Even after our explanation, no one seems to understand why we did it. For example, this appeared in the Star:

The Star completely missed the point that our act was an intellectual exercise, you see. They lumped Bart and me in the same class as the juvenile delinquent who carries a switch-blade knife.

Another thing we resent, or at least I do, is the newspaper attempt to make me seem a kind of stooge of Bart�s. They point to Bart�s higher scholastic average as proof that he was the superior and guiding intellect. But if the Stanford-Binet test means anything, actually I�m the more intelligent. My intelligence quotient is 163, while Bart�s is only 160.

Both I.Q.s rate the designation of genius, of course.

Bart�s grades in high school and college were higher than mine because he studied harder. Being able to draw high grades without study, it never occurred to me to work for even higher ones. Besides, Bart is competitive and I�m not. It was important to him to be the top scholar, and it wasn�t important to me. I was quite content to be salutatorian of our high-school graduation class, and to let Bart make valedictorian.

Maybe this does indicate that I tended to play second fiddle to Bart, but I was never conscious of being dominated. I simply regarded him as my best friend. Because our superior intelligence set us apart from others our own age, we were inseparable all through grade school, high school and our two years of college.

The newspapers have made a big thing of our failure to enter into campus social life, as though this indicated some psychological shortcoming on our part. We didn�t participate in campus events at Rayburn for the same reason we didn�t join a fraternity: because we considered both juvenile. But we had a social life of our own making.

Considering our mental attainments, it was natural for the campus intelligentsia to gather about us. It was also natural for the meeting place to be the three-room apartment Bart and I shared, for we were the only members of the group with money enough to afford an apartment. The rest were all from poor families, and lived either in dormitory rooms or rooming houses.

The so-called campus elite hardly ever visited our apartment... the athletes, the �activity men� or the fraternity and sorority crowd... but we were surrounded by young poets and writers and scholars. It was common for a half dozen or more people to be lying about on cushions in our large front room of an evening, listening while Bart played classical records, or read poetry aloud, or discoursed on anything from ancient literature to the current world situation.

It was at one of these sessions during our sophomore year that the seed for our great experiment was sown. Six of us were present that night.

Only five of us really belonged, however. The sixth was as out of place in that intellectual society as a harlot in a nunnery.

There was serious-minded Calvin Thorpe, who was majoring in philosophy, and mousy little Annabelle Stang, the hopeful poetess he went with. I had Marge Ridgeway, whom I tentatively regarded as my girl, a beautiful freshman with a golden complexion and a fine mind, for a woman. She was just my age, eighteen, though a year behind me in school.

Bart Conway, as always, presided over the group. He sat enthroned on his red-leather chair while the rest of us lolled on floor cushions at his feet, listening to him expound and watching the play of expression on his thin but sensitive face.

All of us but Herman Groper, that is. Herman was the outsider, the big, blond, over-muscled captain of our football team. He had been dragged along by Calvin Thorpe, who was tutoring him in philosophy in his spare time in an effort to keep Groper eligible for football.

Groper had refused to sit on the floor. He sat on the sofa to one side of Bart�s chair with a bored look on his face.

The discussion that night had started with a murder currently in the headlines, but Bart had drifted off into a philosophical dissertation on murder in general.

�A little reasoning would show you that the old bromide, �Murder will out,� is merely an attempt to deter potential murderers from carrying out their murderous intentions,� Bart said. �I doubt that one murder in ten is ever detected.�

�Statistics don�t show that,� Calvin Thorpe objected. �The percentage of solved cases in a city such as New York far outweighs the unsolved.�

�For cases diagnosed as murder,� Bert agreed. �But what about all the homicides officially accepted as suicides, accidents, or as deaths from natural causes? How many men do you suppose have given their wives a slight push at the top of a flight of stairs, and have had the resulting broken necks diagnosed as accidents? How many poisonings go undetected? How many persons listed on police blotters merely as missing are actually murder victims whose killers have so cleverly disposed of the bodies that there are no corpus delicti? The perfect crime isn�t merely an unsolved crime. It�s one in which the police never suspect a crime has been committed.�

Big Herman Groper gave a bored snort. �There�s no such thing as a perfect crime. The prisons are full of people who thought different.�

Bart glanced at him with a frown. He had been ignoring the football captain ever since his refusal to sit on the floor with the rest of us, and now his expression indicated that he felt if Groper couldn�t conform to our ritual, he shouldn�t try to intrude himself into the discussion. However, since no one else spoke, Bart decided to answer him.

�That�s because the average murderer is a fool,� he said. �I could plan and execute a dozen murders without ever being suspected.�

Herman Groper spread his lips in a sardonic grin. �Because you�re a genius, I suppose?�

Bart�s nostrils flared ever so slightly, an indication that he was nettled. No one can match Bart Conway�s repartee, and because Groper was a guest, I decided to save him from annihilation by throwing a lighter gaff into him than Bart would use.

I said, �Of course he�s a genius. You sound as though that�s something to be ashamed of.�

Marge Ridgeway did her bit to avert the football captain�s devastation too. She asked, �Just how would you go about committing the perfect crime, Bart?�

Glancing at her, Bart�s good humor returned. He said lightly, �If I told you, my redheaded doll, you might use the information in evidence against me, if I ever decided to put it to real use.�

Herman Groper said, �In other words, he hasn�t the slightest idea.�

Bart swung back toward the blond athlete, and this time I didn�t try to save Groper.

�Don�t push me, my muscular friend,� Bart said in a soft voice. �I just might decide to indulge in the mental exercise, and use your handsome body as a guinea pig.�

Herman Groper ran his eyes over Bart�s spare frame and laughed aloud. �I�m trembling in my boots.�

Annabelle Stang said, �This conversation has given me an inspiration. I think I�ll write a poem about death.�

Shortly afterward the group broke up and I walked Marge back to the girl�s dormitory. When I returned, Bart was in his pajamas and robe, smoking a bedtime cigarette.

�I think we�ll start an investigation of Herman Groper�s living routine tomorrow, Edward,� he told me. �Suppose you cut class and follow him all day. I�ll take the next day, and we�ll continue to alternate until we know his exact routine.�

�What in the devil for?� I asked.

�So we can sensibly plan his murder.�

I looked at him with my jaw hanging. �His murder!�

�As an intellectual exercise only,� he told me impatiently. �I don�t actually plan to kill him. But I want to satisfy myself that I could, and get away with it.�

�Oh,� I said. Thinking it over, I decided this was one of the most provocative ideas Bart had produced in some time.

�It would be kind of interesting to plan the big lout�s murder, wouldn�t it?� I said.

For the next two weeks Bart and I alternated in trailing Herman Groper everywhere he went. Both of us had high enough averages so that we could afford to miss some classes, but this period put a decided crimp in our social life. It was, of course, necessary to suspend the discussion periods at our apartment for two weeks. In addition I had to neglect Marge Ridgeway so much that she finally asked if I were angry about something.

I made the excuse that I was studying hard, but she accepted it rather coolly. As Christmas was approaching, I decided to buy her some exceptionally nice gift to make up for my neglect.

At the end of our two-week investigation we had an hour-by-hour schedule of Herman Groper�s routine. He lived an extremely methodical life. He was carrying sixteen hours of work, and he never missed a class. Free periods he invariably spent at the Student Union, and he always lunched at the Chi Phi house, where he lived. Five afternoons a week he spent at football practice, and Saturday afternoon he was either playing in a game at our stadium, or at one of the other schools in the conference.

His evenings followed just as exact a pattern. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he studied at the school library with a sophomore Tri Delt named Alice Taylor, who seemed to be his steady girl. He always walked her to the Tri Delt house when the library closed at nine, then went straight home to the Chi Phi house just up the street. On Tuesdays he met Calvin Thorpe at the library for tutoring in philosophy, and again went straight home when the library closed. Thursdays he didn�t leave the fraternity house at all in the evening.

Presumably because of football training rules he didn�t go out socially at all during the week. Both Saturday nights, after the game, he took Alice Taylor to a school dance, but they left early and Groper was back at the Chi Phi house by midnight, again presumably because of training rules.

Apparently he didn�t attend church, for on both Sundays he didn�t appear from the Chi Phi house until one-thirty. Both times he went straight to the Tri Delt house, picked up Alice Taylor, and they spent the afternoon at a show. They dined downtown afterward, spent a couple of hours at a local student hangout, and were home by nine-thirty.

Bart Conway ruefully summed up what we had learned.

�He doesn�t seem to run around with his fraternity brothers at all,� he said. �Every free minute he�s with this Taylor woman. The problem is that he�s never alone. When he isn�t with her, he�s surrounded by his fellow morons on the football team, or in the midst of fifty fraternity brothers at the Chi Phi house.�

I said, �He�s alone for a few minutes four nights a week on his way back from the library.�

�Yeah, in full view of dozens of students also returning from the library, on one of the best-lighted streets in town. And even if we managed to kidnap him then, he keeps such a rigid schedule, he�d be missed almost immediately.�

We brooded over the problem for a while, and finally Bart said, �Herman�s the only football player Chi Phi has, isn�t he?�

�I believe so,� I said. �In fact I�m sure of it.�

�Then when he goes home to bed at midnight on Saturday, the chances are he�s the only Chi Phi in the house.�

�Probably,� I agreed. �Fraternity men rarely stay home on Saturday night, and most of the dances last till two. But the house mother would be there.�

�And undoubtedly asleep. We could be waiting inside when he came in, force him to leave with us by the back door, and no one at all would see us.�

�Force him how?� I asked dubiously. �He�s an awfully big man.�

�With a gun,� Bart said impatiently. �My twenty-two target pistol.�

�Suppose he put up a fight anyway?�

�Then we kill him right there and carry him out dead,� Bart said.

I emitted a rather uneasy laugh. �You know, we sound as though we really meant to carry this out.�

�Don�t be ridiculous,� Bart told me. �You know it�s just an intellectual problem.�

There was nothing more we could do in the way of planning until the following Saturday, when we decided to test our kidnap plan with a dry run. I took Marge Ridgeway to shows on both Thursday and Friday so that I could beg off from a Saturday night date. She seemed a little put out, but she didn�t make any outright objection.

Both Bart and I had cars at school, but we used Bart�s this Saturday night. We parked in the alley behind the Chi Phi house at eleven-fifteen, and waited another fifteen minutes.

We didn�t have any trouble getting into the house. Because members come in at all hours, fraternity houses are never locked at Rayburn. We simply opened the door and walked in.

There wasn�t a soul on the first floor, although a lamp was on in the huge front room. Tiptoeing up the stairs, we quietly checked every room and found all empty except one. This was the house mother�s, who was sound asleep when we edged open her door and peeked in.

Actually we weren�t taking any risk by this prowling. It was common for non-member students to wander into fraternity houses in search of friends who were members, and as we both knew several Chi Phis, we had it planned in advance to announce we were looking for one of them if anyone questioned us.

When we were satisfied that the house was deserted except for the sleeping housemother, we took up a vigil at the front-room windows downstairs and waited for Herman Groper to appear. We spotted him approaching the house at five minutes of midnight.

As all we had wanted was to prove the practicality of our kidnap plan, we quietly let ourselves out the back door before Groper could open the front.

When we got back home, Bart said, �Monday we�ll take up the problem of disposing of the body.�

�Why not tonight?� I asked.

�Because meat markets aren�t open at this time of night,� he said.

He refused to elaborate on this odd remark. Sometimes Bart liked to be mysterious.

At four o�clock Monday, when I got home from school, Bart was waiting for me with a small, newspaper-wrapped package.

�Let�s go,� he said. �We�ll take my car.�

�Where we going?� I asked.

�To experiment in body disposal.�

He wouldn�t tell me any more, and as I knew he enjoyed keeping me in suspense, I didn�t persist in asking for an explanation. He drove straight to the campus and parked next to the Science Building.

As lab sessions ended at three P.M., no one was in the building except a couple of professors in their offices, both of whom glanced at us vaguely and without interest when we passed their open doors. Bart led me to the locked door of one of the chemistry labs, produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

�Where�d you get that?� I asked in surprise.

He grinned at me. �From Professor Jacobs. I asked him if I could do a little special research on my own time, and he handed over a key like a little lamb. That�s one of the advantages of being an honor student. Jacobs wouldn�t trust another member of the class with a key.�

Inside he closed the door behind us and walked to the hood at one side of the room. The hood was simply a sheet-metal awning suspended over a long laboratory bench and vented by a chimney to carry off chemical odors. Smelly experiments and high-degree heat experiments were carried out under the hood.

A portion of the experiment bench beneath the hood was taken up by a small electric furnace. The chamber was only a foot wide by a foot high and two feet deep, but it was capable of generating up to twenty-five hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

It was designed to receive small crucibles of fusible material, not to dispose of corpses. But we used it for the latter purpose. We burned the body of the freshly dressed rabbit Bart had in his newspaper package.

The furnace made an excellent miniature crematorium. There was nothing left of the rabbit except a small pile of powdery ashes. We disposed of the ashes by flushing them down one of the drains in the rest room just down the hall.

�There,� Bart said with an air of satisfaction when the last of the ashes gurgled down the drain. �That completes our problem. The muscular Herman Groper has disappeared into thin air.�

With a touch of sarcasm I said, �Small for a football star, wasn�t he?�

When Bart frowned at me, I said, �I�ll concede that you�ve demonstrated the effectiveness of cremation, but where would we obtain access to a furnace big enough to take Herman Groper�s body?�

Bart shook his head in mock pity. �For a supposed genius you can ask awfully stupid questions, Edward. We use this furnace right here.�

I gave him a blank look.

�We feed him to it in small sections,� he explained patiently. �We dismember him in the bathtub at the apartment and carry him to the lab in small, inconspicuous parcels. We take perhaps two or three afternoons to complete the job.�

�Oh,� I said in a dubious tone.

Perhaps if I had sounded more enthusiastic, the matter would have ended right there, with Bart satisfied that he had solved the intellectual problem of planning a perfect crime. But we had known each other so long and so well, we were each sensitive to the nuances of meaning in the other�s tone. Bart knew I wasn�t satisfied with the solution and, being a perfectionist, he wasn�t either.

We didn�t discuss it any more, but he was silent all the way home and moody during dinner. I had a date with Marge that evening, and when I got home about eleven, he was still brooding.

After watching me hang up my coat, he said, �You don�t think we�ve really solved the problem, do you?�

I said, �If it satisfies you, it satisfies me.�

�That�s the trouble with a hypothetical problem,� he said irritably. �You arrive at an answer, but there�s no way to prove it�s the right answer.�

�We could really kill him,� I said with heavy irony.

�Yes,� he agreed so calmly, my stomach Suddenly lurched. �That�s exactly what we�re going to do.�

As I said, we�ve known each other so long, we were unusually sensitive to each other�s tones of voice. I knew instantly that he wasn�t joking. I knew that for his own intellectual satisfaction Bart had decided he had to commit the perfect crime in actuality.

I also knew our leader-follower relationship well enough to realize that while I might struggle against the idea for a time, in the end Bart would have his way. And that I�d help him commit real murder as docilely as I had helped him commit it in theory.

I won�t give a blow-by-blow account of my attempt to argue Bart out of his murder plan. It suffices to say that after two days of his countering every objection I made with logical argument, he finally wore me down. As usual when we had one of our rare disagreements, it was his persistence more than his eloquence which defeated me. I finally just gave up.

I recall that at one point Bart said, �It�s not as though Herman Groper would be any loss to humanity, Edward. The man�s about as unimaginative as they come. And consider the gratification of knowing that we, personally, have overcome the tremendous problem of committing a perfect crime. It will be a contest between our superior intellects and all the mediocre forces of society. How can you even hesitate at such a challenge?�

�All right,� I said wearily. �When are we going to do it?�

He emitted a sigh of satisfaction. �This coming Saturday. It has to be then because Christmas vacation starts the following weekend.�

Like many geniuses, I have a capacity for single-mindedness once I have reached a decision. From the moment I finally agreed to the murder, I shelved all my previous doubts and entered into the spirit of the thing wholeheartedly.

If it seems unnatural that neither of us had a single qualm of conscience once our decision was reached, you must remember that this was neither a crime of passion nor one for profit. We had nothing personal against Herman Groper. He merely presented an interesting problem, and there was no more emotion involved than if we had been presented with a difficult chess problem.

