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

Guardian of the Hearth

Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, December 1979.

It was exactly three p.m. when the door chimes sounded, because the oven timer bell went off at the same moment. Coco Joe, as usual, made a beeline for the front door, barking his head off. Josephine was considerably longer getting there. She first shut off the oven, lifted the cookies from the oven with a pot holder, set them on top of the stove and hung up the pot holder. At sixty-five she was still slim and trim, but she no longer hurried.

The Pomeranian was still barking furiously when Josephine finally got to the door, indicating that the caller had not given up and gone away. Josephine said, “Hush! It’s only the lady from the doggie parlor, come to get you for your bath and trim.”

But it wasn’t, she saw when she peeped through the viewing hole. It was a man in a blue serge suit. She scooped up the little dog in her arms before opening the door.

Coco Joe, as always when a man came to the door, went into an absolute fit. Growling and snarling, he did his best to struggle from his mistress’s arms and fling himself at the intruder’s throat.

The man stood there examining the dog warily as Josephine repeatedly but lightly slapped his muzzle and said. “Stop it! He’s a nice man. Stop it now!”

When Coco Joe finally stopped struggling, and his performance tapered off to mere low, threatening growls, Josephine said. “I’m sorry. He thinks he’s a mastiff.”

The visitor, a stocky man of about forty, gave her a pleasant smile. Producing a wallet, he displayed a police badge pinned inside of it.

“Sergeant Dennis Cord, ma’am. Are you Miss Henry?”

“Yes.”

“May I have a few words with you?”

“Certain—” Josephine started to say, then Coco Joe suddenly went into another frenzy when he detected the presence of another man alongside the door.

The second man loomed into view, smiling apologetically. He was young, large, blond, and wore a blue police uniform.

When Josephine had quieted the dog for a second time, Sergeant Cord introduced the uniformed man as Officer Harry Dewey. He told Dewey to wait outside and stepped into the apartment with Josephine.

His entrance into the apartment brought on another display of ferocity from Coco Joe. Again Josephine had to slap his muzzle and say, “Stop it! He’s a friend. Be nice, now!”

When for a third time the dog’s performance had finally tapered off to occasional low-throated growls, Josephine said, “He’ll be all right in a minute. He doesn’t bite anyway. He just puts on a fierce show.”

Kneeling, she held the Pomeranian so that he could sniff the sergeant’s shoes. “Make friends now,” she ordered. “He’s a nice man.”

Sergeant Cord stood perfectly still while the little dog sniffed at his feet and trouser legs. When the growling finally stopped, Josephine cautiously released her grip. Coco Joe took a final sniff, then turned his back and trotted over to leap into his favorite chair. His tail had not wagged even once, but the sergeant had his permission to stay on a probationary basis.

Rising to her feet, Josephine said, “He’ll be all right now, Sergeant. Will you have a seat?”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

He took the chair farthest from Coco Joe. Seating herself on the sofa, Josephine looked at him expectantly.

“I’m afraid I have some rather disquieting news for you, Miss Henry,” the detective said.

“Oh, my. Has someone I know been hurt?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that — well, as a matter of fact someone you know has been hurt, but you didn’t know her well. Mrs. Ann Sommerfield.”

Josephine gazed at him blankly.

“One of your fellow jurors on the Pitton case,” the sergeant prompted.

“Oh, of course,” Josephine said. “That thin, rather humorless woman.” Then she looked puzzled. “I’m sorry to hear she’s been hurt, but I don’t understand—”

When she let it trail off, the sergeant said, “She was a little more than just hurt, I’m afraid. She’s been murdered.”

Josephine could feel herself turning pale. After a moment she said, “By James Clayton?”

“We think so.”

Josephine felt a cold, invisible hand squeeze her spine. James Clayton was the Clyde in the Bonnie-and-Clyde relationship between himself and Delores Pitton. Six months back, Josephine, along with eleven other jurors, had found Delores Pitton guilty of first-degree murder in the bank-robbery death of a bank teller. Because the jury had refused to recommend leniency, the woman had received the maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

James Clayton, who was still at large, mailed a letter postmarked the same date as the sentencing to the presiding judge. In it he threatened to kill the judge, the prosecutor and every member of the jury if his girlfriend was not given her freedom.

