The Danger Zone and Other Stories

Chapter I

Bob Crowder tip-toed along the iron platform of the fire escape and tried the window with exploring fingertips.

The window was locked.

Crowder sighed wearily, reached his hand under the lapel of his coat to a leather case which hung suspended from his shoulder, just under the armpit. He took out a curved steel bar, gently placed it under the edge of the window, and pried down.

After a moment, the sash creaked under the strain, then snapped upward, making some noise. Bob Crowder slipped the curved bar back into the leather case, took a flashlight from his pocket, and eased his way over the sill and into the room. He heard a quick gasping intake of breath.

“What’s the matter?” he asked casually. “Did I wake you up?”

“Who are you and what do you want?” It was a woman’s voice.

“I was inquiring,” Crowder told her, “about having disturbed your slumbers.”

He switched on the flashlight. The beam disclosed a young woman in silk pajamas, sitting bolt upright in bed, her eyes blinking against the glare of the spotlight.

“Turn that thing away,” she said, “and tell me who you are and what you want.”

“Right at the moment,” said Bob Crowder, “I am looking for a string of matched pearls, reported to be worth some forty-five thousand dollars, although I think the amount has doubtless been exaggerated.”

He adjusted a mask about his forehead and calmly pulled down the shades.

“Would you mind switching on that light by the side of your bed?” he asked.

The young woman was in the early twenties. She was blonde, with that peculiar straw color of the hair which shows that artificial means have been used to lighten the hair. She was slender but well-formed, and there was a certain willowy grace about her motions as she flung back the covers and jumped to the floor. She groped with her feet for slippers, then reached out and switched on the light.

She stared at the masked figure.

“Who are you?” she asked again.

“Just a crook,” he told her.

“I’ve got nothing,” she said. “I’m a manicurist, and I work for my living.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “you don’t answer your doorbell.”

The eyes stared at him and grew wide, drinking in every detail of his appearance.

“Do you mean to say that you’re the one who was pushing the buzzer half an hour or so ago?”

“It wasn’t that long,” he told her. “Not over ten minutes. It took me a little time to get into the apartment house, and then I found that you had the bolt on the inside of the door, so it became necessary for me to come in via the fire escape.”

“There’s something phoney about you,” she declared. “What are you trying to do?”

“To find that necklace,” he said.

“You’re crazy,” she told him, but her eyes flinched under the steady gaze which beat upon her from behind the black mask.

“You don’t seem to be very convincing, somehow or other,” Crowder told her, sitting down on the edge of the bed, as though he felt perfectly at home.

She stood staring at him for a moment, then looked down at her thin silk pajamas. “If you’d be so good as to take a chair,” she said, “I’d get back into bed.”

He shook his head and said, “You’d better get some clothes on.”

“Are you crazy?” she asked. “Or drunk?”

“Neither,” he said — “Not right at the moment anyway, although I have been troubled with acute symptoms of the latter ailment, if you might call it that. But it happens that right at the present time I’m both sober and sane, and I’m very much in earnest when I tell you that I’m looking for that necklace.”

“And I’m equally in earnest,” she said, “when I tell you that I’m a manicurist and know nothing whatever about it.”

“You’re not very convincing,” he said. “Why didn’t you scream when I came into the room? Why don’t you try to make a noise and raise the apartment house? Why don’t you make the usual threats to notify the police?”

She fidgeted uneasily.

“Why did you come here?” she asked.

“To be perfectly frank,” he told her, “I’m beating the police to it.”

Her face showed as suddenly drained of color.

“Just what do you mean?” she asked in a voice that sounded thin and frightened.

“You,” he said, “are Miss Trixie Monette, a manicurist. You have been running around with Jim Halmer, who is known sometimes as ‘Gentleman Jim,’ the slickest gem thief in the country.

“Some thirty days ago, Frank Belman’s residence was robbed of some rather valuable jewelry. The most valuable, by far, of all of the loot was the matched pearl necklace which is reputed to be worth from forty-five to fifty thousand dollars. In fact, there’s a reward offered of ten thousand dollars for it, and the police naturally are breaking their necks to uncover it.

“At the time, Gentleman Jim was suspected, but they couldn’t prove anything. However, they kept him under surveillance and, by accident, managed to trace a diamond ring to him. The diamond ring was part of the loot which was taken at the same time the necklace was stolen. The police arrested Gentleman Jim and gave him pretty much of a third degree. He finally admitted the crime, but said he had given the necklace to a lady friend for safe keeping. He wouldn’t divulge her name, but told the police he would make arrangements to have the necklace returned. He wasn’t going to get the woman mixed into it.

“Then one of his accomplices hired an attorney, and about the time the police thought they had Gentleman Jim sewed up, the attorney came busting in with a habeas corpus, and Gentleman Jim was admitted to bail.

