The Paul Cain Omnibus

Hunch

Brennan turned off Sixth Avenue at Forty-Ninth Street and walked towards Broadway. It was a few minutes before seven; there were little knots of men around the tinhorn bookmakers who used the street as an office. Brennan elbowed his way through one of the groups, went into the drugstore of the Valmouth Hotel, sat down at the soda fountain and said: “Small glass of milk with a shot of chocolate in it.”

He watched the soda-squirt pour milk into the glass, squeeze the dark cloud of chocolate into its whiteness, set the glass on the green marble counter.

A woman sat next to him and put her hand down on the counter near the glass; her hand was very white and her nails were long — bright scarlet.

She said: “You wouldn’t high-hat an old pal, would you?”

Brennan turned his head slowly, smiled faintly with his mouth, said: “H’ are ya, Joice?” He picked up the glass. “What do you want to drink?”

“I want to drink Piper Heidsick Nineteen-eleven,” she said slowly, “but I will drink a lemonade — with plain water.” She spoke more to the soda-squirt than to Brennan.

The soda-squirt smiled, nodded.

Brennan sipped his milk. He asked: “How’s business?”

“Lousy.” She took a cigarette out of a small black suede bag. “Got a match?”

Brennan shook his head.

The soda-squirt took a paper of matches out of his shirt pocket, scratched one, lighted her cigarette.

She inhaled deeply, blew a thin gray cone of smoke at the electric fan on the end of the counter. “I guess I’ve lost my dewy freshness.”

Brennan nodded slowly, emphatically. “An’ if you don’t lay off the weed, and start taking care of yourself, you’re going to lose whatever you’ve got left.”

She said: “I haven’t had any weed for five weeks — an’ I’ve been getting a load of sun, on the roof, every day the sun’s been out.” She watched the soda-squirt serve her lemonade with a broad flourish, tasted it. “It’s not me — it’s a jinx.” She smiled without mirth. “Or all the chumps are still out at the World’s Fair.”

Brennan finished his milk, put a quarter on the counter.

She set down her glass, said: “That’s terrible,” turned to Brennan. “Come on upstairs — I want to show you something.”

Brennan grinned. He said: “I’ll buy you another drink, but I won’t go upstairs.”

“That’s not funny.” She smiled faintly and stood up, and Brennan stood up and they went through the lobby to the elevator, up to the sixteenth floor. She fumbled in her bag for the key; Brennan noticed that her hands were trembling, that she had suddenly paled until the deep red rouge on her cheeks looked black against the icy whiteness of her skin.

He said: “What the hell’s the matter?”

She put the key in the lock, turned it, swung open the door; Brennan went into the dimly lighted room. She followed him, closed the door. The shade was tightly drawn on the one window; a brightly figured negligee had been thrown over the lamp. There was a very slender, very beautiful girl lying across the bed; her head hung in a strange and broken way, down backward over the edge of the bed; her long straw-colored hair hung to the floor, made a twisted yellow pool on the dark rug.

Brennan knelt and put out his hand and stroked two fingers Hunch across her forehead, turned to stare expressionlessly up at Joice Colt.

“How come?”

Joice Colt shook her head. She was trembling violently; her eyes moved back and forth swiftly from Brennan to the girl on the bed. “I don’t know,” she said. “I came in about ten minutes ago an’ she was like that. I called Ed Harley, but he wasn’t in. I was afraid to call the police — her being in my room an’ everything. I couldn’t think. I went downstairs an’ went into the drugstore an’ tried to think — an’ then you came in...”

“Go on.”

Joice Colt shrugged, shook her head slightly, stood staring vacantly down at the girl on the bed.

“So now I’m supposed to do the thinking.” Brennan stood up, moved towards the door. He smiled, shook his head slightly. “Nuhuh, baby — I’m a busy man.”

Joice Colt laughed suddenly. She said: “You damned fool! — don’t you realize this is a swell story? I thought you were a newspaperman — or have you passed that up for straight P.I.?”

“Story!” Brennan grinned slowly. “Blond Beauty Bumps Herself Off in Forty-ninth Street Hotel — that kind of story is a dime a dozen. This” — he jerked his head towards the girl on the bed — “is probably the sixth today. Any leg-man can cover it.” He drew himself up with exaggerated pride, tapped his chest with a blunt finger. “I’m doing features.”

He put his hand on the doorknob, smiled gently at Joice Colt. “I’m sorry about the gal, but being sorry for her won’t help her now. I don’t quite see how you’re jammed up because she decided to commit suicide in your room. If you’re telling the truth, I think you’d better call the police. I’ll call my paper from downstairs and have them send somebody over that likes this kind of thing.” He half opened the door.

Joice Colt said slowly: “This is Barbara Antony, Lou Antony’s wife. Lou got out of Atlanta this morning. Maybe it wasn’t suicide.”

Brennan closed the door. “Now you’re talking sense,” he said. “When you give me that wide-eyed ‘that’s the way she was when I came in’ business, an’ then close up like a clam, I pass. You’re a lousy liar.”

He went to one of the two low armchairs, sat down, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “What’s it all about?”

Joice Colt took a cigarette out of her bag, lighted it. “Barbara and I have been practically living together for the last month,” she said. “She had the room across the hall but we always left our doors unlocked and sort of shared everything.” She smiled ruefully. “That is, whatever we had to share — which was nothing.”

Brennan suddenly noticed a green glass tumbler that had rolled partway under the bed. He got up and picked it up with his handkerchief and sniffed it, sat down again and put the tumbler on the table beside him.

He said: “Make it fast. We’ll have to call the Law pretty soon.”

“Barbara’s been cockeyed for the last couple weeks,” Joice Colt went on, “An’ every time she’d begin talking about killing herself. She talked about it too much — people who talk about it that much don’t do it.”

“What was the matter with her?”

“Everything. Antony cut off her allowance about three months ago. He’d fixed it up for her before he was put over. She didn’t have a dime. She was on the cuff to the bootlegger for a couple hundred an’ she was into the hotel for twice that much — she got her eviction notice yesterday...”

Brennan glanced at the girl on the bed. “How come Antony cut off her dough?”

“He probably heard she was playing around.”

“Was she?”

“Uh-huh.” Joice Colt was smiling a little. She took a deep drag of her cigarette.

“Who with?”

Joice Colt said: “Ed Harley,” as if the name were a bad taste in her mouth. Her eyes were narrowed to thin blue-fringed slits.

Brennan leaned back. He said slowly: “Well, well — your own true love. How come you and Barbara were so chummy if Harley aired you for her?”

“It wasn’t her fault. He gave her that razzle-dazzle works about starring her in one of his clubs an’ she was too limp to say no. Then he dropped her like a hot potato when Antony was wise to him, an’ got scared.”

Brennan curved his thin lips into something like a smile. “And Harley didn’t even take care of her bill in his own hotel?”

Joice Colt shook her head.

Brennan said: “Nice boy.” He stared thoughtfully at the girl on the bed. “It looks like there were plenty of reasons for her to do it — broke, kicked out of the hotel, given the gate by Harley, and Antony on his way up from Atlanta with blood in his eye.”

“Just the same, I’ll take the long end that it wasn’t suicide.” Joice Colt smashed out her cigarette. “She wasn’t the type.”

“Harley would probably want to shut her up.” Brennan picked up the tumbler again with his handkerchief, sniffed it. “And Antony would be a cinch for this kind of thing — if he’s half as haywire as they say he is — but he couldn’t get here from Atlanta if he was sprung this morning...”

“He could fly.”

Brennan nodded slightly. “We can check on that.” He was silent a little while and then he said slowly: “If it wasn’t suicide, and if Harley and Antony can establish alibis — you know who’s going to hold the bag, don’t you?”

Joice Colt stood staring vacantly down at him.

“Little Joice,” Brennan went on. “The DA can make a swell show out of your prison record, and the fact that Harley dumped you for Barbara — and you discovering the body...”

“That’s ridiculous.” Joice Colt laughed a little, without mirth.

Brennan nodded. “Uh-huh. Would you like to tell a jury of twelve good men and true how ridiculous it is?” He got up and went to the telephone, asked the operator to get the city desk of the Eagle, call him back. He leaned against the wall and smiled sleepily at Joice Colt. “I think we’d better vote for suicide for the time being,” he said. “Don’t you?”

She nodded abstractedly, went to one of the low chairs and sat down.

The phone rang and Brennan picked it up, said: “Hello, Johnnie. Barbara Antony, Lou Antony’s wife, bumped herself off in her room at the Valmouth... Yeah... Strychnine, I think... There are a lot of angles. One of them is that Lou got out of Atlanta this morning. Have somebody call the office in Atlanta and check on him — whether he took a train, or flew, or what have you... Yeah, Ed Harley’s another angle, but you’d better soft-pedal that. Make it suicide for now — I’m going to work on it and whip out a swell feature for tomorrow — save the spot page. An’ Johnnie, call Centre Street right away — have ’em send Freberg if he’s there — he’s the brightest boy on their whole doggone detective force; which isn’t saying a hell of a lot... Uh-huh. So long.”

