The Jeweled Butterfly

There was an office rumor that old E.B. locked the door of his private office on Wednesday mornings so he could practice putting. This had never been confirmed, but veteran employees at the Warranty Exchange & Fidelity Indemnity, known locally as WEFI, made it a rule either to take up important matters on Tuesday or to postpone them until Thursday.

Peggy Castle, E.B.’s secretary, didn’t inherit the Wednesday breathing spell from her predecessors. When Old E.B. found out that before coming to WEFI, Peggy had worked on a country newspaper upstate he inveigled her into starting a gossip column in the WEFI house organ.

Peggy was interested in people, had a photographic memory for names and faces, and a broadminded, whimsical sense of humor. The result was that her column, which she called “Castle’s in the Air,” attracted so much attention that Old E.B., beaming with pride, insisted she devote more and more time to it.

“It’s just what we’ve needed,” he said. “We’ve had too much money to spend on the damn paper. We made it too slick, too formal, too dressed up. It looked impressive, but who the hell wants a house organ to be impressive? We want it to be neighborly. We want it to be interesting. We want the employees to eat it up. We want something that’ll attract customer attention on the outside. You’re doing it. It’s fine. Keep it up. One of these days it’ll lead to something big.”

Old E.B. carried a bunch of clippings from Peggy’s column in his wallet. Very often he’d pick out priceless gems and sidle up to cronies at the club. “Got a girl up at the office — my secretary, smart as a whip,” he’d begin. “You ought to see what she’s done to the gossip column in our house organ. This is it. ‘Castle’s in the Air.’ Listen to this one: ‘The identity of the practical joker in the Bond Writing Department has not as yet been discovered. When Bill Fillmore finds him he insists he’s going to choke him until his eyeballs protrude far enough to be tattooed with Bill’s initials. It seems that Bill and Ernestine have been keeping pretty steady company. At noon on last Thursday, Bill decided to pop the question, did so, and was accepted. That afternoon he was walking on air. However, it seems that Bill had confided his intentions to a few friends, showing them the ring he had bought to slip on Ernestine’s finger if she said yes. So some was managed to dust the knees of Bill’s trousers immediately after lunch. Bill doesn’t know how it was done. He didn’t even know it had been done. While Ernestine was telling the news and showing her sparkler, observant eyes were naturally looking Bill over. People couldn’t refrain from seeing the two well-defined dust spots on the knees of Bill’s trousers. Ernestine thought it was cute, but Bill— Well, let’s talk about something else.’

“How’s that for a yarn?” E.B. would say, slapping his crony on the back. “Damnedest thing you ever heard? You can figure what that’s done to the house organ. Everybody reads it now. Stuff like that really peps it up.

“How’s that? Hell, no! Not a word of truth to it, but the funny thing is that Bill Fillmore doesn’t know it. He really thinks there was dust on his trousers, put there by some was, and he’s going around chewing tenpenny nails. Half of the people in the place are in on the secret, and the other half are looking for the practical joker. Damnedest thing you ever saw, the way stuff like that peps up the house organ. Here’s more of it.”

Given the slightest provocation, Old E.B. would pull out more clippings. Usually his cronies gave him the provocation. The clippings were always good for a laugh, and many of E.B.’s friends had house-organ problems of their own.

On this Wednesday afternoon, Peggy opened the anonymous letter and read it through carefully.

The missive was signed “A Reader,” and the writing was feminine.

Ordinarily she would have consigned this sort of thing to the wastebasket after only a cursory glance, but Don Kimberly, troubleshooter in the Claims Adjusting Department, was the most eligible catch in the organization. A young, clear-headed bachelor with a legal education, he had dark wavy hair, steady slate-colored eyes, bronzed skin, and a rather mysterious air of reserve. Every girl in the organization got cardiac symptoms when he walked by her desk — and Peggy was no exception.

“Miss Cleavage” was Stella Lynn, who had won a beauty contest at a country fair before coming to the city to work for WEFI. It was obvious that the judges of this local show had been more interested in well-developed curves than in streamlined contours.

Stella Lynn, proud of her curvaceousness, habitually wore the most plunging necklines of any employee in the WEFI organization. When someone came up with the nickname of “Miss Cleavage,” the appellation had fit as snugly as the office dresses she wore and had stuck like chewing gum.

Peggy Castle studied the anonymous letter again.

What in the world could Don Kimberly see in Stella Lynn? The whole thing was ridiculous enough, so that it could have been a gag sent to her by some practical joker who hoped she would publish it in her column without confirmation and so create a minor office furor. On the other hand, suppose the thing actually was true? It would cause plenty of commotion.

Without stopping to think that this was exactly what the writer of the anonymous letter had planned, Peggy decided to find out at firsthand.

The Royal Pheasant night club catered to a regular clientele. The floor show was spotty, the food quite good, the music fair. The dance floor was a little larger than the handkerchief-sized squares in some of the more expensive night clubs.

Peggy, using her press card to forestall any rule about unescorted women guests, sallied into the Royal Pheasant attired in her best semi-formal, secured a table, and toyed with a cocktail, waiting.

Half an hour passed uneventfully. The headwaiter dropped by. “Another cocktail, Miss Castle?”

She started slightly at his use of her name and then, remembering the press card, smiled and shook her head.

“We want you to be happy,” the headwaiter went on, “and we hope you will write something nice about the place.”

Peggy felt a twinge of conscience. Perhaps the management thought she was with some magazine of large circulation.

“As a matter of fact,” he went on, “I read your column every single issue.”

“You do?” she asked, surprised.

“E.B. Halsey told me about your column,” the headwaiter went on. “He comes in here quite often. He put me on the mailing list. It’s very good stuff.”

Peggy felt a surge of relief. “Oh. I’m so glad — so glad you like it.”

“We get quite a bit of business from the big brass out at your company,” he went on. “We’re really pleased that you’re here. And of course, you’ll be entitled to all the courtesies.”

“All the courtesies?” she repeated.

“The tab is on the house,” he explained. “Another cocktail?”

“No, thanks, not right now.”

“We have a good show tonight. Glad you’re here.”

He moved away, taking with him a load of guilt from Peggy’s shoulders and leaving her with a queer feeling of exultation.

Then Don Kimberly came in — alone.

Quite evidently he had a table reserved. He seated himself, looked leisurely around, ordered a cocktail, and settled back with the air of a man who has arrived early for an appointment.

Peggy glanced at her wrist watch. It was 9:15. The floor show started at 9:30.

Peggy Castle puckered her forehead. It was bizarre enough in the first place to think of Don Kimberly taking Stella Lynn to the Royal Pheasant. But he certainly wasn’t expecting Miss Cleavage to come in unescorted and join him. There was something strange about the whole business. If it had been a date he’d have called for Stella and escorted her.

Peggy became so immersed in her thoughts that she didn’t realize the passing of time until the lights dimmed and her waiter was there with another cocktail.

“Beg pardon, Miss Castle, but the management knows another one won’t hurt you, and you’ll be wanting to watch the floor show now.”

Peggy thanked him. The chorus came dancing on, undraped almost to the point of illegality. A master of ceremonies pulled up the microphone.

Peggy glanced at Don Kimberly. Kimberly wasn’t watching the girls’ legs. He was frowningly contemplating his wrist watch.

Good heavens, Peggy Castle thought, she wouldn’t stand him up. She wouldn’t dare. Why, this is the highlight of her career. If she actually has a date with him she — no, no, she couldn’t be late.

But quite obviously, whoever Don Kimberly was waiting for was late, and the increasing shortness of the intervals at which he consulted his watch and then gave frowning attention to the door indicated a rapidly growing impatience.

And then the lights came on, and suddenly Peggy realized that Don Kimberly was looking at her with the puzzled expression of “where-the-devil-have-I seen-that-girl-before” in his eyes.

She nodded and smiled, and as he bowed she saw sudden recognition flash in his face. Then he was on his way over.

“Well, hello, Miss Castle,” he said. “I didn’t recognize you for a moment. Waiting for someone?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m getting material for my column, covering a nitery where so many of the WEFI officials drop in. I trust you realize that the eyes of the press are upon you, Mr. Kimberly, and that the pitiless white light of publicity will be turned on you in my next—”

“Oh, good heavens!” Kimberly exclaimed in dismay, and, without asking her permission, sat down at her table and scowled at her.

“Why, what’s the matter?” Peggy asked vivaciously. “Surely you have nothing to conceal. You’re unmarried, unencumbered. I... as on the point of adding uninhibited.”

“Uninhibited is right,” he groaned.

“And may I ask why being written up in ‘Castle’s in the Air’ seems to provoke so little enthusiasm in you?”

“Am I unenthusiastic?”

“I thought you were.”

He smiled, quite evidently having regained his composure. “I’m enthusiastic now, but it’s certainly not because of your column.”

“Surely you aren’t alone?” she asked archly, carefully surveying his face.

“I’m waiting for some folks. Why not quit playing with that cocktail and let me order you another?”

“Good heavens, this is my second.”

“Well, at the rate you’re working on that one, the first must have been at least an hour ago. Here, waiter!”

Peggy let him have his way. She was experiencing a pleasant glow, not only from the drinks, but from the exciting realization that there must be more to this than appeared on the surface.

Why had Don Kimberly made this surreptitious rendezvous with Stella Lynn? Had he been ashamed to go to her apartment and escort her to the Royal Pheasant — or had he been afraid to?

Once more Kimberly glanced-at his wrist watch.

“My, you’re jittery,” Peggy said. “Like a nervous cat. You aren’t by any chance being stood up, are you? No, that’s catty! After all, you know, I’m on the lookout for news.”

She felt certain he winced inwardly. “A news story,” he said, “has been defined as being the thing the other person doesn’t want published. I believe there was some famous newspaperman who said, ‘If the parties want it published, it’s not news. If they try to keep it out of the paper, then it’s news.’ ”

“And are you going to try to keep something out of the paper?” she asked.

Abruptly he was serious. “Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to deprive you of a choice item for your column — even if I have to go direct to E. B. Halsey to do it.”

“The date you have here tonight?”

He regarded her with frowning appraisal. “Now, wait a minute, Miss Castle. Why are you here?”

She met his eyes. “I received an anonymous tip that you and Stella Lynn were going to be here tonight. I thought I’d drop in, cover the night club, and pick up a ‘personal’ that would be well — interesting — to a lot of people at the office.”

“You mean amusing?”

“Well, if we’re going to be technical about it, amusement is a form of interest.”

Kimberly was thoughtful. “You’ve doubtless heard the nickname ‘Miss Cleavage’,” he said at length.

Peggy started to laugh, and then at something in his tone caught herself.

“I’ve known her for five years,” Kimberly went on, “—knew her before she came to work here, knew her before she won that beauty contest. She’s a good kid.”

“I’m sorry,” Peggy said. “I—”

“You don’t need to be. I understand. She— I don’t know, I guess she’s an exhibitionist. She has that complex. Just as some people like to sing, Stella likes to show her curves. She’s proud of them. But she’s a good kid.”

Peggy said, “I didn’t realize that there was anything serious—”

“There isn’t.”

“I know, but what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think there’s anyone in the company who realizes that you’ve known her so long. You are, of course — well, eligible. I guess everybody likes Stella, but people wouldn’t expect you two to be having a date.”

Abruptly he said, “I like her, but this isn’t a date, and I’m worried.”

“What do you mean?”

He said, “As you probably know, my job is pretty diversified. If an actress reports she’s lost fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels, or claims that someone got into her apartment and stole a hundred-thousand-dollar necklace, it’s up to me to investigate. I handle the burglary-insurance division of WEFI, and that ties in with a lot of things.”

She nodded, her senses alert.

“Stella called me on the telephone this morning. To appreciate the significance of that you must realize that Stella has always had an exaggerated idea of the importance of my position. This is, I think, the first time she ever called me, and she called me during office hours.”

Kimberly paused and glanced searchingly at her. Peggy kept her face expressionless.

“Well,” he went on, “she told me that she had to see me tonight on a terribly important matter. She asked me where we could meet. I said I’d be glad to see her at any time or place, and she said it must be someplace where the meeting would seem to be accidental. So I suggested the Royal Pheasant. She said this would be all right, and that she’d be here at nine thirty on the dot.”

“She was to meet you here?”

“Yes. I offered to call for her at her apartment. She said I mustn’t go near her place, that she was in a ticklish situation, and that I should meet her here. If she was with someone I was to pretend it was an accidental meeting. She promised to be here by nine thirty sharp. I’m worried.”

