The overseas calls from Nassau, British West Indies, came through one, two, three � bang � stacked up like pancakes on this suffocating July afternoon.

The first voice was clipped, arrogant, very English public school. �Michael Shayne? You�ll only make a fool of yourself and make things harder for Count de Nieully if you come over. If you�re smart, you�ll drop the Wyndham investigation.�

The connection clicked. There was a man who knew what he wanted to say and said it. There was nothing to be gained by trying to trace back that kind of a call.

The next call was a voice speaking with the very precise English of a man not raised with the language. It was a blunt warning to keep away from the case if the Miami detective valued his health.

The third call was from a hard breather, talking through a handkerchief, the speech thick and blurred. There was no mention of Wyndham, but the speaker offered the bribe of a preposterous fee if Michael Shayne would leave for Ceylon immediately to track down some mythical commercial data.

Shayne�s decorative secretary, Lucy Hamilton, stood belligerently in the doorway after the third call and declared, �See? That�s no murder trial over there � it�s a lynching bee! Michael, you�ve got to take this case on.�

The redheaded detective lounged back in his spring chair and tugged at the lobe of his left ear. He regarded his pert secretary quizzically. For three weeks, she had been growing more and more incensed at Tim Rourke�s reports on the trial as published in the Miami News until she had made it her personal cause celebre.

�Apparently,� Shayne told her, �I�m already in the deal.�

It was an hour before the fourth call came. This was from the Countess de Nieully, only child of Sir Herbert Wyndham, the victim, and the wife of the young count on trial for the murder. She made an urgent plea for Mike Shayne�s help, using Tim Rourke�s recommendation. All she asked was for Shayne to unearth some evidence that would aid the getting of a fair trial.

Shayne accepted the deal on condition that whatever he dug up would be available to the prosecution. The countess agreed reluctantly � the reluctance clearly evident in her voice.

Thus Mike Shayne was at Miami�s bustling International Airport just after dawn. Flying eastward into the new day, he chuckled most of the way over Lucy�s parting advice � �You just be careful they don�t end up making you a party to the murder!�

There was a good deal of shrewdness in her thrust, for the trial was turning out quite as bizarre as the murder itself. As Tim Rourke had written yesterday, �This trial sets a precedent in British jurisprudence. A man is being tried without any incriminating evidence, and is being compelled to prove his innocence in order to disprove a guilt which has not been established.�

�And with at least three outsiders wanting the count to hold the bag, it seems!� Shayne added to himself.

The noiseless jet winged over on the tight, downward spiral of island landings. The Bahamas, Jewels of the Atlantic, were strewn on the azure sea beneath. As the neat, sunkissed town of Nassau floated up to meet them, Shayne thought he might altogether enjoy this case.

Forty minutes later, he had radically reversed that cheery hope. He still cooled his heels and warmed his neck at the �S� sector of Customs while a ferret-nosed inspector dawdled over obvious pretexts for delay. In the very middle of one item, the inspector glanced at the clock, and with no further flicker of interest in Shayne�s belongings, replaced them in his suitcase.

�Looks like you�re all cleared,� he said with a chuckle in his bright blue eyes. �Hope you enjoy your visit, Mr. Shayne.�

The detective contained his hot answer and headed for the lobby. Shouldering the door, he glanced back. The inspector had left his station to use a government phone on a post behind him. It was just time, the redhead noted, for the government offices to be opening.

�So,� Shayne frowned to himself, �I was not to be passed through until some official brass had his morning tea and toast and could be duly notified!� There could be no doubt at all that he had tangled at the start with a rather startling official attitude.

As he strode through the door, a cool English voice came at him, �Michael Shayne?�

Still bad tempered, the Miami redhead glared into a pair of amazingly blue eyes set in the tanned face of a character right out of Beau Geste. Tall, sinewy, athletic, aristocratic. The man stood a good six feet four and looked like a Scot. He wore tan Bermuda shorts and open shirt, but made his concession to British formality with a white crash linen jacket.

The redhead nodded his identification. The tall man took a briar pipe from his mouth and fell into easy step beside Shayne. �Gave you the official treatment, I see,� he commented. �That will give you an idea of what you�re up against.�

Shayne stopped and put down his suitcase, reached for a cigarette. �You�re my caller from yesterday who warned me off the Wyndham case?�

�Advised,� the man corrected smoothly. �Name�s Anthony Crispin.� He looked at Shayne shrewdly. �Apparently, somebody did warn you?�

Shayne cursed his Irish temper for his slip and let the question go unanswered. He frowned and lit a cigarette, tossing the match casually aside. �To what am I indebted for this welcome?� he asked.

Crispin knocked the dottle out of his pipe on the heel of his hand. He blew it and fresh-loaded it from a pouch bearing regimental stripes. �You still have time to take the advice,� he said. �Margot was an idiot to call you in. It is going to make things much harder for Raoul.�

�How much harder can they be than a rigged trial?� Shayne grunted.

�The fat�s in the fire now,� Crispin said. �But the jury can still report a null prosse or not guilty.�

�You think they�re liable to, with the star chamber circus of the prosecution?� Shayne demanded.

�Ah � that has to be the unavoidable risk,� Crispin murmured. �But if you get to stirring around, you may unearth some very lively skeletons. And every leading family in the islands will be putting on pressure to get Raoul convicted before you have the chance.�

�To keep their own skirts clean?�

�Skirts,� Crispin smiled with cool, sardonic humor, �is a very apt word! In spite of his age, Sir Herbert was a notably successful old lecher. At best, Island society is pretty much a bucket of eels. Nobody wants the bucket kicked over for public inspection.�

�Including you?� Shayne demanded.

�Very much including me,� Crispin nodded. �Although there is no slightest chance that I might become a suspect. At the time of the crime, I was in the hospital in traction from an accident water skiing.�

�Then why your significant interest?� Shayne inquired.

For the barest instant, danger shot through Crispin�s sky blue eyes like tracer bullets. Then he said, fully at ease, �Shayne, under the proper circumstances, there is a little homicide in all of us. I�d not like mine to be tested.�

Shayne picked up his bag. He said with droll mockery, �I will be sorry if I have to conjure up the devil in you, Crispin! But if it eases your mind, I�m not interested in any skeletons except Sir Herbert Wyndham�s.�

He let his hard gaze rest on the tall man for a moment, then moved on toward the telephone booths. He set his bag down to fish for change. He was vaguely conscious of the peculiar sound � a hissing thwaaaak � for several seconds before he realized that the sound had come from his bag.

Before he looked, he knew what he sought. And it was there � a small round hole, as black as an ink blot. It had put a period after the �S� of a Savannah hotel sticker.

�S� also stood for Shayne.

His eyes leaped over the crowd to find something suspicious. Nobody was running, nobody was watching him, in fact, nobody was even not watching him particularly.

Crispin had stopped at the end of a waiting bench to fish for a light. He brought a jet lighter from his pocket and applied the flame, tamping the fire down with the butt of the lighter and drawing deeply of the smoke. Not until then did he glance back toward Shayne. His glance might have held a trace of derision.

Shayne watched him head onward for the lobby doors. His jacket pockets were bulky, but Englishmen had a way of stuffing their side pockets. It was impossible to judge whether Crispin carried anything as heavy as a small silenced pistol.

Shayne turned his inspection back to his suitcase, looking for the line of fire that might trace the bedded bullet. The shot had not penetrated the far side of the bag. So, it must have come from a zip-gun or an airgun, and its non-lethal purpose must have been to hit precisely where it had hit. It was impressive warning of somebody�s expert marksmanship.

The redhead gave the marksman his rueful respect and stepped on into the phone booth to raise Tim Rourke out of bed. Making arrangements to meet at the Nassau Hotel, he went on to the carports. No airline limousine was ready for town, so he signalled over a private taxi.

In the nearby alighting zone, a handsome, hard-eyed Latin lounged in a blue Ferrari as if waiting for the return of some friend. He was smoking a thick cigarette of dark yellow paper. He met Shayne�s glance with unyielding curiosity, expelling a long jet of thick blue smoke.

A mile down the road, Shayne leaned to catch the reflection in the taxi driver�s mirror, and saw the blue Ferrari following � without a passenger.

�Good!� he growled. �They�re going to bring it to me on a platter!�

Tim Rourke was waiting in the Nassau lobby. Shayne wigwagged, checked in, and told the bellboy to take up cognac and straight rye, and to bring the key to him in the men�s bar. Then the two Americans moved into the long dim room for an eyeopener.

