The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

Originally published in Manhunt, February 1956.

Chapter 1

Except that his right earlobe was missing, there was nothing arresting about the tall, sunburned man until you looked closely. He was as quiet-mannered and as sleekly-dressed as any patron of Club Rotunda.

But Sam Black, the club’s assistant manager, made a habit of looking closely at every new customer. This one, he decided after only momentary study, was carrying a gun under his arm.

The man told Black that his name was Larry Eaton, that Judge Bernard had said to mention his name and he’d like to go upstairs to the gaming rooms. The assistant manager furrowed his forehead as though searching his mind for a Judge Bernard. He shook his head regretfully.

“Afraid I don’t know the judge,” he said. “Anyway, there’s nothing upstairs but Mr. Ross’s apartment.” He glanced across the room at Oscar the headwaiter, who wasn’t even looking his way. “Excuse me, Mr. Eaton. The headwaiter’s signaling me about something. Nice to have met you.”

As Black walked away, the sunburned man shrugged and moved toward the bar.

Beneath the deliberate stupidity of Sam Black’s expression was a lightning-quick mind. His snap decision to brush off the man who said his name was Larry Eaton was actually the result of careful consideration, even though the thought process took only seconds.

A dozen times nightly the stocky assistant manager had to decide whether or not to allow first-time visitors to the club upstairs to the casino. And what had brought about his decision in this case was recognition of a type. Though he had never before seen the sunburned man, nor heard the name Larry Eaton, instinct warned him this was a high-caliber hood. Possibly the man was merely out for a good time. But also, possibly he was gunning for someone.

At the end of a half hour Larry Eaton decided to leave. At the archway giving off the foyer where the cloakrooms were, he paused to glance reflectively at the mirrored elevator doors across the room.

At that moment they opened and a thin, slightly stoop-shouldered man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and carrying a brief case stepped from the car. Black recognized Benny Stoneman, the club bookkeeper, and shifted his gaze back toward Eaton again.

During the part of a second the assistant manager’s gaze had been settled on the elevator, the sunburned man had disappeared through the front door.

The bookkeeper went out the front door also. Black shrugged and turned to wander back among the tables. He had barely taken three steps when a rapid series of shots sounded from immediately in front of the club.

Black was racing forward before the last shot stopped echoing. One hand thrust the glass door outward while the other drew a short-barreled revolver from beneath his arm. He landed in the center of the sidewalk in a crouch, his gaze sweeping the surrounding area in one quick but thorough glance before settling on the crumpled figure lying on the concrete just outside the door.

There was not a pedestrian in sight and the only vehicle in motion was a block away. Black caught only a glimpse of twin taillights before it turned the corner and disappeared.

Sheathing his gun, he knelt next to the crumpled figure.

“You hurt bad, Benny?” he asked.

The thin bookkeeper didn’t answer. He was beyond answering.

Chapter 2

Except for a brief phone conversation with Clancy Ross upstairs, Sam Black didn’t have a chance to talk to the club proprietor before the police arrived. He was too busy quieting the downstairs customers and Ross was too busy closing the casino and herding the gambling customers downstairs to tables in the night-club portion of the building.

Nor did he have a chance to make a report to Ross after they arrived, since Lieutenant Niles Redfern, who was in charge of the investigation, kept the gambler at his side while he supervised the photographing of the body, finally released it to the morgue wagon, and satisfied himself that the only witness who knew anything at all was Sam Black.

Detective Lieutenant Niles Redfern was a lanky, middle-aged man with a lean intelligent face and a perpetually morose expression. He was a dedicated law officer and an efficient one, but he had one defect which prevented his rise beyond a lieutenancy in a police department run the way St. Stephen’s was.

Unfortunately for his career, he was incorruptible.

His assistant this evening was Sergeant James Morton, a thick-bodied unimaginative man who also would probably never earn further promotion. But not for the same reason, for Morton had no compunction about accepting graft, and was one of the police on the Rotunda’s payroll. He remained a sergeant because even in a corrupt police department there have to be minimum standards of ability.

Oddly, Clancy Ross liked Niles Redfern who would have closed down the club with pleasure if he ever got the opportunity, and had nothing but contempt tor police who accepted payoff.

When the last of the club patrons had been allowed to go home after having their names and addresses recorded by Sergeant Morton, the four men took seats at the bar, Ross and Sam Black in the center, and the two detectives flanking them.

“Drink?” the gambler offered.

Sergeant Morton looked expectant, but his expression faded when the lieutenant shook his head.

“Tell me about this Benny Stoneman,” Redfern said. “How long’s he worked here?”

Clancy Ross’s eyebrows, a startling black in contrast to the uniform silver of his prematurely gray hair, hunched together thoughtfully. He fingered the thin scar which formed the slight cleft in his chin.

“Around a month,” he said finally. “Maybe five weeks.” He looked at Sam Black for confirmation.

“Four weeks and three days,” Black said.

“He was your bookkeeper?” the lieutenant asked Ross.

The gambler nodded.

“How’d he happen to be working so late? Don’t night-club bookkeepers work nine to five just like office bookkeepers?”

“The payroll.” Sam Black answered for Ross. “Tomorrow’s the fifteenth.”

The lieutenant’s gaze shifted to Black. “You were the first one outside after it happened. Sam? And nobody was in sight?”

“Not immediately. A car was just wheeling around the next corner, but it was too dark to catch the number and make. About two minutes later the street was full, though. The shots emptied every building in the neighborhood except ours. I blocked the front door, told the customers to get back to their tables, then put guards on both the front and side doors to make sure nobody left.”

“Quick thinking,” Redfern commended. “Made it a lot easier for us. Ross, where’d this Stoneman come from before you hired him?”

“Chicago.”

“Oh? Know his antecedents?”

“I checked references before I hired him.”

“And?”

“Nothing in his past record suggested he was hot. At the time.”

The lieutenant asked on a rising note, “At the time?”

“He kept books for Big John Quinnel before coming here,” the gambler said briefly.

The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. “Quinnel. Isn’t he syndicate stuff?”

“He’s just been indicted for income-tax evasion,” Ross said. “I remember wondering when I read it the other day if Uncle Sam would be dragging my bookkeeper off to Chicago to testify, and leave me in a hole.”

The lieutenant digested this. “You think Quinnel might have had the guy bumped just because he was a potential witness against him in a tax case? Seems a little raw even for the syndicate.”

“What’s this Quinnel look like?” Sam Black asked suddenly.

All three of the others looked at him.

“Why?” Redfern asked. “Think you might have seen him hanging around here?”

Black shrugged. “I wouldn’t know unless you told me what he looked like. I see hundreds of people hanging around here.”

Ross said, “I’ve never met the man.”

The lieutenant shrugged in indication that he hadn’t either, but Sergeant Morton said unexpectedly. “He’s about six-four and weighs around two-fifty. That’s why they call him Big John.”

It was the sergeant’s turn to be looked at.

“He’s staying over at the Park Plaza.” Morton said.

Lieutenant Redfern scowled at his assistant. “He’s actually in town? You’ve seen him?”

“Sure. He’s down here on vacation. Been here all week. Somebody pointed him out to me the other night.”