“I didn’t know, and I guess no one else did, that you were friends.”

“There’s no particular secret about it. Stella thought it would be better if we didn’t proclaim it from the housetops. You see, she may be an exhibitionist, but she has a delicately adjusted sense of values, and she’ll never let a friend down. She’s a good kid. She’s oversensitive about the difference in our positions at the place.”

“I take it you got her the job?”

“No, I didn’t. I don’t know who did. I ran into her in the elevator one afternoon. She told me she had been working there for two weeks. I offered to buy her a drink. She told me she realized I was up in the high brass and she was only in the filing department. She said she wanted me to know she’d never embarrass me.

“It’s things like that about Stella that make you like her. She’s so natural, always so perfectly frank and easy. Look here, Miss Castle, I’m worried about her. I’m going up to her apartment and make sure she’s all right. It might be a good thing if you came along.”

“Perhaps she’s just late and—”

“Not Stella. She’d have phoned if she’d been detained. Waiter, let’s have a check, please.”

Peggy didn’t tell him she had had no dinner. She merely nodded and gave him a smile she hoped was reassuring. “I’ll be glad to go with you,” she said, “but I thought Stella told you that you mustn’t go to her apartment.”

“That’s right, but I think that with you with me it’ll be all right. We’ll say you and I had a date for tonight — that we’re together. And anything you may find out isn’t for publication. Come on, let’s go.”

The apartment house was ornate in front, but rather shabby after one had passed the foyer. Almost mechanically Don Kimberly fitted a key to the front door, opened it, escorted Peggy through the foyer, back to the automatic elevator, and punched the button for the fifth floor.

“You have — a key?” she asked.

“Don’t be silly. That’s the key to my own apartment house. Almost any key will fit these outer doors.”

Peggy knew that was so, knew also that Don Kimberly hadn’t so much as hesitated or tentatively tried his key. He had fitted it to the lock, turned it with complete assurance, and gone in without pausing.

She found, herself wondering whether this was the first time he had tried his own key in that lock. The fact that she hated herself for having the thought didn’t erase it from her mind.

Then the rattling elevator came to a stop. Kimberly held the door open for her and slid the steel door of the elevator shut behind him. “Down to your left,” he said. “Five nineteen.”

She turned left, and Kimberly, catching up with her, pushed the bell button of Apartment 519.

They could hear the sound of the buzzer, but no sound of motion.

Kimberly waited a few moments, then tried the door. The knob turned, the door opened, and Peggy, looking in, saw a well-ordered, plainly furnished apartment.

“Anybody home?” Kimberly called.

Peggy clutched his arm.

“What is it?” he asked.

“That coat over the chair.”

“What about it?”

“It’s a coat she’d have worn going out for the evening. Why would she have left it here?”

She pointed to a swinging door that evidently led to a kitchen. Her voice sounded high-pitched with excitement. “Let’s make sure she isn’t here.”

Kimberly pushed back the swinging door. Peggy, who was standing where she could see through the half-open door, gave an exclamation.

The stockinged legs of a girl were sprawled out on the floor. A bottle of whiskey was on the side of the sink. A glass had rolled from the girl’s limp fingers, leaving a trail of liquid along the linoleum. The figure was attired in a strapless bra, a voluminous petticoat, shoes, and stockings.

Kimberly suddenly laughed and called, “Stella, come on, wake up! You’ve missed the boat!”

The woman didn’t move.

Peggy, moving forward, noticed the peculiar color of the girl’s skin. She dropped swiftly to her knees, picked up the limp hand, and suddenly dropped it. “She’s dead.”

“What!”

“Dead. It must have been her heart.”

Kimberly said, “Call a doctor.”

Peggy said, “A doctor won’t help. She’s dead. Just touch her, and you’ll know she’s dead. We’d better...”

“Better what?”

“Better call the police.”

Kimberly hesitated. “What’s that on her leg?”

Peggy looked at the girl’s right leg. Attached to the reinforced top of the sheer nylon stocking was a beautiful butterfly pin with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds giving a splash of glittering color.

“Good heavens,” Kimberly exclaimed, “how in the world did she get that?”

“Why, what about it?” Peggy asked, realizing that Kimberly’s face had turned white.

“Ever hear of the Garrison jewel theft?” he asked.

“Who hasn’t?”

“Our company insured the Garrison jewels. We’re stuck to the tune of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars — and that butterfly looks exactly like the famous Garrison butterfly. Now, how in the world did Stella get that?”

Peggy unfastened the butterfly pin and dropped it into her purse. “It won’t do any good to have the police find that,” she said.

“Look here,” Kimberly protested. “You can’t do that. It may be evidence.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. I only know you can’t do that.”

“I’ve already done it.”

“But— Look here, let’s call a doctor and — we don’t need to wait. Let the doctor do whatever’s necessary.”

Peggy said, “It’s a job for the police. Do you notice that froth on her lips? And there’s ail odor that I have been trying to place. Now I know what it is.”

“What do you mean, an odor?”

“An odor. Bitter almonds. That means cyanide. So does the color of the skin.”

He looked at her dubiously. “You seem to know a lot about — suicides.”

“I do,” Peggy said. “I’ve done newspaper work. Now, since we’re already in it this deep, let’s take a look around.”

“What for?”

“To protect ourselves. Let’s make certain there are no more corpses, for one thing.”

She moved swiftly about the apartment, her quick eyes drinking in details.

“If this is suicide, what you’re doing is probably highly illegal,” he said.

“And if it’s murder?”

“Then it’s doubly illegal.”

She said nothing, moving quietly around the rooms. Her gloved hands occasionally touched some object with the greatest care, but for the most part her hands were at her sides.

There was an odor of raw whiskey about the place, perhaps from the spilled drink in the kitchen. However, this odor was stronger in the bathroom.

Peggy dropped to her knees on the tiled floor, picked up a small sliver of glass, then another. She let both slivers drop back to the tiles.

In the bedroom, the dress Stella was to have worn was spread out on the bed. The plunging neckline seemed to go nearly to the waist.

Kimberly, looking at the V-shaped opening in the front of the dress, gave a low whistle. “Peggy,” he said at length, using her first name easily and naturally, “this is going to make a stink. If it should be murder— I don’t see how it could be, and yet that’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Suppose it’s suicide?” she asked.

“Then there wouldn’t be too much to it — just a few lines on page two, or perhaps a write-up in the second section. And Old E. B. hates bad publicity.”

“Are you telling me?”

“Well, then,” he said, “do you think we really have to notify the police? Can’t we just call a doctor and leave?”

“Do you want to be Suspect Number One in a murder case?” she asked.

“Heavens, no!”

“You’re filing nomination papers right now with that sort of talk. There’s the phone. Call the police.”

He hesitated. “I’d like to keep us out of it altogether. Since she’s dead there’s nothing we can do—”

Peggy walked to the phone, dialed the operator, asked for police headquarters, and almost immediately heard a booming masculine voice answer the phone.

Peggy said, “My name is Castle. I wish to report a death. We just found a body under very odd circumstances and—”

“Where are you?”

Peggy gave the address.

“Wait there,” the voice said. “Don’t touch anything. Be on the lookout for a squad car. I’ll get in touch with the dispatcher.”

The two officers were very considerate. They listened to the sketchy story Kimberly told, the story that very carefully left out all reference to Peggy’s suspicion of poison, and recounted barely the facts that Stella Lynn was a “friend of theirs,” that they had called on her at her apartment, had found the door open, walked in, and discovered her body on the floor; they didn’t know exactly what the proper procedure was under the circumstances, but felt they should notify the police.

The police looked around a bit, nodded sagely, and then one of them called the coroner.

Peggy ventured with some hesitation, “Are you — have you any ideas of what caused death?”

“You thinking of suicide?”

She hesitated. “I can’t help wondering whether it might have been her heart.”

“Had she been despondent or anything?”

“I didn’t know her that well,” Peggy said, “but I gather she had rather a happy disposition. But... well, notice the foam on the lips, the peculiar color of her skin—”

The officer shrugged. “We aren’t thinking, not right now. We’re following rules and taking statements.”

There followed an interval of waiting. Men came and went, and eventually the Homicide Squad arrived with a photographer to take pictures of the body, and a detective to question Peggy and Kimberly in detail.

Kimberly told his story first. Since it did not occur to anyone to examine them separately, Peggy, after hearing Don’s highly generalized version of the evening’s activities, confined herself to the bare essentials. The officer seemed to take it for granted that she had been Don Kimberly’s date, and that following dinner they had dropped in at Stella Lynn’s apartment simply because they were friends and because Stella Lynn worked in the same office.

Don Kimberly drove her home. Peggy hoped he would open up with some additional explanation, but he was completely preoccupied with his thoughts and the problem of driving through the evening traffic, so it became necessary for Peggy to bring up the subject.

“You told your story first,” she said, “so I had to back your play, but I think we’ve carried it far enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“The police assumed I was your date for the evening.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that? We can’t help what they assume.”

“Then I’ll draw you a diagram,” Peggy said impatiently. “I think Stella Lynn was murdered. I think it was carefully planned, cold-blooded, deliberate murder, cunningly conceived and ruthlessly carried out. I think the police are going to investigate enough to find that out. Then they’re going to ask you to tell your story in greater detail.”

He slowed the car until it was barely crawling. “All right,” he said, “what’s wrong with my story? You and I were at the Royal Pheasant. We got to talking about Stella Lynn. We decided to run and see her. We—”

“Everything is wrong with that story,” she interrupted. “In the first place, someone knew you were going to the Royal Pheasant to meet Stella. That someone sent me an anonymous letter. Moreover, if the police check with the headwaiter, they’ll learn that I came in alone, using my press card, and that you came in later.”

Abruptly he swung the car to the curb and shut off the motor.

“What time did you get that anonymous letter?”

“In the afternoon mail.”

“What became of it?”

“I tore it into small bits and dumped it into the wastebasket.”

He said, “Stella didn’t work today. She rang up and told the personnel manager she wouldn’t be at the office. About ten thirty she rang me up and asked me what, our policy would be on paying out a reward for the recovery of all the gems in the Garrison job.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her it made a great deal of difference with whom we were dealing. You know how those things are. It’s our policy never to reward a thief. If we did, we’d be in the position of fencing property that had first been stolen from our own clients. But if a man gives us a legitimate tip and that tip leads to the recovery of insured property, we are, of course, willing to pay, and pay generously.”

“You told her that?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me she thought she had some information on the Garrison case that would interest me. I told her that on a big job like that hundreds of false leads were floating around. She told me that she could show me evidence that would prove she was dealing with people who knew what they were talking about.”

“That,” Peggy said, “would account for the jeweled butterfly.”

“You mean that was to be my assurance I was dealing with the right people?”

“That was the start of it, but I think it has an added significance now.”

“What?”

“You are thinking Stella ran into danger because she was going to tell you something about the Garrison jewels. Now, let’s suppose you are right, and she was killed by the jewel thieves. They’d never have left that jeweled butterfly on her stocking. All those rubies, emeralds, and diamonds! It must be worth a small fortune.”

He thought that over.

“And,” Peggy went on, “if she’d been killed by an intruder or a burglar he’d naturally have taken the butterfly. So it adds up to the fact that her death must have been unrelated to that Garrison job and must have been caused by someone who was so anxious to have her out of the way the opportunity to steal the butterfly meant nothing.”

He looked at her with sudden respect. “Say, you’re a logical little cuss.”

She said, “That’s not what women want. When men praise their brains it’s almost a slam. A woman would far rather be known as a glamor puss than as a thinker. Let’s check on our story a little further. Stella telephoned you this morning, and it was you who suggested the Royal Pheasant?”

“That’s right. Surely you don’t doubt my statement.”

“I don’t doubt your statement. I doubt your conclusions.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you told me that two and three added up to ten,” she said, “I wouldn’t be doubting your statement, I’d be doubting your conclusions. You might actually have ten as an answer, and know that the figures you had in mind consisted of two and three, but the total of those figures wouldn’t be ten.”

“Apparently you want to point out that there’s a factor I’ve missed somewhere, that there’s an extra five I don’t know about.”

“Exactly,” she said.

“And what makes you think there’s this extra five? What have I missed?”

“The anonymous letter I received in the afternoon mail had been postmarked at five thirty P.M. yesterday. If you are the one who suggested the Royal Pheasant, how did someone know yesterday that you and Stella were to have a date there tonight?”

