The Danger Zone and Other Stories

Snowy Ducks for Cover

If Molly O’Keefe had been what is known in the vernacular as a “swell looker,” Frank Sheridane would never have consulted “Snowy” Shane. For Sheridane was fully as keen a business man as any of the criminal lawyers who handled the big-time murder cases; and it needed no expert in mental arithmetic to reach the conclusion that the more fee for Snowy Shane, the less for Sheridane.

But Sheridane liked to win his cases. A death penalty verdict was as inconvenient for defense counsel as it was fatal for the client. Hence, he consulted the chunky little detective and put his cards on the table. Snowy Shane called the turn with neatness and despatch.

“Bum looker, eh?”

“Not so hot, why?”

“Just wondered. You’d have gone before a jury and trusted to a few tears if she’d been a mamma.”

“Yeah, maybe. Anyhow, I’m here. It’s up to you.”

Snowy Shane had acquired his nickname for a bushy crop of gray hair which silvered his head with a grizzled mane. His eyes matched his hair, steel cold, with the glint which comes from frosted grass when the sun first strikes it. He was a fast worker, and the police would have none of him. He didn’t play the game along orthodox lines, but took shortcuts whenever he felt reasonably certain of his ultimate goal.

He picked a pipe from his pocket, regarded the polished bowl lovingly, crammed in moist crumbs of fragrant tobacco and grunted.

“What you want me to do?”

“Get her out, of course.”

“Is she guilty?”

The lawyer grinned.

“She tells me she isn’t,” he confided.

“Humph,” grunted the detective. “If she ain’t, who is?”

Frank Sheridane knew the ways of the chunky detective, knew just how far he could be trusted. He bit the end from a cigar, struck a match and rotated the tobacco between his fingers as he applied the flame, making certain the cigar would bum evenly.

“Harley Robb, president of the Mutual Morehomes Building & Loan had been dipping into the funds, using them for speculation. He was short something over a million.”

Snowy Shane nodded.

“He was exposed by someone, forced to sign a confession. That confession has every earmark of having been written under a great emotional strain. It’s all in his handwriting.”

The lawyer took a folded paper from his pocket.

“Original?” asked Snowy Shane.

“No. A copy. Here’s what it says.”

“That confession was sent by special messenger to the chairman of the advisory committee. Naturally he went at once to interview Robb. He took a detective with him. They found Robb dead-murdered.”

Snowy Shane grunted.

“Sure it wasn’t suicide?”

“Yes. He was stabbed. There’d been some sort of a struggle.”

“Who was the chairman of the advisory committee?”

“Arthur Sprang.”

“Who loses the money Robb took?”

“Lots of people. Sprang for one; my client for another. She will lose all of her savings.”

The white-haired detective toyed with a pencil. His cold gray eyes regarded the lawyer contemplatively.

“Clues?” he asked.

“There weren’t any.”

“Why pick on the jane, then?”

“Because she was the last person to see him alive, so far as the police can find out.”

“Tell me about it.”

“The murder happened some time around midnight. Robb had been at the office, giving the secretary, Molly O’Keefe, some dictation. He seemed distraught, nervous. She went home shortly before twelve. She says Robb was still in the office.

“The confession reached the chairman of the advisory committee around one o’clock in the morning. A messenger had been summoned over the telephone, ordered to take an envelope that would be found pinned to the office door, and deliver it to the address shown on the envelope.

“That envelope was found pinned to the door, delivered. It contained the confession. Sprang was home and in bed when the message was delivered. He summoned a detective and they went at once to the office of the company, found the door locked, forced it, found the body of Robb.

“There had been a struggle. A chair or two was smashed. Rugs were wrinkled and pitched around into the corners of the waxed floor. Robb had received several stabs. It was a messy job.

“Robb wore a wrist watch. It had been smashed in the struggle. The hands pointed to 11:57. My client caught a street car at 12:15. There was a speck of blood on the outside of the envelope in which the confession was enclosed.

“When they arrested Molly O’Keefe they found a wallet that has been identified as belonging to Robb. It contained something over ten thousand dollars in cash. She had hidden it in the mattress of her bed and then sewed up the mattress where she had slit it to put the wallet in.”