All fourteen of those threatened had immediately been placed under heavy police guard. But after six weeks with no attempts on the lives of any of the fourteen, no further threats and no reported sightings of the notorious bandit that could be authenticated, the guard had been relieved. Nothing had been heard of James Clayton since, and it was now months since he had even been mentioned in the news.

Josephine said, in a tone she tried to keep steady, “He was just lying low until he was sure security measures had been relaxed, then?”

“Apparently. I thought at the time that the publicity given his threat, and particularly the publicity given to the security measures taken to protect all of you, was a mistake. I wasn’t on the case at that time, but I recall there were even photographs in the paper of some of the threatened jurors with their police bodyguards.”

Josephine nodded. “There was one of me and Mrs. Murphy, seated together in this room, on the front page. Mrs. Murphy was the policewoman who stayed here nights after the threat.”

“Oh, yes, Connie Murphy. She’s currently on leave to have a baby.”

“Well, how nice!” Then Josephine pulled herself from this pleasant distraction back to the unpleasant reality of murder. “When did it happen? Mrs. Sommerfield, I mean.”

“Apparently last night, but it wasn’t discovered until this morning, when a friend dropped by to see her. She was a widow and lived alone, you know. It will be in tonight’s paper, although we are not at this time releasing that we think the killer was Clayton. We don’t intend to make the same mistake we did after his threatening letter.”

“I see. How — how was it done?”

“With a knife. No weapon was found at the scene, but we guess it was a switchblade, since he’s known to carry one with a seven-inch blade. There was only a single stab wound, through the heart, and apparently she was killed in her sleep, because she was in bed and there was no sign of a struggle.”

Josephine shivered. “How did he get in?”

“We don’t know. There was no sign of forced entry. The front door was off the latch, which is how the friend got in when she discovered the body, but we think he left it that way on the way out. The friend says it’s inconceivable that Mrs. Sommerfield would have left any door or window unlocked, because she was almost neurotically afraid of burglars. James Clayton is an expert burglar, though, in addition to being a heist artist. As a matter of fact, he has numerous criminal talents. He’s really quite a clever man, even if he is psychotic. And he’s slippery as an eel. As you know, we’ve never even come close to laying a hand on him. If he hadn’t been off somewhere when his girlfriend was taken, I rather suspect he might have slid her out of that.”

After a period of silence, Josephine asked, “If there was no sign of forced entry, and no weapon left behind, how do you know it was James Clayton?”

“He inadvertently left behind a clue. A list containing the names of all twelve jurors in the Pitton case, the judge and the prosecutor. Mrs. Sommerfield’s name was first on the list, and a line in red ink was drawn through it. We think that what happened was that he took out the list to draw a line through her name immediately after killing her, then for some reason got rattled and left it lying on her dresser instead of putting it back in his pocket. The woman kept a cat, and maybe it came into the bedroom and distracted him just then. The paper had some fingerprints on it, but we can’t check them against Clayton’s because his aren’t on file. He’s never been in custody.”

“Yes, I recall that from the time of the trial. Do you think he still plans to carry out his two-victims-at-a-time threat?”

“There is no reason to believe he has changed his plan. If he manages to kill a second victim, we anticipate that the judge will get another letter demanding Delores Pitton’s release, or he will kill another two.”

After considering this, Josephine said, “Then we will all be placed under guard again for awhile. The police can hardly afford to keep around-the-clock bodyguards on twelve people indefinitely, so when they are eventually withdrawn, he will come back and kill two more.”

“We plan to prevent him from killing his second victim. We hope to catch him.”

Josephine said dryly, “Neither the police from coast-to-coast nor the FBI has had much success at that endeavor up to now.”

“No,” the sergeant admitted. “But do you suggest we release Delores Pitton from prison?”

“Of course not. Every thug in the country with a girlfriend or partner in jail would immediately try the same stunt.”

“Exactly,” Sergeant Cord agreed.

“Nevertheless it leaves us survivors in a rather uncomfortable position. Do you recall where I was on that list you mentioned, Sergeant?”

“Second, Miss Henry.”

Josephine blinked.

“There is nothing to worry about, though,” he assured her. “You are already under around-the-clock guard. The officer in the hallway I introduced you to will remain there after I leave, and will be relieved by another guard when his trick is up. There is also an officer stationed behind the apartment building at the back door to check everyone who goes in that way.”

“Last time a policewoman stayed with me nights.”