“All right, let’s go,” he told her. “There’s a possibility the janitor hasn’t cleaned up in your office. We’re going to have to find that letter, put the tom pieces together, and reconstruct the postmark on that envelope. There’s also the possibility that your totals are all wrong and the postmark was a clever forgery. How come you noticed it?”

“Because Uncle Benedict told me if you ever wanted to get anywhere you had to notice details.”

“Who’s Uncle Benedict?”

“He’s the black sheep of my family, the one who made his living by—” Abruptly she became silent. She realized all too keenly that she couldn’t tell Don Kimberly about her Uncle Benedict. There were only a few people she could tell about him.

Kimberly signed both names to the register and said to the janitor, “Let’s go up to E. B. Halsey’s office, please, and make it snappy. Do you know whether that office has been cleaned?”

“Sure it has. We begin on that floor. That’s the brass-hat floor. They’re always out by five o’clock. Some of the other floors are later—”

“And you’re certain Halsey’s office has been cleaned up?”

“Sure. I did it myself.”

“You emptied the wastebasket?”

“Yes.”

“All right, we have to get that stuff. There was something in the wastebasket. Where is it now?”

The man grinned as he brought the elevator to a stop. “The stuff that was in that wastebasket is smoke by this time.”

“You incinerated it?”

“Sure.”

“I thought you sometimes saved it for a central pickup.”

“No more, we don’t. We burn it up. Everything in the wastebaskets is burned right here in the building. That’s E. B. Halsey’s orders. Don’t let anything go out.”

They hurried to E. B. Halsey’s office. As the janitor had told them, it had been cleaned. The square mahogany-colored wastebasket in Peggy Castle’s secretarial office was completely free of paper. There was a folded square of cardboard in the bottom, and Peggy pulled it out in the vain hope that some fragment of the letter might have worked down beneath it.

There was nothing.

“I guess that’s it,” Kimberly said.

“Wait a minute,” she told him. “I have a hunch. The way that janitor looked when he said the papers had been burned— Come on, let’s go.”

The janitor evidently had been expecting their ring because he brought the cage up quickly.

“All done?” he asked.

“Not quite,” Peggy said. “We want to go down to the basement. I want to see where you bum those papers.”

“It’s just an ordinary incinerator. Mr. Halsey said that he wanted all papers burned on the premises, and—”

“I’m checking,” Peggy said. “It’s something important. I think Mr. Halsey will want a report tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

The janitor stopped the cage at the basement and said, “Right over to the left.”

Peggy all but ran down the passageway to where several big clothesbaskets were stacked in front of an incinerator. Two of the clothesbaskets were almost full.

“What’s this?”

“Scraps that we haven’t burned yet.”

“I thought you told me everything had been burned.”

“Well, everything from your office.”

“How do you know what office these came from?”

The man fidgeted uncomfortably. “Well, I think that these two came from the lower floors.”

Peggy nodded to Kimberly, then upset the entire contents of the baskets on the floor, and started pawing through them, throwing to one side the envelopes, circular letters, newspapers, scratch paper — all the odds and ends that accumulate in a busy office.

“We don’t need to look through anything that isn’t torn,” she said to Kimberly. “I tore this letter up into fine pieces. And you don’t need to bother with anything that’s typewritten. This was written in ink in longhand.”

They tossed the larger pieces back into the clothesbaskets. When they had sifted the whole thing down to the smaller pieces, Peggy suddenly gave a triumphant exclamation. “This is part of it,” she said, holding up a triangular section of paper.

“Then here’s another part,” Kimberly said.

“And here’s another.” She pounced on another piece.

Kimberly found a fourth. “This piece has part of the postmark on it,” he said, fitting it together with the other pieces. “Gosh, you were right. It’s postmarked yesterday at five thirty. But I tell you no one knew—”

Peggy caught his eye, glanced significantly at the janitor, who was watching them with an expression of puzzled speculation.

Kimberly nodded, and thereafter devoted his energies entirely to the search.

At last they were finished with the final scrap of paper on the floor. By this time they had recovered four pieces of the envelope and six pieces of the letter.

“I guess that’s it,” Peggy said. “Let’s go up to the office and put these together.”

Back in the office, with the aid of transparent tape, they fitted the pieces into a hopelessly inadequate reconstruction of a letter that Peggy now realized was undoubtedly destined to be of the greatest interest to the police.

The writer of that letter, Peggy knew, had it in her power to make Don Kimberly the Number One Suspect in the Stella Lynn murder.

Would the writer come forward? She doubted it, but she thought it was likely that, since one anonymous letter had been written to her, another would be written, this time to the police.

And Peggy also realized that by falling in with Don Kimberly’s highly abridged account of the evening’s activities, she had nominated herself as the number-two if the police ever should learn exactly what had happened.

Peggy knew enough of E. B. Halsey’s temperament to know that her future at WEFI depended on not letting the police find out all that had happened — at least for the moment.

E. B. Halsey, at fifty-six, prided himself on his erect carriage, his keen eyes that needed spectacles only for reading, and his golf game.

There were whispered stories about extracurricular activities. At times when he was with cronies whom he had known for years and whom he knew he could trust, it was understood Old E. B. could really let loose. There were rumors of certain wolfish tendencies he was supposed to have exhibited on rare occasion.

These last tendencies were the most delectable from the standpoint of powder-room discussion at WEFI, and the hardest to verify. Old E. B. was too shrewd ever to get caught off base. He took no chances on a rebuff, and any amatory affairs he may have indulged in were so carefully masked, so skillfully camouflaged, that the office rumors, although persistent, remained only rumors.

It was nine-thirty when E. B. bustled into the office, jerked his head in a quick sparrowlike gesture, and said, “Good morning, Miss Castle,” and then popped into his private office.

Ten seconds later he pressed the button that summoned Miss Castle.

That was typical of the man. He had undoubtedly arrived an hour early so he could ask what had happened the night before, but it would have been completely out of character for him to have said, “Good morning, Miss Castle. Would you mind stepping into my office?” He would instead enter his office, carefully place his hat on the shelf in the coat closet, stand for a few seconds in front of the mirror smoothing his hair, straightening his tie, and then, only then, would he settle himself in the big swivel chair at the polished-walnut desk and press the mother-of-pearl button that sounded Peggy’s buzzer.

Peggy picked up her notebook, entered the office, and seated herself in a chair.

E. B. waved the notebook aside. “Never mind the notebook. I want to ask you a few questions.”

She glanced up at him as though she hadn’t been anticipating this interview for the past ten hours.

“You were with Kimberly last night?”

She nodded.

“That was a nasty piece in the paper. I don’t like to have the company’s name brought into prominence in connection with things of this sort. A company employee dead. Body found by two other employees who are out together. Possibility of murder. It gives the company a lot of bad publicity.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “You’ve done newspaper work?”

“A little, on a small paper.”

“You have sense. I’m going to get another secretary. From now on you’re going to be public relations counselor for this company. Your first job is to see that there’s no more bad publicity of the sort that’s in the papers this morning.

“Your new position carries with it a substantial increase in salary. You will, of course, keep on with your column in the house organ. I like the chatty humorous way you make the office gossip interesting, make employees sound important.

“No, no, don’t thank me. This appointment is in the nature of a trial. I’ll have to see what you can do to kill the sort of talk that we’re sure to get about Stella Lynn’s death.

“Now tell me about what happened last night. Tell it all, every detail.”

He paused, peering at her over the top of his glasses as though she were in some way personally responsible for Stella Lynn’s death.

Peggy Castle told him about the anonymous letter, about going to the Royal Pheasant, and her conversation with Don Kimberly.

“Then you weren’t with Don Kimberly?” E. B. asked.

“Not in the sense of having a date with him.”

“The papers say you had a dinner date. The police told me the same thing.”

“That was a mistake.”

E. B. pursed his lips. “Since they think you and Don Kimberly were on a date and merely dropped in on Stella on a friendly call, I think it would be better to let it stay that way.”

“May I ask why?”

“It’s better not to change a story that has appeared in the press. It puts you in a bad position.”

“The mistake was made by the police in assuming we were out together.”

E. B. beamed at her. “So that leaves us with a clear conscience, eh? All right, we’ll leave it that you and Don had a dinner date.”

“But that story won’t hold up. The headwaiter knows we didn’t come in together; so do the table waiters.”

E. B. frowned, then yielded the point reluctantly. “Very well, then, I suppose you’ll have to tell them the truth.”

Peggy waited. She had said nothing of the jeweled butterfly she had taken from Stella’s stocking.

E. B. put the tips of his fingers together. “The pieces of the letter?” he asked.

“I have them in my desk.”

“I think we’d better take a look,” he said.

She brought them in to him.

“You’re sure these pieces are from the envelope?”

“Yes. You can see the handwriting is the same, and this was the only handwritten letter addressed to me in the afternoon mail.”

E. B. thoughtfully poked at the pieces of paper.

“How does Kimberly explain this letter?” he asked abruptly.

“He doesn’t. He can’t.”

The telephone on E. B.’s desk rang sharply three times.

E. B. picked up the receiver and said, “Yes. E. B. Halsey.”

He frowned for a moment, then said, “This call should have gone to Miss Castle’s desk in the ordinary way. However... yes, I understand... Very well, I’ll see him. Yes, bring him down here.”

Halsey hung up the telephone and once more looked at Peggy over his glasses. “A Detective Nelson is out there. Know anything about him?”

“No.”

“He wants to talk with me. The receptionist became flustered and rang me personally. The call should have gone through your office. However, the damage is done now. I don’t want to antagonize the police in any way. You might step out to receive him.”

She nodded and went to the reception room just as the receptionist held the door open for E. B.’s visitor.

He wasn’t the type she had expected. He might have been a successful accountant or a bond salesman. He was slender, quietly dressed, and when he spoke his voice was melodious.

“I’m Fred Nelson,” he said, “from headquarters.”

He was holding a card case in his hand as though expecting to be called on to produce credentials. He exhibited a gold shield and gave Peggy a card, a neatly embossed card with a police shield in gold in the upper left-hand corner.

“Mr. Halsey is expecting you.”

“You’re his secretary, Miss Castle?”

“That’s right.”

“I think I want to see you both,” he said. “I believe you and your escort discovered the body.”

“I was with Mr. Kimberly.”

He nodded.

“Do you wish to see Mr. Kimberly at the same time?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Just you and Mr. Halsey.”

“Will you step this way, please.”

She ushered him into Halsey’s office. Nelson shook hands with E. B. and said, “I took the liberty of asking your secretary to remain during the interview, Mr. Halsey.”

E. B. beamed at him. “That’s fine. Quite all right. Sit right down. Anything we can do for you we’ll be glad to do. A most unfortunate occurrence. Always hate to have these tragedies. We’re something like a big family here and these things cut pretty close to home.”

“You knew Miss Lynn on a personal basis, then?” Nelson asked.

E. B.’s steady eyes surveyed the detective over the top of his glasses. He hesitated for approximately two seconds as though debating just how to answer the detective’s question, then said curtly, “Yes.”

“Had you known Miss Lynn before she came to work here?”

“That is the point I was about to bring up,” Halsey said.

“Go ahead. Bring it up.”

“I knew Miss Lynn before she came to this city. As a matter of fact, she asked me about a position and I told her that I would be glad to refer her to the head of our personnel department and suggest that other things being equal — other things being equal — you understand, Mr. Nelson?”

Nelson nodded.

“—Other things being equal,” Halsey went on, “I’d like to have her taken on. Of course, in a business the size of this the personnel department handles the entire thing. They know the vacancies and the abilities that are required. They have, I believe, tests for—”

“The point is that you interceded for her with the personnel department and Stella Lynn got a job?”

“That’s putting it in a rather peculiar way.”

Nelson turned to Peggy. “Did Stella Lynn seem to be brooding, worried, apprehensive?”

“I didn’t know her well, Mr. Nelson. I saw her off and on and chatted with her when I saw her. She was always cheerful. I’d say she was probably the least likely candidate for suicide—”

“I wasn’t thinking about suicide.”

“Well, a person doesn’t worry about murder.”

“I wasn’t thinking about murder.”

E. B. cleared his throat. “Well, then, may I ask what you were thinking about?”

Nelson glanced at Peggy Castle. “Something else,” he said. “Something Miss Lynn could well have worried about.”

“Good Lord,” Peggy said impatiently, “I understand English, and I understand the facts of life. Are you trying to tell us that she was pregnant?”

Nelson nodded.

E. B. put his elbows on the desk, his chin in his hands. “Good Lord!” he murmured.

“You seem upset,” Nelson said.

