said: “I’ll be seeing you oftener.” And went out.

MacBride dropped into Tony Gatto’s Jockey Street Club and found Kennedy drinking gin and Perrier at the bar. It was not quite noon, and Kennedy was the only customer. Tony Gatto stood behind the bar grinning, polishing a glass.

“No see you in a long time, Cap. How’s t’ings?” Tony said.

“Hello, Tony. Bottle of ale... You ever drink water, Kennedy?”

“Sure. But I always put liquor in it to kill the germs. It turns out they weren’t two dwarfs, Steve; just the Four Marx Brothers up to their old tricks—”

“Enough o’ that, honeybunch.” MacBride took a drink of ale; about-faced and hooked his elbows on the bar, his heel on the brass rail. “So all you mugs still think it’s suicide.” He clucked. “I’m continually grateful for the swell support I get from my friends. It just breaks my heart with gratitude. Some fine day I’m going to start out and systematically change the shapes of a lot of schnozzles in this man’s town.”

Kennedy also turned about, hooking elbows on the bar, a heel on the rail, and stood shoulder to shoulder with MacBride. Both stared at the blank wall opposite.

Kennedy said: “Ah,” and took another drink. “How about the woman?” he asked.

“What woman?”

“Halo Rand.”

MacBride said nothing. He took a long swallow of ale and cleared his throat; but still he said nothing.

“This gun business,” Kennedy said. “If it’s true that Rand bought a gun, that means his own gun wasn’t in his desk at home.”

“My, but you’re a thinker, Kennedy!”

“And yet the gun found on him was the gun that wasn’t in his desk and the gun he was supposed to have bought was — where?”

“So you still think it’s suicide?”

“Come over to one of the booths.”

They went to the rear of the bar, entered a small booth and drew the curtains. Kennedy flopped onto a chair, plunked down his glass.

“There’s no reason,” he said, “why a man would buy two guns to commit suicide. So we must believe that his own gun wasn’t in his desk.”

“It wasn’t there when I went over.”

“Right. We must believe that it wasn’t there when Rand came home. If we believe that, then it stands to reason that somebody removed it.”

“It was in the drawer on the day before.”

“That narrows down the time element. It was removed between then and the time Rand came home.”

“Why wouldn’t Rand have mentioned it to his wife?”

“Maybe he thought she’d removed it for fear he might use it. Guys about to commit suicide are very clever. So he said nothing about it. He just went out and bought another.” He dropped his voice. “What do you know about his wife?”

“Not much. I never saw Dan much in the home. I guess I met his wife only about three times. They seemed happy.”

“A lot of people seem happy.”

MacBride frowned. “Hell, I don’t think she’d—”

“Okey, okey. It was just a thought I had. Only the way you talked, it seems to me she tried hard to stick it into your mind that he was hard up financially.”

“He was!”

Kennedy smiled drolly. “I’ve been poking around this morning. I went down to Rand’s office. I talked with his stenog. I got the names of the men who called on Rand yesterday morning. One of them was a man named Osgood — the only name I didn’t recognize. So I looked up the business directory and found out a man named Charles Osgood was connected with the Packillac Motor Car Company. I sloped around and looked him up. Yes, he’d called on Rand. They’d had a long talk. When Osgood left it was practically settled that Rand was to sell his Colosseum to the Packillac people for $300,000.”

MacBride barked: “Sell the Colosseum— What for?”

“The Packillac people intended to convert it into an assembling and distributing plant.”

MacBride smacked the table. “Then it wasn’t money! It wasn’t money that worried him! It wasn’t, then, suicide!”

“Hold on. We’ve got to believe that he intended to commit suicide. The sale could have been consummated through his estate. When he bought that gun, we must believe it was with the intention of committing suicide. Then, maybe, he changed his mind.”

“So why, in the first place, if he had a chance to sell the Colosseum for $300,000 — why did he even think about suicide?”

Kennedy was dry: “There might have been another reason. Men do the Dutch, you know, because of women. Not often. But now and then.”

MacBride’s voice was low, hoarse: “Then you’ve changed your mind about the suicide theory?”

“Blushingly,” bowed Kennedy.

“Kennedy,” MacBride said. “I always liked you. I never said I didn’t like you, did I?”

Kennedy chuckled. “Old tomato!... How’s the chances of buying me a drink?”

