The Danger Zone and Other Stories

I

I could tell there was some unusual activity in our office. A string of people kept marching back and forth past the door of the little cubicle in which I was supposed to be studying law. A procession of footsteps to and from old E.B. Jonathan’s office proved incontestably that he was the focal point of the activity, and when activity centered around E.B., it meant the case which was breaking was one of major importance.

I tried to discipline my mind to follow the phraseology in which Blackstone had couched legal doctrines. But my mind was on the hubbub. The door of my little office opened and Cedric L. Boniface, looking plump, prosperous and smug surveyed me.

“I won’t be able to discuss the doctrine of Mortmain with you this afternoon, Wennick,” he said. “I’m leaving at once for Marlin.”

“A case?” I asked.

“A murder case,” he said, and went out.

Boniface was like that. He took himself very seriously indeed — the damned staffed shirt. If he had any inkling that in place of being a somewhat backward law student I was playing the game I was, he’d probably have needed a psychiatrist to calm him down.

He thought he was the big trial lawyer who was bustling about solving mysteries and getting innocent persons acquitted. He was the trial lawyer, all right. But I got the dope for him even if he didn’t know it. However, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

He’d been gone about five minutes when Mae Devers came into the office. “E.B. wants to see you, Pete,” she said.

“When?” I asked.

“In about five minutes. As soon as he can get rid of Boniface.”

“You,” I said, “seem to know a lot of what’s going on.”

“Why not? I have an observing disposition.”

My arm circled her waist. “You also,” I said, “have a fine figure — if we’re going to take a physical inventory.”

“We’re not,” she said, laughing and pulling away. “At least not right now. I have work to do.”

She blew me a kiss from the doorway, and I heard the swift click of her heels as she walked toward the outer office.

About five minutes after that, Boniface went striding self-importantly down the corridor, taking pleasure in his “great man” pretense. The outer door slammed, and Mae gave me a buzz on the intercom, and said, “E.B. wants you now, Pete.”

I walked down the corridor into E.B. Jonathan’s private office. He sat behind the desk, pouches hanging under his eyes, deep lines etched into his face. His head was as bald as a peeled onion.

His eyes met mine. “Sit down, Pete,” he said.

When you looked into old E.B.’s eyes, you lost the feeling that you were dealing with an old man or a tired man. His eyes were bright and coldly efficient. There was no sentiment about E.B. He did things in his own way, and didn’t give a damn for ethics. He wanted results, and he usually got them. And he saw to it that he was well paid for his efforts.

“Read the paper this morning?” he asked. “About the murder up in Marlin?”

“No.”

“Well, Cromley Dalton,” E.B. said in a tired, world-weary voice, “was the editor of the Marlin Morning Star. He was murdered around ten o’clock last night. There’s a hot political situation up there with the city council and the mayor facing a recall election. I guess I don’t have to tell you that excitement is at a fever pitch.”

“Who’s arrested?” I asked.

“The mayor, Layton Spred.”

“The motive?” I asked.

“The Marlin Morning Star had been instrumental in getting the recall started. It had published a series of bitter personal attacks on the mayor. He’d threatened to shoot Dalton as he would a mad dog. Mayor Layton Spred is hot-tempered. Apparently he values personal honor and integrity very highly.”

“Any further details?” I asked.

“Dalton went to call on Spred about ten o’clock last night. Dalton rang the doorbell and stood in front of the door. From where he was standing he could look through a diagonal window down the corridor. Spred, on the other hand, could have looked through the same window and seen Dalton.

“Evidently Spred, coming down the corridor, saw Dalton’s face and pulled a gun from his hip pocket. Dalton didn’t wait for him to get to the door. He started to run back toward the car where his two companions were waiting. Then, seeing that he couldn’t make it, he swerved and ran around the end of the porch toward the back of the house. Spred ran out and dashed toward the porch, a gun in his hand.

“When the two men in the car saw him flourishing the gun and realized that Dalton had swung around toward the back of the house, they didn’t wait to see what was going to happen. They sent the speedometer soaring and got away from there fast. But just before they passed beyond hearing range they heard shots.

“They notified the police. The police found Dalton’s body lying just at the edge of the alley. He had been shot in the back. Death was instantaneous.”

“What,” I asked, “is Spred’s story?”

“Spred says that someone rang his doorbell, and that he went to the door just in time to see a shadowy figure running through the darkness across the lawn and around toward the back of the house. He says he was afraid the man had been planting a bomb. He ran to the edge of the porch and called to him to halt.

“The intruder turned and shot twice at him, and Spred raised his gun and fired once. He says that at the sound of his shot, the man turned and resumed his flight running in the direction of the alley. Spred went back and called the police, reporting that someone had taken a shot at him. The neighbors heard three shots. When Spred was arrested, officers took his gun. It had been fired three times.”

“That,” I said, “doesn’t make things look so good for Mr. Spred.”

“And Spred,” E.B. said, “is our client.”

“What,” I asked, “do you want me to do?”

“Boniface is going up to handle the case,” E.B. said. “We’ve been retained by Millicent Spred, the mayor’s daughter. The young woman is driving Boniface back to Marlin. Boniface will be registered at the Plaza Hotel. I have here a brief on appeal on which I desire his opinion. I’m sending you up on the three-ten train to deliver it. Ask him to telephone me what he thinks of it.”

I nodded.

“That,” E.B. Jonathan went on, “should make as good an excuse as any to get you on the ground. While you’re there, you’ll telephone me and tell me that it looks as though you could get a lot of practical knowledge being on the ground to help Boniface and watch what he does. That will account for your presence in town. Once you’re there, get on the job just as soon as you can, and do your stuff.”

“What,” I asked, “do you want me to do?”

“I doubt,” he said, “that they’ll bring in a first-degree murder verdict against Spred. They might convict him of manslaughter. There are several elements of weakness in the prosecution’s case. Boniface has, as a lawyer, one asset and only one — a rigid respectability. Behind the ethical screen which he will naturally provide for your activities, you shouldn’t have much trouble making the case look so sick the prosecution will drop it.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “You want me to take the three-ten?”

“Yes. Have Miss Devers give you seven hundred and fifty dollars expense money.”

“Better make it two thousand,” I said. “I don’t know what I’ll be running into. Or if I run short shall I drop in and ask Boniface to advance the balance?”

That shot told. “No, no,” he said hastily. “You must never do anything like that. Boniface is highly ethical. He’s the chairman of one of the important committees of the local bar association. It’s only his ultra respectability that makes it possible for me to take advantage of the things you do. If Boniface ever found out, he’d quit. What’s more, he’d be quite capable of making a stink about it.”

I said, “But if I run out of expense money, I’ll have to go to him.”

He said testily, “Tell Miss Devers to give you two thousand. Damn it, Wennick. I find your resourcefulness invaluable, but at times you go too far. You might remember that before I picked you up here, you were a free-lance private detective drawing down damn few dollars a day — on rare days.”

“Well,” I said, “if you want to go into that, before you brought me into the firm, Boniface was losing cases with rhythmic regularity.”

E.B. swung around in the swivel chair, and said, in a tone of finality, “I don’t care to discuss it.”

Marlin’s Plaza Hotel was a pretentious affair. Boniface had the best suite in the house and was enjoying the role of being the high-priced city attorney imported to save the mayor’s neck from the rope.

In the meantime, the town was buzzing with speculation and rumors, and the recall election was five days away.

The Free Press, the rival newspaper, was doing what it could for Spred. It had an editorial to the effect that Spred was undoubtedly justified in what he had done. It laid stress on the fact that the malicious campaign of character assassination which had been carried on by Cromley Dalton, followed up as it was by an impudent invasion of Spred’s residence, certainly gave Spred every reason to believe that the dead man had been up to mischief, and had perhaps actually planted a bomb.

The newspaper gave me more details concerning the crime than I’d gotten from E.B. Jonathan. The two men who had driven out to Spred’s place with Cromley Dalton were Preston Bode and Ray Mansfield, and there was considerable speculation as to the nature of the errand which had taken these three to Spred’s residence.

Both Bode and Mansfield were members of the city council facing recall. Dalton was the editor of the paper which had been instrumental in bringing about that recall election. Rumor was rife that the two city councilmen had made some political deal with the opposition, and that the price demanded by Dalton for a cessation of his political attacks was the matter to be discussed at Spred’s residence.

And there were some intimations the mayor was to be cynically and deliberately sacrificed on the altar of public opinion to save the political faces of all concerned.

I noticed that the editorial soft-pedaled the part of Spred’s story which dealt with the two shots which had been fired at him. Two witnesses who lived nearby had testified positively to three shots, and only three. That made the three chambers in Spred’s gun look rather bad for him combined with the fact that he had been standing up against the side of the house and the police could find no bullets buried in the wall anywhere or on the ground close to the house.

Even if the shots he’d claimed had been fired at him had gone wild a police search should have turned them up somewhere.

The betting was ten to one against Spred on the recall and three to one he’d be convicted of something — if not first-degree murder, then second-degree or manslaughter.

Boniface took the brief I gave him and said grumblingly, “I wonder how E.B. thinks I’ll have time to read a brief with this case getting more complicated and explosive by the minute.”

“A lot of excitement?”

“Yes,” he said, shortly.

“I wonder if E.B. would let me stay up here and give you a hand,” I said. “It should be a wonderful practical experience for me.”

“There’s nothing you could do, Wennick,” he said. “You’d do more good for yourself by going back to your books and laying the foundations for a career of your own.”