“He’s thinking of the good name of the company,” Peggy explained, “—of the publicity.”

“Oh, I see,” Nelson said in dry voice. He turned to Peggy. “I’d like to have your story, Miss Castle, right from the beginning.”

“There isn’t any story. Mr. Kimberly and I decided to look in on Stella Lynn, and we found her lying dead on the floor. We called the police.”

“That certainly is a succinct statement,” Nelson said.

“I don’t know how I could elaborate on it.”

“You didn’t know Stella Lynn well?”

“Not particularly well, no.”

“How did it happen that you went to call on her, then?”

“It was Mr. Kimberly’s suggestion.”

“And why did he want to call on her last night?”

She said, “I’m afraid Mr. Kimberly doesn’t think it necessary to confide in me.”

“Perhaps he’ll be a little less reticent with me,” Nelson said.

“Perhaps.”

Nelson turned toward the door. “Well, I just wanted to find out what you knew about Stella Lynn’s background,” he said. “I’ll talk with Kimberly, and then I’ll be back.”

He walked out without a word of farewell.

As the door closed, E. B. picked up the telephone and said to the receptionist, “A man by the name of Nelson is leaving my office. He wants to see Mr. Kimberly. I want him to be delayed until I can get Kimberly on the phone and— What’s that?... Oh, I see... Well, that explains it. All right.”

E. B. hung up, looked at Peggy, and said, “That’s why he didn’t ask to have Kimberly in on our conference. Mr. Kimberly is not in the office this morning. No one seems to know where he is.”

He paused for a moment, digesting that information, then said, “Of course, that is a temporary expedient. It gives him a certain margin of time— I notice you didn’t tell Detective Nelson about that letter, Miss Castle.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t fit in with Kimberly’s version of what happened. Kimberly says Stella Lynn called him up around ten thirty in the morning and told him that she had to see him. He’s the one who suggested the Royal Pheasant. Yet this letter, which was postmarked the day before, informed me that Kimberly and Stella Lynn were going to be dining at the Royal Pheasant.”

E. B. regarded Peggy thoughtfully for a moment. “You have a remarkably shrewd mind, Miss Castle.”

She flushed. “Thank you.”

“Now, just what do you have in your mind?”

She said, “Stella Lynn’s desk. I’d like to clean it out. She’ll have some private stuff in there. I’d like to look through it before the police do. No one has said anything about—”

“A splendid idea,” E. B. said. “Get busy. And don’t tell me what you’re doing. I’d prefer not to know all the steps you’re taking. That desk, for instance. In case you should find a diary or something... well, you’ll know what to do.”

E. B. regarded her over the tops of his glasses. “I’m sure you’ll know what to do.”

Peggy placed a cardboard carton on top of Stella Lynn’s desk and began to clean out the drawers, fully realizing that the typists at the adjoining desks were making a surreptitious check on all her actions.

There were bits of chewing gum, a magazine, a pair of comfortable shoes to be worn at work, a paper bag containing a pair of new nylons, a receipt for rent on her apartment, a small camera in a case, and a half-empty package of tissues. There was no diary. But there was a disarray of the drawers, as if they might have been hurriedly searched at an earlier hour, perhaps before the office had opened.

Peggy wondered what had led E. B. to believe there might be a diary in the desk. She dumped the contents of the desk into the carton, tied the carton with heavy string, and then, with a crayon, printed the name “Stella Lynn” on the side. Having done all this to impress the typists at adjoining desks, Peggy carried the carton back to her own office.

When the door was safely closed she opened the package and inspected the camera. The figure “10” appeared through the little circular window on the back of the camera, indicating that nine pictures had been taken.

Peggy turned the knob until the roll had been transferred to the take-up spool, removed it from the camera, and carefully wiped off the camera to remove her fingerprints. She slipped the camera back into its case, put the case into the carton, tied the carton up with string, and stepped to the door of E. B.’s private office.

She tapped on the door. When she received no answer, she tried the knob; it turned and she gently opened the door.

E. B. was not in his office.

She went back to her desk. A piece of paper that had been pushed under the blotter caught her eye. She pulled it out.

It was a note from E. B., scrawled hastily.

It was signed with the initials “E. B.”

Peggy looked at it. “Well,” she said, “Kimberly and Halsey. That makes it unanimous.”

Peggy batted her eyes and turned her most charming manner on Mrs. Maxwell, the apartment-house manager.

“I certainly hope you don’t think I’m too ghoulish, Mrs. Maxwell, but, after all, a girl has to live.”

Mrs. Maxwell nodded almost imperceptibly, studying her visitor through narrowed eyes around which pools of flesh had been deposited so that the eyes seemed to be about half normal size. Her hair had been dyed a brilliant orange-red, and her cheeks had been rouged too heavily.

“Apartments are so hard to get,” Peggy went on, “and, of course, I read in the paper about Stella Lynn’s unfortunate death. So I know that the apartment is untenanted, and I know that you’re going to have to rent it. Some people might be superstitious about moving into an apartment of that sort, but I definitely am not, and, well, I thought I’d like to be the first applicant.”

Again the nod was all but imperceptible.

“I’m not too well fixed,” Peggy said. “I’m an honest working girl, and I don’t have any — protector — in the background, but I do have fifty dollars saved up that I’d planned to use as a bonus in getting exactly the right kind of apartment. If this apartment suits me, since I wouldn’t have any need for the bonus, I’ll give it to you in gratitude for the personal inconvenience of showing me the apartment.”

This time the nod of the head was definitely more pronounced, then Mrs. Maxwell said, “My hands are tied right at the moment.”

“In what way?”

“I can’t get in to show the apartment.”

“Oh, surely you have a key—”

“The police have put a seal on both doors, front and back. They’ve been looking for fingerprints—”

“Fingerprints!” Peggy exclaimed. “What do they expect to find out from fingerprints?”

“I don’t know. They’ve put powder over the whole apartment. They’ve ordered me to keep out. They’ve sealed up the doors so they can’t be opened without breaking the seal.”

“Well, you can tell me about the apartment?”

“Oh, yes.”

“How about milk?”

“Milk can be delivered at the back.”

“And the collection of garbage and cans?”

“There are two receptacles, one for cans and glass, one for garbage. The garbage is collected every other day, the cans and glass twice a week. The tenant has to deposit the material in receptacles on the ground floor in the back.”

“I believe this apartment is on the fifth floor,” Peggy said.

“That’s right.”

“I have to walk down five flights of stairs to—”

“Four flights, dearie.”

“Well, four flights of stairs to deposit cans and garbage?”

“I’m sorry. There isn’t any dumbwaiter service.”

“May I take a look at the back stairs?”

“Certainly. Just go through that door at the end of the corridor. Look around all you want, dearie.”

When the going got tough, Peggy Castle sometimes appealed for help to her Great-uncle Benedict.

Benedict Castle had lived a highly checkered career. One of Peggy’s earliest memories was of hearing the mellifluous voice of Uncle Benedict reminiscently extolling the virtues of Benedict’s Body Builder. “...Not a chemical, ladies and gentlemen, that tries to achieve health by whipping the worn glands, the tired muscles, the jaded nerves to greater and greater effort until finally the whole machine breaks down, but a tonic, ladies and gentlemen, that helps Mother Nature renew worn glands, create new cells, build new muscles, and make new blood. Now, who’s going to be the first to get one of these bottles of B.B.B., offered tonight not at the regular price of ten dollars, not even at the half price of five dollars, not at the special advertising introductory price of two dollars and a half, but at the ludicrously low price of one dollar! Only one dollar to build the body into renewed health!”

That had been twenty years before. Peggy, four years old, had been an orphan — too young to appreciate the tragedy that had deprived her of both father and mother — an orphan picked up and raised as their own child by Uncle Benedict and Aunt Martha.

The days of the patent-medicine vender had long passed, but Uncle Benedict loved to review the patter he had used in his prime, the patter that had enabled him to travel around, living, as he expressed it, “on the fat of the yokels.” It was before the days of Federal Trade Commission supervision, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the income tax.

Uncle Benedict had had a horse-drawn van that by day served as living quarters and laboratory, at night opened to provide a stage on which his magic fingers performed feats of sleight of hand while his magic tongue brought in a steady stream of silver coins on which there was no income tax and no necessity to account to anyone.

No one knew how much Uncle Benedict took in. He went where he wished, did what he wished, and spent his money as he wished.

When the patent medicine business began to die, other infinitely more lucrative fields opened up. It was the era of mining stock and the wildcat oil speculator. Gradually Uncle Benedict drifted into a gang of clever sharpshooters, a gang in which Uncle Benedict was referred to as “The Sleeper.” Never was there another man who could put on such a convincing act of sleeping while his ball-bearing mind was working out plans for fleecing suckers.

Uncle Benedict was at his best in the club car of a transcontinental train. He’d sit down, drink a beer, then Int. his head droop forward in gentle audible slumber. People sitting next to him would discuss their business affairs with enough detail so that Uncle Benedict could figure out the correct approach.

Then Uncle Benedict would give a convulsive nod, a rather loud snore, waken with such evident embarrassment and look around him with such a panic-stricken apology for his snoring that the whole careful of people would spontaneously break into laughter.

After that Uncle Benedict was right at home.

Some ten years before, twinges of pain had announced the coming of arthritis. Gradually the long slender fingers that had been able to deal cards so convincingly from the bottom of the deck, or pick pockets with such consummate skill that a wallet could be lifted, carefully examined, and returned to its proper place, all without the sucker’s having the faintest idea that he had been “cased” — gradually the nimble fingers began to thicken at the joints.

Now Uncle Benedict, confined to a wheel chair, dozed through the twilight of life, his mind as keenly active as ever, and even Martha, his wife, was unable to tell when his dozing was genuine slumber or when he was merely keeping his old act in practice.

Those who had known Uncle Benedict never forgot him. His friends worshiped the ground he walked on. It was a matter of police record that on three occasions suckers whom he had fleeced had refused to prosecute, stating publicly that they valued their brief companionship with Uncle Benedict far more than the money that he had taken from them.

One of his victims had even gone so far as to place an ad in the personal column reading: “Dear Benedict, Come home. All is forgiven. We like you even if it did cost us money...”

Not even Martha knew the ramifications of Uncle Benedict’s connections. With a photographic memory for names, faces, and telephone numbers, Uncle Benedict kept no written memoranda. From time to time he would arouse himself from what seemed to be a sound sleep, send his wheel chair scurrying across to the telephone, dial a number, and give cryptic instructions. Occasionally men came to the house, men who regarded Uncle Benedict’s slightest word as law, men who shook hands very gently so as not to bring pain to the thickened joints, men who left envelopes containing crisp green currency.

The envelopes went in the wastebasket, the currency went into Uncle Benedict’s pocket.

“Income tax!” he’d snort, when Aunt Martha asked him about his business affairs. “You don’t pay income tax on gifts. That’s a free-will offering.” And that was all anybody ever got out of him.

Only once had he elaborated. He explained to Martha, “I showed a man how to make some money. I thought out a scheme. I picked the one man who could put that scheme into operation. When the scheme paid off he sent me a gift. You couldn’t report a gift like that to the income tax. I didn’t even count the money. That would have been looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

Aunt Martha answered Peggy’s ring. “Why, hello, Peggy. What on earth are you doing?”

“I’m up to my neck,” Peggy said.

“I read in the papers that you discovered the body of a girl who’d died from poison.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, let’s not stand here gassing. Come on in.”

Aunt Martha had for years been Uncle Benedict’s “assistant,” the assistance consisting of wearing a pair of skin-fitting black tights, a skirt that fell barely below the hips, a plunging neckline, and a fixed smile.

When Uncle Benedict had come to the point in one of his exhibitions where it was necessary to make a swift substitution or a few passes with the hand that he wanted to be invisible to the audience, Martha would “spontaneously” wiggle her hips, the fixed smile would become broader and more animate, and then the hip motion would swing into a rhythm of pure vivaciousness. As Uncle Benedict used to describe it, “It gave me the opportunity to do the trick, but by the time I’d got it done, half of the audience just didn’t give a damn. They kept on watching Martha’s hips.”

“How’s the old warrior?” Peggy asked.

Aunt Martha looked into the living room and said, “He’s sound asleep, or thinking out a new scheme. I never know which.”

The Sleeper was sitting in his chair, head drooping forward and slightly to one side. He was gently snoring. Abruptly he jerked into conscious wakefulness, choking off an extra loud snore in the middle. He looked at Peggy with every sign of embarrassment. “Good Lord, Peggy, how long have you been here?”