“His liberty was rather short-lived because the police got him on another charge and threw him in. But, in the meantime, Jim had had ample opportunity to consult with his attorney. The betting is better than even that the police never recover the necklace. The attorney is already negotiating directly with Belman to see that the necklace is returned in the event Belman refuses to prosecute.”

“That doesn’t tell me why you’re here,” she said.

“Oh yes it does,” he told her. “You were running around a little bit with Jim Halmer. I started in ahead of the police checking up on Halmer’s lady friends, and I’m telling you it was quite a job. However, I finally got you spotted.”

“Listen,” she told him, suddenly eager, anxious and apprehensive, “nobody knows that I knew Jim.”

“Oh yes they do,” he told her. “I know it, and the person who tipped me off knows it.”

“Who was that person?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“And who are you?”

“Well,” he said, “you might call me a crook. You know I’m anxious to recover that necklace, and they say it takes a crook to catch a crook.”

“I don’t think you’re a crook,” she told him.

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed lightly.

“Isn’t it an irony of fate,” he said, “that you’re trying to convince me you’re honest, and aren’t able to do so, and I’m trying to convince you that I’m a crook, and you won’t believe me.”

“And you say the police are coming here?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “they’ll get hold of the information that I uncovered some time during the next few hours. When they do, they’ll come busting in here.”

“What will they do?” she asked.

“Turn the place upside down,” he told her. “Drag you down to the station house, give you a third degree, turn the newspaper reporters loose on you, have your pictures decorating the front pages of the newspapers, get you fingerprinted, and...”

“Listen,” she told him, “will you believe me if I come through on the square?”

“That,” he said, “depends on the impression you make, but you’ve everything to gain and nothing to lose, so why not try it?”

“Look here,” she said. “I don’t know who you are, or anything about you, but you seem like a gentleman, and I’m in a jam. I did go around with Jim Halmer. I didn’t know he was a crook at the time. It wasn’t until after he had taken me out several times that I found out about it, and then I wouldn’t go out with him anymore. I’m a manicurist, and I peroxide my hair, but I’m on the level.”

“One of these virtuous heroines?” he asked.

“No,” she told him bitterly. “But I’m a working girl, and I’m playing the game on the square.”

Crowder stared at her with steady, contemplative eyes.

“Well,” he said, “what about it?”

“Do you believe me?” she asked.

“I’m thinking it over.”

“Well,” she told him, “if what you say is true, I think I know where that necklace is. If there’s going to be a reward offered for it, I can use some of that money. Now, what I want to know is whether you’re really a crook.”

Crowder reached up to his forehead, lifted off the black mask, folded it and slipped it into an inside pocket.

“Lady,” he said with mock deference, “take a look at my honest pan. Notice my steady honest eyes; notice the straight nose and the firm mouth — features, I may say, which are accepted everywhere as indications of integrity. Notice that my face is clean-shaven; that I am free from dandruff and halitosis. Come closer and observe that I am free from B.O. There is no reason why my friends shouldn’t like me. Listerine, Life Buoy Soap, Ipana toothpaste and Absorbine Junior are my daily companions.

“I have neither athelete’s foot nor pink tooth brush. I...”

“You’re kidding me,” she said savagely.

“Of course I’m kidding you,” he told her.

“I don’t think you’re a crook,” she said. “Tell me, if I can show you how to get that necklace will you make a division of the reward?”

“What sort of a division?” he asked.

“Give me two thousand dollars if you get the reward.”

Crowder gravely extended a hand.

“Shake, pard,” he told her.

She slipped her hand into his, suddenly laughed into his face with a display of pearly teeth.

“You’re no crook,” she said. “Wait until I get some clothes on.”

“Never mind the compliments,” he told her, “but tell me what you know.”

She pulled her hand from his.

“I’ll talk to you,” she said, “while I’m dressing.”

Chapter II Pardners in Crime

She ran into a closet. A moment later the silk pajamas were flung out in a flurry of fluttering silk. There followed a barrage of jerky conversation, interrupted from time to time by the sound of snapping elastic or little quick intakes of breath as she struggled into garments.

“He’s got a girl,” she said... “I didn’t know anything about her... she certainly is one tough baby. She pulled a gun on me... I didn’t know anything at all about her, but one night when I was getting out of the barber shop where I work there was a coupe at the curb...”

“Yes, yes, go on,” said Crowder. “I’m interested.”

“Wait until I get my stockings straight,” she said. “Well, this coupe pulled up along the curb, and the door opened. A well-dressed brunette asked me if I wouldn’t ride with her. I didn’t know her from Eve — she looked like a good scout, and I didn’t want to seem to high-hat her. I got in and asked her what she wanted.

“She said she was just driving for recreation and fresh air; that she saw me come out of the barber shop and that I looked tired. She asked me a few questions about myself and said she was going to drive me to my apartment.”