MacBride stood up. “Nah. Not this bellywash Tony sells. Here’s the key to my private stock. Go back to my office. Lower right drawer.”

“Where’s your white whiskers, Santa Claus?”

The shabby phaeton rolled into the flagstone courtyard of Tudor Towers. A liveried chauffeur opened the door and MacBride stepped out, passed into the large, deftly lighted lobby. No hurry here; no noise: Tudor Towers was strictly residential, quietly austere. The elevator that carried the skipper to the top floor was a vehicle of black and chromium, noiseless in its ascent.

MacBride’s hard heels were ably muffled by the thick cushioned runner in the corridor. The oldish maid with the gargoyle’s face let him in. When he entered the living-room he saw Halo Rand sitting in a vis-à-vis couch beside a man wearing a correct morning suit, with a winged collar, dark-rimmed pince-nez. He was about fifty, black-haired, black-eyebrowed. He rose.

Halo Rand, wearing a black crêpe negligee, did not rise; but she said: “Captain MacBride, this is Dr. Landau.” She had been crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face sapped of color; and she was listless, tired.

Landau gripped MacBride’s hand, eyed him with a dark, keen, direct look. “I am delighted to know you, Captain. I have heard a lot about you. I was just trying to console Mrs. Rand.” He threw a profound look at her. “It is not easy, Captain.”

“Family doctor?”

“Well, I’ve attended Dan Rand for quite a few years.” He stopped, inhaled deeply, said in a low, level voice: “I am glad you came, Captain, when you did.” He stared fixedly, remorsefully, into space. “You know, Dan Rand came to my office yesterday morning. We had a long talk together. He wasn’t well, you know. It was marvelous, the way he kept it from everyone. But he was that way... proud; he hated pity. He’d been coming to me regularly and I’d been treating him, but finally, yesterday, he wanted to know the truth. I tried to evade telling the truth. But when a man like Rand becomes angry — And, well, he wanted to know. So I told him. Lungs.” He nodded reflectively, bitterly. “I told him the truth. I told him to give up business. I said it was necessary for him to go west — New Mexico — if he hoped to prolong his life. He thanked me. He walked out of my office. So you see, Captain” — he shrugged — “what happens when a man demands the truth of a doctor.”

Mrs. Rand said: “Do you want something, Emma?”

The maid was still hovering in the doorway. “N-no, madam.”

“Then please go.” For a brief instant Halo Rand seemed angry. Then it passed, and she relaxed, was limp again.

“That’s news, Doctor,” MacBride said.

“I daresay it is. Regrettable news. I hope you will understand my position. I hope you will understand that I tried to keep the truth from Rand a long time.”

“Would this change of climate have helped him?”

“It would only have prolonged his life a little while. I daresay the poor chap took the bravest way out. I only regret that in a way I was responsible—”

MacBride scoffed. “Wasn’t your fault.”

They were silent for a moment and then Landau said: “Well, I shall have to get on.”

When he had gone, MacBride sat down on a straight-backed chair and regarded Mrs. Rand.

He said: “Well, that seems to straighten out the motive for Dan’s suicide.”

“P-poor Dan,” she said in a tiny voice, half sobbing.

“Only I came here,” MacBride went on, “pretty firmly convinced that it wasn’t suicide.”

She looked up, startled. “Wasn’t suicide!”

“Yeah.”

“But... but if it wasn’t—”

He said: “Mrs. Rand, your husband, when he left here at noon yesterday, went and bought a gun off a pawnbroker on Diamond Street. I have a complete description of the gun. It wasn’t the gun we found in Dan’s hand; that was the gun I gave him; it wasn’t the gun that killed him.”

“Oh!” She felt her throat. “You can’t mean—”

He dragged out sardonically, half to himself: “It kind of bears the dirty earmarks of murder.”

She sat bolt upright. “Murder!”

“Mrs. Rand, it appears that the gun I gave him was not in his desk drawer when he came home yesterday at noon. It appears that though he left this house and bought a gun with the intention of committing suicide, he changed his mind later in the day.”

“But his gun must have been there!”

He thought this over. “No,” he said, “it mustn’t have been. He went out and bought another.”

She was taut, white-faced, shaking. “This... this is all incredible, Captain!”

He was point-blank: “Is there another man in your life?”

She jumped to her feet, her eyes flashing. “How dare you say a thing like that?” she cried.

“My job,” he said, rising, eying her levelly, “is not always the pleasantest under the sun. I asked you a question.”