Brennan hung up the receiver, took a shiny leather cigar-case out of his breast pocket, took out a cigar and stuck it into his mouth. He started back to his chair and then someone knocked at the door; he glanced at Joice Colt, turned and went to the door, opened it. A man with a blue silk handkerchief covering the lower part of his face stood in the doorway. He was a very tall, heavily shouldered man and he held a short automatic waist high in front of him.

Brennan looked at the automatic, said: “How do you do?” slowly.

The man came into the room and Brennan backed up; Joice Colt stood up and put one hand to her mouth. The man closed the door and stood with his back to it for a moment, then went swiftly to Brennan, jabbed the automatic viciously into his stomach. Brennan started to put up his hands and the man grabbed his shoulder suddenly, spun him half around, crashed the barrel of the automatic down hard against the back of his head.

Brennan saw Joice Colt’s white drained face. He heard her scream. Then his vision dulled and his knees gave way and he fell forward heavily.

He heard Freberg’s voice before he opened his eyes, recognized the nasal Scandinavian drawl. Freberg was saying: “Get a report of what’s in her insides before you do anything else. Then swear out a warrant for the Colt gal — I want her picked up tonight...”

Brennan opened his eyes; Freberg was bending over him. There was another man standing in the doorway. The other man said: “Okay,” and went out and closed the door.

Freberg was a slight blond man, about thirty-five. He grinned at Brennan, slid his arm under Brennan’s shoulders and pulled him up, held a dark brown pint bottle to his mouth. Brennan put up his hands and held the bottle, took a long drink. He glanced at the bed and saw that the Antony girl had been taken away; he and Freberg were alone in the room.

Brennan handed the bottle back to Freberg, said: “Oi jamina — my head!”

“Uh-huh.” Freberg took a drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Who did it?”

“Carnera.”

“I know — I know.” Freberg put the cork into the bottle and tucked it into his hip pocket. “What did he look like?” Brennan got laboriously to his feet, sank into one of the chairs. He noticed that the tumbler was no longer on the table, the carpet between the table and the wall glittered with splinters of green glass. He leaned forward and held his head in his hands.

He said: “Big guy — black hair. He had a handkerchief draped over his pan.”

Freberg sat down in the other chair.

Brennan asked: “What happened to Colt?”

Freberg shrugged. “Was she here when the big fella slapped you down?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When I got here,” Freberg went on, “the house dick was shooing away a lot of innocent bystanders. It seems somebody screamed in here and the guy in the next room called downstairs, and when the dick came up with a passkey he found the Antony gal very dead, and you, cold with that egg on the back of your head.”

“Nobody else?”

Freberg shook his head. “Nobody else.” He leaned back and tilted his hat back and scratched his head. “The doc figured her to have been dead about an hour. What happened?”

Brennan straightened up, said: “Give me another shot of that.”

Freberg took the bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Brennan. Brennan took a long drink and put the bottle on the table.

“She killed herself,” he said. “Strychnine, I guess...”

Freberg smiled, nodded.

“Colt came in and found her, dead. Colt called Ed Harley but he wasn’t in the hotel. She went downstairs to figure things out and ran into me in the drug store. I came up with her, and called Johnnie with the story and told him to call you.”

“An’ Carnera?”

“He came in and shoved a rod into my guts and then clipped me before I knew what it was all about.”

“He don’t fit into the suicide picture very well, does he?” Freberg lighted a cigarette, leaned back again and stared skeptically at Brennan.

Brennan did not answer.

Freberg said: “Listen. Joice Colt left the hotel about five-thirty this evening. Before she went out she shook up a highball for Barbara Antony that had enough strychnine in it to kill the National Guard. She came back about a quarter of seven — as near as the elevator boy can figure — and found out how well it had worked, and then she got scared. She called Harley to plant the idea with him that Barbara had committed suicide. Harley wasn’t in. She didn’t know whether to call the police or to take it on the lam. While she was trying to make up her mind she ran into you, and you looked like a swell sucker to plant the suicide angle with...”

Brennan said slowly: “You’re crazy, Gus. That’s full of holes. In the first place, Joice was Barbara’s pal — what the hell would she want to poison her for?...”

“Don’t give me that.” Freberg was leaning forward scowling. “Colt hated Barbara for taking Harley away from her.”

Brennan said: “Oh. How did you know about that?”

“Harley told me.”

Brennan nodded slowly, ponderously, with mock seriousness. “When?”

“A little while ago — he was up here while you were out.”

Brennan nodded again. “So Mister Harley told you that? And because Mister Harley owns this joint and a string of clubs, and has a sixteen-inch bankroll, and wields a lot of influence, you take his lousy steer and want to nail Joice for this?” Brennan’s tone was elaborately ironic.

Freberg said: “Don’t be a damned fool.”

Brennan’s smile was very thin. “What about Lou Antony getting out of Atlanta this morning?”

“I’ve got a tracer on him. He’s the reason the play looked so good to Colt. It’d look like Barbara killed herself because she was scared of Antony.”

“Uh-huh.” Brennan shook his head disgustedly. “What about the guy that bopped me? Does he fit into your murder picture any better than he fits into my suicide picture?”

Freberg said: “I don’t care about him. He was probably in some kind of cahoots with Colt...”

Brennan stood up, walked to the window, back. He said: “Lousy! I didn’t think such stupidity was possible!” He said it very emphatically.

Freberg started to speak but Brennan interrupted him. “What the hell makes you so sure it wasn’t suicide?”

Freberg said, as if he was making a great effort to speak deliberately, gently: “For one thing, there isn’t a sign of anything in here or in Barbara’s room that strychnine could have been in. For another thing...”

The phone rang. Freberg answered it, stood with the receiver at his ear, silent except for an occasional grunted affirmative. He finally said: “Okay — call you back,” hung up and grinned coldly at Brennan. “Antony caught the noon train out of Atlanta,” he said. “That train doesn’t get in until some time around eight tomorrow morning. So Antony’s out.” Freberg’s grin broadened. “And this strychnine — Somebody forced it down her throat, or stood over her with a club. How do you like that?”

Brennan said: “I like that fine. That gets us to the point.”

“What point?”

“Harley.”

Freberg shook his head slowly, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking sense. Your Mister Harley rubbed Barbara because he was afraid she’d squawk to Antony about the way he’d treated her.” Brennan was almost shouting; his eyes were hot, intent. “Harley stuffed that strychnine into her while Joice Colt was out. He figured that with Barbara out of the way he could bluff Antony into believing that the talk about him and Barbara was a lot of hooey.”

Freberg shook his head again. He said: “Harley was at the Glass Slipper from five o’clock on — until he came back here and talked to me.”

Brennan’s laugh dripped sarcasm. “So he told you that, too, did he?” he said. “I don’t suppose you went to the trouble to check on it. Mister Harley is too big a man to check on...”

Freberg stood up slowly. He said: “Listen, Brennan — when I want a two-by-four reporter to tell me what to do an’ what not to do I’ll send for you.” His voice was low, his words clear, distinct.

Brennan stared at him incredulously. “Do you mean you’re going to railroad Colt?”

“I’m not going to railroad anybody. I think she’s guilty as hell. I’m going to pick her up and let her railroad herself. And I don’t need any lousy newsdog to tell me what to do and what not to do.”

Brennan’s face got a little white. “No?” he said slowly. “But sometimes a lousy newsdog has intelligence at least a grade above a lousy dog’s son of a flatfoot.”

Freberg’s face was blank. He raised his head slowly and looked at Brennan and his blue eyes were cold and impersonal. He moved slightly sidewise then he lunged suddenly forward, there was sharp smack as his fist crashed into Brennan’s face.

Brennan moved very swiftly. He caught Freberg by the throat with his right hand drew his left far back and snapped it suddenly forward; he could feel his hard fist sink into the soft pallor of Freberg’s face. Freberg crashed into the wall, sank slowly to the floor.

Brennan stood with his feet wide apart, looking down at Freberg a little while. Then he picked up his hat and put it on and went to the door. He glanced back at Freberg once, expressionlessly, then he went out and closed the door. In the elevator he took out his watch, noticed that the crystal was broken. It was ten minutes after eight.

In the Eagle’s city room, Brennan leaned across the littered desk and waggled his finger at Johnson, the City Editor.

“I told you to have ’em send Freberg because he was the brightest boy they had — and so help me, he’s the prize dope of the season.” He straightened up. “I wanted you to know. From now on that bastard is on the wrong side of our list.”

Johnson was a squarely built pink-faced man. He peered at Brennan through thick tortoise shell glasses, said acidly: “I’ve asked you to lay off coppers for the last time, Cy. Don’t you realize that a paper like the Eagle owes its existence to the goodwill of the people like Freberg — the Police Department?”