The lieutenant’s scowl deepened. “It occur to you the department might be interested in learning that a known out-of-town hood is visiting here?”

Morton looked surprised, indicating that it hadn’t. The lieutenant dropped the subject as hopeless.

“Know anything about Stoneman’s private life?” he asked Ross.

The gambler said he knew the man had been married, but had never met his wife. “He did show me her picture. Quite a dish for a guy like Benny. Looked about half his age. They lived over on East Stoyle somewhere.”

He looked at Sam Black, who said, “Seven thirty-four.”

The lieutenant made a note of the address.

“One more thing, Ross,” he said, rising. “Knowing you, I suppose you’ll feel impelled to prove to whoever bumped Stoneman that it’s not healthy to knock off your employees. If you do any prying on your own and learn who gunned Stoneman, I’m warning you right now that the law has first call. Try taking matters into your own hands, and I’ll run you down as fast as I would any killer.”

Ross grinned at him. “When did I ever take the law into my own hands, Lieutenant?”

When the two detectives had departed, Sam Black said, “Now you ready to listen to my report?”

Ross said, “Go ahead.”

“A tall guy about thirty years old came in at eight. Had a brand new sunburn, a missing right earlobe, wore a two-hundred-dollar suit and a gun. He wanted upstairs, but I gave him the brush on general principles. He was looking for somebody, but he didn’t find him. He left just as Benny got off the elevator, and I’m pretty sure he spotted him getting off. He walked out not fifteen seconds ahead of Benny.”

Ross thought this over. “He fit Morton’s description of Big John Quinnel?”

“Not by three inches and sixty pounds. But hoods in Quinnel’s economic bracket don’t do their own gunning, do they?”

“Not likely. Maybe you’d better check up on Quinnel to see if your friend’s one of his gunnies.”

“Not me,” Black said. “I just quit.”

Ross’s eyebrows raised.

“This Quinnel is syndicate stuff,” Black explained. “But you haven’t got any sense. You’ll breeze in and start pushing him around just like you push around local hoods who step on your toes. You’ve got to be independent. You won’t tie in with Bix Lawson so we’d have an army of goons behind us. You’d rather pay three times as much protection and be on your own. Just so you don’t have to take orders from anybody. So what’s it get us? It leaves me and you all alone when the syndicate gets sore and decides to blow up the club. I’ll send you a card from Cuba.”

Ross glanced at his wristwatch. “Ten-thirty,” he said, completely ignoring his assistant’s outburst. “There’s still time to get started tonight. Morton said Quinnel’s staying at the Park Plaza. Get on over there and see what you can dig up.”

Chapter 3

It was two a.m. before Sam Black returned from his mission. He found Clancy Ross still awake in the front room of his apartment, which was on the third floor of the club.

Black said gloomily, “Big John’s been in town five days. Probably just vacationing, because he hasn’t had any conferences with local shots insofar as I could learn. Bix Lawson lives at the Park Plaza too, you know, but he hasn’t been to Quinnel’s suite or Quinnel to his, though they’ve had a few drinks together in the bar. The only visitors to Quinnel’s suite have been a succession of dolls. Usually in groups of three. Quinnel brought two bodyguards with him, and they’re all shacked up together in the same suite. It cost me twenty bucks to the bell captain to pry that much out. You can add it to my next pay check if either of us live till next payday.”

“See either of the two bodyguards?” Ross asked.

Black shook his head. “The bell captain told me a party had been going on in the suite since noon. Usual intimate size. Big John, the two bodyguards and three babes. Lieutenant Redfern and Sergeant Morton interrupted it for a time shortly before I got there, but were only upstairs about fifteen minutes. And nobody stirred out of the suite while I was there.”

Ross frowned at him. “Didn’t you ask the bell captain for descriptions of the two bodyguards?”

“Yeah, sure,” Black said reluctantly, and when Ross merely waited with patience, added in a resigned voice, “One of them is pale and skinny and answers to the name of Bugsy. But he’s registered as Earl Windt. The other is a tall, sunburned guy with a missing right earlobe. But his name’s not Larry Eaton. It’s Larry Horton. Probably a coincidence. There must be hundreds of tall, sunburned guys with missing earlobes.”

“No doubt,” Ross said, smiling slightly.

But there was no humor in the smile. It struck his assistant as anticipatory, and Black was afraid he knew what the gambler was anticipating.

“Listen,” Black said. “Benny was a nice guy. I liked him. But he was only here a month and he wasn’t much more than an acquaintance to either of us. If somebody bumped me, or Oscar the headwaiter, or one of the old-time housemen, I’d expect you to get mad. I’d get mad myself. But this is silly. Quinnel’s only got two guns with him, but just by lifting a phone he could probably have a hundred more in town within hours. We can’t fight a whole syndicate.”

Rising, Ross switched off the TV set. “Might as well get some sleep,” he said mildly. “Probably have a tough day tomorrow.”

“Oh, the hell with it,” Black said. “You’ve got a head like a brick. See you in the morning.”

By “morning” Black actually meant the next afternoon, as Club Rotunda didn’t open till four p.m., and the assistant manager customarily arrived only an hour beforehand. He had finished his usual check of the kitchen, bar and dining room before Clancy Ross came downstairs at a quarter of four.

When the gambler announced that he was going out and didn’t know when he’d be back, Sam Black went to the cloakroom and returned with his hat.

“I won’t need you,” Ross said.

“The hell you won’t,” Black told him. “If you insist on committing suicide, I want to be around to claim your body.”

“I’m only going down to police headquarters.”

“I’ll still go along. Maybe I’ll apply for a job on the force. Even big-time racketeers like Quinnel think twice before they bump cops.”

Chapter 4

Lieutenant Niles Redfern was working the four to midnight trick and had just arrived at his office when Ross and Black walked in. He told them that the lab report on Benny Stoneman showed five thirty-eight-caliber bullets in the stomach, all spaced so closely together a palm could cover them.

Ross asked, “Get anything from Quinnel?”

“I talked to him,” Redfern said. “He, two other guys and three women were having a party in his suite. They all swore it had started the previous noon and none of them had been out of the suite since. Which gave everybody alibis.” Neither Ross nor Black made any comment.

Lieutenant Redfern said he had also talked to the murdered bookkeeper’s widow, who was as beautiful as Ross had indicated. As a routine check the lieutenant had asked for an accounting of her movements, and her only alibi was that she had been home alone all evening.

The gambler asked, “Any suggestions from her about who might have gunned Benny?”

“One,” Redfern answered laconically. “She says he had a mistress.” Both Ross and Black looked surprised.

“Benny?” Black asked incredulously. “A dream of a wife and a mistress? Why the guy was at least forty-five and looked like Ichabod Crane.”

“He must have had something,” Redfern said. “His wife doesn’t know who the mistress was, but she’s sure he had one. From little bits of evidence like lipstick on handkerchiefs, always the same shade, and blonde hairs on his coat lapel. The wife’s a brunette.”

As this seemed to be all the information the lieutenant had, Ross and Black left. Outside, Black climbed into the right-hand seat of Ross’s Lincoln and watched with a scowl as his employer started the car.