As our plans were already laid, and even to some extent pretested, there remained nothing to do until Saturday except obtain some necessary equipment. Bart bought some.22 shorts for his target pistol, and he had me purchase a set of meat-cutting tools, including a cleaver. Then we were ready for our great experiment.

Meantime, while waiting for Saturday to arrive, we attended class as usual, and we got most of our Christmas shopping done. For Marge I bought a delicate little wrist watch with a solid-gold case.

Eventually Saturday came.

Again we parked in the alley behind the Chi Phi house at eleven fifteen P.M., and slipped through the rear door at eleven thirty. As during our previous visit, we found no one there except the sleeping house mother. We took our positions at the parlor windows and waited for Herman Groper to come home.

As before, he arrived just before midnight. We waited until he had closed the front door behind him and was heading for the stairs. Then, together, we stepped from the front room into the hall.

�Just a moment, Herman,� Bart said in a soft voice.

With his foot on the bottom step, the football captain turned. He looked incredulous when he saw the pistol in Bart�s hand.

�Don�t make any noise, and do exactly as I tell you,� Bart said crisply. �If you think I won�t use this, you�re very foolishly mistaken.�

Groper studied him with narrowed eyes, finally asked in an uncertain tone, �Have you gone nuts?�

Deliberately Bart cocked the gun, and the sound seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness of the big house. Groper�s eyes widened.

�I�m not making any noise,� he said. �What do you want?�

�Move that way,� Bart said, gesturing down the hall toward the kitchen with his pistol.

Groper hesitated, his gaze shifting from Bart to me and back again. Then he paled slightly when Bart allowed his finger to begin whitening on the trigger.

�For God�s sake, don�t shoot!� he said quickly. �I�ll do what you say.�

We took him out the back way and got him into the rear seat of the car without incident. Bart sat next to him with the gun pointed unwaveringly at his head, and I drove.

There was no one on the street when we parked in front of our apartment. After I had made a quick check in both directions, and had given the signal that all was clear, Bart backed from the car and ordered Groper to get out. I went first to open the door while Bart prodded our captive ahead with his gun muzzle.

Inside, Groper asked on a high note, �What is this all about anyway?�

�It�s an intellectual exercise,� Bart told him pleasantly. �Get on into the bathroom.�

With more puzzlement than fear Groper followed orders. While he was treating us with a wariness indicating that he suspected he might be dealing with a pair of maniacs, I don�t think that at any point he was really in fear of his life. I believe he thought the whole thing was some kind of elaborate and unfunny practical joke.

He discovered it was too late to do anything about it. The instant he stepped through the bathroom door, Bart placed the muzzle of his gun against the back of Groper�s head and pressed the trigger.

Even in that confined space the sound of the shot wasn�t loud enough to attract any attention from outside. It was simply a sharp crack, as though a medium-sized board had been dropped to the floor from ceiling height. Herman Groper�s toppling body made nearly as much noise when it hit the tile floor.

He lay inert, a small singed place on the back of his head ringing an almost invisible dot of blood. That was the only visible sign of damage, as there was no exit wound.

Within minutes we had him stripped and had lifted his body into the tub. Then the real job began.

First we both stripped in order to avoid blood stains on our clothing. Then, with the meat-cutting tools I had bought, we proceeded to butcher the body.

Though neither of us knew much about meat cutting, we didn�t have a great deal of trouble because the tools were new and sharp. I won�t go into details about our revolting chore, because thinking about it still gives me a queasy feeling in my stomach. It suffices to say that we ended up with ten separate packages, each first wrapped in waxed paper and then with newspaper.

Each arm, divided into two parts, went into a separate package, the two calves and feet into another, and the two thighs into individual packages. In order to have pieces small enough to get in the furnace, we had to quarter the torso and wrap each of the four parts separately. The head made up the tenth bundle.

Spreading waxed paper and newspaper on the floor at the back of our clothes closet, we stacked the ten parcels there.

It was beginning to grow light by the time we had cleaned up the bathroom, had washed our meat-cutting tools and had each had a bath. Exhausted, we fell into bed and slept until noon.

Sunday afternoon we began the task of disposing of the corpus delicti. We started with the arms, each carrying one package out to the car.

The Science Building was completely deserted on Sunday, of course, so there was no danger of our being disturbed. By dinnertime we had made two trips, and both arms and both calves had been reduced to ashes and flushed down one of the rest room drains.

We suspended operations until the next day then, as we didn�t want to risk anyone seeing lights in the chemistry lab and coming to investigate.

On Monday we had to wait until four P.M. in order to be sure the lab would be empty. We got in two more trips and disposed of both thighs, one section of torso, and the clothing Herman Groper had worn when he died. There now remained only the head and three sections of the torso.

Although it wasn�t yet publicly known, we later learned that meantime preliminary efforts were already being made to locate the missing man. He had first been missed at two P.M. on Sunday, when Alice Taylor phoned the Chi Phi house to learn why Groper hadn�t shown up for their usual Sun-day-afternoon date. Both she and the Chi Phi�s were more puzzled than alarmed at first, however, and the matter wasn�t reported to the police until late that night.

The local police, who had had previous experience with missing students who later turned out simply to have gone on prolonged binges, or to have overstayed weekends at home, did nothing in the beginning except wire a routine inquiry to Groper�s home town. It wasn�t until Tuesday morning, when the missing man�s football coach visited the police, that they began to take a serious interest. They hadn�t paid too much attention to Alice Taylor�s insistence that Herman Groper�s systematic habits ruled out the possibility of the disappearance being his own doing, apparently attributing it to female hysteria. But when the coach insisted the same thing, they began to give serious thought to the possibility that there had been foul play.

They got around to Bart and me Tuesday night.

Meantime we had used Tuesday afternoon for two more trips to the lab, and had disposed of the three remaining segments of the torso. Nothing remained but the head, which we transferred from the floor of the closet to a hat box on the closet shelf, so that we could dispose of the papers with which we had lined the closet floor.

We were wrapping Christmas presents on a table in the front room when our bell rang about nine P.M. Tuesday night. Bart went to the door and came back followed by two men in police uniforms.

One was a beefy, rather stupid-looking fellow who seemed to be merely a patrolman. The other wore the gold badge of a lieutenant, which, except for the chief, was as high as police ranks went in this small college town. He was a quiet-spoken man of about forty with a lean, intelligent face and a slow manner of moving. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Gunderson, and his companion as Patrolman Murphy.

When they had accepted Bart�s invitation to sit, Lieutenant Gunderson said, �Have you boys heard about Herman Groper yet?�

We both looked at him inquiringly, and Bart said, �Rayburn�s overmuscled football captain? What about him?�

�He�s been missing since midnight Saturday.�

�Oh?� Bart said, and waited.

�We wondered if either of you boys might have seen him.�

Both of us assumed surprised expressions. Bart said, �Why do you ask us? We barely know the fellow. He has fifty fraternity brothers more likely to know where he is than we are.�

In no particular tone Gunderson said, �There�s some suspicion that he might have met with foul play.�

A long silence ensued before Bart said in an ascending voice, �And you suspect us?�

�Suspect is a little too strong a word,� the lieutenant said. �Let�s say we just wonder if you decided to carry out your brag that you could commit a perfect crime.�

I felt the hair rise along the back of my neck. Bart appeared momentarily speechless. When he finally found his voice, it came out unusually high.

�What brag was that?�

�The one you made one evening when Herman Groper was here at one of your bull sessions. You bragged that you were capable of committing a perfect crime, and suggested you might use Groper as your guinea pig.�

�Who told you that?�

�Groper�s girl friend. Alice Taylor.�

I blurted, �She wasn�t here that night.�

Everyone looked at me, the two officers without expression, and Bart frowningly. Realizing the remark constituted an admission that Bart had made the alleged statement, I slowly turned red.

I decided to let Bart carry the conversational burden from there on.

�No, she wasn�t,� Gunderson agreed quietly. �But Groper told her all about it afterward. Then, several times recently, he�s mentioned to her seeing an awful lot of both of you. He suggested to Miss Taylor that you might be tailing him around for some reason. Seems every time he looked over his shoulder, one or the other of you were just fading behind a tree.�

So much for our expertness as shadows, I thought.

�All in all, we figured it might be worthwhile talking to you boys,� the lieutenant went on. �Mind if Murphy and I take a look around your flat?�

When both of us merely stared at him, he produced a paper from his pocket and added casually, �On the off chance that you might have some objection, we brought along a search warrant.�

I don�t know whether my expression changed or not, but my heart began hammering so hard, I was afraid the beat could be heard. If the stupid-looking Patrolman Murphy had come alone, there would have been at least a chance that he would neglect peeking into the hatbox in the closet. But I had no hope that a police officer who obviously knew his business as well as Lieutenant Gunderson would miss it.

If only we had risked a light in the lab just once, I thought despairingly.

Bart was saying in an entirely calm voice, �Go right ahead, Lieutenant. But certainly you don�t expect to find Herman Groper here, do you?�

Rising, the only answer the lieutenant gave was a shrug. �I�ll take this room and the bedroom,� he said to Murphy. �You take the kitchen and bath.�

With a nod Murphy rose and entered the small interior hall which connected with the kitchen and bath. Bart and I sat and watched Lieutenant Gunderson begin a systematic search of the front room.

After a few moments Bart rose and walked into the bedroom. Gunderson glanced after him, then followed to the bedroom door. My heart went to my throat when I heard the closet door open.

What on earth is Bart trying to do? I wondered.

The lieutenant backed from the doorway in order to let Bart re-enter the front room. I looked at Bart in horror when I saw he was carrying the hatbox in his hands.

�You don�t mind if we continue with our gift wrapping, do you?� Bart asked the lieutenant casually.

Gunderson shrugged. With a bare glance at the hatbox, he went back to his interrupted search.

Carrying the box over to the table, Bart selected a large sheet of holly paper, neatly wrapped it and tied it with red ribbon. He built an elaborate bow with more ribbon and tied that on.

Momentarily pausing in his search, Gunderson said, �Pretty fancy package. For somebody special?�

�For Edward�s girl,� Bart said. �I have to wrap it because his packages always look as though they�d been kicked down a flight of stairs.�

He glanced at me. �How about making out the gift tag?�

I suddenly realized that Bart was enjoying the dangerous situation because it gave him a chance to pit his genius against that of the police. If he hadn�t been enjoying it, he would simply have wrapped the package and unobtrusively laid it beneath the table with the other wrapped gifts. But he had to drag out the drama by making an elaborate show of it.

A little unsteadily I got up, went to the table and picked out one of the stringed tags which lay there in a pile. With my fountain pen I wrote, �To Marge, with love, from Edward.�

Bart tied it to the package and set the box beneath the table with the other gifts.

Murphy came into the room and said, �How about this, Lieutenant?�

We all turned to look at him, and my heart again jumped to my throat. He was holding the cleaver, bone saw and large carving knife we had used to dissect Herman Groper�s corpse.

Gunderson walked over to examine the tools with interest.

�Brand new,� he commented. �Now why would you boys need these things in a light-housekeeping apartment? You in the habit of buying beef by the quarter?�

We were saved from having to make an immediate answer by the doorbell ringing. This time I went to answer it, glad of an excuse to turn my face away from Lieutenant Gunderson�s speculative gaze.

It was Marge who had rung the bell. She came in breathlessly, started to say, �I�m going to have to catch a midnight train home, Edward. My sister...�

She stopped when she saw the two policemen, and looked at me inquiringly.

When I had made introductions, Marge asked, �Is something the matter, Edward?�

�It�s about Herman Groper,� I said. �He�s been missing since Saturday night. These gentlemen are just making routine inquiries of the students who know him.�

�Oh,� she said a little puzzledly. �I heard he was mysteriously missing, but I didn�t know it had become a police matter.� She turned to the lieutenant. �Am I interrupting you?�

�We have lots of time, Miss,� Gunderson said. �But if you have to catch a midnight train, you�ve only got a couple of hours. Don�t mind us.�

�What happened?� I asked. �Is someone at home ill?�

�Oh no,� she told me. �My sister�s getting married very unexpectedly, and wants me for a bridesmaid. She phoned me at eight tonight. Her fiance is in the army, you know, and he�s been ordered overseas. She got a call from him at noon today that he has a ten-day leave and will be home tomorrow. They want to get married at once, so they can have a few days together before they�re separated for so long. I�ll only have to miss three days of classes before Christmas vacation officially starts, and my averages are high enough to stand it. Can you drive me to the station?�

�Of course,� I said. �Then you won�t be back until after the holidays?�

�No. I didn�t mean to give you this until Friday, but under the circumstances I�ll have to do it now.� She handed me a small, gaily-wrapped box and said, �Merry Christmas, Edward.�

Turning the box in my hand, I said, �Well, thanks, Marge.�

She looked at me expectantly, and after an uncomfortable silence, I walked to the table and reached beneath it for the small package containing the watch I had bought her.

When I handed it to her and said, �Merry Christmas to you, too,� I was conscious of the lieutenant�s gaze resting on me curiously.

�Thank you, Edward,� Marge said, and immediately began to rip off the paper.

�Hey!� I said. �That�s not to be opened until Christmas.�

�But we won�t see each other any more,� she said. �I want you to open yours now too.�

She finished stripping away the paper, opened the box and gave a little squeal of delight.

�Why, Edward! You shouldn�t have gotten anything so expensive. It�s simply lovely.�

Impulsively she grabbed my shoulders and gave me a light kiss on the chin. �Open yours now.�

Slowly I tore the wrapper from her gift, lifted the lid of the small box inside and gazed at the monogrammed cuff links in it.

�Say, these are handsome,� I said with a smile I had to force because I was conscious of Lieutenant Gunderson�s steady gaze on me. I held them out for Bart to see.

�Aren�t you going to give her the other gift?� Gunderson asked in a curiously quiet voice.

If I can only prevent her from opening it now, I thought desperately. If I can only get her to take it away with her and promise not to open it till later. Somehow I would be able to think of a convincing story to get it back from her, if only I could get past the crisis of the moment.

Straightening with the package in my hands, I said, �This is just an extra thing, Marge. I want it to be a surprise. Let�s save it till the last minute at the railroad station.�

�We�ll be too rushed at the station, Edward. I still have some packing to do, and it�s only two hours till train time.�

As she started to tear the paper, I practically shouted, �No! I want you to save it!�

She gazed at me with her mouth open. Silence grew in the room.

I knew from the ominous nature of the silence that it was hopeless now. While Lieutenant Gunderson couldn�t possibly know what was in the hatbox, my near panic had alerted his suspicions enough to make him curious. I knew there wasn�t a chance in the world that he�d allow the package to leave the apartment unopened.

Even as this hopeless thought struck me, Gunderson confirmed it by saying in a quiet but definite tone, �I think you�d better finish opening it right now, Miss.�

She was the only client who ever hired Sheldon Scott, Investigations � that�s me � before a word was spoken. She didn�t know it, but I had taken her case, no matter what it was, before she opened her mouth � and it was my mouth that opened first, anyway.

She came into my suddenly drab office like a Spring breeze visiting Winter, and closed the frosted glass door gently behind her. Then she walked up to my mahogany desk and I got a really good look at her.

And it was really good.

She had red hair like combed fire, blue eyes that were soft as whispers, and a figure that made other women seem two-dimensional.

She was a tall girl. I�m six-two, and when I stood up behind my desk her lips were only about five inches below mine, which was five inches too far, but those blue eyes seemed somehow wrong in her oval face � a little too cold and brittle, and out of place like ice in a just-right martini.

Maybe that should have warned me. It didn�t.

�You must be Mr. Scott. I hope you�re free to help me. I do need help.�

The voice wrapped me in a cocoon of warm words. It was like perfume made audible. It was a velvety, vibrant voice filled with promises I wanted to help her keep. My stand-up hair is white, yes; but not from old age.

�I�m Shell Scott. And I�m free. I just decided.� I grinned at her as I walked around the desk and moved the deep leather chair closer to it, then went back to my swivel chair as she sat down. But she wasn�t in a smiling mood.

�I�m Doris Miller,� she said.

I was glad to know her name, but it didn�t ring any bells.