The criminal lawyer regarded the tip of his cigar judiciously. Snowy Shane grunted an interruption.

“What’s her story — on the wallet?”

“She says Robb dictated to her, seemed very nervous, asked her how much money she had in the company. She told him around fifteen thousand dollars, money she’d been saving for years. He took his wallet from his pocket, told her to keep it in a safe place, if anything happened to her investment to consider the money in the nature of a repayment; but never to let anyone know she had it.”

Shane sighed.

“What’s the police theory?”

“That Robb told her of his shortage, wrote out the confession. That she asked him about her savings, that he told her they had gone, along with the rest, that she drew a knife, struggled with him, killed him, took the wallet from his body and beat it.”

“Find the knife?” asked Snowy Shane.

“No. They can’t find it.”

“Any stains on her clothes?”

“No. That’s a point in her favor.”

Shane shrugged his massive shoulders.

“Looks like she could beat the rap before a jury. If they ain’t got nothing more than that, it’ll be all circumstantial evidence. She could spiel her piece to the jury and raise a reasonable doubt.”

The lawyer made a grimace.

“She’s got skinny legs,” he said, “and a homely face.”

“How old?”

“Around forty-three, looks fifty. And... well, the case is young yet. You can’t tell what the police will discover later on. I want to get you started now.”

“Huh, want me to beat the police to it, eh?”

“Yes.”

“And if you’re afraid they’ll discover something, it’s because you’ve got a hunch your client’s guilty.”

“Our client.”

“Not yet,” said Snowy Shane with a grin.

Frank Sheridane twisted the cigar around and around in his mouth.

“She might be, at that,” he admitted. “It’s funny that Robb would have given her virtually all the cash he had. If he was carrying ten thousand bucks around in his pocket it was getaway money. You know what these looters do as well as I do. They always keep a bunch of cash on them for a quick getaway.”

Snowy Shane squinted his eyes in silent thought for a few moments.

“Funny he could have copped that much swag without the advisory committee getting wise.”

The lawyer’s eyes narrowed.

“If we can get that thought across to the jury, backed by some evidence, we may save our client.”

“Your client,” said Shane, cupping the hot bowl of his pipe in caressing fingers.

“Maybe if you could find some facts to work on,” went on the lawyer, heedless of the comment, “I could pin a theory.”

“When was the room janitored?” asked Snowy Shane, interrupting.

“After the office closed.”

“Robb was having a night session?”

“So it seems.”

“No one else in the room?”

“No.”

“If we could show someone else had been in the room, then what?”

The lawyer heaved a sigh.

“Then we’d stand a chance,” he said.

“What you want me to do?”

“Give me some facts to work on. I want you to pull some of your fourth degree stuff and give our client a break.”

Snowy Shane grinned.

“All right,” he conceded, “let’s get started and see what we can do for our client.”

The attorney chuckled.

“Knew you’d come around,” he said.

Shane bristled.

“It was the fourth degree stuff that turned the trick for you,” he said.

And Frank Sheridane, criminal attorney, and, therefore, shrewd judge of human nature, suppressed a smile. With Snowy Shane on the job the battle was underway, and he had been saving that fourth degree comment for just the proper time.

The president’s private office of the Mutual Morehomes Building & Loan had ceased to be a private sanctorum and had become a chamber of death.

A uniformed officer guarded the door, admitted the lawyer only after careful scrutiny of his pass. The rugs were still rumpled back, the gruesome red splotches discolored the floor. A chalked outline showed where the body had lain. The room reeked of the smell of death and the acrid fumes of flashlight powder where police and newspaper photographers had taken pictures of what had been found in the office.

The outer offices housed hushed groups of wide-eyed women employees who discussed the case in whispers. A detective accompanied Sheridane and Snowy Shane into the death chamber a cigar tilted in his mouth, his eyes weary and watchful.

“Take a look-see,” he said, “but don’t touch nothin’.”

Snowy Shane planted himself in the middle of the room. His eyes went slithering about, steely cold, watchful, alert.