Brennan smiled. He said softly: “Listen, Johnnie — have we ever gone very far wrong playing my hunches?”

“There’ll be a first time.”

Brennan leaned across the desk again, started intently at Johnson. “I’m going to stick Ed Harley for the Antony gal’s murder,” he said quietly. “That’s our spot page story for the early Sunday edition — I’ll have it finished ahead of the noon deadline tomorrow. I’m going to clean up the details tonight, an’ make the case tight if I have to choke a confession out of Harley. This is the strongest hunch I’ve had in years and I’m going to play it if I have to make a monkey out of Freberg, an’ the Police Department, an’ the whole damned city government.”

Johnson shook his head sadly. “It sounds swell,” he said, “but why the hell do you pick yourself such a tough one? Harley has an awful drag.”

Brennan said: “I like ’em tough.”

As he turned to go a short, sharp-faced man crossed in front of him, sat down sidewise on the edge of Johnson’s desk, said: “Hi, Cy.”

Brennan nodded, “Hi, Frank.” He started away.

The short man asked: “What did you hit Freberg with — an axe?”

Brennan turned. His eyes were wide, innocent.

“He came into the Station a minute ago with his face in a sling,” the short man went on. “He talked to the chief a little while and then three or four of those bastards came out and threw me out on my ear. They said to never darken their door again, or words to that effect.” He turned to Johnson. “They told me to tell you what you could do with the Eagle, too.”

Johnson was glaring at Brennan. He said slowly, incredulously: “Did you hit Freberg?”

Brennan nodded. “Uh-huh.”

Johnson said, “That’s bad!” with deep feeling.

“Self-defense.” Brennan made a wide and inclusive gesture with his hands.

The short man sang in a high, cracked voice: “He calls it self defense, but Freberg will probably call it assault and battery...”

Brennan scowled at the short man. “Freberg won’t call it,” he snapped. “I know where he buries the bodies. That’s why he took Hunch the beating I gave him in the first place.” He grinned. “One reason.”

Johnson shouted: “What the hell’s that got to do with it? I don’t care if they hang you! I’ve got a paper to get out — how am I going to do it without a Police Department tie-up?”

Brennan raised his eyes and his arms towards the ceiling in a melodramatic appeal to heaven. Then he leaned across the desk, spoke slowly, with infinite patience:

“Listen, Johnnie, I’m bringing you the scoop of the season — a story so big, an’ so hot, that you can write your own ticket.” He paused dramatically. “Do you think the police force is going to be in a position to discriminate against the Eagle after this story breaks — after the Eagle has made ’em look silly at their own racket?” He straightened up. “Why, you can throw five lines of credit their way and have ’em eating out of your hand!”

Johnson was staring morosely at the desk.

Brennan turned his head, snarled at the short man: “You don’t know what I’m talking about do you, Stupid?” He went around the corner of the desk, emphasized his words with a big blunt finger against the short man’s chest. “Ed Harley killed Barbara Antony — or had her killed. Get that fact planted in your skull so you won’t forget it, because there’s an angle of it I want you to work on. Now that they’ve kicked you out of the police station an’ you haven’t any place to play pinochle, you might as well go to work.”

He turned back to Johnson. “I think Harley slipped up on the glass he gave Barbara the whiskey and strychnine in — maybe he got excited or scared or heard somebody coming. Anyway the glass was there when I went up — it had fallen out of her hand and rolled under the bed, and it probably had a few more fingerprints than Barbara’s on it. I figure that Harley got to worrying about it and sent the big guy who slapped me down up to attend to it. You knew about the big guy, didn’t you?”

Johnson nodded.

The short man said: “I phoned in about him when Freberg called in from the hotel to report it.”

Brennan went on to Johnson: “The glass was smashed when I came to.” He paused a moment, then said: “I want Frankie” — he jerked his head towards the short man — “to work on the big fella — see if he can get a line on him. We ought to be able to tie him up with Harley...”

Johnson said: “Okay. This is your show — an’ it better be good.”

Brennan turned to emphasize again his words with a finger against the short man’s chest. “About six feet, two — or three. Very dark skin — black hair — pretty good clothes. He has a couple very deep lines between his eyes.” Brennan put his hand up and drew two lines down his forehead with his finger.

The short man bobbed his head, glanced at Johnson, turned and walked away down the big room between the double file of desks.

Brennan looked after him a moment then turned to smile down at Johnson. “Don’t look so sad, Johnnie,” he said. “If you’re scared you’re going to miss something from Centre Street we can stage a battle. You can fire me, an’ then call up the chief an’ tell him about it — tell him you’ve hung the can on me and the Eagle will be aces again.”

Johnson’s face brightened a little. He said: “That’s not a bad idea.” Then he added, ominously: “You know it’ll be on the square if this Harley angle doesn’t work, don’t you?”

Brennan grinned. “I’m betting my job that Harley rubbed Barbara,” he said. “An’ the hunch is so hot I’ll make you a little side bet — my life.”

Johnson smiled faintly, nodded. Then he stood up suddenly, shouted:

“Brennan — you’re fired! I’m damned tired of getting jammed up with the police on your account!”

Everyone in the big room turned to stare at them.

Brennan’s long, heavy face hardened: his eyes were cold, steady. He said slowly: “Okay, Johnnie.” Then he turned and went down the long room towards his desk in the corner near the door.

As he passed the switchboard the operator said: “Mrs Smith called you twice,” in a stage whisper.

Brennan nodded vacantly. “Well, well — Mrs Smith. Probably one of the Chicago Smiths. Did she leave her number?”

The girl shook her head.

“Why not? Haven’t I asked you a thousand times to get numbers?” The girl’s blank face twisted to something that was meant to be a sarcastic sneer. She said with exaggerated sweetness: “She wouldn’t leave it. She said she’d call again.”

“How long ago was the last call?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Brennan went to his desk, sat down.

He took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the bottom drawer, took out a quart bottle with about four inches of whiskey in its bottom and set it on the desk in front of him. Then he fished around in the drawer until he found a nickel-plated folding cup; he filled the cup with whiskey, drank it slowly and with very evident relish.

The phone on his desk buzzed. He glanced across at the switchboard girl; she nodded sweetly. He took up the receiver and said, “Hello,” and listened.

The voice was Joice Colt’s. She said: “I’ve called you several times but you weren’t in. I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this, Cy. I lied to you. I gave Barbara that stuff. I was going to beat it but I saw you in the drug store an’ it looked like a swell opportunity to put the finger on Harley. The man who slugged you was a friend of mine — he was waiting for me in the lobby when I took you upstairs. He thought it was a pinch an’ he came up and listened outside the door and heard you on the telephone an’ then he was sure it was a pinch. He busted in an’ smacked you down before I could stop him. We’ve got a car — we’re going places fast right now — far places. I could never beat that case. I just wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t get yourself into any more trouble on my account — an’ I’m sorry, Cy...”

Brennan’s voice was low, metallic. He said: “They’re making you say that, Joice. They’ve got a rod in your back an’ they’re making you say it. Try to give me some kind of slant on where they’ve got you. Are you uptown?”

“Yes.” There was a sudden sharp sound on the wire, like a needle drawn crosswise over a phonograph record. Joice Colt’s voice went on: “But I did, Cy — I did it. I — “ There was a click of disconnection.

Brennan reached the switchboard in something like three steps. He grabbed the operator by the shoulder, said, “Trace that call — quick,” so rapidly that words were all run together into one word.

The girl stared at him with dazed dull eyes.

Brennan’s eyes were bright, wild; he raised his hands and for a moment it looked very much as if he were going to strangle her. He yelled: “For the love of God! Quick! This is a matter of life and death! — can’t you get that through that peroxide!”

The girl’s face was almost equally divided between fight and the sarcastic sneer. She pressed in a plug, lisped, “Supervisor,” into the mouthpiece.

The few scattered men at desks at the end of the room had turned to watch them. As the girl went on in a low voice into the mouthpiece and Brennan stood silently, tensely beside her, they turned back to their work.

In about a minute the girl pulled out the plug, turned to Brennan. “It was a pay station — Bradhurst exchange,” she said. “That’s in Harlem. The supervisor’s going to call me back with the number in a minute.”

Brennan nodded, grunted: “Thanks.” He went slowly back to his desk, sat down and poured the rest of the whiskey into the cup. He drank it slowly, put the cup back into the drawer and dropped the empty bottle into the wastebasket. Then he sat staring thoughtfully at his hands.

It was a quarter after nine when Brennan got out of a cab near the corner of One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue. He paid the driver, crossed the street and shook hands with a slim blond young man who stood at the curb.

The young man ginned broadly, said: “Howdy, Cy.”

“Swell.” Brennan relighted his cold cigar. “Been waiting long?”

The young man shook his head. “Came up on the subway — that’s faster than a cab. I been here about ten minutes.”