�Ross Miller is my brother. You probably recall his name � he�s in San Quentin now.�

That got a tinkle. Several months ago here in L.A., one K. C. �Casey� Flagg had been murdered. He�d been a partner in the law firm of Tomkins, Borch, and Flagg, and he�d had, I understood, rather a wide acquaintance among numerous city officials and local VIPs. I�d considered him an unsavory character. Flagg had been shot to death early one evening in his penthouse suite in the Whitestone. The police had arrived soon after � in response to a phone call, apparently from somebody who�d heard the shot but hadn�t wanted to give his name � and had found a young lawyer, recently employed in Flagg�s office, standing over the body. The suspect had, only two days before, been in a violent quarrel with the victim, and been fired as a consequence. It had seemed an open and shut case of premeditated murder. And unless my memory had failed me, the convicted murderer�s name had been Ross Miller.

I said, �Was your brother involved in the investigation into Casey Flagg�s mur� death?�

She nodded. �They said Ross killed him � but he didn�t. He found out that Flagg was mixed up in some kind of crooked dealing � I don�t know just what it was and I don�t think Ross was sure himself � and that was what they had a big argument about. Some other people heard them, and they just used that quarrel to help convict him. But he didn�t kill that man!�

She had half risen from the leather chair. She sat back in it and went on slowly, �Ross was convicted entirely on circumstantial evidence, and the most damaging testimony against him was given by that elevator operator, Weiss. Do you remember, Mr. Scott?�

�Uh-huh.� Chester Weiss was a middle-aged man who�d been an important prosecution witness at the trial. He operated the elevator in the Whitestone. His testimony had been that Ross Miller was the only man to go up to the penthouse suite that night, at least within an hour or more of time when Flagg had been killed. Which pretty well stuck Miller with the job.

The lovely went on, �Mr. Weiss came to see me yesterday. He said he�d been forced to lie at the trial, and that my brother was probably innocent. Mr. Weiss wanted to tell me the truth, get the weight off his conscience, he said, but he wouldn�t agree to go with me to tell the police his story. He was awfully afraid of going to jail.�

�Confessed perjurers usually do go to jail.�

She nodded, light glinting on the red hair. �He did promise, though, that he would come back today and give me the whole story in writing, signed by him. I think then he was planning to leave town.�

�And he didn�t come back,� I said.

�That�s right. I called his hotel � he�s still in the Whitestone � but he wasn�t there. And I can�t wait long. I�ve got to at least get his statement today if I can.�

I squinted at her. �I can understand why you�re anxious, Miss... it is Miss?�

She nodded abstractedly.

�But why wouldn�t tomorrow do as well?� I was curious to know why she seemed in such a rush. She told me.

�Today�s Monday,� she said. �On Friday Ross goes into the gas chamber.�

�Oh. I see. Weiss admitted perjuring himself, huh?�

�Yes. He said he either had to lie or be killed.�

�Who was threatening him. Did he say?�

�Quinn. Frank Quinn.�

Involuntarily, I groaned. Frank Quinn was a slug-like, pasty-faced, flabby-bodied hoodlum grown big and powerful in the rackets. I�d bumped into Quinn on several occasions, and he was the only human being who�d ever made me wish I was a Martian. Or else he was the only Martian who�d ever made me glad I was a human.

Doris Miller looked at me. �Do you know the man? His name was mentioned at the trial.�

�We�ve met.�

She made a face. �He�s... a gangster, isn�t he?�

Gangster. It sounded so quaint coming from those ripe, red lips. Those lips that looked as if they were always on the verge of puckering. Which is a good verge to be on. I said, �He is one of the behind-the-scenes lads you hear about once in a while. Oh, there�s no doubt he shot and slugged his share of victims on his way up, but now he has twenty or thirty hoodlums to do his dirty work. He�s a successful failure.�

�He sounds dangerous enough.�

�He is. Did Weiss say why Quinn forced him to perjure himself?�

�Yes. He told me that Quinn went up to the penthouse a little while before Ross. That would have been right at the time when the murder happened. Mr. Weiss said he felt sure that Quinn had killed the man himself and just made it look as if Ross did it.�

�I see. And Quinn told Weiss to keep his mouth shut or he�d wind up dead, too, huh?�

She nodded. �That�s about what he said.�

One thing had been puzzling me, and I asked Doris, �How come Weiss just got around to spilling what he knew? If he was afraid of Quinn at the time of the trial, why isn�t he now?�

�Mr. Weiss had a bad heart attack recently. And he almost died, he said. He told me he�d spent a lot of time since then thinking about what he should do, and decided he�d have to tell the truth. He�s still afraid of Quinn, he said; but more afraid of not telling what he knew... before Friday.�

�Uh-huh. Makes sense. Anything else you can tell me?�

All she personally knew about the murder of Flagg was what had come out at the trial � and what her brother had told her, which was that he was innocent Ross had told her that he�d received a phone call allegedly from K. C. Flagg asking him to hurry right over. He�d gone to the Whitestone, up in the elevator with Weiss to the penthouse apartment, and walked in to find Flagg dead. And then there were policemen all over him. It was the same story he�d told at the trial, and just simple enough to be true.

�Well,� I said, �if Weiss will just do a repeat on that story of his, with witnesses, we�ve got it made, it would appear.�

�You... but you haven�t even said you�d help me, Mr. Scott.�

�I haven�t? I didn�t? Well, I thought I had. I will, naturally.�

She was smiling again. But then she must have thought of her brother breathing cyanide, and her lovely face sobered. We settled my fee, but there was so much promise in her velvety voice, in her lips, and perhaps even ears and elbows, that money hardly seemed worth while any more. She wanted me, specifically, to find Weiss and at least get that signed statement from him, or else get him to talk to the law; and, generally, to do anything else that would help save her brother. I agreed to do everything humanly possible, and perhaps more.

Usually I let clients find their own way out of the office and down to the street. But this one I took to the door, and I watched her walk down the hallway to the elevator. It seemed a shame that I hadn�t seen her approaching.

Back in the office I spent a little time brushing up on the facts of the case, the trial and known events leading up to it. Quinn�s name had been brought out in the trial. The defense had tried, without any success at all, to show that he might himself have visited Flagg�s suite the night of the murder, November 20. It was known that he had been in the Whitestone that night. But Quinn had, he claimed, been discussing �business� with a blonde named Lucy Dale who lived on the second floor of the Whitestone. She had corroborated that story.

I made a few calls trying to locate Chester Weiss, but without success, so I decided to take a look at his hotel, the Whitestone. A desk clerk there with tobacco stains on his stubbled chin told me that Weiss was in room 34. He didn�t seem to care if I went up, or down, or set fire to the hotel, so I went on upstairs.

The door was slightly ajar, and I knocked on it, then waited. Nothing happened. After a few seconds I knocked again, harder, and the door swung open silently. �Weiss,� I called quietly. �Anybody home?� There wasn�t any answer, and I stepped inside.

He was here, but nobody was home. He was lying on his back, fully dressed, on an unmade bed across the room, and I could tell by the way he lay there that he was dead.

I walked to the bed, leaned over and touched his skin, lifted one of his eyelids and looked at the relaxed pupil. He was dead, all right. Without moving his body I looked him over for evidence of what had killed him. There wasn�t any blood, no bullet holes or knife wounds. It appeared that he�d died a natural death, but I wouldn�t buy that until the coroner had looked him over. Outside and inside. The timing of his demise was far too neat to suit me.

After a quick examination of the room I went downstairs and used a phone to call Homicide. Twenty minutes later the police had finished checking the room, the crime lab boys had done their job and Weiss� body was being carried on a stretcher through the hotel lobby.

I used a lobby phone to call Doris Miller�s number. She answered almost immediately. �Yes?�

�This is Shell Scott.�

�Oh, have you found out anything yet?�

�Yeah. You won�t be seeing Weiss again. He�s dead. I think he was helped to get that way, and��

�Dead!� she interrupted. �Oh, I knew it, I just knew something awful would... What will happen to Ross now? How can��

�Hold it. The main reason I called you is this: If Weiss was murdered, the timing of his death right after he went to see you means he was probably tailed to your place. In which case, whoever followed the man and knocked him off may think you already know too much. So be careful, understand?�

There was silence for several seconds. Then she said, �I�ll be careful. But � oh, dear. What is there left to do now?�

Her voice was twisted, as if those blue eyes were about to melt into tears, and I didn�t want that lovely crying over anything. �Hey,� I said. �You�re a lot better off even now than before Weiss talked to you, aren�t you?�

She sniffled. �Yes, that�s true.�

�So take it easy. I�ve only been on the case an hour.�

�But what can you do? The only man who could have helped me and Ross is dead.�

�Not quite. We assume your brother�s innocent.�

�Of course.�

�Then there�s still the guy who shot Casey Flagg in the first place. So I think I�ll pay a call on Frank Quinn.�

I told Doris I�d see her later and we hung up. The more I thought about Frank Quinn, the better he looked as the guy who�d plugged Casey Flagg. And, if I could get any evidence that Quinn had killed Weiss, it would also be an indication that he�d murdered Flagg. But before heading toward Quinn�s out-of-town estate, I went up to the second floor here in the Whitestone Hotel, where Lucy Dale still lived in her comfortable suite. During the few minutes I spent talking to her she insisted that Frank Quinn had, for sure, been with her at the time of Flagg�s murder � just as she had already said so many times. She told the story easily enough, but she seemed scared. And she didn�t convince me.

A few minutes after five P.M. I turned into the one-lane blacktop road that led to Quinn�s estate. A mile from the main highway I reached a heavy iron gate closed across the blacktop. Beyond it I could see a big, off-white house rising from an expanse of green lawn like a square mushroom. This was my first visit here, but I�d heard from others about the place. It was thirty rooms on several acres of ground completely enclosed by wire fencing. A couple of armed �hunters� walked the grounds day and night, just in case any rabbits tried to break in, and the gate opening on the driveway that led to the house was controlled electrically from a small shack inside the fence. It was to be assumed that Frank Quinn felt reasonably safe from interruption at home.

The gatehouse was inside the fence, and on my right. As I got out of the Cad, a tall, slope-shouldered guy walked from the small shack to the gate facing me. He was about fifty years old, and lean.

I slammed the car door and the man said, �You�re headin� in the wrong direction, podner.�

He was wearing black boots chased with an intricate design of white beads, whipcord trousers, and a green-and-gray shirt. A red silk bandanna was around his neck, held together over his Adam�s apple by a silver pin. A ten-gallon pearl-colored stetson sat crookedly on his head. He looked a little bit like the end of the world. A double-barreled shotgun hung easily in the crook of his right arm.

For a few seconds, I just blinked at the man, then I walked to the gate and stood facing him. I said, �Tell Quinn that Shell Scott�s here to see him.�

�He expecting you?�

�He knows me.�

�That means he ain�t expecting you. You ain�t on my list.�

�Tell him anyway, Tex.�

�Name�s Nevada.� He shifted the shotgun casually so that it pointed at my middle. What was left of my lunch stopped digesting. �They�s a big lop-eared rabbit right behind you, hoy,� Nevada said. �If�n you don�t move right sprightly, I�m apt to nick you when I shoot him.�

The remains of my lunch turned into cast iron nuts and bolts, but I said as casually as I could, �You�re taking a lot on yourself, aren�t you, Nevada? Don�t you even ask the boss?�

He looked bleakly at me, deliberated, then stepped into the little house. Plate-glass windows � probably bullet-proof � were set into all four walls of the shack, and I could see Nevada pick up a phone. He spoke into it for almost a minute, then put the phone down next to a small lever on the counter, and pulled on the lever. Immediately the iron gate started sliding aside.

Nevada came out and said, with the shotgun aimed at me again, �Frank says he�ll give you a couple minutes. If you got a gun it�d be smart for you to leave it with me.�

I hesitated. I carry my.38 Colt Special in a shoulder clip practically all the time except when I�m in the bathtub. But logic and the steady shotgun overcame my misgivings. I reached under my coat and pulled the revolver out, slowly, and with a most peaceful expression on my face.

Nevada told me to lay my gun gently on the grass, which I did, and then he went on, �Boys at the house would just have to take it off your body,� he said grinning. �Ain�t no way out except this anyhow � except over the fence. And there�s a little juice in the fence, boy. You try to go over it, you heat up like Palm Springs in mid-summer.� He paused and added, �Play it cozy, and I�ll give you back the little gun on your way out.�

The drive continued straight in for about a hundred yards, then swung sharply left in front of the house. I parked the Cad a few feet from the entrance, got out and went up four wide steps to the front door. They were expecting me, and a tall wispy ectomorph with thin hips and thinner shoulders opened the door before I�d reached for the buzzer.

�C�mon,� he said, then turned and walked ahead of me.

I followed him in, down a thickly carpeted hall on our left and into a monstrous room, like a hotel ballroom. The floor was uncarpeted and slick, as if it were used for dancing. Potted plants made splotches of green, all around the huge room. We marched across the slick floor to a wide staircase that led upstairs. At its top was a hall running to our left and right. Directly opposite the head of the stairs was a big hand-carved door, closed; a few feet to its left was a similar door, ajar. We went to the one on the left, and on into a high-ceilinged room, brightly illuminated by sunlight flowing through big windows on the south side. Red draperies were pulled back from the windows, and the carpet was black. A black desk was against one wall. On a red couch at my left sat Frank Quinn.

The sallow, near-dead look of him against the red upholstery made him resemble a big maggot that had just crawled out of some dry meat. The loose flesh of his jowls dangled alongside his face, his too-red lips drooped, deeply wrinkled skin hung underneath his wide chin. Quinn looked like a man who had tried to keep alive by eating nothing but salt pork and lard, and hadn�t been able to do it.

Behind Quinn, half sitting on the back of the divan, was a normal looking guy about my age, thirty. He had no special charm, but alongside Quinn he seemed dashing and almost lovable. His name was Jay, he was one of Quinn�s few trusted lieutenants, and the story was told that he�d killed a couple of men and done a short bit at an out-of-state prison.

The guy who�d led me in shut the door and leaned back against it. Quinn said, �O.K, Scott.�

There was no charm or affection in his voice. The two of us hadn�t run head on into each other before, but I�d tangled with some of his hired muscle, and as a result his staff had become less muscular. Quinn, consequently, disliked me intensely. The only advantage I had at the moment was that he couldn�t know for sure how much I knew � or even why I was here. But he had, I knew, a short-fused temper, and if I could light the fuse there was a chance of blowing some interesting information out of his mouth.

So I said, �The Crime Commission sent me out here to discover if you�re really Dracula.�

His mouth didn�t drop open for at least four or five seconds. But then it penetrated and he got his legs under him and started to his feet, swearing every inch of the way. He called me some very ugly names, and right in the middle of one of them I said sharply, �Stow it, friend. Keep that tongue from flapping at me, or bodyguards or no bodyguards I�ll tear it out and flap it back at you.�

I thought he was going to strangle on his own words. He sputtered, but then caught himself and with a huge effort at self control, calmed himself down, at least on the surface.

�Scott,� he said, his voice quivering, �for this I�m going to kill you myself.�

�Like K. C. Flagg?�

�I�m clean on Flagg, you stupid jerk. But I�ll finish you with pleasure. If that�s what you came out here to say, you wasted a trip.�

�Relax, Quinn. Can�t you take it any more?� He stared at me, and I continued, �What I really came out here to see you about is Chester Weiss.�

�I don�t know nothing about what happened to Chester��

He caught himself, but it was too late. He should not, of course, have known that anything had happened to Chester Weiss, not unless he�d helped it happen. So his reaction told me what I�d wanted to know � that Weiss� death wasn�t accidental; and that Quinn either was responsible for the kill, or knew plenty about it.

And suddenly Quinn was completely calm. Slowly he said, �Scott, I guess you know you�re a little too wise for your own good.�

�Can�t we talk about Chester, Quinn?�

Blandly he asked, �What about Chester? What�s he done now?�

�Got himself killed by somebody.�

�Well, now. That�s too bad. It�s always too bad when some nice guy gets himself killed by somebody. You know, Scott, I been thinking of you as a nice guy.�

�Sure. Can�t we talk about��

�We can�t talk about anything, Scott.�

�Well, I�ll be seeing you, Quinn. Say hello to all the dope pushers for me.�

�You�re not going anyplace.�

�Knock it off. I just left the police with Chester�s body. I told a couple of my friends on the force I was coming out here. If I�m away too long, they�ll start wondering why. You don�t think I�d come here unless I knew I could get back out, do you?�

Quinn rolled that around in his head. It was the kind of logic that made sense to him. He knew he couldn�t keep me here, especially not with bullet holes in my head. He could get away with plenty, but not with killing me right here on his own grounds. Someplace else, maybe, but not in a way that could be tied on him for sure.