“I’ve nothing against books,” I said. “But I like murder cases better when I’ve spent a week with Blackstone.”

His silence was eloquent.

“Look,” I said, “I don’t want to butt in, but sometimes people have little lapses of memory. How do we know Mayor Spred’s daughter didn’t take that gun out to do some target practice with it without telling her father. She might have fired a couple of shots, and then forgotten all about it. If that’s the case, it would account for the three exploded chambers. Don’t you think it might be a good idea to ask her about it?”

“Certainly not,” Boniface said with dignity. “If anything like that had happened, she would have told me.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t remember it. You should refresh her memory.”

Boniface stared at me in righteous indignation.

“Don’t you think you being just a little too much of a Southern gentleman in refusing to question Mayor Spred’s daughter at all?” I asked.

Boniface said, “Pete Wennick, I am surprised. You’ll never make an attorney until you have a more keen appreciation of professional ethics.”

I saw there wasn’t any use arguing with him, so I went out. From the doorway, I said, “I’ll call E.B. and see if he’ll let me stick around to watch. If he says ‘yes,’ can I help you in any way?”

“I don’t know,” Boniface said, “but I think not. To be perfectly frank with you, Wennick, I am very much disappointed in the way you are developing. If you are ever going to be of any practical assistance to me, you must progress more rapidly with your studies and learn to take the ethics of the profession more seriously.”

I said, “Perhaps you’re right at that, Mr. Boniface,” and gently closed the door behind me.

II

Buildings were ablaze with lighted windows in Marlin as men sat late in their offices discussing the political situation, commenting on the murder and trying to turn a flip-flop in their political alignments so they could do business with the winners.

I found Preston Bode in his office. He looked tired and worried. He was that rare combination of a fat man and an inwardly lean man who is explosively energetic. He looked at my card, and said, “Your name’s Peter Wennick, eh? Just what do you want?”

“A chance to talk,” I said.

“Talk’s cheap,” he observed, shifting a cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, working his thick lips as he did so. Beneath the heavy jowls, I could see his jaw muscles tighten. A man with a powerful bite, a powerful grip, a powerful mind, a driving, obstinate, dangerous man.

“My talk,” I said, “isn’t going to be cheap.” And I sat down.

He looked me over and said, “Out of Town?”

“Yes.”

“Now get this straight, Wennick, I’ve been pestered to death with detectives and reporters. If it’s about the Dalton murder, just start for the door. It’s late, and I’m busy. I’ve been interviewed and questioned until I’m sick of it.”

I lit a cigarette.

“Well?” he asked, at length.

“Personally,” I said, “I like to gamble, and I always like the long shots.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” I said, “that they’re offering one hundred dollars against ten dollars that you’ll be kicked out of office on the recall election.”

His heavy face turned florid, and his little eyes glinted in rage. “You,” he said, “get to hell out of here.”

“I was quoting facts. You shouldn’t get touchy about facts.”

“Get out!”

“Of course,” I said, studying my cigarette, “I could go to the other crowd, and make my deal with them. But they’d want just as much for the concession as though they were already in office. With you it’s different. Right now, the chances that you’ll be elected are one in ten. Therefore, you should be willing to talk business on reasonable terms. Then if it’s to my financial interest to see that you’re returned to office, your chances might be a hell of a lot better than one in ten. It would pay you to give it some thought.”

Slowly the florid color faded from his cheeks. I knew he was sparring for time and didn’t crowd him any. After a minute, he said, “What’s your game?”

“A new type of slot machine,” I said.

I looked up at the ceiling and said noncommittally, “I know a lot about the psychology of selling slot machines, and I know a lot about politics. I sold the mayor of Henlotown to the voters the last election.”

I saw suspicion flare into his eyes. “If you did that, how come you’re wandering around with a slot machine racket? Why aren’t you there grabbing gravy?”

“Some talk got started that could have led to trouble,” I said. “Somebody had to take the brunt of it. If the mayor had taken it, it would have been a smear. I took it.

“Don’t worry, brother, I’m getting mine for taking it, but the doctors have told me that for about a year I hadn’t better be around the Henlotown climate. It’s too high and dry.”

Bode thought some more, then said, “You talk a lot — to strangers.”

“You’re not a stranger,” I said. “What the hell do you suppose I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks?”

“What do you know about me?” he demanded belligerently.

I tried a shot in the dark. “More than your wife does,” I said, and was pleased to see his eyes shift.

“What do you want?”

“Slot machines.”

“It’s out. The people won’t stand for slot machines.”

“I’ll take care of the people. If I can make them stand for you, with the stink that’s hanging to your coattails, I can make them stand for slot machines.”

“You’ve got an over-confidence bug buzzing you, mister. Talk like that could get me mad.”

“There you go again,” I said, “refusing to face facts. Between you and me we may as well figure that a spade is a spade. When it comes to the taxpayers, we’ll play the game differently. A spade will become a sturdy implement of rugged construction designed to be of inestimable benefit to the farmer, and the factory workers as well, symbolical of the rugged honesty of our esteemed contemporary and fellow townsman, Preston Bode, friend of the laboring man.”

“Those are only words,” he said. “You can’t pull that friend-of-the-laboring-man racket in this town. The banks control it.”

“Just a babe in the woods,” I said.

“Who is?”

“You are. You talk simple.”

“What’s wrong with my statement?”

“Banks control finances,” I said. “Labor controls votes.”

“All right,” he said savagely, “you try to court the labor votes and the bank puts financial screws on you, and you come out at the small end of the horn.”

“You know how to handle that, don’t you?”

“No, and neither do you.”

“The ears of labor,” I said, “listen for the loudest voice. Financial institutions have ears which are attuned to the faintest whisper. If you shouted to the labor and then quietly whispered to the bankers, and your words made sense, you’d go to town.”

Bode started drumming nervously with the tips of his fingers on the edge of his desk. “Who thinks up the words that I shout and the words that I whisper?” he asked.

“That’s easy. I do — if I get the concession.”

“What kind of a concession do you want?”

I laughed, and said, “Don’t pull that line. I told you what I wanted — slot machines.”

“How much gravy for distribution?” he asked.

I said, “I’ve told you how much. I’m a gambler. I like to play the long shots. You’re a long shot.”

“You mean that if you show me how to beat this recall you want me to string along with slot machines for nothing.”

“Oh,” I said, “there’d be enough so you could keep yourself and friends in cigars. But I’d want you to remember that I was one of the early birds — up before breakfast to help you. If I deal myself in when things look pretty dark, I want to be in when they begin to look rosy.”

Little blue puffs of cigar smoke drifted upward past his beefy neck. Abruptly he faced me and said, “I could use a good man.”

“You’re looking at one.”

“This situation,” he said, “isn’t simple. You’d better get that straight before you start. The district attorney is out to make a killing by siding with the winner. A week ago he would probably have trailed along with the city administration. Now his head is full of maggots. He wants to be governor some day. He sees this as a good chance.”

“How about the city police?” I asked.

“I control them,” Bode said.

“You mean you did control them. They’re ready to sell out if they can find a taker. You know that as well as I do.”

“You,” he said, “seem to know altogether too damn much for a stranger.”

I said ominously, “I’m not a stranger, and I know a damn sight more than you think I do. Now then, do we trade or don’t we?”

“I have two associates I’d like to consult,” he said.

“How much time do you want?”

“Give me until ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. But if you’re going to play ball with me, we’re going to have to work fast. That means I want to be all ready to go just as soon as you say the word.”

“There’d be no percentage in moving slowly,” he said. “I think the answer’s going to be ‘yes,’ as far as that’s concerned.”

“If that’s the case,” I said, “we want to do something about that Dalton mess. It’s being handled in the worst possible manner.”

“How else are you going to handle it?”

“Lot’s of ways,” I said. “To begin with, you haven’t done the cause very much good with your statement.”

“What’s wrong with my statement?”

“Everything.”

“I told the truth.”

“That,” I said, “is not always wise. How deeply did you commit yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“How much of your story can you change if you have to? Go ahead and give me the highlights of what you’ve told the officers.”

Bode said belligerently, “I told them the truth. Dalton wanted to go out and see Spred. Ray Mansfield and I had a talk with him. We decide to drive him out.”

“That story,” I said, “isn’t so hot. It isn’t even lukewarm. It could be heated up by your enemies, though — in the wrong way.”

“Why?”

“In the first place,” I said, “Dalton was Spred’s enemy. Spred was Dalton’s enemy. What’s more, you and Mansfield were in the other camp. I can’t conceive of any reason why Dalton should want to go out and see Spred unless there had been a sellout. But if he did want to see Spred and had taken you two along, you certainly would have been the ones to go up and ring the doorbell.

“What’s more, you’d have unquestionably telephoned Spred before you came out to prepare him for what was happening. Now then — suppose you give me the low down. If you do, I might be able to clear Spred, and that would change the political situation here overnight.”

“You can’t beat the rap on Spred. He’s hooked this time. He killed him.”

“How about his self-defense angle?”

“I wouldn’t know about that. You see, we drove away.”

“And you heard some shots?”

“Yes, about the time we got to the corner,” Bode said.

“And you didn’t go back?”

“No. We telephoned the police.”

“And you,” I said, “run the police.”

“There’s a chief,” Bode pointed out, “but it’s an appointive office.”

“And I take it, that as is usual with cities of this size, the councilmen sort of divide up the work. One of them works with the tax department, one with the auditing department, and one with the police system.”

“That’s right.”

“And you were the one who had charge of the police system?”

“Yes.”

“Seems to me you could have used your position to put a sugar-coating on the pill.”