“Fingerprints, Joe?”

The detective shook his head. “Nope.”

“Find the knife?”

“Nope.”

“What kind of a sticker was it?”

“The surgeon says it was paper knife, or a thin stiletto, the kind a frail would pack.”

Snowy Shane grunted.

“Let’s go,” he said, after a while.

Sheridane followed him to the outer office. There Shane secured the names of the three members of the advisory committee — Arthur Sprang, the chairman; Ernest Bagley and Sidney Symmes. He also secured their addresses.

“Looks sort of gloomy,” said the attorney as they descended in the elevator. “I’ll go to my office. You let me know if—”

Shane shook his head.

“You’ll stay with me. I’m going to see these men. I may want a witness.”

The lawyer’s eyes lighted.

“Fourth degree?” he asked. “Some of your special kind?”

Shane tamped tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, thrust it into his mouth and gripped the stem with firm teeth.

“Yeah,” he remarked, “stick around.”

They drove to the home of Arthur Sprang first. That individual was paunchy, red-eyed, pasty-jowled. The shock had left him nervous. He consented to see the pair with the statement that the interview would be brief.

“What time did you get the letter?” asked Shane, his gray eyes gimleting the red-rimmed ones of the heavy man.

“About one o’clock.”

“Humph,” said Shane and filled his pipe.

The attorney produced a cigar, offered one to the man who let his eyes shift restlessly, from one to the other.

“Thanks,” said Sprang, “I have my own pet brand.”

He produced a case from his inside pocket, selected a cigar, bit off the end and spat it explosively on the floor. His hand shook slightly.

“Terrific shock,” he said.

Snowy Shane leaned forward, jabbed an impressive finger at the bosom of the chairman of the advisory committee.

“How was he lyin’ when you busted in the door?”

Sprang repressed a shudder with a visible effort.

“Sprawled out,” he said, and shook his shoulders.

“Head toward the door or away from it?”

“Away from it.”

Shane grinned triumphantly.

“That,” he remarked, crisply, “is exactly what I wanted to know. Come on, Frank.”

And he got to his feet, led the puzzled lawyer to the door.

“But you said you wanted to get some very vital information you thought I might have,” murmured Arthur Sprang.

“We’ve got it,” said Shane and slammed the door.

In the taxicab, the lawyer regarded him speculatively.

“Really, Snowy, I don’t see just what you gained.”

“Shut up,” said the detective. “I’m thinkin’.”

They journeyed in silence to the office of Ernest Bagley. That individual, thin, dour, very nervous, greeted them with a dry, husky voice, shook hands with big, bony fingers that were cold and dry. He was past middle age, abnormally long of arm, high of cheek bone, thick of lip, hollow of cheek.

“You wanted to ask about the murder, you said, over the telephone?”

“Yeah,” said Snowy Shane, plunging into the discussion without any polite preliminaries. “How long you known Robb?”

“Ten years.”

“Members of the same golf club and all that?”

“No. I don’t play golf. Neither did Robb.”

Snowy Shane produced his pipe from his pocket, tamped tobacco into the bowl, regarded it ruefully.

“Any pipe tobacco? Mine’s run out.”

Bagley shook his head.

“I use cigarettes, roll my own. I can give you some of my tobacco I use in them, though.”

Shane nodded. Bagley produced a cloth sack, handed it to the detective. Shane filled his pipe.

“Only had half enough for a smoke,” he said. “This’ll come in handy.”

He passed back the sack. Bagley took a packet of brown papers from a vest pocket, rolled a cigarette. His hand shook slightly.

“Ever have any mutual business interests with Robb?” asked Shane, abruptly.

The bony fingers stopped, midway in their task.

“A few,” admitted Ernest Bagley, and the cold caution of his guarded tone was apparent to both of his listeners, trained as they were in the subtleties of human prevarications.

“Profitable?” asked Shane.

Bagley looked up from his cigarette.

“That,” I think, “is hardly a proper question.”

Shane got to his feet.

“All right,” he said. “If you won’t cooperate with us, we’ll have to reach it some other way.”

