The Danger Zone and Other Stories

A Logical Ending

The lettering on the door read: David C. Clark — Consulting Criminologist. To a few intimate friends he was known as “Dave,” and to the profession generally he was known as “Key-Clew Clark,” or, sometimes, as “One-Clew Clark.”

Across the desk sat Phil Bander, local manager of the Interstate Detective Agency.

“This case has got me stumped, and we’re working against time on it. Our men can’t seem to get anywhere. We just run around in circles. There isn’t a definite lead in the whole case.”

David Clark frowned slightly and shook his head.

“There’s always a definite lead,” he said, “somewhere.”

“Yes, I know,” said Bander, grinning. “You’re going to tell me the old story that somewhere there’s one definite, outstanding clew that dominates the entire crime; points to the guilt of the proper party. I’ll bet you’ve told me that a hundred times already.”

Clark snapped testily, “Well, apparently I haven’t told you often enough.”

“Yes, I know,” said Bander. “It’s usually worked so far, but this is one case where you can’t find the one outstanding clew. You can’t find anything except a lot of confusion.”

“Well,” said the criminologist. “I can’t find anything until you tell me about the crime itself. What are the clews?”

“There are lots of clews,” said Bander, “and they all point to a fellow named Pete Dimmer, who is the chauffeur of the dead man.”

“Well,” said the criminologist, “if the clews all point to him, why not act on the theory that he is guilty. That’s the way you detectives work.”

Bander ignored the sarcasm of the tone and made a gesture with his hand.

“Because,” he said, “it just happens that Pete Dimmer is the one man in the whole list of possible suspects who has an absolutely perfect, unimpeachable alibi.”

“Alibis,” said the criminologist, “can be manufactured probably easier than any other form of defensive evidence. In fact, I have solved several cases by suspecting the person who had the most complete alibi.”

“Sure, I know all that,” groaned Bander. “I’ve pulled that stuff myself. But this is one case where there’s an absolutely perfect alibi that can’t be shaken.”

“Well,” said David Clark, “we are talking around in circles. Suppose you tell me exactly what happened. In the first place, who are you representing?”

“I’m representing the agency, of course, and the agency is representing the insurance company that had the gem insured,” said Bander.

“What gem?”

“A huge diamond, known in trade circles as the Clinkoff Diamond.”

“It’s quite valuable, I take it?”

“Exceedingly valuable. It’s worth a perfectly huge sum intact, and it could be cut up into three or four smaller diamonds, each one of which would be worth a very considerable sum.”

“And the diamond was stolen?” asked the criminologist.

“Yes. Carson Millright is something of a gem collector. It seems that he’d been after the Clinkoff diamond for some time. A few days ago he had an opportunity to purchase it at what he considered a bargain, and he made the purchase.”

“Then what happened?” asked the criminologist.

“The gem was delivered, of course, and Millright decided that he was going to keep it where he could show it to his friends, at least for a few days. He didn’t like the idea of getting a stone that was a show-piece and keeping it locked up in a safety deposit vault. He approached the insurance company for the purpose of finding out what the premium would be on a very large sum of insurance.”

“I take it,” said the criminologist, “the premium was plenty high.”

“The premium was plenty high,” said the detective, “although, in the light of subsequent events, it wasn’t high enough.”

“Well, go on,” said Clark.

“The gem,” said the detective, “cost Millright his life. He was found in the morning by his valet, seated in a deep leather chair in his library, with a bullet hole in the front of his forehead. The gun that shot him, a small caliber affair, was on the table a few feet away. As nearly as we can tell, the shot had been fired from a distance of about five or six feet.”

Clark’s face was rigid with attention. His deep violet eyes, which seemed to be peculiarly luminous, stared at Bander in concentrated attention.

“No sign of struggle?” he asked.

“No sign of struggle,” said Bander.

“What time was the murder committed?”

“About midnight.”

“Any visitors received at the house?”

“There’d been one who had been received earlier in the evening. That was Sam Townley, the agent who wrote the insurance policy. That is, he had solicited the business for his company, and Millright had given it to him.”

“What time did Townley call?” asked Clark.

“Around ten o’clock. He left about eleven.”

“No one else called?”

“No one. That is, we are virtually certain that no one else called. Millright had one iron-clad policy, which was that he would never open the door himself. He was afraid of burglars, and he put chain locks on the door and insisted that his valet answer all rings.”

“I take it that there were no rings at the doorbell.”