Brennan said: “Listen Nick — we’ve got a big night ahead of us. All you need to know about it for now is that I’m going to stick Harley for the murder of Lou Antony’s wife. The Law figures a friend of mine, Joice Colt, did it — they’re looking for her. Harley or Harley’s men have got her but she knows too much for them to turn her in so — knows what they’ll do to her. A little while ago they made her call me a fake a confession — figured I’d go to it an’ drop the Harley angle I guess. The call came from a little bar around the corner” — Brennan gestured with his head — “on a Hundred an’ Thirty-seventh. That’s where we’re going first.”

Nick said: “Fine.”

They went around the corner down the dimly lighted street. The bar was about a third of the way down the long block — a dingy place with a frosted plateglass window. There were two pool tables crowded into a narrow space with a door at the farther end leading into a room at the back of the place. In the back room was a short imitation mahogany bar. There were a dozen or more Negroes around the pool tables, but when Brennan and Nick went into the back room there was no standing at the bar. There was a phone booth at the end of the bar nearest the door.

The bartender, a squat chocolate-colored man with polished hair, slid off his stool at the far end of the bar, came down to them and smiled ingratiatingly.

Brennan said: “Beer.”

Nick nodded and the bartender drew two tall headed glasses of beer from the spigot, set them on the bar.

Brennan’s eyes were cold, lusterless; they caught the Negro’s eyes, held them. There was little expression in Brennan’s face. The Negro smiled meaninglessly.

Brennan said: “About a half hour ago a lady used your telephone.” He jerked his head slightly towards the booth. “Who was with her — and where did they go?”

The Negro’s face was blank. He stuck his thick lips out, shook his head slowly. “Ah don’t know, sah,” he said. “They’s been a lot of people use that phone tonight.”

Brennan leaned slightly forward across the bar. “Who was with her and where did they go?” He spoke like an automaton, barely moving his mouth.

The Negro shook his head.

Nick said: “Think hard.” He had not appeared to move but he held a small Luger against the right side of his chest, its muzzle focused steadily on the Negro’s stomach. Brennan stepped over to the door leading to the poolroom. He stood for a moment in the opening, then closed the door, slipped a bolt in the lock and came back to the bar.

The Negro’s mouth opened slowly; his eyes moved from the Luger to Nick’s face, back to the Luger. He stammered: “Ah don’ know who they was.”

Nick did not move, nor speak; he took the cigar out of the corner of his mouth, held it between his fingers on the bar in front of him, stared at the Negro.

The Negro glanced once, hurriedly, towards the door of the room; then his eyes moved back to the Luger and he said: “One of the men was Ernie White — he works at the Gateway, down the street. Ah don’t know who the other one was. He was a big fella. He tol’ me to forget about them comin’ in but ah don’ see as it’s any of mah business.”

Brennan said: “Right.” He put a quarter on the bar, put the cigar back into his mouth. Nick slid the Luger under his coat, back into its holster; they went out of the place.

The small neon sign of the Gateway glittered about a half-block east, on the other side of the street.

Nick asked: “Ain’t the Gateway the place they used to call Ike an’ Jerry’s?”

Brennan nodded.

“Harley backed their places,” Nick went on, “an’ even if the joint has changed hands, I’ll bet he’s got a cut in it.”

Brennan grinned, relighted his cigar, said: “We’re getting warm.”

They crossed the street, went towards the Gateway.

Brennan pushed the button and after a minute or so a five-inch slit in the heavy door opened, two wide-set brown eyes surveyed them dispassionately.

Nick said: “Is Jerry here?”

The eyes moved horizontally back forth. “Jerry ain’t been here fo’ three months — This is the Gateway, now.”

“We’ll come in an’ have a drink.”

The eyes moved horizontally. “We ain’t open yet — we open at eleven.”

Nick said: “Aw, nerts! We want a drink now. Is Ernie White here?”

“Uh-huh — he’s heah. You know him?” The eyes moved up and down.

Brennan nodded.

The slit was closed, the door opened. They went through a short, wide passageway into a square room. The ceiling was low, the lighting indirect and soft. There was an elevated orchestra platform in one corner and a small square dance floor in the center. The walls were painted with wide vertical stripes of black and silver.

Brennan and Nick sat down at a little round table at one corner of the dance floor. The man who had let then in, a cream-colored Negro in dinner clothes, went to a table at the back of the room where a half dozen waiters were sitting; one of the waiters got up and came over and took their order. Brennan ordered straight Scotch and Nick ordered a whiskey sour.

The cream-colored Negro disappeared through a door near the orchestra platform and in a little while he came out with two men. One was fat and an entirely bald mulatto. The other was Ed Harley.

Harley was big, good looking. His dark curly hair was combed straight back from a wide, high forehead, his nose was straight, well cut; his eyes were wide, candid, smiling. He crossed the dance floor swiftly, said: “Well, well — Brennan — it’s good to see you.”

Brennan smiled up at him, said: “This is Mister MacRae — Mister Harley.”

Harley held out his hand and Nick took it without standing up, bobbed his head. Harley sat down, moved his smile to Brennan. “What’re you doing so far uptown at this time of the night?” he asked. “Things don’t get going up here until two or three o’clock.”

Brennan said: “We’ve got a date with Joice Colt.”

Harley’s face became very serious. “You shouldn’t kid about it Brennan,” he said — “the poor kid’s in a bad jam.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Do you know where she is?” Harley was leaning forward.

“Sure.” Brennan nodded slowly.

Harley’s eyes brimmed with sincerity. “I’d like to help her,” he said. “I’d like to help her get away — or something. Is there anything I can do?”

Nick said: “You can put your hands on the table.” Nick had tilted his chair back; his hands were deep in the pockets of his dark blue coat. The cloth of the right pocket bulged and a dark blunt point protruded towards Harley.

Harley cleared his throat. “Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for,” he said slowly. He looked up and back of Nick. The fat bald Negro who had come in with Harley was leaning against a table and he held a heavy nickel-plated revolver in front of his big paunch. His bulging eyes were fixed in white bloodshot vacancy on the back of Nick’s head; the nostrils of his wide, flat nose were flared. The cream-colored Negro in dinner clothes had circled to the outer door. He, too, held a revolver, and as Harley moved his head slightly, he came forward and stood about ten feet back of Brennan.

The waiters, at the table against the wall, whispered together and then were suddenly silent. The waiter who had taken Brennan and Nick’s order came in through one of the swinging doors to the kitchen with two drinks on a tray; he stared at Harley and at the fat Negro and then started back into the kitchen.

Harley said: “Bring the gentlemen their drinks.”

The waiter came over and put the glasses on the table and went back into the kitchen.

Brennan took the cigar out of his mouth and put it in an ashtray on the table. “You murdered Barbara Antony,” he said. He spoke without looking at Harley, his eyes were fixed on the white tablecloth. “You made it look like suicide — the suicide motive looked like a cinch, with Lou getting out of the pen and Barbara being scared of him and all. You thought Joice would back up the suicide slant but she didn’t go for it so big — and when your man came up to smash the glass you’d been careless enough to leave in one piece, he slugged me and took Joice with him so she couldn’t talk, and so it would look like she’d given Barbara the junk and ducked.”

Harley smiled sadly, shook his head. “Brennan, you’re off your nut,” he said.

“You’ve got Joice,” Brennan went on — “here or someplace. You made her pull that confession act for me over the phone from the little joint down the street because you were afraid I’d trace the call — an’ you didn’t think that nigger would talk...”

Harley interrupted, spoke with elaborate patience as if reasoning with a child: “In the first place, Brennan, I was at the Glass Slipper from five until seven-fifteen—”

Brennan said: “I’ll lay ten to one I can break that alibi.”

Harley shook his head again.

“And what’s more,” Brennan went on — “I’m so sure I can break it, an’ I’m so sure it happened the way I’ve said that I’ve written the story — it runs tomorrow, with swell pictures of you an’ Barbara in four colors.”

Harley laughed. Then he said very seriously, “Brennan, you’re crazy. If you run that story I’ll sue that cheap sheet of yours for every nickel it’s got. I’ll run you and Johnson and your whole damned outfit out of the newspaper business — out of New York, by God!”

“I’ll take that chance.” Brennan smiled easily, glanced up at the fat Negro behind Nick. “It’d be a swell clincher, an’ Johnson could write a pip of a finish for my story if anything should happen to Nick or me.” He turned his smile to Harley. “Johnson knows where we are — and he knows we’re after evidence against you.”

Harley did not answer.

Brennan went on: “Don’t you think you’d better have your boyfriends put those cannons away? They make me nervous.”

Harley stood up slowly. “You get to hell out of here Brennan” he said — “you and your two-bit gunman.” He glanced contemptuously down at Nick. “And go ahead with that story and see what happens to the Eagle. Go on — beat it!”

Brennan shook his head. He said: “Uh-huh. We came after Joice — we’ll take her with us.”