“I couldn’t. It was too hot. It was loaded with dynamite, I tell you. You’ve no idea of how intense the feeling is in this city.”

I ground out my cigarette and said, “Well, I guess I don’t want those slot machines after all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s hopeless,” I said, “I can’t get you in office.”

“Why not?”

“Because you won’t come clean with me. You’re a poor liar, considering all the practice you give yourself.”

Bode said, “Now listen, I could tell you something which would change the whole complexion of this thing and make it look reasonable.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Ray Mansfield and I figured the fight wasn’t doing the town any good,” he said. “We went directly to Dalton and asked him what he wanted to call it off. He told us. He wanted eighty percent of the city printing, and Mayor Spred’s scalp.

“He figured that Spred was inefficient and was giving the town a poor business administration. And he couldn’t make peace without something to save his face. He said if Spred would quit, he would withdraw the recall business, and give us a list of a dozen men who would be satisfactory to him. We’d only have to agree to appoint any one of these men to fill Spred’s unexpired term.”

“And so you drove him out to Spred’s place to put that proposition up to Layton Spred?”

“Yes. We figured there was a good chance Spred would do it, if it was put to him in the right way.”

“Then why didn’t you give him the right kind of sales’ talk?”

“Because we didn’t want Spred to know we were in back of it. We didn’t want him to think the deal had been made. He’d have been sure we were selling him out. It was agreed that Dalton was to go in and put the proposition up to Spred. If Spred fell for it, or was dubious, Dalton was going to ring us in on the conversation.

“Otherwise, we were just going to sit in the car and Spred would never know we were waiting out there. Then Spred would tell us about it later and we’d try to sell him on the idea — as his friends.”

“And what happened?” I asked.

“Dalton went to the front door and rang. He pushed his face against the diamond-shaped glass in the front of the door. He saw Spred coming down the corridor. Spred saw him. I don’t know what Spred did that frightened Dalton, but I can guess.

“He started to run toward the car. Then he saw he couldn’t make it, and swerved around the porch. Spred jerked the door open and didn’t waste a second. He dashed along the porch. We could see that he was holding a revolver.

“We didn’t want Spred to see us there. Dalton had already headed in the direction of the alley. There was nothing for us to do. We pulled out.”

“And called the police?”

“I put through as anonymous call. I didn’t want to figure in it. Later on, of course, I admitted my identity.”

“And you really thought Dalton could sell Spred on quitting?”

“Yes. He was to resign on account of his health — after the recall had been dropped. Otherwise, he’d have been kicked out in the recall.”

“Why didn’t you point that out to him?”

“We wanted Dalton to break the ice. We didn’t want Spred to think we’d sold him out.”

“But you had, hadn’t you?”

“Don’t act dumb,” he said savagely. “Of course we sold him out. Someone had to be the goat. It was better to toss him overboard than to have the whole damn ship sink.”

“Whose proposition was it,” I asked, “yours or Dalton’s?”

Mine, Bode admitted, “and I had to talk like hell to make it stick. Dalton had us on the run, and knew it.”

“Well,” I said, slowly, “that makes a lot more sense than the story you gave the press.”

“But you see why we don’t dare to tell the truth, Wennick.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And so I’ll see you tomorrow morning at ten-thirty. In the meantime, where can I get some action?”

“What do you mean, action?” Bode asked.

“You know what I mean — gambling. I’m a stranger in town. I have no place to go.”

“There isn’t any place in town where you could sit in on a game,” he protested. “This is a clean town. The police have—”

“Come on, Bode,” I said. “You’ve got to do better than that. In the first place, you aren’t fooling anyone, and in the second place, I’m a bad man for you to irritate right now.”

He shifted his eyes and said, “Try three-eighteen Benson Avenue. Watch the crowd and get the set-up before you burn any bridges. And if you ever say I gave you the name of the place, I’ll call you a liar. Do you get me?”

I said, “Okay, be seeing you tomorrow.”

III

Judicious inquiry gave me the information I needed about how to get out to Spred’s house. I bought a pocket flashlight in a drugstore, caught a bus, and had a fifteen minute ride from the center of town.

Layton Spred’s residence was a product of bygone architecture. There were spacious grounds with a tennis court on one side and trees and hedges casting black splotches over the darkness of the lawn. The stars were staring down with that steady blaze of illumination which you’ll only see in localities which are in the high, dry mountains or which border the desert.

I was able to get a pretty good idea of the lay of the land. I could see the wide veranda which ran around the south and west corner of the house. Evidently, Spred had run out the front door, dashed down this porch, and shot from the extreme end of it.

I decided to take a look around toward the back, where the body had been discovered, and debated for a moment whether to walk around the corner of the block keeping to the sidewalk and coming up the alley, or to vault the hedge. It was the part of prudence to keep out of the ground and go around the sidewalk.

It was shorter vaulting the hedge. I vaulted the hedge.

I was about half-way through the grounds, keeping to the denser darkness, and not taking my eyes from the huge pile of the dark house, when I became conscious of a shadow wavering across the lawn.

I stopped stock-still, wondering what had caused that sudden flickering. Had a light gone on in the house?

I stood perfectly still, waiting, listening, hearing and seeing nothing. But I was pretty sure that some nocturnal activity was going on in the grounds — an activity which might be connected with the matter I was investigating, and which it would be dangerous to ignore.

I was looking toward the house when I saw it again, a flicker of light across the grass. And this time a tree cast a definite shadow, enabling me to determine the direction of the source of illumination.

I swung about to face the alley near where the body had been discovered, and moved around the shrubbery until I had an unobstructed view.

A few seconds later, I caught the gleam of a flashlight, and saw a moving pencil of illumination flit across the lawn, hesitate for a moment as it passed over the edge of a flower bed, swung over to one side, and played for a moment at the base of the tree. Then it snuffed out into blackness.

I ran as fast as I could without stumbling in the darkness or running the risk of crashing headlong into a bush. By the time the flashlight came on again, I was crouched down in the shadows, keeping well out of sight. Then, in the ensuing interval of darkness, I closed the gap until I was within less than twenty feet of the tree over which the light had played before it had been switched off. Bent almost double, I crawled noiselessly through the shadows.

The next time the light came on I waited until the beam had swung in the other direction, then straightened, and strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of the figure using the flashlight. I stood motionless, watching, adjusting myself to a development which I had not anticipated. The figure which was outlined against the beam was a woman, and, as nearly as I could judge she was young and attractive.

The flashlight beam swung around again, now high, now low, and then went out for the third time.

I satisfied myself that the woman was alone, stepped out from behind the bush, and walked quietly along the grass. She was so intent on what she was doing, that she neither heard nor saw me. The flashlight came on again when I was within three feet of her.

“Looking for something?” I asked.

She screamed, and jumped back, then spun around facing me, and started doing something with her hands. I couldn’t see just what, but I had no intention of taking chances. I covered the distance in two quick steps and circled her with my arms, holding her so that she couldn’t move her hands.

She struggled fiercely but silently. She stamped at my instep, kicked up at me with her knee, and twisted furiously to get her arms loose. She was young, lithe, and as resilient as live rubber.

I said, “Take it easy, sister. If you’ll act just a little more like a woman, I’ll let you loose.”

Her struggles subsided.

“I hate to do this,” I said, “but I have to make sure you haven’t a gun. Please understand that it’s business and not affection.”

I slid my hands along the outlines of her figure, patting the places where I thought she might have a gun concealed. I felt her stiffen indignantly, but she remained motionless.

“Sorry,” I said, releasing my hold, “but I had to take precautions. Now, what are you doing here?”

“What,” she countered, “are you doing here?”

“Looking around,” I said.

“I’m looking around,” she told me, “and unless you want to find yourself at police headquarters within the next thirty minutes, you’d better start talking now, and talk plenty fast.”

I realized she had me. I had to tell her where I stood, but I wanted to make certain what I said wouldn’t be something I’d regret later on.

“Look here,” I said, “you don’t think Layton Spred shot Dalton, do you?”

I heard her gasp. “The police say he did.”

“Were the police here?” I asked.

“No, but the police have recovered the bullet, and it came from Mr. Spred’s gun.”

“That,” I said, “makes it rather difficult, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it does,” she said.

“That,” I told her, “is why I’m out here looking around.”

“You mean you don’t believe the police?”

“I don’t believe Spred killed Dalton,” I said, being pretty certain of my ground now.

“Who are you?”

“I’m an investigator from the city, and please don’t turn that flashlight in my face, because I’d much prefer to remain entirely incognito.”

“I’m sorry,” she said simply, and stabbed the beam full in my face.

After a moment, the beam switched out, and she said, “I’ve never seen you before.”

“Under those circumstances,” I said, “perhaps you’ll tell me who you are.”

“I’m Edith Forbes, Layton Spred’s secretary.”

“Yes, you are!”

“But I am.”

“Tell me something I can believe. If you were his secretary, you wouldn’t be snooping out here in the grounds after everyone else in the house has gone to bed. You’d have gone into the house and talked with his daughter. You’d have told her what you had in mind, and the two of you would have been out here together.”

“Not with that daughter,” she said.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s afraid I’m going to marry her father, and inherit half of the money.”

“Is there money?” I asked.

“The stars,” she said pointedly, “are unusually bright tonight, aren’t they?”

“Just the stars?” I asked.

“And investigators from the city,” she added.

I said, “We might help Mr. Spred, if we could quit swapping sarcastic comments long enough to get back to what we were discussing.”