Peggy knew from the sheer perfection of his act that the old Sleeper had merely been keeping in practice.

“Uncle Benedict, I’m in a pint of trouble.”

“That ain’t so much trouble,” Benedict said.

“I’ve been holding out on the police.”

“Well, why not? You can’t go around blabbing all you know.”

She told him the whole story, and he listened carefully. “What do you want?” he asked when she had finished.

She said, “In the can receptacle for apartment five nineteen are the broken remnants of a whiskey bottle. I want that salvaged before the can collector gets it. I want to have it processed for fingerprints, and then I want the latent prints photographed and preserved so they can be used as evidence at any time.”

“What else do you want?”

“Your immoral support.”

Uncle Benedict sent his wheel chair gliding over to the telephone. He dialed a number, waited, then said, “George?”

He waited a moment, then gave the address of the apartment house where Stella Lynn had lived. “There’s a broken whiskey bottle in a galvanized receptacle in the back yard with the number five nineteen on the can. I want that broken bottle carefully preserved. Dust it for fingerprints. Fix any prints you find so they’ll stay there a long time. I also want ’em photographed. Now, you’d better have somebody with you to be a witness in case you’re called on to make an identification of that bottle. Your record ain’t so good... Who’s that?... Yes, he’ll be fine... If anybody says anything, flash a badge showing you’re a sanitary inspector, and make a kick about some of the regulations being broken... That’s right, get them on the defensive... Okay, let me know when you have it. Good-by.”

Uncle Benedict hung up and turned to Peggy. “That’s taken care of. If you should need anything else let me know.”

His eyelids drooped and his head nodded.

Peggy took elaborate precautions to see that no one was following her and then called for the pictures she had left for a rush job of developing and printing.

In the privacy of her apartment she studied the nine pictures and was utterly disappointed. One picture at the beach showed a handsome young man in tight bathing trunks. He had blond wavy hair, an attractive smile, and a magnificent physique, but he meant nothing to Peggy.

There was a shot of an automobile parked by the beach; two pictures of Stella Lynn in a bathing suit that would never have passed any censor anywhere at any time. The bathing suit had evidently been concocted by knotting three bandanas carefully arranged so that they showed all the curves of her figure. It was a suit that was not intended to have any contact with the water.

There was a picture showing the back of an automobile, with a young man lifting two suitcases from the trunk. A series of small cabins with garages showed in the background of this picture.

Peggy looked for the license number on the automobile. Unfortunately the man was standing so that he concealed all but the last three figures — 861.

Peggy studied a picture of a parked car with a stretch of beach in the background. Here again there was no opportunity to get any part of the license number. The car was shown sideways.

There was a picture of a picnic lunch spread out on the beach. The young man with the slender waist and square shoulders was seated cross-legged.

The telephone rang, and Peggy answered it.

Don Kimberly’s voice said, “Thank heaven I’ve caught you, Peggy.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I got up to the office this morning and learned that a police detective was looking for me. I thought, we should find out a little more about that letter before I talked with anyone, so I’ve been hiding out, but I didn’t want to hide out from you, and I didn’t want you to think that I’d left you to stand the gaff. I’ve been trying to get you all day.”

She felt a big surge of relief. “Oh, that’s fine, Don,” she said. “I’m glad you thought of me. Where are you now?”

“Right at the moment,” he said, “I’m at a pay telephone.”

She said, “I understand you’re quite a photographer.”

“I do quite a bit of photographic work, yes.”

“I have some films that I think should be... well, I think we should enlarge one or two of them.”

“Where did you get the films?”

She was silent.

Kimberly said, “Oh-oh, I get it.”

“How long will it take to do it?”

“How many are there?”

“Nine. But I think only two or three are important.”

“Nothing to it,” he said. “We could make enlargements just as big as you want, or pick out the part of the film you wanted enlarged, and then we could go out to dinner. By the time we got back, the enlargements would be dry and we could study them carefully.”

“Could you do all that yourself?”

“Sure. I’m all fixed up for it. I’ll come around and get you.”

“All right, but give me half an hour to shower and dress.”

“Thirty minutes on the dot, and I’ll be there,” he said.

Peggy hung up and dashed for the shower, experiencing a peculiar feeling of exultation that Don hadn’t left her to face the problems alone.

Don Kimberly showed Peggy around his apartment with a sense of pride, pointing out the framed photographs on the walls.

“You took all these?” she asked.

“All of them,” he said. “I like dramatic cloud effects. You can see from these pictures that I’ve gone in for thunderheads and storms over the ocean. Of course, you deliberately dramatize that stuff by overcorrecting with a red filter, but it gives you a sense of power, of the forces of nature.”

“It’s wonderful,” she said. “They’re... they’re believable. They’re true. They somehow symbolize life.”

“I’m glad you like them. — Want to see the darkroom now?”

“I’d love to.”

“Let’s take a look at those films, Peggy.”

She handed him the envelope. He brushed the prints aside and studied the negatives.

“Well,” he said, “the girl used an expensive camera.”

“How do you know without seeing it?”

“You can tell by the films,” he said. “The films are wire sharp. That means she had a coupled range finder and a high-grade lens. That’s why I like to look at negatives instead of prints. The negatives tell the story. Lots of times a cheaper lens will give you a warm black that makes the print seem all right, but the minute you start to blow it up it fuzzes out on you. We’ll make some enlargements right quick.”

“Where’s the darkroom?” she asked.

He laughed. “This is a bachelor apartment. There was a big pantry off the kitchen, a lot bigger than I needed, so I made it lightproof, installed running water, and fixed up a darkroom. Come on in and I’ll show you my workshop.”

He led the way into the darkroom and showed Peggy the two enlarging cameras. One of them used what he called “cold light,” and the other used condensers for sharpness of detail.

Kimberly poured chemicals into stainless-steel trays. “We’ll have these pictures enlarged in a jiffy. Why so thoughtful, Peggy?”

“Because I want to ask you something that’s probably none of my business.”

“What?”

“You know of Stella’s condition?”

“Yes.”

“Were you—” she asked, “that is — were you—”

“You mean am I the man in the case?”

“Yes.”

“No.” He was silent for a few moments. Then he added, “I’ve known Stella for years. She was working in a cafeteria when I first knew her. She was a good-natured, lovable kid. I saw her a few times. Then someone put me on a committee to pick the queen of some local festivities. There was a lineup of a lot of girls in bathing suits, and to my surprise I saw Stella Lynn in the lineup. I don’t think the fact that I knew her influenced my judgment. Anyway, I voted for her, and so did the other two judges. She was elected queen of the outfit. That was three years ago. She’s put on weight since then, but at that time — well, she bad a good figure.”

“Go ahead,” Peggy said, then added, “that is, if you want to.”

“I want to. I want you to know what the situation was. Stella rang me up to thank me for voting for her, and I congratulated her on winning the contest on sheer merit. Then I lost track of her for a while. Then she rang up again and said she wanted to get away from the small town, wanted to go to the city. I gathered there had been a heartbreak.”

“That’s the part I wanted to know about,” Peggy said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to reconstruct Stella’s life.”

“Actually,” Don Kimberly said, “I don’t know too much about her background, Peggy. Do you believe that?”

“Of course.”

“There are some who won’t,” he said thoughtfully. “However, to get back to your question. She was in love with someone. I don’t know who he was, but I have an idea he was a no-good. Stella wanted to get out of town. She was pretty well broken up, and she was broke financially. I had to lend her money to clean up a few bills she had around Cofferville and help her get started on a new job. I had no idea her new job was in our company until I met her there.”

“E. B. Halsey fixed that up for her,” she said.

“I know. E. B. knew her dad in Cofferville. He’s been dead some five years, but E. B. knew him and liked him.”

“And knew her?”

“Apparently.”

“How well?”

“I don’t know. Stella never talked about her friends. I’ve been trying to contact E. B. He isn’t available.”

“I know. This money you lent her, Don — did she pay it back?”

“Yes. Why?”

“She needed a lump sum. You gave her a check?”

“Yes.”

“But when she paid you back it must have been just a little here and a little there in cash.”

“It was.”

“Then she didn’t have anything to show that she paid you?”

“Are you suggesting I’d try to make her pay twice?”

“I’m thinking of the way the police will look at it,” she said. “The banks keep records on microfilm of all checks that pass through their hands.”

“I know,” he said curtly, and she could tell that he was worried.

The doorbell rang sharply, insistently.

Kimberly looked at her in dismay. “I was hoping we could have a chance to get together on a story before — I’ll have to answer it, Peggy, particularly since you’re here.” He led the way out of the darkroom and opened the front door.

Detective Fred Nelson and a young woman stood at the door. “Hello, Kimberly,” Nelson said easily. “This is Frances Bushnell — in case that means anything to you.”

Don Kimberly, without inviting them in, said, “How do you do, Miss Bushnell.”

“It’s Mrs. Bushnell,” Nelson said. “We’re coming in, Kimberly.” He pushed past Kimberly, saw Peggy, and said, “Well, well, it seems the gang’s all here. Sit down, folks.”

“Since you’re playing the part of host,” Kimberly said coldly, “perhaps you’d like to mix some drinks?”

“Now, keep your shirt on,” Nelson told him. “This is business. I’m going to be brief. Mrs. Bushnell was a close friend of Stella Lynn’s. She and her husband and Stella’s boy friend used to go out on foursomes. Tell them about those foursomes, Frances.”

Frances Bushnell seemed ill at ease.

“Go on,” Nelson said, “get it off your chest. Don’t pull any punches. We may as well find out where we stand now as later.”

“Well,” Mrs. Bushnell said, and paused to clear her throat as though not quite certain of herself. “Pete, that was my husband — he still is — and Stella, and Bill Everett—”

“Now, who is Bill Everett?” Nelson interrupted.

“That was Stella’s boy friend.”

“And when was this?”

“When she was in Cofferville, working in the cafeteria as cashier.”

“All right, go ahead.”

“Well, Pete and I and Stella and Bill used to go out on weekends together. We were all friends. Pete and I got married. I got to know Stella quite well.”

“What about this Bill guy?” Nelson asked.

“He turned out to be no good. I think he got into some trouble somewhere. I know it broke Stella’s heart. I think she was really fond of him.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About two years ago.”

“Then what?”

“Pete and I got married and came here to live. When Stella came she looked us up. I still kept in touch with her.”

“Now, when was the last time you saw her?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“Where?”

“In a cocktail bar on Fifth Street.”

“You just happened to run into her, or did you have an appointment, or what?”

“It’s a sort of gathering place. Some of us girls who work in offices drop in for a little chat and a cocktail.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“Stella was there.”

“What did she say?”

“Well, we talked for a while about this and that and I asked her if she wanted to have dinner with me and she said no, that she had a dinner date with a Prince Charming who was taking her to a night spot — that she had something to tell him that was going to jolt him.”

“Did she tell you the man’s name?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“Don Kimberly.”

“Did she tell you she was going to let him know he was about to become a father?”

“She said she was going to tell him something that was going to jolt him.”

Nelson turned to Kimberly. “Thought you’d like to hear this,” he said. “In view of Mrs. Bushnell’s story I think I’ll take a look around — unless, of course, you have some objection. If you do, I’ll get a warrant and look anyway.”

“I see,” Kimberly said sarcastically. “The good old police system. If you can’t solve a crime, start trying to pin it on someone.”

“Who said anybody was trying to pin anything on you?”

“You might as well have said it,” Kimberly blazed. “Go right ahead. Look through the place. I’ll just go along with you to make sure you don’t plant anything.”

“Now, is that nice?” Nelson asked. He got up and walked around the living room, then pointed to a door and asked, “What’s this?”

“Bedroom,” Kimberly said curtly.

Nelson went in. The others followed him. Nelson looked around, opened the door of the clothes closet, carefully studied the clothes, looked into the bathroom, and gave particular attention to the bottles in the medicine cabinet. Then he went into the kitchen, pointed to another door, and asked, “What’s that?”

“Darkroom.”

Nelson pushed in. The others stood in the doorway. Nelson said, “You have your amber light on; you’re all set up for something.”

“Yes, I was doing a little enlarging.”

“He was showing me something about photography,” Peggy said.

“I see, I see,” Nelson said in a tone of voice that indicated his mind was far away. He began opening the various bottles on the shelves and smelling the contents. He said, “I do quite a bit of photography myself. You’ve got a little more expensive equipment here than I can afford. That’s a swell enlarger. You like the condensers better than the cold light?”

Kimberly made no answer.