The attorney followed him from the office, his eyes puzzled. Bagley watched them with a face that was utterly void of expression.

“A good poker player,” said the attorney, as they got into the taxicab once more.

“Yeah,” said Shane. “We’ll go see Symmes now.”

Sheridane studied the squat, powerful man with the steel-gray eyes and snowy hair.

“Shane, do you know what you’re doing, or are you just messing around in the dark?”

The detective regarded him with eyes that were wide with surprise. “Why, of course I know what I’m doing. You said you wanted facts, didn’t you? Something you could pin a defense to?”

“Yes,” said the attorney, “you give me a peg to hang a defense on, and that’s all I want. I’ll do the rest.”

The detective nodded.

“And you don’t see what I’m doing?”

“No. I’m hanged if I do. I presume it’s some of your fourth degree stuff, but I don’t see it.”

“Stick around then,” advised Snowy Shane, “and save me a cigar. I’m going to switch from a pipe, after a while.”

Sheridane regarded him with thought-filmed eyes.

“You know I’ve got to have something twelve men can act on,” he said.

The detective slumped his head on his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he said, and it was apparent that his thoughts were far away. The taxicab lurched over the streets. The two passengers lapsed into utter silence, each occupied with his own thoughts.

Sydney Symmes was a big, broad-shouldered, frank-eyed man whose skin still showed a pale bronze. Undoubtedly, he had lived much of his life in the open. He had just lit a cigarette, and kept it in one corner of his mouth as he shook hands, muttered a conventional greeting.

Snowy Shane regarded him with eyes that held a suggestion of bewilderment.

“How come you’re in the building and loan,” he asked. “You’re an outdoor man.”

Sydney Symmes boomed forth a laugh.

“If you’re as good a detective on crime as you’ve just shown yourself to be on occupations, you’ll prove an air-tight case on that girl.”

Shane shook his head, a fierce, swift, impatient gesture.

“I’m trying to show the girl’s innocent.”

“Oh,” said Symmes, and his manner underwent a subtle change. “I thought you were working for the company.”

Snowy Shane let his gray eyes glitter with frosty belligerency.

“You don’t want to have this girl convicted unless she’s guilty, do you?”

Symmes clamped his jaws in a straight line.

“Miss O’Keefe is guilty,” he said.

Snowy Shane grinned.

“Oh well, let’s not argue about it. Where did you get your outdoor complexion?”

Sydney Symmes became cordial again. His eyes softened.

“Forest ranger for the government for fifteen years, down in New Mexico and Southern California.”

Snowy Shane turned to the lawyer.

“You got any questions?” he asked.

Sheridane frowned.

“I’m listening,” he commented.

Shane returned his attention to Symmes.

“Funny you left the service to get into this game.”

“No,” smiled Symmes, “it wasn’t. You see, I was educated as an attorney, but my health gave out and I went into the open. Robb was in my class at college. He often suggested that I should come back to the city. A year or so ago he sold me on the idea. I had a little money. I put it into the building and loan and, through his influence, was placed on the advisory committee.”

Snowy Shane rubbed a speculative forefinger along the angle of his jaw.

“The confession must have come as a shock to you.”

Symmes squinted his eyes, leaned forward. His fists clenched with visible emotion. His voice quivered.

“That confession is a forgery. The man who says Robb was short in his accounts is a damned liar, and that goes for anyone who says it. See?”

There was no mistaking his belligerency.

Shane got to his feet.

“Sure we see,” he remarked, and led the way to the door.

“Wait a minute,” invited Symmes. “I meant no particular offense. I was sticking up for my friend, and I got a little hot-headed, I guess.”

“Yeah,” commented Shane. “You would. That’s your outdoor training. See you later, maybe. Good-bye.”

Sheridane’s brow was corrugated as he settled back in the cushions of the cab.

“That some of the fourth degree stuff?”

Shane nodded casually.

“That’s it,” he said.

“Well,” commented the lawyer in a voice from which he strove to keep his impatience, “it doesn’t help any.”

Snowy Shane stretched out his chunky arms, yawned.