No one moved or spoke for perhaps ten seconds; then Brennan took his glass of whiskey up from the table and drained it.

Harley was very white. The skin was drawn tightly over his jaw muscles, his mouth drawn to a thin line. He twisted his body towards Nick slowly and then his face relaxed, puckered to a thin, forced smile. He said: “Okay.” He shook his head at the cream-colored Negro. “You and Ernie wait down here.” He jerked his head at Brennan and turned and went towards the door near the orchestra platform.

Brennan and Nick got up; Nick went swiftly behind Harley to keep close to him and Brennan followed more slowly. They went into a small office and Brennan closed the door; they crossed the office to another door, went through to a dimly lighted hallway and up two flights of heavily carpeted stairs. Harley knocked at a door at the end of the dark second-floor hallway. The door opened and Harley went in and Nick went in directly behind him. Nick had taken the small Luger out of his pocket, held it against Harley’s back. Brennan stopped in the doorway and leaned against the frame.

The room was very large, very dimly lighted. There was a floor lamp with a deep red shade that threw a circle of warm light on a couch against one wall. Joice Colt was lying on the couch. She lay on her side and her eyes were nearly closed; her mouth was curved to a drunken and meaningless smile.

There was a man standing just out of the circle of light. There was not enough light to see him very clearly but he was a very tall man and there was something in the way he stood that made Brennan sure he was the man who had knocked him out in Joice’s room. Another figure, who in the semidarkness appeared to be a Negro woman, had opened the door; she stood with her hand on the edge of the door and her head was turned towards Harley and Nick.

Harley said: “Put it away, Sam.”

As Brennan’s eyes became used to the darkness he saw that the tall man held a gun in his hand — the same short, blunt automatic he had used on Brennan.

The tall man was silent, did not move.

“Put it away.” Harley’s toned was plaintive. “This guy” — he jerked his head at Nick who stood very close behind him — “is itching to let me have it.”

A new thin voice said sarcastically, “Fancy that!” from the darkness beyond the Negress.

At the same instant Harley whirled, grabbed Nick’s arm; there were two spurts of bright yellow flame in the darkness, and deep beating sound. Harley and Nick were locked in a low, savage dance; Nick’s gun roared, belched yellow flame. As Brennan went forward the lamp was struck, the room went black, lighted only by the searing yellow glare of gunfire. Brennan dimly saw Harley and Nick topple, fall, still locked together; then it felt as if something exploded in the top of his head, the darkness was split by a great blinding light and he fell forward, down, into nothingness.

The high-pitched brassy music of a phonograph came to Brennan before he opened his eyes. He listened to it a long time. It sounded very far away. His head was one vast pain and he did not want to open his eyes because it might hurt more. He was lying on his back and he moved one hand up slowly and felt his face; it was wet and sticky and he thought about it a little while and knew that it was blood. It was very hard to think.

After a while he opened his eyes and looked up at a dingy ceiling of another room. He knew when he opened his eyes that the phonograph was not far away, but was in the room, and he turned his head very slowly and saw it — a small garishly decorated box — on a table across the narrow room.

Brennan was lying on the floor and he painfully turned his head a little more and saw the fat, bald Negro who had been with Harley. He was lying across a low couch with a pile of cushions behind his back and shoulders; his big shiny head propped up against the wall. His bulging, heavy-lidded eyes were fixed on Brennan; as Brennan looked at him he lifted a brown wisp of cigarette to his thick lips, inhaled deeply. The air was blue-gray and heavy with the acrid smell of marijuana.

The phonograph went suddenly into the tonal contortions of running down. A door behind the couch opened and the Negress came into the room, crossed to the phonograph and wound it, started the record over again. She glanced down at Brennan, spoke over her shoulder to the fat Negro: “Yo’ boyfrien’ is comin’ around.”

The fat Negro nodded slowly.

Brennan sat up very slowly and carefully. He felt the top of his head gingerly with his fingers; there was a thin raw stripe across his scalp, a throbbing furrow through the thickness of his matted and sticky hair. He looked at his hands and they were dark with blood.

He started to get up and the fat Negro got up swiftly and came over and put his foot on Brennan’s shoulder and shoved very hard; his face was entirely expressionless as he put the middle part of his foot against Brennan’s shoulder and shoved and Brennan crashed into the wall and slid down on his side on the floor. Then the Negro drew back his foot and kicked Brennan very hard in the stomach and ribs. He was breathing very hard and there were little drops of perspiration on his vacant yellow face; he drew his foot back carefully and slowly and then kicked very swiftly and hard several times. Brennan groaned once, lay still.

The Negro turned and went back to the couch and sat down. He sat on the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, stared at Brennan.

The Negress had turned from the phonograph to watch him. She shook her head slightly and said, “That ain’t good,” as if to herself; then went to him and reached down and took the thin cigarette out of the corner of his mouth and took several deep drags.

Brennan groaned and rolled over on his stomach. Very slowly he raised himself to his hands and knees, leaned against the wall.

The hoarse feminine voice of the phonograph blared to metallic crescendo: “Underneath the Harlem moon...”

The Negro got up and went to Brennan again and put his boot on his back and pressed him down to the floor. He looked back at the woman and grinned, and then he kicked the side of Brennan’s head hard, once.

Brennan did not groan anymore, nor move.

The Negro stood over him a moment, then turned and went to a door on the far side of the room. He said: “Ah’m goin’ up an’ see how Cappy is — be back in a minute.” He went out and closed the door.

Brennan stirred; he slid one hand along the floor slowly and touched the side of his mashed bloody face, put his hands flat on the floor and raised his body. It took him almost a minute to get to his hands and knees by bracing himself against the wall, working slowly a little higher, a little higher. His breath came in short, rattling gasps.

The woman stood in the middle of the room with the marijuana cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She watched Brennan with wide, hard, fascinated eyes as one might watch a complicated and difficult acrobatic stunt.

Then Brennan stood up. He held on to a small table against the wall and pulled himself up very slowly and leaned against the wall and the table. His face was a dark mask of bruised, bleeding flesh, his eyes bright, shiny, insane; he swayed back and forth drunkenly and stared at the woman. Then he lurched towards the door and the woman screamed; she ran past him to the door and pulled it a little open, screamed again.

Brennan crashed against the door, slammed it shut. He fumbled for the key and as the woman whirled and clawed at him he swung one arm in a wide arc, his forearm struck her throat and she slide sidewise along the wall, down to one knee. Brennan found the key and turned it, jerked it out of the door. He turned and staggered across the room and the woman got up and ran after him and threw her arms around his neck, dragged him down to the floor; her nails ripped across his face. He braced himself against the side of the couch and savagely threw her off; her head struck the phonograph stand and it tippled over, the tinny voice of the blues singer came to an abrupt end. The woman lay still.

Brennan again struggled to his feet. He drew the back of his hand across his face, started towards the door on the far side of the couch and crashed blindly into the wall. There was sudden pounding on the outside of the door, a muffled shout. Brennan felt his way along the wall the little distance to the other door, went through and closed and locked the door behind him. He vaguely registered that he was in a dimly lighted bedroom, lurched across to the one window and opened it.

It was raining a little. Brennan could see the indistinct outline of a roof about five feet below the window; he could not tell whether it came all the way under the window or not — it was very dark there. He got his legs somehow through the window and sat on the sill, and then he took a deep breath and pushed himself forward hard, with his hands and arms. He landed in a heap on the sloping graveled roof, crawled slowly, painfully down the slope. When he came to the edge he could see nothing but darkness beneath him, but a little light from a window some distance away made him feel in a dazed way that he wasn’t very far above the ground. He worked himself carefully over the edge and tried to hold on to the rough wet gravel with his hands to let himself down slowly, but he could not hold on very long. He fell.

He landed on his back in mud, and after a while he rolled over and got to his hands and knees and started crawling. He did not know where he was crawling; he crawled forward. Several times he stopped and sank down in the mud; the darkness went around him and it was full of bright blinding flashes and he thought he was going to vomit, but the feeling would pass and he would get up and crawl ahead.

After a long time he saw the reflection of light ahead and he went on a little faster and then he thought he heard a voice and there were hands on his body and he fought the hands, but there were too many of them, and he sank finally into a deep pool of darkness and hands and confused voices.

A voice that Brennan did not know said: “I’ll come back early this afternoon — change the dressings. He’ll be all right.”

Nick’s voice said: “Sure, he’ll be all right — he’s too tough.”

Brennan opened his eyes, squinted up at Nick; he could see with only one eye — he pulled one hand up slowly and felt his face. There was a bandage over all one side of his face; one eye was covered.

Nick grinned down at him. “How d’ya feel?”

Brennan grunted, “Swell,” as though he didn’t mean it very much.

Johnson’s square pink face, and the thin, bony face of a stranger leaned over the bed.

Nick’s head jerked towards the stranger. “This is Doc Chapell.”

Brennan nodded slightly.