He looked at me for what seemed a long time, then he glanced at Jay. He said, �Jay � and you, too, Cline�� he nodded toward the other man still resting with his back against the door �you might as well hear this right in front of Scott. We�re going to let him leave, see? But if you ever see his ugly face around here again, shoot it off. You get it? He likes to shoot his face off so well himself, that we�re going to help him do it.�

Jay laughed heartily, and the ectomorph at the door giggled. I walked toward the door and the man there stepped aside. Nobody laid a hand on me or tried to stop me. I got back into my Cadillac with only one further incident, and that was a minor one. I was walking pretty fast down the hall leading to the front entrance when a door opened and a woman stepped out and almost walked right into me.

There was no harm done, but she looked me over good. Besides my white hair, I�ve got goofily angled whitish eyebrows and a slightly angled nose, so even a quick look would have probably been enough for her to remember me. But she seemed to be trying to memorize me, or else place me from somewhere. I recognized her as Mrs. Quinn. She was a well-stacked gal with a coarse, hard-looking face, and about thirty-five years old. After a quick apology for nearly banging into her, I went on out to the Cad and drove to the closed gate.

Nevada, the shotgun still in the crook of his arm, took his time, but finally strolled over and handed me my.38. I stuck it back in the spring shoulder holster as he said, �What�d you do, set fire to Frank�s pants?�

�In a manner of speaking, Nevada. Why, was he burning?�

�Called up and jest said to let you go, boy. But he sounded unhappy.�

�Too bad. He�s brought so much joy into the lives of others.�

Nevada snickered, and after a little further conversation turned his back on me and went into his little house. It took him a long time to open the gate, but finally it slid smoothly aside. I drove on through it and back down the blacktop road.

It was getting dark when I reached the two-lane road that led into the Freeway. I was pushing the Cad fast, and keeping my eyes well peeled, though I didn�t really expect any trouble for a few hours, anyway. I knew that it was ten to one that Quinn would be giving me a very bad time before much longer, but I didn�t figure he�d move as quickly as he did.

I pulled up at the stop sign before the Freeway, and had to wait almost a minute before I could swing into the traffic stream heading back toward downtown L.A. A motorist fifty yards down the Freeway on my left was having trouble. He�d stopped his two-toned blue Chrysler as far to the right as he could get and had his hood up, but the Freeways aren�t made for parking or emergency stops and he was in a rather dangerous spot.

Maybe it was that thought � that he was in a dangerous spot. Or maybe it was that the guy peering under the Chrysler hood looked in my direction twice while I was waiting for a good chance to pull into the traffic stream. Whatever it was, it pulled the nerves of my spine from both ends and stretched them a little. The tingle ran up my back and automatically I reached under my coat for the.38.

I squeezed it gently in my hand and glanced at it, rubbed my thumb easily over the knurled hammer and started to slide the gun back into its holster. But then I stopped. There was something wrong. I didn�t know what it was for a moment, but I looked at the Colt again. Then it was obvious. The gun was empty. The five cartridges I usually keep in the gun were gone, and all six chambers were empty.

Nevada � he�d had the gun, and now I recalled how casually he�d given it back to me. After being a little too friendly and chatty, he�d turned and walked easily to his little house. Obviously he�d known my gun was empty. He wouldn�t have emptied it on his own initiative; that meant Quinn must have phoned him from the house and told him to do it, while I was driving to the gate, then had him stall me, slow me down. And why, I wondered, would Quinn have done that? The answer was easy.

Traffic slackened a bit and I swung right into the Freeway, leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. In a couple seconds I�d grabbed the box of shells I keep in there and had it open on the seat alongside me. At least nobody had ransacked the car. Behind me the Chrysler was just pulling into the center lane, its engine troubles miraculously ended. It stayed a block or more behind me. I loaded the gun while I drove, then continued to steer with one hand while I held the.38 loosely in my lap. Maybe my deductions were out of line, but if trouble came from anybody in the Chrysler, he would expect me to be carrying an empty gun.

And trouble came in a hurry. The two-toned blue job picked up speed fast, got larger in my rearview mirror. As it neared me I could see that there were two men in the front seat. The Chrysler got to within ten yards of me, then swung left to pass. I thumbed back the hammer of my.38. Having the gun already cocked would save only a split second, but I wanted the split second in my favor.

I was moving along about fifty, but the Chrysler must have been hitting eighty, because suddenly it was alongside me. If I hadn�t spotted the car before turning into the Freeway, it would all have been over in the next moment. But was ready, and looking to my left-over the two-inch barrel of my revolver � as the other car came up level with me. The guy on the driver�s right, next to me, already had his gun stuck out the window � and it was a submachine gun.

He was swinging it toward my head when I fired. I pulled the trigger three times, and saw two dark spots appear on one side of his face. His head jerked back and the tommy gun started to fall, pressing momentarily against the man�s finger around the trigger. A burst of shots cracked out harshly above the traffic noise. Heavy slugs spat from the gun�s muzzle and ricocheted whining from the highway, then the gun fell onto the street.

The Chrysler veered toward me and I had to slap my brakes. I got one glimpse of the driver�s face as it jerked toward and quickly away, then the Chrysler zoomed ahead and swung sharply right with its tires screaming. He cut across two lanes and off the Freeway onto Blair Street, narrowly missing a dark sedan that skidded several feet to avoid crashing into him. I might have been able to keep on his tail if I�d been a little quicker, but I wasn�t kicking.

I coasted along with the traffic for a little while, edging over to the right lane. I kept telling myself that, I was calm, quite cool and collected, but then I realized that when I had put my.38 away, I had somehow stuck it into the breast pocket of my coat. There is something about the sight of a Submachine gun that can play havoc with cool thinking for days. After the Chrysler�s driver had gotten off the Freeway, there�d been almost no chance that I could have caught him. But I did stop the first chance I got and put in a call to the police complaint board. The description I gave was an easy one to remember. There was probably only one two-tone blue Chrysler with a dead man in it in all L.A. When that was taken care of I made a more pleasant call, to Doris Miller, and then drove over to see her.

She lived alone in half of a small duplex near MacArthur Park. When I rang, she opened the door, smiled and stepped back, and I almost leaped forward. When she had come into my office earlier this day, the visual impact had been almost enough to spin my eyes smack around so they were looking at my brain, and she had then been dressed in street clothes. Well, what she was wearing now wasn�t street clothes. At least not any of the streets in this neck of the woods. They looked more like neck of the woods clothes.

I am not expert at describing women�s outer garments � or inner garments, for that matter � but I would say that Doris was crammed into turquoise blue overalls, which were over much less than all, made out of velvet and with a V-neck fashioned with a capital V in mind, and it fit her so snugly everywhere that as far as inner garments go, they appeared to have gone.

�Hello, Shell,� she said. �Is there anything left for us to do?�

�I should say there is,� I said. �There�s plenty left for us to do.�

She looked at me strangely. �What? I thought you said he was dead.�

�He? Who?�

I�ll tell you, that was some garment she had on. Everything was all mixed up for several seconds, but then I gathered my dwindling mental powers into a shining point and said, �Oh, him.� I took a deep breath, and pulled myself together. �Yeah, he�s dead, all right. Weiss, that is.�

�But he was our only chance,� she said bitterly.

�Our best chance, Doris. Not the only one. There is the salient fact that a couple of Quinn�s men just tried to kill me.�

�Kill you?�

That called for some explanation. When I�d finished bringing Doris up to date, I added, �The fact that he did try to have me killed proves his guilt as far as I�m concerned.�

�But there isn�t any way to prove it to anybody else, is there?� she asked thoughtfully.

�Not yet. The important thing about Weiss� death is this: The only reason for killing him was to keep him from talking � to you, and then maybe to others � about Flagg�s murder. And it follows that the only man who would fear what Weiss might say would be the man who really killed Flagg. It figures that he�s also the man responsible for trying to kill me. Each time it comes up Frank Quinn. So Weiss told you the truth.�

She, was quiet for a while. Then she said, �You make it sound simple enough, Shell. But... well, frankly, what good does it do Ross and me? That�s not going to get him out of prison,�

�True. But there are still four days left in the week.�

At that point we dropped discussion of the case. Four days weren�t nearly enough for the job of proving Quinn�s guilt. Forty days would have been more like it. But I didn�t tell that to Doris.

We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes, then she said, �I�m pretty tired, Shell. Think I�ll go to bed.�

�Oh?�

There must have been in my expression something of what flashed through my mind, because she smiled and added, �So you�d better run along. I feel wretched, really.�

�Oh.� It had quite a different sound this time, even to my ears.

She walked to the door with me and outside, and as I turned toward her to say good night, she lifted her face and looked up at me, her lips parted, gleaming, and curved slightly upwards at the corners in what might have been the start of a smile. Might have been � but I would never know for sure, because I put my hand behind her, in the small of her back, and pulled her close against me.

She didn�t resist, didn�t pull away, and I saw her eyes close, lids falling heavily over them as her lips parted even more, and then those lips were on mine. On mine like melting lava, hot and wetly pulsing, curling, trembling. It could have been seconds or minutes later that she pressed her flat hands against my chest and pushed me away from her.

�Goodnight, Shell,� she said softly, and then she was gone. The door closed behind her. I turned and walked to my car and got in, and if anybody had been nearby, and desirous of shooting me, that would have been the best possible time for it. I drove toward town with a silly smile on my still-tingling lips, and it was only when I hit the Hollywood Freeway heading for home that I thought about looking behind me.

But I made it to the Spartan Apartment Hotel, where I live in Hollywood, with no trouble. Before turning in I called the Police Building, got put through to Homicide and spent a few minutes in conversation with a couple of the officers there. The coroner had gone over the body of Chester Weiss, and had reported that the deceased had died of a heart attack. There were no unusual marks or cuts on the body, nothing at all out of the ordinary except a few faint bruises. The coroner�s verdict was that Chester Weiss had died a natural death.

It took me quite a while to get to sleep.

For the next two days I spent all my time trying to dig up anything that would help clear Ross Miller. I still felt despite the coroner�s report, that Weiss had been murdered, and I spent a lot of time trying to get something, anything, on Frank Quinn, something that would be a lever I might use to pry more out of him. All the time I had to keep looking over my shoulder, making sure that nobody was aiming at the back of my fat head. I got a zero. I came up with a blank, nothing.

I even did some checking on Ross Miller himself, learning only that he seemed more innocent the more I found out about him. He was a law school honor graduate with a twenty-two-year old sister, Doris Miller, which I knew; and a thirty-year-old fianc�e Jane French, which I hadn�t known. I tried to locate the fianc�e, but couldn�t, so I spent all my free time with Doris. That amounted to only about twenty minutes a day, but it helped keep me going fast and furious. Doris told me that Jane French had gone back to her home in Kansas City; it hadn�t seemed likely that there was going to be a wedding.

It still didn�t seem likely. By Wednesday afternoon I had no more than I�d had when I�d left Frank Quinn�s fenced-in estate on Monday. I�d picked up a lot of miscellaneous info; but there was nothing that would stop an execution.

I knew that Flagg had been an intermediary, or payoff man � a Bagman � between Quinn and selected city officials who did occasional work that benefited Quinn. I knew that Flagg had needed killing, and I was morally certain that Quinn had pulled the job himself, in person. But it was all conjecture, probability, and logic; there wasn�t a shred of usable proof about any of it. And Friday afternoon Ross Miller would start breathing cyanide.

At five-thirty P.M. Thursday I sat at my desk in the office having a meal of sandwiches and milk and using the phone. I had decided that it would take a miracle for me to have a chance of getting Quinn and clearing Ross.

And at five-thirty P.M. I got it.

The phone rang. I grabbed it and said hello, and a woman�s voice said, �Is this Shell Scott?�

�Yeah.�

�Are you alone?�

�I�m alone � you can talk, if that�s what you mean.�

�I know you�ve been looking into the murder of Casey Flagg. And the trial. You�d like to send Frank Quinn to prison for it, wouldn�t you?�

I sat up straight in my swivel chair, gripping the phone hard. �I would.�

�Then we�re partners. Because so would I. Frank did it, all right.�

�Who is this?� I remembered the blonde in the Whitestone Hotel. �Lucy?�

�No, this isn�t Lucy. This is Mrs. Frank Quinn.�

Half an hour later I parked the Cad in a lot on Fifth and started walking toward The Lantern, a bar and grill where I�d enjoyed many bourbon-and-waters and orders of rare prime ribs. I was well known there, and it was a most unlikely spot in which to be shot in the back, which was why I had chosen it.

I didn�t see any suspicious characters, or out-of-place loungers as I walked down the alley behind The Lantern. Playing it as safe as I could, I went in through the kitchen, saying a quiet hello to Luigi, the perspiring chef. At the swinging doors leading from kitchen into club I paused and looked over the club�s interior, but nothing seemed out of place.

I was early, purposely. Ten minutes after my arrival, Mrs. Quinn came in the front door. She was alone. She spoke to the headwaiter, then went to one of the curtained booths on my left. I waited five minutes, but nobody else came in after her. Then I walked to the booth.

�Hello, Mr. Scott,� she said.

�Hello again.� I sat down across the table from her and said, �We meet under strange circumstances.�

�Never mind the small talk.� She was all business. �I suppose you�re willing to stick your neck out if you can get enough on my husband to send him to prison.�

�My neck�s out about as far as it can get now. Your husband�s already tried to kill me once.�

�I know. I was on an extension and heard him call Davey and Borden before you even left the house Monday. He said for them to blast you on the Freeway, a few miles from the house.� She reeled that out casually, as if it were relatively unimportant, then went on, �I got a good look at you, but I thought it was the last time I�d see you alive. Then when Davey came in babbling that Borden was stiff in the car, I decided you were my man.�

�That�s good. I guess. Your man for what?� The charm had rubbed off this gal long ago, and whatever rubbed it off had just kept on rubbing, but if she could help me get to Quinn, I could do without charm.

�My husband�s throwing a party tomorrow night out at our place. Lot of his friends are invited to celebrate.�

�What does it have to do with me? I�m no friend of his.�

�It�s a costume ball. You know, you come as your favorite history character. Or a dream. Or suppressed desire � anything. You know, Frank likes to do things big � spare no expense and all that.�

�Good old Frank.�

�Yeah. The pig. Anyway, they�ll be wearing masks and all, so you should be able to get into the house with a mask on, huh?�

�I don�t know. Maybe.�

�Have to wear a mask, all right.� She shook her head. �With that face, maybe you ought to wear two masks.�

�Look, this is interesting as can be, but I�ve a few questions: One, what good will it do me � and you � if I get into the party; two, how do I know I won�t be shot in the back of the head if I go within eight miles of your husband�s fortress; three, how come you claim that you�re willing to finger your own husband��

�Forget the number-three question. That�s my business. I just want Frank sent to college and figure you�re the man who can arrange it. A nice life sentence would suit me. The pig. As for the rest of it...� She paused, fumbling in a handbag the size of a briefcase, pulled out an envelope and handed it to me.

While I was opening the envelope and taking an engraved card out of it, Mrs. Quinn said, �There�s a floor safe under the desk in Frank�s room � that crumby red and black mausoleum you were in. Nobody in the world knows the combination to the safe but Frank. Not even me. Not even his wife. How do you like that?�

I shrugged. Inside the envelope was an engraved invitation stating that, �You are cordially invited� and so on. The date was tomorrow night at seven P.M., and the address was Frank Quinn�s. The invitation didn�t look like something that could have been dreamed up and produced on the spur of the moment. �What about the safe?� I asked.

�Well, there�s enough stuff in that safe to hang a dozen big stuffed shirts in L.A., see? But more important, I know there�s some stuff that would stick Frank good. He keeps it because it helps hold some other guys in line. You get it?� She talked like a man. But, then, she looked like a man.