“None. The valet sleeps where he can hear the doorbell.”

“Who let Townley in?”

“The valet, a chap named Drake, Bob Drake.”

“And Townley left about eleven?”

“That’s right. The valet is positive about that.”

“How does he fix the time?” asked the criminologist.

“Drake was up in his room, which is directly over the front door,” said Bander. “Millright has a private telephone which runs from the library to the valet’s room. He rang the telephone and said that Townley was leaving and he wanted the valet to go down and put on the chain lock.”

“The valet did so?” asked Clark.

“He did so right away.”

“He heard Townley slam the door, going out, and he went downstairs at once and put on the chain lock?”

“No. There was a spring lock on the door in addition to the chain lock. The chain lock was used as a measure of safety.”

“All right, that lets Townley out of it apparently. How about the valet?”

“That’s just the point,” said the detective. “There are several people who come under suspicion. There is Ed Kane, the secretary, Bob Drake, the valet, Edith Mace, the housekeeper, and Ellen Mace, her daughter. Also, if we are going to include everyone who was in the house that night, there is Sam Townley, the insurance man.”

“But Millright was alive when Townley left?” asked Clark.

“Apparently so. The valet is positive that he recognized Millright’s voice over the telephone. He didn’t go into the library after Millright had telephoned, but he is positive that it was Millright’s voice on the telephone. He said Millright told him that Townley was leaving and would let himself out, and for the valet to go down and lock the door, and that there was nothing else required for the evening.”

“No one heard the shot?” asked the criminologist.

“No one heard the shot. It was a small caliber gun, and the library is a massive room lined with books, and the doors are heavy.”

“Isn’t it rather unusual for a valet to sleep in a room directly over the front door?” asked Clark.

“I guess so,” said Bander, “but Millright was a bachelor who ran his house on peculiar lines. He’s a collector of stones and also of rare books. His whole house is really built about the library. That is, the house is centered in the library”

“I see,” said the criminologist. “Now, you mentioned that the clews pointed to the chauffeur?”

“Every clew points directly to the chauffeur,” said the detective. “In the first place, the gun that killed Millright had been bought by the chauffeur.”

“You’re sure of that?” asked the criminologist.

“Absolutely certain. We have traced the sale, and the man who made it identifies Dimmer as the man who bought the gun. In fact, while Dimmer tried to deny that it was his gun at first, he finally was forced to admit that he was lying.”

“That’s a suspicious circumstance,” said Clark.

“There are lots of suspicious circumstances,” said the detective, “and all of them point toward this man Dimmer. Not only did the gun belong to him, but his fingerprints and his fingerprints alone were on the gun. A suit of clothes belonging to the chauffeur was found in his room, and there are unmistakable blood spots on that suit of clothes. We have traced that suit of clothes, and there can be no question but that it was Dimmer’s suit. At the time of his death, in addition to the big gem, Millright was known to have had something over a thousand dollars in currency in his pocket. We found, or rather the police found, almost a thousand dollars, in the pocket of the blood-stained suit, and Dimmer can’t explain how it got there or account for having that much money in. his possession.”

“I take it,” said Clark, “that the police have arrested Dimmer.”

“Of course they arrested him,” said Bander. “The police thought they had a dead open and shut case until they got to checking on Dimmer’s alibi.”

“Well, how about the alibi?” said Clark.

“The murder,” said the detective, “took place on Thursday night, and Thursday night was Dimmer’s night off. Under his arrangement with Millright, Dimmer was to have Thursday night off, and also the privilege of using the car. It seems that Dimmer had a girl in Bridgeport, and he took the car to go and call on his girl. He didn’t get in until about three-thirty in the morning. The murder was committed not later than twelve-thirty, probably right around eleven-thirty.”

“And I take it Dimmer was in Bridgeport then?” asked Clark.

“He was in Bridgeport then. We find that he has an absolutely iron clad alibi. He took his girl and went to a dance. He was at the dance by eleven o’clock, and he stayed there until one-thirty in the morning. He was with his girl almost every minute of the time, and he was seen by no less than half a dozen reputable people who swear that there can be no mistake. What’s more, he was arrested for speeding on his way home at the hour of two-forty in the morning at a point fifty-five miles out of the city.”

“What else?” asked the criminologist. “Are there any other clews?”