Tim tapped a photo envelope he carried and said significantly, �I�ll show you these upstairs.�

The barkeep nodded to Tim and said to the detective, �Do I understand yours is always cognac, Mr. Shayne?�

�It used to be � but it�s bourbon now.� He looked at Tim curiously as the bartender moved off to get their drinks. Tim said, �News that you might enter the case was considered important enough to put on the local radio last night. Likewise, a description of you. With that bricktop of yours, you are not exactly hard to spot!�

�Who supplies the news for these local broadcasts?�

�A little of everybody. But the grapevine was buzzing about you by three o�clock yesterday afternoon.�

Shayne frowned. �That�s before I even talked with the countess.�

Tim lifted his shoulders and let them fall. �The sands have ears when it comes to this case! There isn�t anybody in the Bahamas who hasn�t a personal angle in it. This bartender, for instance, made some very handsome tips from Sir Herbert Wyndham, keeping him informed of visitors who might be here on various business and political deals. If the information came out, he�d lose his job.�

The bellboy came with Shayne�s key, and he and Rourke retired to the privacy of his suite. The rooms were spacious, cooled by old-fashioned ceiling fans and double doors opening on a balcony. It was a pleasant relief from Miami�s ultra-modern, sealed-in, sardine cans with their too chill air conditioning.

Shayne unpacked while Rourke mixed drinks. He found the pellet from the shot, a .25 caliber slug sticking to the hard rubber sole of a sport shoe.

He tossed it slowly in his hand as he asked, �Know a hard and handsome Latin who drives a blue Ferrari?�

�Sounds like Luis Valencia. He�s a freelance mystery man in Latin politics and arms running. Probably had some deals with Sir Herbert. They were friends.�

�Unh. And Anthony Crispin?�

Tim shot him a grin. �Nassau�s glamor boy? Third son of a viscount, top athlete, war ace, loaded with medals, and no money. Plays squire to a wealthy young widow, Alma Wollner, who runs with Margot de Nieully � the countess � and who rather adopted Margot�s mother for her own. Alma was raised an orphan, so the relationship is quite understandable. Alma is very loyal to the Wyndhams.�

Shayne pulled at his ear with one hand and jounced the pellet with the other as he sifted the potentials of these facts. Rourke went on, briefing him in various unpublished aspects of the case. Shayne turned suddenly toward the door, giving Tim a signal to go on talking. In the same instantaneous movement, he turned the doorknob and threw open the door.

A man stood there, obviously listening. With no slightest embarrassment, he nodded stiffly and moved past Shayne into the room.

He was built square, very fit for his hoary years, with a seamed, dark burned face, iron grey hair and mustaches. He had the same grey in his eyes, and, Shayne suspected, in his veins.

The reporter broke off his talk to exclaim, �Well, Mr. Dennis of the Colony office! Do you know Mike Shayne?�

�I know about him,� Dennis said dryly. He looked the redhead over, etching every detail into his memory.

�Shayne,� he said without preamble. �I hope that you understand that you are Visiting our shores strictly in the capacity of a private United States citizen.�

�Which means?� Shayne asked.

�You will be extended no cooperation nor privileges for investigation here. You will not be permitted to trespass nor invade the privacy of any citizen of the Bahamas. Under no circumstance, will you be permitted to carry or use firearms. Any complaint will force us to regard you as an undesirable citizen and to deport you accordingly.�

Shayne shaded grey with restrained anger. �What calls for this?�

�We feel our own police and private investigators quite competent,� Dennis stated. �And we do not intend to encourage a foreigner�s meddling.�

His gaze came hard, drill and official. �Have I made myself clear?�

�You have made the case much clearer!� the redhead breathed with anger.

Dennis nodded and turned back to the door. He paused with the door half open to add, �One thing which might save you some embarrassment � the de Nieully property is impounded by the crown until the termination of his trial. The company of the countess would not alter your status should we find you trespassing.�

�You ought to be glad for a little help unearthing some real evidence!� Shayne reminded him.

�We have quite enough evidence,� Dennis stated. �Nothing that you might turn up would affect the trial, nor the outcome, in the slightest.�

Then he was gone.

Shayne stared with disbelief at Rourke. Tim said somberly, �That just about limits you to the clubs and pubs and the Wyndham estate.�

�I wonder what they�d say if I came up with the murder weapons?� the redhead rasped.

�Unless they bore the incontestable finger prints of de Nieully, they would probably say they were counterfeit, and charge you with attempting to impede justice,� Tim laughed. �My friend, nobody else can be guilty as the crown sees it!�

He held out Shayne�s drink with a grim smile. �You look like you might need this.�

Shayne swept the drink into his hand and downed half of it at one toss. It was simply incredible to him that a case could be handled in this arbitrary manner in any British court. Finally, he forced himself to stretch out on a cool wicker chaiselounge to ask about de Nieully.

�An odd duck,� Tim said. �Likeable, but rather colorless. Easygoing, playboy type, but has some business ability. The crown prosecutor branded him a fortune hunter and claimed that he was estranged from his wife. But he�s a real count, has sufficient money of his own, and his wife came rushing back from Maine to defend him the minute she heard the tragic news about her father.�

�What was the family trouble a few months after their marriage?� Shayne asked.

�She was taken exceeding ill, necessitating a legal abortion. Her father, Sir Herbert, blew his top and blamed the count. Sir Herbert could be pretty crude when he was mad. He came out of the row breathing fire and swearing he�d see that his daughter got a divorce.

�His daughter refused, and Sir Herbert really flipped. Warned the count never to set foot on Wyndham lands again, and instructed armed guards to shoot him like a dog if he did. Changed his will so that the count could never benefit by a cent of his wife�s inheritance. Even tried to get the count black-balled out of the yacht club.�

�I suppose that could make the count hate him pretty thoroughly,� Shayne considered. �But it doesn�t paint a very likely background for a quiet bedroom chat at two or three a.m.�

�The quietness of the murder has bothered me all through the case,� Tim grunted. �The women of the family were vacationing in Maine, as you know. The Wyndham servants do not sleep in the main house. But there was a reliable houseguest that night, sleeping in the room that adjoined Sir Herbert�s. No sound was raised loud enough to disturb him, yet both men were quite sober when they retired, anticipating an early rise and breakfast.�

�What stands against the count?� Shayne asked.

�Hate. The fact that he knew the habits of the estate, and the layout of the house intimately.�

�And what is in his favor?�

�Well, for one thing, Sir Herbert�s well-known temper. In spite of his age, he was still built like a bull, and of a pugnacious disposition. The count is slight of build, and anything but aggressive. It seems a reasonable presumption that the count would hesitate to enter Sir Herbert�s room at that time of night without a gun, and that if he�d been armed with a gun, that is the weapon he would have used.

�Even if Sir Herbert was sound asleep, which seems doubtful, killing him with some instrument such as a hammer was damned risky for the assassin. If the first blow had failed, Sir Herbert would have bounced up roaring like a lion.�

�I�ll buy that,� Shayne agreed. �The use of a striking weapon � not even a knife, and with no attended scuffle � suggests a man with considerable experience in sandbagging. They never identified what the weapon might have been, did they?�

�No. It left half-inch, V-shaped marks. The blows were heavy, but that�s all they know. There was absolutely no sign of struggle. Yet Sir Herbert had been burned lightly on his face and lower stomach with a blowtorch both before and after death. Neither the murder weapon nor the blowtorch have been located.�

Shayne swirled his remaining cognac. He already knew that the count had been found to have slight burns on his forearm and mustache, such as might have been acquired from a blowtorch. But a houseguest of the count�s had testified that the count got the burns while lighting hurricane lamps previous to a dinner party at his home the night of the murder.

�What do the islanders think about that blowtorch angle?� Shayne inquired.

Rourke gave a grunting breath. �What they think and what they�re saying are two different things! Leaving the count out of it for the moment, the use of the blowtorch, as it was used, suggests the brooding vengeance of some husband or lover whose lady fair was stolen for a night or two by Sir Herbert in the past.

�But of course, anybody who says that openly is indirectly aiding the count�s defense. And the sad fact is that even friends of the count�s who sincerely believe in his innocence would rather see him hold the bag than to see a wide open investigation that might toss up some of their own dirt. So there isn�t much talk.�

�What do you think about Count Raoul�s innocence?� Shayne asked, so quietly and casually that Rourke was half into his answer before it struck him that he was pinpointed.

�I don�t know,� Tim confessed. �Financially, he lost from Sir Herbert�s death. As long as Sir Herbert lived, Margot had a sizeable allowance she could spend as she wished, and a good deal of it was doubtless spent on the de Nieully household. Also, there was always the possibility that she could eventually soften her father toward the count. With Sir Herbert dead, Margot�s inheritance is strictly accountable, and the count is firmly excluded.

�Outwardly, Count Raoul is not the killer type. And he has an established alibi for most of his evening. He gave a small dinner party, he was in excellent humor and did not get tipsy. At midnight, he took two young matrons home, returning at twelve thirty for a nightcap with his houseguest and his girl.

�At two o�clock, the house-guest�s cat disturbed the count. He brought it to the guest, asking him to lock the damned thing up, or put it out. The guest laughed and decided it was time to take his girl home anyway, and he was back by two-thirty. Count Raoul�s car was just where it had been when the guest left, and the lights in his room were out.