�I�ve run across the same kind of situation before.�

�Some of the stuff in there isn�t no good to Frank, but he�s fixed it so all the junk in that safe goes to his executor � you know, when he dies � and it�ll ruin some men Frank hates. He hates hard, that man. It would ruin Frank, too, see; but he won�t care when he�s dead. You get it? Just plain meanness, that�s all.�

�Yeah. So?�

�Well, what more do you want? All you got to do is go into the safe and drag out all the papers and you got Frank tied up good. With any luck, you�ll have enough to save your boy�s skin. That Ross character.�

She stopped and glared at me as if I�d just started eating soup with my fork. I said, �Yes, ma�am. All I have to do is rip open the safe with my bare hands and get the papers and walk out with sixteen bullet holes and three knives in my back, bite my way through the fence you�ve got��

�Oh, knock it. I thought you had a lot of moxie or I wouldn�t have come here. I�ll see that the safe�s open at eight P.M. on the nose. If you can get in, then you should be able to get out under your own power. How you do it, that�s up to you. I brought you an invitation � and nobody, but nobody, gets in without an invitation. That�s about all I can do. What more do you want?�

I sighed. �That�s enough, I guess. But I confess to a little puzzlement. Why you�re doing this, for example. And how you plan to have the safe open.�

�As for the safe, I�ll have a diamond necklace Frank keeps in the safe � he�ll give it to me tomorrow sometime, I�ll decide I don�t want to wear it, just before eight, and he�ll naturally put it back in the safe. So, the safe will be open. From there it�s up to you � I don�t care if you shoot the pig in the��

She told me where to shoot him, but I merely shuddered invisibly at the thought of such a thing happening to me and asked her again why she was telling me all this. Mrs. Quinn merely repeated that it was none of my business.

�This could be a somewhat involved way,� I said, �to get me out there where I could be shot.�

�You�ll be shot if they lay eyes on you, all right. And I can understand why you�re suspicious. But you�ll just have to take my word for it. Or forget the whole thing. I can figure out another way to get rid of Frank without killing him. But I thought I�d be doing you a favor � and getting a good man on my side at the same time.� She paused, then added, �And to tell you the truth, I could maybe ask a friend of mine to do this job � but he might get shot. I don�t really care much if you get shot. Frank�s already trying to kill you, so what�ve you got to lose? This way you got a chance to stick him and save your neck � and maybe that Ross guy�s � all at the same time. Well, do you want to try it or not?�

�I�ll give it a try. But first tell me a couple things.�

She looked at her wristwatch. �Make it snappy.�

�Maybe you can prove right now whether or not you�re on the level with me.�

�Try me.�

�Did your husband kill Weiss?�

She nodded. �But you�ll never be able to prove it. He was afraid Weiss might start babbling, and had him followed. Weiss got out of line somehow, and the boys brought him to the ranch. They wrapped him in blankets and tied a rope around him and made him run along behind a car till he flopped. Then they did it again. Finally he just keeled over and kicked off.� She grinned at me. �The toughest part was getting him into his hotel again, but they managed to sneak him in the back way, while it was still dark.�

I smiled back at her and said, �What a lovely group you mingle with.�

�He had a bad heart, you know.�

�Yeah. That�s what he died of. Heart failure. But not K. C. Flagg. He was shot. I�ve been thinking he was shot by your husband.�

�And you�re right. Casey Flagg held out a lot of the payoff money, the way I get it � actually, Jay told me most of this. When Frank found out, he stormed up there to the Whitestone and in the middle of the beef he shot him � Frank�s got a wild temper.�

�So he has.�

�Weiss was working for Frank all along. Frank just put a little more pressure on him and made him swear at the trial that Miller was the only one who went up to the penthouse that night.�

�How�d Miller happen to be there?�

�Frank called him, naturally. Pretended to be Casey, and the kid ran right over. By then Frank had called the cops. After that argument Ross and Casey had, the kid was a perfect patsy.�

That was all she could tell me. It was, of course, enough. Some of her statements, she said, would probably be supported by papers in that floor safe of Quinn�s; she wasn�t sure. But all she could guarantee was that Quinn would open the safe about eight P.M. Then I could sap him or shoot him or kick him in the seat of his pants, she didn�t care. I got the impression that she would prefer for me to shoot him, if possible, between the eyebrows.

She was fidgeting to leave, so we said goodbye and I thanked her for the cordial invitation. She left. But when she left, I was reasonably close behind her.

Mrs. Quinn was easy to tail, and she apparently had no idea that I was following her. She didn�t look toward me once. She walked two blocks down Fifth and continued straight ahead, so I turned left and ran the half block to my car, started it and pulled up to the stop sign at Fifth again in time to see her still walking ahead. I swung left and drove slowly toward her until she walked into a parking lot and came out driving a cream-colored Cadillac. The car was easy to follow.

It was dark when she drove into one of the motels on Beverly Boulevard. I watched her park and go into the third unit in from the street, without knocking. Two minutes later I had parked and walked to the motel�s entrance. I walked past unit three, on past unit four, turned left between four and five and went to their rear. Then I walked back to number three. I got there about ten seconds before they turned out the lights. There was an inch or two of space beneath a drawn shade, room enough for me to peer through. I peered.

�They� consisted of Mrs. Frank Quinn, and the guy I knew only as Jay. The guy I�d seen in the red-and-black room Monday with Frank Quinn. He was Frank Quinn�s right-hand man, no doubt; but he was more than that to Mrs. Frank Quinn. He was more even than both hands.

The ten seconds before the lights went out were enough. It couldn�t have been more than four minutes all told since she had walked in the front door. But the way they were acting, even a fool would have guessed that they were old friends.

I went back to the Cad and drove into Hollywood again, feeling rather good. Because it seemed highly probable now that Mrs. Quinn had been on the level with me.

Which meant that I was going to Frank Quinn�s party, after all.

The next afternoon at two P.M. I paused outside the Twenty-Centuries Costume Center on La Cienega Boulevard. On display behind the window was the stately figurine of a gal in powdered wig and fluffy silks and laces, looking much like Marie Antoinette, and with her dress scooped out even lower than today�s most daring gowns. Worn any lower, it would have been merely a high skirt. I liked it a lot. Next to Marie was a guy from a different period, a Roman gladiator, who didn�t look glad about anything; he was tugging strenuously at a broad-bladed sword sticking from his solar plexus, and looking pretty uncomfortable. It was an interesting window, but of no great help to me, so I went on inside.

The inside was even more interesting than the outside, primarily because the little honey-blonde lovely behind the counter was no wax model, but definitely a model I could wax enthusiastic about, and she was wearing a harem costume that would have cremated the sultan.

I walked up to the counter and leaned over it toward her, and she batted big long dark lashes at me like a gal waving two fans in a Spanish fandango and said, �Can I help you?� and I said, �You have.�

She cooed and chuckled and made jolly noises all at once, which turned out to be quite delightful even though you may not think that possible, and I said, �I note that you are already modeling, in superlative fashion, one of this establishment�s costumes. That being the case��

She interrupted, grinning just as widely as I was, �The Marie Antoinette costume sells for six hundred and twenty dollars, and I don�t model that one.�

�Well, at least I knew it was Marie Antoinette. I�m not so stupid.�

�Did you want the costume?�

�No, I�m after something for me.� She coughed delicately and fluttered the fanlike eyelashes over soft brown eyes, and I added hastily, �For me to wear, I mean. I�m invited to a costume ball.�

�What did you have in mind?�

�Something that will cover me all up.�

�That seems a shame.�

�Doesn�t it? I want to... surprise some people.�

�Oh, you don�t want to be recognized. A surprise?�

�That�s it.�

She thought a moment. And very cute, she was, thinking. It was as if she had to stretch unused muscles, creakingly, but then her soft little face smoothed out and she said, �I have it!�

�You do, indeed.�

�The clown!�

�What?�

�The clown! There!� She pointed, all excited. Here was a gal who really threw herself into her work. �Isn�t he dreamy?�

I followed her pointing finger. All I saw was a stiff model wearing a black floor-length gown or robe and a black hood with eye and mouth holes cut in it, and holding a broad-bladed axe.

�Not the Executioner, silly,� she said. �The Clown.�

Then I spotted him, another ten feet farther away. It was another figurine, male this time, presumably, dressed in a baggy white outfit which droopily covered his whole body, even including the legs in somewhat the same fashion as this little gal�s harem bloomers, and which had three six-inch red buttons down the front. On his head was a tasseled red-and-blue cap, and his face was painted white and red and black with a big blue nose stuck on for good measure. He was somewhat nightmarish, if not exactly dreamy, and he was exactly what I wanted.

�That�s for me,� I said.

�Purchase or rental?�

�Rent. I�ll just need it tonight...� I paused, thinking. �But I�ll leave a deposit to cover the complete cost.�

�Oh, that won�t be necessary��

�It might. It just might.�

She went off into what was apparently the stockroom and came back with a cardboard box. While she wrote out my receipt we talked about extra items I might need, and I wound up with a kit of theatrical makeup. And that appeared to do it All I needed now was a dozen Marines, a tank, and a flame-thrower.

The little gal handed me my receipt and I began writing a check for the required rental plus deposit, then she said, looking past me, �I�ll be with you in a minute, sir.�

I looked over my shoulder. A big ape about my size was eyeballing us strenuously. Or maybe he was just looking at the little gal, which seemed likely since a lot of the little gal was showing here and there among the filmy bits of her costume. But when I looked around he mumbled, �No hurry, no hurry,� and turned aside. I�d seen all of him I wanted to see, anyway; he had a face like a barracuda, a face that seemed to come to a point in front, studded with too many teeth.

�There you are, sir.�

I pulled my head around again. The little tomato was holding my package toward me, smiling over it the way gals smile over champagne glasses just before they say, �Oo, it tickles.�

�Don�t call me sir, please. Call me Shell.�

�Shell?�

�Uh-huh. In case I call up sometime and say �This is Shell� and then make all sorts of shameless remarks.�

�Oh, that sounds like fun.�

�Who knows? We might even have our own little costume party.�

�And you a man who goes for Marie Antoinette. I can imagine the costumes.� She raised her shoulders, tilted her head to one side and stirred up the air with those eyelashes again. Then she said, ��Bye, Shell,� and turned her back on me, and walked straight ahead to the stockroom again.

It was about twenty feet to the stockroom�s door, and I watched her every inch of the way. Not only the forward inches, but the from-side-to-side inches. She had a walk that was one of the friendliest things I�d ever seen. Her well-rounded hips swung provocatively back and forth as if they were waving goodbye, and as they went out of sight I murmured under my breath, �Not goodbye, my dears... but only au revoir.�

Perhaps I was being untrue, in my fashion to Doris Miller, but how many days in the week do you meet a harem girl? And that thought reminded me that I was supposed to drop by any minute now and see Doris. Carrying my clown outfit, I headed for the Cad. I didn�t see the Barracuda again. And so soon after that walk to the stockroom, it was understandable that I didn�t even think about him again, not then.

Doris had on another of her getups, or maybe it was a getout, because she did appear to be trying to get out of it. This was my day of days, but I was already occupied for the night. Life is sometimes cruel.

My client smiled half-heartedly at me, but even without all the verve and bounce in the world she was one of the most delectable creatures I�d seen. Seen this year at least. I could imagine how bright and shining and beautiful she would be with her brother safe again and out of the clink. You could hardly blame the gal for having a slightly distant and strained appearance under the circumstances. Ross Miller�s execution was, after all, only about twenty-four hours away.

When we were seated inside the living room of her apartment, Doris asked anxiously, �Is there any hope left at all, Shell?�

�There is. Don�t get me wrong � that�s all there is: a chance. Frank Quinn is tossing a party tonight to celebrate... that is, he�s throwing a costume ball. All wrapped up as a clown, and with my face smeared with paint, I can manage to get inside the place. Then, with luck, I can get into Quinn�s safe. And with some more luck, there�ll be info in the safe that can hang Quinn and spring your brother.�

The furrows between her oddly disturbing blue eyes smoothed out a little, but didn�t go away. My tidings hadn�t raised her spirits to any giddy level. Dully she said, �I see. Well, maybe it will work out all right.�

The more I thought about tonight�s ball, and my planned part in it, the less likely it seemed that there would be any positive development except my getting shot in the head, or even somewhere fatal. But I told Doris, in a confident tone, �Honey, the setup may not sound like the most perfect we could ask for � but isn�t it better than just sitting around waiting for... the news broadcast, say? And there really is good reason to believe that if I can get into Quinn�s safe, there�ll be everything in it but marshmallows.�

�But will it do Ross any good?�

I was getting just a little tired of this. Doris was, there is no doubt, gorgeous; but sometimes even that is not enough. I was only mildly enthusiastic about setting out tonight to get myself killed, and her rather negative attitude was not increasing my joyous anticipation of that event.

I said, �Baby, not having Superman�s X-ray vision, I do not know. If I didn�t think there was a fair chance this would save his neck, I wouldn�t be going into that den of axe murderers.� I was going to go on, but decided I was being more than a little unfair; Doris must be finding it difficult to hold any thought in her mind except the thought of that lethal gas chamber at San Quentin.

Then, suddenly, she smiled. It was a wan smile, but at least a nice try. She had been sitting in a chair near the couch I was in, but now she got up, walked over and sat down alongside me. She took my hand and held it in hers as she said, �I�m sorry. Really. I�m just so... up in the air. Believe me, Shell, I appreciate what you�re doing so very much.�

�Oh... it�s nothing...� My hand was tingling already.

�But it is. You, why you might even get killed. Those � those horrid men might kill you��

�No, no. Not me, my sweet. Why, I�m virtually indestructible.�

She squeezed my hand in both of hers, leaning closer to me. I could feel the warmth of her thigh against my knee as she turned slightly. �You�re so brave, Shell. It really is a brave thing for you to do, going in there... I don�t know what I�d have done if we hadn�t met.�

I was just beginning to wonder how I could ever have been even a little bit piqued with Doris, but her face was only about six inches from mine, and she had stopped talking, and I stopped wondering about anything and leaned a little forward myself. This was no time for wondering; this was a time for action. She met me half way. Her lips were parted and moist, and so charged with heat and life that kissing her was almost like puckering in a light socket.

It seemed as if approximately two hundred and twenty volts zigzagged from my lips down to my heels and back, wreaking havoc in both directions, and when Doris pulled her lips from mine it would not have surprised me greatly if the house had been on fire.

�Oh... you�d better go, Shell.�

�What?�

She said it again. This was the big difference between us. One kiss and I was ready, and she was ready for me to go. I put up a pretty good argument, but she was adamant, which is Harvard for �No.�

As I left, she said, �I�ll be different, Shell, if you�re... successful tonight. But right now I�m, well, I just can�t let go. You understand.�

�Sure. And just as soon as I can, I�ll let you know, Doris. One way or another.�

She nodded, and I left. There was, I thought, a third way she could find out what might happen tonight; that would be for somebody else to bring her the news.

At six-thirty P.M. I drove into, the Gerry Agency on Figueroa and rented a car, a new Lincoln. I left my Cad at the agency, transferred a couple packages to the Lincoln and drove toward Frank Quinn�s. However, I didn�t go straight there. On a little-traveled road I stopped, opened my packages and looked at my clown suit, and the makeup kit. Then I started on my face. Fifteen minutes later I looked even worse than usual. My face was smeared with white paint, exaggerated red lips curved in a perpetual smile, and a bulbous blue nose sat in the center of all that. My normally white eyebrows were also blue, and the tasseled clown cap covered my short white hair. At least nobody could recognize me.

I climbed into the white clown suit with its three six-inch red buttons down the front. My.38 Colt Special was in its holster at my left armpit, and beneath the regular clothes I wore under my costume. In one of my pockets was a leather-covered sap. I was ready to go.

Then, with my engraved invitation on the seat beside me, I drove slowly toward Frank Quinn�s home. For just a moment I let myself wonder if Mrs. Quinn had perhaps been pulling my leg, despite her carryings-on with Jay, but then I pushed that thought out of my mind for the night. If she had been, it was too late for me to start checking up on her now. At least I�d told some of my chums in Homicide that, if the coroner dug any bullets out of my body, they belonged to Frank Quinn, no matter from what gun they came.

I pulled up before the closed gate barring the way to Quinn�s house at a little after seven-thirty sharp. One of Quinn�s hired hands strolled over to my Lincoln and said, �Yeah?�

I handed him the invitation. He looked it over glanced at me, nodded, then handed the card back and yelled, �Okay, Nevada.�

The gate slid aside and I drove in. And I had crashed Frank Quinn�s exclusive hoodlum ball. As simple as that. In the rearview mirror I caught a glimpse of the metal gate closing behind me. The sight sent a small ripple, like a faint cool breeze, over my skin. It�s usually not a good idea to look back. I pulled my eyes from the rearview mirror, looked ahead down the drive, and went on up it to park in front of the big two-story house.