“Yes, the person who committed the murder had made an attempt to let it appear that he entered and left by a window. The window had been pried open and the lock broken. However, the police have ascertained by the tool marks on the sash that the window was pried open from the inside rather than the outside. Moreover, the chisel that was used in prying open the window had a peculiar nick in the blade, and the police were able to identify the chisel which was used from that nick in the blade. It is a chisel that was in a kit of tools that was in the chauffeur’s room.”

“The chauffeur’s room was over the garage or in the rear of the house?” asked Clark.

“Both,” said the detective. “The garage is built into the house, and the chauffeur’s room is in the back, right over the garage.”

“How about the others?” asked Clark. “Can they give any alibis?”

“Not an alibi in the outfit,” said Bander. “Each one of them claims that they were in bed asleep at the time the murder must have happened.”

David Clark started drumming upon the edge of his desk with the tips of his fingers.

The detective watched him with an amused twinkle in his eyes, and said, “All right, Clark. Go ahead and pick out your one key clew in this case. You always claim that there’s one clew which is a key to the whole thing, that it’s bound to be in every case. Now what’s your key clew in this case?”

Clark did not turn toward the detective, but kept his face toward the window, his eyes fixed in an intense stare, his cameo-like features making his face seem as keen as the blade of a safety razor, his fingers drumming upon the desk.

Suddenly he chuckled. The chuckle became a low laugh. He turned to the detective, and the tension had relaxed from his face. There was a look of lazy good nature in his eyes.

“Of course there’s one key clew in this case,” he said, “and it’s so perfectly obvious that you can’t see it because it’s so big.”

“The gun?” asked the detective. Clark shook his head.

“The bloody clothes?”

Again Clark shook his head. “The money?”

Clark shook his head once more.

“Well,” said Bander, with some show of irritation, “it’s a case we’ve got to work fast on. The insurance on that gem amounts to a huge sum, and it’s got to be paid within thirty days unless the gem is recovered. Now, if you know so much about it, suppose you show me just how I can recover the gem?”

The look of lazy good nature left the face of the consulting criminologist, and his eyes once more became keen in their concentration, seeming to radiate rays of deep violet light.

“I’ve found the key clew,” he said, “and I know what happened. The difficult part is to prove it, and it’s going to take proof to make a recovery. Tell me, Bander, did this Clinkoff diamond have any particular blemish, and distinguishing marks?”

“No,” said the detective, “it’s a well-known diamond, however, from the manner in which it’s cut, and the color and size. It’s described in the insurance policy merely as the Clinkoff diamond.”

“You’re after the diamond, of course,” said the criminologist.

“Of course. But naturally, when I get the diamond I’ll have found the murderer, and so I’m cooperating with the police and the police are cooperating with me. We’re both working toward the same goal.”

Clark reached for his hat.

“Do you suppose you could take me with you and introduce me as a gem expert who had been called in by the insurance company for the purpose of doing some special detective work?”

“Sure,” said Bander, his face lighting with relief.

“And,” went on the criminologist, “do you suppose that you could manage to keep a straight face, regardless of what I said, and not show surprise, no matter what my remarks consisted of?”

“Well,” said Bander, grinning, “I can try. But tell me, what’s the one key clew in this case?”

“Not now,” said Clark. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Where do we go and what do we do?” asked the detective.

“First,” said the criminologist, “I have got to engage an assistant to run down certain angles of the case. Tell me, Bander, do you know anything about diamonds personally?”

“Not a thing,” said the detective.

“Have you ever seen this Clinkoff diamond?”

“No. It was stolen before I was called in on the case.”

“Do you know anything about its size and shape?”

“Nothing, except that it’s rather a large diamond. But anybody who is an expert jeweler can tell you all about it. It’s a diamond that is listed in various catalogues of famous gems.”

“I think,” said Clark, “that is all I am going to need.”

“It’s ten o’clock now. Suppose I meet you at three-thirty this afternoon at the Millright residence. I take it that the servants will all be there?”

“They will be unless the police have removed some of them for questioning.”

“That’s all right. You’d better be there and have the man who wrote the insurance policy there. What did you say his name was?”

“You mean the agent for the insurance company?”

“Yes.”

“Sam Townley, a likeable chap, right up on his toes.”

The criminologist grinned.

“Yet you included him,” he said, “in your list of suspects?”

“Not exactly that,” said the detective. “I mentioned that he had been out at the house that evening, and therefore was to be included in the list of suspects.”

“Now you say he’s a likeable young chap,” pursued the criminologist.

