The main studio building was a maze of corridors and private offices. The uniformed man led Quade and Boston down the row of offices and finally opened the door of an office that only a Hollywood mogul or a blue-sky promoter could afford.

There were two or three girls in the office and a couple of sleek-haired young men.

“Miss Hendricks will announce you to Mr. Slocum,” said the policeman to Quade. “Miss Hendricks, this is the man from outside, the man whose voice Mr. Slocum heard.”

A woman who looked like a middle-aged schoolteacher said, “Mr. Slocum will see you.”

“Wait here, Charles,” Quade said, and passed through the portals of Mr. Tommy Slocum’s inner sanctum.

He went into a room that looked like a newspaper morgue. A short slight young man, who wore baggy trousers and a soiled shirt, got up from behind a littered desk and snapped at Quade:

“Can you bark?”

Quade had seen and heard many things in his life. He was almost never surprised. But his mouth fell open, now. “Can I bark?” he repeated, inanely.

“Yeah, sure. Like a dog. Let’s hear you.”

Quade’s eyes hardened. “You mean like this?” He barked “Arf! Arf!”

Tommy Slocum sawed the air impatiently. “No, no, no! Bark like the biggest, maddest dog you ever heard in your life. Put feeling into it!”

Quade fixed the little man with a deadly stare, took a deep breath... and barked. He barked like a St. Bernard dog whose tail had been stepped on by a fat man.

Tommy Slocum cried, “Splendid! I thought you had the stuff when I heard you bellowing out there on the street. You’ll do, fella, you’ll do!”

Deliberately Quade looked about the room. “Where’s the keeper?” he asked. “This is the crazy house, isn’t it?”

Tommy Slocum guffawed. “Don’t you know? This is the Slocum Studios. We make the Desmond Dogg animated cartoons.”

Quade looked sick. “Desmond Dogg! And I... I barked like Desmond Dogg?”

“Sure, that’s why I wanted you. Pete Rice, who usually dubs in the voice for Desmond, has laryngitis and won’t be able to bark for three-four days. We need the voice tomorrow. Come in here at nine o’clock. It’ll only be a couple of hours work and you’ll get fifty dollars. Oke?”

“Mr. Slocum,” said Quade. “You sent a policeman outside to drag me in. You interfered with my legitimate business. Your cop scared away my customers. I didn’t complain. I came in here because I thought a motion picture producer had recognized my talents. And what do you do? You insult—”

“All right, what the hell’s money?” snapped Slocum. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks.”

Quade’s mouth twisted suddenly. “I’ll be here at nine in the morning.”

He turned abruptly and rushed out of Slocum’s private office. He burst out of the room and almost knocked the wind out of one of the tallest men that ever walked a street. He was as thin as he was tall.

“What the hell!” the man gasped. “Look, where you’re going!” Then his eyes popped. “Oliver Quade!”

“Christopher Buck!” Quade exclaimed. “The world’s greatest detective!”

The long, lean man winced and darted a look around him. “Nix!”

Quade looked innocently around the office. “Are you in disguise? Shadowing someone?”

“Still the clowner!” Christopher Buck spat venomously.

Quade chuckled. “What’re you doing here in movieland, Buck? Didn’t think you’d ever get across the plains.”

“I came in an airplane,” said Buck, coldly. “How did you come — riding the rods?”

“Ha-ha,” Quade laughed mirthlessly. “We do have great times together, don’t we? Say, Charlie, remember this beanpole? Our old friend, Christopher Buck.”

“I saw him when he came in.” Charlie Boston retorted. “I was hoping he wouldn’t recognize me.”

Christopher Buck reddened. Then his eyes suddenly narrowed. “What’re you fellows doing here?”

Quade shrugged. “Well, you know how it is, Buck, old boy. When Hollywood calls... I just signed a long-term picture contract.”

Buck looked suspiciously at Quade. “Quit clowning, Quade. You just came out of Tommy Slocum’s office. So he did hire you?”

“I just said so.”

“Sure you said so, but you didn’t say what he hired you for. Look, Quade, we worked together on a case once before. You helped me quite a bit—”

“I helped you, Buck?”

Buck smiled ingratiatingly. “Well, you were lucky, eh? Now, look, we’re both working on the same case. Maybe for different bosses. But what’s the difference? We can still work together. Pool our information, you know, and maybe split fees, huh?”

“If you did the splitting, Buck,” growled Charlie Boston, “we wouldn’t get a hamburger out of it.”

Quade brightened. He caught Boston’s eye and winked. “On the other hand, Buck, maybe there’s something in what you say. You in a hurry to see Slocum? If not, why not let’s go talk about this over a cup of coffee.”

Buck sighed. “Why not? Maybe I’ve got some things you can use and maybe you’ve stumbled across a bit or two that might clear something for me. Come on.”

The trio walked out of the studio, through the street gate. Boston turned toward their old jallopy across the street but Quade caught his eye in a warning look. He fell behind Christopher Buck.

Buck led the way to a Packard coupe. “Might as well use my car,” he offered. “Or shall we walk over to that restaurant on the corner?”

“Oh, the Brown Derby’s just up the street,” Quade said. “I like the atmosphere there.” He had never seen the Brown Derby in his life.