Chapter 5

As they crossed the lobby of the Park Plaza toward the elevators, Ross and Black spotted two men and a woman coming from the bar. Both the men were huge without being fat. One, a stranger to Ross, was at least six feet four, with thick shoulders and a broad chest. He had a square, strong-jawed face with a blue-black chin, hairy eyebrows and thick, oily black hair.

The other man, nearly as tall and thick-chested, was Bix Lawson, local political boss and ruler of most of St. Stephen’s rackets. The woman, a sizzling brunette in her late twenties, looked vaguely familiar to Ross, but he couldn’t quite place her.

“Think that man with Lawson might be Quinnel?” he asked Black.

Black looked that way and shrugged. Just then a thin, pale-faced man who had come from the barroom a step or two ahead of the others and had paused to give the lobby a quick once-over, circled the group and placed himself protectively at the tallest man’s rear.

“It must be Quinnel,” Ross decided. “Paleface answers the description you got of his bodyguard Bugsy.”

“I guess,” Black said without enthusiasm.

They watched as the quartet crossed the lobby toward the main entrance to the hotel. When Ross made no move to intercept them, Black looked at him questioningly.

“It’s the other bodyguard I want to talk to,” Ross said. “Since Bugsy seems to be on duty, maybe he’s still up in Quinnel’s suite. If Quinnel and Bugsy take off somewhere, it will give us a clear field.”

Bix Lawson separated from the others at the door after bowing to the woman and giving his huge friend a comradely slap on the shoulder. He started back toward the bar while the others went on out, the pale bodyguard going first.

Ross moved on toward the elevators and Sam Black gloomily trailed him.

As Ross had hoped, they found the second bodyguard alone in suite seven-o-seven. The man with the missing earlobe looked a little startled when he saw Sam Black, then shifted his gaze to Clancy Ross.

“I’m Clancy Ross,” the gambler told him. “You’ve met Sam Black and know he could blow your alibi for last night higher than a space ship. Let’s have some conversation.” The sunburned man considered things only a moment before stepping aside and holding the door wide open. Ross and Black walked into a large room furnished with a sofa, several easy chairs, a television set and a small portable bar. Other rooms gave off it on either side.

Ross selected an easy chair, sank into it and lit a cigarette. Black dropped his hat on an end table and seated himself in the center of the sofa. The sunburned man remained standing, his back to the door.

“Is your real name Eaton or Horton?” Ross asked.

“Horton. What do you want?”

“Just some conversation. You walked out of my club just before my bookkeeper was gunned down last night. You either did it yourself or saw it done. I dropped by to find out which.”

Horton gazed at the gambler expressionlessly for a long time before saying, “You guys didn’t say anything to the cops about my being at the club, did you?”

“What makes you sure of that?”

“The boss checked up. On you, I mean, not with the cops. You wouldn’t spill to the cops because you like to wash your own laundry.”

Ross gave him a bright smile. “Since you know how I operate, we can save a lot of explanation. I imagine you deny gunning Stoneman yourself.”

The sunburned man’s lips formed a cynical grin. “You imagine right, mister. Isn’t that a sort of dumb question?”

“Because you d give the same answer even if you had killed him? I don’t think so. As I said before, either you killed him or saw it done. You walked out too closely ahead of the shooting to be more than yards from the entrance when it happened. Since you claim you didn’t kill the man, you must have seen who did. All you have to do to convince me you’re innocent is give me a description of the real killer.”

The bodyguard snorted. “I don’t know a thing, mister. I was gone before the shooting started.”

Ross shook his head. “I don’t think you understand,” he said patiently. “You had to see the shooting if you didn’t do it yourself. If you can’t describe the killer, I’ll have to assume you’re it. I don’t think you’d like that.”

Horton’s face abruptly lost all expression. “Is that a threat?”

“Of course,” Ross said easily. “Were you people under the impression you could walk into town and start bumping off my employees without risking a hearse ride back to Chicago?”

After staring at Ross in astonishment, the bodyguard emitted a deliberately humorless laugh. “Who you think you’re talking to, buster? We know all about you. You’re an independent. You’ve got no backing from Bix Lawson, and Bix wouldn’t lift a hand to help you out of a jam. Matter of fact, I think he’d be pleased to see you go down. You better scram out of here before I get mad. And don’t come back.”

He started to pull the door open as Ross punched out his cigarette and came to his feet. With a resigned expression on his face, Sam Black folded hands in his lap and leaned back comfortably.

Walking over to the door, Ross pushed it shut again with one hand and casually gave Horton a backhand slap with the other.

With a grunt of anger the bodyguard lashed out with a left hook. Easily the gambler deflected it with his right palm, whooshed the air from the man by sinking his left into his stomach, then grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head downward at the same time he brought up a knee. When the gambler flung him back to smash against the wall, blood spurted from both Horton’s nostrils.

Without giving the man time to recover, Ross grabbed his necktie with one hand, put the other behind his head and hurled him halfway across the room to crash headfirst into an easy chair. When Horton fumbled at his armpit and groggily tried to scramble back to his feet, Ross’s open palm caught him full across the mouth, knocking him back to a seated position. The man made no further attempt to reach for a gun.

Fastidiously the gambler wiped his bloodied palm on the bodyguard’s shoulder. “Now how about that description?”

Horton glared up at him with hate, his jaws clenched. Unemotionally the gambler slapped him twice more, full swings which jolted the sunburned man’s head first one way and then the other, spattering droplets of blood in either direction.

Ross waited inquiringly for a moment, when the man still showed no inclination to speak, cocked his right fist and reached for a handhold in his hair.

“Hold it,” the bodyguard said thickly. “It was a woman.”

Ross let his hands drop to his sides. “Know her?”

Horton shook his head, his expression enraged but wary. Ross waited while he pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and sopped up some of the blood flowing from his nose.

“It was dark out and I only glanced at her once,” Horton mumbled through the handkerchief. “I don’t even remember if she was a blonde or brunette. She was maybe in her late twenties, not bad looking, but I couldn’t give any more description than that if you beat me all night. She was double-parked in a blue sedan. A Ford, I think, though maybe not. All these new cars look alike to me. My car was at the curb right behind her. I got in, waited for her to move so I could drive out, and then this guy came out of the club. She leaned over to the right-hand window, let him have it and drove away. I scrammed after her.”

“Catch the license?”

The man shook his head. “I didn’t want any part of it.”

“Now,” Ross said, “we come to the jackpot question. What were you doing at the club last night?”

“Just looking for a good time.”

Ross shook his head. “You were hunting for someone. Who?”

Horton looked up at him and Ross let his china-blue eyes grow opaque.

The bodyguard estimated his chance of getting away with sticking to the story that he had merely been out for a good time, decided he didn’t have any.

“Benny Stoneman,” he said sullenly.

“Oh? Why?”

“Don’t you read the papers? The boss is in line for an income-tax rap. Stoneman used to be his bookkeeper. Big John wanted me to talk to him to make sure he said the right things if he was ever called to testify. He didn’t want to look him up personally, because if the Feds ever got wind of a contact between him and Benny, they’d probably yammer about coercion. You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t,” Ross said. “I pay my income tax. So why didn’t you just ask for Benny?”