�Even the prosecution could not figure any period longer than ten minutes that the count might have had free to get to Wyndham and commit the murder. And it is five miles from his house to Wyndham�s.

�But the coroner could not pin Sir Herbert�s death any closer than sometime between two and five A.M. Now with luck, the count could have sneaked out of his house and done the job and gotten back in without observation or wakening his houseguest.�

�Still, you don�t really think he did it,� Shayne challenged.

�No, I don�t,� Tim conceded. �But he could have done it. On the other hand, there are at least twenty people in the Bahamas with even greater motive. Sir Herbert was a pretty ruthless duck � in business, in romance, or in politics.�

�I think that torch angle is the real key,� Shayne murmured, pulling his ear harder than usual. �It doesn�t fit right. If you bother taking a blowtorch to a man�s bedroom at two A.M. presumably you intend to use it on him. And if you do � both before and after death � you don�t bother to do it lightly.�

�Maybe the killer got squeamish,� Tim suggested.

�And so used the torch a second time?� Shayne remarked with a skeptical frown.

Rourke poured them fresh drinks and handed Shayne the photo envelope. The bulk of the pix were police pictures taken at the scene of the murder the next morning. They showed Sir Herbert lying in a relaxed position, half atop his covers, his face turned to the right. His right arm was outstretched with the hand open, palm up, as if he might have just laid his cigar in the ashtray on the night table.

Part of his pajamas were burned. Some of the bedding about him was charred and the rug still smoldered from where ignited bedding had fallen onto it. Otherwise, there was no indication that the gruesome incident had taken place. Even under the bum of the blowtorch, Sir Herbert�s face was not contorted.

�The nightlight on his table was still burning in the morning,� Tim said. �No other lights were going in the house.�

The redhead nodded and looked into a smaller envelope enclosed. It contained two glossy prints of fingerprints, and two negatives.

�The count�s?� Shayne questioned.

Tim nodded. �What do you make of them?�

�This takes expert analysis,� Shayne said. �But my bet would be that the prints have been superimposed. The fingerprints are too clear for a rough surface. They must have been made on glass. But that�s some kind of wood under them in these glossies.�

Rourke laughed outright. �I wondered if you�d come up with that! Those prints were delivered to the prosecution for use in the trial next week. Never mind how I got �em. The photos were made by two experts from the States � two identification experts of your old friend from Miami Beach � Chief Paul Pointer.�

Shayne barked a breath and stared hard at Rourke to see if he was joking. The Miami Beach Police chief had once tried to frame Mike Shayne on a murder charge, and except for the help of Chief Will Gentry of Miami proper, Shayne would probably be behind bars right now.

�I don�t think the prosecutor is aware they might be phonies,� Tim went on. �And he�ll probably be sure not to become so. But it is a strange coincidence that the Miami Beach boys somehow shanghaied Count Raoul away from his lawyer before they supposedly found those prints and got him to handle a glass pitcher and to pour a glass of water.�

�They were supposedly found on the scene of the crime?� the detective queried.

�Right where the local police had looked as if they were looking for a hidden hydrogen bomb and found nothing. Purportedly, they were on a big hand carved wooden screen that Sir Herbert sometimes used to cut the draft onto his bed.�

�And of course, the screen could explain the count�s unsuspected presence,� Shayne growled. �It could be implied he entered the room while Sir Herbert was washing and hid behind the screen.�

�Exactly,� Tim agreed. �And with feelings the way they are, I rather imagine that evidence will send him to the gallows. That only gives you the weekend to work in, Mike.�

Shayne�s face set, but breakfast came, and no worry interfered with his hunger. While he ate, he studied one of the death scene pix propped up in front of him. He couldn�t get the feeling out of his head that Sir Herbert had been killed during the interim of a conversation � that the killer had sat on the left side of the multimillionaire�s bed, and tapped him when Sir Herbert turned to the night table to lay down his cigar.

But that still left the torch part of the affair to be explained.

Shayne finished his breakfast, sealed the second envelope containing the fingerprints, and put in a call to Lucy Hamilton at Miami. She was already at the office and greeted him cheerily, �Haven�t they found you guilty yet?�

�Don�t think it couldn�t happen!� he told her. �With this operation, they�d claim I used a time machine.� Then he said, �Lucy, we have a friend in Atlanta, a War Two intelligence, print expert.�

�The colonel,� she said promptly. �He doesn�t like being disturbed after eight P.M. or on weekends.�

�That�s why you�re going to Atlanta with bells on � and the less otherwise, the better! I�m sending over some pix on the next plane. Meet them. You take them up and make that old fussduddy examine them under every light he�s got, and come up with an opinion of what they are.�

�Suppose he wants to examine me under those black lights?� she asked.

�Not on payroll time,� Shayne chuckled.

Still grinning, he hung up.

Tim Rourke drove the redhead out to the airport where Shayne found a pilot friend to personally carry the envelope. It was against rules, but it could be done. As they sauntered back through the airport lobby, Shayne saw the familiar Latin.

�Really haunting this airport this morning,� he said to Tim. �Is that our Luis Valencia?�

�In the flesh,� Tim informed him. �This is earlier than he usually gets up. You must have him worried.�

They saw no sign of the Ferrari outside, but midway back to town, Shayne saw the flicker of the blue car in the side mirror. Rourke bypassed the town, cutting across to the shore road. The road was built on a coral shelf that graded down to the shoals and reefs, but directly on its inland side, a ridge lifted and ran parallel to the shore, hiding most of the estates on that side.

Rourke nodded at a pair of gateposts and muttered, �Alma Wollner�s. The house is back about a quarter mile. The next big estate on the right is Wyndham�s. It sits quite a long way from the highroad, almost atop the water.�

It had a tree shaded drive and enormous lawn, the detective noted. The whole second floor was surrounded by a balcony. Rourke drove on past to show the de Nieully place.

They came to the entrance five miles beyond. A policeman lounging at the gate grinned at Tim Rourke. �Come out to pick some more posies in the garden, I suppose?�

�I always wait for moonlight,� Tim told him and tossed him a couple of cigars. �What news out here?�

�Well, we�ve got a host to greet you proper the next time you come by moonlight,� the policeman chuckled. He gave a piercing whistle, and two bristling mastiffs came bounding out of nowhere. �Take a good smell of that Yankee so you won�t mistake him and treat him gentle!� the uniformed man told the dogs.

Shayne studied the house in the distance. It was a comfortable looking, old type plantation house with a four car garage, and it looked as if it were muchly lived in, which the Wyndham place did not. An old jallopy stood outside the closed garage doors.

�Is that the count�s car?� Shayne asked with surprise.

�Oh, he�s got a Caddy and a fast Porsche inside the garage,� the guard said. �But he usually drove this one for run around.�

�Top speed, fifty miles per hour out on the airstrip,� Tim put in. �The prosecution clocked it.� He passed some brief banter with the guard and swung around for the five mile ride back to Wyndham.

Rourke drove as near fifty as he could and the ride was bumpy. In the count�s antique chariot, it would have unsettled the coolest killer. Shayne timed the drive, and separately, timed their drive from gateposts to the palatial Wyndham house.

The car park was on the inland side of the house, but a butler led them through to a terrace that overlooked the sea. He left them to inform the countess of their arrival.

Rourke nodded at the boathouse and the small man-made yacht. �A small T-class sailer, two speedboats, and that ocean-going cabin boat for travelling to the mainland,� he itemized. �Have it real tough, these tax ridden millionaires!�

�Sir Herbert a yachting addict?�

�No, he hates the water. But Lady Wyndham likes the cabin boat. The Countess Margot and her friend Alma Wollner race the speedboats and the sailer.�

Shayne gave a low whistle. �Racing boats cost a penny just to keep tuned up! Unless they�re female mechanics, too?�

Rourke shook his head. �There�s a mechanic at the club takes care of most of the estates along here for a flat fee.�

He saw the hopeful glint of Shayne�s eyes and shook his head again. �He was here the day of the crime, he thought Sir Herbert was a diamond in the rough, a misunderstood good guy.�

The young countess came onto the terrace, a cool, self-possessed, straightforward looking girl. She was more American in dress and manner than Shayne had expected. And she was gracious. She ordered breakfast for them all.

�Mr. Shayne,� she said straightforwardly, �I am sure Raoul had no part in the � the tragedy. I�m so sure of it that I give you carte blanche to make the evidence available to the prosecutor, even if it is prejudicial. But what I really hope for is the��

�Real culprit?� Shayne suggested understandingly.

�No,� she surprised him by saying. �I loved my father dearly, but nothing is going to bring him back! I am under no illusions as to his public character. Somebody probably felt they had justified reason to commit this act. All I am after is something to startle the prosecutor out of this star chamber handling of the case.�

�That would still be risking the jury,� Shayne pointed out.