Nelson whistled a tune as he moved around the darkroom, looking over the bottles, studying the labels, smelling the contents.

Suddenly he paused. “What the hell’s this?” he asked.

“Potassium bromide. If you’re a photographer you should know.”

“The hell it is. That stuff comes in large crystals. This is— Smell it.”

“I don’t think it has any odor,” Kimberly said.

“Well, this stuff does. Take a smell. And don’t get your nose too close to it. You might wish you hadn’t.”

Kimberly sniffed the bottle gingerly, then turned puzzled eyes toward the detective. “Why,” he said, “that smells... smells like—”

“Exactly,” Nelson agreed. “It smells like potassium cyanide. It is potassium cyanide.”

Abruptly he put the bottle down, put the cork back in place, and said, “I don’t want anyone to touch that bottle. I’m going to process it for fingerprints. I left my fingerprints around the neck of the bottle, but I didn’t leave them on the rest of it. And now, Mr. Donald Kimberly, I’m sorry, but I’m arresting you for the murder of Stella Lynn. Hold out your wrists.”

In a taxicab headed toward Uncle Benedict’s, Peggy studied the purloined pictures, trying to penetrate the details of the shadows.

Don Kimberly’s arrest had been a terrific shock. The statement of Mrs. Bushnell had been like a devastating bomb.

Peggy had a blind faith in Don Kimberly, but she couldn’t combat his arrest except by digging up new and convincing evidence. The morning newspapers would sound the death knell of her new job unless something could be turned up. She hoped her uncle had been able to get some fingerprints from that broken whiskey bottle.

The beach scene, Peggy concluded, was a picnic, and apparently it had been a twosome — just Stella Lynn and the young man in the bathing suit who appeared in the pictures. He had taken a couple of pictures of Stella. The costume Stella was wearing would not have been permitted on a public beach, so these pictures must have been taken at a private part of the beach. Had they been taken before the others or afterward?

The series of small cabins, all uniform in appearance, suggested a motel, probably somewhere along the beach.

The cab slowed to a stop at Uncle Benedict’s. “Wait for me,” she told the driver, and ran up the steps.

Aunt Martha came to the door. “Heaven’s sake, Peggy, give a body a chance to get there. You rang three times while I was putting my knitting down. What’s the trouble?”

“Nothing. Where’s Uncle?”

“Right here. Come on in.”

Peggy walked over to the wheel chair and kissed Benedict on the forehead.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“Nothing in particular but I wanted to see if you’d found out anything about that broken bottle and—”

“Damn it, Peggy,” he said irritably, “I’ve taught you to lie better than that.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Everything. Never run your words together when you’re lying. Sounds too much like reciting a formula. Never let a sucker feel he’s hearing a rehearsed line. When you’re lying you want to be thoroughly at ease — never have tension in your voice. Keep your sentences short. Don’t intersperse explanations with lies. That’s where the average liar falls down. He puts himself on the defensive in the middle of what should be the most convincing part of his lie.

“Now sit down and tell me what’s handed you such a jolt. Tell the truth, if you can. If you can’t, tell the kind of lie that’ll make me proud of you. Now, what’s up?”

Peggy said, “They arrested Don Kimberly for Stella’s murder.”

“What evidence?”

“That’s the tough part. They found a bottle of potassium cyanide among his photographic chemicals, right over the sink in his darkroom.”

Uncle Benedict threw back his grizzled head and laughed.

“It’s no laughing matter,” she said.

“Makes him out so damned stupid, that’s all. There he is with a whole darkroom. Got a sink and running water and everything, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“How many more people did they think he was aiming to kill with cyanide?”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose he had killed her. He’s scored a bull’s-eye. That was all he wanted. He’d done the job. He’s got no more use for poison. He’d wash the rest of it down the drain. Nope, somebody’s planting evidence. Seems funny the cops didn’t think about that. Perhaps they have. Maybe they’re giving this person lots of rope for self-hanging purposes.”

Listening to him, she realized the logic of what he said, and suddenly felt much better. She spread the pictures out in front of him.

Uncle Benedict’s eyes lit up. “Good-looking babe,” he said, studying the pictures of Stella in the bathing suit. “Dam good-looking.”

Aunt Martha, fixing a pot of hot tea for Peggy, snorted, “You’d think he was a Don Juan to listen to him.”

“Casanova, Casanova,” Uncle Benedict corrected her irritably. “All right, what about these pictures, Peggy?”

“What can you tell me about them?”

He picked up the pictures and studied them. Then he said, “This is the motel where they stayed Saturday.”

“Who stayed there?”

“This girl in a bathing suit and the fellow who’s with her.”

“Uncle Benedict, you shouldn’t say things like that without knowing. You don’t know they stayed there, and you can’t know it was Saturday.”

“I don’t, eh?” he grinned. “It sticks out plain as the nose on your face. This picture with the beach in the background was taken Sunday morning. Same car here as in the other picture. Put two and two together.”

“You’re jumping at conclusions and not being very fair to Stella.”

“Not as bad as what the coroner did, broadcasting a girl’s secrets that way. Ought to be ashamed of himself. Two months’ pregnant, and he puts it in the paper!”

“He had to do that,” she said. “It’s part of the evidence. It shows the motivation for murder.”

“Uh-huh,” Uncle Benedict said.

“What makes you think it was Saturday noon in one picture and Sunday morning in the other?” she asked.

“Use your eyes,” he told her. “Here’s a motel. See all those garages with cars in them?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the sun?”

“What do you mean, where’s the sun?”

“Look at your shadows,” he said. “Here, hand me that ruler.”

She handed it to him. His arthritis-crippled hands moved the ruler over the photograph so that one end was against a patch of shadow, the other end against the top of an ornamental light pole. “All right, there’s the angle of your sun, good and high.”

“All right, so what?”

“Look at the automobiles in the garages. Most motel patrons are transients. They’re hitting the road. They want to come in at night, have a bath, sleep, get up early, be on their way.

“Now, look at this one. Automobiles in almost every garage, and from the angle of the sun it’s either three in the afternoon or nine in the morning. Look carefully, and you can see it’s morning because here’s a cabin with a key in a half-open door. The key has a big metal tag hanging from it so tenants won’t cart it off, and it’s caught the sunlight and reflected it right into the camera. That car got away early. If it had been afternoon the key would have been in the office instead of the door. Only one car is gone; most of the people using the motel aren’t traveling and that means it’s Sunday. The guests are weekenders, people who came Saturday to spend a weekend. Spend it where? Not in a motel, unless that motel’s at a beach.

“Now look at this other picture. Warm, sunny day. Hardly any surf. See that wharf out there? Lots of fishermen on it. Those are people who came early and—”

“I don’t see any wharf.”

“Take a good look,” he said.

“That’s just a black spot out there— No, wait a minute—”

“Black spot nothing,” he said. “It’s the end of a pier. See it sticking out there? Take a magnifying glass; you’ll see people all bunched up, fishing at the far end of the—”

“Of course,” she said. “I hadn’t noticed it before. It’s the end of a pier, all right.”

“Look at the people. Here’s where a road runs down to the beach. Jammed with cars parked all along it. But people haven’t spread out on the north end of the beach yet. On a Sunday the whole thing would be crowded. The way it is now, just about the number of people are on the beach who would have come in those parked cars. They haven’t had to park their cars way uptown and walk down to the beach. See the shadow of the automobile? Sun’s pretty much overhead. It’s just about noon. Wouldn’t get that big a play on a beach this time of year except Saturday. Sunday noon it’d be even bigger. All right, what more do you want?”

She said, “I’d like to know who owns that automobile.”

“Why don’t you find out?”

“How can I?”

He said, “How many beaches are there around here that have piers sticking out that far? How many motels in that city—”

“What city?”

He tapped the ornamental lighting fixture. “See the peculiar design on that lighting fixture? I could tell you a lot about those fixtures. Pal of mine took over the sale of ornamental lighting fixtures to a city. There’s a great opportunity! That’s real graft. Perfectly legitimate. I guess that’s why I never cared much for it, but I can tell you—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, “I know where it is myself now. Why in the world didn’t I notice the significance of that ornamental street light before?”

“Preoccupied,” he said. “That’s ’cause you’re in love.”

“I am not!”

“Bet you are! Wrapped up in that Beau Brummell guy they took to prison.”

“I am not, but— I would like to impress him once with Peggy Castle the girl, and not just Peggy Castle the logical thinker.”

“How are you going to do it?”

“I’m going to prove he didn’t commit the murder.”

Uncle Benedict chuckled. “Listen to her, Martha. She wants him to notice her as a cute trick and not as an efficient thinking machine, so she goes out and uses her brain! Don’t use your brain when you’re trying to impress a man, Peggy. Don’t let him think you have any brain. Have curves. Be helpless and—”

“You leave Peggy alone,” Aunt Martha said. “She’s doing it her way.”

Uncle Benedict shook his head. “Men can’t see glamor and brains together, Martha. Either one or the other.”

Aunt Martha put down the teapot. “What did you marry me for?”

His eyes were reminiscent. “Glamor, curves,” he said. “Boy, when you walked out on the stage with tights on, you—”

“So,” she blazed indignantly, “now you’re trying to tell me I haven’t any brains!”

Uncle Benedict shook his head. “Arguing with a woman,” he said, “is like trying to order the weather to suit the farmers. Where are you goin’ in such a rush, Peggy?”

Peggy was dashing for the door. “I’m not going, I’m gone. Thanks and good-by!”

Peggy felt a surge of triumph when within less than an hour from the time she reached the beach city she had located the motel. The proprietress was reluctant to discuss registrations. “We’re running a decent, clean, respectable place,” she said. “Of course, we don’t ask people to show us marriage licenses every time they come in, but they don’t do that even in the Waldorf-Astoria. We just try to look ’em over and—”

Peggy patiently interrupted to explain that hers was a private matter; that if necessary she could get official authority; but that she didn’t want to and she didn’t think the woman wanted her to.

That secured instant results. Peggy examined the weekend registrations.

The car was 5N20861, registered to Peter Bushnell. Mr. and Mrs. Bushnell had spent the weekend in a cabin.

Peggy could have cried with disappointment. All her hopes were dashed. If she could have proved that Stella had had a boy friend with whom she had spent the weekend, then Stella’s date with Don Kimberly would have looked like a mere business date. But now that had been swept away. Stella had spent the weekend with the Bushnells.

Fighting back tears, Peggy started back to her apartment. Then a thought struck her with the force of a blow. She felt certain Mrs. Bushnell had said that Pete was “still” married to her. Did that mean—?

Peggy frantically consulted the address she had taken from the registration book at the motel. It was a ten-to-one shot, but she was taking it. Peter Bushnell was going to have an unexpected visitor.

She drove rapidly to the address, an old-fashioned, unpretentious, comfortable-looking apartment house.

A card in the mailbox told her Peter Bushnell’s apartment was on the second floor. Peggy didn’t even stop for the elevator, but raced up the stairs to the apartment. A slender ribbon of illumination showed from the underside of the door.

Her heart hammering with excitement, she rang the bell.

Peggy heard a chair being pushed back, and then the door opened and Peggy found herself looking at the face of the man in the photograph. Now it was a haggard face, drawn with suffering.

“You’re Peter Bushnell,” she said. “I’m Peggy Castle. I want to talk with you.”

She stepped past him into the apartment, turned, smiled reassuringly, and waited for him to close the door.

“Won’t you... won’t you sit down?” he said. “It’s rather late, but—”

“I wanted to talk with you about Stella,” she said.

His face showed consternation. “I... I have nothing to say.”

“Oh, yes, you have. I know some of the facts. In justice to yourself and in justice to Stella’s memory you’ll have to give me the rest of them.”

“What facts?”

“For instance, the weekend at the Seaswept Motel. You registered under your own name. Why did you do that, Pete?”

“Why not? The car’s registered in my name. Why shouldn’t I have used it?”

“Because you registered Stella as your wife.”

“Well — so what?”

“Suppose Frances found out about it?”

“How would she find out?”

“I found out about it.”

“How?”

Peggy merely smiled. She said, “Tell me about Stella, Pete.”

“Who are you anyway?”

“I’m an investigator.”

“With the police?”

“No. I represent the company Stella worked for. You don’t want Stella’s name dragged through the mud, and we don’t want it dragged through the mud. You were in love with her, weren’t you, Pete?”

He nodded. His face showed anguish.

“Now, then, let’s get down to brass tacks,” Peggy Mid. “You married Frances. Stella was going with Bill Everett. You went on weekend parties together, didn’t you?”