“One will this time also. I am assigning to you the women’s pistol champ of the force.”

“Well, that’s somewhat reassuring,” Josephine said.

The detective stood up. “I guess that about covers it, Miss Henry. Officer Phelps — that’s the policewoman I’m sending over, Gladys Phelps — will be along well before dark. Meantime, if you wish to go out anywhere, Officer Dewey out in the hallway will accompany you.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Would you like a cookie before you go? I was just taking them from the oven when you rang the bell.”

“I can smell them,” he said, sitting down again. “Thank you, I would love one.”

As Josephine rose from the sofa, the door chimes sounded, again sending Coco Joe to the door, barking furiously. Josephine gave Sergeant Cord an inquiring look.

“Your caller had to be passed by Officer Dewey,” he said reassuringly. “But just to make sure, I’ll check.”

Rising, he went over to the door and peered through the peephole. At his feet the Pomeranian continued his furious barking.

“Someone in orange coveralls,” he announced. “A woman, I think.”

“Oh, that’s the Canine Beauty Care Center, come to take Coco for his weekly bath and trim.”

The police officer stepped back and Josephine opened the door. Coco Joe rushed out, snarling, then stopped and began to wag his tail after a sniff at the messenger’s legs.

The woman was tall and rather masculine looking, with short-cropped black hair and a lean, not very curvaceous body. She wore one-piece coveralls of bright orange with Canine Beauty Care Center embroidered in small black letters over her heart. Josephine had never seen her before.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” she said. “What happened to Stella?”

“She’s on vacation. I’m Margie.” She glanced at Sergeant Cord behind Josephine, at Officer Dewey alongside the door, then stooped to pick up the little dog. “I guess this is Coco Joe, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s Coco,” Josephine said. “You’re going with the nice lady, Coco Joe. You be good now.”

“Oh, he’ll be good,” the woman said, stroking the dog’s neck. “He’s a little darling. Will you be home about six, Miss Henry?”

“Yes, I plan to be.”

“Then I’ll drop him off on my way home, instead of making a special trip. I go within a few blocks of here.”

“All right, that will be fine.”

Coco Joe made no objection to the woman carrying him over to the elevator. He gave Officer Dewey a warning growl, though, when he went over to push the elevator signal button for the messenger, but made no attempt to attack the policeman. Coco only had conniption fits when men tried to enter the apartment.

When Josephine closed the door, Sergeant Cord asked, “How come your dog didn’t devour her?”

“He only attacks men,” Josephine told him. “He loves women. I think he regards them as sex objects.”

The sergeant murmured, “How could he tell in this case?” then looked as though he wished he hadn’t.

“She was a bit boyish, wasn’t she?” Josephine said with a grin, and went on into the kitchen for the cookies. From there she called, “Would you like some tea also, Sergeant? Or a glass of milk?”

After a short delay, during which the detective considered these two choices, he called back, “Milk would be fine, ma’am.”

When she returned with a plate of cookies, a glass of milk and a napkin, he had reseated himself. Josephine set everything on the end table next to his chair, took a single cookie from the plate and returned to the sofa.

“I seldom nibble between meals,” she explained. “So I’ll just taste one to see how they came out. But you have all you wish, Sergeant. There are plenty more.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He helped himself to a cookie and tasted it. “Umm, delicious. You bake like my mother used to.”

“Why, thank you, Sergeant.”

Both nibbled for a few minutes. Presently she said, “It would be helpful to have a picture of James Clayton, in case he tried coming around as a door-to-door salesman or something.”

“Sorry, but there are no mug shots, because he’s never been arrested. We do have what we believe is a pretty good description, though. He is thirty-two years old, but looks younger because he has a smooth complexion and a rather boyish face. He has blue eyes and straw-colored hair that he wore in a crewcut on his last bank job, but that was more than seven months ago, so it may be longer now. He is five-feet-six to five-feet-seven-inches tall, and weighs an estimated hundred and thirty-five pounds.”

“I am already familiar with his description,” Josephine said. “It was printed at the time of his threatening letter just after the trial. It always surprised me that such a violent man was so small.”

“They often are,” the sergeant said. “From Billy the Kid right up through James Clayton the most vicious killers in this country have generally been relatively small men. Psychologists say that’s one of the things that turns them vicious. They’re compensating for getting pushed around as kids.”