�This is a peculiar case, as Mr. Rourke has probably told you,� Margot said. �My husband was the unfortunate scapegoat. But even with all the pressure and self interest to block any other investigation, I am convinced that the jury will exonerate my husband if the prosecutor can be forced to give an open-minded summary.�

�You think evidence pointing definitely toward another suspect would weaken the prosecution?�

�It would tear it to shreds!� she said. �All the world is shocked and angered now at the arbitrary way the case has been handled. If there is the ghost of a chance that after conviction and sentence, a private investigation might turn up the real killer.�

Shayne nodded. �The prosecutor and public opinion will both see the wisdom of exonerating your husband.�

�Exactly,� she agreed. �I know the prosecutor. He is a very severe and honest man, but I believe that he honestly thinks Raoul is guilty. I think he decided that when he thought Raoul and I were separated. Once having brought the charges, he cannot bring himself to even consider any other suspect. But I do not believe he is consciously trying to frame my husband. What I hope you can do is to find evidence that will show the prosecutor that he has been blind and prejudiced.�

Shayne admired her. Now, for the first time, he was completely satisfied with his own decision to undertake the case.

�I have a strong stomach and a strong mind, Mr. Shayne,� she said. �Ask anything that you find necessary � and count on my cooperation one hundred percent.�

�That makes it easier,� Shayne admitted. �One thing comes to mind. Your father never kept a gun until recently, it�s been said, but on the night in question, he had one in his night table. Do you know why he began arming himself?�

�I can only guess,� she said. �He had been very involved in several of these recent Latin revolutions. In one case, he promised to back a certain clique, and then later, withdrew. I suppose he thought that he might be in jeopardy from both sides, and so he began keeping the gun.�

She fell thoughtful a moment and then said, �Senor Luis Valencia might know something, but I doubt if he would talk. At times, he had mutual interests with my father, I believe.�

�You don�t think this could have been an act of jealous vengeance on the part of some husband?� Shayne asked.

The girl reddened but took the question in her stride. �I can think of at least a dozen men who might have thought about it,� she told him frankly. �But not one with the guts to tackle father. He was still a miner when he was thirty-five, Mr. Shayne. He never lost the physique � nor the wild temper.�

The butler and a maid brought in breakfast, and the two men ate a second time in courtesy. The detective waited until they were on second coffee and the butler had departed before asking, �Countess, can you explain how it happened that several people knew you had it in mind to employ me in this matter?�

She colored guiltily, �I�m afraid I scotched, Mr. Shayne,� she admitted. �I had just come from seeing my husband and his counsel about calling you. I was rather upset at the way the trial had gone yesterday morning. I stopped by Alma Wollner�s and she was giving a buffet luncheon for about forty guests.

�One of them, a Lady Doane, has an unusually sharp tongue and wayward sense of humor. She made some catty remark about the trial, and I blew my top. I wanted to throw the fear of God info them, and I did � or rather, the fear of Mike Shayne. I told them all that if they thought it was so funny to send a man to the gallows with no evidence whatsoever, I�d produce some Mike Shayne evidence that might give them a real laugh!�

Suddenly, she giggled a little. �I�m ashamed of laughing about it,� she apologized. �But you could have heard a pin drop! Two of the Colonel Blimps on hand grabbed for bottles instead of pouring drinks, and I think Lady Doane actually swooned.�

�You�re very close to Alma Wollner?�

�Like a sister. She worships my mother, and we regard her as part of our family. We always have.�

�Can you think of a reason why Anthony Crispin would not welcome the investigation you�ve employed me for?�

Shayne could feel that question strike hard within her. It was something she had to think about. She said reluctantly, �Tony is very deeply attached to her, but he does have to live. I think that three or four times she has let him have fairly large sums of money. Of course, if that came out, it would make him look like a common gigolo, and it would look worse for Alma.�

For the time at least, Shayne was willing to accept that possible explanation.

�I suppose you�ll want to see dad�s room?� the Countess offered. For the barest second, her gaze faltered and she bit her lip. Then she rang for the butler.

The room had been put in order, was still much as it had been on the fatal morning. The same rug was still there, with the burned spot where smoldering bedclothes had dropped on it. The same mattress was on the bedstead, still smelling of char. The windows onto the balcony were open, as they had been in the police photos, and the big carved screen still stood obliquely between the end windows and the bed.

Shayne measured off two and a half steps from the screen to the head of the bed and shook his head negatively. It brought him up in an awkward position with his right shoulder jammed against the wall. A downward blow by a standing man was an uncertain one at best, and this position would have been risky in the extreme.

�A man berserk with pent-up jealousy might chance it,� he said. �But a man in that mood would have raised a rumpus.�

He sat down on the left side of the bed and envisioned the movements of Sir Herbert�s powerful body, turning without suspicion toward the night table to lay down his cigar. It would tense the muscles on the left side of his neck and head, and present a clear target for a sitting man to strike him behind the ear. But it was still a damned risky way to attempt murder.

�It�s possible,� Shayne erupted suddenly, �that the killing was an unintended error. Suppose somebody he trusted, or else held in negligent contempt, came to force some information out of him. They sat over here talking, and took their chance to daze him with a blow. Then they went to work on him with the torch.

�But he was hurt more than they had figured. In fact, he was dying. They realized that when he showed no response to the torch. That would account for bums both before and after death. When they realized he was dead, they got out fast.�

�Sounds plausible,� Tim said. �But you can�t hide a blowtorch under a tropical suit. How did the killer walk in at two or three A.M. carrying a blowtorch without rousing Sir Herbert�s suspicions?�

�Yeah,� Shayne agreed. �There is something funny here, almost as if this were two different deals. Maybe they didn�t bring the torch. Maybe they went out and got it after they knocked him out. But I don�t like that one, either.�

The redhead got up and inspected the closets and bathroom thoroughly, and looked at the balcony. The balcony, of course, was a perfect hideout for a killer wanting to observe his victim. But it still didn�t click. Shayne felt sure the Sir Herbert had been awake, and conversing, when the death blows were struck.

They returned to the terrace where the young countess looked a little wan and shaky. She pulled herself quickly in hand.

�One thing occurred to me, Mr. Shayne,� she said. �A number of women on the island envisioned themselves as Lady Wyndham, but to my father, they were simply a pastime. One of his very few loyalties and softnesses was my mother. That may explain a good deal about our family that is puzzling.�

�I thank you,� Shayne said. �With your permission, Countess, I may come back later.�

�Of course,� she agreed. �Higgins, the butler, already has orders that you are to have free run of the place, day or night.�

She turned to pick up a list of names from the glass-topped table. �These are the people who were at Alma�s when I flipped,� she said. �I may have missed five or six, but these are the important ones.�

Shayne looked at the list and smiled at her cool thoroughness.

�Hermann Roesch,� she added, �had occasional deals with my father. I think he also works with Luis Valencia.�

She escorted them to the front door herself, standing there until they turned out through the tree shaded drive.

�Lively little place, Nassau,� Shayne murmured and thought of Crispin�s description � A bucket of eels.

�You get any idea from the talk?� Tim asked.

�Yes. I�m beginning to understand the prosecutor�s position. If he�d checked out all the possibles first, he�d have been waiting ten years to pin down a suspect.�

�Spot your other two phone-friends from yesterday?�

�Valencia speak good English?�

�The best. Swear he was one of the Brown Boys of Eton.�

�My bet is on him for the warning. And perhaps Hermann Roesch for the bribe.�

Rourke had a story to do and loaned Shayne his car. The redhead drove toward the waterfront, to a little old bar that smelled of tar and hemp and sweat, owned by an old friend.

Terry Mathis, the owner, had a new bottle of Shayne�s favorite brand already set up on the bar. �Yer late,� he said with a soft brogue as greeting for the first time in three years. �Ye got in on the early flight, and don�t be telling me different, Mike Shayne!�

Shayne grinned and pumped his hand. �I got tangled with the Orangemen,� he whispered. He wrapped his legs around an old fashioned barstool and watched Terry pour them drinks. They toasted � �Up the Rebel!� and laughed, and Terry rested with his cable-like forearms on the bar.

�So yer here to clean up the mess the British be making of the case and to save the poor boy from murther?�

Shayne eyed him. �You feel that strongly against the British, or for the count?�

�Well, he�s not what I�d call a cronie of mine,� Terry said more seriously, �But Sir Herbert was, and I tell you, the lad did not do the job.�

Shayne raised his eyebrows questioningly.

�First, this Raoul is a slight boy, and no damn fool,� Terry said. �He�d not be breasting that wild gorilla of a father with nothing but a tack hammer in his hand.�

�There was the blowtorch,� Shayne pointed out.