“Because if the Feds ever checked to see it he’d been got to, it would look bad if they turned up that somebody from the organization had been inquiring around for him. Big John told me to make it look like an accidental meeting.”

After consideration Ross decided the story was logical. Though Horton hadn’t mentioned it, obviously a death threat would have accompanied the instructions to the bookkeeper to “say the right things,” and just as obviously Big John Quinnel wouldn’t want anyone other than Stoneman to know there had been a contact.

“I guess that’s all for the moment,” the gambler decided. “If I think of any more questions, I’ll be back.”

Chapter 6

As it was now near the dinner hour, Ross dropped Sam Black off at the club to attend to business, and made his next call alone.

Seven thirty-four East Stoyle was a neat one-story frame cottage in a middle-class residential district. A woman of about twenty-eight came to the door.

She was a brunette, dark and torrid-looking in a skin-tight black dress which no one could have guessed was supposed to signify mourning, for it outlined every curve of her finely-developed body. A rather full lower lip, an attractive but slightly flat nose and dark eyes which seemed to slant a trifle upward gave her a slight oriental flavor.

Ross was startled when he saw her, but it didn’t show in his face. Now he knew why the woman he had seen with Quinnel had looked vaguely familiar. Benny Stoneman had once showed him his wife’s picture.

“Mrs. Stoneman?” Ross asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m Clancy Ross.”

“Oh,” she said. “Come in.”

She led him into a small but well-furnished front room and asked him to sit. After a standard expression of sympathy from Ross and an equally standard expression of thanks from the woman, she examined him with bright interest.

“Benny spoke of you a lot,” she said. “He had a good deal of admiration for you.”

“I liked Benny too. Which is one of the reasons I’m here.”

She looked a question and the gambler explained, “This isn’t entirely a sympathy call. I’m playing cop. Trying to run down Benny’s killer.”

“Oh? Well, I’m afraid I told the police everything I knew.”

“I know. But maybe if we kicked it around a while, you’d remember something you didn’t tell them. A clue to the identity of this mistress you think he had, for instance.”

She hushed slightly. “I see you’ve been talking to the police.”

“Some. Had dinner yet?”

She shook her head. “We... I usually eat about seven.”

“Then suppose you have it with me. We can talk while we’re eating.”

“In public?” she asked. “With my husband dead less than twenty-four hours? Oh, I couldn’t.”

The objection struck Ross as more a sop to convention than a symptom of grief. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t detect any grief in the woman.

“We’ll pick a quiet place where you won’t be known,” he said.

She considered. “You think it would be all right? Maybe your being Benny’s employer and all...”

“It will be all right,” he assured her.

He took her to Romaine’s, where the only illumination was candlelight and the clientele was small but select. He learned her first name was Helene, and before dinner was over he was calling her Helene and she was calling him Clancy.

After dinner Ross ordered drinks, and it developed that Helene Stoneman had an affinity for double bourbons and soda. As Ross drank only his usual weak scotch and water, by ten p.m., when they finally left Romaine’s, Ross was still dead sober, but Helene Stoneman was hilariously drunk.

By now she had completely forgotten her widowhood. As soon as they were seated in the Lincoln, she leaned against him, gave him a moist kiss on the cheek and then nestled her head on his shoulder.

When they reached her home, he had to help her from the car. Though he steadied her with one hand gripped to her bicep, she staggered all over the walk on the way to the front porch. Leaning her against the door, he took her purse and searched it for her key. He gripped her bicep again when he opened the door, to prevent her falling inward with it.

The gambler was a little irked with himself for letting her get so drunk. When he had discovered her liking for bourbon, he had deliberately shelved talking about her husband’s murder in the hope that he could first loosen her tongue with alcohol. But in her present state it was unlikely he could get any sense out of her at all.

Leading her into the front room, he switched on a lamp and steered her toward the sofa. But instead of sitting, she suddenly spun against him, threw her arms about his neck and dragged his mouth down to hers.

He found it wide open.

For the next few moments Ross merely hung on while the woman’s body undulated against his and her mouth greedily worked at his lips. Finally he forcibly broke the kiss and held her away by the shoulders. She fought his grip, attempting to struggle back into his arms.

“Hold it, Helene,” he said. “I’ll play with you when you’re sober, but I don’t take advantage of drunken women.”

“I am sober,” she said in a strained voice. “That sobered me like a jolt of electricity.”

Looking down at her, he realized with astonishment that she was telling the truth. Only moments before she had hardly been able to stand, but she had sobered as abruptly as she had managed to get drunk.

“Don’t just stand there looking at me!” she said. “For God’s sake, kiss me!”

And hanging his detaining grip from her shoulders with an outward movement of her hands, she was back at him like a wildcat, twining her arms about his neck and moving her body passionately against his. Ross made another halfhearted attempt to disengage himself, but her almost animal abandon was too much for him.

Giving up the fight, he grabbed her as roughly as she was grabbing at him and threw her onto the couch.

Chapter 7

Later, as they sat side-by-side on the sofa quietly smoking cigarettes, Helene seemed impelled to offer some explanation for her startling performance.

“I’m not a nympho, Clancy,” she said in a subdued and entirely sober tone. “But you don’t know how long I’ve been pent up. Benny and I... Well, there just wasn’t anything there any more. I knew he had another woman, so I wouldn’t...” She let it trail off. “Did you expect the evening to end like this?”

“It got a little off the track,” Ross admitted. “All I planned was a bit of discussion about Benny.”

“Do we have to talk about him?”

He looked down at the top of her head. “Don’t you want your husband’s killer caught?”

She shifted a little uncomfortably. “Well, yes, I suppose. But you must know I wasn’t in love with him.”

Ross asked casually, “What were you doing with Big John Quinnel this afternoon?”

Straightening up, she looked at him. “What?”

He repeated the question, then added, “I happened to see you together at the Park Plaza. At the time I didn’t know who you were.”

Helene frowned. “Why did you wait so long to ask me?”

Ross shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t think it was important. Is it?”

The question made her pause. “Of course not,” she said finally. “Big John was Benny’s employer in Chicago, you know, so I got to know him quite well. When he saw about Benny’s death in the paper, he phoned to offer sympathy. Then he asked me to drop by the hotel because he wanted to talk to me. I met him in the bar for one drink. All he wanted was to know if I needed help. Money help, he meant. I said no and he brought me home.”

Ross said nothing for a few moments. Then he asked, “Have you gone through Benny’s things yet? Papers and so on?”

She shook her head. “I’m supposed to tomorrow morning. With a Lieutenant Redfern. He thinks maybe he can find a clue to the identity of Benny’s mistress. Though what good that will do him, I don’t know.”

“It might solve the case,” Ross told her. “A witness who saw the shooting claims a woman did it.”

“Oh? Do the police have a description?”

“The police don’t even have the witness. I dug him up. Anyway, about the only description he could give was that she was female. Incidentally, what kind of car do you drive?”

“A blue Ford sedan. Why?”

“Nothing. Just checking.”