“It is so absurd that I don’t feel called upon to answer it!”

He said: “Of course, you don’t have to answer me — not now, anyhow. Later, you might.”

Her eyes shimmered. For a long moment she stood tall, quivering, shiny-eyed. Then she burst into tears and covered her face and her handkerchief fell to the floor.

“How cruel you are! How utterly cruel!”

He bent, picked up the handkerchief, passed it in front of his face, sniffed, caught the faint odor of perfume. She took her hands from her face and stared at him with tears streaming from her eyes. He gave her back the handkerchief. She broke out into an incoherent hodgepodge of words, wringing her hands, shaking her head.

He raised palms towards her and said: “Please, Mrs. Rand.”

She fell suddenly to the divan and fainted. The oldish maid came swiftly, silently, into the room; flicked a cold, contemptuous look at MacBride.

He offered: “I’ll help you—”

“You needn’t!” the maid snapped.

He colored, stepped back. “Very well. Tell Mrs. Rand I’ll see her again — soon.”

She snapped: “I will tell Mrs. Rand nothing of the sort!”

“Suit yourself,” he said.

He pivoted and walked across the living-room, into the foyer; opened the door and went down the corridor to the elevator, his hands in overcoat pockets, his shoulders hunched and a dogged, obstinate look in his windy blue eyes.

Cohegan was asleep at the wheel.

MacBride punched him. “Well, sleeping beauty!...”

The shabby phaeton left a cloud of acrid exhaust smoke in the flagstone courtyard, hummed eastward on Marshall Drive.

After all, Steve,” the Police Commissioner said, “if there was another man in her life, and Dan committed suicide because of this, you can’t — you really can’t convict anyone of murder.”

Pacing the floor grimly, MacBride threw up his hands in a violent gesture. “But it’s murder! I say it’s murder!”

Commissioner Sterns smiled drily. “I know. I know you’ve been going around saying that, but you haven’t shown one shred of evidence that would hold in court. Very likely this pawnbroker made a mistake. Very likely it wasn’t Dan Rand who bought that gun off him. I’m not trying to pigeon-hole anything, Steve. I... well, I just don’t like to see you make a fool of yourself.”

“Oh!” MacBride stopped, glared. “I just should be a strong, silent guy, huh? Well, listen to me, Harry. I’ve noticed that a strong, silent guy is usually that way because he don’t know anything. I’m willing to beef around, talk my head off, make a fool of myself — if it’ll get me anywhere.”

“Trouble with you, Steve,” Sterns said good-naturedly, “is that when a case concerns someone you knew and liked, why, you get all steamed up; you cause yourself a lot of heartache and headache... Just because the gun happens to have an odd smell, you think that—”

“That’s only one of the things, Harry.”

He hammered his heels back to his office, crammed his pipe, lighted it and sat in his swivel-chair and filled the office with smoke. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Halo Rand had had a hand in it; and when Moriarity and Cohen drifted in, he said:

“Now if Dan Rand wanted to kill himself because his wife was in love with someone else, why would he have sold, or planned to sell, the Colosseum? He left everything to his wife. I asked his lawyers an hour ago. It seems to me that if he felt he was losing his wife to another man, he’d have left his estate to someone else. But he didn’t. He meant, you apes — he meant to leave his wife well-fixed!”

Moriarity and Cohen exchanged subtle winks.

“You, Mory,” MacBride clipped. “You go to the telephone company and find out about a telephone call Jim Cardiac received at 11:30 this morning. Find where it came from.”

Moriarity went out and Cohen said: “Ah, so we’re going to make Jim Cardiac the fall-guy.”

“Razz on, Ike; razz on. Even the Commissioner’s doing it. I’m getting used to it.”

Moriarity returned in half an hour and said: “The call came from Southern 509 — the Apex Laboratories, in the Marks Building, 199 South Endicott Street.”

MacBride grabbed his hat, put on his overcoat and left his office. He ran into Kennedy in the central room, barged past him, went down to the basement and on into the garage. Cohegan was working on the phaeton’s bright work.

“Knock off, Bert.”

The skipper climbed in back, sat down and was joined in a moment by Kennedy.

“I don’t remember asking you to join me, Kennedy.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did.”

“Where to, Cap?” Cohegan said.

“South Endicott Street — 199.”

The phaeton rolled out of the garage.

“How about the woman?” Kennedy said from beneath his hat brim.