�Take it easy � I�m getting there. The blowtorch is part of the reason it wasn�t the count. You see, this young count, for all his fancy ways and title, is something of a mechanic, and he knows how to use a torch. But whoever used the one on Sir Herbert didn�t know how to manage.�

Shayne sharpened. �Don�t go wild on me, Terry! Explain that real simple.�

Terry Mathis walked to a small storeroom and returned with a torch. �Ye see this rod? This is for pressure, and you always keep the pressure at the full. This valve controls your flow � the size of the flame you might say. And this is your oxygen mix. It controls the combustion, or the heat.�

Mathis gave the rod a couple of rams and put a match to the torch. �Just let it warm a bit,� he grunted. �Now what I�m going to show you is this. You cannot burn flesh lightly with a proper-set blow torch. Even a flick is going to toast it good, or not at all.�

He went off to the cooler to return with a shank of raw lamb. �This is skinned, of course, but you�ll see.� Mathis drifted the flame across the raw meat in parallel stripes, moving it closer each time.

The first two times left simply smoke marks. The third stripe was like a welt, and the fourth stripe was wide, spattered, and left an acrid stench.

�That,� Terry said, �is the way anybody who knew their torch would use it. If they just wanted to singe a man, they would hold the flame sidewise � like this � and just toast him with the heat. But that was not the case with Sir Herbert. The point of the flame had touched him.�

Mathis put the torch out, let out most of the pressure, threw the mixing valve a little off, and relighted the torch which now burned with a sputtering sound. �And this is about the way the torch was working.� He turned the blaze onto his own arm, singing the hair and turning the flesh red, but not burning himself badly.

Terry turned the torch off again and set it on the back bar with a decisive bang. �Whoever bedevilled Sir Herbert didn�t know how to use the tool they had. The pressure was down and they just used it the way they found it. I say that the count would have pumped up his pressure without even thinking before he lit the torch.�

�And I say, you may have something, Terry Mathis, and I�ll be buying the next drink!� Shayne complimented him. �But who in hell would think of using a torch who didn�t understand it?�

�Ha! Any of these slick haired hoodlums and smugglers,� Terry snorted. �Sure, it was only a week ago that a man whose owned a boat for twenty years brought his torch into me to find out how to use it for some soldering. Y�see, Mike, it is such a simple common tool almost every man thinks he could use one right off, but you come to find out, damned few have ever tried.�

�Maybe if you knew Sir Herbert, you�ve had a hunch of your own?� Shayne suggested.

�No � none that I�d care to mention. Nothing but wild suspicions of one or two people because I don�t like them. The truth is, the count himself spoke the truth. It could have been anyone did it, and it is a wonder he wasn�t murthered long ago. He was no lily, Mike. But what a man!�

They had their drink. They talked fishing. Then Shayne noted the time and got directions to the Racquets Club.

�Some claim they play tennis up there,� Terry chuckled at him. �But all I�ve ever heard tell is of bar and dance floor!�

Michael Shayne judged from the parking that the club�s bar and cuisine was far more popular than its courts. There couldn�t be this many tennis players of a hot mid day!

Tim Rourke was waiting for him at a small table a little aside from the crowded bar. He was talking with the bar captain, a level-eyed young man who looked at Mike Shayne with a mixture of curiosity and respect.

�One of your fans,� Tim said to Shayne. �By virtue of the publicity I gave you.�

The captain grinned. �Followed your cases ever since I came here, Mr. Shayne. Some of �em are better than whodunits.�

�This one particularly,� Shayne grunted drily. �You knew Sir Herbert of course!�

�Yes sir. But I was not exactly one of his fans,� the captain said. He snapped his fingers imperiously at the bar and somehow mysteriously managed to convey the drink order without speaking at all.

�It was not his roughness on the help I minded so much,� the captain went on in a carefully lowered voice. �It was that he was always wanting to hurt somebody. It seemed to make him feel good. If he was horsing some friend, there was always a cut in the joke.�

He moved away to the bar to bring the drinks himself. Rourke seemed to be his special pet. �Maybe I was raised with too much respect for women,� the captain continued. �It jibes me to see a woman hurt, even when she deserves it. And Sir Herbert took a kind of special gloat in that. If he could embarrass a woman, or make her mad, or make her cry, he got his kick.�

�Any woman? Or just the... uh... girls?�

�Well, he was mostly concerned with the latter sort, Mr. Shayne. But he could be cruel even to decent women too. There was the night he had the accident� Is that what I should call it?�

�It will do!� Shayne and Rourke both laughed.

�Well, he was having a cocktail in here, waiting for his dinner guests when Mrs. Wollner came in.�

�Alma Wollner?�

�Yessir. Now she was like his own flesh and blood, in a manner of speaking. But he had her crying � right here at this table � and you could see that he was enjoying it. Maybe she�d made some mistake in her investments. It was plain that she didn�t want to do what he was telling her. But she knew that whatever he was saying was what she�d have to do, and it was making him feel big and powerful just to beat her down.�

The captain reddened. �Of course, I was eavesdropping a little.�

The other two grinned. Shayne said, �That�s our specialty!�

Luis Valencia had strolled through to their end of the bar and disliking the crowded lineup, took the table next to them. While ordering, he glanced at their own half empty glasses and asked Rourke, �May I offer a round?�

Rourke flicked Shayne a glance and nodded. �Move over here,� he suggested. �You two may want to know each other sometime.�

�Ah yes, Mr. Shayne,� Valencia murmured with well-bred charm. �You�re quite the gossip item of Nassau this morning. Tell me, do you have hopes of finding evidence that can clear our good friend, Count Raoul?�

�Evidence,� Shayne said, �is one thing. Whether it will do him any good or not is something else. You were a business associate of Sir Herbert�s I understand.�

�On occasion,� Valencia smiled evenly, but the redhead saw his eyes grow cautious, estimating just how much Shayne might know. �We had some political interests in common,� Valencia added. �And again, sometimes we were opposed. C�est la vie, eh?� He laughed.

Shayne took a blind chance. �Were you opposed a few months ago when he just caught the last plane out of South America by the skin of his teeth?�

Valencia laughed with soft mockery in his eyes. �Mr. Shayne, all the gossip columnists have pointed out that Sir Herbert and I were twin serpents in that little fiasco.�

�But you didn�t have to catch a plane out,� Shayne said.

Valencia gave his white ivory smile. �Fortunately, no. I was able to swing with the tide in time.�

The drinks came and Valencia raised his glass in toast. He was a small man, a little chunky of build, very fastidious of dress, very conscious of sitting straight. A fleshy, large man came to the doorway and looked toward him. Making apologies, Valencia finished his drink hurriedly and went to meet him.

�Hermann Roesch?� Shayne asked. Rourke nodded.

The two Americans took their time at their own drinks, quite conscious of the hostility their presence caused, feeling it move against them in growing, silent waves. Shayne shook his head suddenly. �There isn�t time,� he growled. �They�re too many cooks in the broth. Too many people that have nothing to do with what we�re looking for. I�m going to have to find a straight path here.�

�You won�t find anything straight in the West Indies,� Tim said.

In due course, they ate a magnificent luncheon. Going out to their car, they noticed Luis Valencia engaged in conversation with four very indignant looking Britishers on the front porch. In spite of the fact that they were beyond earshot, they bristled with hostility at sight of Shayne.

Luis Valencia, however, turned and gave his charming smile and punctilious bow.

�Quite a gentleman,� Shayne murmured.

�Quite a snake, also! There is a story that when he was a small timer in alien smuggling, he once heaved an iron cage of twenty refugees into the deep when a Coast Guard cutter put a shot across his bows.�

They got into Rourke�s car and Shayne sat a moment with head bowed, pulling at his left earlobe. �I would like a talk with the count,� he said. �But our friend Dennis sounded as if that privilege had been cut off.�

�His counsel checked. There�s no way, Mike.�

�Well, let�s have a talk with his dinner guests on the fatal night.� Shayne growled.

The guests verified the facts on the party. It had been a leisurely, informal dinner, attended by the count�s houseguest, another count � Francois deLong � that count�s current romantic interest, and two young matrons belonging to the island�s flying set.

De Nieully had been a perfect host. He was in excellent humor, had not gotten drunk, and had kept them all laughing until midnight, when he took the two matrons home in his dilapidated runabout.

It was this point of the count�s defense that the prosecution had made particular effort to weaken, but it was obvious that these young matrons had nothing to gain by falsifying facts to the count�s advantage. They had wanted to leave precisely at midnight in order to be home when their airline pilot husbands arrived, which was usually a punctual twelve-thirty.

A couple of minutes before twelve-thirty, Raoul de Nieully had arrived back at his own house. He had mixed himself a last drink to have with his houseguest as the clock struck the half hour. De-Long�s testimony withstood shattering crossquestioning. Although he had been a lifelong friend of de Nieully, he had nothing to gain by covering for him, and his testimony was corroborated by his girl.

De Nieully had then retired to his private quarters. At two A.M.�� and again, the times had been noted, due, possibly, to the chiming. clock � DeLong�s pet cat had come into de Nieully�s room and awakened him. He had carried the cat to DeLong in something of a sleepy bad humor, asking his houseguest to either put the damned animal outside, or else lock it in his own room.