Bander grinned and said, “By the time you’ve been in the game as long as I have, Clark, no matter how likeable they are you’ll include them in a list of suspects if they had any opportunity whatever to commit the crime.”

“Did Townley have an opportunity?” asked Clark.

“No, but I included him just in order to make it cover everybody who was anywhere around the house that night. You know, as a matter of fact, Townley might have come back and crawled in the window.”

“But,” said Clark, “the window was jimmied open from the inside.”

“Yes, that’s right. I’d forgotten about that.”

“Therefore, Townley couldn’t have done it.”

“Well,” said the detective, “if you’re going to figure that way, you can also figure that Pete Dimmer, the chauffeur, couldn’t have done it.”

“All right,” said Clark. “How about the housekeeper or her daughter?”

“Either or both might have done it,” said Bander, “although I’d be inclined to suspect the valet if we were starting out without any clews. It is, of course, obvious that whoever entered that room was someone who had some right to be there. In other words, it wasn’t a stranger, either to Millright or to the house. It was someone who walked in to see him about something, and the fact that that person was there didn’t arouse Millright’s suspicions in the least. He sat calmly and placidly in his chair and faced this person while the person got the gun into position and fired.”

“Do you think a woman would have been that cold-blooded?” Clark inquired.

“You can’t tell about women,” said Bander slowly, “and the daughter of the housekeeper is a very attractive baby. I’m not going to bandy about the name of a woman or besmirch the reputation of a dead man, but there’s some servants’ gossip to the effect that Millright had taken more than a passive interest in the girl since she had been there with her mother.”

“Well,” said Clark, “you can’t blame him for that. I know what you’d have done under similar circumstances. But anyway, meet me at the house this afternoon and I think I will have some word for you.”

Key-Clew Clark didn’t engage an assistant of the type that Phil Bander had been led to expect.

The criminologist had the complete record of the lives, histories, and present locations of many criminals. What is more, there were many people, both in the underworld as well as in business along more legitimate lines who were deeply indebted to the criminologist.

Therefore, when the criminologist set about engaging an assistant, he took a taxicab which deposited him in a cheap district on the border of Chinatown. He consulted an address in his notebook, verified a number over the door, and plunged at once into a narrow doorway which opened into a labyrinth of dark, smelly passages.

The criminologist located a flight of stairs and moved upward cautiously. He came to an upper corridor which was better lighted, moved down it to a door, and tapped with his knuckles. As he knocked on the door, he took particular pains to stand well to one side of the doorway.

There were sounds from the interior of the room, and a bolt clicked on the door.

The door swung inward, and an attractive young woman attired in a sable coat stared out at him through uncordial eyes.

“Well?” she asked.

“I am looking,” said Clark, “for George McCoy.”

“He don’t live here,” said the girl.

“Do you know him?” insisted the criminologist.

“No!” she said.

“He is more generally known,” said the criminologist, “as ‘Gorilla George.’ ”

“I never heard of him,” she said, and started to close the door.

The criminologist spoke hastily.

“Tell him that his friend, Key-Clew Clark, is trying to locate him.”

There was a rumble of sound from the interior of the room, the noise made by the heavy body crossing the creaking planks, and a hairy hand came out and caught the shoulder of the girl’s coat, pushed her to one side, and a grinning gorilla face was framed in the doorway.

“Hell!” said Gorilla George. “I thought I knew that voice, but I couldn’t place it for a minute. I figured you were a dick. I was sitting back there with my rod all ready to smoke my way out.”

David Clark grinned and extended a tentative hand, which was promptly engulfed in the hairy paw.

“Hell!” said Gorilla George. “Come in! Don’t stand there gawking in the doorway. Come in and meet the girl friend. Madge, shake hands with Dave Clark. The boys in the game all call him Key-Clew Clark, and he’s a bearcat.

“I’ve told you about the time they were going to frame me for murder on the Gilmore job, didn’t I? Well, this is the fellow that came along and showed where the boys had figured the evidence all wrong, and there was another man who was the murderer. It sure was a break for me, because with my record I would never have dared to get on the witness stand.”

The girl extended her hand and gave Clark that glance of the professional moll, a certain demure invitation.

“Hello,” she said.

Gorilla George turned her around, spinning her on her heel by twisting her shoulders.

“Look her over, Clark,” he said. “Ain’t she a peach? She’s a cute little trick. She’s going steady with me now, ain’t you, kid?”

The girl nodded.