“Did she?” asked Crowder.

“Like fun she did,” the girl told him. “She drove me down an alley and suddenly stuck a gun in my ribs and told me if I didn’t quit playing around her man, she was going to let a load of lead into my guts. She talked something frightful.”

“Coarse or threatening?” asked Crowder.

“Both,” she said.

“All right; then what?” asked Crowder.

“Then she put me out.”

The closet door opened and the girl came out, twisting the belt of her skirt, to get it straight.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Wait a minute,” Crowder told her. “Let’s get the rest of the sketch before we go anywhere.”

“Well,” she said, “she put me out and made me walk out of the alley. But while I’d been sitting in the car I got a look at the registration certificate in the front of the car? I’d done that as soon as she picked me up, just in case anything went wrong. Her name was Ethel Peters, and the address was 9204 Western.”

“Maybe the registration was a frame,” said Crowder.

“No, I looked her up. That is, I made it a point to go to that address. There’s an apartment house there, and her name is on the mail box.”

“I see,” said Crowder, interested. “And you think she was a pal of Gentleman Jim, is that right?”

“She most certainly didn’t stick a gun in my ribs just because she didn’t like my blonde hair,” the girl told him.

“And she talked like a moll?”

There was a flare of expression in the young woman’s eyes.

“She talked like a — Gee!” she said, “I’d better watch myself or I’ll be talking that way too, but you know what I mean.”

Crowder grinned.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The pair stood in front of the apartment house out on Western, and stared at the mail box.

“She won’t let us in at this hour,” said Trixie Monette.

“I’m not so certain,” Crowder told her. “Remember that this girl doesn’t live the kind of a life that you do. She’s probably accustomed to all sorts and conditions of callers, at all sorts of hours.”

He pressed his finger on the button opposite the card which bore the name Ethel Peters, Apartment 48B. Almost immediately the buzzer worked the electric release on the outer door of the apartment.

Bob Crowder grinned and pushed his way into the hallway.

“Look here,” he said, “we’d better get a definite plan of campaign.”

“If she’s got the necklace we can make her give it up,” said Trixie Monette determinedly.

“It may not be so easy,” Crowder told her. “And, by the way, you don’t mind if I call you Trixie, do you, providing you call me Bob?”

“No, Bob,” she said.

“All right,” he said. “Now we’re going up there, and we’ve got to work out some plan of campaign — before we get there or afterwards.”

“I’m game for anything,” she told him.

He stared at her steadily.

“Just what would you do for two thousand dollars?” he asked.

“Try me,” she said.

His eyes suddenly lost their glint of mocking humor and his face became hard as stone.

“Look here,” he said, “it happens that I want that necklace. I’d hate to tell you what I’d do in order to get it. Now, the question is, are you game to back my play?”

She shrugged her shoulders and started for the stairs with a free, swinging stride.

“If you knew the way I felt toward that woman,” she said, “you wouldn’t waste so damn much time asking questions.”

Crowder grinned and followed her up the stairs.

A door on the second floor opened a crack. A young woman with jet-black hair, smoky black eyes, her figure daringly and carelessly displayed beneath a pink negligee, stood in the doorway watching the pair come down the corridor.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Message from Jim,” said Crowder in a low tone of voice, keeping his head slightly forward so that the brim of his hat shaded his face.

Ethel Peters hesitated a moment, then stood slightly to one side.

“Come on in,” she said.

Crowder stood to one side and pushed Trixie Monette into the room, entered himself. The brunette closed the door of the apartment behind her, snapped a bolt into position.

“Well,” she said, “spill it.”

“Gentleman Jim got picked up on that Belman job,’ said Crowder, and is...”

He was interrupted by a hissing gasp from Ethel Peters.

“What are you doing here?” she blazed.

She pushed her way past Crowder, and walked toward Trixie Monette, her eyes flashing black lightning.

“Now wait a minute,” said Crowder. “Keep your shirt on, and...”

She sprang forward like some tigress and Crowder’s arm, dropping down around her chin, caught her by the neck and pulled her back.

“Not so fast, sister,” he said.

“Let me at her!” screamed Ethel Peters — “I know who she is; she’s the baby-faced little...”

There followed a string of invectives, words of the gutter which slipped easily and volubly from the red lips of the brunette. Crowder clapped a palm over the lips.

“Hush,” he said, “or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water.”

She whirled on him, biting at his hand, thrashing and kicking.

He caught her wrists, held them with one hand, and caught her by the throat with the other.

“Now shut up,” he said, “or I’ll throttle you.”

She lapsed into sullen silence.

“All right,” Crowder told her. “We’re not mincing words, since you’re not. We want that Belman necklace, and we want it quick.”

“You cheap heel!” she sneered. “Try and find it. What do you think I am anyway?”

Trixie Monette spoke with dulcet sweetness.

“Oh, we know what you are, dearie,” she said.