She frowned at him. “What kind of car did this witness see?” she demanded.

“A black coupe,” he lied in an easy voice.

Her lower lip stuck out petulantly. “I don’t think that was a very nice question to ask.”

“I’m not a very nice guy,” Ross conceded cheerfully. “Do me a favor tomorrow, will you?”

“What?”

“If you and the lieutenant turn up the name of Benny’s mistress when you go through his papers, phone it to me.”

“All right,” she said. “If you’re looking for a woman suspect, I’d just as soon you’d look away from me.”

Chapter 8

It was nearly midnight when Ross pulled into his reserved place in the parking lot behind Club Rotunda.

The lot was on the opposite side of the alley from the club and in the center of the block. Club patrons had to walk approximately a hundred feet to the alley mouth, turn right and walk half the length of the building to the side entrance. Clancy Ross, having a key to the alley door leading from the club kitchen, had to walk only half that distance.

Even before he caught the glint of light on metal, Ross sensed a shadowy figure crouched in the alley. Instantly he dropped flat, his right hand darting beneath his left arm as he fell. A streak of fire probed out above his prone body, the sharp crack of the pistol echoing from the building walls a micro-second later.

So close behind the first shot that it seemed a continuation of the sound, his own .38 automatic roared. With a pained grunt the figure in the areaway slammed backward, careened from one of the brick walls and tumbled to the ground.

The gambler was up as instantly as he had dropped, his gun pointed at the downed man and ready to fire again at the slightest movement. The man lay on his back, but the areaway was too dark to make out his face. The gleam of metal on the ground several feet away told Ross he had dropped his gun.

The downed man emitted a single low moan, then began to make a bubbling noise which brought a grimace to the gambler’s face. Stepping back from the areaway, Ross glanced both ways along the alley.

At that time of night the two office buildings were deserted, and no one on the streets seemed to have noticed the shots. After listening for a moment Ross returned to the area-way. The man hadn’t moved his position and the bubbling noise had stopped.

Sheathing his gun, Ross flicked on his lighter and held it to the dead face. It was the thin pale bodyguard he had seen with Big John Quinnel, the man registered at the hotel as Earl Windt, but more familiarly known as Bugsy.

Leaving him there, Ross crossed to the club’s rear door and let himself into the kitchen. He found Sam Black in the downstairs club.

“Got a job for you,” he told the assistant manager. “Quinnel’s boy, Bugsy, just took a shot at me as I walked up the alley.”

Black frowned. “I told you so, Clancy. What’d you expect, pushing around an employee of a guy like Quinnel. He missed this time, but...” He paused to give Ross closer examination. “He did miss, didn’t he?”

“He missed. He’s lying in the area-way between the two office buildings out back.”

“Dead?”

Ross nodded.

“Self-defense,” Black said. “Want me to phone the cops?”

“No. I want you to go over to the warehouse, get a panel truck, some kind of big bucket or tub and some cement. Plant his feet in the cement, drive down to the old quarry pool at the south edge of town and dump him in a hundred feet of water.”

Black looked at him in astonishment. “We’re playing like 1920 gangsters now? What the hell for? You wouldn’t have any trouble making self-defense stick if he shot at you first.”

“I want to give Quinnel something to worry about.” Ross said.

Black thought this over, started to frown and grinned instead. “I guess it might disturb Big John’s sleep a little,” he said.

He started off in the direction of the alley door. Ross went up to his apartment, changed into a dinner jacket and went down to the casino to take over his role of host.

At one a.m. the gambler was called away from a poker game to answer the phone. It was Helene Stoneman calling.

“I decided to look through some of Benny’s papers tonight after you left,” she said. “I think I found it.”

“His mistress’s name?”

“Well, her address. It’s a letter from a woman, addressed to him at the club. The letter’s only signed ‘M’ but there’s a return address on the envelope. Nineteen twenty-two Park. The postmark is two weeks old.”

“What’s it say?”

“It’s kind of funny. It’s sort of... well, affectionate, but it doesn’t sound much like a love letter. It mentions enjoying some evening they had together and asks if he could come to dinner the following Tuesday. That’s about all. It’s signed, ‘Affectionately, M.’”

“I see. There’s only one letter?”

“All I found. Want me to show it to Lieutenant Redfern?”

“Let him find it himself about noon.” Ross said. “That will give me a chance to get in my pitch first. Thanks for calling.”

“Don’t mention it. Miss me?”

“Already? We haven’t been parted two hours.”

“You could still miss me a little,” she pouted.

“All right,” he said. “I miss you a little. Good-night, Helene.”

“Wait a minute, Clancy. When am I going to see you again?”

“I’ll call you. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” she said reluctantly.

Though the downstairs club closed at one thirty in conformance with local liquor laws, the gambling rooms stayed open until four. At three a.m. Ross was called to the phone again.

“Hello,” Helene’s voice said. “I’m still not asleep.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Just can’t seem to sleep. I keep thinking about tonight.”

“Take a pill,” Ross suggested.

“You’re not very romantic,” she complained. “I knew you’d still be up, because Benny told me the upstairs stays open till four. What are you doing?”

“Playing poker.”

“You winning?”

Ross fingered the scar on his cheek a trifle irritably. “It’s a seesaw game. Is that all you wanted; to know if I’m winning?”

“I just wanted to hear your voice. Will I see you any more before the funeral? That’s day after tomorrow.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll call you. Good-night.”

After he hung up, he stood staring at the phone puzzled a few moments before returning to the game.

He got one more call before the club closed for the night. Sam Black phoned to report that his mission was accomplished.

Chapter 9

The phone next to his bed awakened Ross at eight a.m., and when he answered it a female voice he didn’t recognize asked, “Mr. Ross there?”

“Speaking,” the gambler said.

“Mr. Clancy Ross?”

“Right.”

The woman hung up.

At first the incident puzzled him, but then light dawned. Big John Quinnel, having heard nothing from his gunman Bugsy, had taken this method to learn if Ross were still among the living.

Ross grinned to himself.

At nine, just as he was getting ready to leave the apartment, the phone rang again. This time it was Helene Stoneman.

“Did I get you up?” she asked.

“No. I’ve been up an hour.”

“Would you like to come over here for a home-cooked dinner?”

“Tonight?” Ross said. “I really ought to stay at the club, Helene. I missed most of last night, and this place doesn’t exactly run itself.”

“Oh.” She was silent for a few moments. “You mean you won’t be able to get away any evenings any more?”

“I take nights off,” Ross said patiently. “Just not two in a row.”

She said, “Oh,” again, then, “The funeral’s tomorrow, you know. Logan’s Funeral Home. Are you going?”

“I planned to. What time?”

“Two p.m. There won’t be any relatives, so you can sit with me. You being Benny’s employer, it will be quite proper, won’t it?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon,” she said in a soft voice.

She made it sound like a rendezvous. Ross thought as he hung up, torn between irritation and amusement at the idea of a lovers’ tryst taking place at the funeral of the husband of one of the lovers—

Nineteen twenty-two Park Street was the right half of a two-story duplex house in a neighborhood of about the same economic level as Helene Stoneman’s, but much older. There was no name plate on the letterbox.