Edith Forbes said, “Well, if you’re going to help him, you’ll never do it working through Millicent. Do you know what that little fool did? Instead of hiring one of the local lawyers with political connections and a chance to get at least a hung jury, she went dashing down to the city and retained Jonathan and Boniface.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you what that means. Everyone in town thinks she’s sure her father is guilty, and that the case is just about hopeless. This man, Boniface, is a stuffed shirt. He won’t be able to do anything with a local jury. God knows how he ever acquired the reputation he has.”

“I take it,” I said, “that Boniface has been questioning you. What did you tell him?”

“I told him that I thought his ability had been sadly overrated.”

I chuckled at that, knowing how Cedric L. Boniface would take it. “I suppose,” I said, “he didn’t see the joke.”

“It wasn’t a joke,” she said. “He didn’t like it. He said, as he left the office, that he would advise his client to hire a new secretary.”

“Makes it nice for you, doesn’t it?” I chided, a trifle sardonically, before I realized that she was crying. “Come, come,” I said, patting her lightly on the shoulder. “You’ve got to buck up. Giving way like this won’t help to clear up the case, and get Spred out of jail.”

I slid my arm around her waist, but she wouldn’t take advantage of my shoulder as a resting place. She pushed me away and said, “I’m all right, and besides I’m not crying. I’m just a little nervous.”

I said, “We’re both nervous. What were you looking for out here?”

“Evidence,” she said.

“Evidence,” I said, “is a broad word.”

She fished out a handkerchief.

“You must be looking for something, Miss Forbes,” I said gently.

“I’m not,” she said, “honestly. I’m just looking.”

“Haven’t the police searched the grounds pretty thoroughly?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve a feeling the police are just going through motions. The case is so hot, and there are so many political risks involved in taking sides that the police are keeping right on the middle of the fence, carrying water on both shoulders.”

Look, I said, “the thing that makes the case so black against your boss is that three shells being fired from his gun. It looks as though he’d done all the shooting.”

“Well, he didn’t. He said someone fired at him out of the darkness and he could see the little spurts of flame which came from the muzzle of the gun when the shots were fired.”

“I know,” I said, “and if everyone on the jury knew him as well as you do, he’d probably be acquitted. But there are going to be people from both political camps on the jury. He’ll have some friends who have no doubt as to his honesty. But there’ll be others who have been influenced by the Marlin Morning Star. In their eyes he’s the devil’s chief deputy.”

She said, “The way the Star has been lying about him is terrible. It’s just been a malicious campaign of insinuations, innuendoes, and downright lies. I’m glad Dalton was killed!”

“I m sure,” I said, “there are lots of people who aren’t shedding any tears over Dalton. But he seems to have been a pretty good publicity man. He got his stuff across. About two-thirds of the town thinks your boss is a crook.”

Edith started to cry again then, and I said, “Now, take it easy. If you want to help him, you can’t do it by roaming around with a flashlight in the dark and crying over the editorials Dalton ran in his newspaper. Do you know what would help him?”

“No,” she asked, looking a little startled. “What would?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “you’d better not stay out here any longer tonight, because I don’t think you’ll find anything. In fact, if you were found here, it might look bad for more than one reason. But if someone else did some searching, and should happen to find a gun lying on the grass or near the edge of the flower bed where it wasn’t too conspicuous, and there were two discharged shells in the cylinder of that gun — well, it would be a cinch that your boss would be acquitted.”

“Just a little thing like that?” she asked, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was doing a lot of thinking.

“A little thing like that,” I said, “would change the whole picture. It would make it appear that Dalton had gone out to your boss’s house intending to kill him, but had lost his nerve when he saw that Spred was armed, and had started to run. It would look as though he’d turned and fired two shots, at dangerously close range and Spred was forced to shoot back in self-defense.

“There’d be a big switch in public sentiment almost overnight. Your boss would be a martyr and a hero, and the recall election would fail and lots of things would happen, all over something as little and insignificant as a gun.”

“What caliber gun?” Edith asked.

“It wouldn’t make any difference,” I said, “just so long as it was a gun.”

“But how would that explain the fact that no bullets struck anywhere — not even against the side of the house?”

“It might mean that Dalton was so frightened he was shooting wild and missed the side of the house,” I said. “It would give the lawyers something to argue about. And the weight of the evidence would certainly be in Mayor Spred’s favor.”

Edith Forbes nodded. “If there were only some way of accounting for those bullets not hitting the house we could get a hung jury, any way,” she said. “I’m sure of that.”

“Dalton might have been shooting up in the air in order to frighten him,” I said.

“That’s it,” she said quickly. “The important thing is to convince the jury that Dalton fired first.”

Her voice trailed away, and she stood still for a moment, staring at the ground. Abruptly, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“Wennick,” I said, “Pete Wennick.”

“Mr. Wennick,” she said, “I think you’re wonderful. I’m awfully glad I met you tonight. I think perhaps it was fate. Do you have a car?”

“No,” I said, “I came on a bus.”

“Come on,” she said, “I’ll drive you back to town.”

I tucked her arm through mine, and we walked to the long hedge which bordered the alley. She said, “You’ll have to lift me over. I crawled through on my tummy when I got in, but—”

I scooped her up, lifted her over the hedge, and just before I dropped her on the other side, felt her arms around my neck, and the hot circle of her lips pressing against mine.

“You’re wonderful,” she said.

My blood pressure ran up seventy or eighty points, and I almost forgot to be careful about not leaving footprints when I came over the hedge. There was a lot about Edith Forbes I didn’t know, but one thing I was sure — it wasn’t the first time she’d ever kissed a man.

Her car was an inexpensive, new model convertible, and she was a good driver.

As we got out where the city lights were a little on the garish side I studied her profile carefully. She was chestnut-haired with a snug-fitting hat, a nose which turned up, and a mouth that I already knew about.

I was interested in thinking of possibilities which I hoped might materialize into a chain of events. I figured I could trust this girl, and if I was going to give stuffed-shirt Cedric Boniface very many breaks, I certainly needed someone I could trust.

Abruptly, she turned to me and said, “I’m going to an apartment. I want you to keep out of circulation for two hours, and then knock twice on the door.”

“It will be after midnight, if I have to wait that long.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “The door will be unlocked.”

“Some girl’s apartment?” I asked.

She hesitated for a moment, then said: “No, my boy friend.”

“Oh-oh,” I said.

“Now listen, what’s your first name again?”

“Pete.”

“All right Pete. Don’t be like that. This boy is Carl Gail, and he’s smart. He knows his way around. I think you’ll like him. In any event, he can help us.”

“Well, why not let me go on up and meet him. That way we’ll be two hours to the good before we start? After all, we haven’t unlimited time.”

“No,” she said, “I’m going to have to prepare him for this, and it will take a little time.”

“Two hours,” I said, “would give you time for a plane trip to Miami and back. Almost, anyway.”

“We have things to do.”

I started to ask some more questions, and then decided to keep quiet. She swung the car down a side street off the main boulevard and came to a district where old-fashioned residences stood elbow to elbow with tall apartment houses.

She said, “They keep the front door unlocked until one. You come in at twelve-thirty, climb the first flight of stairs, and walk back to apartment eighty-one. Just knock twice and go in. Don’t let anyone see you.”

I did a lot of thinking before I said, “Okay, Edith. It’s your party.”

“And you won’t mind walking wherever you’re going from here, will you? The center of town is straight down that street, and in about two blocks you’ll come to a hotel where there is a taxi stand out in front. There’s at least one cab there all the time. I’m sorry I can’t drive you there, but seconds are precious, and we have things to do.”

I said slowly, “You might tell your boy friend to remember that guns have numbers on them, and can be traced. It would look like hell if anything got traced back to you.”

“Good Lord, Pete,” she said, “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“I’ll be there at twelve-thirty,” I said, and walked around to help her out of the car. She gave me a flash of legs, a quick smile, and was gone.

I walked down a street whistling a little tune, and beginning to think it was a pretty good world after all. It looked like Cedric Boniface might get the breaks he’d been counting on.

IV

Almost anything was apt to be behind the closed door of apartment 81. I had to open the door to find out. Of course, I was taking chances. Cedric L. Boniface was running no risks by wrapping himself in a cloak of professional ethics and staying in the best suite at the hotel, while he enjoyed himself looking up legal points in the law books. But I had to be out on the firing line.

I found the outer door of the apartment house open just as Edith Forbes had said it would be. I climbed the stairs, and walked noiselessly down the corridor. For thirty seconds I stood at the door of 81, listening.

Then I knocked twice, pushed the door open, and moved backwards a few steps just as a precautionary measure, in case I didn’t like what I saw.

Lights were on in the apartment. Edith Forbes was seated facing the door. Near her, holding a glass of whiskey in his hand, was a thin guy with a dome-shaped forehead, bat ears and a scrawny neck.

“Come in, Pete,” Edith Forbes said.

I walked on in, grinning sheepishly. “One never knows what’s on the other side of a door in a strange house,” I said.

Edith said, “This is Carl Gail about whom I told you.” Her voice sounded dispirited.

The skinny guy put down the glass, strode across to the middle of the room, and wrapped cold, bony fingers around my hand.

I pumped his arm up and down for a second, walked to the couch, seated myself, and looked meaningly at the whiskey glass by the side of Gail’s chair.

“Drink?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

He went out to the kitchenette, and after a moment, called out, “Do you want a chaser, Wennick?”

“Just a whiskey on the rocks,” I said.

I looked across at Edith Forbes. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I could see she’d been crying.