About a dozen cars were already here ahead of me. As I got out of the Lincoln and walked toward the front door, I could hear sounds of the festivities under way inside. Music mixed with occasional shouts and laughter. Or maybe it was shots and laughter; this was a pretty rough party. Ah, well. I squared my shoulders and walked up the steps to the front door, and rang the bell.

The last time I�d been here, a thin-hipped, narrow-chested ectomorph had let me in. The same guy opened the door this time. He was dressed as a court jester and had, in addition, a black mask over his eyes and nose; but I recognized the shape. He checked my invitation, then handed it back to me, nodding silently.

Then he led me down the hall to our left. At its end, two doors were opened into the room that had looked to me like a hotel ballroom. There was a lot of movement and color visible as I stepped into the room then it resolved itself into the shapes of men and women dancing, to music from a small combo at the rear of the room, drinking, standing in small groups, all of them costumed. Probably forty people were already present. About half wore masks over their faces, or at least over the eyes, but among those with bare chops I saw some features I recognized.

As I left the doorway and walked toward a long portable bar I�d spotted in one corner, I brushed past bullet-headed Jim Lester, three times arrested on murder charges, twice acquitted, and now out on the streets after serving nearly two years of the manslaughter rap. He had, however, murdered the three people. Also recognizable were two safe men, a well-known fence, and a thin guy named Finney who was, I knew, wanted by the L.A. police right now on a burglary charge.

No telling what there was under all the masks and paint and putty. But it was a reasonable assumption that the answers to at least a couple dozen unsolved crimes were in the room. The guy behind the bar was efficient, and quickly mixed me a bourbon and water that was mostly bourbon. I leaned on the bar and sized up the situation.

The band played loudly on my right. Beyond it, against the far wall, was the wide stairway I�d gone up on my previous visit here. Up there was Quinn�s room and Quinn�s safe, where I would have to be in � I looked at my watch � ten minutes. As I glanced up again, I got a shock that alerted every neuron in my nervous system. I raised my eyes to see the white, puffy face of Frank Quinn. It looked as if he were staring straight at me.

The sickly-looking flesh seemed to hang even more laxly from his facial bones, the lips seemed redder, the eyes smaller. It seemed a caricature of a face, a mask, rather than the features of the man himself. And for a moment, while he seemed to stare at me, I felt exposed, unmasked myself.

But then he chuckled mildly, and pointed at someone or something beyond me. So he hadn�t been looking at me.

Anyhow, I told myself, for a second or two there I had forgotten I was well hidden under blue nose and eyebrows, white and red greasepaint, and my three-button outfit. Nobody could know that Shell Scott was here, disguised as a clown. Even if Quinn had somehow suspected I might try to bust in here, he couldn�t know I�d dressed as a fugitive from a circus. That thought reassured me, started me breathing normally again. But I had a big slug of bourbon just the same. And I decided that even though I was well disguised, I�d be careful to keep out of Quinn�s sight if I could.

Quinn was dressed in lush-looking robes, and on a guess I�d have said he was Henry the One-Eighth or something close to it. He turned away and spoke to a plump woman next to him. I let my eyes roam over the room. In another minute I�d spotted Mrs. Frank Quinn. She was dressed in an ankle-length white gown and long white gloves, and some kind of white plumes were sprouting from her hair like mutant dandruff. Around her neck she wore a thick, glittering, heavy necklace made, according to the story she�d given me, of diamonds. I could understand why her husband would want to keep that item locked in his safe whenever it wasn�t being worn. Especially among a group of light-fingered citizens such as these.

But the sight of those rocks was corroboration of Mrs. Quinn�s story. That knowledge � plus the fact that I was still in one piece � gave me a lift like elevator boots, and suddenly I was relaxed, at ease. I felt good, and a kind of exaggerated feeling of confidence flowed through my veins. It suddenly occurred to me that I was almost casually toying with a bourbon and water in the midst of twenty or thirty of the most vicious and dangerous criminals in Los Angeles, at least half of whom would take great pleasure in shooting me on sight.

It was the kind of bouyant, invincible feeling that can make a guy get reckless, so I clamped down on it, kept it simmering lightly but under control. I knew it was caused mainly by the excess of hormones and fluids and juices poured into my blood because of the tension and excitement, the nearness of danger. But I figured that this was the best time I could choose for my trip upstairs. It was a trip I had to make pretty quick, anyway, and there could be no better time for it than now, while I was feeling as if I could raise the house with one hand.

So I gulped the last of my drink, put the glass back on the bartop and headed across the dance floor toward the stains. When I reached them, I turned and looked at the crowd again. Either it was coincidence, or Mrs. Quinn had an idea that the blue-nosed clown was Shell Scott, but she had suddenly walked over to her husband. She stood on the far side of him from me, so that his back was toward me, and I saw her reach toward the necklace around her throat.

So the double-cross was starting. The blood pumped a little harder in my arteries, and I turned, went up the wide stairs. I didn�t look around until I�d reached the top, but I couldn�t control the tightening of muscles between my shoulder blades and at the back of my neck. At the top of the stairs I glanced quickly below, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me. Mrs. Quinn was just handing the necklace to her husband. I turned and walked rapidly ahead toward Quinn�s office.

The door was unlocked. I opened it and stepped into the red-and-black room, closed the door behind me and leaned back against it. Something was wrong, out of place, and for seconds I couldn�t figure out what it was. Then I realized that the lights were on in the room. That seemed odd, since it didn�t seem likely that Quinn would be using this room during his party.

And then I saw the clown.

For a crazy moment I thought it was a reflection of. myself. But this clown had a red nose, and blue buttons down the front of his costume, just the opposite of mine. And he was lying flat on his back next to the wall. And there was a small hole at the side of his forehead, a hole through which a little redness, and a little pink and grayish ugliness, and all his life had spilled.

The sight was such a shock that my mind stopped functioning for seconds. It wasn�t just the idea of walking in on a dead man; I�d seen enough stiffs to populate a small cemetery. It was mainly, I think, that the corpse looked so much like me. Except for the hole in his head, and the fact that he was so dead.

I stared at him, walked to him and bent over to put my hand on his face. It was white-smeared with grease paint or cosmetics, but he was still warm. He felt much more normal than he looked. His lips were slack, the mouth open, but the red-painted Ups still curved in a ludicrous smile. The little hole in his forehead looked as if it had been made by a small slug, probably a.32.

I stepped back from the corpse, mental faculties starting to function again, but slowly at first. I reached under my costume and got the Colt from beneath my coat, stepped across the room to the wall alongside the door. Mrs. Quinn had just been giving her husband the necklace, I recalled; he should be on his way up those stairs by now. And if he stepped in here and saw that dead man, I�d never get that safe open. I couldn�t move the stiff very far. There was a closed door in the right-hand wall. That would be the room directly opposite the head of the stairs, but I didn�t know what was in there.

All I needed was one guy to spot me lugging a corpse around, or doing something else more than a little out of the ordinary, and let out a yell or a shot, and in about three seconds there�d be no way for me to go except up. Or, I thought dismally, down; about six feet down. This disguise of mine was good only as long as nobody started wondering about it.

I looked at the gun in my hand. I might get away with firing it, considering all the noise and music below. But the bang of a.38 would probably bring half a dozen wondering characters up here in a hurry. I kept a grip on my gun, but reached under my outfit again and dug out the leather sap I�d brought along, held it in my left hand, the Colt in my right. Sweat had automatically started popping out on me; my face was damp and there was wetness underneath my arms.

And who had killed the clown? Why? Who was he? About a dozen questions started racing around in my brain. I looked at the dead man again; despite the fact that I had a blue nose and his was red, that the big buttons on my outfit were red and his were blue, we looked almost alike. One clown looks pretty much like another � especially at a party where liquor is flowing freely. So it seemed fairly obvious that there was only one logical answer for the fact that a dead clown was in this room � his killer must have thought he was killing me.

It was the most likely answer, and I had a strong feeling it was the right one, but I couldn�t begin to figure how anybody knew I was dressed as a clown. The only thing I could think of was that Mrs. Quinn had doublecrossed me somehow � but she hadn�t known what I was going to wear either.

Then that closed door in the wall opened and I got my answer. I also came close to getting a.32 slug in the teeth.

It wasn�t the hall door by which I was standing, but the one across the room and I�ll have to admit that if we both had entered at the same time I probably wouldn�t have come out of the shock first; but I�d had time to get over my initial jarring and start functioning mentally again. So even though I still got jarred up a bit, it was nothing to the shock I gave the guy who opened that door and stepped into the room.

The man was dressed in a coal-black robe that reached almost to the floor and covered his body completely, but his face was bare, and it was the man I�d seen at the Twenty-Centuries Costume Center yesterday, the Barracuda. That suddenly explained a lot of things. He had either tailed me to the costume shop or he�d been picking up an outfit himself. Probably the latter, since I remembered seeing the black robe and hood there. But either way he would have reported to Frank Quinn that a big goon with white hair and fractured white eyebrows had rented a clown outfit. The explanation for more funny business was tottering on the edge of my brain, but I didn�t have time to grab it right then.

The Barracuda was standing in the open doorway staring at me with his eyes getting so wide he did indeed look much like a six-foot fish, and with the breath being exhaled from his open mouth with the sound of a tire going flat. He was plainly paralyzed momentarily, but just as I started to jump for him he actually took a faltering step toward me, one hand coming up to point at me as he croaked, �But... but...�

He knew very well that he�d just shot me, and he appeared so transfixed to see me on my feet � and, by now, jumping toward him � that it seemed likely I could have turned cartwheels across the room to the man. But just as I reached him and started swinging the sap up at his jaw, he recovered enough to duck.

Maybe it was because I was swinging the sap with my left hand, but whatever the reason, I was awkward enough to miss him. The force of the blow pulled me off balance, but I jerked my head to the left and saw him thrust his right hand under the robe, to slap it against the little.32 he pulled out in front of him.

The funny thing was that I wasn�t really worried about getting shot, but about how much noise that little gun might make. And about the fact that Frank Quinn must be practically outside the door by now. But I had caught my balance, and the time that Barracuda had spent in reaching for his gun and pulling it out was enough for me. He�d barely got the gun clear of his robe when I whipped my left hand back toward him, the sap swishing audibly through the air and smacking hard against his gun hand.

The gun fell noiselessly at our feet, but sudden pain forced a yell from his throat. I was still swinging back, following the momentum started by my left hand and arm, and as I came around in a half circle I dropped my.38 and just let my right hand fold up into a hard fist as it kept on swinging. All I had to do was guide it a little, and my knuckles bounced off his mouth while he was still yelling.

I felt his teeth snap. His head flew back and he went down on his fanny, then sprawled out limply, his bloody mouth almost touching the feet of the man he had undoubtedly just killed. I jumped to the open doorway he�d come through, looked into the room beyond it. Nobody was in there; it was a bedroom adjoining the office. The bed was made, but rumpled. I didn�t waste any time looking the place over closely; the main thing I wanted was to get the two limp bodies out of that office before Quinn came in.

I grabbed the stiff�s legs and hauled him past the door, into the bedroom, then grabbed Barracuda�s feet and roughly repeated the operation. As I started to close the door into the office I saw that the black hood that went with the executioner outfit was still in there on the office carpet. I could see the two eyeholes in it. I was just going to grab it when I heard footsteps outside in the hall.

I didn�t even have time to close the adjoining door completely. I froze, the door still open about four inches. Without moving my position, I could see Frank Quinn as he came into the office. Suddenly I remembered that my gun was still in there, too. My gun, and Barracuda�s.

If Quinn had seen any of those items there would probably have been a lot of noise all of a sudden. But he walked across the room toward his desk � and out of my sight. Light flashed and gleamed from the diamond necklace he carried carelessly in one hand. I made myself count slowly to ten before moving, then I eased over close to the wall, pushed gently on the door to open it far enough so I could stick my head through it. The sap was still in my left hand; I switched it to my right.

I heard grunting noises from the region of the desk and saw that Quinn was kneeling on the floor, his left side toward me. The safe was beneath that desk, I remembered, in the floor. I was starting to get wound up with tension; it was gnawing at my stomach, biting into my neck. It was high time, and past time, that I got out of here, and I could feel the urgency growing in me to get going.

Quinn seemed to move with annoying slowness. He grunted again, mumbled something under his breath. Then he reached forward, tugged at the door of the safe and pulled it up and over � and in that moment I stepped into the room and moved toward him.

He glanced up when I was two steps away from him, and his face got blank, then his mouth opened wide, but my right hand was already over my head, and descending. The sap smacked him hard, squarely in the middle of his forehead, and he simply hung in the air for a moment, then sagged to the carpet.

I grabbed my.38 off the floor, then rolled his bulk aside, leaned over the safe. It was about a foot and a half square, and I could see money, papers, a couple portfolios down inside it. I pawed at it, hauled the whole bunch out and threw aside the stuff that was obviously useless to me, like the jewelry and money. There was too much of the material to carry under my outfit, so I had to check it right then and there for the most important items.

In the first ten seconds I found one beauty. It was a letter from a man named John Porter, a minor city official with a spotless reputation. The whole letter was interesting, but especially in connection with one paragraph which said, �After all, we agreed on 500 so in the last six months you�ve saved 1200 by sticking me. Maybe times are tough, but I got to pay my income tax too � that�s a joke.�

The tone of the letter seemed more plaintive than angry, but I had a hunch that it had made Quinn more angry than anything else. His wife had told me in The Lantern that K. C. Flagg had been stuffing into his own pockets chunks of Quinn�s payoffs to �The Boys� in town. The letter in my hand indicated that one of the short-changed Boys had written a not too prudent letter to Quinn � and it could well have been the first knowledge Quinn got that he was being cheated by his bagman, K. C. Flagg. In this case, cheated out of $200 a month. Knowing what I did of Quinn, it seemed likely that he would immediately have stormed over to see Flagg, for a showdown. And that could have led to a killing, considering Quinn�s sudden temper. Which was exactly what his wife had told me had happened.

So that line of reasoning made the date on the letter especially interesting. It was dated the 19th of November. Which meant it would have been delivered to Quinn on the 20th. And K. C. Flagg had been shot to death on the 20th of November.

I looked quickly through some of the other papers. There were a couple of the small tapes used for dictaphones, and I put them in my pile of stuff-to-take, just on general principles, along with a spool of regular recording tape. Several of the letters and papers looked extremely interesting, and damaging to various and sundry characters, but I wasn�t interested in those items at the moment. Then my eye fell on the name �Ross� as I started to toss a letter aside.

I grabbed it again, started reading. This one was dated only about two months back, and among other things it said, �You know I wouldn�t never mention it to nobody, Frank, but I do know the whole story about Ross M, and that�s a pretty big mental strain. And I really do need more cash what with all these financial reverses.�

There was more, but that was the salient part. The letter was signed Chet. There was a chance that Ross M was somebody other than Ross Miller, and that Chet was not Chester Weiss � about one chance in a million. Maybe Quinn had originally threatened Weiss, but it looked as if Weiss had since then developed a bad case of blackmail fever.

Maybe I didn�t have enough yet, but I had plenty to satisfy others besides myself of Quinn�s guilt � especially with what Mrs. Quinn could say, if she would. I grabbed a handful of miscellaneous papers, added my two letters to the stack and stuffed the crumpled wad into one of my coat pockets, under the clown suit. The one large and two small tapes I wrapped in more of Quinn�s documents, and jammed that into the other coat pocket. Then I put my.38 back in its holster, and got to my feet.

My eye fell on the phone on top of Quinn�s black desk. I grabbed it, reached for the dial so I could put in a fast call to the police and get a dozen radio cars on their way out here. Right now was the time when I wanted lots of policemen around me � and there was sufficient, and legitimate, reason for calling them. The papers I had in my pockets � and a dead man in a clown suit.

But there wasn�t any dial on the phone. I had the receiver at my ear and heard Nevada�s twangy voice saying, �Yeah? Yeah? Frank?�

I almost slammed the phone back on the hook but I stopped in time. That might be just enough to cause Nevada to send some of the hired hands up here checking. Instead, I said in a thick slurred voice, �Hiya, pal. Gimme Oakridge 2-2348. Somebody heisted my dial.�

�You better get the hell out of there,� Nevada said. �You ain�t supposed to be in there. Frank around?�

�He�s out. Gimme Oakridge 2-2348. Wanna talk to Mabel.�

Nevada told me to go get another drink instead, and I let him talk me out of phoning Mabel. I hung up, sweating, and went to the door. For a moment I paused there, then with a last look at the havoc I was leaving behind me, I went out into the hall.