“Uh huh,” he agreed. “Let’s go back to the office where the murder was pulled. I want to see something else.”

Joe Karg, police detective in charge, regarded their second visit with dour disapproval.

“Didn’t you guys see enough the first time?” he asked.

Snowy Shane transfixed him with hostile gaze.

“No,” he said.

He took a cloth sack of tobacco from his pocket, held his pipe cupped in his left hand, poured in the tobacco, and some of the grains spilled to the floor. He lit the pipe and broke the match in two pieces, flipped it under the table, bent to examine the floor.

“The old bloodhound,” remarked Karg with a grin, “looking for tracks.”

“Shut up, Joe,” said Snowy Shane.

He puffed placidly at his pipe, his eye, meanwhile, peering along the floor as though taking measurements. Sheridane nervously glanced at his watch, took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, spat it explosively.

“Listen, Snowy. I’ve got to get to my office. I can’t just stick around.”

Snowy Shane straightened. His eyes were gleaming with frosty enthusiasm.

“Joe,” he said, “will you ring up Sprang, Bagley and Symmes and tell ’em to come over here right away. I got the murder solved.”

Joe Karg jeered at him.

“Yeah, you’re the human bloodhound. Murders are open books to you. You give ’em the once over and—”

Snowy interrupted.

“Of course, if you don’t want a promotion.”

He let his voice trail off into silence. Joe Karg thought that matter over.

“Would I get the credit?”

“You’d get the credit.”

The police detective moved to the telephone.

Sprang was the first to answer the summons. He entered the office, puzzled, awkward, ill at ease. Snowy Shane sat him in a chair, taking pains to make him face the window.

“Sprang,” he said, slowly and impressively, “someone was in this room last night. Someone who smoked cigars, and bit off the ends,”

Sprang’s glassy eyes stared uncomprehendingly for a moment.

“You mean me?” he asked, a flush suffusing his face.

“I don’t know,” said Snowy Shane, “but here’s the end off a cigar that was on the floor. You smoke your own brand. Let me have one of ’em.”

The man handed over a cigar, meekly, questioningly. Snowy Shane extended his hand. “Thanks. That’s all.”

“You called me over here for this?”

“Yes. That’s all. The department will analyze the tobacco in the end of the cigar and the one you gave me.”

Sprang lurched to his feet.

“Of all the damned fools!” he snapped, and lunged from the office.

When he had gone Sheridane eyed the detective coldly.

“I presume you are aware,” he said, formally, “that I was smoking in here a few minutes ago, and the cigar end you have is one I bit off.”

Snowy Shane said nothing. Bagley was entering the room, nervous, furtive, almost cringing in his manner.

“You smoke cigarettes. You roll ’em. Ever spill tobacco?” asked Snowy Shane.

The nervous man blinked his eyes.

“Huh?” he asked.

Snowy Shane pointed to the floor.

“Get down here,” he said. “Look here on the floor, grains of tobacco. The same sort that you use to roll your cigarettes. That means somebody was in this room after the janitor cleaned it last night. That somebody smoked same brand of tobacco you do.

“Now suppose that somebody was the murderer. What’d be more natural than for him to roll a cigarette after he’d done the job? And his hand would be shaking, and he’d spill some of the tobacco, and—”

The nervous man interrupted.

“You lie!” he screamed. “I wasn’t here. I know nothing about the murder. I can prove it. You’re a double-crossing crook. You planted that tobacco here. You came out to my house and saw the kind of tobacco I smoked, and—”

Joe Karg clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Easy, bo,” he said, wamingly.

Snowy Shane waved a hand toward the door.

“That’s all,” he said.

Bagley wanted to remain and talk, but Karg escorted him out. They closed the door and waited some five minutes for Symmes. Karg’s eyes were singularly unenthusiastic.

“Hope you don’t think you’re getting anywhere with this stuff, Snowy,” he observed.

Snowy Shane shrugged his huge shoulders.

There was an impatient knock at the door. He opened it to admit Symmes. Snowy Shane sat him in the same chair, facing the window, dropped to his knees and pointed to the broken match.