DeLong had laughed, and then noted that it was time to take his girl home anyway, and he had put the cat outside while he did so. Returning within half an hour himself, he parked beside de Nieully�s runabout, the two cars now blocking the garage doors behind which the count kept his faster cars. Both cars were just as he had last seen them in the morning.

DeLong answered all of Shayne�s questions with cynical amusement, but what appeared to be honest brevity. He also verified having personally witnessed de Nieully burn himself on the arm and singe his mustache while getting the hurricane lamps lighted before the party. The prosecution had sought to prove the bums might have been made by a blowtorch.

�One thing I am curious about,� Shayne remarked, �is why no blow torch was found on the count�s place, although he putters around with mechanics a lot.� DeLong made a gesture. �He�d loaned it to Tony Crispin a few days before to refit some bridles over at Alma Wollner�s place.�

Both Shayne and Tim Rourke showed surprise at that. Tim said, �The prosecution hasn�t brought that out!�

DeLong uttered a brief, derisive laugh. �Possibly it suits the prosecutor�s purposes with the jury to just leave the dark fact hanging that investigation failed to disclose a torch on Raoul�s place.�

Nothing further was to be gained from any of these witnesses. It was clear they were all incensed that de Nieully had been charged with the murder, and none of them believed it remotely possible that he was guilty.

Shayne felt a little dispirited when he thought about how blind Nassau justice could be.

The sun was slanting toward Florida when Shayne and Tim Rourke returned to their car and once again headed out toward Wyndham. A few miles from town, Tim said, �Blue car on our tail again, but I can�t make out if it�s a Porsche or Ferrari.�

He purposely drove past the Wyndham place, cutting off behind a bluff at the end of a short straightway. For fifteen minutes they waited, but no blue car came by.

�Must of have been Tony Crispin�s Porsche headed for Alma Wollner�s,� Tim grunted. �But I�d swear he passed her lane.�

�Don�t get spooky,� Shayne cautioned. �We�re flubbered up enough as it is.�

The countess was out, but Higgins said they were free to go anywhere on the estate, She was certainly a thoroughgoing little girl on the details, Shayne thought. Right now, they�d just take a look at the boathouse by themselves.

They passed through the house, across the terrace, and down over a graded, landscaped lawn. They had reached the end of scattered shrubs when a glint of light flashed high above them, obliquely to their rear.

Shayne�s reflexes acted automatically. He rammed Rourke sprawling behind a bush, piling flat alongside at the same instant. A clod of dirt popped into the air behind them, and then the sharp crack of a flat trajectory rifle came distantly from the place Shayne had seen the glint.

The redhead peered through an opening in the bush at a high hill that reared out of the ridge beyond the highroad. The hill was brushed and day�s heat still hazed it slightly, but he thought he saw a spurt of dust.

�That�s Wollner property,� Tim informed him. �There�s a bridle path climbs around that hill to a plateau behind.�

�Wait here and don�t move!� Shayne rasped curtly. �But keep an eye on that boathouse.�

He tore out from behind the bush in a low run, darting from shrub to shrub until the driveway trees hid the hill. He trotted to the car, raced it out of the drive and swung toward Nassau.

Far ahead of him, hopelessly outspeeding him, a car glinted on the highroad. At a point to his right, dust still boiled and sparkled in the oblique rays of evening light, and a gate stood open onto the Wollner bridle path.

Shayne swerved in and braked. He made out the skid marks of a car that had come out of here fast and skid-turned onto the highroad. He followed the tracks in to where a car had parked, and later turned. Climbing to the brow of the hill, he found footscuffs, but nothing useful � except by the inverse of what he did not find. Whatever his rush, the sharpshooter had remained cool enough to pick up his shellcase. Maybe it was a habit, such as picking up the murder tool and torch.

Shayne rejoined Rourke. �We can thank the sun for striking that telescopic sight!� he remarked.

He pulled at his left ear, frowning. �You can see fifteen miles down the island from up there,� he murmured. �And the parking space here forms a better target than this lawn. You know, Tim, I�ve got a hunch we wouldn�t have been shot at if we hadn�t been headed for the boathouse. Let�s take a look in there.�

It was a commodious, beautifully kept boathouse. The two speed boats and the sailer floated at their berths. The larger boat was moored in a small artificial basin in front. There was a large playroom upstairs, looking out on the sea, with one small window facing the house. It occurred to Shayne that from this window, an observer could get a pretty fair idea of just what was going on inside the house late at night from the manipulation of the electric lights.

As looking required him to go behind the bar, the redhead took the opportunity to pour them drinks. Happily, the Wyndham�s stocked his own brand of bourbon. He drank in silence, however, scratching his red hair.

Suddenly he tossed the drink down neat and came around the bar to run downstairs. Behind the mooring cove there was a large sail room. One corner of this was devoted to a work bench and tools in neat order. There was a gap in a row of cans on a shelf. Although there was very little dust this near the water, there were circular marks showing that something with a round base was usually kept there.

�The torch?� Tim asked.

�It looks it. And missing! The police did comb the grounds here, didn�t they?�

�They practically dug up the shrubs and replanted them I heard,� Tim nodded. �They were still at it when I got over here.�

�So, the killer took it along,� Shayne considered. �But he damned well wouldn�t keep it long! Let�s go talk with the club mechanic.�

The mechanic had left the yacht club on a call down the island. From there, he was going directly home. It gave the two men time for a change from their grass-stained clothes, and they still had quite a wait at the man�s house before he drove up just after sundown.

His name was Monty Atkins. He answered briefly, directly, definitely, and without offering unasked information. Yes, he did all the mechanical work on the Wyndham boats. Yes, they needed a good deal of looking after, and he came and went at his own discretion, unless called particularly. He had not dropped by since the gruesome tragedy as the Countess Margot had told him they�d not be using the boats for some time.

Oh, yes, he had fixed up the sail and tool room himself. Most of the people he serviced let him do that. That way, he had his special tool shop right on hand for their particular needs. Of course, the Wyndhams had-a blowtorch. He�d been using it out there about three days before the murder. In fact, he�d almost burned Senor Luis Valencia�s shoe with it when he came down with Sir Herbert as they were taking a constitutional.

�Guess it was my fault,� Atkins acknowledged. �Lot of people don�t realize how hot the flame is and get right on top of it.�

�You keep your torches at full pressure in between jobs?� Shayne asked him curiously.

�My own private ones, yes,� Atkins nodded. �But not the ones in my customer�s kits. Kids are liable to get hold of them, and we had that kind of accident once. So now I let out the pressure and turn the mixer when I finish.�

�You mean it can�t be ignited that way?�

�Well, maybe yes, maybe no, but it wouldn�t bum hot or throw a long flame, and pretty quick it would fizzle out.�

Shayne asked a few casual questions about the girl�s mechanical abilities. Atkins laughed. Miss Alma, now, was always itching to learn, but just didn�t have it in her. He�d show her the right tool and how to do something, but next time she�d pick the wrong tool or do it wrong anyway. Once she nearly got drowned in the swells while trying to hook up a loosened sparkplug connection, and he�d just snown her the simple chore a week before.

She was another reason he was damned careful to let the pressure out of the torch over at Wyndham. He�d been going to teach her soldering once, but not after he saw her stick her face right on top of the torch when she went to light it.

�But, you�ll find the torch at Wyndham at the right end of the second shelf above the workbench,� Atkins said.

Shayne nodded and eased him with some general talk and took his leave.

Outside, Rourke muttered, �Christmas! What are we getting into?�

�Or who?� Shayne asked a shade grimly. �I�d better meet this Alma Wollner.�

�She�ll drift into the casino for the dance tonight,� Tim said.

It had been a long, hot day. Shayne and Rourke were glad for a chance to go to their hotels for a bath and change, and then have time for a leisurely drink and supper at the Planter�s.

Around eleven they drifted over to the casino. In a few moments, Rourke nodded toward a beautifully gowned, tall brunette, dancing with a Naval captain. Although her body flowed automatically to the music, she kept looking over the captain�s shoulder. Shadows lay dark beneath her eyes, and she looked pale. At the end of the dance, she towed the captain immediately toward the bar.

Approaching her unobserved, Shayne realized she was drinking fast. He saw the relief explode within her as Anthony Crispin came toward them, dressed in a white mess jacket and cumerbund that emphasized his wide, athletic shoulders.

Rourke said, �It would be my bet you�re going to have to wade through some rough opposition!�

Shayne looked at his fist, decided to take no chances, and shortly made a ten-dollar deal with the waiter to find him a short honing steel out in the kitchen. He wrapped this carefully in a napkin, then drifting toward the bar, broke boldly into Crispin�s ranks.

�Just returning this morning�s compliment, you know,� he said, smiling at the tall aristocrat.

Crispin looked as if he might simply cold shoulder Shayne with English arrogance, or as if he might call for the captain to have this cheeky Yank taken off. Whatever his inclinations, he was prevented by some caution behind his cool, watchful eyes. Grudgingly, he presented Shayne and Tim Rourke to Alma Wollner and the captain.