Gail came back with the drink. “Don’t you want one, Edith?” he asked.

I motioned a salute to them over the rim of the glass, and tossed it off. Gail sat down. No one seemed inclined to say very much. I took a package of cigarettes from my pocket, picked one out, and said, “Who does the talking?”

No one said anything for a second. Then Edith Forbes started to say something, and when she did, Gail interrupted her to say hastily, “I do the talking — what there is of it.”

I lit the cigarette and settled back against the cushions.

“Your idea,” Gail said to me, “is lousy.”

I raised my eyebrows. “My idea?”

“Yes. Trying to get Edith to plant a gun out there at Mayor Spred’s place. I’m surprised you’d make a suggestion like that. Planting evidence in a murder case is a damned serious offense—”

“Now wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Somebody’s got the cart before the horse, and the buggy turned backwards. What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know,” he said. “What you told Edith to do.”

“I didn’t tell her to do anything.”

“Didn’t you tell her to get a gun, fire two shots from it, and plant it?”

“I certainly did nothing of the sort,” I said indignantly. “What the hell do you think I am? I mentioned to Edith that if the police hadn’t searched the place closely they should do so because they might find a gun with two exploded chambers. She said she knew Mr. Spred was incapable of telling a lie, and I was inclined to take her word for it. Therefore, I think there’s a gun out there.”

“And you didn’t want her to plant one?” he asked.

“Good Lord, no! Of course not!”

Edith Forbes looked up, and started to say something. Then she seemed to think better of it, and lowered her tear-swollen eyes.

I warmed to my subject. “I can’t look any farther into a brick wall than the next man,” I said. “But if Spred is telling the truth there’s bound to be a gun like that out there somewhere. Neighbors heard three shots. They heard them distinctly. It was a calm, still night. There isn’t any chance they could be mistaken about the number.

“Spred says someone fired two shots at him. Now, of course, it might be that someone was lying in wait for him out in the shrubbery and that Dalton didn’t fire at all. I’d say the chances were about one in a thousand it happened that way.”

“Make it one in a million,” Gail said.

“Okay, we’ll make it one in a million. Now then, if Spred’s telling the truth and Dalton shot at him, the gun must have been dropped by Dalton about the time he was shot, or he might have flung it away after he fired the two shots and turned to run.”

Gail said slowly, “Spred isn’t telling the truth.”

Edith Forbes looked up indignantly. “He is! He is, Carl, and you know it.”

Gail didn’t say anything to her. He kept his eyes on me, large, brown, thoughtful eyes. “Edith,” he said, “is crazy about Layton Spred. She’s worked for him ever since she got out of school. She doesn’t realize that no matter how square a shooter a man may be to those who are working with him, he has to protect himself and his friends when it comes to a murder rap.”

“You know him well?” I asked.

“Of course I know him well. I’ve been at his house for dinner with Edith half a dozen times.”

“Pardon me for getting personal,” I asked, “but as Edith’s boy friend?”

“Naturally. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Hell, there’s nothing between Edith and her boss. She’s just a hero worshipper. He’s old enough to be her grandfather, and everything’s on the up and up.”

“I see,” I said.

“I had dinner there three nights ago,” Gail said, “and he was very friendly and went out of his way to make me feel he was glad to see me, and so did Millicent, his daughter. Edith doesn’t like her, but for the life of me I can’t see why.”

Edith Forbes said, vindictively, “She’s a scheming little witch. Of course, she was nice to you, Carl, because she hopes you’ll marry me. She’s afraid I’ll marry her father.”

Gail’s laugh was scornful. “Don’t be such a fool,” he said. “She tries her best to be nice to you, but you snap her head off every time she opens her mouth.”

I saw color mounting Edith Forbe’s cheeks, so I said, “Well, I just dropped in to say ‘hello’ and meet you. I still think it would be a good idea to have the police search the place pretty thoroughly. But don’t get any ideas through your head about me wanting to have Edith plant a gun.”

“Well,” he said dubiously, “I’m glad you feel that way about it, because it would have put Edith in a hell of a spot.”

I got up and shook hands with him.

“That’s the last thing I’d want to do,” I said.

Edith Forbes waited until I was almost at the door before she asked:

“What are you going to do now?”

“Just look the city over a bit,” I said. “I’ll probably be turning in another hour or so.”

“You’re going to do some investigating?”

“Oh, I’ll drift around and keep my eyes and ears open,” I said.

She gravely handed me a leather key container. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “You’re going to need a car. Take mine.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I wouldn’t think of it. I’ll get along all right. You’ll need to get home and—”

“I am home,” she said.

I didn’t want to make a bum guess on what she seemed to be implying. Carl Gail saw the look on my face, and laughed. “She means she has an apartment in this same building,” he said, “down on the lower floor. Her car stays out front. So you don’t need to worry about using it.

“Go ahead and take it, drive around as much as you want to, and bring it back here by eight o’clock in the morning. Edith won’t even miss it.”

“You don’t need to bring it back,” she said. “I hardly use it except on weekends. Carl uses it most of the time, and if you’re working to help Mr. Spred, Carl can walk.”

“Sure, I’ll walk,” he said, slipping a long thin arm around Edith’s shoulders. “Don’t stay angry with me, honey. I’m just as anxious as Mr. Wennick is to help Spred clear himself, if he’s not guilty. I just didn’t want to have you get into serious trouble with the law.” Carl Gail nodded at me. “She’ll feel a lot better if you’ll use the car, Wennick!”

“All right,” I said, to smooth things over. “I’ll use the car and thanks a lot, Edith. I’ll have it back by three o’clock in the morning.”

“You’d better keep it until tomorrow,” she said. “You’ll find taxis hard to get in this city. They don’t cruise around much. You have to find a taxi stand or else telephone.”

“Okay, folks,” I said. “Thanks.”

I walked down the corridor and did a lot of thinking. I was still thinking when I hit the sidewalk. It looked as though Boniface might not get the breaks after all, unless I wanted to stick my own neck out. And that I didn’t feel like doing under the circumstances.

Guns can be traced, and it would never do for me to plant a gun which had a big city background. And I couldn’t afford to take a chance trying to dig up a gun inside of Marlin. I didn’t know the town well enough.

I decided I’d drift down to the address Preston Bode had given me, and get an earful. I was sort of marking time until ten-thirty in the morning.

I eased myself into Edith Forbe’s convertible, turned on the ignition, and moved slowly away from the curb, getting the feel of the car.

I’d gone about two blocks, when the left front tire went ker-thunk, thumpity-thump!

I got out and looked at the flat tire. If there were garages open that would send a man to fix a flat at that time of night, I’d have needed a crystal ball to locate them. I could have walked away and left the car at the curb, but...

I peeled off my coat and started looking around for tools, and when I went to pull out the jack, I saw something that glittered in the reflections of the street light.

I gave a low whistle, took a handkerchief from my pocket so I wouldn’t leave any fingerprints, and picked up the gun. It was a thirty-eight caliber, blue-steel. I broke open the cylinder.

There it was, just like the doctor ordered, two shells fired.

I wanted to do a little thinking, so I climbed into the back seat and sat holding the gun on my handkerchief. I fished out one of the live shells and looked at it. It was a blank! Another surprise awaited me. The other three live shells were ball cartridges.

I examined the manufacturer’s mark on all of the shells and saw that the blank had been made by one company, the ball cartridges by another. As might have been expected, the two discharged shells were of the same make as the live blank.

That made it very simple.

I got out of the car, turned back to face the apartment house, and lifted my hat in a salute of silent respect.

Carl Gail’s girl friend had said he knew the ropes and knew his way around. I’ll say he did! And the beauty of it was, Edith Forbes probably didn’t know anything about it. He’d simply excused himself for an hour or so, gone out and picked up the gun, planted two exploded blank cartridges, one unexploded blank cartridge, and three ball cartridges. He’d put it under the front seat of the car where the tools were, and stuck a tack in the top of the left front tire.

After that, all he needed to do was to see that I took the car. The rest worked out like clockwork. If anyone ever claimed he’d given me the gun, he could deny it under oath with no danger of facing a reprimand for perjury and complicity in planting false evidence and a prison term of four or five years.

I jacked up the car, put the spare on the left front wheel, and drove out to within two blocks of Layton Spred’s house. By this time, I knew the ropes pretty well. I didn’t try to gild the lily in any way.

I stood by the hedge in the alley, picked a likely-looking flower bed, made certain none of my fingerprints were on the gun, and tossed it over.

I returned the car to the curb in front of the apartment house, went to my room, and slept the dreamless sleep of the pure in heart.

In the morning, I found a telephone booth in a large restaurant, and called police headquarters.

I didn’t do anything as crude as suggest to the police they’d find the gun if they looked around Layton Spred’s grounds. I said, “There’s something I think you should know. Cromley Dalton went out to Spred’s place in connection with a payoff. Dalton had one hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks he was going to slip to Layton Spred. If something happened to him and you didn’t find the money, you’d better go back and take another look.”

I slammed the receiver back into place.

I didn’t give a damn who controlled the police force. No cop was going to take a chance that a package containing one hundred thousand dollars in cold cash might fall into the hands of someone who didn’t know what to do with it.

Ten-thirty found me at Preston Bode’s office. His secretary said I was expected, and to go right on in.

When I pushed open the door of the private office, I got a shock. Two men were with Bode. One of them was Carl Gail. The other was a tall fidgety man in the late fifties who looked frightened to death.

Bode said, “Good morning,” to me, and then to the tall man, “Meet Mr. Mansfield, Mr. Wennick. And shake hands with Mr. Gail.”