“I think she’s okey.”

“She say she was?”

MacBride snorted, made no reply.

Kennedy said: “Where are we going now?”

“Call on Mr. Apex Laboratories... Hey, Cohegan, you color blind? That was a red light you passed through!”

“Oh, was it?”

The phaeton crawled through a midtown traffic jam, turned south past the Empress Theatre, entered South Endicott Street and pulled up before a narrow stone building.

“I’ll be right down,” MacBride said.

Reaching the elevator, he found Kennedy beside him.

“Me and my shadow!” he muttered.

“Think of all the guys who haven’t got shadows. Up!”

They got out at the fourth floor and turned left. The legend Apex Laboratories was in black on the ground-glass panel of a door at the end of the corridor. The door was locked. There was a white card tacked to the wood: Gone for the day. Phone Midland 214 or call at 26 Cypress if urgent.

“Let’s go, skipper.”

MacBride complained: “Listen, Kennedy. Haven’t you got a room of your own, or just some nice quiet place where you can go and sit for a while?”

“Sitting is a vice, skipper. Continuance of the practice leads to a multitude of evils.”

They went down to the lobby, strode out to the phaeton. Cohegan was not in sight, but in a moment he was seen coming across the street with a package in his hands.

“Peanuts?” he offered soberly.

“Idea!” said Kennedy. “It stimulates the liquid appetite.”

They climbed in and MacBride said: “I bet some fine day I manacle Cohegan to that wheel!... Drive to 26 Cypress.”

Kennedy munched hot peanuts. “Translated into English, Steve, what would Mr. Apex Laboratories’ name be?”

“I’ll let him translate it.”

Number 26 Cypress was a large fieldstone house in the West End; there was a broad lawn in front planted with shade trees. A driveway ran past the right side of the house, and on this side was a white porte-cochère. The phaeton was parked in the street. MacBride and Kennedy walked up the driveway and MacBride hammered a knocker on a broad, heavy door.

A vellum-skinned butler opened the door.

MacBride said: “I want to see the head of the Apex Laboratories. My name is MacBride.”

“Have you an appointment?”

“No.”

“Is the call professional?”

“Absolutely.”

“Please step in.”

They entered a high, dim foyer paneled in dark wood.

“Please take a seat,” the butler said. “It won’t be long.”

He padded off down the hall, vanished.

MacBride and Kennedy did not sit down. They heard the low sound of voices somewhere near, behind a closed door. Kennedy roamed around, came back and pointed.

“In there, skipper. That’s the talk-talk room. Mr. Apex Laboratories is probably busy.”

“So am I.”

MacBride went down the large foyer towards the door Kennedy had indicated. It was broad, heavy, and he stood eying it speculatively. Then he knocked. The low sound of voices ceased. After a moment the latch clicked, the door opened noiselessly.

MacBride stared; then his eyes narrowed, his low blunt voice said: “Hello, Dr. Landau.”

“Why — Captain Mac—”

Kennedy chuckled: “You old translator, you!”

“Come on, Kennedy... This is Kennedy, Doctor — of the Free Press—”

“Just a moment, Captain. Please! I am very busy and—”

“I won’t take long.”

Hard-eyed, MacBride elbowed Landau aside and entered a large, sumptuous room. Kennedy trailed amiably behind him. Landau closed the door quietly.

Cardiac was standing on the other side of a tremendous library table. In a large, straight-backed chair sat a youth dressed in tweeds.

“Cardiac,” muttered MacBride.

“Hello, Skipper.”

Landau removed his pince-nez, dabbed at his face with a handkerchief, came briskly from the door.

“Really, Captain, this is a most pleasant surprise—”

“Pleasant?” MacBride said dully.

“Naturally I didn’t expect—”

“Just a minute.” MacBride raised a palm. “I’ll talk first.” He flexed his lips, shot a dark glance at Cardiac, at the youth in tweeds, at Dr. Landau.

“You phoned Cardiac at 11:30 this morning, Doctor, didn’t you?”

“Really, I can’t remember—”

“You don’t have to. You phoned him. That’s settled. I was in his office then. Your phone call upset him. It upset him because I happened to be in the office and he couldn’t talk to you then. Why couldn’t he?”

The youth’s eyes traveled slyly from one to another.

Cardiac cut in: “You’re certainly making a nuisance of yourself, skipper. Why don’t you get wise to yourself?”