The three of them climbed into the coupe and Christopher Buck tooled it into the traffic. “How long’ve you been here, Quade?” he asked.

“Not so long. But long enough to pick up a few things.”

“What?”

“Now, now, Buck, you wouldn’t want me to tell what I know, before I know what the score is, would you?”

Christopher Buck scowled. “Cagy, as always, huh? Well, who’s your client — Tommy Slocum?”

“Who’s yours?” Quade asked.

“Stanley Maynard’s paying me. That’s why I was — ah, somewhat disconcerted to see you coming out of Slocum’s office. The way Maynard put it to me, Slocum wasn’t to know who was having the investigation made.”

“Oh, Maynard was trying to keep it dark? Does he think Slocum’s a chump?”

Buck sighed. “Well, it would have come out sooner or later... There’s the Brown Derby. They’ll probably charge you twenty cents for a cup of coffee. But — come on!”

They went into the restaurant and sat in a booth.

Quade picked up a menu. “It’s almost lunch time. This avocado salad sounds intriguing.”

“Long time since I ate an avocado salad,” agreed Boston. “I guess I’ll have it too. Shucks, Ollie, you’ve given me an appetite. Look, they’ve got a steak at a dollar and a quarter. Can you imagine getting a steak here for that? I think I’ll try it.”

“I’ll have one, too,” Quade said. “What about you, Buck?”

“I’m not as big an eater as you fellows,” grunted Buck. “But go ahead, I guess we’ve got time. I’ll just have a glass of buttermilk.”

“All right, now, Quade, just what does Tommy Slocum intend to do?”

“What he always does. Sit tight! The question is, what is Maynard going to do?”

“With the case he’s got and the proof, he’s going through with the suit. He’d be foolish not to. He’s got the goods on Slocum. It’ll cost him a million before it’s finished.”

Quade shrugged, pretending he knew what this was all about. “There’s a difference of opinion about that. That’s what makes a lawsuit. Slocum’s a tough customer. And he’s got plenty of money.”

“Maynard knows that. That’s why he’d rather settle out of court at a somewhat lower figure. The Wentworth dame coming in—”

“Ah, yes!” said Quade, still groping.

“Thelma Wentworth?” Charlie Boston cut in.

“There’s only one Wentworth,” Buck said. “Sure, Thelma Wentworth, who’d you suppose? The thing I can’t figure out is how a woman like her ever came to know Willie Higgins.”

“Higgins?” said Quade. Then he shook his head quickly. “He’s bad medicine. When they sent him to Alcatraz they really did something.”

Christopher Buck looked sharply at Quade. “You knew, of course, that he’s out?”

“Oh, sure,” said Quade. “I read the papers.” Which was a slight falsehood. He hadn’t read the papers in several days. He hadn’t known that Willie Higgins was out of Alcatraz. But he knew who Higgins was. Everyone knew that. His career, before he had finally been sent to Alcatraz six years ago, was known to everyone.

But what Higgins had to do with Thelma Wentworth, who seemed to be known to even Charlie Boston, but was merely a name to Quade, was something else. For that matter, Quade didn’t even know what Christopher Buck was talking about. He was merely cueing Buck. The lanky detective thought Quade knew something and it wasn’t Quade’s idea to disillusion him.

“So you see,” Buck went on, “the thing’s more complicated than you think. Tommy Slocum... Stanley Maynard... Thelma Wentworth and Willie Higgins, all mixed up. And maybe some others. There’s money in it, though, for a couple of good private detectives and if we work together and play it right, we ought to be able to nick them for say, five or ten grand.”

Quade chuckled. “Knowing you, Buck, the figure’ll be five times that.” Buck’s mouth twisted. “What’s Slocum paying you?”

Quade smiled deprecatingly. “Well, you know, Christopher, I’m not a professional detective. Money can’t usually buy my — uh, detective services. It has to be something unusual.”

“Ah,” said Buck, “so Slocum’s really paying you big sugar? That proves he’s worried about Maynard, after all. I had a hunch about that!”

“Buck,” sighed Quade, “that wasn’t cricket. You talked about cooperation and all you brought me here for was to pump me about what my boss is doing. I’m not going to say another word, now, until I have my coffee and steak and salad.”

A triumphant light gleamed in Christopher Buck’s eyes while Boston and Quade did justice to their food. When they finished, they talked each other into having pie ala mode for dessert.

Quade finally put down his fork. “Excuse me, a minute, now, Buck. I’ve got to make a phone call.” He got up and went to the washroom. He washed his hands, then returned to the booth. His eyes spotted the check that lay face down on the table near his own place.

He remained standing. “Something’s come up, Buck!” he said. “I’ve got to run!”

“Wait!” exclaimed Buck: “I’ll go with you.”

Quade took his hat from the hook. “No, no, I’d rather go alone.”

“But we haven’t settled yet how we’re going to work!” cried Buck. He squirmed out of the booth and was so anxious to follow Quade he grabbed up the check, and winced when he saw the amount. Quade was already moving toward the door and Boston was scrambling out of the booth.

Buck threw a coin on the table and followed. Quade waited just inside the front door. Buck hurriedly paid the check at the cashier’s stand.

“You’re going back to the studio, Quade?” he asked eagerly. “I’ll drive you there.”

“Well, all right.”