I shook hands with Mansfield and turned around to face Gail, wondering what he was going to say.

All he did was wrap his cold, thin fingers around my hand, and acknowledge the introduction with a nod.

I sat down and sparred for time while I was getting out a cigarette. I looked across at Preston Bode, but my mind wasn’t where my eyes were. My attention was concentrated on Carl Gail, whom I could still see out of the side of my eye.

Gail wasn’t avoiding me in the least. He seemed no more than just naturally curious.

Bode said, “Gentlemen, Wennick has a proposition to make us.”

“Haven’t you outlined it to them?” I asked.

“Not in detail,” Bode said. “I just touched on the high spots.”

I was seized with a desire to do no more talking than was necessary.

“The high spots,” I said, lighting my cigarette, “are all there is to it. I want slot machines. I could go to the opposition and talk terms. Those terms would be just about the same as they will be after the opposition has been elected to office. You people stand a slim chance of getting in, so I’m talking with you on a ten to one basis. After I get the concession, I’ll do my best to keep you in office.”

“How much?” Preston Bode asked.

“Five percent of the gross take,” I said.

He snorted, “We could get fifty.”

“Five percent is one tenth of fifty percent,” I said. “You’re a ten to one shot.”

Mansfield said in a harsh, treble voice, “We didn’t come here to be insulted.”

Bode turned to him angrily. “The hell you didn’t. I don’t give a damn on the take on the slot machines. The thing that interests me is that Wennick can put us across with the voters. He’s put other mayors in office. He knows his way around with voters. He has some ideas on mob psychology which sound all right to me. He can wrap ideas up in words when he wants to, and the words sound like maple syrup on buttered hot cakes. He understands politics, and we need someone who knows how a political machine should operate.”

“It’s all right by me,” Gail said. “If he can put the ticket across, in the face of the stuff we’ve got to fight, I’d be willing to give him the town.”

Mansfield tightened his lips. He was a sturdily built man with heavy black eyebrows that met above the bridge of his nose, and a jaw that seemed only a little less massive than the ones I’d seen on gorillas in the zoo.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“Don’t like what?” Bode demanded.

“Don’t like anything about it. I started following your advice, and it keeps getting me in deeper and deeper. I want to quit. That’s all I want. I want peace. I don’t care about graft. I don’t care about—”

“Shut up,” Bode said. “You’re in no position to quit now.”

“I just want you to count me out. I don’t want to have anything more to do with any of this business.”

Bode said to Gail, “Don’t pay any attention to him, Carl. He’ll see reason when he hears what Wennick has to say.”

Gail nodded. “I’d like to know something of Wennick’s plan for handling this political situation.”

“He says he can get Spred acquitted,” Bode said, “and make him something of a martyr.”

Mansfield cracked his knuckles, and said, “That’s too dangerous to fool around with. Gentlemen, the more we get tied up with Spred’s case, the more we are damned in the eyes of the public. My advice is to throw Spred overboard, denounce him in no unmistakable terms, take everything which has gone sour during the last two years, and dump it on Spred’s shoulders.”

“You can’t do that,” I said. “If anything has gone sour, you either got your cut or you were suckers. With the Scar beating the reform drums, the people aren’t going to like crooks.”

“Wennick’s right,” Gail said, through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “The minute we go before the voters trying to show that Spred victimized us and we didn’t know what was going on, we make ourselves the laughing-stock of the city.”

“Let’s hear some more,” Bode said.

“Before I do any talking,” I said, “I always like to know whom I’m talking to. As I understand it, Mr. Mansfield is one of the councilmen.”

“That’s right.”

“And who is Mr. Gail?”

Bode’s eyes met mine. “Mr. Gail,” he said, “is Mr. Gail.”

“So I gathered,” I said dryly.

“I am vouching for Mr. Gail,” said Bode.

I looked across at Gail and said, “There’s something vaguely familiar about your face. Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”

Gail looked me over with the sudden interested curiosity of one who is trying to place a familiar face. He studied my features, pursed his lips, looked reminiscent for a moment, and then slowly shook his head.

“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he said. “I never forget a face and I wouldn’t be apt to begin with yours.”

“Then it must have been a case of mistaken identity,” I said. “Well, gentlemen, you can take it or leave it. My best guess is, that the way to handle this thing is to get Spred acquitted.”

“Would we need a fall guy?” Gail asked.

“Why not make Dalton the fall guy?” I asked.

“How?” Bode asked.

“By making it appear that Spred shot him in self-defense.”

“It’s too late to do anything like that now,” Bode said.

“I’m not so certain,” Gail said, studying the tip of his cigarette.

The telephone rang several times, sharply, insistently. Bode frowned and said, “Damn that girl. I told her I wasn’t to be interrupted, no matter what happened.”

He jerked the receiver from the telephone, and said, “Evelyn, what the hell’s the matter? I told you I wasn’t to be—”

His voice trailed away into silence. I saw his face show a quick flicker of surprise, then set in the wooden lines of a man who is betting aces-up in a poker game and is worried about them. They’re too big to lay down, and not big enough to put much faith in.

He did lots of listening and no talking. After the receiver had stopped making noise in his ear, he said, “I’ll think it over and call you back. I’m busy now. Goodbye.”

He dropped the receiver into place, and looked around at us as though debating whether he should say anything. Finally, he said, “That was police headquarters giving me a first confidential report. The boys made another search of Spred’s grounds this morning. Down in a flower bed where it had escaped observation before, they found Dalton’s gun. Two shells had been fired.

“It looks as though they were blanks. Four shells hadn’t been fired — one blank and three bullets. You see what that means? Dalton figured Spred was bluffing with all of his talk about shooting him down like a dog. He was going to show Spred up. So he either fired straight at him to give him the fright of his life, or fired the blanks at his feet to make him dance.”

Ray Mansfield wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

Carl Gail was eying him narrowly. His face became cold, and hard as granite. I saw the skin grow white across his knuckles as his hands gripped the arm of the chair.

“How,” he asked, “did the police happen to go out there to look?”

“Some guy telephoned in that Dalton had dropped a wad of pay off money.”

“And the cops went out without saying anything to you?” Gail asked.

Bode fidgeted. “Well,” he said, “the call came in early this morning and—”

“Nuts,” Gail interrupted. “If the dough had been there, they were going to give you a double-cross. That shows how much control you have over the police department.”

“Boys,” I said, “you can see for yourselves what it all adds up to. Mayor Spred is certain to be acquitted now. Don’t you think it would be wise for me to handle it so you can get a coat of whitewash?”

It was Gail who spoke. “No,” he said. “We don’t.”

I tried to keep the surprise out of my face and knew that I failed. Hell, he could have hit me in the face with a wet towel, and I wouldn’t have felt any more surprised.

Bode almost fell out of his chair. “What’s that?” he asked.

Gail ground out the end of his cigarette in an ash tray. “I said no,” he said simply.

Mansfield fidgeted around in the chair. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly the way I feel about it. I just want out of this. I want to quit.”

“Carl, what’s eating you?” Bode said to Gail. “This man can—”

“You asked me, didn’t you?” Gail said, without raising his voice,

“Sure, I asked you. But I thought your answer was going to make sense.”

“You have it,” Gail said. “It does.”

Bode looked imploringly up at me. “Now listen, Wennick, let’s not have any hard feelings over this. I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. Would you mind leaving us alone while we talk it over?”

“Not in the least,” I said, and then turned to face Gail. “Your young friend has the reputation of knowing his way around. He thinks that with the finding of that gun, Spred’s acquittal is certain, and that you don’t need to make any concessions in order to beat the recall election. That, gentlemen, is what I call chiseling, and I have one treatment for chiselers. I hope I don’t have to use it. Good morning.”

V

I walked out into the sunlight as dazed as an addle-brained boxer who has stopped one with his chin just when he thinks the other man’s knees are buckling. I had one little chore I wanted to do.

I called a taxi and went into Spred’s office. Edith Forbes was in the reception room, pounding away on a typewriter. She looked up as I opened the door and smiled when she saw who it was.

“Hello,” I said, “How’s chances for a talk?”

“Swell.”

“You and I,” I said, “have a few things to go over.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you. You’ve no idea how cheap I felt when Carl Gail turned us down. I thought I could surely depend on him. But instead of that he had this virtuous attitude and... but you were splendid, Pete. You went out and did it all by yourself, didn’t you?”

I looked at her the way a banker eyes an applicant for a promissory note. “Yes,” I said. “All by myself without any help from anyone.”

Her hand closed over mine impulsively. “Oh, Pete,” she said, “I’m so glad!”

“How,” I asked, “did you hear about it?”

“One of the girls at the Free Press rang up to tell me about it. She said it s thrown the district attorney into a stew. He doesn’t know what to do now.”

“No,” I said, “he wouldn’t. How long was your boy friend gone last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“After you saw him the first time he went out, didn’t he?”

“No,” she said, looking at me blankly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Were you there all the time?”

“Well not all the time. I went in and talked with him, and then when I saw how he was, I went out in a rage and went down to my apartment. I came back after a while and pleaded with him.”

“How long were you gone?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Fifteen or twenty minutes perhaps.”

“He was there when you left?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And when you got back?”

“He was still there.”

“What was he doing when you returned?”

“Why, playing the radio and smoking.”

I heaved a sigh, and said, “That boy friend of yours is a fast worker. How long have you known him?”

“Oh, almost a year.”

“What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a promoter,” she said.

I nodded. “I’ll say he’s a promoter.”