The brunette whirled on her once more with sudden insensate savagery. She tore herself free from Crowder’s grasp, leaving a part of her negligee in his clutching hand. She dashed toward Trixie Monette, suddenly detoured, and made for the table drawer, which was partially open.

“Look out,” shouted Crowder, making a dive for her.

The hand came up from the drawer. The light glittered upon blued steel, and then Trixie Monette hurled a paperweight. The paperweight caught the brunette on the temple. She swayed slightly, then slumped to the floor, the gun dropping from her nerveless fingers.

“This,” remarked Crowder, surveying the unconscious form at his feet, “is a mess.”

“Of course she’s a mess,” snapped the manicurist. “The dirty little hussy.”

Crowder shook his head patiently.

“I didn’t mean her,” he said, “I meant the situation.”

Trixie Monette was breathing heavily, as though she had been running. Suddenly she laughed.

“Well,” she said, “you wanted to know how far I’d go; now you’ve found out.”

Crowder used his handkerchief to pick up the gun, careful not to leave any fingerprints. He slipped the magazine from the weapon, then slammed the shell which was in the barrel out into his palm, removed the shells from the magazine and replaced it.

“Well,” he said, “let’s look around, and do it fast.”

They started searching the apartment. “It probably won’t be in a likely place,” he said. “We’ve got to look in some of the less likely places.”

“We’ve got to look everywhere,” she told him, “until we find it; that’s all.”

For more than half an hour they moved purposefully about the apartment, searching rapidly, yet thoroughly. They dumped flour into the sink, poured out sugar and salt, emptied every receptacle they could find, raised up the carpets, kneeded the pillows, pulled the bedding from the bed and inspected the mattress. They looked behind pictures, and, in the end, were baffled.

They stared at each other.

“It isn’t here,” said Trixie Monette.

“Somehow,” said Bob Crowder slowly, “I have an idea it is.”

He walked over to the woman, picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, where he laid her on the mattress. He felt her pulse and nodded.

“It’s still going strong,” he said, “just about the way it was. She’s out, but I don’t think it’s dangerous.”

“Well,” said Trixie Monette, “she was trying to kill us. I don’t know what we were supposed to do.”

“We were, of course,” Crowder reminded her, “entirely outside of our rights in invading the apartment. Furthermore, young lady, let me call your attention to the fact that the police may find out about Ethel Peters and be out here at any moment.”

She nodded, her face showing her bitter disappointment.

“Lord,” she said, “if you knew how I needed that money, and to think that it’s almost in our grasp.”

“Maybe,” said Crowder, “she’s got the gems on her somewhere in this negligee.”

Trixie Monette moved forward eagerly.

“I’ll step out and you can make a search. Better make a pretty complete search...”

“She wouldn’t mind,” said Trixie Monette. “She isn’t that kind. You don’t need to go out.”

“No,” said Crowder, “you make the search.”

He walked out of the bedroom, stood in the doorway of the living-room, his forehead wrinkled in a perplexed frown. A few minutes later Trixie Monette came to him. There were tears in her eyes.

“We’re licked,” she said.

Bob Crowder stared about him grimly.

“Not by a long shot we’re not licked,” he said.

He strode into the bedroom, ripped up a pillowcase into strips about two inches wide.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to fix this young woman so that she’ll stay put,” he told her. “And then I’m going to find out where that necklace is.”

“Where you going to put her?”

“We’ll tie and gag her and put her down in my car,” Crowder said. “We can run her down the elevator without anyone seeing us at this time of night. There’s no one in the lobby.”

“What the idea?” she asked.

“Simply going to put her out of circulation for a while,” he told her.

“Listen,” she said, “I’ve got an idea that beats that. There’s bound to be a vacant apartment on this floor. Suppose we find which one it is, pick the lock, and put her in there?”

“How we going to find out?” he asked.

“I’ll go down and take a look at the mail boxes,” she said.

Crowder nodded, picked up a bunch of keys which he had taken from the moll’s purse, and tossed them to Trixie Monette.

“Better take her keys,” he said, “or you might lock yourself out.”

While she went down to consult the mail boxes, Crowder moved around the apartment, prowling about, looking for some possible nook or corner which had been overlooked.

Trixie Monette slipped back into the apartment.

“There were two on this floor,” she said. “One of them’s almost directly across the hall. Can you pick the lock?”

Crowder grinned.

“I’ll say I can pick the lock,” he said, “but I wish you hadn’t flung such a mean paperweight. I’d like to talk with this baby.”

“She wouldn’t have told you anything; she’s hard-boiled.”

“You never can tell.”

“Well, you can tell about her.”

Crowder stepped across the hall, found the vacant apartment, managed to open the door with the second key he tried. He scooped the unconscious form of the girl into his arms, carried her into the apartment.

“Now what are you going to do?” asked the blonde.