At first opportunity, Shayne said to Crispin, �Something came up today I�d like to ask you about.�

Crispin evidenced irritation. �Look here, old man, can�t you keep these things to business hours?�

�Yes, I could,� Shayne nodded. �But seeing as it took place on Wollner property��

The girl broke in excitedly, �What happened?�

Crispin�s mouth clamped. For the first time, Shayne recognized the full danger in this man. Crispin grunted reassuringly, �Just a little men�s talk, dear. I�ll leave you in the very dangerous hands of the Navy while I do a little deduction with my friend Michael Shayne.�

He led the way outside instantly, down off the verandah, and out onto the golf course. �Well, Shayne,� he demanded as he turned toward the detective.

Shayne said with a bleak look, �I tried to catch you coming out of that bridle path today, but you burped out of there in one helluva hurry.�

Crispin watched him inscrutably. �I usually do,� he answered. �There�s a sand trap there and you have to keep moving.� Then he frowned and added, �But I didn�t see you, or any other car there.�

�Maybe you didn�t think I�d be there,� Shayne suggested.

�Why the ruddy should I think you�d be there?� Crispin demanded. Then he said, �Oh, I begin to get it. You think I was trying to cover my visit to Alma by using the bridle path instead of the drive? Well, it was a bit early in the day, and with so much gossip running, there�s no reason to advertise the fact that I come and go at some rather unconventional hours.�

Shayne studied him briefly. Either he was damned fast at throwing out red herrings, or else it had not been Crispin on the hill at sundown. He was undecided which, and simply stalling for time while his mind worked on it, he said, �Of course, you�ll have no objection to my verifying the time with Alma Wollner?�

Crispin stiffened like a rousing Doberman. �You are damned right I�ll have objection!� he declared with a growl. �I�ll have objection to you questioning her on any fact or subject that might make her feel worse than she does already! In fact, I�m going to make sure you don�t question her unless I�m on hand!�

Anger was rising in the Scot like a tide.

Shayne said quickly, nodding beyond the tall man, �Well, here she comes, so we can do it your way.�

Crispin�s head spun around. With a swiftness that left Crispin unaware of what had happened, Shayne struck the tensed muscles on the side of the Scot�s neck with a hard right. It was a harmless, but effective blow. Crispin dropped like a sack in his own boot tracks.

Shayne felt his pulse, decided he was out cold for some time, and went back inside to rejoin Alma Wollner.

�We�ll be meeting Tony in a little while at your place,� he told her. �But first, I�d like to take you for a little drive.�

The fires of suspicion leaped within her eyes. �Where do you want... to... drive, Mr. Shayne?� she breathed.

�We might drive out to Wyndham�s,� he said.

He saw her nerves tauten.

�Margot�s out tonight,� she said. �What... what possible purpose can it serve, Mr. Shayne?�

�Well, it is a place where we can talk without being overheard,� he said. �And it just happens that they keep my brand of liquor at the boathouse.�

The momentary fright washed out of her like a receding wave. �Oh, the boathouse,� she repeated. �Well, it probably would be the most private place.�

The boathouse didn�t bother her. But something in his brief conversation had. He wondered what. This he had to learn.

Shayne drove slowly back to town thinking of what she�d said. Beyond Wollner�s a car shot past him doing an easy hundred. He was just as glad that he was without her in the seat, and that Anthony Crispin didn�t recognize Rourke�s car in the dark!

In his rearview mirror, he saw the car whip into Wollner�s. He put his foot down on the accelerator and sped on to the Nassau.

He was scarcely in his room when the phone rang and Crispin�s voice barked at him with cold, murderous fury, �Shayne, what have you done with her?�

�Why, I dropped her at Wyndham�s,� Shayne told him.

�At where?�

�At Wyndham�s. She decided to spend the night with Margot.�

�So help me God�!� Crispin grated, then got himself in hand. �Shayne, if you do one damned thing to harm her�� he rasped. Then he said, �Damn you, why didn�t you go back home this morning!� and hung up.

Shayne lighted a cigarette, sloshed himself a snifter of cognac and stretched out on his bed to phone the casino for Tim Rourke. He said to the reporter, �I�m bushed and going to hit the sack. But can you be up by daylight?�

�God, I have to commit blackmail, perjury and theft for my art!� the reporter complained. �And now get up at daylight for my friends!�

�I�ve got your car here. I�ll pick you up,� Shayne told him.

Rourke was muttering imprecations as Shayne hung up.

The redhead stretched and relaxed, and then he heard the creak upon the balcony. He needed action, he wanted action. His eyes warmed as he sought to place the sound exactly, considering the length he had to leap or charge from his doorway.

Then he considered something else, the stern visage of Mr. Dennis if a complaint were made that he was roughing up local citizens. Tony Crispin might not complain, but others would. And Dennis, he felt sure, would give them the benefit of any doubt. It would be the quick and easy way to rid the island of the Shayne menace.

He got up casually to make a noisy to-do of pouring a final drink. He drew the curtains across the double doors and turned the water splashing into his tub. In all ways, it looked and sounded as if he were getting ready to hit the sack with quite a few drinks in him. Even the most impatient killer would be a fool not to wait until he was in bed and dozing.

He got the heavy bolster out of the closet, bent it with his knee, and put it under the sheet. The bed was provided with two sets of pillows, two big ones for propping up in bed, two small ones for sleeping. He crushed one of the small ones into a global shape and placed it at the head of the bolster with the sheet partially over it.

He threw his extra pair of shoes down by the bed, and tossed his stained suit from earlier out across a chair. He turned off the bath water, splashed it a bit, let the tub drain with its hollow retching roar, and moved soundlessly to the balcony curtains.

The sound of stealthy movement came through to him, and then a sharp �Pssst!� and the sounds of whispers. So there was more than one!

He went back to his bed, switched off the night light, then cussed aloud as if forgetting the curtains, and a moment later, yanked the cord that pulled them back to let in the night breeze. In the dark, he went back to the bed again, made relaxing grunting sounds, and then finding the door, let himself silently out and silently closed it.

It was not the Mike Shayne way, but he was taking no chances of Dennis spoiling his game at this point. He returned downstairs, got his car and drove around to Roarke�s hotel where he checked in for the night.

He rooted Tim out at dawn. Before sunup, they had breakfasted and were back at the Nassau. When Shayne threw open the door to his room, he saw about what he expected. A knife stood upright in the bolster; Some heavy object had crushed the pillow that he had improvised for his head, crushing the thick top of the bolster. In hurry and excitement, the crunch would have sounded like a crushing skull, no doubt.

Rourke gestured at the knife. �Finerprints, maybe?�

�There�ll be no prints on there,� Shayne grunted and removed the knife and tossed the bolster in the closet.

He glanced over the room. Nothing disturbed. They were smart cookies. They�d struck and run, not even attempting to riffle for papers that might indicate their particular interest and eventually lead to them.

They went down and got in the car again and headed out toward Wyndham�s. Shayne said, �Even a cool-headed professional gets away from a murder scene as quickly as possible, and gets rid of any incriminating evidence first chance he gets. Now the police must have searched the Wyndham grounds � and along the road between Wyndham and de Nieully�s � pretty thoroughly for the weapon and torch. But I�ll bet they never searched the other way!�

Rourke said, �From the inquiry I made, they did not search toward town.�

�We�re going to,� Shayne growled, and drove to the Wyndham driveway and swung around.

Every last one of the people invited had arrived at Wyndham by sundown. There were also some extras. Presumably, Dennis and other officials were having the affair unofficially covered. Shayne watched for surprise on the part of any of the guests to see him still hale and hearty, but could find none. Or else, it was lost in the engulfing waves of animosity and fear that beat against him from every side.

Shayne explained that this was a two part re-enactment of the murder, which he would explain point by point from his shadowed cowl as commentator. The guests were requested to stand beyond the immediate scene of action.

�Two items in this possible solution of the crime are stage props,� he stated. �The murder weapon, and the torch. But we will have a thorough search made tomorrow which should turn them up. We are sure now that we know where to find them.�

There was subdued excitement with danger twisting through it like vicious currents in a flooding river. Anthony Crispin watched Shayne with a cold, lethal fire in his blue eyes. Luis Valencia was suave, but watchful. Hermann Roesch breathed heavier than usual and his eyes snapped from one to another group as if all were plotting and intriguing against him personally.

At dusk, Shayne led the group up to the murder chamber. Only the night lamp lighted the scene, and the sides of the room and balcony lay in heavy shadow. By request, the women scattered out along the room walls. The men stood back upon the balcony beyond the open doors.

Terry Mathis, dressed in pajamas, lay on Sir Herbert�s bed smoking one of his cigars. Rourke, wearing the monk�s cowl, impersonating Shayne, stood off in the shadow of the carved wood screen. The sound machine was unseen behind the screen, giving Shayne�s transcription. The redhead had lost himself without effort at the very back of the crowd of men, whose attention was riveted on the room.