“Listen, Pete, you don’t need to pay any attention to him. I know one thing. He’ll keep his mouth shut.”

“Yes,” I said, “he seems to be rather close-mouthed. I sat in on a conference with him about half an hour ago, and he’d said he’d never seen me before in his life.”

She stared at me incredulously. “He said what?”

“That he’d never seen me before in his life.”

She stared at me for a minute, and then slow comprehension appeared in her eyes. “Oh,” she said, “that’s wonderful!”

“What,” I asked, “is wonderful about it?”

“Carl,” she said. “He’s taking that way to let you know he’s standing by you. Can’t you see? He wants you to know that he’ll never repeat that conversation which took place last night.”

The telephone rang. She picked up the receiver, and said, “Yes? Why, yes, he is. Very well, hold the phone please.”

She looked up at me and said, “Were you expecting a call, Pete?”

I shook my head.

“It’s Mr. Boniface. He says that he wants to talk with you.”

Now, how the devil did old stuffed shirt Boniface know where I was? I took the telephone, said, “Hello,” and heard Boniface’s voice sounding as mournful as winter wind howling around the eaves of a deserted house — and just about as cold.

“Wennick,” he said. “I’m in my suite in the hotel. You will please come up here immediately.”

“I’m busy now,” I said.

“Not too busy to come here,” he said. “I don’t mind telling you that I am standing between you and a most serious charge. Only my personal influence has kept the situation in hand thus far. I feel certain that anyone who has had the privilege of working with such a strictly ethical attorney as E.B. Jonathan could never be guilty of the things of which you are accused. But, nevertheless, I must admit the evidence is—”

“Who’s doing the accusing?” I asked.

“The police,” he said.

“All right,” I told him, “I’m coming up.”

I hung up the telephone. Edith Forbes looked at me with eyes that were filled with gratitude. “Pete,” she breathed softly, “I can never thank you enough, and you can bet that Mr. Spred will never forget what you did as long as he lives. Very few men would have had the courage—”

I patted her shoulder, and said, “Better wait and see how it works out. We aren’t exactly out of the woods yet. Keep your ear to the ground and find out everything you can. I’ll be seeing you.”

I was doing lots of thinking on my way to the hotel, and I did a lot more when I opened the door of Boniface’s suite and found an officer in a captain’s uniform, a plain clothes man, and a guy who had young hoodlum stamped all over him standing on opposite sides of Cedric L. Boniface, who looked as though he was just about to give birth to kittens.

I didn’t say anything in greeting, just waited for Boniface to say something. But before he could the kid who looked like a juvenile trouble-maker turned watery eyes in my direction, stretched out a yellow-stained forefinger, and said, “That’s the guy.”

There was an instant of silence, one of those dramatic silences which seemed to call for the accused to do something dramatic, like taking poison or sobbing out a confession. But all I did was to sit down in one of the overstuffed chairs, take out a cigarette, light it, blow out the match, and nod.

“Unquestionably, I am the guy,” I said. “Now, what’s it all about?”

The police captain started to speak, but Boniface interrupted him. “Let me handle this, please.”

When the captain yielded the floor, Boniface turned to me in his most pompous manner, and said, “Wennick, do you know the nature of the charge against you?”

“I’ve waded through three books of Blackstone,” I said. “I think the reading has probably broadened my mental powers. But telepathy is a bit advanced, and I don’t know of a judge who would permit you to base a case on it.”

He said, “The occasion hardly calls for levity, still less for sarcasm. Were you aware, Wennick, that the police had discovered a gun out at Spred’s house?”

“I heard something about it,” I said.

“Where?”

“I was in a conference with some people, and the police telephoned.”

Boniface waved aside my explanation as if he didn’t think it was worth a moment’s consideration.

“Wennick,” he said, “this young man was picked up by the police this morning.” He pointed to the young punk. “Admittedly he is a vagrant. His purpose in the neighborhood is open to question, to say the least. But the fact remains that around one o’clock this morning he was in the vicinity of Spred’s residence.

“While he was there, he saw a car drive down the alley and stop. Because he thought it was a police prowl car, he hid in back of the hedge which borders Spred’s grounds. He was, therefore, a witness to what happened. Do you know what happened — or shall I tell you?”

I blew a smoke ring at the ceiling, and said, “By all means, tell me.”

“Very well,” Boniface said. “This young man saw you vault over the hedge, walk to a flower garden, take a gun from your pocket, wipe it carefully to make certain you were leaving no finger prints, plant it in the garden, and return to the car. He had the presence of mind to get the license number of the automobile. It was one which belonged to Edith Forbes, the secretary of Layton Spred.

“An investigation discloses that you were driving that car last night. His description, however, fits you so perfectly, that as soon as I talked with him, I knew that he must have seen you, and that you must have been the man who was on the grounds.

“Now, Wennick, I implore you, for the sake of our office, for the sake of our client, and your own career, please make some explanation that will hold water. If you were just there looking for evidence, and perhaps you picked something up and put it in a handkerchief instead of dropping it—”

The punk kid was way ahead of Boniface, “He can’t make that stick,” he protested. “No matter what he claims. He wasn’t picking anything up. I tell you, he took it out of his pocket and put it down, and even dusted off his hands with his handkerchief.”

“You,” I said, “have good eyes.”

“You bet I have good eyes,” he said, “particularly at night. But don’t worry, there was enough light for me to see everything. I saw the kind of clothes you were wearing, the way you wear your hat tilted to one side, the swing to your shoulders, the—”

“Forget it,” I said. “If you say you saw me climb over the hedge and put a gun in that flower bed, you’re a damn liar.”

Cedric Boniface heaved a sigh of relief. “Wennick,” he said, “I was hoping you could say that.”

“Well, I can say it all right, and what’s more, I can make it stick.”

The police captain said, “Don’t think you’re going to just pull that kind of stuff and get away with it. You’re going to answer a lot of questions, and you’re going to answer them right. Now, you had Edith’s car last night. Where do you go?”

I looked at him, and said, “Who wants to know?”

He turned to the plain-clothes man. “We’ll take him down to headquarters and question him there. We can do a lot better with a temporary detention cell at the end of the corridor. Maybe it won’t be so temporary.”

Boniface ran around like a mother hen chaperoning a chick under her wing when a hawk approaches. He put a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be like that, Wennick,” he said. “Can’t you realize that these gentlemen represent law and order? Don’t you know that this attitude of insolent independence will get you nowhere?”

“For Pete’s sake,” I said, shaking off his hand. “Can’t you ever get over being so damned pompous always?”

Boniface’s jaw sagged. His face flushed a purplish red. “You damned up-start!” he said. “You have no right to speak to me that way—”

VI

Cedric Boniface broke off as the door opened and Preston Bode entered the room without the formality of knocking. Behind him was Carl Gail, and Ray Mansfield, who gave the impression of being in the party but not of it. His hangdog manner, nervously twitching fingers, and downcast, shifty eyes all showed his wish to be somewhere else.

“Who are these men?” Boniface asked.

The captain got to his feet, and saluted. “Preston Bode,” he said, “is the police commissioner. Ray Mansfield is councilman.” He didn’t say what Gail was.

Bode pushed a cigar up at an aggressive angle, surveyed Boniface, and said, “I know all about you. You’re Cedric Boniface. You’re Spred’s lawyer. And I’m commencing to find out a hell of a lot about this guy, Wennick. He’s the guy who does the dirty work. Well, this time he’s done just a little too much of it.”

“Now, what the devil are you talking about?” I asked Bode.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. You planted that gun, and there’s no use denying it.”

“Now listen,” I told him. “I’m commencing to get tired of this. But just in case you want to wash a little dirty linen in public, kindly remember that your political future depends on Layton Spred’s acquittal, and you’re the one who controls the police force.”

“Well, I don’t control the district attorney,” Bode said. “And if you think I’d overlook my sworn duty in order to make political capital, you’re crazy. I wouldn’t condone crime no matter what depended on it. If you were my own brother, I’d adopt a fair, impartial attitude.”

I looked at Gail and felt myself frowning thoughtfully. “You,” I told him, “sure as hell do get around.”

He didn’t say anything.

Boniface said, “Really, gentlemen, I must call your attention to the fact that this is my suite in the hotel. I asked Mr. Wennick to come here so he could be confronted with witnesses and make any explanation which he could. I hardly intended to have the matter become a question of—”

“Never mind what you intended,” Bode said. “We’re running this town, and you’re in a pretty tough spot yourself.”

“I am?” Boniface exclaimed.

“You sure are.”

“Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Boniface said. “Are you presuming to question my ethics, Sir?”

“Forget it,” Bode said. “You’re representing Spred. Wennick is your man. Wennick goes out and pulls a fast one. Don’t tell me you weren’t in on it.”

As the full implication of the charge crashed home to Boniface, he sat down abruptly, all the color draining from his face.

I turned to the young punk. “You got the license number of that automobile?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“And you saw me jump over the hedge?”

“That’s right.”

“You,” I told him, “are a damn liar. I parked the car two blocks from the place, and threw the gun over the hedge. I never left the alley.”

“That’s an admission,” Bode shouted. “He’s admitted now that he planted the gun. That’s a confession.”

“Sure, it’s a confession,” I said. “There’s no law against tossing a gun into a flower bed. Wake up, you dumb hicks, and don’t waste so much time trying to stampede me by getting a punk stool pigeon to bring in a perjured accusation. Of course, I took that gun out and threw it over the hedge. Now, I’ll tell you some more things about that gun.