“Now,” he said, “I’m going to show you some of the fancy technique that gets me places. One of these days it’ll probably get me in jail.”

“What’s the idea?” she asked.

“The underlying idea is,” he said, “that crooks read the newspapers.”

“I don’t get you,” she remarked.

He chuckled.

“You won’t,” he told her.

Chapter III The Hanging Corpse

The window of the department store had a display of gowns draped upon the wax dummies; dummies of slender waisted women who stared from basilisk eyes at the passerby on the sidewalk.

Bob Crowder paused in front of the window display, to select just the type that he wanted — a brunette clad in a filmy lingerie.

The department store was one of the smaller department stores; one that had a fair stock of merchandise, yet was not large enough to employ a private watchman. Crowder’s job of burglary was remarkably skilful and adroit.

When he had finished, he had left no fingerprints or other clue, and the waxed dummy reposed safely in his automobile. Getting it into the apartment of Ethel Peters was a more difficult matter, but he took a chance on meeting some late incoming tenant on the stairs, and arrived at the door of the apartment.

Trixie Monette stared at the dummy with startled eyes.

“Good heavens!” she said. “You must have gone crazy.”

“Find anything?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “I’ve been over every inch of this apartment. I’ve gone over everything that we looked in before, just to make certain.”

“How’s the invalid?”

“She’s conscious,” she said, “and trying to talk.”

“What does she want to say?” asked Crowder.

“You’d better go listen,” said the girl.

“No,” Crowder told her, “I’ve got work to do, and it’s work of a kind that I don’t want you mixed in on. You go in and stay with her. If she starts making too much noise through that gag, throw a pillow over her face, but don’t get too hard with her.”

Trixie Monette laughed grimly.

“Getting hard with that baby is one of the things I’m the fondest of,” she remarked.

“All right,” said Crowder. “You go in and take care of her. But use a little judgment. I’m going to start some action. I’ll call you when I need your help. I’ll need it in about ten minutes, for about two minutes.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Lower this dummy out of the window,” he told her.

“Lower it out of the window?” she asked incredulously

“Yes,” he told her. “I’ve got some rope here.”

“But,” she pointed out, “someone will be almost certain to see you. There’ll be some late motorist coming along the street, or someone who will see you from an adjoining apartment house; somebody who isn’t sleeping, or who has come home late or is getting up early in the morning.”

“Yes,” he told her, “and in order to make certain that there is some witness to what is going to happen, I’ll spread it on good and thick.”

“You mean you want a witness?”

“I want lots of them,” he said.

“What are you trying to do?” she asked.

“Make the front page of the newspapers,” he told her, and grinned. “You go on in there and stay with your patient. Be certain that she keeps quiet and doesn’t get away.”

Trixie Monette slipped across the hall into the vacant apartment where they had placed their prisoner, and Bob Crowder, chuckling to himself, started setting the stage for that which was to follow.

He looped ropes about the shoulders, hips and knees of the wax dummy, then took a string of imitation pearls from his pocket and fastened them about the wax arm of the figure, tying them in such a way that anyone looking at the figure would see first that long string of dangling imitation pearls. When he had things ready to suit his taste, he stepped across the hall and spoke to Trixie.

“Can you leave your patient for a while?” he asked.

“I’ll say. I’ve made a good dog out of her. She thinks I’m going to put acid on her face if she makes any noise.”

“My gosh!” Crowder said. “What a little spitfire you are!”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she told him. “What do you want me to do?”

“When I give you a signal,” said Crowder, “I want you to lower this dummy out of the window. Just lower away on the rope until I yell ‘All right.’ Then drop the rope and duck back to the apartment across the hall. Stick in there, no matter what happens, and don’t show your face.”

“Okay,” she said, “but make it snappy. Ethel might get restless, and you know what a sweet disposition she’s got.”

“All right,” Crowder told her. “I’ll make it snappy. But be sure and keep your face concealed. Keep your head down so that no one can see your face, do you understand?”

“Sure,” she told him. “Let’s go.”

Crowder ran down the stairs to the street. He parked his automobile, with the motor running, directly under the apartment window.

“Okay,” he shouted.

Trixie Monette started lowering the wax dummy out of the window.

“Hold it right there for a minute,” Crowder called.

He whipped his gun from its hoister and fired two shots.

“All right,” he said, “lower away.”

The shots from the automatic arose echoes up and down the quiet street, in the apartment house across the way lights came on, and here and there a figure was silhouetted against the oblongs of illumination. Somewhere a woman screamed.

“Make it snappy,” shouted Crowder. “She’s got the pearls!”

Trixie Monette continued to let the rope slide over the sill. The wax dummy swayed back and forth.

“Drop those pearls!” yelled Crowder, “or I’ll shoot.”

Across the way a window slammed open and a woman’s shrill voice shouted, “Police! Police! Police!! There’s a murder being committed.”