A plump, plain-faced woman of about thirty answered Ross’s ring. She was an ash blonde with a round Dutch-girl face which looked as though it would normally be cheerful. At the moment it was woebegone and the eyes were reddened from weeping.

Ross said, “Hi. I don’t know your name, but does your initial happen to be ‘M’?”

The woman looked at him blankly. “I don’t think I understand.”

“I’m Clancy Ross. Benny Stoneman worked for me. That mean anything to you?”

Now the woman looked startled. She examined the slim gambler from his prematurely gray hair to his brightly polished shoes.

Finally she asked, “How’d you find out about me?”

“A letter Benny left lying around. You are M, aren’t you?”

She shrugged hopelessly. “Come in, Mr. Ross.”

He followed her into a large living room comfortably but old-fashionedly furnished with mohair furniture, marble-topped end tables and beaded lamps of the same vintage as the house. Ross chose an over-stuffed chair and the woman wearily seated herself in the center of a huge sofa, her hands folded in her lap.

“Mind telling me your name?” Ross asked.

“Marion Vandeveldt,” she said. “It’s Dutch. What is it you want with me, Mr. Ross?”

“I’m trying to find out why Benny was killed. I’m working on my own, not with the police. You don’t have to talk with me.”

She reflected. “I don’t mind talking to you. I suppose the police know about Benny and me anyway, since you do.”

“Not yet,” Ross said. “But they will in a couple of hours. You’ll probably get a visit from a Lieutenant Redfern this afternoon.”

He studied the woman, wondering why a man with a wife as attractive as Helene Stoneman would pick such a plain mistress. While Marion Vandeveldt was pleasant-looking enough in a well-scrubbed spinstery sort of way, Ross could hardly visualize her making a man’s blood hammer in his veins.

He asked, “You live here alone, Miss Vandeveldt?”

“Yes. My folks have been dead for some years. It’s just as well. If they were still alive, this scandal would kill them.”

“Not necessarily,” Ross said. “How long have you known Benny?”

“About six weeks. He moved here from Chicago a full month before he went to work for you, you know. We met at an open-air concert at Fallon Park. Benny loved music as much as I do, but his wife wouldn’t go to concerts with him.”

Mutual interest in music, Ross thought, mentally recording one clue at least to the mystery of the bookkeeper straying.

He said, “Excuse me if this sounds unnecessarily personal, but Benny didn’t strike me as a Lothario. Yet he had a beautiful wife and an attractive mistress, both at least fifteen years younger than he. Just what was his attraction?”

Her expression became one of inward contemplation, as though searching for an answer herself. Presently she said, “Ever see him smile?”

Ross reflected. “I suppose. I don’t really recall.”

“He didn’t often,” the woman said. “There wasn’t much in his life to smile about. But when he did, he was a different person. His face grew young and sort of wistful, like a small boy looking at a red bicycle in a store window. It turned your heart over when he smiled. I doubt that any woman could have resisted Benny’s smile. Except his wife.”

“He wasn’t happy with her?”

“Would he have turned to a mistress if he had been?” she asked. “I’m no competition physically to a woman as beautiful as Helene Stoneman. I’ve seen her picture and I look in mirrors. He came to me for the things he couldn’t get at home. Companionship, and interest in the things he was interested in. Benny would never have looked at me if he’d had anything at home. Or even with nothing at home if his wife had at least been true physically. He felt justified in taking a mistress on the basis of what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

“His wife had a lover too?”

The woman gave a brittle laugh. “She chases everything in pants. Benny moved here from Chicago to break up the affair between Helene and his former boss.”

“Big John Quinnel?” Ross asked in surprise.

“I don’t know the Chicago employer’s name. But Benny said he thought the man was relieved when Benny decided to quit his job and move here. According to Benny, Helene always throws herself so hard at the men she picks, once the novelty wears off, she becomes a nuisance. She tries to envelope her lovers, wanting to monopolize their full attention twenty-four hours a clay, seven days a week. Benny said the affairs never last long, because the men begin to struggle away as soon as they learn what they’ve gotten into.”

“Why the devil did Benny put up with her?” Ross asked.

“He defended her by saying she was sick,” the woman said wearily. “He’d had her to a couple of psychiatrists who gave him a lot of high-sounding words about her man chasing being a compulsion she couldn’t resist, stemming from too early physical development and too much popularity with boys when she was very young. The psychiatrists’ explanation was that she was frantically grasping for a return of her teen-age popularity, so when men stopped chasing her after she married, she had to chase them.”

Ross said dubiously, “I still don’t understand why he put up with it.”

“Well, their entire married life wasn’t as bad as I’ve painted it. Benny told me that under psychiatric treatment she’d get better for a while and start acting like a normal wife. Then along would come a new man and the merry-go-round would start all over again. I’m surprised you escaped her. Mr. Ross, being Benny’s employer.”

“I never met her until yesterday,” Ross said.

A little ruefully he considered Helene’s three phone calls since they had met in the light of what he had just learned, and he looked into the future without much enthusiasm.

Ross had very little additional conversation with the woman, but he did manage to learn that she also owned a blue sedan, in this case a Chevrolet. As he drove back to the club, he wondered if it had even occurred to Marion Vandeveldt that she was a suspect in the case.

Chapter 10

At a quarter of four that afternoon Ross was just taking Sam Black’s report that the downstairs club was all set for business when the first customer arrived. It was Helene Stoneman.

Going directly to Ross, who stood talking to Sam Black near the bar, she gave him an expectant smile and asked. “Surprised to see me?”

In view of his talk with Marion Vandeveldt, Ross wasn’t.

Unsmilingly he said, “Hello, Helene. What do you want?”

“I knew you wouldn’t be busy so early. I thought you might buy me a drink.”

She looked at Sam Black, awaiting introduction. Deliberately Ross ignored the hint. Taking her by the arm, he led her toward the front door.

“I don’t mix business with pleasure, Helene,” he said. “And right now I’m working. I also don’t like to be chased. Go home and wait till I call you.”

He half expected her to leave without even replying, but instead she said in a small voice, “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?” Studying her, Ross decided without emotion to test just how hard she was to discourage.

“No more than a hundred other nights with a hundred other women,” he said with deliberate cruelty. “I’ll call you if I decide I want to see you again.”

And turning, he stalked toward the elevator.

A half hour later he was called to the phone.

“I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry I upset you by coming to the club,” Helene’s voice said. “Are you still mad?”

Despite what Marion Vandeveldt had told him, Ross was astonished. “Are you apologizing because I was rude?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

“Then don’t call me any more. If I want to see you, I’ll call you.”

“All right,” she said in a penitent voice. Then after a pause, “Would you like me to stop up to your apartment after the club closes to-night?”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Ross said disagreeably, and hung up.

At seven, while Ross was having dinner downstairs, he was called to the phone again. It wasn’t Helene this time, however. It was Lieutenant Niles Redfern.

“Got somebody here who wants to talk to you,” the lieutenant said. “Mrs. Stoneman.”

Incredulously Ross wondered if the woman had resorted to police influence to get to him. “What the hell for?” he asked.