“I suppose there’s at least a germ of truth in that,” Josephine said reflectively. “Before I retired from school-teaching, I often wondered when I saw some bully picking on a smaller boy, how the victim would be affected later in life by his recollection of the unpleasant experience. Perhaps the bullies he encountered as a child are more responsible for James Clayton’s career in crime than anything basically evil in the man.”

“Don’t start feeling sorry for him,” the detective advised her. “He is known to have killed at least five people prior to Mrs. Sommerfield, and at least three of the killings were deliberate acts of viciousness which were entirely unnecessary. One was an old man, a customer at one of the banks he and Delores knocked over, who simply failed to move as fast as Clayton wanted him to. Turned out later he couldn’t, because he was arthritic.”

“I know he’s a terrible man,” Josephine conceded. “And I am hardly inclined to sympathize with anyone whose goal is to kill me. But I can still regret the traumatic experiences he must have had as a child to make him into such a monster.”

Sergeant Cord, obviously unconvinced that factors other than innate evilness turned people to crime, merely grunted. By now having consumed three cookies and his glass of milk, he rose to his feet.

“Well, I’ll be running along now, Miss Henry,” he said. “Thank you for the delicious cookies and for the milk.”

“You’re welcome, Sergeant.”

She accompanied him to the door. Standing in the open doorway, he beckoned to Officer Dewey, who was seated on a small wooden bench directly across from the elevator.

When the young policeman came over, Sergeant Cord said, “You’re to accompany Miss Henry if she decides to go our anywhere, Harry. But phone in where you’re going, and be sure to give the apartment a thorough check when you come back.”

“Sure, Sarge.”

“I’m sending over a policewoman named Gladys Phelps early this evening,” the sergeant said. “When do you go off duty?”

“Six p.m.”

“Well, you’ll be gone before she gets here, so tell your relief to expect her. She will spend the night in the apartment.” He turned to Josephine to append reassuringly, “The guard out here and the one out back will still be on duty around the clock, Miss Henry. A policewoman on the premises is merely extra precaution.”

“Yes, I understand, Sergeant.”

“What time do you actually have dinner?”

“About five-thirty.”

“Then if Officer Phelps got here at six-thirty, you should be all through?”

“Yes, but she can come for dinner, if she would like,” Josephine offered.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

“I know it isn’t necessary,” Josephine said. “But I often had Mrs. Murphy for dinner when she was guarding me six months ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I assure you she’s quite welcome.”

“Well, I’ll pass on your invitation and see what she says.”

“You would be equally welcome, Sergeant, if you want to come back when she does.”

“Why, thank you,” Sergeant Cord said in a slightly startled voice. “But unfortunately I have other plans. Thanks again for the cookies and milk.”

“Again you’re quite welcome, Sergeant.”

She and the young patrolman watched the detective cross to the elevator, press the call button and get on when the car came to the fourth floor.

As soon as the elevator door closed, Josephine said, “Would you like some cookies, Officer Dewey?”

The odor of the cookies had crept into the hallway through the open door. He said in a grateful tone, “Why that would be very kind of you, ma’am.”

“All right, come on in,” she said, stepping aside.

When he looked doubtful, she said, “You’ll hardly be deserting your post, young man. It seems to me you’ll be much better protection inside the apartment than out here in the hallway. Suppose this Clayton man got past your guard out back and picked the lock of my back door?”

“That makes sense, ma’am,” Harry Dewey said with a grin.

He went over to lift his visored cap from where he had laid it on the wooden bench where he had been seated, and followed her into the front room. He laid his cap on the end table nearest the door.

“You may sit right over there where the sergeant was,” Josephine said, pointing. “Would you like tea or milk with your cookies?”

It took the young patrolman as long to think over these choices as it had the sergeant. Eventually he opted for milk. There was still a dozen cookies on the plate, so Josephine didn’t bother to replenish it. But she carried the sergeant’s empty glass into the kitchen and returned with another filled with milk.

Harry Dewey gratified Josephine by eating eight of her cookies. When he finished the last one and had drained his milk glass, he stood up and said, “Thank you very much, ma’am. They were delicious. I guess I had better get back to my post.”