As they climbed into the car, Charlie whispered in Quade’s ear: “Well, it worked!”

They drove back to the Slocum Studios and Buck parked his car. At the gate, Quade and Boston fell behind Buck and allowed the tall detective to get them through the gate by showing his pass.

Once inside, Quade became reticent. “You run along about your business, Buck.”

“Yeah, but that phone call,” protested Buck. “What’s come up?”

Quade waved a finger chidingly at Buck. “Now, now!”

Buck’s face contorted angrily for a moment. “All right, if that’s the way you’re going to be. But remember, Quade, I’m on the job, and I’ll be running into you.”

“Oh sure, no hard feelings. Eh?”

Buck went off and Boston asked, “So what’s it all about, Ollie?”

“We’re detectives again,” replied Quade. “Christopher Buck, the world’s greatest detective, came all the way from New York on a job. He thinks because I once got mixed in a case that he was on — and solved it — that I’m here as a detective.”

“But, hell, you don’t even know who those people are that he mentioned!” exclaimed Charlie Boston.

“We got a lunch out of it, didn’t we? How much was the check?”

“Three-forty!” chuckled Boston. “Which, for a tight-wad like Christopher Buck, was plenty.”

“He figured he was going to have a cup of coffee — on us!” Quade laughed. “Say, Charlie, who’s Thelma Wentworth?”

“Huh? Say, don’t you read the movie magazines, Ollie? She’s the new sensation in the films. Her and Hedy Lamarr. I knew about her, all right, but who’re Maynard and Higgins? Is that the Willie Higgins, who used to be Public Enemy Number One?”

“Yep! None other. Seems he finished his time on Alcatraz. Also he knows these people. Maynard, I haven’t placed. But he seems to think he’s got something on Tommy Slocum. I’m going to find out what.”

Charlie’s forehead creased. “You’re not serious in mixing in this detective stuff, are you? Not out here?”

Quade shrugged. “We’re broke. That is, we are today. Although tomorrow, Tommy Slocum’s giving me a hundred bucks.”

“What?” cried Charlie Boston. “He really gave you a job? Doing what?”

Quade said hastily, “Oh, just a job.”

“What the hell can you do around a studio?”

“Lots of things. They have producers and writers and such, in a studio, you know.”

“Not in this place, Ollie. This is where they make the Desmond Dogg cartoons. It’s all done by artists.” Boston looked suspiciously at Quade. “Why the mystery all of a sudden? You’re talking to me, you know.”

“Oh, hell!” said Quade disgustedly. “We’re broke and we’ve got to make a quick stake so... well, Slocum offered me this hundred bucks for just a couple of hours work and I accepted.”

“A hundred bucks for a couple of hours?” persisted Boston. “Doing what?”

Quade swore. “Barking, damn you! I’m going to imitate Desmond Dogg’s bark. Now laugh, you fool!”

Boston did laugh. He laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. But Quade heard only the beginning of the laughter. He walked off, muttering savagely to himself.

The bald man’s bulging eyes rested on Clay’s face, held there. It was some time before he spoke. His puckered lips moved precisely. “Why am I favored by this visit?”

Clay said pleasantly, “I picked you out to do a lady a service. She’s leaving the dining-room, and I promised her you would remain seated until a few minutes after she had gone.” Clay’s smile broadened. “Rather simple, eh? I’ll give her the nod to leave now.”

“No.” The colorless eyes contracted into points of sharp steel. “She will come over and join us here. I have a message for her which will erase from her mind all desire to leave alone. Now take yourself off and inform the charming lady in white that I wish her presence.”

Clay said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve already promised the lady. I’m a plain-spoken man, sir. It’s best that you understand me in the beginning. If you come to your feet or leave this table it will be the greatest mistake of your life.”

The man’s huge lips puckered like a baby’s. “I never make mistakes, Mr. Holt. Yes, I know you. I know that you are going to tell me how tough you are. I know that you jumped into prominence a few months ago by shooting some notorious racketeer dead on a lonely side street at two o’clock in the morning. But fame dies quickly. I did not hear of you again.”

“You hear of me now,” Clay told him. “I am giving the lady her signal. If you get on your feet after that, I’ll bust into fame once more.”

The man with the thin, sharp face spoke for the first time. “I wouldn’t press the point, Major,” he said. “This man, Holt, has a bad name.”

The Major turned his head and looked at his companion. The girl coughed and the Major turned his eyes back to Clay. He was deliberate in his words:

“This is not a lonely street. This is the Walden dining-room at midday. You interest me, Mr. Holt. You have, you say, made the woman a promise. I will be pleased to observe how you work out your problem.” He waved a hand toward the half-filled dining-room. “Give the lady your signal and I will see that she takes the chair — the back of which you now grip so tightly — not in anger, I hope.”

Clay’s shoulders moved up and down. He said, “I’m sorry, Major, that you insist on a demonstration which will not please you.” He turned his head quickly, nodded to Una, then, pushing the chair aside, leaned far over the table. “You will remain seated, Major.”

The Major very slowly looked toward the woman in white. Just as slowly he smiled and deliberately pushed his chair back and came to his feet.

“Sit down!” Clay roared the words as his right fist crashed down on the table.