The doctor said: “You stay in bed — I’ll be back this afternoon.”

His face disappeared and his voice said, “So long,” and then there was the sound of the door opening and closing.

Brennan lifted his head a little and looked around the room; it was his own room at the Park Royal. He asked: “What time is it?”

Johnson glanced at his heavy yellow watch. “Nine twenty-five.”

“Huh?” Brennan’s exposed eye opened wide. “It’s morning...” He started to sit up in bed and it felt suddenly as if the ceiling had fallen on his head. He lay back, closed his eyes, moaned: “I’ve got to do the story.”

Nick said: “I thought you’d done it. You told Harley—”

“Don’t be a sap.” Brennan scowled with his eye closed — “I said that to throw a scare into Harley.”

Johnson picked up the phone, said: “You can’t get up. I’ll call the office and have Renée come over — you can give her the story.” He dialed a number, mumbled into the phone.

Brennan opened his eyes and pulled the bandage a little off the covered one, stared up at Nick.

“So what?”

Nick said: “A copper found you crawling down an alley in the next block to the Gateway. He called an ambulance. We were leaving the Gateway after the pinch an’ we heard the ambulance an’ came over around the corner, an’ there you were — large as life — looking like you’d been run through a meatgrinder.”

“What do you mean, ‘pinch’?”

“We raided the Gateway...”

Brennan said: “How about beginning at the beginning?”

“I saw you go down when the fireworks started — upstairs,” Nick went on. “I don’t know whether I winged Harley or slugged him — he was pretty limp. I know I got the big guy — I didn’t know it then but I know it now...”

Johnson hung up the receiver, interrupted: “That was Sam Kerr — used to be a houseman at Harley’s joint on Long Island. He’s very dead.”

Brennan nodded.

“Every time I’d move,” Nick went on, “somebody — the guy who cracked ‘Fancy that!’ an’ started shooting, I guess — would take a shot at me. The light had been smashed an’ it was plenty dark. I was scared to shoot back because I wasn’t sure where you were, so I just laid there an’ didn’t breathe. I figured you were all washed up, from the way you fell — but I couldn’t be sure...”

Brennan moved his eyes to Johnson, said: “Order me some coffee, Johnnie.”

Johnson went to the house phone.

Nick sat down on the edge of the bed, lighted a cigarette. “In a little while I got tired of lying there doing nothing so I started edging in the direction I figured the door to be. The door was still open as far as I knew — it was dark in the hall, too. The dinge gal who had opened the door was moanin’ an’ groanin’ — carrying on something terrible — I figured the direction of the door from that. I finally found the door an’ there wasn’t anything to do but go on out.”

Brennan nodded.

Nick grinned sheepishly. “I didn’t want to leave you there but there wasn’t anything else to do — if I struck a match to find out where an’ how you were, that guy would’ve popped me sure — that didn’t make good sense.”

Nick looked appealingly at Brennan.

Brennan laughed, said: “For the love of God, go on, Nicky. Of course you couldn’t do anything else — you did exactly right.”

Nick looked immensely relieved.

Johnson turned from the house phone and came over and sat on the other side of the bed. He said: “Coffee coming up.”

“I crawled on down the hall,” Nick went on, “an’ on downstairs. The door to the Gateway office was locked so I went on out the street door an’ got to a telephone—”

“Wasn’t there anybody outside the joint?” Brennan interrupted — “Didn’t anybody hear that barrage?”

Nick shook his head. “I guess the whole layout is soundproof.”

Johnson said: “Those cabarets have to be soundproof if they’re in a building that anybody lives in — city ordinance.” He took off his glasses, polished them with a handkerchief. “Nick called me,” he went on, “and I called Centre Street and told ’em we located Joice Colt in Harley’s place uptown.” Johnson smiled. “I didn’t tell ’em you were in on it, because I’d just finished telling the chief I’d canned you. Then I hopped a train uptown and when I got there they were smashing down the door upstairs.” He put his glasses on.

They were silent a moment; Brennan was looking at Johnson, waiting for him to finish.

Nick shook his head, smiled faintly, said: “We didn’t find a thing, Cy — except Sam Kerr. Everybody else was gone. If it hadn’t been for Kerr, an’ a lot of bullets in the wall, the coppers would of thought it was a pipe dream. I guess Harley wasn’t much hurt — anyway — he was gone — an’ Colt an’ the guy that started shooting an’ the black gal. An’ there wasn’t anybody downstairs either — they’d all beat it.”

Brennan stared at the ceiling. He said slowly: “Well, anyway — we know my hunch was okay. Harley’s our man — my story will make that plenty clear—”

Johnson interrupted: “Your story isn’t going to prove it.”

“I’ll attend to that when they pick up Harley.”

“They’re not even going to pick up Harley — we haven’t been able to tie him up with Gateway yet. Joice Colt is still it so far as the police are concerned.

Brennan muttered: “The dumb bastards.“ Then he raised himself carefully, leaned on one elbow. “The story will stick Harley an’ put Colt in the clear — and it’ll be so tight nobody will be able to ignore it...”

Nick said “It won’t do her much good being in the clear if we don’t find her before Harley puts her out of the way.”

Brennan looked at Johnson. “Put everybody you can spare on locating her, will you, Johnnie?” He said. “Or locating Harley — where we find one, we’ll probably find the other.”

Johnson nodded.

“You go over to the Glass Slipper, Nick,” Brennan went on, “an’ check on the alibi Harley framed there yesterday. Put the old scare on whoever was in on it.”

Nick said: “Right.”

Someone knocked at the door and Nick got up and let a waiter in. The waiter put a tray with three pots of steaming coffee on the bed table, poured the coffee and held the check for Brennan to sign. When he opened the door to go out Renée Jackman came in. She was very tiny, very dark; had the reputation of being one of the best editorial secretaries in the newspaper business.

She looked at Nick and Johnson and came over to the bed, looked down at Brennan with wide, soft eyes, said softly: “Poor baby.”

Johnson pulled a chair close to the bed for her; she sat down and crossed trim silken legs, opened a notebook and held a pencil poised tremulously in midair. She smiled. “Ready, set, go...”

Nick was at the door. He said: “I’ll call you, Cy,” went out.

Johnson picked up one of the cups of coffee and offered it to Renée; she shook her head. Johnson gulped down most of it, put on his hat. He said: “I’ve got to get back to the office. Hurry it up, Cy.”

Brennan bobbed his head up and down. He was stirring sugar into his coffee.

Johnson turned at the door. “I forgot to tell you,” he said, “that I had a man at the depot when the Atlanta train came in. Antony was on it — he went to the Curson Hotel on Fifty-fifth.”

Brennan grunted “Uh-huh” over the edge of the coffee cup. Then he called after Johnson, who had opened the door: “Have somebody try to spot the place they took me after I was creased. Maybe it was next door to the Gateway or across the alley. Maybe you can pick up something there.”

Johnson nodded, went out and closed the door.

Brennan finished his coffee, put the cup back on the tray and leaned back against the pillows. He smiled at Renée.

She smiled back, raised the pencil again. “Ready, set, go...”

At about a quarter of eleven Nick called.

Brennan had finished dictating the story; Renée was sitting at the broad desk typing it for a final okay. She looked up and watched Brennan grin into the telephone, grunt affirmatively.

He hung up finally; turned to her. “Nick says there isn’t anyone at the Glass Slipper who saw Harley there between five and seven. They say if he was there he was in his office and nobody can swear to that.”

She nodded, went on with her typing.

Somebody knocked at the door and Brennan called “Come in.” Renée said: “It’s locked I guess.” She got up and opened the door and Joice Colt came into the room.

She stood inside the door and stared dully at Renée and then moved her eyes slowly to Brennan.

Renée closed the door.

Joice Colt went across the room and stood with her hands on the foot of the bed looking down at Brennan. Her eyes were wide, opaque; her face dead white. She said: “Harley is dead.” Then her eyes went back in her head and she slumped down softly to the floor.

Brennan got up as swiftly as he could and knelt beside her, said: “Bring me the bottle of whiskey in the closet” over his shoulder to Renée. Renée brought the whiskey and Brennan poured some of it between Joice Colt’s pale clenched lips; with Renée’s help he lifted her and put her on the bed. After a minute or so she opened her eyes.

Brennan was leaning over her. He said: “Where? How?...”

There was no flicker of understanding in Joice Colt’s eyes; Brennan whispered “Harley” and very slowly intelligence and life came back into her face. She laughed a little.

Brennan poured a stiff drink and she took the glass, eagerly, drained it.

“They thought I was so full of weed I didn’t know where I was — I didn’t know what was going on” she said. “But I knew, I knew...” She spoke swiftly, huskily; she seemed to want to say everything at once. “I remember when you came in — an’ then the little fella started shooting an’ I saw you fall. Then it was dark and I could hear people crawling in the darkness and I could hear the Negro girl moaning and I thought she had been hit — but she was only scared.”