“Why?” she inquired. “You’re not in my way. I’m going to be in the kitchen for a time, preparing dinner, then I plan to nap while it’s baking in the oven. At my age I start yawning about seven if I don’t have an afternoon nap. You’re welcome to sit here and watch television, if you wish. As a matter of fact you’re welcome to stay for dinner.”

“Thank you, but my wife will be expecting me.” Then, beginning to realize that the hospitable ex-schoolteacher tossed out dinner invitations to anyone who happened to be nearby, he forestalled her possible later disappointment by saying, “The man who relieves me will already have eaten.”

“Oh?” she said, mildly surprised by this gratuitous information. “Well, you’re still welcome to watch TV in here, if you wish.”

“I guess I could do that,” the young policeman said, going over to peer at the set. “There’s a ball game on channel four.”

“Would you like some more milk? Or a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you,” he said politely. Then, after a pause, he asked tentatively, “Do you happen to have any coffee?”

“Oh, of course. I never think of coffee, because I never drink it. I’ll make some.”

She made a pot of coffee, replenished the plate of cookies, and left Harry Dewey to his own devices as she prepared dinner. She fixed stuffed pork chops, wrapped some potatoes in foil for baking, and made a salad. She put the first two items in the oven and the third in the refrigerator. At four-thirty she turned on the oven, set the timer to go off in an hour, then went into her bedroom for an hour’s nap.

When the bell ringing in the kitchen awakened her at five-thirty, she found the patrolman still seated before the television and the cookie plate nearly empty. In the kitchen she checked the chops and potatoes, found both done, and turned the oven down to 150 to keep them warm. For a vegetable she started heating frozen peas in a pot.

At a quarter of six she was ready to serve dinner, but the policewoman had not yet showed up. She had about decided she wasn’t coming until after dinner, and had resigned herself to dining alone, when the door chimes sounded. She looked out from the kitchen door as Officer Dewey peered through the spy-hole, then opened the door into the hall.

“Hi,” a pleasantly husky voice said from beyond Josephine’s range of vision. “I’m Gladys Phelps.”

“Harry Dewey,” the young man said. “Come on in.”

A tall strawberry blonde with a slender figure entered. She carried a small overnight bag in her left hand, and had a shoulder bag slung from her right shoulder. She wore a blue police uniform with a knee-length skirt, sensible low-heeled black shoes, and had a blue overseas-type hat perched at an angle on her head, Josephine guessed her to be somewhere in her mid-twenties.

“This is Miss Henry, Gladys,” Dewey said. “Officer Phelps, Miss Henry.”

The policewoman smiled acknowledgment. Josephine said, “I’m glad you could make it in time for dinner. You haven’t had dinner, have you?”

Shaking her head, the strawberry blonde said in her pleasantly husky voice, “No.”

Harry Dewey said, “I go off duty in fifteen minutes, Gladys, but another guard will be stationed out in the hall all night. There’s also one out back, checking everyone who enters by the back entrance.”

The policewoman nodded understanding.

“I’d better get out in the hall to wait for my relief. Thanks for the refreshments, Miss Henry.”

“You’re quite welcome, young man.”

Picking up his visored cap, the patrolman went out. Eyeing the newcomer’s left hand and spotting no rings, Josephine said, “It’s Miss Phelps, not Mrs. Phelps, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. Or Gladys, if you like.”

“All right, Gladys,” Josephine said, smiling. “I have only one bedroom, but the sofa makes up into a quite comfortable double bed. There’s a dressing room off the bedroom where you can leave your overnight bag.” She gestured in the direction of the central hall.

“Thanks,” the policewoman said, carrying the bag down the hallway and disappearing into the dressing room.

The door chimes sounded. The policewoman immediately reappeared in the central hall doorway.

Josephine said, “That must be my little dog. He’s due back from the doggie beauty parlor about now.”

She went over to peer through the viewing hole. It was the same messenger who had picked up the dog, now wearing a suit of mannish cut in place of the orange coveralls. She had Coco Joe cradled in her arms. The Pomeranian was growling in the direction of the bench alongside the door, presumably at Officer Dewey.

Opening the door, Josephine took the little dog from the messenger’s arms. His coat was shiny clean, he was freshly trimmed, and a little purple bow had been pinned to the top of his head with a hairpin.

“Hi, you fierce beast,” Josephine said. “Was he good?”

“Just darling. See you next week, Miss Henry.”

“All right, dear. Good night.”