The smile was wiped from the Major’s face. He jarred back down in his chair. For ten seconds he wasn’t fully aware of just what had happened. In that respect he was like the rest of the guests.

Every dish on that table jumped, every glass overturned. The Major’s coffee bounced from the cup into his lap. The girl, with womanly instinct to protect her clothes, slid her chair back. The head waiter was there, two captains, four waiters. They looked dumbly at Clay, who had pulled out the chair and slipped into it before the few seconds of amazement were past.

Clay was the first to speak. He said easily to the head waiter, “The Major overemphasized a point in his story, and he’ll want another cup of coffee.”

“Yes, Mr. Holt.” The man waited for further explanation which did not come, then gave quick orders to the waiters. The cloth was replaced by a fresh one; other cutlery was upon the table. The Major had his coffee.

“Billings,” the Major slipped a bill into the head waiter’s hand, “you will take care of the boys and accept my regrets.” And as Billings still waited: “Mr. Holt was not quite correct; I am afraid I underemphasized a point most deploringly.”

When the waiters had gone Clay lowered his voice, said: “Well, Major, how did you like my act? No hard feelings, I hope. As a rule, I charge a high purse for such a bit of fireworks.”

“But today?”

“Today it was free. The woman was very beautiful, very young and — suppose I just call it an amateur performance.”

The Major nodded very gravely. “Yes, I think that is correct. An amateur performance.” He turned to his companion, said: “Mr. Davis, my apologies for not listening to you and very nearly mixing myself up in a common brawl. Still, you were wrong about Mr. Holt. His spirit is rough. His thinking is perhaps toward the tough side. But physically he is far from a well man.” The Major shook his head. “I don’t think, Mr. Davis, he has very much longer to live.”

He dug his hand into his pocket, produced a huge roll of bills, handed them to Davis, continued: “Mr. Davis, I wish you to take a good look at Mr. Holt, remember all you read about him in the papers, discover what you can concerning his past bad health — then get the best advice obtainable on how long an expert predicts he can live.”

Clay Holt leaned back in his chair and laughed. He said: “A bit melodramatic, Major, but I’m always willing to take a man seriously and help him out. For that bit of change you couldn’t get any gunner in the city to chance it.”

“Really, Mr. Holt. I am speaking more in a psychological than a physical way. Even you will find it unpleasant, and perhaps as the feeling of impending death grows on you, a fear will follow that will turn to terror. You will carry with you the feeling that perhaps any day, any hour, any minute, someone you do not know and have never even seen — never will see — is waiting for the doctor’s orders.”

Clay laughed again, boyishly. He said, and meant it: “I’ve been threatened hundreds of times but never with a psychological bullet in my back but a real one. Have your fun. I daresay there are a hundred gunmen in the city today who have the same idea as yours with the psychology subtracted, so one or two more won’t bother me much, especially if I don’t see them. If I do see them... well, they’ll bother me less.”

The Major looked at him long and steadily. “You are a remarkable man, Mr. Holt, and perhaps a stupid one. Stupid men sometimes lack the faculty of recognizing fear. But stupid men can also be very dangerous. We have finished our lunch and are leaving. You, too, I presume?”

The Major rose, inclined his head, first to Davis, then to the girl. Both came to their feet. The girl spoke for the first time. Her voice was shrill as she caught at Clay’s hand when he turned to leave.

“No, Mr. Holt!” Her eyes were big and round... and blue through a mist. There was a sort of childlike wonder in her face that appealed to Clay. “I came too late for lunch, Major. Mr. Holt has not eaten; perhaps he will lunch with me.”

“If you wish, Muriel.” The Major bowed. “Mr. Davis and I have business. Good day, Miss Van Eden. Good-by, Mr. Holt. I shall never have the pleasure of seeing you again.”

“Fine sort of company you keep.” Clay turned to the girl. “I hope you will tell me the racket and how a girl like you got in it.”

She smiled up at him. “As if you didn’t know, Mr. Holt. Sit down.”

But Clay did not sit down. A hand touched his arm. A voice spoke softly. “Surely you have not forgotten our engagement and that even a woman must eat.”

Clay turned suddenly as he heard that voice. He stretched out his hands to Awful.

“Princess! Princess, you’re beautiful.” Until Agatha Cummings spoke he just stood there and looked at her.

Agatha laughed. “You forget, Clay. We are in the center of the dining-room — a hundred people are staring at us.”

“I like it.” Clay’s smile made her eyes sparkle. “It’s too bad some columnist isn’t here. Can’t you see it: ‘Clay Holt, New York’s ace private investigator, noted for being seen with beautiful women, outdid himself at lunch today and appeared in the Walden Main Room—’ ”

“Clay,” she led him to a table, “is that all you see in women, how they reflect on your own personal vanity?”

“All but you, Princess. It’s the first time in over a month that you’ve turned Miss America. Another thing, Princess, yours is the sort of beauty that gives a man an appetite.”

After they had ordered Agatha said, “I was wondering what you saw in Miss Van Eden.” And, at Clay’s “Good Lord!” as he started to his feet: “She’s gone, Clay; turned almost at once and walked out of the room. She’s pretty, of course, has a certain appeal, but her face is weak, even if there is a long line of breeding behind her.”