“She’s allowed one five-minute call,” Redfern said. “Instead of a lawyer, she wants you. Ballistics tagged a gun I found at her house as the murder weapon, and we have a witness who saw her shoot her husband. Want to talk to her?”

“Never mind,” Ross said. “I’ll be down and talk to you both.”

At headquarters Ross found Lieutenant Redfern in his office with a young redheaded woman the lieutenant introduced as Renee Desiree. This was obviously a stage name, and after glancing at the woman’s figure, Ross guessed that her field was burlesque. She was tall, probably five-ten, with long, full-calved legs, a flat stomach, well-padded hips and an enormous torso. She wore a green knit dress under which there seemed to be nothing but skin, at least no brassiere, for her fine, upstanding breasts jiggled like molded Jell-O with every movement.

She must have been proud of both their size and their ability to hold themselves up without artificial support, for even seated she held herself in an erect, shoulders-back posture which thrust them out in front of her like twin battering rams.

“Miss Desiree’s the witness I mentioned over the phone,” Redfern explained. “She was coming from the Tailspin Cocktail Lounge right across the street from your place when Stoneman got it.”

Ross looked at the woman and she gave him a brilliant, white toothed smile.

“Why’d you wait so long to report what you’d seen?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to be involved in it if I didn’t have to,” she said glibly. “The notoriety, you know. I’m an actress, you see, and...” She let it drift off into a charming shrug which made Lieutenant Redfern’s eyes jump to her jiggling torso.

“Then why’d you report it at all?” Ross inquired.

She gave him another brilliant smile. “I hoped the police would catch the woman without my help. I gave them forty-eight hours, then decided I had to tell my story.”

Turning to the Lieutenant, Ross said, “Sam Black was outside seconds after the shots. He didn’t see anybody across the street.”

“I ducked back into the Tailspin,” Renee Desiree said quickly. “I didn’t want anybody to see me.”

Ross glanced at her, then back at the lieutenant. “You said something over the phone about a gun.” Reaching into a drawer, Redfern brought out a .38 revolver and laid it on the desk.

“Ran across it in one of Benny Stoneman’s dresser drawers while Mrs. Stoneman and I were going through his things,” he said. “Ballistics tagged it as the murder weapon.”

“What did Mrs. Stoneman have to say about it?”

“The gun, you mean?” Redfern shrugged. “Denied ever seeing it before. Says she’s certain her husband never owned a gun. But I wired Chicago at noon, and the gun’s registered up there in Benny Stoneman’s name.”

Ross reflected for a moment, then asked, “Doesn’t it strike you as silly for her to insist it isn’t Benny’s gun if she really thought it was? What would it get her?”

“Nothing. She’s just being contrary. Records don’t lie.”

“I’ll bet they did this time,” the gambler said. “Just as your witness here is lying.”

The woman’s gaze jerked at him angrily. Ross smiled at her. No one said anything for a few moments, Finally the lieutenant, in an obvious attempt to get Ross alone in order to have him explain his last remark, said, “You want to go back to the women’s section and talk to Mrs. Stoneman?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Ross said. “I already know everything I have to. This is a frame, Lieutenant. If you’d like to take a little ride, I’ll introduce you to the framer. If my hunch is right, you’ll have your killer in an hour. If it’s wrong, I’m not sticking my neck out for defamation of character. Take it or leave it.”

Because he couldn’t do anything else, the lieutenant decided to take it.

Chapter 11

Before the three of them left headquarters, Ross phoned Marion Vandeveldt using the public booth in the lobby because he didn’t want Redfern to hear the conversation.

When the woman answered the phone and the gambler had identified himself, he asked, “Were you in love with Benny, Miss Vandeveldt?”

“Of course,” she said. “Would I have been his mistress otherwise?”

“Willing to help trap his killer?”

“Certainly,” she said without hesitation. “I’ll do anything I can.”

For five minutes Ross explained what he wanted her to do, and why.

At the end of that time she said in a steady voice, “All right, Mr. Ross, if you think that’s the only way they can be brought to justice. I’m willing to tell the lie.”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” Ross said. “They told some pretty whopping lies in trying to frame Helene Stoneman. Got the suite number okay?”

“Seven-o-seven. And I’m to wait in the hall until you come out to get me.”

“You’ve got it right,” he said, and hung up.

They took Ross’s Lincoln instead of a police car, Ross, the lieutenant and Renee Desiree all three riding in front. Ross drove straight to the Park Plaza.

There was no conversation as they crossed the lobby to the bell captain’s desk, Ross leading the way and the lieutenant following with the red-haired woman.

The bell captain, a trim, middle-aged man with an alert expression, said, “Evening, Mr. Ross. Hello, Lieutenant.”

“Take a look at this woman,” Ross said without preliminaries. “Ever see her before?”

The bell captain had already looked her over thoroughly as she approached. He nodded without hesitation.

“She’s been in and out of seven-o-seven all week,” he said. “So have a million other women, but I couldn’t forget this one. Not with those... uh... she’s an exceptionally good-looking girl, and I couldn’t help noticing her.”

The redhead said icily, “What’s this supposed to prove? Any law against ladies attending parties in this hotel?”

Ross grinned at her. “It proves this. You’re one of Big John Quinnel’s girl friends. One among dozens. Now let’s go upstairs and see Big John.”

Chapter 12

The door to suite seven-o-seven was cautiously opened by the sunburned man with the missing earlobe. When he saw Clancy Ross his face turned startled and his right hand darted toward his armpit. Then he saw Lieutenant Redfern behind Ross, and froze in that position, his hand halfway out of sight.

“Little jumpy, aren’t you, Horton?” the gambler asked dryly.

Redfern pushed forward then, shoving the door wide open so that the bodyguard had to step back to avoid getting it in the face. As the lieutenant strode inside, Horton looked sullenly from him to Ross, then spotted Renee Desiree still standing in the hall, and his expression turned wary.

Ross motioned the girl in, pushed the door shut and pointed after the lieutenant, who had stopped in the center of the room and was looking inquiringly at the closed doors on either side.

“Where’s Quinnel?” he asked the bodyguard.

Horton crossed to the door on the left and discreetly knocked on the panel. Renee Desiree seated herself in an easy chair. Ross and the lieutenant remained standing.

A heavy voice from within the other room called, “What the hell you want?”

“Lieutenant Redfern’s here,” Horton called back. “With Clancy Ross and some dame.”

There was the sound of creaking bedsprings, a lengthy silence, then the door opened. Big John Quinnel came out buttoning his coat. Under it he hadn’t bothered to button his shirt and he wore no tie. His oily hair was mussed and there was a streak of lipstick on one check.

After surveying the trio of visitors silently, he turned and growled back into the bedroom, “Hurry it up and scram. Looks like I got business.” Another few moments passed before a vivid blonde with a body nearly as interesting as Renee Desiree’s came from the bedroom. Her hair was a little mussed too, but apparently she had taken time to put her makeup in order. As she came into the room she was pulling a fur coat on over a flaming red evening gown.

With an embarrassed glance around, the blonde went straight to the door, pulled it open and then looked back at Quinnel.

“Call you tomorrow,” the big man said heavily.