He said, “That was before I was married to Frances. Then Fran and I got married and— Well, I found out it was a mistake before we’d been married three months.”

“Why was it a mistake, Pete?”

“Because I had been in love with Stella all the time and hadn’t realized it. You have no idea what it was like to be out with Stella. She was such good company. She never sulked, never got mad, never complained. She took everything just the way it came, and she always had such a good time that you had a good time too. She enjoyed life. She got a kick out of everything.

“Fran was just the opposite. Fran had to have things just so. When she was with a foursome she hid behind Stella’s good nature so you didn’t see her real character. After we were married and it was just the two of us... well, it showed up then.”

“What happened?”

“I wanted a divorce, and Fran wouldn’t give me one. She knew by that time I was in love with Stella and did everything she could to block us. She swore that if she couldn’t have me, Stella couldn’t.”

“So you and Frances separated, and you and Stella started living together?”

“Well, in a way. Not quite like that.”

“Why didn’t you live together all the time, Pete? Why those surreptitious weekends?”

“Stella was afraid of Fran. She didn’t want Fran to find it out, but— Well, in a way we were married.”

“What do you mean?”

“We went down to Mexico and had a marriage ceremony performed.”

“When?”

“Four or five months ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police about this?”

“Well, I was trying to make up my mind. That’s what I was doing when you rang the bell. I don’t know what to do. Fran, of course, would have me right where she wanted me, but under the circumstances— I just don’t know.

“Fran can be a bear cat. She’s been married before. The man she was married to wrote me a letter. He said Fran was poison, that she wouldn’t give him a divorce, that she was a dog in the manger.”

“What did you do?”

“I hunted him out and beat him up.”

Peggy, looking at the anguished face, was thinking rapidly. There had to be an angle — there had to be!

“You knew Stella was going to have a baby?”

“Yes. Our baby. She’d only just found out herself. She told me Saturday.”

Meeting his eyes, Peggy said, “Pete, she really was your wife. Your marriage to Fran was illegal. Fran had never been divorced.”

“She told me she’d been divorced.”

“Did you check on it?”

“No, I took her word for it.”

“You were married to Stella, in Mexico. That marriage was legal. Stella was your legal wife. Now tell me about Bill Everett.”

“That crook! He ran with a gang. They all got caught on that stickup in Cofferville.”

“Had he been in touch with Stella recently?”

“Not that I know of. Not since he got out of prison.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

Pete shook his head.

“Did you know Stella had asked Don Kimberly to meet her at the Royal Pheasant?”

“No, I didn’t. She didn’t say anything.”

“Do you know where Bill Everett is?”

“No.”

“You have no idea how I could locate him?”

“No.”

“How long had he been mixed up with the gang, Pete? Was it just one slip or—”

“One slip, nothing,” Pete said. “The guy was just no good right from the start. He’d been lying to us all the time. That’s the way he was making his money — he was a member of a stickup gang. He thought he was smart, thought he was beating the law.”

“Do you know the other members of the gang?”

He shook his head. “Guess you could find out who they were from the court records. They were all caught on that service-station stickup.”

“They’d been working together for some time?”

“Apparently so,” Pete said. “I don’t know too much about it. Anyway, I’m all broken up. I can’t think good.”

Peggy said, “Try and think. Tell me everything you know about Bill.”

Pete said. “The gang used to communicate with each other by ads in the personal column of a newspaper. Bill told me that once. They’d arrange meeting places and things of that sort. That’s all I know.”

Peggy said, “Pete, I want you to do exactly what I am going to tell you.”

“What?” he asked.

“This,” she said, “is the way to clear the thing up, provided you do exactly as I tell you. I want you to go down to the morgue and claim the body of Stella Lynn. Claim the body as that of your wife. Do you understand? You’re her husband.”

“But,” he said, “our marriage— Well, you know, it wasn’t—”

“How do you know it wasn’t? You have Stella’s memory to think of. Do exactly as I tell you. Go down to the morgue at once. Claim the body on the ground that you’re Stella’s husband. Don’t let anyone get you to admit that there’s even the faintest doubt in your mind about the validity of that Mexican marriage. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“Do you have any money?” she asked.

“Enough.”

“I can help—”

“No. This is on me,” he said. As he pushed back his chair his manner showed the relief of one who has had a load lifted from his shoulders.

In the newspaper office Peggy consulted the back files, carefully scanning the want-ad section.

In a paper of four days before she found the ad in the personal column:

Pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were beginning to fall into place in Peggy’s mind. The next question was whether she should pour her story into the ears of Detective Fred Nelson or get some additional evidence.

A silver dime was to determine Peggy’s next course. She called Essex 4-6810 and waited, her pulses pounding with excitement. If things went through without a hitch now, she’d handle it herself. If she struck a snag over the telephone, her next call would be to Detective Nelson.

At length a masculine voice, wary, uncordial, said, “Yeah?”

“Is Bill Everett there?”

“Who wants him?”

“A girl.”

The man laughed and said, “You could have fooled me.”

She heard his voice raised in a call. “Bill in there? Some dame wants him on the phone.”

A moment later she heard steps approaching the phone; another voice, cold, guarded but curious, said, “Yes? Hello.”

“Bill?”

“Who is it?”

“I’m a friend of Fran’s. It’s about a butterfly.”

The voice at the other end of the line instantly lost all coldness and reserve.

“Well, it’s about time!” he exclaimed. “Where the hell is Fran? Why didn’t she call me about the insurance interview?”

“She’s where she can’t call.”

“Good Lord, you don’t mean she’s—”

“Now, take it easy,” Peggy said. “I have a message for you.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t be silly. I can’t give it to you over the phone. Where can I meet you?”

“You got a car?”

“Yes.”

“Come on out here.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Peggy said. “There’s a lot of this I didn’t get from Fran. She only gave me the number to call and—”

“Adams and Elmore,” he said. “It’s on the corner. What kind of a car are you driving?”

“Fifty-one green coupé.”

“How long will it take you?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Okay, okay, get out here! Park your bus on Elmore just before you get to Adams — on the right-hand side of the street, headed south. Sit there and wait for me. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“The last fireplug in the block,” he said. “Slide in there and wait. Now, when is Fran going to—”

“Wait until I see you,” Peggy interrupted. “You talk too much over the phone.”

“Damned if I don’t,” Everett said, and she could hear the receiver being slammed into place at the other end of the line.

Peggy then dialed police headquarters, asked for Detective Fred Nelson, and was lucky enough to find him in.

“This is Peggy Castle,” she said.

“Oh, yes, hello.” His voice was more cordial than she had expected.

“I have a lead on the Stella Lynn case.”

“Yeah, I know,” Nelson said. “You have lots of leads. You pulled the trigger on a lot of publicity, didn’t you?”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Nice and dramatic,” he said. “It worked out a thousand percent. Grief-crazed husband stumbles into the morgue, tearfully claims the body of Stella Lynn, his wife. How the newspapers fell for that one! They just called me from the morgue.” He stopped talking, and Peggy said nothing.

“You there?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, why don’t you say something?”

“You’re doing the talking. I called you up to tell you something. When you get ready to listen let me know.”

He laughed. “All right, I’ll listen, but don’t think I was born yesterday just because you didn’t meet me until today. I’ve been around a while.”

“I’m quite certain you have,” Peggy said. “As I said, I have a lead in the Lynn case.”

“What is it this time?”

Peggy said, “Stella wanted Don Kimberly to meet her at the Royal Pheasant because she wanted to find out if it would be possible to negotiate for the return of the gems on that Garrison job.”

“What!” Nelson exclaimed.

“Bill Everett, Stella’s ex-boyfriend, was mixed up in that job. Now he’s got a fortune in gems and can’t fence them. You know what happens at a time like that. He wants to know whether he can make a deal with the insurance company.”

“Who’s this fellow you say pulled the job?”

“Bill Everett. He’s been in trouble before. He was picked up in Cofferville for the robbery of a service station.”

“Uh-huh, go ahead. What’s the pitch?”

“I have a date with him. He’s going to give me the lowdown. Now, if you wanted to cooperate—”

“I’m sorry, Miss Castle,” Nelson said. “You’re out of bounds. Cooperating with you doesn’t do anything except get your company off the hot stove and leave the Police Department holding the bag. If you have any chestnuts in the fire, just get yourself another cat’s-paw.”

“But don’t you want to recover—”

“I want to recover from a couple of bad blows below the belt,” Nelson said. “You don’t know whether Bushnell was legally married to Stella Lynn or not, but you’ve got the story nicely planted on the front page of every newspaper, together with pictures of the stricken husband. I don’t think I care about being a stalking horse. Where is this Bill Everett?”

“Find out, if you’re so damned smart,” she blazed, and slammed the receiver.

She drove rapidly to Elmore, followed it down toward Adams, eased the car to a stop, and waited.

Sitting there in the dark she experienced a feeling of complete loneliness. The motor of the car made sharp crackling noises as the metal cooled off. Five blocks behind her was a through highway. The sound of traffic, muted by distance, came to her ears.

A man walked by but seemed to take no notice of the car. He moved rapidly, heels pounding the pavement as if he were going somewhere in a hurry.

Peggy waited another five minutes. Suddenly she was conscious of a shadow at the right-rear fender of the car. Then the door on the right-hand side swung open. A man eased into the seat beside her and said, “Okay, wind her up.”

Peggy asked, “Are you—”

“Wind her up, I said,” the man told her. “Get the hell out of here. You want to get us both taken for a ride?”

Peggy started the motor and glided away from the curb. The man at her side swung around so he could look through the rear window, and carefully watched the street behind him.

“Turn right on Adams,” he said.

Peggy turned right.

“Left at the next intersection.”

Peggy followed instructions.

“Pick up a little speed,” he told her. “Don’t dawdle along. All right, now give it the gun and turn right at the next intersection... Okay, left again... Okay.”

At length the man eased back into a more comfortable position, ceased watching the road behind them, and fastened his eyes on Peggy. Peggy was conscious of a distinct feeling of disquiet, a peculiar apprehension. Suppose everything didn’t go right. Suppose...

“It’s your dime,” the man said. “Start talking.”

Peggy knew she had to draw him out. So far she had got by on bluff and surmise. Now she was going to need facts, and the man beside her was the only person from whom she could get those facts.

The man continued, “What’s the pitch? Let’s see who you are first. I’m Bill. Who are you?”

Peggy slipped her hand down the opening of her blouse, brought out the jeweled butterfly, held it so he could see it for a brief instant, then popped it back into her blouse.

“Hey, wait a minute,” he said, “where the hell did you get that?”

“Where do you suppose?”

“Here, pull into this next alley,” Bill said. “We’re going to have a showdown on this.”

She felt something prodding at her side, and, glancing down, saw the glint of light on blued steel.

“Get over there. Turn down that alley.” His shoe crushed her foot against the brake pedal.

With a little cry of pain she jerked her foot away. The car swerved. The gun jabbed hard into her ribs. “Turn down that alley!”

She bit her lip, fighting hack the pain in her foot, and turned down the alley.

Bill reached over and turned off the ignition switch. “Now, baby,” he said, “if you’re trying to pull a fast one, what’s going to happen to you isn’t—”

Abruptly the car was flooded with brilliance as a following car, running without lights, suddenly blazed its headlights on the parked car.

Bill shoved the gun under his coat. “If that’s a prowl car,” he warned, “and you make a squawk, I’ll kill you just as sure as—”

A figure jumped out of the car behind and came striding forward. A man’s sneering voice said, “Well, Bill, trying to cut yourself a piece of cake, eh?”

At the sound of that voice Peggy could see Bill’s face twist in a spasm of fear. He jerked his body around. “Butch!” he exclaimed, and then after a moment added, “Am I glad you’re here! I’ve caught a dame trying to pull a fast one on us.”

“Yeah. You look as though you’re glad to see us,” Butch said.

Another man came up on the other side of the car and stood at the open window on Peggy’s side. He was a tall cadaverous man with lips so thin that his mouth looked as though it might have been cut across his face with a razor blade.

The man Bill had addressed as Butch said, “Get in and take the wheel, Slim. Drive up to Bill’s place. Bill, you get in with us. I want to talk with you.”

Slim opened the door and slapped Peggy’s thigh with the back of his hand. “Move over, cutie.”

Butch opened the door on the right-hand side. “Come on, Bill.”

Bill said. “Sure, sure.” His voice was too full of cordiality. “I want to talk things over with you guys, but listen, I think this babe is maybe a private dick or something. She’s trying to pull a fast one.”