“Cat.” Clay cut a slice from his filet mignon and devoured it with zest as Agatha played with hers. “She’s very young, maybe spoiled. I like the childish pout to her lips, the tilt — oh not an aristocratic tilt like your nose, Princess.”

“She’s weak, Clay. You’re not very good at character reading.”

Clay smiled. “Maybe I like weak women.” And more seriously, “She’s a kid trying to play some grown woman’s game.” And suddenly: “What do you mean she’s got breeding behind her? What do you know about her?”

“She’s Muriel Van Eden — Judge Van Eden’s daughter. The other woman I don’t know. But you won’t be bothered with them now. There will be no case for you there.”

“No.” Clay chewed and swallowed. “I’ve been threatened with death already. Yep! Just for letting the Woman in White walk out of this dining-room. The big man with the huge partly bald head and popping eyes—”

“It doesn’t matter, Clay. I couldn’t tell you on the telephone and I couldn’t wait until you got back to what’s left of the office. You have a case, something big. Twenty-five hundred dollars and a ticket on the five o’clock plane for Washington. Here’s the money and a sealed envelope with your instructions.”

Clay grabbed at the money, tore open the envelope, glanced at the note, said: “Good girl. Now tell me about Washington.”

There was little for Agatha to tell. The man who came to the office just after the explosion met her in the hall. He left the money and the sealed envelope.

“He said,” Agatha finished, “that he knew your trust in me and he knew you were broke.”

“A general condition.” Clay grinned: then, as he saw the head waiter at his elbow, “Greetings, Billings.”

Billings bowed. “Good afternoon, Miss. And could I have a word with you, Mr. Holt? I—” Billings leaned forward. “Why, Miss Cummings! Your dress, Miss Cummings, your hair — it’s very becoming.”

Clay burst in on Billings’ sudden embarrassment. “Don’t cover up, Billings. It’s her face that’s becoming. And you’re right. What an eye — and what tact! Remember, don’t speak a word to anyone about Miss Cummings’ sudden transformation.”

“No, sir, Mr. Holt, not a word. I can speak freely then. Jean, one of our captains, saw the Major rise and pound the table. Jean was amazed.”

“He should be.” And to himself Clay thought, “The power of suggestion!” To Billings he said: “The Major come here often?”

“Yes, sir. Most evenings he spends hours in the grill; many people visit him at his table. He holds open house, so to speak. We sized him up as tight-fisted, but when he wants extra service he’s liberal beyond all our guests — except yourself, Mr. Holt. I just didn’t wish you to think hard of him, though the manager thinks you said something to anger him.”

“It’s no use, Billings.” Clay grinned. “I won’t talk. I won’t make a complaint, even if the Major did.”

“Indeed he didn’t, Mr. Holt. He spoke most highly of you to the manager. To be frank, sir, the manager would like to know if there’s any difference of opinions remaining between you and Major Hoff.”

“Frankly you mean hard feelings between me and Major Hoff? Don’t worry, Billings. Major Hoff was interested in my health, offered to pay out of his own pocket for a doctor’s opinion.”

“It’s like him, sir.”

“Of course.” Clay came to his feet. “The Major recommended everything but an undertaker for me and I’m sure that was an oversight on his part.”

“I’m sure it was, sir,” Billings echoed politely.

The house was in the middle of the block, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. There were quite a few people on both sides of the street, and they turned to stare at the screaming fat woman. Then their stares switched to Paul Tyler.

Paul suddenly felt lost in a hostile world. He was almost certain that his blow had not been sufficient to kill the porcine Mr. Groh. Yet he seemed to sense the accusation all about him now.

Mrs. Groh was coming at him with blazing eyes, and he was seized by panic. She changed her refrain from, “Stop, murderer!” to “Grab him, grab him!”

But Paul was already running, with the ruined cleaner slung across his shoulder. People stepped out of his way. Mrs. Groh waddled after him.

Paul sprinted blindly toward the corner of Ninth Avenue. A man lunged at him, but Paul straight-armed the man, and kept going.

A police whistle was shrilling loudly somewhere. Behind him, down near the Groh house, a revolver roared, and some one yelled, “Stop — in the name of the law!”

Paul threw a quick look over his shoulder and saw that a man in plain clothes had fired the shot, aiming in the air. That would be a detective. He wondered fleetingly how it was that a detective should have been around in that neighborhood at just that moment. The plain-clothes man must have been taken by surprise, for he was several hundred feet behind the rest of the pursuit.

There were a dozen men savagely chasing Paul Tyler now, with Mrs. Groh puffing in the rear. But Paul, instinctively using the long, ground-eating pace that he had learned to employ in the 440-yard dash in college, easily outdistanced them in spite of the fact that he had the cleaner over his shoulder.

He reached the corner, swung around it, and looked about desperately for the crew manager’s truck of the Easy-Way Vacuum Cleaner Company, from which he had been working. He spotted the truck, half-way down the block in Ninth Avenue. He saw the seven or eight members of the canvassing crew gathered about the tailboard of the truck, turning in their orders and their machines, and getting back the deposits which they had put up.

Paul paused at the corner for only a fraction of a second. But in that infinitesimal space of time he realized bitterly that he stood no earthly chance of recovering his deposit for the ruined vacuum cleaner. And he also realized that if he lingered here another instant, the bloodthirsty mob behind him would have him by the heels.