Closing the door, she set Coco Joe on the floor. Instantly the dog whipped across the room, snarling and snapping at the policewoman’s ankles. A defensive kick sent him rolling head-over-heels, squealing, toward Josephine, who scooped him up in her arms.

Apparently the kick had hurt only his dignity, because he immediately began to struggle to get out of her grip, snarling and growling at the policewoman all the time.

“What’s the matter with you, you silly little dog?” Josephine scolded him, slapping lightly at his muzzle. “Stop it now! She’s a friend.”

When the dog finally quieted to the point of merely emitting low-toned growls, Josephine said apologetically, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. I’d better lock him in the bedroom until he quiets down.”

The policewoman stepped out of the way to allow her to carry the dog down the hallway to the bedroom. As she closed the bedroom door behind her, Josephine started to say, “You bad little—” then suddenly cut it off and stood stock still.

Coco Joe never made a mistake about the sex of visitors to the apartment. The masculine attire, masculine figure and masculine hairdo of the Canine Beauty Care Center messenger had not fooled him for an instant. He had known she was female anyway.

Just as the policewoman’s garb had not fooled him. He had known the intruder was male.

Josephine’s skin turned cold. The person who claimed to be Gladys Phelps was about five-feet-six or seven, probably weighed around 135 pounds, had blue eyes and a rather boyish face.

But hadn’t the voice been feminine? Not markedly, she answered herself, just not obviously masculine. And the supposed Gladys Phelps had said very few words, now that she thought of it, had so far been almost monosyllabic in fact — perhaps because it was a strain to assume that husky, almost feminine voice.

But what about the strawberry blonde hair?

The answer to that was simple. Every department store in town sold women’s wigs. You could get a quite natural-looking one for as little as twenty-five dollars.

But that would involve advance planning on James Clayton’s part. How could he possibly have guessed that a policewoman would be heading for her apartment in time to go buy a wig before intercepting her? And how did he know her name?

Setting Coco Joe on the bed, she went over to gaze out the window at the street four stories below while she sought answers to those two questions.

They came disturbingly quickly. He had seen the front-page photograph, six months before, of Josephine and her policewoman bodyguard seated in the apartment. The police, like criminals, tended to follow a certain modus operandi. James Clayton could be reasonably certain they would assign another policewoman guard to Josephine if they suspected he was the killer of Mrs. Sommerfield. Perhaps the list of potential victims had not been left behind on that poor woman’s dresser by accident after all. Perhaps it had been deliberately planted in order to make sure another policewoman guard was assigned to Josephine.

The answer to the second question was even easier. The killer had gotten Gladys Phelps’ name from her identification card after he killed her.

If she had not been so frightened. Josephine might have felt admiration for the deviousness of the man’s plot. It would have been considerably easier and less dangerous for him to have come direct from Mrs. Sommerfield’s murder last night to Josephine’s apartment. But this way he could demonstrate to the whole world, and specifically to the remaining twelve potential victims, that police protection meant nothing once James Clayton singled you out. Despite Sergeant Cord’s assertion that his demand for the release of Dolores Pitton from prison could not even be considered, and her agreement with the assertion, there undoubtedly would be strong pressure from at least some of the survivors to do just that, if he succeeded in murdering Josephine under the very noses of the police.

Josephine resolved to do everything in her power to prevent him from succeeding.

Unfortunately none of her apartment windows overlooked the back, or she might have dropped a note to the guard back there. She contemplated, then discarded, simply casually walking to the front door, suddenly darting out into the hall and calling to Officer Dewey that the policewoman was James Clayton in disguise. That probably would only get the young policeman killed too, because it was too much to expect for him to react quickly enough to do anything as unnatural to his instincts as shooting what seemed to be a policewoman before the bandit got in the first shot.

All at once it occurred to her that Officer Dewey had already been remarkably lucky in not being personally acquainted with Gladys Phelps. The killer must have simply taken a brazen chance on that, planning to draw the gun that undoubtedly was in that shoulder bag and start shooting if anyone accused him of being an imposter.

Realizing the fake policewoman would probably become suspicious and come looking for her if she didn’t reappear soon, she decided she had better come up with a plan of defense at once. But any defensive action necessarily depended on the killer’s plan of attack. Did he mean to dispose of her quickly, or to wait until she was asleep, as Mrs. Sommerfield had been?