“Look at the fur coat,” said Gorilla George. “I picked it up the other night, and the beauty of it is, it ain’t hot. There’s no dick in town has got anything on that fur coat. She can wear it anywhere, could walk right into the office of the Chief of Police with it if she wanted to.”

Clark nodded his appreciation of the girl and the coat, and then got down to business.

“Listen, Gorilla,” he said, “I want you to pull a daylight stick-up for me.”

“Who am I going to stick up, and what do I get?” asked the crook.

“About all you get is the experience and a chance to do me a good turn,” said Clark. “On the other hand, you won’t be running any risk.”

“Do I wear a mask?” inquired Gorilla George.

“No, you don’t have to.”

“Jeez, guy, my map’s pretty well known and pretty easy to identify. They’d have me on the pan inside of three hours.”

“No,” said the criminologist. “This isn’t that kind of a stick up. You’re going to stick up a car, and there’ll be three men in the car. I will be one of the men, and I will have a big diamond in a plain paste board box packed with cotton. You’re supposed to know all about the diamond, and to stick a gun on me and tell me to fork over the sparkler.”

“How big’s the diamond?” asked Gorilla George.

“Did you ever hear of the Clinkoff Diamond?” inquired the criminologist.

“Jeez, guy, you mean the stone that they croaked Millright over?”

“That’s the one.”

Gorilla George twisted his face into a grimace.

“Jeez, guy, you’re gonna get me on the hot squat before you get done.”

“No,” said Clark, “on the contrary, I am going to use you to assist the law. I will give you a letter that I have instructed you to hold me up and take the diamond from me, so that it really won’t be a stick-up at all, and you can use an empty gun. I’ll see to it that there isn’t any resistance.”

“Well,” said Gorilla George, “how about making a good job of it and picking up a little coin on the side? Of course, I wouldn’t take any of yours, but suppose some of these other birds would be dough heavy? There wouldn’t be any harm in taking up a little collection, would there?”

“No,” said the criminologist, “I don’t want you to do that. I want you to pull this job so you don’t have to wear a mask, and you can grab the gem and get away. I want it to be a piece of fast work. The reason I picked on you is because you look the part well enough so that the other boys will know that you’re tough, and won’t make it look as though you’re an assistant of mine.”

“Okay, Chief,” said Gorilla George, “what’s the dope?”

“The dope,” said the criminologist, “is that I am going out to Carson Millright’s home at about three o’clock this afternoon. I will leave there at approximately the hour of three thirty, and there will be two other men in the car with me. One of them will be Phil Bander, the manager of the Interstate Detective Agency here, and the other will probably be Sam Townley, who is the agent for the insurance company that underwrote the safety of the Clinkoff Diamond when Millright bought it.

“We’ll get in the car and start to travel toward an isolated district which will suit our purpose. I would suggest that I pick a rather deserted road in the suburbs. How would that suit you?”

“That suits me jake, Chief.”

“Have you got any suggestions, George? Any place that you’re pretty familiar with?”

“Yeah, sure,” said George. “Some of the boys have got a still out towards Centerville. Suppose you pick a place out there?”

“All right,” said Clark. “Do you know where there’s a deserted house that sits back on a side road with a well in the front yard and a couple of old pear trees? The place is a little bit dilapidated, and...”

“Hell, yes,” said Gorilla George. “The boys have got the still within half a mile of that place.”

“All right,” said Clark. “I’ll go to that place. It will be just about commencing to get dark then. I’ll run in there and pick up the diamond. Then I’ll come out to the car, unwrapping the diamond and looking at it. I want you to be waiting so that you can pull the stick-up before I’ve had a chance to do more than get the car headed back toward town. Just give me a few yards, and then come alongside and pull the stick-up. You can let the air out of the tires, or out of the two front tires, so that we can’t follow. Make an artistic job of it, see?”

Gorilla George nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” said Clark. “That’s all.”

“What do I do with this stone after I get it?” inquired Gorilla George.

“Save it for a souvenir,” said Clark, and closed one eye in a significant wink.

The criminologist shook hands with Gorilla George and the girl, left the cheap rooming house, and went at once into the manufacturing jewelry district. He hunted up a jeweler who was under even greater obligations to him than was Gorilla George.

“Listen,” he told the jeweler, “you’re familiar with the Clinkoff Diamond?”

“I know what it looks like, yes.”

“All right. I want something that will look like the Clinkoff Diamond when it’s in a box packed with cotton around it.”

“That’s quite a large order, Clark.”