He was bewildered by the quick turn of events which had transformed him from a starving canvasser into a fugitive murderer. But so adaptable are human instincts that he now thought and reacted only as a fugitive. His hunted glance switched from the Easy-Way truck over toward the Ninth Avenue Elevated structure. There was a station at this corner, and he heard the rumble of an El train, approaching overhead.

That rumble, aided by the shouting pursuit that was bearing down on him, stimulated him to further flight. He launched himself up the stairs toward the station above, still hugging the useless vacuum cleaner.

As he went up the stairs he saw the detective, still several hundred feet away, stop and take careful aim at him. He bent over almost double, and the shot clanged against the metal framework of the El station, only a few feet away.

It was a dreadful feeling to be shot at, but Paul had no time to think about it, for his pursuers were already coming up the stairs, and the first of them was almost within reach of him. He could see their maddened, angry expressions, and he could read in their eyes the intention to lynch him if they got their hands on him.

Mrs. Groh, at the foot of the stairs was shrieking, “He killed my poor husband! In cold blood!”

Paul’s pulse raced wildly in competition with his flying feet as he sprinted to the top of the stairway. He heard the train pulling into the station, but he knew he could never make it with these people so close behind. He swung around, lifted the vacuum cleaner from his shoulder, and hurled it down at the mass of faces below. He saw men duck and leap out of the way of the hurtling mechanism. Then he turned and lunged through the station.

Now, for the first time, it occurred to him that he had no nickel to get through the turnstile. The train was in. He could see its automatic doors open. They would close in another moment, and the train would go on. His escape would be cut off.

The lack of the nickel broke his stride, because he was still thinking along conventional lines. He couldn’t get through without a nickel.

But the hoarse shouts from behind came floating up in a wave of hatred. And he uttered a wild laugh. He was wanted for murder now, and here he was hesitating about a nickel. With the laugh still in his throat he took a running leap and vaulted the turnstile.

The cashier in the booth yelled, “Hey!” But Paul was already across the platform and through the slowly closing door of the middle car of the train. Just as he got in, the door slid shut behind him.

It was a six-car train, and there was only one guard at the last coupling. The doors were operated by a switch at that coupling which closed them all at once, and at the same time released the power that sent the train on.

It started with a lurch as the door closed, and Paul put his face to the glass in time to see the first of the crowd streaming out on to the station platform, with the plain-clothes detective fuming behind them and waving his gun. Their figures disappeared from view as the train gathered momentum.

Paul was breathing hard. He turned to see if anyone inside the car had noticed his escape. But there’d been no one on the platform, and he realized with a sigh of relief that if any of the passengers had seen him running for the train they must have thought he was merely another New Yorker in a hurry.

He took several deep breaths to quiet the pounding of his heart, and took stock of the situation. The train was a northbound local, and there was another station, seven blocks away. He would have to get off there, because that would be the only place where he could hope to evade the police cars which would be dispatched after him. Luckily, the detective would have to take the time to run downstairs and find a phone, and that might be the margin of time between freedom and arrest.

Freedom? What sort of freedom would it be? He was now wanted for murder. The Easy-Way crew manager would give the police all the information they would need. He dared not even go to his furnished room to pick up his belongings. He was one against society, without even a nickel in his pocket.

He could still not bring himself to believe that he had killed that man. Perhaps Mrs. Groh was mistaken. Perhaps Mike Groh was not dead. In that case, Paul Tyler would still be wanted for assault and battery. He could never convince a jury that he had struck in self-defense. The facts, as well as public opinion, would be against him.

There had recently been several cases where house-to-house salesmen had been arrested for attacks upon householders. The case of the People vs. Paul Tyler would climax them. He’d be convicted and sent to jail for a number of years. And if Groh was dead? The electric chair. Or maybe only life imprisonment.

That was as far as he got by the time the train reached the next station. He slipped out, went hurriedly down the stairs, peering over the railing to see if there were any police cars downstairs. There were none, but he thought he heard a siren in the distance. He sped down to the street level and walked quickly east.

His thoughts were jumbled, and he hadn’t the faintest notion of what to do next. His indecision however, was settled for him almost at once. A small coupe drew abreast of him along the curb at his right, and its horn sounded three times, insistently.

A girl was at the wheel. Paul got a swift glimpse of reddish hair under one of those modish pancake hats, hanging on at a precarious angle over a small, pink ear. He saw a pert little face with an uptilted nose and a few freckles; a pair of very blue eyes and a nicely shaped mouth. The general impression of all these features might have been very pleasant indeed, except for the fact that at this moment the blue eyes were very cold and very hard, and the mouth was compressed into a thin, determined line. And the girl’s cold glance was directed very definitely at him.

“Get in here!” she said. And to make it clear that she wasn’t fooling, she showed him the muzzle of a small pistol just over the edge of the window.

During a week of solitary confinement Hugh Baxter — listed in the pen as Hank Sholes, No. 7544 — had enough time to think about the crazy scheme that had brought him to fog-wrapped Sattley Prison.

Jack Baxter, Hugh’s brother, had been a guard at Sattley for ten years. Though popular with officials and cons, he was the one who got a tin shiv through the ribs, from behind — the one who laid down his life for the discovery of a bundle of loaded revolvers buried in the exercise yard.