Putting herself in the killer’s place, she decided the problem of getting by the guard in the outer hall threw the odds with him waiting until she was asleep. In the morning the policewoman guard was expected to leave, because she only stayed in the apartment nights. The killer could simply tell the outside guard that Josephine was still sleeping, walk past him and get on the elevator.

Then it occurred to her it would be just as simple for him to walk out five minutes from now on the pretense of going downstairs to get some cigarettes from the machine in the lobby.

Glancing at her watch, she saw it was five of six. She was reasonably certain James Clayton would not time the murder within the next few minutes, because he knew the changeover of hallway guards was due to take place at six. There would be no point in timing the killing when there might be two policemen outside the door. Logically he would wait until at least a few minutes after six, so that in case anything went wrong, he would have to contend with only one police guard.

Looking into her dresser mirror, she realized she was too pale to fool anyone into believing she wasn’t frightened half out of her wits. Deliberately she held her breath until her face became beet red. When she finally let it out, her color gradually faded, but only back to its normal tint.

Ordering Coco Joe to stay on the bed, she went out into the hallway and shut the door behind her to keep the dog in the bedroom. Squaring her shoulders and sternly reminding herself that her life depended on her acting perfectly natural, she marched up the hallway to the front room.

The pseudo-policewoman had one ear to the front door, trying to hear what went on in the front hall. The shoulder bag still hung from the imposter’s shoulder.

Josephine’s resolve shattered, and she became absolutely terrified.

Yet when the man in policewoman’s uniform turned to give her a sharp look, she found herself saying in a natural tone, despite her screaming nerves, “Why don’t you take off your cap, dear?”

Summoning a smile, the imposter removed the little blue cap and laid it on the same table where Officer Dewey had put his. Josephine breathed a sigh of relief, because that put her over the first hurdle of her plan.

“Dinner is all ready,” she said. “You don’t mind eating in the kitchen, do you?”

Without waiting for a reply, she walked into the kitchen, stiff-legged to keep her body from shaking with terror. The pseudo-policewoman followed.

Pausing next to the electric stove to give the simmering peas a stir, Josephine pointed to the chair whose back was to the stove and said, “Sit there, please, Gladys.”

Hanging the shoulder bag over the back of the chair, the imposter sat. Josephine stooped as though to open the oven door, but instead drew out the drawer beneath it and quietly lifted out the largest of her iron skillets.

With her right hand she raised the skillet high overhead. With her left she suddenly plunked off the wig. She had a double motive for doing the latter. She was afraid the wig would cushion the blow, and she wanted to make absolutely sure the person she was braining was not a policewoman after all.

The hair beneath the wig was straw-colored and crewcut. Josephine smashed the iron skillet down on top of it with all her might. The imposter half rose from his chair, glanced around with glazing eyes, and pitched sideways onto the floor.

Setting the skillet on the stove, Josephine grabbed up the shoulder bag and raced to the front door. When she flung it open, she found two policemen in the hallway. Officer Dewey was in the act of punching the elevator button. Standing with him was an equally large, but middle-aged policeman.

“Come quick!” Josephine gasped. “I just captured James Clayton!”

The bandit was still unconscious when the two policemen got to the kitchen. As a matter of fact he was still unconscious when the ambulance got there, although the intern who came with it told Josephine he thought the man had only a severe concussion instead of a fracture, and no doubt would live.

While awaiting the ambulance, the middle-aged officer had gone searching for the real Gladys Phelps, leaving Officer Dewey with Josephine and the prisoner. He found her on the roof, not dead as Josephine had feared, but obviously left for dead. She had been knocked unconscious by some kind of blunt instrument, then, after removing her uniform, her assailant had slipped his knife into her back.

The intern who had declared James Clayton in no real danger of dying seemed to think the policewoman had every chance of surviving too. He said that the very fact she was still alive indicated that knife blade had neither penetrated the heart nor any other vital spot, and that a few stitches and some blood transfusions ought to pull her through.

Josephine resolved that as soon as Gladys Phelps recovered, she would have the policewoman over to make up for the dinner she had missed.

It was nearly eight p.m. by the time everyone, including the police, had left, and Josephine could have dinner. By then the baked chops were a little dried out, but they were still good. She shared them with Coco Joe.

Customarily he ate dog food, but she felt he deserved the special treat. After all, he’d saved her life.