“Yeah,” Butch said. “We know all about this babe. Come on, get in, Bill. We’re going to take a nice little ride and have a nice little talk.”

Bill got out of the car. Peggy slid over on the seat, and Slim took the wheel.

“You’ll have to back out,” Butch said to Slim. “It’s a blind alley.”

“Okay.”

“You take the lead,” Butch went on. “If she makes any trouble, bean her.” He moved away with Bill in tow.

Slim reached into his side coat pocket, pulled out a blackjack, and looped the thong around his wrist. “Let’s not have any misunderstanding, sister,” he said. “One peep out of you, one false move, and I’ll knock you so cold it’ll be next week before you come to. I’m going to be driving with one hand. This other one is ready to chop you down whenever you make a yip. Do you get me?”

She smiled at him and said, “Aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps if you’ll tell me—”

“Yeah, I know,” Slim said, “pulling the old sex charm. It doesn’t work, babe. When I’m on a business deal I’m cold as a cucumber. Now, turn your kisser around here so I can take a little precaution against any sudden screams.”

“What do you mean?”

He grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her head over to him roughly. She felt the slap of a hand across her mouth and something sticky against her cheeks. Almost before she understood what he was doing, a wide strip of adhesive tape had been slapped across her mouth. Slim’s cigarette-stained fingers massaged the tape firmly into place.

“All right, baby,” he said. “Don’t try to raise your hands to the adhesive tape. The minute you do, you get clouted. Don’t make any grabs for the steering wheel. Don’t try anything funny. If you reach for the door handle you’ll never know what hit you. Okay, here we go.”

He drove skillfully with his left hand, his right on the back of the seat, the blackjack ready. The glint in his eyes told Peggy he was, as he had said, cold as a cucumber when he was on a business deal.

Slim tooled the car along until they glided to the curb in front of an apartment house a block from Adams and Elmore.

“Just sit still,” Slim cautioned.

The other car parked behind them. Peggy saw Butch escorting Bill Everett, saw that Bill was talking volubly, rapidly, that Butch wasn’t even listening.

A third man came up to address Slim briefly. “I’ll go ahead and make sure the coast is clear,” he said. “Wait for my flash.”

“Okay,” Slim said.

Bill and Butch moved into the apartment house. A light came on in a ground-floor window. The curtain was promptly drawn, shutting off the light. A few seconds later a flashlight blinked twice.

“Okay, babe,” Slim said. “This is it. Let’s go.”

He reached across her, opened the door, and shoved her out. She looked desperately up and down the deserted street.

Slim’s hand moved deftly down her arm, caught her wrist, doubled it back until excruciating pain caused her to take a step forward to ease the pressure.

Slim stepped forward with her. The pressure remained the same.

Peggy tried to scream, but only a little whimpering noise came from behind the adhesive tape. In the end she was all but running, trying to keep just enough ahead of Slim to ease the painful pressure that was straining the ligaments on her arm.

She was hurried along a dark corridor. The third man, who had evidently been driving the other car, jerked open a door. Peggy was pushed inside.

Slim tossed her purse at Butch. “Catch,” he said.

Butch opened her purse and examined her driving license and identification.

“Honest, Butch,” Bill said, “this is a new one on me. She made contact and—”

Butch looked up from Peggy’s driving license. “Shut him up, Slim.”

“Okay,” Slim said, moving forward.

Bill said, “No, no, I am on the level with this. She—”

Slim swung the blackjack with the deft wrist motion. The peculiar thunk sounded as though someone had slapped an open palm against a ripe watermelon. Bill turned glassy-eyed, his head dropped forward, he slumped down in the chair, and then, with fear in his eyes he held onto a thin margin of consciousness. “No, no,” he screamed. “You guys aren’t going to do that to me. You—”

The peculiar thunking sound was repeated.

Butch didn’t even glance at Bill. He looked at Peggy and said, “So you’re from the insurance company that has the two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar policy on the Garrison gems.”

Peggy pointed toward the strip of adhesive tape on her lips.

“You don’t need to have that off to nod,” Butch said, his eyes cold.

She remained stiff-necked, defiant. Butch jerked his head, and Slim moved over beside her.

“When I ask questions,” Butch said, “I want you to answer them. Slim plays rough, and he doesn’t have any more feeling about women than a snake. Now, as I get it, you work for the insurance company, and Bill was making a deal with you to turn back the gems provided you could buy him immunity and pay him maybe thirty or forty thousand bucks. Is that the case?”

She shook her head.

“Soften her up, Slim,” Butch said. “She’s lying.”

Slim tapped the back of her neck with the blackjack. It was only a gentle tap, but it sent a sharp pain shooting through Peggy’s brain. She saw a succession of bright flashes in front of her eyes and felt a numbing paralysis that gradually gave place to a dull throbbing ache.

“I’m waiting for an answer,” Butch said.

She took a deep breath, fought back the nauseating headache, then shook her head determinedly.

Slim cocked his wrist and then held it at a sign from Butch, whose slightly puzzled eyes held a glint of admiration. “Damn it,” he said, “the babe’s got nerve!” Butch turned to regard the unconscious Bill. Then he said, “When he comes back to join us we’ll ask him some questions. I sure had a straight tip that Bill was in on a sellout, and — hell, it has to be true.”

“Want me to take the tape off?” Slim asked.

“Not yet.” Butch said. “We’ve got all night. We—”

There was a peculiar sound at the door of the apartment, a rustling noise as though garments were brushing against it.

Butch looked at Slim who moved toward the door. His right hand streaked for the left lapel of his coat, but the blackjack that was looped around the wrist impeded the motion. The door banged open explosively, hitting against the wall, rebounding and shivering.

Detective Fred Nelson, looking over the sights of a .38, sized up the situation. “Okay, you punks,” he said, “that’ll be about all.”

He looked at Peggy, sitting there with the strip of tape across her lips. “I guess this time you were on the up and up,” he said. “You got sore and wouldn’t tell me where Bill Everett was living, but it happened one of the boys had done a routine check job on him because he is an ex-con.

“Now you guys line up against that wall, and keep your hands up. You can spend the night in a cell or on a marble slab, and it don’t make a damn bit of difference to me which it is.”

Peggy sat in Detective Fred Nelson’s office. Police Captain Farwell, whose eyes made no attempt to conceal respectful admiration, sat at one end of the big table. Don Kimberly sat at the other end. Nelson asked the questions.

Peggy felt like a tightrope walker, giving them step-by-step conclusions to get Kimberly off the hook of the murder charge; but she was faced with the necessity of glossing over certain clues that she and Kimberly had suppressed and of minimizing the clues Nelson had overlooked. There was no use in making Nelson look dumb before his superior. She might need him again some time.

“A woman,” Peggy explained, “naturally notices certain things a man would never see.”

“What things?” Nelson asked.

“Well, for instance, a matter of housekeeping.”

“Go ahead,” the police captain said.

“Well,” Peggy went on, “you have to put yourself in the position of a murderer in order to understand how a murder is committed.”

The captain glanced at Detective Nelson. “It isn’t going to hurt you to listen to this with both ears.” he said.

Peggy said, “Let’s suppose I wanted to murder Stella Lynn by giving her a drink of poisoned whiskey. I’d have to make certain she drank the whiskey and I didn’t. So I’d poison my bottle of liquor and then go call on Stella so I could get rid of her liquor.

“Now, Stella might be fresh out of whiskey, or she might have a bottle that was half full or she might have a full bottle. She was going out on a date. She wouldn’t want to drink too much, and, of course, I wouldn’t want to drink much because I couldn’t afford to be drunk.”

“So what would you do?” Nelson asked, his eyes still cautious.

“Why,” Peggy said, “I’d make it a point to smash her bottle of whiskey so I’d have a good excuse to go out and get another one to take its place. Then I’d want to be sure Stella was the only one who drank out of that new bottle.”

“Go ahead,” the Captain said.

“Well, if you dropped the bottle on the living-room carpet, or on the kitchen floor, which had linoleum, it might not break, and then your murder plan would be out the window. There was only one place you could drop it — on the bathroom tiles.

“A man would have a lot of trouble working out a scheme by which he could take the bottle of liquor Stella had, carry it into the bathroom, and drop it — without the whole business seeming very strange. A woman could do it easily. She’d run in while Stella was dressing. Stella would say to her, ‘I’m getting ready to go out on a date, but come in and talk to me anyway,’ and the woman would have all the chance in the world to carry the liquor to the bathroom, start to pour a drink, drop the bottle, and say, ‘Oh, dear, Stella. I’ve dropped your whiskey. You go right ahead with your dressing. I’ll run down, get another bottle, and then clean up this mess.’

“So the woman went to get the other bottle of whiskey — the bottle that had been poisoned and then resealed. She came back with the package, handed it to Stella, and said, ‘Now, Stella, you just go right ahead with your dressing and I’ll clean up this mess in the bathroom.’

“So she started picking up the pieces of glass, and Stella took the new bottle of whiskey. Stella being Stella, she simply had to open it, pour herself a good-sized drink, and toss it off.”

There was silence for several seconds, then Captain Farwell nodded slowly and again glanced at Nelson.

Nelson said almost defensively, “It’s a damned good theory, but where’s the proof?”

“The proof,” Peggy said, her eyes wide and innocent, “why, there’s plenty of proof. I looked carefully at the bathroom floor to see if there weren’t little pieces of glass that hadn’t been cleaned up. It’s awfully hard to clean up glass slivers, you know. Sure enough, there were several little pieces.”

Nelson took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said, “we saw them.”

“And then, of course, the broken bottle that was out in the trash can in the back yard. You see, the whiskey had to be mopped up, and the murderer’s hands were sticky and they left a beautiful set of fingerprints on the broken bottle.”

“Where’s that bottle?” Captain Farwell asked.

Nelson’s eyes shifted.

“Oh, Mr. Nelson has it,” Peggy said quickly. “He’s got all the evidence, and it occurred to me that if Mr. Nelson would have his men comb the neighborhood thoroughly to see if someone didn’t leave a package at a nearby drug store or restaurant, or someplace around there where she could go back and get it, and they could identify that woman— Then, of course, there are the fingerprints.”

“Whose fingerprints are they?” Captain Farwell asked Nelson.

Peggy answered the question. “We’ll have to let Mr. Nelson finish the detail work before we know for sure, but they have to be those of Mrs. Bushnell.

“You see, we’ve established that Stella was killed by a woman. We know Bill Everett got Fran to try to arrange a sellout with the insurance company. His only point of contact was Frances, and her point of contact was Stella. And Fran was the only one who simply wouldn’t have dared to take that butterfly. If she had, Bill would have known she was so jealous of Stella that she used the opportunity to kill Stella instead of peddling the gems to the insurance company.

“She wrote me that anonymous letter telling me Kimberly and Stella were going to meet at the Royal Pheasant, then planted the poison in his darkroom—”

“How did she know I’d suggest a meeting at the Royal Pheasant?” Kimberly asked.

“She knew that was the most natural spot. Stella had told her she’d arrange a meeting, and Fran must have figured you’d say the Royal Pheasant. If you had named some other place Fran could have tipped me off. But you didn’t. The Royal Pheasant is your favorite spot, and Fran knew it.”

Captain Farwell got to his feet. “Well,” he said, “the newspaper boys are out there yelling their heads off, wanting to get in and get some action. I don’t care what the details are, just so—” He paused and looked at Peggy, then looked at Don Kimberly. “Just so the department gets the credit for doing the damned fine job that it did.

“And on this murder,” Captain Farwell went on, “we’re sorry, Kimberly, that we had to take you into custody.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” Kimberly said.

Captain Farwell left the room.

Peggy got to her feet. “Well,” she said, “we won’t be here when you’re talking with the newspapermen, Mr. Nelson. You can handle that. I’ll get you the broken whiskey bottle with the fingerprints on it. Of course, you understand that E. B. Halsey, president of the company, is very anxious to have a good press for the insurance company—”

“Sure, sure, I understand,” Nelson said, “and we want to thank you folks for your cooperation.”

“I take it I’m free to walk out?” Kimberly asked.

Nelson nodded. “Hell, yes. Want me to pull out a red carpet?”

Don Kimberly looked at Peggy Castle as though suddenly seeing her for the first time.

“Come on, glamor puss,” he said. “Let’s go and let Nelson get his work done. You’re too pretty to be mixed up in a lot of sordid crime details.”

“Oh, how nice!” Peggy exclaimed. “Just wait till I tell my Uncle Benedict what you just said!”