Hugh Baxter, ace undercover agent, wasted no time. He told Governor Warner he was going into Sattley, under faked commitment papers, to find those responsible.

“Suicide,” the governor pointed out. “Those desperate killers will slit your throat in a hurry if they find you out Besides, we can’t spare you. You’ve done too much good work in our cities.”

“I want Jack’s killer, and you want the prison cleaned up. Or don’t you?”

The conference lasted a long time, but finally Warner agreed. After that Baxter personally investigated the whole Sattley staff — and found one man with a perfect record, Guard Captain Donald McCall. The governor himself gave McCall detailed instructions, and Baxter, praying there would be no leaks, was brought to Sattley in irons...

Baxter’s eyes were swollen; they had strained too hard to pick out the dim light that somehow caused oblique shadows on the corridor floor. His ears still rang with the dead silence, and his nostrils fought the stench of old sweat.

When they called for him, he stumbled out of his cell and mumbled his thanks. His eyes had a bleary focus, but they picked out the insignia on the coat sleeve of a gray-haired man with a barrel-shaped body and loose jowls — Deputy Warden Bill Gardner.

Gardner’s watery eyes, full of mockery, held Baxter’s. “Still tough?”

“No,” said Baxter meekly.

“Sir!” Gardner prompted, his jaw muscles working.

“No, sir.”

“You’ll find us plenty tough, Sholes. Move!”

Their feet clumped hollowly on the way to ground level. And then they were outside, blinking in fog whose bleakness matched that of the turrets on the spiked walls. Baxter shivered.

A one-story stone building housed the furniture shop, with its rows of drill presses, saws and planers. At the single exit were two steel-lined rooms in which the men changed clothes before leaving in pairs. A maze of pipes hung from the ceiling.

“We don’t take chances here,” said one of the guards. “If trouble comes, we just turn a little valve, like this, and gas shoots down on you. Remember that.”

A beefy man with corded forearm muscles was working industriously at a bench. He looked up quickly, and Baxter had a glimpse of his eyes — wide, colorless, wild. His cheeks were puffed, but his lips were thin and pale. And his hair was as curly and heavy as a girl’s.

“From now on, Sholes,” Gardner was saying, “you work here. Convict 7233 will tell you what to do when the inspector is at the other end of the shop. Carry on!”

During the whole afternoon No. 7233 spoke only to give curt orders. He muttered to himself continually, keeping his eyes focused on Baxter.

At six o’clock Baxter changed clothes, found his numerical place in the yard line-up and lock-walked to the mess hall. He was putting his point over. Who would suspect such a tough mean prisoner of being an undercover man?

One hour later he and the others were moving in unbroken lines to the cell houses. Baxter’s group went to Cell House 3, and his division climbed a steel staircase. Baxter stood at the last cell, waiting for the clank of the door-opening mechanism.

No cell faced his on Tier B level, and the next one was separated from it by solid steel plates. Evidently the guards were trying to isolate him — exactly what he wanted. A cellmate would only prevent conversation with McCall, who would signal him during the third inspection round.

After a while the lights went out and Baxter pulled his coarse blankets over him. He was tossing restlessly when the night guard’s flash-light put a halo around his head. Then he fell asleep, but a dream of his dead brother’s good-natured face tortured him.

Three faint taps, coming with another flash of light, brought him to his feet. The flash-light was turned off now, and he could see only a shadow.

“Baxter?” came a faint whisper.

“Yes. You, McCall?”

“Yup. Anything turn up?”

“Not yet.”

“All right. See you this time tomorrow.”

The room looks like something a bomb has been dropped on; table overturned, glasses smashed, bottles broken, chairs wrecked and two corpses stretched out stiff on the floor.

At least I think they are both dead, but a quick once-over shows me that my boss is unconscious but alive and that the other guy is conscious but nearly checked out. I have never seen this Larry Del Grave before, though he is the biggest drawing card on Broadway and his profile is familiar enough to me, from the newspaper pictures.

Maybe he is supposed to be handsome in the role of the Great Seducer, but he isn’t much to peer at now lying all twisted up on his side and groaning his guts out. The slick blond hair is all unstuck and the effect of the toothpaste teeth in the suntanned face is sort of spoiled by his contorted features.

He looks as if he is grinning, but I figure he can’t feel so ha-ha on account of the bullet hole that had torn open the knot of his fancy four-in-hand and made his breathing sound like a cross between a kid blowing soap bubbles and a peanut-vendor’s whistle.

I am wrong, though. He is laughing like crazy at some terrific gag. He looks up at me with his eyes kind of squinting as if he is trying hard to understand something that puzzles him. I lift him up, not that it is going to do him any good.

“Huh, ha,” he burbles. “You can... tell ’em... the old one—” he gasps and whistles for air.

“What old one?” I ask him, feeling a bit queer playing straight-man to a dying actor.

He chuckles again, as if he is giggling and gargling at the same time. “The old one, you remember.” It’s a wrench for him to finish. “I didn’t... know it... was loaded.”

Let me wise you, there’s nothing funny about watching a man laugh himself to death!

The final spasm leaves him with a grimace like that clown that sings the solo while his heart is breaking. Blood is drooling, drop by drop, from the corner of his mouth, and it is the only thing that moves in all of room 803.