“Drop those pearls or I’ll shoot!” shouted Crowder.

The figure continued its slow downward descent, swaying slightly back and forth, the cheap imitation string of pearls dangling from the waxen wrist.

Crowder flung up his automatic, took deliberate aim and pulled the trigger.

The bullets “plumped” into the wax figure, which jerked spasmodically as each bullet struck it. The street echoed to half a dozen screams. The figure was then some ten or fifteen feet above the sidewalk.

“Drop her!” yelled Crowder. “She’s dead.”

Trixie Monette flung the rest of the rope over the windowsill. The figure dropped abruptly. The rope twisted and turned like some writhing snake.

Crowder caught the wax dummy in his arms. The rope came spiraling down from above and settled about his head and shoulders. He fought free of the rope, slammed the dummy into the car, jumped to the driver’s seat and flung in the clutch.

A police whistle blew somewhere in the side street. The woman who had been screaming for the police raised her voice to an even more shrill pitch and shouted invectives at him.

Crowder threw the car into a skid at the corner, so that the tires would leave black marks and send forth screaming protest.

Behind him, the street was in an uproar.

It was past daylight when Crowder tapped gently with his knuckles on the door of the apartment where Trixie Monette held Ethel Peters a prisoner.

There was no answer.

Twice more he rapped before the door opened a scant half-inch, and the eyes of the manicurist appraised him carefully before opening the door and allowing him to slip into the apartment.

“Well,” he asked, “everything all right?”

She indicated the bound form which lay on the bed.

“Everything’s all right except Ethel,” she said. “I’m certainly having my troubles with that girl.”

“Have to pillow her?” he asked.

“I’ll tell the world,” she said. “My, but that girl’s got a disposition.”

“What happened in the next apartment? Did the police come?”

“I’ll say they came. They went through the apartment and took a lot of photographs. The newspaper men came and shot flashlights. There were people tramping up and down the corridor until it sounded like a small army on the march. After a while they went away.”

“How long ago?”

“Just about half an hour.”

Crowder took a small gimlet from his pocket and bored a hole in the panel of the apartment door. Then he left the door open, stepped across the corridor and bored a similar hole in the door of Ethel Peter’s apartment.

“What’s the big idea?” asked Trivia Monette.

“I’m acting on the theory,” Crowder told her, “that Ethel had the necklace hid in that apartment; that she had it hid so cleverly we couldn’t find it, and the police couldn’t find it. But I think there’s someone who knows where the necklace was hidden. That man is the partner and accomplice of Gentleman Jim Halmer.”

“You mean Ed Conway?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I knew,” she said, “that Ed Conway was pretty close to Jim Halmer. I didn’t know exactly what it was all about.”

“Conway,” said Bob Crowder, “is the man who helps him pull most of his jobs. He was mixed in on this Belman necklace business somewhere.”

“Well,” she said, “what does all that mean when it’s translated into English?”

“Just this,” he told her. “News travels fast through the underworld. Apparently, someone came to the apartment of Ethel Peters, with a scheme to kidnap her. She was being lowered out of the window. The pearls were dangling from her wrist. The man below ordered her to drop the pearls. When she didn’t, he shot her and took her body away in an automobile.”

“But,” she said, “that doesn’t make sense. In the first place, if she had the pearls on her, wouldn’t they have taken them from her before lowering her from the window? In the second place, if she was being lowered from the window, and the man was standing below her with a gun, why didn’t he wait until she had been lowered to the sidewalk, and then simply take the pearls?”

Crowder nodded.

“That’s the nice part of it,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense. That’s why it will get around the underworld and cause all sorts of various conjectures and speculations. No one can figure it out.

“Ed Conway will hear about it and try to figure what the devil happened. There’ll be only one way for him to find out.”

“You mean,” she said, “to come to the apartment?”

He nodded.

“And then again,” he told her, “there’s another advantage in having it keep from making sense.”

“What?” she asked.

“When they get me on the carpet at police headquarters,” he told her.

“They’re going to do that?”

“Of course.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because they always do.”

“Do you pull this kind of stuff often?” she asked.

“Always,” he told her.

“You act on the theory that it takes a crook to catch a crook?”

“Partly,” he told her, “but partly on the theory that you have got to resort to unorthodox methods if you’re going to beat the police to the punch.”

“Well,” he said, “you know your business. I’m going to along and see what I can shake out of the christmas-tree.”

The bound figure on the bed suddenly burst into a volume of noise; inarticular sounds which came from behind the gag. She twisted and turned, fighting against the bonds which held her wrists and ankles.

Trixie Monette said wearily, “There she goes again staging another fit. I’ve got to go and put a pillow on her face and sit on the pillow.”

She picked up a pillow from a chair, moved over toward the bed. The bound woman saw her coming and suddenly became silent and motionless.