“Why couldn’t you talk to him, Cardiac? I know. Because I was there. Because the things you had to talk about were not for my ears... Who’s the pink-cheeked boy?”

“Mr. Avarill,” Landau said.

MacBride said: “So you were Dan Rand’s doctor, Landau? You were the man who told him he’d have to leave Richmond City? Was that the first time you told him?”

“Of course!”

“Hell! I don’t believe it! His wife told me he’d been acting queer for the past few months. You told him before yesterday. And what happened? He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t leave his business interests. Do you use perfume, Doctor?”

“No.”

MacBride looked around. “Someone in this room does. How about you, Mr. Avarill?”

The pink-cheeked boy grinned. “Why, Captain!”

MacBride crossed to him, bent down. “No, it’s not you.”

“My—! This is rich!” Cardiac exploded.

Kennedy was sitting on the edge of the large library table. He fished in his pockets for a cigarette, found none. He knocked open a large box on the table. It was empty. He knocked open another and found cigarettes; put one between his lips, started to strike a match, paused. He frowned, picked up the empty box, opened it and sniffed.

Landau complained: “You certainly make yourself at home, Mr. Kennedy.”

“Don’t I, though!... Nice sandalwood box, Doctor.”

MacBride was standing at his shoulder. “That’s what I smell,” he said. He snatched the box from Kennedy’s hand, inhaled. He tossed the box back on the desk and said: “That’s the smell. That’s the perfume I’ve been looking for.”

Landau said warmly: “This is becoming ridiculous, Captain!”

“Is it?” MacBride snarled, turning on him. “It’s the smell of sandalwood in the gun that killed Dan Rand. The gun was kept in that box for a while. The odor of sandalwood — if that’s what Kennedy called it — was absorbed by the oil in the gun. It stayed with the gun, not as strong as the smell in the box — but it was there; it was faint but it was there!”

The pink-cheeked youth smiled brightly but said nothing. Cardiac lifted his chin, pursed his lips hard. Dr. Landau looked about the room in nervous fits and starts, shrugging, saying: “Of course... this is peculiar... I hardly know what to say... to think... but of course—”

“You had access to Rand’s home,” MacBride cut in. “When were you there last — before his death? And don’t lie, because it’ll be easy to check up.”

Landau cleared his throat, touched his necktie. “I think — yes, I dropped in there for a few moments the evening before his... ah... death.”

“How long do you consider a few moments?”

“Well” — he cleared his throat — “I daresay I was there for about... well... half an hour.”

“In Dan’s den?”

“I... ah... yes, of course: Dan’s den. To be sure!”

MacBride said: “The gun was in his drawer during the day. The maid saw it when she was cleaning up. It will be easy for me to check up and find out if anyone was in that room between the time she cleaned up and the time you were there.”

Cardiac picked up his coat, flung it over his arm. “I wouldn’t take cracks like that from any cop, Doc. Remember, you don’t have to answer him... Well, I’ve got to run along.”

MacBride turned. “Get back, Cardiac!”

“Now look here, you flatfoot—”

“Get back, Cardiac. I’ve stepped into something that’s just burning my toes. Dan Rand was double-crossed by somebody—”

“I’d watch,” drawled Kennedy, “the young Joe College over there. I don’t like his smile.”

Landau wrung his hands. “This is positively the most absurd situation I have ever—”

“Of course,” said MacBride sarcastically, “sandalwood boxes are as common as egg crates in this burg!... You get the hell back there, Cardiac. I told you you’re not leaving this room!”

“I’ll be damned if I won’t!” whipped back Cardiac. “If you want to hold me, shamus, go out and get a summons! I’m a busy man! I’ve got no time to play tag with a second-rate police captain!” He jerked his thumb. “Come on, Ralph. We’re leaving.”

The pink-cheeked youth rose cheerfully. “Right with you, Jim, old boy!”

MacBride pivoted, caught hold of the youth’s vest and flung him back into the chair. The youth’s teeth clicked. He jumped right up again. MacBride flung him into the chair a second time, and this time the chair went over, the youth sprawled on the floor. He lay there, propped on his elbows; he smiled wistfully, sadly, reflectively, a lock of golden hair curving down over one golden eyebrow.

MacBride roared: “When I tell you to sit down, mister, I don’t mean stand up!”