Renée was standing at the foot of the bed staring at Joice Colt; Brennan was sitting on the side of the bed in his pajamas and his bandaged head and bruised face were thrust towards Colt.

“Then after a while somebody said ‘He’s gone’ and they were talking about the man that came in with you, I think — and they turned on another light. You were bleeding terribly and I thought you were dead, and Sam Kerr was dead, and the Negro girl was still groaning — but she was only scared. Harley got up and he and the little fella looked at you and you were alive and the little fella put his gun down by your head, but Harley said ‘No.’ Then two Negroes came in and Harley told one of them — the big fat man — to pick you up and take you someplace, and he told the girl to go along...”

Brennan asked: “Take me where?”

“I don’t know — over to Cappy’s, or somewhere that sounded like that.” Joice Colt put her hands up and jerked off her small tightfitting hat. “Then Harley made me get up and took me downstairs an’ out the back way. His car was out there. He thought I was so full of the stuff that I didn’t know what it was all about. I was pretty high — but not that high.”

She paused, glanced at the bottle; Brennan poured her another drink.

“Harley drove over to the river,” she went on. “I guess his idea was to slug me an’ roll me in — he drove out on a little dark wharf an’ stopped the car.” She tilted the glass to her mouth, drank most of the whiskey. “An’ then a guy who’d been lying down on the floor in the back of the car got up and stuck a rod into the back of Harley’s neck an’ said: ‘Stick your hands up, you — an’ get out of the car.’ The guy got out behind him and walked him over to the edge of the wharf and I could hear them talking there, but I couldn’t make out what they said. Then there were two shots close together an’ the guy came running back to the car. He looked at me and I acted like I’d passed out — I’d been riding that way, slumped down in the seat, since Harley brought me out of the joint — and he figured I was out cold an’ hadn’t recognized him, I guess. He beat it back up the street.”

Brennan was leaning forward; his eyes were bright, interested. “Who?”

“Lou Antony.”

Brennan smiled thinly, stood up. He said: “You’re nuts — Antony didn’t get in town till this morning.”

She repeated: “Lou Antony. He looks like a skeleton — like he was awfully sick — but I’d know that face anywhere.” She finished her drink.

Brennan glanced at Renée, turned back. “Why, damn it, Joice — that doesn’t make sense...”

Joice Colt said slowly: “Oh, yes, it does.”

Brennan was staring at her with wide bewildered eyes.

“Harley didn’t kill Barbara,” she went on, “Antony did. He beat Harley to it.”

Brennan sat down slowly in the chair beside the bed; he was smilingly slightly, mirthlessly, shaking his head slowly back and forth.

Joice Colt sat up and leaned against the head of the bed. “Harley called me late yesterday afternoon,” she said — “said he wanted to see me, to come over to his office at the Slipper. I went over about five-thirty. We had a few drinks an’ he hemmed and hawed about letting bygones be bygones and giving me a job and things like that. I couldn’t figure what it was all about an’ after a while I got suspicious, an’ while Harley was in the bathroom I scrammed out of the place. When I got back to the hotel an’ found Barbara dead I figured Harley for it right away. He’d called me over to the Slipper so I’d be out of the way, an’ at the same time establish his alibi while one of his hoods came up an’ did for Barbara. I told you I called him right away — I did, but at the Slipper, not at the hotel. He’d left the Slipper. I went downstairs, figuring I might catch him coming in, an’ I ran into you—”

Brennan interrupted suddenly: “Sure, sure — so what? Harley’s still it. He had one of his men kill her, even if he didn’t do the actual job himself...”

She shook her head. “No. He planned for one of his boys to do it — Sam Kerr — but Kerr was too late. He went up about six o’clock, when he was sure I was safe at the Slipper. He wasn’t going to poison her — that isn’t the way Harley’s mind works — he was going to choke her or cave in her head or something gentle and quiet like that. Kerr was the kind of lad Harley would pick for a job like that. When he got there he knocked at Barbara’s door an’ there wasn’t any answer, an’ he’d been officed that we were practically living together so he went to my door, but there were voices inside — a man’s voice an’ Barbara’s voice — so he sat down on the back stairs to wait for the man to come out.”

Brennan said: “How the hell do you know all this?”

“This is the way I heard Kerr tell it to Harley — an’ this is the way it was.” She said it very emphatically.

Brennan reached for the bottle and a glass, poured himself a drink.

“In a little while the man came out,” she went on, “and went downstairs past Kerr. Kerr didn’t pay any particular attention to him — figured he was one of Barbara’s casual boyfriends — but he saw enough of him to describe him vaguely to Harley. It was Lou Antony.”

Brennan drank.

Renée had come around and was sitting on the foot of the bed. She said: “You might buy us all a drink.”

Brennan was frowning into space. He handed her a glass and the bottle.

“Kerr went back and knocked at the door,” Joice Colt went on. “Nobody answered an’ he finagled around with a couple of skeleton keys but it was no go — an’ pretty soon he heard the elevator stop at the floor an’ he ducked back down the stairway. He played hide an’ seek with the elevator that way for about ten minutes, working on the lock — and then I came back. He saw me go in, and come out in a couple minutes. He didn’t know what the hell to do — his orders were to knock Barbara off, an’ being a conscientious soul with a one-track mind, he was beginning to think about busting the door in when I came back up with you. He listened outside the door but couldn’t make much sense of what he could hear so he finally knocked at the door an’ came in and sapped you before he even noticed that Barbara was already stiff.”

Brennan asked softly: “What about the glass?”

“What glass?”

“The glass under the bed — the one that had the strychnine in it. It was smashed when I came to.”

She said: “If you had some angle figured out about that glass it was your own idea — you knocked the glass off the table an’ smashed it when you fell.”

Brennan smiled sourly, said: “God! I’m a swell sleuth!” Then he snapped: “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about being with Harley, when you took me up to the room?”

“I didn’t have time.” Joice Colt reached for a cigarette on the bed table, lighted it. “I was trying to figure the thing out by myself — find out where I got off...”

“So what happened after Kerr slugged me?”

“I’m getting to that. Kerr saw that Barbara was dead an’ took it big. He evidently figured his best play was to take me along because he knew I could tie him up to Harley — an’ if I went into a good thorough disappearance it would look like I’d killed Barbara. I think he half figured that I’d killed her, anyway. He hustled me out an’ down the back stairs an’ out the service entrance. He kept close to me and had that rod in his pocket, shoved into my ribs. We got into a cab an’ went to his place over on Sixty-first an’ Lexington and he finally got Harley on the phone an’ told him what had happened. Harley told him to bring me to the joint uptown.”

Brennan was leaning back in the chair, staring bleakly at Joice Colt. He asked: “Who slipped you the reefers?”

“Kerr.” She smiled. “He smokes. I was awful jittery an’ he took pity on me, I guess.” She swung up to sit on the edge of the bed, facing Brennan. “We went uptown and met the fat nigger at the bar across the street from the Gateway, an’ they made me call you. Then they took me down to the Gateway and hustled me upstairs. The girl gave me some more weed — they figured I knew what was going to happen to me, I guess, an’ needed plenty anesthetic.” She put her hands up and patted her hair. “That’s all.”

Brennan got up and walked to the window, stood staring out into the rain. “Where’ve you been all night?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Riding around in a cab — trying to figure out what to do. Then I sat in a speakeasy down the street for a couple hours. Finally I called the Eagle to find out if they had any dope on you — I figured they’d put the chill on you uptown by this time. The telephone girl said you were home, so I took a chance on coming over.” She smiled wanly. “They’re dragging the city for me, according to the papers — I’m plenty hot. I get goose pimples every time I see a uniform. I—”

The phone rang. Joice Colt stiffened nervously, sucked in her breath sharply. Renée started to get up, but Brennan turned and went to the phone. He said: “Hello... Mister Louis? I don’t know any Mister Louis — what does he want?... Personal?... Does he look like a bill collector?... Okay — tell him to wait. I’ll call you back.”

Brennan put the phone down and went back to the window. He stood there a little while and then he turned and went to the desk and picked up the sheaf of typewritten pages that Renée had finished. “Well — I guess I’m the chump in this deal,” he said. “Here’s the swellest story I ever turned in — almost turned in.” He sighed, shook his head. “I ride a hunch, an’ bet Johnnie my job — an’ my life — that I’m right. I make a sucker out of myself for Freberg an’ the Department an’ the whole damned town to give the horse laugh. I bloody near get myself killed — an’ all because I’m sap enough to go into a big sympathy act for a tomato like you.” He inched his head emphatically towards Joice Colt.

She smiled coldly. “An’ because you hated Harley,” she said. “An’ because you think those trick hunches of yours are straight from...”

Brennan said, “Right,” very loudly. His expression was not pleasant. “I’ve played my hunches across the board since I was that high.” He held his hand at the height of his hip descriptively. “They’ve always worked out.” He patted his chest with his hand, went on very dramatically, very seriously: “If I can’t believe in my hunches, I can’t believe in myself!”