“No, it isn’t, because the diamond is never going to be taken out of the box. All I want is something that looks like the diamond. You can take a piece of glass and silver the back of it, or fake it any way you want to. I want something that will stand the first blush of inspection in half light when I take the cover off the box and leave it off for just a second or two.”

“That,” said the jeweler, commencing to grin, “is going to be easy. Are you going to pull a fast one on somebody, Clark?”

“I am going,” said the criminologist, with a frosty smile, “to demonstrate to a skeptical detective the value of concentrating on one clew and following that one clew to a logical ending.”

The man who came dashing from the residence of Carson Millright gave every evidence of excitement. Key-Clew Clark managed to act the part of one who is flushed with triumph, keenly excited. Phil Bander and Sam Townley were flushed of cheek and eye, and they moved with swift, jerky steps.

“My car’s here,” said Bander, “and we’ll go in it.”

“All right,” said Clark. “I think I know exactly where the place is. At any rate, I’ve got complete directions here.”

“It’s funny that your assistant should have telephoned you to come out there to get the gem,” said the detective.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Clark reassured him. “You see, I worked on the theory that it takes a crook to catch a crook. You know that a good many of my friends are sprinkled about through the underworld in various and sundry professions. The person who is acting as my assistant in this matter wouldn’t want to have anyone suspect the connection. Furthermore, you can understand that the possession of the gem, in and by itself, is almost conclusive evidence of first degree murder until the crime is cleaned up.”

“And you haven’t any idea who did it?” asked Bander.

“No,” said Clark shortly, “and I won’t have until after I talk with my assistant.”

“Your assistant is going to meet us there?” Bander inquired.

“No, the gem will be there. My assistant is going to meet me at my apartment later on tonight. Then I’ll know the identity of the murderer, and with the stone that we have you can go ahead and turn the information over to the police, Bander.”

“Hot dog!” exulted the detective. “Won’t it be a feather in my cap if I can walk into the office of the insurance company and plunk that diamond down on the table and say, ‘Okay, boys, here’s your stone. How’s that for fast work?’ ”

He ensconced himself behind the wheel of his automobile.

“You’re sure it’s the stone?” asked Townley as he slid into the front seat next to the driver.

“Absolutely,” said the criminologist, entering the tonneau of the car and slamming the door shut. “Go ahead and step on it, Bander. It’s a place out by Centerville, and that’s going to take us a little while, even if we smash all the speed records.”

“Don’t worry,” grinned the detective, tooling the car through the gears, “we’re going to bust every speed record that’s ever been known. Just hold your hats, that’s all.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Townley, “just how the gem was recovered.”

“You’ve got nothing on me,” the criminologist told him. “I don’t myself. I only know that I gave a list of the possible suspects to certain people who make a business of locating valuable properties that have been concealed by their owners. In short, gentlemen, I enlisted the aid of a gang of crooks, figuring that the end would undoubtedly be worth the means.”

“Well,” said Townley doubtingly, “I don’t want to throw any cold water on your enthusiasm, but I’ll feel a lot more certain when I have seen the stone.”

“Of course,” said the criminologist, “we all will. But I have the utmost confidence in these people.”

Bander pushed the throttle well down to the floorboards.

“Shucks,” he said, “there couldn’t be any opportunity to mistake that diamond. If the crook says that he’s got it located, he’s got it located, and that’s all there is to it. I’m not so certain about getting the dope on the murderer, particularly if we have to rely on the evidence of crooks, but getting the stone is all I want. The rest of it is up to the police. That’s their funeral.”

The car swung around the corner, and Clark and Townley both braced themselves.

From that point on, there was little opportunity to engage in conversation. The promise that Bander had made that he would violate all speed regulations was faithfully kept, and his two passengers were forced to exercise all of their strength and agility in hanging on and keeping balanced.

It was dusk when they arrived at the spot which the criminologist designated, out in the vicinity of Centerville. The old house loomed dark and forbidding, with blight-destroyed pear trees in the front yard and a porch that sagged at an angle.

“You chaps wait here,” said the criminologist, and, jumping from the car, ran up the weed-choked driveway to the house. He put his shoulder against the front door, pushed it in, and went into the dark interior. He waited for a minute or two, in order to make that which was to follow seem real. Then he came running out with his hands fumbling at a box that had been wrapped in heavy paper and tied with coarse twine.

“Did you get it?” shouted Bander.

“I got it. It was left right where they said it would be,” said the criminologist.