“Well,” Trixie said, “that’s that. She’s at least getting so she knows when to quit. After awhile I’ll get her educated so she knows enough not to start.”

Bob Crowder drew up a chair in front of the closed door of the apartment, lit a cigarette and applied his eye to the peephole he had gimleted in the door.

“Well,” he said, “let’s hope that Ed Conway has got a pretty good line out of police headquarters, so that he won’t have to wait until he reads about the abduction in the newspapers.”

Once more, the figure on the bed broke into incoherent noise, and Trixie Monette dove toward it with a pillow. There was a flurry of motion, the sound of struggle, the creaking of bed springs, then silence.

The blonde manicurist straightened with a sigh and grinned at Bob Crowder.

“Never had to do so much work for two thousand bucks in my life,” she said.

“And we haven’t even got the two thousand,” Crowder said with a grin.

“All well,” she told him, “it’s been a great experience anyway.”

Crowder finished his cigarette, lit another one. Trixie Monette propped a pillow against her back, closed her eyes and dropped into a half-doze.

Abruptly, Crowder’s figure stiffened to attention as he saw a shadowy shape moving in the corridor. There was the sound of a key clicking in the bolt.

Crowder got to his feet, tiptoed across to Trixie Monette, shook her shoulders gently and motioned toward the hallway. The manicurist raised her eyebrows in silent inquiry and Crowder nodded, placed his finger to his lips, and then pointed to the bound figure on the bed.

Trixie Monette nodded, picked up the pillow, and moved silently toward the bound figure of the girl who was now lying with her eyes closed, apparently sleeping. Crowder opened the door of the apartment and slipped into the hallway.

The door of apartment 48B was almost directly opposite him. It was closed. Crowder made sure that the hallway was empty, then dropped to his knees and peered through the peep-hole in the corner of the panel.

He could see into the apartment, could see a figure dragging a chair across the room to one of the windows. The figure was that of a man with powerful shoulders, thick neck, and a bullet head.

As Crowder watched, the man planted the chair in front of the window from which Ethel Peters had been lowered. He climbed to the chair, and Crowder saw that he was reaching for the roller shade at the top of the window. A moment later, and he had disengaged the shade from its fastenings and pulled it down.

As Crowder watched, the man swiftly unscrewed the fastenings on the end of the roller, and tilted the roller slightly, shaking it as he did so.

Crowder saw that the coil spring had been removed from the inside of the curtain roller, and that the place which it had occupied had been used as a receptacle for a long, round object which had been done up in soft cloth.

The man pulled this object from the interior of the roller shade. He slipped it in under his coat, then replaced the cap on the end of the roller shade, and dropped the shade back into position at the top of the window.

Crowder straightened and stood slightly to one side of the door. Three seconds later the bolt clicked softly back, and the shadowy figure stepped back into the hallway.

“Stick ’em up,” said Crowder.

The man gave an inarticulate bellow of rage, and swung his fist. Crowder dodged the blow, hesitated for a moment, then dropped the gun and slammed his right fist squarely into the man’s body, knocking him back into the apartment, and kicked the door shut. The heavy set man was fumbling with his right hand near his right hip pocket. Crowder managed to land a left, before the man could get the gun from his pocket.

The heavy-set man abandoned his effort to get the gun, lashed out with a vicious kick, then came in with his head down, his arms flailing about.

Crowder took a glancing blow on the head, dodged another, side-stepped, set himself, and whipped up a right upper cut. The uppercut struck squarely on the chin. The man’s head rocked back with a sudden jerk, as though a rope had been connected with the top of his head and suddenly pulled.

Chapter IV Reward

Police Captain Stanwick glared across the desk at Bob Crowder, yet there was a hint of a twinkle in the glaring eyes.

“Crowder,” he said, “where the devil did you get that necklace?”

“I got it from Ed Conway,” said Crowder. “He was an accomplice of Gentleman Jim Halmer. I knew that they worked together...”

“Nix on that line of hooey,” said Stanwick. “What I want to know is how you got it.”

“Took it away from him,” said Crowder. “I stuck a gun in his ribs and told him to put his hands up, but he wouldn’t do it. He went for his gun. Of course, I could have pulled the trigger, but I knew that there would be embarrassing explanations. You see, a private detective can’t do the things that a regular detective can, and...”

“Yes, yes, I know all that,” said Captain Stanwick. “The report of the offices gives me all of that stuff. But what I’m particularly anxious to learn is how you happened to catch Conway in the apartment of Ethel Peters.”

“Well, you see,” said Crowder, “I knew that Ethel Peters had been going with Jim Halmer. She was his woman, although they’d kept the connection pretty secret. It wasn’t even whispered around the underworld. You see, Gentleman Jim was one of those cautious individuals who didn’t believe in letting his left hand know what his right hand was doing.”