“Symmes,” he said, “you were a ranger in the dry southwest. Did you, by any chance, learn to break matches into two pieces before you threw them away?”

Symmes looked at the match, laughed good-naturedly

“Hell no. I’ve heard of fellows who did that. I never did.”

Snowy Shane got to his feet, dusted the knees of his trousers.

“Thanks,” he said. “That’s all. I guess I pulled a boner, Karg. None of these men had anything to do with it.”

Symmes grinned, extended his hand.

“No hard feelings,” he said. “You detectives have got to do your duty. Call on me any time.”

He left the office. Joe Karg’s face showed hostility. “The next time I let a private dick horn in and sell me on a wild theory, you’ll know it!” he snapped.

Snowy Shane nodded, gloomily.

“Sorry, Joe.”

“And the next time you catch me wasting time on a wild goose chase—” began Sheridane, but Snowy Shane’s eye transfixed him with disdainful hostility.

“That’ll be about all, Frank. You make mistakes yourself. Come on. You’ve got one more job.”

He led the way to the elevators. Sydney Symmes was standing before the shaft which showed a red light.

“Just in time,” he said.

Shane grinned.

“Figured we’d be,” he said.

They rode to the Street.

“Come up to my office a minute,” invited Shane.

Symmes looked at his watch, frowned.

“Only take a few minutes,” said Shane.

Symmes consented with a very apparent lack of enthusiasm. Once in the office, Snowy Shane began to talk.

“I got a theory about this case,” he said. “Robb didn’t cop that coin without some split. The guy he split with was a friend. And he didn’t write that confession when Molly O’Keefe was in the office. Remember, she was a secretary, and he’d been dictating to her. If he’d been goin’ to make a confession while she was there he’d have dictated it to her, an’ made a long statement.

“That’s the way those guys do when they kick through. They write a regular smear. I’ve seen ’em before. But Robb’s confession was awfully brief, too brief. And it put too much stress on the fact that he was the only goat. I have an idea somebody made him write out that confession, put the screws on him somehow.

“Then, after the confession was written, the guy croaked him, telephoned to the messenger service and told them to come and get the envelope for delivery.”

Symmes smiled, nodded.

“It’s good to see someone who really runs trail on a case,” he said. “That’s the way we used to do it in the forestry service, just run down trail until we got to where we were headed. But how about the time of the murder? The wrist watch shows that it was right about the time Miss O’Keefe left, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Snowy. “The guy that croaked him set the wrist watch back, and then smashed it. That was done after the murder, not before.”

He took out a cigarette case from his pocket, extended it to Symmes. Symmes took a cigarette, struck a match, dropped it to the floor, still burning, picked it up and blew it out.

Snowy Shane beckoned to Sheridane.

“I want to see you a minute,” he said. “We’ll be right back, Symmes. Just wait here.”

Sheridane followed Snowy Shane into the corridor.

“What’s the idea?” he asked.

Shane grinned at him.

“That cigarette I gave him was awful. It’ll just arouse the tobacco appetite, but he can’t smoke it. He’ll start in smoking one of his own, maybe three or four, if we wait long enough.”

“What’ll that do?” asked Sheridane.

“Make a smoke screen,” said Shane, and grinned.

“You think he’s guilty?”

Shane shrugged his shoulders.

“He’ll leave if we keep him waiting,” protested Sheridane.

“He can’t. The door’s locked. There’s a night latch that’s rigged just opposite from most of ’em. It spring-locks a man in, instead of out.”

“But I don’t get the idea!”

“You said if you could prove some member of the advisory committee was in that room during the night you’d do the rest, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and I meant it. That’s all the break I want before a jury.”

Shane grinned.

“Let’s go down and buy some pipe tobacco, I been smokin’ odds and ends until my throat tickles.”

They went to the tobacco store, took plenty of time. Then Shane almost forcibly restrained Sheridane from returning to the office until another ten minutes had passed.

He opened the door of the private office. Sydney Symmes glowered at them. His face was dark with wrath.