As the door closed behind the blonde, Quinnel said to Larry Horton, “Get the other one out too.” The bodyguard crossed to the second door, opened it, looked in and crooked his finger. A lissome brunette, fully dressed including a fur coat, came out.

“Party’s over,” Horton said. The brunette didn’t look around embarrassedly as the blonde had. She walked out without a glance at anyone.

When the door had closed behind the second woman, Quinnel nodded to the lieutenant, barely flicked his eyes over Clancy Ross, then looked at the redhead without a sign of recognition.

“Pretty good act,” Ross commented. “But we already established downstairs that she’s been popping in and out of this place like a jack-in-the-box all week.”

The big man looked at the redhead again. “Has she?” he asked without interest. “So damn many dolls been in and out of here the past week, I wouldn’t recognize half of them.”

“You recognize this one,” Ross assured him. “She’s the one you paid to claim she saw Helene Stoneman shoot her husband.”

Chapter 13

Quinnel looked at the woman steadily and she said in an urgent voice, “He’s shooting at the moon, John. I didn’t even tell him I knew you. He got that from the bell captain.”

Without heat Quinnel said, “Clam up and stay that way.” Then he looked at Redfern. “What’s on your mind, Lieutenant? I don’t have to answer any questions by this tinhorn, but you got anything to ask, go ahead.”

Ross said, “I wasn’t planning on asking questions. Quinnel. I’m going to do all the talking.” He turned to the lieutenant. “Remember how Quinnel, his two bodyguards and three women all swore alibis for each other for the time of the shooting?”

Redfern nodded.

“This guy,” Ross said, pointing at Larry Morton, “walked out of the Rotunda not fifteen seconds ahead of Benny Stoneman. Sam Black can testify to that in court.”

Lieutenant Redfern scowled first at the sunburned man, then at Ross. “You waited a nice long time before dropping this bit of news.”

Big John Quinnel said suavely, “I guess we shouldn’t have held out on you, Lieutenant. It’s true Larry saw the shooting. But he couldn’t give any description of the killer except that she was a woman. He wouldn’t of been much help to you, and getting himself tied up as a murder witness would of loused up our whole vacation. I’ll admit we was wrong in rigging him an alibi, but it wasn’t because he had anything to do with the shooting. I just wanted him to keep his nose clean.”

Lieutenant Redfern’s face was like a thundercloud, but Ross held off the storm with an upraised palm. “You didn’t coach Horton well enough, Quinnel. He should never have admitted to me that he saw the woman.”

When the big man merely looked at him without expression, Ross said to the lieutenant, “Horton here is one of Quinnel’s personal bodyguards. If the woman he claims he saw kill Benny Stoneman was Helene Stoneman, he couldn’t have helped recognizing her the minute he saw her. She used to be his boss’s mistress. That’s why Stoneman moved here from Chicago. To break up the affair. Horton must have seen her dozens of times.”

Horton said uncertainly, “It was dark that night...” then clamped his jaw shut at a look from his employer.

“The motive for the killing was the one I first suggested to you, Lieutenant,” Ross went on cheerfully. “But Quinnel wanted a patsy to take the rap, because if the killing went unsolved, suspicion would point straight at him. He probably picked Helene Stoneman because he wanted to get her out of his hair anyway. Helene is the kind of gal who hangs on to a man long after he wants to shake her. Matter of fact she’s so persistent, she’s been to psychiatrists in an attempt to get herself cured of running after her lovers so hard. She was still chasing Quinnel the day after her husband died. I saw them come out of the bar downstairs together. Probably that’s when he planted the gun. He took her home that day, and it would have been simple to slip into the bedroom and plant it while Helene was in the kitchen mixing drinks, or repairing makeup in the bathroom.”

Quinnel snorted, “You’re talking through your hat,” and Redfern said dubiously, “The gun was registered to Stoneman.”

“With this guy’s influence in Chicago, he could get any record fixed,” Ross said. “All he had to do was pick up a phone. He practically runs the political machine up there.” While the lieutenant thought this over, Ross went on, “Every bit of evidence points to Quinnel ordering the killing and Horton pulling it. Five shots placed in a circle you could cover with your hand. No one but a professional gunnie is that good. Point two: Quinnel tried to have me bumped after I pounded an admission out of Horton that he’d seen a woman kill Benny. He wouldn’t bother to finger me just in revenge for bouncing around his bodyguard. He wanted me cut down because he’s smarter than Horton, and he knew the minute the story of Helene’s arrest came out, I’d recognize it as a frame because Horton should have been able to recognize her if she’d actually been the killer. Point three: Quinnel had a strong motive both for the kill and the frame-up. Point four: his gunnie was right on the scene and later rigged an alibi.”

When the gambler stopped, there was a long period of silence.

Then Quinnel said heavily, “Prove it, tinhorn. I gather from what you’ve been spouting that this woman here positively identified Helene Stoneman as the killer and that the gun’s registered in her dead husband’s name. So prove different.”

“Oh, I have proof,” Ross said in an offhand manner. “Hold things for a minute.”

Going to the door, he disappeared into the hallway and returned with Marion Vandeveldt.

“Meet Miss Marion Vandeveldt,” he announced generally. “A regular patron of Club Rotunda.” He designated Lieutenant Redfern. “Miss Vandeveldt, this man is a police officer. Tell him about the night before last.”

The woman said, “I was on the club’s second floor, and I went over to the front windows for a breath of air. I looked down at the street just as a man coming from the front door of the club was shot. I saw everything quite clearly, including the face of the person who did the shooting.”

“Who was it?” Redfern asked. Slowly she looked around the room, her gaze merely flicking over Renee Desiree, lingering only briefly on Big John Quinnel, and finally settling on Larry Horton.

She made sure of the sunburned complexion and the missing earlobe Ross had described over the phone before saying in a tone of certainty, “That’s the gunman right there.” The instant she spoke Larry Horton’s hand dived for his armpit. Lieutenant Redfern’s motion was just as fast, but he started later. Clancy Ross started later too, and his movement didn’t seem nearly as hurried as those of the other two men.

Its easy flow was deceptive, however. The lieutenant was just beginning to draw his gun, and Horton’s was just centering on Ross’s chest, when the gambler’s .38 automatic spoke.

Horton slammed backward, stumbling over an easy chair and smashing to the floor on his back with his legs up in the air. Ross’s gun arched sidewise just as Big John Quinnel’s cleared its holster. The gambler waited until the muzzle of Quinnel’s gun had nearly steadied on him, then very deliberately placed a shot precisely between the big man’s eyes.

Lieutenant Redfern stood with his pistol muzzle drooping downward, staring from one dead man to the other and back again. After moving his head back and forth several times, he glared at Clancy Ross.

“You could have put one through Quinnel’s shoulder,” he accused. “You had plenty of time.”

“I guess I got rattled,” Ross said. “It scares me to have people point guns at me.”

The lieutenant, belatedly realizing that the gambler had deliberately created a situation which would end in gunplay, when he could just as easily have turned over the information he had to Redfern and have let an orderly arrest be made, also realized that there wasn’t much he could do about it aside from swearing a little.

He decided to do that.