As I closed the door, I thought I heard something thump, either inside the room or nearby here in the hall. But a costumed man and woman were just coming up the stairs and looking toward me, so I stretched my painted grin even wider and walked toward them.

Music floated up from the band below. The costumed couple grinned back at me and waved and pointed and did everything except dance a jig. They were drunk enough for eight people. I did a little dance step myself as I passed them, and the guy roared with happiness and fell flat on the floor.

I started down the stairs. Everything looked about the same as it had when I�d come up. There was a lot of color down there, people dancing, spinning about, guests in bright outfits standing in groups and talking. For that moment I thought I�d make it. I had lost most of the buoyant, practically invincible feeling I�d had a few minutes earlier, but there was still some of it left, and I actually felt that I was going to be able to simply stroll out of the house and away.

I got almost to the bottom of the staircase.

There were only a few steps to go, and I was eyeing a group of four men nearby, just off the edge of the dance floor. One of them was the bulletheaded killer, Jim Lester, and the three others looked like hired gunmen, too. The thought had just entered my mind that it was going to be a nice feeling to get about ten miles away from such as these, when there was an unintelligible shout from the head of the stairs behind me.

The four men jerked their heads around to look past me, at the floor above. I could see almost every head in the place swing toward whoever had yelled. I knew who it was before I looked, but I looked anyway. He was leaning weakly against the bannister at the head of the stairway. He didn�t have a gun, but one hand was raised so he could point a finger at me. It was Barracuda. His mouth was red and puffed, and some of the blood had dripped down onto the long black gown-like outfit that covered his clothing completely.

One of the four men near me said, �It�s Hacker. Look at his mouth. What the��

�Stop him!� Barracuda � or Hacker � yelled, his voice hoarse, twisted as it pushed through his puffed lips. �Stop him, kill him!� He pointed that accusing finger straight at me.

When I looked at the gathering again, almost all of the heads were turned toward me. Forty or fifty pairs of eyes stared at me. The band stopped playing suddenly. I knew it was a forlorn, a dismal hope, but I tried to stretch my painted grin wider again and hop clownlike down the last few steps, but the cause was long lost. And I knew it. I knew I wasn�t going to make it.

In the silence Barracuda yelled again, harshly, �Kill that clown! It�s Shell Scott!�

A lot of the heads jerked again. Plenty of the people here � all of the local hoodlums � knew my name, my reputation, and that they would either like to shoot, or kick, my teeth in. I didn�t hesitate. Even before the words stopped bouncing off the walls, I had spun around and was sprinting up the stairs toward Barracuda.

Somebody behind me was almost as fast. A shot cracked out and a bullet plucked at my clothing like Death�s fingers. But then I was almost up to Barracuda, and any more shots might have hit him instead of me. With that thought in mind I ducked under Barracuda�s reaching hands, wrapped my left arm around his waist and yanked him toward me as I drove my right hand into his gut. I kept my hand open, fingers jabbing stiffly, and in the right place the blow would have killed him. But it bent him forward, air expolding from his lungs, and I grabbed him, wrestled him up onto my shoulder.

In the exertion, I felt my tasseled clown cap pulled off. It fell, a bright spot of color, to the steps. I knew that my blasted white hair, now that it was uncovered, was probably just as bright as the cap � and behind me I heard a couple of yells from men who thought they recognized me. One of them shouted, �It�s Scott, all right! I�d know that��

But I missed the rest of it. At least there weren�t any more shots; Barracuda over my shoulder was a temporary shield. If we had been standing still, my colorful clown costume against his somber black would have made an easy target � but I was moving.

I ran with him, hardly noticing his weight, toward the room where Quinn and the dead man lay. Heavy feet pounded up the stairway behind me. The door to Quinn�s office stood slightly ajar. I bent forward, and hit the door, let Barracuda fly off my shoulder and crash heavily against the floor inside the red-and-black room while I grabbed under my coat for the.38.

With the familiar butt of the Colt in my fist I swung around, raising the gun. Two men were at the head of the stairs. Bullet-headed Jim Lester was a step in the lead, a big.45 automatic in his hand, and even as I spotted him he blasted one shot at me.

But just one.

I knew that I�d be dead in less than ten seconds if I didn�t stop those bums who were running up here at me like hounds after a rabbit, and because it was Jim Lester, and because he was shooting at me besides, I didn�t even have to think about what I was going to do. I was already aiming at his chest when his gun blasted at me, and I squeezed the trigger gently, thumbing back the hammer and getting off a second shot moments after the first one.

Both of them hit Lester, the first one stopping him, and the second spinning him a little to one side. He staggered and the man alongside him let out a yell, turned and jumped about six steps down the stairs. That wasn�t enough for me. I knew the others would be coming up again too soon if I didn�t scare hell out of them and slow them down. I had a clear shot at the man�s legs, but he was moving fast and it was plain luck that I hit him. If I hit him. His right leg crumpled, though, just as my gun cracked, and he rolled end over end to the foot of the stairs.

Jim Lester was still turning around, easily, almost gently. The gun dangled from his fingers, then dropped. He stepped forward, got his foot on the first step as if he were going to walk down them. But that was the best he could do. It was queer the way he fell. His arms dropped first, hands dangling at his sides. Then he toppled forward like a tree falling. He landed heavily, and stuck there, feet on the second or third step down, his face pressed against a step lower down. He didn�t roll any farther, just lay there. He didn�t move.

That would hold them a while. But it didn�t much matter. It wasn�t going to be any help to me. I�d had it. I�d really had it, and I felt cold all over. Mentally I cursed myself for an idiot, a brainless slob, for coming here in the first place. There wasn�t a chance I could get out. Twenty or thirty bloodthirsty gunmen all dying to kill me, and an electrified fence around the place � I swore. It was that blasted woman that got me into this. That Doris Miller. It�s always a woman, I thought miserably.

But then for a moment I could see that gorgeous face before me, that sensational body, and it actually soothed my jangled nerves a bit. At least the vision changed the direction of my thoughts a little, and for a second or two I stopped thinking of getting killed and began thinking of how to stay alive. That was enough. All of a sudden it hit me. Maybe there was a way out of here. Maybe I could stay alive after all. Ah, women are good for me. No doubt about it.

I jumped inside Quinn�s office and started yanking off my clown costume, ripped it in my hurry. Then I looked out the door again. Down below, at the foot of the stairs, the man I�d shot in the leg was pulling himself over the floor like a crippled crab. Only a couple other men were in sight, the rest of them were where I couldn�t see them, or shoot them. That was fine with me.

I aimed close to one of the two men visible, and fired. All of a sudden nobody except the injured man was in sight, and then he was among the missing, too. I left the doorway, jumped back into the room. Barracuda was just starting to stir, and I didn�t have time to do the thing nicely. I kicked him in the head. His gun was still on the floor, against the wall. There were only two bullets left in my revolver, so I stuck the.38 back in its holster and shoved Barracuda�s.32 into my belt, and grabbed the unconscious man.

I wrestled with him, pulled off the black robe that covered him, then jumped back to the door. Already, in the few seconds it had taken me, a couple men had started cautiously up the stairway. Not cautiously enough, however. I emptied Barracuda�s.32 into them and at them. One of them fell backwards, the other ran.

It took me about five seconds to pull the black robe over me. Then I grabbed off the floor the hood which had been part of Barracuda�s Executioner costume. With it over my head I could see through the eyeholes � not well, but at least the thing covered my painted-clown face, and the white hair. Some might soon wonder why the mask was being worn, but with luck there would be too much going on in a minute for clear thinking to take place. And it gave me a chance � a pretty good chance, I was beginning to believe.

I was even feeling halfway good again. Clammy and sweaty, and unhappy at the same time, but so keyed up that I felt almost as if I might dissolve into popping atoms. A glance out the office door showed me that another brave, or foolhardy, hood had started up the stairs. Behind him were a couple others, less daring. Fine. Now they could come up and shoot me.

I was grinning involuntarily under my black hood and grease paint as I turned and jumped back into the office, and then went on into the next room where the dead man still lay. The dead clown � Shell Scott.

Somebody had already mistaken the guy for me; why not again? I�d thought for a moment earlier, when I�d first seen him that he was a reflection of me; except for the switch in the color of his nose, and the buttons on his outfit, we had been clothed in almost identical fashion. And I was now dressed exactly as Barracuda had been, in the black robe and hood. It would have looked good, I thought, even to me.

There was so much adrenalin and thyroxin and pituitin and maybe vegetable soup in my veins by now that I lifted the dead clown clear up on my shoulder with no more effort than if I�d been lifting a sack of potatoes. Then I trotted heavily toward the door of this second room, the bedroom which opened at the head of those stairs. I got the door opened and staggered forward through it, my arms wrapped tightly around the dead clown�s waist.

Past him I could see the three men, now at the head of the stairway. They all had pistols in their hands and two of them pointed the guns at me and the clown, but the other yelled something and they didn�t fire. I couldn�t see what they did then, because as soon as I toppled through the door clutching my clown, I fell forward to the floor at the head of the stairs, rolling, holding the dead man�s arms tight to his sides.

As I reached the stairs I got my feet under me somehow and half raised up, pulling the clown along with me, muscles stretching painfully in my back and side, but I got him up far enough. His head fell backward limply, but I moved so fast that maybe nobody noticed. As his head dropped back I slammed a fist against his chin. He fell back loosely, like a rag man, toppling over the body of Jim Lester hitting the steps and starting to roll very slowly down to the next one.

This whole operation had taken only four or five seconds, and before he rolled more than an inch my.38 was in my hand. There was a hell of a lot of noise, a real pandemonium with voices and shouts and screams, and with the three men now behind me and a dozen more below coming up making a lot of racket, but at least those nearest me must have heard me shout hoarsely, with my voice as near to the rasping huskiness of Barracuda�s as I could make it, �Kill that clown! I told you he�s Shell Scott!� And I fired my last two.38 slugs into the dead man�s body.

Before I even poured the second one into him though, at least six other shots sounded. Three or four of the hoodlums helped me kill that slob, Shell Scott. So many guns fired almost at once there that for a few moments it sounded as if somebody were letting fly with a machine gun.

But all of a sudden there was nearly complete quiet. After the staccato bark and boom of guns, the silence was almost oppressive, heavy and thick. The dead man�s body was still moving, turning slightly as it settled onto the lower step of the stairs, but then it stopped, was still. It looked as if he had just been shot, and suddenly stopped living. Right now everybody here thought that Barracuda had fought valiantly and fiercely, and just eliminated, with the help of a few other guns, that foul and much unloved private eye, Shell Scott.

In fact, one little hoodlum was looking down at the clown�s body, with his mouth hanging open, and then he said, �You know, they was times when I thought that fink, Scott, would never get killed.�

I was starting to feel weak. A flush went over my skin, and then it got a little chilled. Man, my glands were about to give up in disgust. I�d no more let them get a little calmed down than something would happen to light their fuses again. And right now I was thinking about how far I still had to go to get out of this joint.

With my voice harsh and rasping in my throat I said, �Haul the jerk out back. I�ll tell Nevada what happened.�

And with that I walked on down the stairs. Nobody stopped me. I was still Barracuda, or Hacker, to them, walking out to the gate to tell the gateman what the score was. Nobody had yet asked why it was necessary for the black-robed Hacker to tell anybody at the gate anything. Or why I was wearing the hood over my head still � when it hadn�t been on at the start of my battle, when �I� had appeared at the head of the stairs shouting �Kill that clown!� Everybody was still pretty well shaken up � and emotional rather than logical � for the moment.

I had told the men to carry the corpse out back, because I sure didn�t want them going upstairs and finding the real Barracuda � and their host, Frank Quinn � sprawled out in Quinn�s office. That was bound to happen sooner or later, but the later it happened, the sooner I�d like it. I walked through the softly muttering crowds, and my black-robed and black-hooded figure got a good many stares. Even among killers and burglars and thieves of all descriptions, a gun battle and killing is not usually the height of the festivities at a party. And all in black, I must have looked pretty creepy, anyway. Like Death striding among the revelers.

But I made it to the hall and down it to the front door, and outside. The air was cool; it felt like rain. I was wet with perspiration and the chill in the air transferred itself to my skin, and then my bones. I walked toward the rented Lincoln, feeling for the keys. I couldn�t find them. In all the running around and fighting I might have lost them.

Several men had come out the door behind me. Some of the guests were undoubtedly preparing to leave, without even saying goodbye to the host � and that was just dandy with me; I didn�t want them saying goodbye to their host. It might have looked odd for the real Barracuda to hop in a Lincoln to drive the short distance to the gate. Especially if he drove a Mercury, say. But that was a chance I was willing to take. Walking out of here on foot, however, was simply asking for it. Or it might lead to getting it without asking for it. But I kept fumbling in pockets, and at last my fingers closed around the metal key; it had been buried in a mass of the papers I�d stolen � at least I still had them.

In the Lincoln, I gunned to the gate and slid to a stop in front of it. A light on top of the gatehouse illumined the darkness around us for twenty or thirty yards. Nevada was just stepping out of the little house, the familiar shotgun in his hands. Only it wasn�t in the crook of his arm this time; he held it at the ready, finger curled around the trigger, both barrels pointed at my head.

I looked out the car window toward him and the gun, and he just dissolved away out of my sight. All I could see was the round end of those two barrels, and for half a horrible second I thought he was going to shoot me. I thought he was going to blast my head off. Those two round holes of the shotgun muzzles seemed to swell in my sight until they looked like cannons aimed at me and I kept waiting for two eight-inch shells to fly out and pop me in the kisser.

Well, I thought, what a hell of a way to go. There won�t be anything left of me. Just little shreds, and unidentifiable bits. Shell Scott will just disappear. But then I snapped out of my dizziness. There is something unnerving about a shotgun aimed at you. It can�t kill you any more than a.22 pistol can, say, but it sure gives the impression that it can kill you deader.

Dust was still swirling from my sudden stop before the closed gate. Nevada said, �What in tarnation�s goin� on? Somebody jest called up from the house and said nobody ain�t to go in nor out.�

So that meant I wouldn�t be getting out through the gate for a while � not, at least, with Nevada�s help. Looking beyond him into the gatehouse I could see the phone sitting on a wooden counter in there. Probably at this very moment, some of the party guests were ogling the unconscious Quinn, and Barracuda. That was probably what had caused the phone call to the gate.

I had to make a quick decision, so I swung open the car door and stepped out, saying, �That�s what I came out to tell you. Keep the gate closed, Nevada, and��

He was squinting at me, and the shotgun was staring wide-eyed at me, and he said, �You ain�t Hacker. What�s your name, boy?�

�No,� I said. �Hacker and me wound up with the same kind of outfit. I�m, uh, Whitey McGafford.� Then I pulled off the hood and threw it back into the car. The clown paint was still smeared on my face. It must have puzzled Nevada, but that was O.K. with me; I wanted him puzzled for the next minute or so. And I was going to try to keep him off balance long enough for me to get a phone call out of here.

�McGafford,� he said slowly. �I don�t remember no��

�Oh, shut up,� I said. �Where�s the phone? The boss is shot up and Dinky�s dead, so cut the gab. I got to call somebody for the boss.�

�Hey, wait a minute. Who�s Dinky?�

�What difference does it make? He�s dead,� I said. And I didn�t wait. Possibly I was still dizzy from looking into those eight-inch cannons, but the shotgun was back to normal size now and I walked past it into the gatehouse. I grabbed the phone, turned it so that Nevada couldn�t see the numbers, and dialed the complaint board at the Police Building.

Nevada stepped into the doorway, about two yards from me, and moved the shotgun so that it pointed at my stomach. �Who you callin�?� he asked. And he didn�t sound so puzzled now as just plain mean. �And what�d you say about the boss being shot?�

�I don�t know all of what happened,� I said roughly, �but there was a drunk in Quinn�s office, and there was some kind of beef.� Nevada�s face smoothed out a little when I mentioned the drunk. He knew I was telling the truth about that � he�d talked to the drunk himself. �Frank�s not hurt bad,� I said, �but he wants nobody but Hotshot Dutton sticking a probe into him. Bullet�s still in his side.�

�You callin� who?� Nevada said.