“What the hell’s the idea of locking me in here and disconnecting the telephone? I couldn’t get out, and—”

Snowy Shane walked past him to the ash tray.

It was littered with cigarette stubs. The detective started fingering through stubs until he found a charred match. It was straight, unbroken. He found other and another, but the third had been broken, then straightened.

“Well?” said Shane.

Symmes laughed nervously.

“To tell you the truth, you got me pretty well flustered up there in that room. I’m going to tell you chaps the truth. I was there last night.

“I got there around eleven fifteen. Miss O’Keefe had been taking dictation, but she’d stepped into the ladies’ room to put on a little make-up. Robb told me he was finished dictating. But be seemed all nervous, wrought up over something, so I didn’t stay.

“When I heard of the murder I determined to say absolutely nothing about having been there, for fear someone might think I’d come to see him, found out Miss O’Keefe was there, and then gone out, waited for her to go, and then gone on in again.”

“As a matter of fact I do break matches. All the rangers in that section of the country do — or used to when I rode it. You flustered me when you dug up that match. I knew I must be careful.

“But you got me shut up here, and I was nervous, and I got to smoking and breaking matches before I thought of it. I straightened ’em again as well as I could. I’d have burnt ’em up, but I knew wood ash is distinctive, and I had an idea you chaps were watching me through some sort of a peep-hole.

“What I’m telling you fellows is the absolute truth, and I want you to believe it.”

He looked at them with steady, pleading eyes.

Snowy Shane nodded his head solemnly.

“You’ve got me sold,” he said.

Symmes heaved a sigh.

“I thought you’d see how it was.”

Shane nodded again, smiled.

“Glad you explained, Symmes. You can go. I’ll have to report to the officer in charge, but there’ll be nothing to it. They may ask you a question or two.”

Symmes lunged for the door.

“Good-bye Symmes.”

“Good-bye!”

The door closed. Sheridane glowered at the detective.

“Of all the damned fools! What if he was telling the truth? We could have browbeat him, called in the police, got the newspaper reporters, got Symmes admitting he had told a false story— Hell, with that much of a break I could give this jane a chance at a hung jury, or a cinch on copping a plea.”

Shane smiled.

“Stick around,” he said. “We could not browbeat that bozo on suspicion. You wait here. I’m going to run over and see Joe Karg.”

And he shot out of the door as a man who is going some place in very much of a hurry. He went at once to the death room, where Joe Karg sneered at him.

“Oh yes,” sniffed the officer, sarcastically. “I’ll get the credit. I’ll get—”

He stopped. Shane was trying to light a cigarette, and his hand shook so that the match simply wouldn’t connect with the end of the cigarette until he had steadied it with the other hand.

“Listen, Joe,” said Snowy Shane, his voice stuttering with excited eagerness. “It’s the b-b-biggest thing in years. I pulled a boner on it!”

“What the hell,” asked Karg with interest, “are you talking about?”

“That match. That broken match.”

“Hell, you planted all of those smoke clues.”

“No, no. That is, Karg, you’re right about me planting ’em, but I had a hot tip on Symmes. When he swore he never broke a match I knew he was lying. I got hold of him after he left here and got him up to my office.

“Well, here’s what happened. I got him started smoking, and he broke a match before he thought. Then I put it to him, locked the door, rattled the handcuffs, gave him everything I had, and he confessed!”

“What!” yelled the officer.

“Telling you the whole truth, Joe. Honest Injun!”

The officer was suspicious.

“You’ve lied to us before, Snowy.”

“But never unless the lie cleared up a case,” protested Shane.

“Well, go on. Then what happened?”

“He thought it over, and retracted his confession and thought up another lie that’d get him out of it. See?”

Something of the detective’s trembling excitement communicated itself to Joe Karg.

“What the hell!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

“Didn’t have time. Listen. Here’s what happened. He knew Robb was at the office dictating. He hung around until the jane went home. Then he got in and had it out with Robb. He and Robb had been splitting the take. Robb was going to confess. Symmes tried to hold him in line, couldn’t. The state examiners were on the tail of the shortage and Robb was panicky.