“Yes, I know all that,” Captain Stanwick said. “But you still haven’t told me exactly how it was that you happened to be at the apartment at the psychological moment that Ed Conway entered. You haven’t told me how it was that you knew he had the necklace. You haven’t told me a single damned thing.”

Bob Crowder raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.

“Well,” he said, “I can’t tell you anything more than I’ve told you already.”

“You mean you won’t tell me anything more than you’ve told me already.”

“No,” Crowder said, “I’m perfectly willing to tell you anything within reason that you want to know.”

“You get the results — yes — but your methods are going to get you in trouble some day, young man. I’d hate to see your license revoked; particularly after the success you’ve had. But I just want to tell you you’re skating on thin ice.”

“But,” protested Crowder, “exactly what did I do?”

Captain Stanwick groaned.

“I’ll be damned if I know,” he said, “and I guess nobody else does. There was a lot of hooey about a young woman being lowered from the apartment where Conway was captured. Some fellow was standing below and apparently using her as a target for a gun. There was a string of pearls dangling from her wrist.”

“But why should a man have used the woman as a target?” Crowder asked innocently.

“That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for two or three hours,” Captain Stanwick said. “And, do you know, Crowder, I’m commencing to think that I know the answer.”

“Indeed?” said Crowder, with courteous interest.

Captain Stanwick sighed wearily.

“Oh hell,” he said, “what’s the use?”

“Is that all you wanted to see me about?” Crowder asked.

“No,” said Stanwick, “that’s not all I wanted to see you about. Our men picked up Ethel Peters, the tenant of the apartment at 9204 Western.”

“Good work,” said Crowder noncommittally.

Captain Stanwick flashed him a searching glance.

“She had a pretty bad bruise on the side of her temple,” he said.

“Women of that sort always get beaten up,” said Crowder. “That’s what I understand. They tell me that she’s a typical moll. What was she doing when you picked her up? Trying to escape.”

Stanwick nodded.

“Well,” asked Crowder, “what’s her story?”

“She hasn’t got any,” said Captain Stanwick. “She’s keeping quiet, except when she turned loose to tell the detectives something about their maternal ancestry.”

Crowder shook his head lugubriously.

“Isn’t it awful,” he said, “when a woman talks that way?”

“Well,” said Stanwick, “I don’t think she’s going to give us any great amount of information. In the event she should tell us anything it might mean that she was held as an accessory after the fact, but I was just wondering if you happened to know anything about who the woman could have been that was lowered out of the window in the apartment.”

Crowder frowned thoughtfully, after the manner of one who is thinking.

“You say she was shot?” he asked.

“Three or four shots hit her dead center. The witnesses all agree on it. They could see the body jump when the bullets hit.”

Bob Crowder said slowly, “That’s no way to treat a woman.”

Suddenly Captain Stanwick chuckled.

“Well,” he said, “that’s a new way of looking at it.”

There was silence for a period of several seconds, then Captain Stanwick said, “Frank Belman tells me that when he made out the checks for the reward you insisted on having two checks, one of them made out to you, in the sum of five thousand dollars, and one made out to Trixie Monette in the sum of five thousand dollars.”

Crowder said, “That’s right, Captain,” as though praising the police officer for some bit of first-class detective work.

“Why,” said Captain Stanwick, “did you have the reward paid in just that way?”

“To be perfectly frank with you,” Crowder said, “I did it in order to give a young woman a surprise.”

“Ah,” said Captain Stanwick, “so there was a woman in the case then?”

“Yes,” said Crowder, “there was a woman in the case.”

“One of those shrewd little tarts who pick up stuff on the fringes of the underworld?” asked Captain Stanwick.

“No,” said Crowder, grinning, “this young woman was very beautiful, and you might say that she was dumb.”

“The woman that got the check?” Captain Stanwick asked.

“No,” said Crowder, “the woman who assisted me in getting the pearls.”

“You mean the woman who was lowered out of the window?”

“I’m not mentioning any names or making any admissions,” said Crowder.

“No,” Stanwick said, “you wouldn’t. But the woman who was lowered out of the window certainly is dumb by this time. The witnesses are positive that she got at least three heavy slugs shot into her body.”

Crowder made clucking noises with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“Horrible,” he said.

“That,” Captain Stanwick said, “would be murder unless...”

“Unless what?” asked Crowder.

“Unless,” said Captain Stanwick, looking at him shrewdly, “there should be some connection between the woman who was lowered out of the window, and the report that came in about an hour ago from a department store in the district, that a display dummy had been taken from the show window.”

Crowder looked extremely innocent.

“A dummy?” he asked. “Stolen from a window?”

Captain Stanwick nodded.

“Well,” said Crowder, “perhaps someone was playing bridge and wanted a fourth for a dummy.”

Captain Stanwick’s face purpled.

“You,” he said, “get the hell out of here!”