Joice Colt grinned broadly at Renée. “He’s delirious.”

Renée was smiling at Brennan. She said softly: “Listen, baby — the Antony slant is as good, or better, than Harley.” She glanced at her watch. “And we can just make it.” She got up and went to him, took the sheaf of pages from him and threw them into the wastebasket, sat down at the desk and put a sheet of paper into the typewriter.

There was a soft drumming of fingernails at the door. Brennan went to the door and opened it and there was a very thin man in a tightly belted dark raincoat standing there. His face was very thin, very gray; his dark eyes were sunken above sharp jutting cheekbones. Water dripped from the brim of his soft black hat, the bottom of his long raincoat.

He came into the room slowly. “I told the girl to announce me as Louis,” he said, “because I wanted to learn the number of your room before you had a chance to misunderstand my visit.” He spoke very precisely, with a trace of accent; his voice had the hollow toneless quality of a sick man. He smiled. “I am Antony.”

He stood quietly while Brennan closed the door. Renée and Joice Colt were staring at Antony with bright interested eyes.

Antony moved his smile from Renée to Joice to Brennan; he asked: “May I sit down?”

Brennan said: “Sure.” He jerked his head towards a chair, crossed behind Antony to a dresser near the door to bathroom, opened the top drawer.

Antony said very quietly, “Don’t do that.” His voice was almost pleading. He had not moved towards the chair; a heavy blue automatic glittered dully in his hand.

Brennan turned his head towards Antony, grinned slowly. “I was going to open a fresh one in your honor,” he said. He kept his eyes on Antony, reached slowly into the drawer and took out a bottle wrapped in tissue paper.

Antony went to the chair and sat down; he held the automatic on his lap.

Brennan tore the wrapper off the bottle, snapped off the cap; he took a fresh glass from the top of the dresser and poured a big drink. As Antony leaned forward to take it he was seized suddenly by a violent fit of coughing; he put the glass on the floor and took out a handkerchief and coughed for perhaps a half minute in a curious rhythmic way.

Brennan poured whiskey into three glasses on the bed table; he turned the chair near the bed to face Antony, sat down and picked up his glass.

Antony’s coughing ended as suddenly as it had started. He smiled apologetically at Brennan, picked up his glass from the floor and drank most of it. He said: “That is a good cough — yes?”

Brennan nodded.

“I have come to tell you something very funny,” Antony went on. He leaned back in the chair and his sunken pain-glazed eyes twinkled momentarily with amusement. “I have become soft, like a woman — I am Antony of whom many men were afraid and I have become soft and sentimental like — what you call it? — a pansy.” He laughed, and the sound was a harsh tearing sound deep in his body; he bent his head a little to one side, stared quizzically at Brennan. “Have you ever wanted something very much and then when you got it it was not very much — and you did not want anything very much?...”

Brennan smiled, shook his head slightly.

Antony went on in the clipped, precisely accented monotone: “For a long time I have wanted to kill two people. It was a fever to me — there was nothing else that was important. I lived for that — I planned it very carefully.” He gestured pointedly with one hand. “Now it is done — and I think there is nothing that is important to me any more.”

Brennan glanced at Joice Colt, drank the whiskey in his glass.

Antony again coughed violently; he leaned forward and held his chest tightly with his hands. When the fit had worn itself out he went on more slowly: “I had arranged it very carefully. I got off the train at Greenville and a friend of mine who looks very much like me took my reservation and my place on the train. I had a plane waiting there and I was flown to a private landing field near Paterson and I got here to New York about five thirty. I went to the Valmouth — I wanted to do it myself, you see — and there was no answer at Barbara’s door and I was about to go when she came to the door across the hall. She had heard me knocking at her door and she came to the door or your room” — he bobbed his head at Joice Colt — “and opened it...”

He leaned back, stroked the arm of the chair lightly with his fingers. “I had a present for Barbara,” he said — “I had a bottle of very fine bourbon to celebrate my homecoming. Barbara liked it very much.” His smile was a not a pleasant thing. “After a while I left Barbara and went to find Mister Harley — and after a while I found him...”

Brennan leaned forward slowly. No one said anything for perhaps a minute and then Brennan asked quietly: “So what?”

Antony shrugged. “This morning I went in a cab to Trenton and got back on the train and my friend stayed in Trenton. Last night I did not have time to read the papers. But I read them this morning and they said Miss Colt was wanted for Barbara’s murder. I do not want that...” He smiled at Joice Colt. “I thought they would think it was suicide. I do not want anyone else to be in trouble — and I have done what I wanted to do — I do not very much care what happens to me now...”

He laughed. “You see — I am soft like a woman. And then, too, I am not very well — I was not very well when I went to prison and” — he tapped his chest lightly with his fingers — “it is very damp down there — I do not think there is very much left of my lungs.” He was grinning broadly at Brennan. “It makes you very soft and sentimental when there is not much left of your lungs...”

Brennan asked: “Why did you think of coming to me?”

Antony shrugged again. “It was in the paper that you were with Miss Colt before she disappeared last night. You are a newspaperman — you would know best how to do this so that my friend who flew me here and my friend who took my place on the train do not become involved. And it is a good story for you — no?”

Brennan said: “No.” He stood up and went to the desk, stooped over and took the sheaf of typewritten sheets out of the wastebasket and tossed them on the desk. “No — that is not a good story,” he said. He tapped the sheets on the desk with the backs of his fingers. “This is the story.” He turned his head to nod at Renée. “Read it.”

Renée began reading in a small choked voice and Brennan went back and sat down. By the time Renée had read to the third page confidence had come back to her and she read well, spoke clearly, swiftly.

Antony was leaning far back in the chair and his eyes were half closed, his mouth was curved to a thin smile.

When Renée had finished they were all silent a little while and Antony said slowly: “It is a very interesting story.” He inclined his head towards Joice Colt. “You are sure it will make Miss Colt in the clear, yes?”

Brennan nodded. “She’s the only one who could have made Harley’s alibi stand up — and now that Harley has, uh, disappeared, the story’s a cinch.” He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and stared very seriously at Antony. “You are quite sure there can be no leak on your side; I mean about your flying here, or being recognized by anyone yesterday, or anything like that?”

Antony shook his head slowly, said: “Quite sure.”

Brennan glanced at the clock on the dresser; it was eleven thirty-five. He turned to Renée, said: “You’d better hustle over to the office — you can write the finish there, after you get the first part in the work.”

She bobbed her head up and down, stood up swiftly and stuffed the sheaf of paper into her handbag. Her coat was on a chair near the door; she went to it and Antony got up and helped her put it on. She thanked him, said, “So long,” over her shoulder to Brennan and Joice Colt, went out and closed the door.

Antony crossed to Brennan and held out his hand. He had put the automatic back into the pocket of his raincoat and it made a great bulge there against the narrowness of his waist.

He said: “I must go, too.”

Brennan stood up and shook Antony’s hand. They stood silently a little while, smiling at each other a little.

Brennan said: “You’d better see a good doctor.”

Antony stuck out his lips, shrugged slightly, shook his head. “I think there are not any good doctors — for me,” he said. He turned and took Joice Colt’s outstretched hand and pressed it. Then he went to the door, and his shoulders were drooping and he was a very slight, very pitiable little figure going away like that in his tightly belted raincoat. He did not turn at the door; he went out and closed the door softly behind him.

Brennan sat down on the arm of the chair and picked up the telephone, dialed a number. He said: “Hello, Johnnie. Hold everything — Renée’s on the way over... Uh-huh, we were delayed a little. An’ never mind looking for Colt any more — she’s over here — I’m going to take a room for her here where she can lay low for a couple days while we cinch that Harley slant... Uh-huh — an’ I have a hunch they won’t find Harley. I think he’s scrammed — long gone — that’ll make it a lot easier...”

He was silent a little while, listening, and then he laughed heartily, said: “Well you know those old Brennan hunches, Johnnie — they never miss... Okay — I’ll be seeing you.” He hung up, grinned complacently at Joice Colt. “That sheet is gradually getting on to what a valuable man I am,” he said.

She was staring at him with wide hard eyes: one eyebrow was arched to a thin skeptical line, her red mouth curved humorously upward at the corners. She said with broad, biting sarcasm: “The old Brennan hunches — they never miss...”

Brennan laughed. “Well, practically never.” He shook his finger at her emphatically. “I have a hunch right now that you’d like a drink.”

She looked thoughtful a moment, nodded very seriously.

Brennan got up and poured two drinks. He went to the dresser and studied his bruised, discolored face in the mirror a little while and then he went back to the bed table and picked up his glass, gulped down the whiskey.

He blinked, put the glass back on the table and smiled wanly down at Joice Colt.

“That’s over,” he said. “I’m a sick man. I need a rest.”