“So Symmes finally got Robb to promise that Robb would take all the blame in his confession. Robb wrote out that confession. Then Symmes croaked him.

“He set the watch back, smashed it, and dusted. He telephoned the messenger department to come and get the confession and left it pinned to the door. Then he went to bed.

“That was just the way I had it doped. The confession stressed too much about Robb being the only one who was responsible.”

Joe Karg’s eyes were glistening.

“Never mind what you doped out. What did Symmes himself say?”

“Just what I’ve told you.”

“Then what?”

“Then I told him to write it out. He started, but got cagey, wanted to know if I could guarantee he could cop a plea. Then one thing led to another, and he got the idea he could swear that he’d gone into the building around eleven fifteen to see Robb, that he’d found Miss O’Keefe out powdering her nose, that he’d lit a cigarette, dropped the broken match, and then beat it before Miss O’Keefe came back.

“So that’s what he’s going to swear to now. He swears he never did confess, that he never was alone with me, that Sheridane was there all the time, and a lot of hooey like that.”

Karg took a deep breath.

“If I’d only been there! Then what?”

“Nothing. I let him go. I figured I’d let him think he’d checkmated me. Then you could go to work on him.”

Joe Karg bit a cigar clean in two.

“Son of a gun! We’ll fix that baby. We’ll frame a stoolie to dress up like a janitor and swear he saw him hanging around the building. We wouldn’t use the stoolie in court, but we sure can use him to make Symmes cave in again.

“Listen, Snowy, will you do something for me?”

“Anything, Joe.”

“Well, just duck out of this case. Leave it all to me. You promised the credit.” Shane was lugubrious.

“I promised Sheridane I’d get the broad free if she was innocent.”

“Well, if I get Symmes that’s all you want.”

Karg looked at the detective anxiously. Snowy Shane thrust forward his hand.

“It’s a go,” he said.

Sheridane and Snowy Shane sat in a suburban hotel where they had registered under assumed names.

“I still don’t get the idea,” he said. “You told me you’d give me the low down at breakfast.”

Snowy Shane glanced at his watch.

“Well, I started something.”

“Fourth degree?”

“Yes. I told Karg that Symmes had confessed, and then I ducked you out of town so they wouldn’t start quizzing you and have you throw me down.”

The lawyer’s jaw sagged.

“You told Joe Karg what?”

“That Symmes had confessed.”

“Good heavens! Of all the bone-headed fools! Why, that’s criminal defamation of character. What’d you do that for?”

Shane shrugged.

“You see, if Symmes had confessed to us, Karg wouldn’t have had much credit. Then again, Symmes would need more third degree stuff than we could give him. But, by letting Karg think, on the q.t. that Symmes had confessed, Karg would start working up a case against Symmes.

“Otherwise they’d never have done anything, because they thought they had the case pinned on the broad.”

Sheridane sighed.

“You kept me out of it?”

“Sure, swore you weren’t even with me.”

The attorney sighed again, this time with some measure of relief.

“You lied to Karg.”

Shane nodded easily.

“Sure. A dick’s gotta lie occasionally. It’s part of the game. We all do. I just tell different kinds of lies from the other guys. You’ve gotta catch crooks the best way you can, not the way you’d like to catch them.”

A uniformed bell boy walked into the dining room.

“You said to notify you if an ‘Extra’ came out, sir. Here it is.”

Snowy Shane reached for the paper. Across the top, in screaming head lines, were the words—

The attorney glanced with wide eyes, incredulously at the detective.

“Of all the nervy guys in the world, you’re it!”

Snowy Shane made a deprecatory gesture.

“No. It’s a simple system. All I had to do was to sell the police on the right idea and let ’em go to it. We could never have broken Symmes down. Joe Karg could, and did.”

The lawyer reached for checkbook and fountain pen.

“You win, Snowy.”

The detective grinned.

“Yeah,” he said, “I got by, but only by the skin of my teeth. You hired me because my methods were unusual. Well, they were unusual enough this time. Just make that check payable to bearer. I ducked for cover after pulling that last fast one, and I’m going to stay undercover until Joe gets his promotion.”