“Captain, Captain!” Landau panted. “Don’t — don’t aggravate him that way. Don’t—”

“And will you,” ripped out MacBride, swiveling, “stop sticking your nose in my business!... Cardiac, come back here!”

Kennedy yelled: “Look out!”

MacBride swung around, his gun half drawn.

Landau cried out and dived for the youth. The youth was chuckling liquidly, resting on one elbow. The gun exploded in his other hand and stopped Landau in mid-career. MacBride fired and his slug nailed the youth to the floor. Landau started stumbling forward, choking. He gathered unbalanced speed, went careening across the room, knocked over a floor lamp, crashed head-on against the wall and slumped to the floor. The youth writhed on his back, chuckling wildly, beating his palms upon the floor.

A door banged.

“Cardiac,” said Kennedy.

“You stay here!” MacBride said.

He broke into a run, yanked open the door, collided with the butler and fell down as the front door slammed shut. The butler cried out. MacBride untangled himself, rose, lunged for the front door and yelled:

“Cohegan!”

But Cohegan was not in the phaeton. Through the trees, MacBride saw Cardiac at the wheel; heard the blast of the motor and saw the car lurch forward, gather speed. He galloped down the graveled driveway, reached the sidewalk, turned left and stretched his legs in a hard-heeled run. Raising his gun, he did not fire. There were other automobiles moving in the street. But he fired in the air. Beyond was a main highway and he thought a cop might be in the neighborhood. Running, he fired again.

And then he heard, ahead, three blasts from another gun. He saw the phaeton whip from side to side; heard the scream of its brakes and the scream of other brakes as other cars sought to avoid it. Heeling over, the phaeton slammed across the curbstone; its radiator and hood doubled up like a folded accordion and the sound of the crash was drowned instantly in the roar of the explosion that followed. Flame daggered its way through smoke; bricks flew from the building into which the car crashed.

Kennedy picked up the telephone, sat on the library table and swung his legs. “Central 1000,” he said into the mouthpiece. His world-weary eyes traveled from the dead youth to the dead doctor, and he sighed. “City desk, flower.” He lay down on the table, held the mouthpiece above him.

“Abe,” he said, “this is that famous journalist and bon vivant, Kennedy... So now dust your ears. Old Stephen J. MacBride did it again... I’m telling you! Listen. A young punk named Ralph Avarill accidentally shot and killed Dr. Amos Landau in the latter’s home, 26 Cypress Street... Yeah, the punk meant to kill the skipper, but things got balled up. Then MacBride knocked off the punk. At that moment Jim Cardiac took it into his head to lam, and MacBride high-tailed after him in the well-known MacBride manner. They’re not back yet.

“Meantime, get a load of this nice little bedtime story. Landau told it to me and then died. The punk — Ralph Avarill — killed Dan Rand. He was a hop-head... No, sweetness, not Rand; the punk. The punk was a friend of Cardiac’s, and Landau was a silent backer of Cardiac’s interests. Ostensibly a fine medico, he was also a dealer in dope and an addict himself. He met Dan Rand seven years ago at a boxfight where he attended a boxer who later died from the effect of a blow to the heart. He became Rand’s personal physician.

“When this trouble between Rand and Cardiac began, grew hotter, Cardiac went to his silent partner Landau and wanted him to put Rand out of the way. Landau thought of a better method. He began working on Rand mentally, telling him he was a lunger and advising him to sell out all his business interests here and go West and live the simple life. Well, it didn’t quite work out. It wore Rand down, but he was a sticker. Finally Landau told him he would die if he didn’t leave. But before he told him that — in fact, the evening before — he dropped in at Rand’s apartment and while Rand was out of the room Landau swiped his gun, went home and put it in a sandalwood box until the punk called for it. Next day he told Rand his chances of living were mighty small. He thought Rand would go home and tell his wife and that his telling her would make an open and shut suicide case when the cops found the body...

“What?... Sure, the punk was to tail Rand. And he did. Tailed him all afternoon and finally, at between 9:30 and ten o’clock, walked him to that abandoned warehouse and let him have it with the gun Landau had stolen from Rand’s desk. And when Rand fell, his hand came out of his pocket and he dropped the gun he’d bought. The punk picked it up, left the other — Just a minute.”

MacBride had come darkly into the room. “Tell him Cardiac’s dead, Kennedy. Cohegan objected to the squad car being stolen.”

“Where was Cohegan?”

“Down in a fancy grocery store on the corner, mooching apples.”