“My heavens!” said the detective. “Think of leaving anything as valuable as that out in a place like this, all unguarded.”

“Don’t worry,” said the criminologist. “It wasn’t unguarded. Nobody else would have stood any chance of getting up here. You don’t know the way these men work, that’s all.”

His fingers tore off the paper and pulled back the cover of the box.

On the interior was a pillow of white cotton, and in the center of this cotton was a large object which caught the faint light of the dying day and sent it in coruscating brilliance into the dazzled eyes of the spectators.

Solemnly Clark put the cover back on the box and started tying it with string.

“Well,” said Townley, “let’s have a look at it.”

“Not here,” said the criminologist, tying the string and pushing the box down deep into his overcoat pocket. “We can’t tell just who’s around here. The fact that my people gathered out here this afternoon may have led others to follow. We’ll stop down the road a few miles and give it a more detailed inspection, but it’s the stone all right.” He climbed in the car. “Let’s get started, Bander,” he said.

The detective swung the car around in the road and started shifting the gears. A machine shot out from an abandoned side road, swung into the road directly in front of the detective’s car, blocking the entire roadway.

The detective slammed on the brakes, cursed, and reached for his gun. Townley slipped a hand toward the lapel of his coat.

Clark lurched forward from the rear seat and grabbed the shoulders of both men.

“Take it easy, boys,” he said, “take it easy. The gem isn’t worth getting killed over.”

As he spoke, the huge, forbidding form of Gorilla George, a heavy automatic in either hand, swung around from the rear of the other machine.

“Stick ’em up,” he yelled.

“My God!” gritted Bander, “I can’t lose that gem!”

“Don’t be a fool,” said the criminologist. “We’re on the spot, and there’s nothing we can do about it. This is a gang job, and they’ve probably got machine guns trained on us from the brush on the side of the road.”

Gorilla George walked over to the car. “Never mind making any motions,” he said, “and there ain’t going to be no preliminaries. Just toss out that diamond, and toss it out quick.”

There was a flurry of motion from the rear seat, and the box sailed through the air toward Gorilla George.

“There it is,” said Clark, and the bandit dropped one of the guns in his pocket, stooped, picked up the case, pried off the cover, looked inside. He pushed the box into his pocket.

“All right,” he said, “you there in the back seat! Get out of the car and let the air out of the front tires, but before you do it I want to get all of the guns that are in the car.”

No one moved.

“I mean what I say,” said Gorilla George. “Here, you in the back seat, you take the guns away from them two guys. Go on, now, I’m watching you, and you make a false move and I’ll blow the top of your head off.”

The other gun had reappeared in the gangster’s right hand, and his scarred, evil face seemed suddenly sinister.

“Come on, boys,” Clark said. “Pass ’em up here. There’s no use in making fools out of yourselves.”

He relieved the two men of their guns, tossed them through the open sedan window.

“Now yours,” said Gorilla George.

“I haven’t got any,” said the criminologist.

“Okay,” said Gorilla George, “you’ve acted like a sensible man, and I’ll take your word for it.”

He walked forward and picked up the two guns from the roadway.

“Now get out,” he told the criminologist, “and let the air out of the front tires.”

Clark got out, unscrewed the valve stems, and let the air out of the tires.

“Okay,” said Gorilla George. “Don’t try to follow me, and don’t be in too big a hurry to get to a telephone, because if you do it isn’t going to be healthy for you. There’s other people in the brush here that are watching you. You can start going when you get your tires pumped up, but not before.”

He walked forward, got into his car, swung it back into the road, and left.

“Quick!” shouted the criminologist. “Where’s the tire pump?”

The detective started to curse.

“Of all the damned cowards I ever saw,” he said, “you take the cake.”

“Be foolish with your own life if you want to,” said the criminologist casually, “but I’m not taking chances with mine. I recovered that gem once, and I can recover it again. If you want to risk your life for an insurance company, that’s your prerogative. I make my living with my brains, and I don’t propose to have them spattered all over a roadway. Give me a hand with these tires. Maybe we can get started in time to do some good.”

The men piled out of the front seat, got out the tools, and started pumping feverishly, taking turns.

“We don’t need to get much air in there — just enough so we can steer the car,” said Clark.

“All right,” gasped Bander, “give me one spell more at the pump and we’ll be all right.”

He pumped for a few seconds, inspected the tires, and shouted, “Come on! We can get started now. That will keep the wheels together, anyway.”