“I went up to Gail’s apartment last night. I didn’t say anything, but I knew it had been suggested to him that it would be a swell idea to plant a gun with a couple of exploded shells out there on Spred’s grounds. He pretended to be indignant about the whole idea, but insisted that I take Edith Forbe’s car. When I started to drive the car, I found I had a flat tire. And when I went to get at the tools, I found this gun.

“I figured that Gail had been a lot smarter than I’d given him credit for. He didn’t want to get his Angers dirty, messing around with the thing, but he fixed it so that I could take the responsibility if I wanted to.

“I’m willing to admit that threw me all off the track. However, events of the last few hours have put me right back on the track.

“Now, let me ask you something. Why do you suppose I was wandering around here leaving myself wide open, asking someone to furnish a gun to toss into Spred’s flower patch?”

“Because you were desperate and trying to get Spred acquitted,” Bode said. “You admitted that yourself.”

“Nuts,” I said. “Let’s do a little constructive detective work here instead of talking just for face exercise. Let’s suppose that Layton Spred is telling the truth about what happened. People have been known to do that, you know. In that event someone framed him. Someone wanted to get Spred to fire a shot in the darkness.

“They knew the best way to do that was to get two shots fired out of the darkness at him. But in order to account for those two shots, they had to plant two empty cylinders in Spred’s gun. That means it was someone who had access to the house. The daughter was out. Spred was a bachelor and didn’t do any entertaining in his home. His secretary had the run of the place. Therefore, it looked as though she was nominated.

“I contacted her by accident. I wanted to see if she had a gun with two exploded shells in the cylinder. So I put on a nice act for her. She led me to her boy friend. The thing was handled so smoothly that it took me in. I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. I figured Edith Forbes and her boy friend must be innocent, that they had gone out of their way to give me some evidence to plant. I believed them but I couldn’t tip my hand by not doing my share, so I took the gun out and planted it.

“Recently, I’ve realized that what I thought was clever planning was just an accident. The car actually did have a flat tire, and Carl Gail had been using Edith Forbes’ car. He’d used it the night of the murder. He had to put the gun he’d used some place where it wouldn’t be found. Under the front seat on top of the tools looked like a good place. He didn’t expect to be searched, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Figure out for yourselves what happened. Cromley Dalton would never on earth have driven out to Spred’s house with Bode and Mansfield. He’d never on earth have left Bode and Mansfield in the car and gone up to talk with Layton Spred himself. Nor would Bode and Mansfield have let him.

“What happened is a damn sight more apt to run like this. Dalton was conducting a hammer and tongs campaign. Bode and Mansfield had been running the police department. Carl Gail had been their contact man with the underworld, collecting the pay-off money. Cromley Dalton got the dope on the play. He was getting evidence that couldn’t be contradicted. Gail and Bode decided they were going to kill him. They made Mansfield come in on it. He didn’t want to.

“Gail managed to get Spred’s gun when he was out there at dinner. They fired a couple of shells and saved the bullets, leaving the empty cartridges in the gun. They ambushed Dalton, shot him from behind, drove out and planted his body by the alley at Spred’s house, rang Spred’s doorbell, and when he came to the door, started to run toward the back.

“Naturally, Spred, being a hot-headed southerner, did just what they expected he would do — pulled a gun from his pocket and ran around the porch. Gail fired two blank cartridges. Spred rose to the bait, raised his gun, and fired wild into the darkness, and that was all they needed. Bode and Mansfield notified the police.

“It took Gail to plant the empty shells in Spred’s gun, Bode to switch bullets at the police post mortem, substituting a bullet fired from Spred’s gun in place of the one that had been taken from the body. That’s the only way the facts make sense.”

Bode said, “You’re crazy. In addition to that, you’re a damn liar. Furthermore, you’re going to be arrested for defamation of character, for compounding a felony—”

I pushed him aside and walked over to where Mansfield was sitting. I grabbed him by the necktie, jerked him over to the edge of the chair, put my palm under his chin, and pushed his head up so he had to look me in the eyes.

“The trail is forking for you right now, Mansfield,” I said. “Take the side which leads toward law and order, and you’ll probably get off with a life sentence as having been an unwilling accomplice. Try to back these crooks up, and you’ll be climbing the thirteen steps to the gallows. You know what they’ll do when it comes to a showdown. They’ll sell you out and make you the patsy!”

Bode lunged for me and said, “Captain Jones, arrest him.”

I clipped Bode on the jaw. Gail came for me. I caught him in the pit of the stomach with the ball of my foot. The police captain scrambled toward me.

“Go on, Mansfield,” I said. “Speak up. It’s true, isn’t it?”

Mansfield gulped twice, and said, “It’s true,” just as the captain’s hand came down hard on my shoulder.

I said, “Okay, Captain Jones, you heard that confession. Mr. Boniface has heard it. Your police commissioner is a murderer. There’s going to be a new police commissioner. Now’s the time for you to reach your decision. Are you going to stay with a sinking ship, or are you going to take the transfer?”

Mansfield said, “My God, I never did want to do it! I haven’t been able to sleep since.”

A shot rang out behind me. The back of the chair just behind Mansfield’s head dissolved into splinters.

I whirled around. Bode had recovered from my punch and had a gun in his hand. “You damn squealer,” he yelled at Mansfield, and raised the gun again.

I think he intended to escape — if he had any definite plans. But he clearly intended to give Mansfield a one-way ticket before he left.

I looked across at Boniface. He was nearest to Bode. “Grab him,” I cried.

Boniface stood there as white and as useless as a hunk of dough.

I went for Bode.

I saw the business end of his gun looking like the entrance to a subway, pointed directly at my forehead. I went forward in a football tackle, trying to hit him low just below the knees.

I knew I wasn’t going to make it from the time I left the ground, and so did Bode. There was a sneer on his face as he depressed the muzzle of the gun, drawing a bead on me just as a quail hunter takes a bead on a flying bird.

Suddenly a shot rang out.

I hit the floor and was surprised as hell to find I could still get up. Bode was staggering around the room, his right arm limp and nerveless at his side. Captain Jones had made his choice — with a big forty-five.

I decided I might as well be nonchalant and started dusting off the knees of my trousers. I’d have lit a cigarette, only I knew my hand would have trembled so I couldn’t have held the match.

Boniface dropped back into his chair and was saying, “A fine way to bring a case to law! A fine way!”

I felt something puffing at my coat, looked down and saw that Ray Mansfield was on his knees.

“Don’t let them!” he pleaded. “You’re the only one who can straighten this thing out. They told me if I squealed they’d pin all of it on me.”

“Better keep your mind on your work,” I told Captain Jones. “Bode’s shifting that gun to his left hand.”

The captain took care of that.

Mansfield went on yammering.

The police captain said, “I’m leaving it up to you to square me with the public. You’re a witness that I didn’t let Bode keep me from doing my duty. I acted.”

“Me, too,” the plain-clothes man interrupted. “Don’t leave me out of this.”

I reached for my cigarette case then, and said, “I seem to be important as hell around here. Jones, you’d better put handcuffs on Gail while he’s out. He’s the brains of the outfit.”

VII

We sat in old E.B. Jonathan’s private office, and from the way Cedric Boniface had told the story, you’d have thought I should have gone into the law library and committed hari-kari.

“It was,” he concluded, “the most disgraceful exhibition of crude, vulgar violence I have ever seen. I warn you, Mr. Jonathan, that such tactics will result in the loss of our professional reputation. I am willing to admit that the case was solved, but only because I kept my head sufficiently to realize the full import of the statements made by the witnesses.

“The damning thing, the incredible thing, is that Peter Wennick, a man in our employ, should have actually gone out to the scene of the crime and planted evidence. If he had found that gun and thought it had any significance he should have reported it to the police. I demand that Wennick be discharged. We cannot afford to jeopardize our reputation.”

Old E.B. looked at me sternly over the tops of his bifocals. “Wennick,” he said, “you have heard the charges made by my junior partner. Because of your zeal, I am not going to let you out. But I warn you that if anything of this sort happens in the future, you will be discharged without so much as a day’s notice. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” I said.

Cedric Boniface got up and stalked pompously from the office. At the door he turned and said, “This is against my better judgment. If you keep him on, you will have to assume full responsibility.”

Jonathan said, “I am not in the habit of delegating to others either my responsibilities, or my authority, Mr. Boniface.”

Boniface was too dignified to slam the door, but his coat tails were eloquent as he stepped into the corridor and gently but firmly closed the door behind him.

Jonathan looked at me, and said, “Nice going, Wennick. But you should have kept Boniface from knowing.”

“I couldn’t,” I said. “They went to Boniface with their own story, and he called me to his room. The thing started breaking all over the carpet. What the hell could I do?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “But don’t let it happen again. Incidentally, Miss Devers has something for you. You’ll find her waiting in your office.”

I didn’t have any dignity to uphold, so I slammed the door as I walked out.

Mae Devers, looking as trim as an airplane stewardess, was perched on a corner of my desk, one shapely leg kicking gently back and forth.

“What ho, Counselor!” she said. “Why the frown?”

I said, “The frown becomes a grin. E.B. said you had something for me.”

“I have,” she said, and pushed out a tinted oblong of paper. “A check in your favor for a couple of thousand dollars drawn on E.B.’s private account. Naturally, he doesn’t want Boniface to know he’s giving you a bonus.”

I pushed the check to one side and said, “He told me you had something for me.”

She laughed and tried to duck.

“You wouldn’t want to make E.B. Jonathan a liar, would you?” I asked.

“You win,” she told me, and gave me her lips.