�Hotshot.� The timing was perfect. The officer at the complaint board had just answered, and I said it again, �Hotshot!� Looking at Nevada, I added, �Doctor Dutton, to you, the guy who�s going to dig the bullets out of Frank Quinn and about thirty other guys here at Quinn�s. How many times do I have to tell you?�

In the Police Building, the term Hotshot is applied to urgent calls which come in to the complaint board and are simultaneously transmitted to Homicide or Robbery and the Detective Headquarters Unit � and to the rolling radio cars � all at once, even while the call is coming in on the phone. They would all hear the next words I said � if I had made the officer understand what I wanted.

But Nevada was squinting at me again and he said, �Why didn�t you use a phone in there?�

�I told you, there was a Beef. They shot some clown that�s supposed to be Shell Scott��

�Hold it, boy.� Nevada was looking mean again. �Just you back up from that phone. Lay it down.�

He looked again as if he were going to use that double-barreled gun on me. I guessed that it was most likely loaded with double-ought buckshot, and what that won�t do to a man isn�t worth doing � if you want to kill him suddenly, that is. Each double-ought shotgun shell is loaded with nine pellets about the size of a.22 caliber slug. I thought of eighteen.22 bullets piling into my stomach, and I put the phone down, and backed up, just as he�d said to do.

Nevada held the shotgun with one hand and kept it aimed at me, then picked up the phone with the other. �Who�s this I�m talkin� to?� he asked.

I held my breath, and tensed my leg muscles for a sudden jump.

�Huh?� he said. He looked at me, then said into the phone, �Doctor Dutton, huh? Well, Doctor, you hold on��

I was almost grinning. A bright police officer on that complaint board was going to get a case of his favorite beverage from me � if I lived. And it was a big If, because Nevada had stopped talking for the same reason that I stopped almost grinning. There was a whole pile of racket from the house. I heard the sound of car engines racing � and then gunshots.

From my arrival in the Lincoln, skidding to a stop here, until now, probably only two minutes or at most three had gone by. But that had been time enough for somebody to figure out what had happened. Maybe somebody had even recognized that dead clown. Because I heard those shots hit the Lincoln. It would well have been that whoever was shooting thought I was still in the car, because about ten slugs hit it in the space of a few seconds. The lights of another car arced through the darkness, headed toward the gatehouse.

Nevada slammed the phone down onto the hook, then swung his head toward all the noise, and the racing car. The shotgun muzzle wavered away from me, and in that moment I jumped for him.

He let out a yell and started to jerk his head back toward me, but my right fist was driving for his face and it bounced off his chin, cutting off the startled shout. He staggered backward, dropping the gun, but the blow didn�t knock him down. He was even tougher than he looked. Spitting out a mouthful of swear words he came at me, hands held in front of him the way a professional would hold them.

I didn�t have time to box or fool around with Nevada. That car was already halfway to the gatehouse. So I let him hit me as I waded into him. I knew I�d be able to take at least a couple good blows from those balled fists of his, but I was willing if I could get in a couple of my own. His left hand slammed my cheekbone like a hunk of rock; I felt the skin split and pain flamed like fire all over the side of my face. But I was in close to him, and as his other fist loomed before me, I gave him one hand in the gut, the way I�d dug Barracuda earlier, then tried to spread my fist all over his face. He reeled backward. His eyes were wide, but glassy. He was open, unprotected, his back against the counter behind him, and I hit him so hard in the stomach I thought my knuckles were going to slice clear in and bang the counter.

He let out a funny, high sound, but he didn�t know he was making it. Nevada was still sliding down along the counter to the floor when I bent over and picked up the shotgun, jumped to the door of the gatehouse. Outside, that car was starting to swing in and stop. I raised the gun and fired one barrel, snapping the shot off without good aim. But the slugs tore up the radiator and far side of the car�s windshield.

If I hit anybody, it wasn�t the driver. He spun the wheel and slid around to the right, away from me. I could have pumped slugs from the second shell into him as he went by � but for all I knew, that was the only load I had left, so I held my fire. The car, a dark Cadillac, bounced off the parked Lincoln�s rear bumper but kept on going, then roared back toward the house and stopped about halfway to it.

Another car was coming toward me, and men on foot were heading my way too. From the darkness I saw fire flash as somebody shot at the gatehouse. The slug splatted against the glass � but didn�t come through. The bullet-proof glass pitted and slivered, but that was all.

I swung around, looking for the lever that controlled the gate. Only one was visible and I pushed it, then pulled it. The gate started sliding open. I looked around for a gun, any kind of gun, or shells for the shotgun. None were in sight. And there was no way, as far as I could tell, to lock the gatehouse door. Maybe the glass was bullet proof, but I wasn�t, and I had the miserable feeling that pretty soon I was going to prove it.

A couple more slugs splatted against the window. Now I could see half a dozen men between the house and me. They were trotting toward me, and getting too close for comfort. There was no help for it. I had to use that last load in the shotgun. But this time I meant to aim.

I did aim. I did it fast, because I was exposed myself while getting the shot off, but I aimed. First I made sure the gate was open, because after my one shot the gun would be nothing but a club, and I meant to be running as lightly burdened as possible. And I ripped the black robe so it wouldn�t bind my legs. Then I stepped outside the house and sighted along the barrels right at the middle of the loose group of men now only about twenty yards away. As the gun centred on one man I squeezed off the shot and then dropped flat on the ground.

About five shots answered mine, but the slugs whistled over my head, one glancing off the small house. And then I was on my feet, spinning around and running, bent over, out through the gate, headed down the road into darkness. I�d started moving too suddenly after firing to keep my eyes on the target, but my aim had been good. Somebody out there behind me screamed like a terrified woman, high and piercing.

That one last shell I�d used, and the man�s cry, gave me about five seconds� start. It wasn�t much. And I knew it wasn�t going to be enough. But it got me through the gate and started out the road toward darkness, head down and legs pumping. I never ran faster. But then the firing started again. They could see me fairly well, because the light from the gate touched me still � and now I could hear a car coming at me from behind. Its lights, too, fell on me and swept past me. They just opened up all at once. One bullet whistled by my ear. I heard another hiss along the road and whine high into the air. My lungs were burning, starting to ache. Then one of the slugs hit me.

It sliced into my thigh, as if somebody had kicked me there. All of a sudden it was as if my leg was gone. I went down hard, the breath whooshing out of my mouth. My head cracked against the road. I was stunned, the hard asphalt burning into the skin of my arm and face, but I managed to throw my arms out and stop rolling, barely off the asphalt in the graveled dirt along its edge.

The fall, more than anything else, dazed me. My head had cracked against the street hard enough to send black and white dots swirling in front of my eyes. But I was still conscious. Half conscious, maybe, but not out. I could hear their running feet, I thought � but it seemed, too, as if I heard a siren.

I tried to remember if I�d gotten the call through to the complaint board. I was too dazed to remember. Guns cracked again and a bullet snipped at my clothing. I rolled farther from the road, trying to clear my brain and eyes, trying to see. Everything was blurred, out of focus. I knew the men were running at me, getting close; a car was coming toward me. I swore, raging, wanting my gun, wanting even that empty shotgun to use as a club. I wanted a machine gun, a bow and arrow, anything, just so I could get back at these bloodthirsty bums who were running me down and getting ready to kill me. But I couldn�t even get up off my rear end, couldn�t get my feet under me or clear my brain enough to know what was happening.

Lights flashed around me suddenly. I saw a pulsing red light. And then I heard the siren and knew it was a police siren, a radio car. There was another burst of gunfire, but none of the bullets seemed to come my way. My sight cleared, and my head suddenly began pounding as if Fury were in there and trying to get out. Another siren was wailing almost in my ear. One radio car had stopped near me and a second was just cutting around it, heading toward the gate.

A uniformed police sergeant loped toward me, bent over. His gun was in his right hand, glinting in the light, and pointed at me. I suddenly remembered my unrecognizable paint-smeared face and said, �Hold it, I�m Shell Scott.�

�You�re Shell Scott?�

�Yeah, I called you��

He interrupted me. I guess he thought from the look of my face, that I�d been shot freely about the head. But in quick sentences I told him what had happened, what was going on. He left me at the side of the road and raced to his car, said something to the driver. I heard them radioing in, but I didn�t pay much attention. Dizziness was sweeping over me.

Then the sergeant was back. A few terse questions from him got the rest of the story out of me. I told him about Quinn, Barracuda, the dead clown, the numerous hoods who were present even now. And about the papers I�d stuffed into my coat pockets. Some of them were still there. Others were scattered over the countryside � but they could be picked up. Sirens dinned in our ears as two more police cars approached.

I said, �About that clown, he was undoubtedly killed by mistake by a hood named Barracuda � I mean, Hacker. After he was dead, I shot him twice and a half a dozen or so hoods shot him, too. So your crime lab can compare the bullets in him with the guns on the premises and��

�What?�

��and hold those crooks for mutilating a corpse, if nothing else. The jail�s going to be crowded.� I lay down flat on the dirt. I was pooped. I was all tuckered out.

�You all right?� the sergeant asked.

�Yeah. They got me in the leg. I don�t think it�s bad.�

�Let me take a look.� He bent over me, used his flashlight. I heard cloth tearing. �Nothing,� he said. �You�ll walk on it in no time. Hey,� he grinned down at me.

�Yeah?�

�We caught you in our headlights as we came down. Thought you were crazy. There was a car coming at you � they went off the road over there.� he pointed. �And about five or six guys running at you with guns. You know what you were doing?�

�Throwing up?�

He laughed. �No, you were sitting on your fanny and throwing rocks at them. Or I guess it was those little pebbles.� He kicked some of the gravel I was lying on.

It struck me funny, and I chuckled. Then I grinned back at him and said, �Well, I knew they were going to shoot me � but by gad I was going to make them pay!�

�Sure, Scott. Take it easy.�

�And it wasn�t pebbles. You think I�m crazy? It was rocks. I took them out of my head.�

�You better just rest there, Scott,� he said, and walked back to the car.

And that�s what I did.

That, of course, was just about all of it. Except the mopping up. I got an ambulance ride to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. It was possible that, in all the excitement, I didn�t explain to the police as well as I might have just what was going on at Frank Quinn�s party. But as it turned out, only one officer was shot, and even he wasn�t hurt seriously. Two more of the hoodlum guests were wounded seriously enough to require hospitalization, but the rest were herded together and taken down to the police building without undue trouble.

All of the guests were booked, on suspicion of half the crimes in the book, and there was little that even their smart lawyers could do about it, since there were already two corpses on the premises when the police arrived: Jim Lester, and the clown � who turned out to be just a poor safe-man who�d happened to wear a clown outfit. I later learned from Barracuda that the clown had been in the room adjoining Quinn�s office with a little brunette when Barracuda walked in on them; from the outfit, and the brunette, and the way they were carrying on, Barracuda had just automatically assumed that the guy was Shell Scott.

Also bleeding on the premises when the police arrived, were the man I�d plugged in the leg, the one I�d drilled with Barracuda�s.32 and the guy I�d peppered with double-ought buckshot. In the room with the still unconscious Frank Quinn and Barracuda was of course, Quinn�s open safe, the contents of which the police could thus quite legitimately examine. That led to a large number of indictments, among which the indictment of Quinn himself was almost incidental.

My first night in the hospital, before conking out for a good sleep, I made sure that I got the straight story on Ross Miller. The info I�d stuffed into my pockets, and the other stuff found in Quinn�s safe, was enough to indicate that Miller had been framed by Quinn. It was certain that in the next few days the proof one way or another would be forthcoming. You can always postpone an execution; but you can�t undo one. Under the circumstances the governor had no choice. He granted the stay.

While I was still in the hospital, some of Quinn�s associates broke down and spilled all they knew about him, including details of Quinn�s payoffs through K. C. Flagg � and his ordering the murder of little Weiss. And then, with Quinn safely locked up, blonde Lucy Dale admitted that Quinn had not been with her at the time of Flagg�s murder, but had forced her to provide him with an alibi to explain his known presence at the Whitestone on that night of November 20.

So it was obvious that Frank Quinn was all washed up; not only did it look as if he would be made for the Flagg murder, but he was tagged for the killing of Weiss. And that finished the clearing of Ross Miller. The machinery for his release started grinding, and the day I got out of the hospital, he was scheduled to be freed. It seemed like nice timing.

I left the hospital, hale and hearty, on a Friday afternoon. It was a bright day, with a sharp nip in the air. Invigorating. Bracing. I felt good. And I felt like seeing Doris Miller. I drove to her apartment.

Nobody was there. And then I realized that it was almost the hour when Ross Miller was to be released. Naturally his sister would be on hand to welcome him. Fortunately, so could I be, if I hurried. The prisoner had already been transferred from San Quentin to the jail in L.A.�s Police Building, from which he was about to be released. I jumped into the Cad and made time back downtown. I hurried at just the right rate of speed so that I got there as Ross Miller was enfolding his sister in his arms, while flashbulbs popped and reporters hovered. I hovered with them. Let Ross and Doris, I thought, have their moment.

But it was more than a moment, and gradually it occurred to me that this egg did not seem to be kissing Doris the way a brother kisses a sister. They came up for air, as the saying goes, and then went back down in the carbon dioxide. More flashbulbs popped.

It took me a couple minutes, I guess, to work my way over close to them and attract Doris� attention. When she saw me, her lips parted and her blue eyes got very wide. Those eyes which I�d thought a little strange when we�d met. She gasped.

Ross Miller, his arm around her waist, looked at me. He was a tall, dark, character with a thin mustache and several pounds of black wavy hair. �Who�s this slob, honey?� he asked Doris.

She didn�t answer him. Looking at my chin she said, �Shell... ah, I... there�s something I didn�t tell you.�

I got it then, finally, but all of a sudden, as if I were belatedly telepathic. And oddly enough, right at the same moment I figured out what was wrong with those bright blue eyes of Doris Miller�s � or whatever her name was. She never looked at me. Never looked at my eyes, that is. She had always looked at my chin, as she was now; or my ear, or shoulder, or off into space. Never straight and clean and true, into my eyes. That was because she�d been lying to me from the beginning.

�I�m sorry, Shell,� she said, looking at my collar bone. �It... well, I had to have help. And Weiss had talked to me just the day before. I didn�t think if I told you who I really was that you would...�

She was having a hard time getting the words out. �Skip it,� I said. And then I added to myself, �Brother, I am sure the world�s greatest detective. I�m Sherlock Holmes and Javert all wrapped up in Li�l Abner. What a thinker! I should never have thrown away all those rocks...�

I went down to the street and got into my Cad, started it and headed out the Hollywood Freeway toward home. Life, I thought, is cruel. Life is shallow. Life is lifeless. I thought all sorts of things like that until I reached the Spartan Apartment Hotel. As I passed the desk, the clerk called my name and then handed me a stack of mail.

I glanced at it on the way up to the second floor. Bills mostly. Bills � there was a letter from the Twenty-Centuries Costume Center.

It was a nice, pleasant not-very-businesslike letter saying that the firm had enjoyed doing business with me and hoped that everything was satisfactory. The last sentence was, �Please remember that we have the largest private stock of costumes in Hollywood � including many special costumes for special occasions.� And it was signed, Marie.

At the bottom of the letter was a short P.S., �As in Antoinette.�

In less than fifteen minutes I was walking into the Twenty-Centuries Costume Center. The little honey blonde was behind the counter reading a magazine. I didn�t look at the title; enough of my illusions had already been shattered this day, and it would have been too much to bear if she had been reading about Donald Duck.

She looked up. �Well, hello,� she said musically. She was in the harem costume again. Or still. Maybe she always wore it in the shop. She did if the boss was smart.

�Hi,� I said. �I ruined the clown outfit I rented. I had a hunch that might happen, remember?�

She nodded, looking at me from those soft brown eyes. Looking at my eyes. Obviously she had nothing to hide. And she wasn�t making much effort to hide it.

I went on, �Are you Marie?�

She laughed. �Oh, you got my note. Well... I just signed it Marie for fun. You know, for a joke?�

�I see. That�s dandy. Yes, that�s good.�

�My name isn�t really Marie. It�s actually��

�Woops. What do you say, for a while anyway, we just leave it Marie?�

�As in Antoinette.�

Yes, I was thinking, I�d had it all wrong a little while ago. Life is not cruel and shallow and lifeless. It is indeed the very opposite, chock full of goodness. It�s all in your point of view. Life is exciting, exhilarating, wonderful � especially at costume parties. From now on, that is.

And I was right.