The men ran back to the car, flung the pump helter-skelter in the back, piled in and started traveling.

“There’s a service station out where this road runs into the highway,” said Clark. “We can telephone froth there.”

They jolted into the service station, and while the detective was telephoning a report of the robbery, Clark had the attendant pump up the front tires. Bander came out on the run.

“Let’s go!” yelled the criminologist. They started out at high speed toward the city. Clark had taken his position behind the wheel while Bander was in telephoning, and his driving was wild.

They had gone four of five miles when suddenly the motor started to cough, spit, and backfire. Finally the motor quit altogether.

“Now what?” said Clark in an exasperated voice.

“There’s a car coming behind us,” said Townley. “I can get it and run into the next place and have them send out a tow-car for you.”

“Okay,” said Clark. “I don’t know as we can do any good anyway. We’ve got the roads all blocked. You go ahead and go into the next town and send out a tow-car. It’s probably something wrong with the carburetor. Maybe it’s just a loose connection in the gasoline line or the vacuum tank.”

Townley hopped to the ground and started waving his hands frantically. A car which was coming behind them slowed down

“We’ve had a breakdown,” shouted Townley. “Can you give me a lift to the nearest garage?”

“Hop in,” said the man.

Townley climbed in the car.

As the tail light became indistinct in the distance, Bander stared at the criminologist.

“Now what?” he asked. “You certainly seemed to have done some clever work at the start of this case, and to have made a fool out of yourself on the last of it.”

Clark laughed, reached over and pushed in the choke adjustment on the car, stepped on the starting mechanism. The car purred into life.

“You see,” he said, “I simply slipped out the cable on the adjusting mechanism so that the carburetor would flood. It’s all ready to go now.”

“What was the idea?”

“You’ll see,” said Clark. “We’ll pick up that car ahead now.”

Within two miles they had picked up the car in which Townley had secured a ride.

“Here’s a little town and garage ahead,” said Bander. “Townley will stop there.”

But Townley did not stop there. The car that carried him went through the town with no diminution of speed.

Mile after mile they followed the speeding car, and Bander’s forehead was creased with a perplexed frown.

“Won’t he know that we’re behind him?” he asked.

“No,” said Clark. “He thinks our car is broken down back on the road.”

They followed the other car clear into the city, then saw it stop at a taxi cab stand, and Townley got out, shook hands with the driver of the car, entered a taxicab. They had no difficulty in following the taxicab to a little apartment house where Townley discharged the cab and ran in to the house.

“What do we do now?” asked the detective.

“We wait,” said Clark, grinning, “but not very long.”

They walked to the entrance of the apartment house, stood one on each side of the door, waiting. Within five minutes Townley came running out, and as he ran out, Clark’s gun was thrust into his stomach.

“All right,” said the criminologist, “get them up, Townley.”

The man flashed his hand toward his shoulder, encountered the empty holster, and slowly raised his hands.

“You will find, Bander,” said the criminologist, “that Townley has an apartment in this place under an assumed name, and that he used it as a place to hide the gem.

“By making him think that I had discovered the gem, and therefore was in a position to know the identity of the murderer, he naturally wanted to leave us stalled on the road while he rushed in to find out whether or not his stone was safe. Finding it safe, he thought I was mistaken, and he was then going back to send a tow-car for us.”

“But how did you ever suspect him?” said the detective.

“Easy enough,” chuckled the criminologist. “There was one key clew which pointed to Townley, and to Townley alone. You see, Townley pretended to let himself out of the door. All he did was to slam the door and tiptoe back down the passageway to the chauffeur’s room. He stayed there until he thought the house was quiet, put on a suit of the chauffeur’s clothes, purloined his gun and then went out and committed the crime.”

“Sure, I can see it all now,” said the detective. “He thought that he could blame it on the chauffeur. But what I want to know is, what was the one key clew that pointed to Townley?”

The criminologist chuckled.

“Of all the list of suspects,” he said, “there was only one who wouldn’t have known that it was the chauffeur’s night out. Townley was the only one who wouldn’t have known that the chauffeur would, in all probability, have a perfect alibi. Therefore, when he picked the chauffeur to blame the crime on, he showed that he was unfamiliar with the routine of the house.

“Therefore, in order to find the real criminal, I had only to scan the list of suspects to find the one man who was on that list and was unfamiliar with the chauffeur’s regular night off. That was the key clew. It only remained for me to follow that one key clew to a logical ending.”