I pull myself together after making sure his breath doesn’t leave any moisture on the back of my watch. The first thing I naturally look for is a gun, but the only one on the premises is in my own hand.

On the floor, in a corner where they had fallen when the table had tipped over, are a couple of leopard cubes, but there is positively no currency in sight anywhere.

Now the Louse does not operate a game without plenty of folding money on the cloth, so I figure there is something screwy. A kill like Del Grave’s, with everybody taking a powder in a hurry, does not seem like a legitimate hold-up, if you can call it that.

I take a quick gander in the closet to make sure no one is lurking about to hang another clout on top of the headache I already have; then I grab the phone and ask for Mike Rubin.

Mike is the snoop-shoe who keeps the Metropole’s good name untarnished by demanding to see the license after the bellhop reports a couple have checked in with a suit-case full of old phone books. He is no Einstein, but smart enough.

“Mike,” I say. “This is Vince Mallie in 803.”

“What goes on, pal?” he growls back, hoping nothing has happened to break up his three ayem nap on the mezzanine.

“Nothing to call out the reserves for. You might put a collar on any cluck who seems anxious to get out of the hotel minus his benny or topper. Just do that and don’t run a fever and I’ll tell you all about it later.”

I’d seen the polo coats and chesterfields still hanging in the closet, as well as a shelf full of assorted felts and shinies; it was a cold night and anybody trying to scram out in a tuxedo would look a little silly.

I go in the bathroom and try the connecting door to 801; it’s locked on the other side. I click the light switch and get a load of myself in the mirror. My left eye is a trifle purple around the edges, but otherwise I am intact. Except there is an ugly smear right in the middle of my green and gray plaid cravat. If there is anything that burns me up more than a spot on a new tie, I don’t want to hear about it. I look at it close, though, and it isn’t blood. It’s red ink or something.

It must have got on the tie when I was holding Del Grave up from the floor. Sure enough, there is a blob of scarlet in the stiff’s left hand. It’s liquid paint, the sort actors use when they have a call for prop-gore on the stage. I found the capsule under the table.

Exactly what a gent who has just spilled a gallon or so of his own blood would want with a fistful of make-believe corpuscles I can’t dope out.

By now, the Louse is beginning to moan like a guy coming out of ether; someone has laid a turkey egg on top of his gray dome and his face is the color of stale oysters. A pitcher of ice water down the back of his neck, a half-tumbler of rye down his throat, plus a little slapping around and he sits up, spitting fire.

He has some trouble focussing his glims on the coffin candidate; when he gets the picture clear, he gulps like he is going to be sick to his stomach.

“Who... did that, Vince?”

“Don’t give me any double-talk, boss. You were here when it happened.”

He started to shake his head, put both hands up to make sure he still had his hair:

“I wasn’t, Vince. I’d just gone to see a man about a pup when I heard the shot. When I opened the lavatory door to get back in here, somebody dropped the ceiling on me. I didn’t see anybody.”

I made him sit down in a chair where he couldn’t see the body; it gave him the hiccoughs or something.

“How many were bucking their luck when all this happened? Beside you and Del Grave?”

“Three,” says the Louse. “Roy Zara, Meyer Levinson and Hipper Dipper.”

I know all of them. Zara is pit-leader for the “All The World Loves—” orchestra; Levinson is the composer who writes the hits and Harry Frinkey, billed as Hipper Dipper, is the most comical cluck in the world, in my private opinion. Now which one started the argument?

“I didn’t hear any argument, Vince. Zara was heavy loser, maybe two or three gees, but he wasn’t beefing about it. Levinson was making six and seven passes in a row and letting it ride; he had a nice stack of bills piled up, but he acted as if it hurt him to win. This one,” he indicates Del Grave with a thumb over his shoulder, “was working up to a swell snootful, but nothing nasty about it.”

I tell him what I run into when I unlock 803. He is more concerned with the loss of the shekels than with Del Grave’s death.

“I can understand a fellow shooting another, Vince. There are things that might make any man blow his top and turn killer. But I would bet my last ten years of life that none of those men is a thief.”

“You would lose, boss. Somebody snatched that lettuce; if you think he’ll tear it up and throw it out of the window to welcome the King and Queen, you’re slipping. I’m looking for a lad with a pocketful of engravings and I got a hunch he is not far away.”

The Louse sighs and reaches for the only quart of rye that hasn’t been shattered in the melee, and starts to tilt the bottle when a girl screeches loud enough so you could hear her in Newark.

She stands there in the doorway, staring down at the dead man as if she is seeing a ghost; maybe she is at that.

I recognize her even out of make-up; which doesn’t exactly rate me as sensational, because she is generally admitted to be the best-looking frill on Neon Alley. Claire Marsh, the dancing darling of “All The World Loves—”. Black hair, sloe eyes and curves that keep the speculators doing O.K. with the first six rows. Fire on two feet, or money refunded.

She opens a rhinestone handbag and comes up with a pearl-handled hammerless, one of those damned things that are too small to be any real good but too big to overlook. She points it at the Louse, very calmly.

“You shot him,” she whispers. “You killed my husband.”

The boss doesn’t even drop the whiskey bottle when she pulls the trigger.