A clock struck one. A girl in a riding habit and carrying a crop came to the door, moving into the room half in fear, and half with angry self assurance. She stood at the foot of the bed a time as �Sir Herbert� gestured. Her self-assurance sagged. She moved around the bed and sat down beside him, pleading tearfully.

Shayne�s voice explained that she was being coerced. All of those people had known Sir Herbert. The women particularly could fill in their own details of the precise words and threats and promises he would be making. The girl began to sob frantically. �Sir Herbert� scoffed with rough derision.

Suddenly she jumped up in an effort to escape. �Sir Herbert� reached out and caught her left wrist, jerking her back onto the bed with easy power of brute superiority. He turned away casually to lay down his cigar.

The girl struck him on the head with her riding crop � but with the limber whip. Then she had freed herself and was running out the door. Unsuccessfully trying to intercept her, �Sir Herbert� thundered, �I�ll have you yet!� and grunted an ugly laugh.

As the girl ran out, men�s teeth crunched. Along the edge of the room the women�s breaths sucked in like a solitary sound.

Then the smaller of the two male actors came through the door. He came sauntering with easy self-assurance, both hands in his jacket pockets. �Sir Herbert� half rose on one elbow then waved at him carelessly and gestured toward the side of his bed. In the hall outside the larger character stood with the blow torch burning in his hand unseen by �Sir Herbert.�

The smaller man sat down on the bed and began to converse. Idly, he picked the riding crop off the floor, joking about it, slapping it into his other hand. �Sir Herbert� turned to reach for his cigar, and suddenly the little man raised the crop and beat the crop down on the side of �Sir Herbert�s� head. On his second stroke, the man outside rushed in, the torch in one hand, a gun in the other.

Shayne held his breath, every nerve and sense in him keyed to the reaction. His soundtrack explained that the torch had been picked up at Wyndham�s own boathouse, and that the interlopers knew he was awake because they had seen his light on from there.

But he could be wrong � dead wrong. It was still quite possible that Alma had pulled the wool over his eyes, and that she and Crispin had executed the job themselves.

Although the night light shed considerable light directly on the bed, the shadows thickened rapidly beyond it. Suddenly, Shayne was conscious that Alma had vanished into the darkness of the hall. Almost at the same moment, Luis Valencia drifted through the open windows into the adjoining bedroom.

There was no way for Shayne to drive through the crowd and pass through Sir Herbert�s room unnoticed, and he lost valuable seconds going through the next room, finding the door locked from the outside. Circuiting through a third room, when he reached the downstairs, there was utter quiet. He lost more valuable seconds listening for telltale sounds which did not come. Then he heard the Ferrari start up and sweep out the driveway at highspeed.

Shayne leaped out to Rourke�s car, following with lights blacked out. The Ferrari vanished ahead on the highroad toward Nassau. Shayne kept after it, keeping his lights off, and finally saw its tail light, parked, unmoving, close by the creek bridge. Luis Valencia was already out and combing the high grass along the creek with a flashlight.

Shayne drew well to the side of the road, his car hidden by overhanging brush. He leapt out, moving silently along the shoulder, picking up a rock to weight his fist. Valencia had found the blowtorch, and caught the dull shine of the silver handled crop. His flash flickered off, and only the labored sound of his movements back toward the road gave evidence of his presence.

Shayne crouched low, waiting for him to come up the bank. He was unconscious that Anthony Crispin had followed him, also without lights, until the Scot rasped right beside him, �So you didn�t buy her story, but you figured to follow and frame her!�

In the swiftness with which full knowledge comes in moments of peril, Shayne realized that Anthony Crispin thought that Luis Valencia was Alma Wollen, and that Shayne had trailed her here to trap her in some way.

He could smell the urge to kill bursting out of the Scot�s big body with his sweat. He could feel the man�s utterly ruthless and reckless determination to protect his woman at any cost. He heard the click of Crispin�s pistol, and at that instant, Luis Valencia threw his flash beam up onto Shayne and snarled a curse. He dropped the objects he held and clawed for his gun.

Valencia�s flash had a side beam. In the circle of light, his gun glinted as it whipped on Shayne. The detective saw the wicked expression on Valencia�s face as the side beam picked his features out of darkness.

Shayne thrust the rock he held and heard Valencia�s contemptuous snarl as he rasped, �So I missed you twice, redhead, but I get you now.�

Crispin�s gun blazed beside Shayne�s head. For a moment, Shayne�s brain felt like a bouncing ball with its muzzle roar. Valencia�s light tilted sharply up into the air. He shot crazily up into the ridge. Crispin�s gun barked a second time, and Valencia dropped, making a soft gurgling sound.

The flash fell in front of his face, showing the vicious snarl on his mouth as he died.

Crispin moved about awkwardly clearing his throat. He growled, �Damn it, I thought that was Alma, trying to find her riding crop, or trying to get away.�

�Maybe you�d better marry her while you�re still outside bars to do it,� Shayne suggested.

He used handkerchiefs to pick up the two valued objects. �At least we�ve got the right fingerprints back on them,� he chuckled.

�But what the devil,� Crispin was puzzling. �What did he bother with the torch work for?�

�It�s a guess,� Shayne said, �but either Sir Herbert had double-crossed Valencia and Roesch, or else they meant to torture some information out of him. He died from the blows while they were at it. I don�t think they meant to kill him until later, if at all.�

He gripped the tall Scot�s steel hard arm in his hand and squeezed him solidly. �I�ll be turning this evidence in to the prosecutor. He�ll hear the story of tonight of course. But I don�t imagine this evidence will ever be offered in court, Crispin. There�s no reason for Alma to confess anything to anyone and feel the shame of it. Let sleeping dogs lie.�

�I�ll see to that!� Crispin vouched.

Shayne took the two items of evidence to the prosecutor�s office himself. A third assistant asked loftilly, �Is this evidence incriminating to the man on trial?�

�No,� Shayne said.

�Then it�s immaterial and irrelevant,� the assistant said. �Of course, you�re free to leave it.�

And that was the last heard of it. But the prosecution, which should have reached a thundering denunciation in the summary, was oddly, and suddenly, tepid. The jury brought in the verdict of �not guilty,�

�You�re a real doll!� Lucy Hamilton told Shayne when she met him at the Miami airport, and pulling his red head down within reach, kissed him.

It was a night for crime. Greenwich Village, like the rest of the great, sprawling city of which it is a part, sweltered in a warm drizzle, compounded with fog and lingering, acrid smoke. It was a night for the store-breaker, the house-breaker, the car-thief, the mugger. It was a night for the rapist, the kidnapper, and the twisted perpetrator of those monstrous violations that drive tabloid newspaper rewrite man to use six-syllable words in an effort to cushion, for public consumption, the ultimate horrors of human depravity.

It was a night for crime. And criminals, seeking to avail themselves of its added obscurity, were everywhere astir, like restless insects emerging from their diurnal nests. Among them, a man, still unknown to the overworked police, whose bloody fulfillments in the past four months had caused daily papers, radio and television news reporters to employ such grisly, well-remembered phrases as Jack-the-Ripper, sex-fiend and Bluebeard. Five times he had struck and vanished.

It was a night for crime.

Inside Pete Bellardi�s Cote d�Azure, Joe Chance was considering crime in a peculiarly personal application. He had been considering it with increasing urgency and frequency for weeks.

Joe was a clarinet player who wasn�t going anywhere, one of those dedicated young jazz men who drift forever into Manhattan, precisely as do equally dedicated young actresses in search of a hearing. He wrapped up the final chorus of Muskrat Ramble and began breaking down a clarinet as moist from sweat and atmospheric condensation as the gaudy sports-shirt that covered his bony, un-muscular torso.

The clock over the bar, just visible from his post by the battered white yacht piano, read nine minutes of eleven. Disappointment lay as heavy beneath his diaphragm as the breaded veal cutlet and french-fries Pete�s chef in the kitchen had given him for dinner.

The deadline he had set for himself, the thin line that separated the struggling young citizen-artist from the non-citizen thief, had come. Mary had let him down. She had promised to be in the saloon with one of the jazz greats, a man who could � perhaps � see to it that he got the opportunity that had eluded him for so long.

It was almost eleven � and another disappointment, another rebuff. He closed the clarinet-case with finality, knowing this was it. From now on, he was not a musician. He was a thief.

Al Wilson, the burr-headed pianist, reeled off his concluding chords and Rafe Norton, the pale brown Harlem youth who provided the trio�s rhythm, gave his upended suitcase a final lick with the whiskbrooms. There was neither applause nor comment from the sparse audience.

Rafe said, �Hey, Joe, I thought your girl told you tonight was the night Pee Wee was coming in to hear us.�

Al Wilson chimed in with, �Yeah, ten o�clock, wasn�t it? It�s eleven now.� He had a habit of blinking his eyes when he spoke.

Joe said, �What the hell, guys. I didn�t set it up. Maybe Pee Wee got sidetracked.�

Wilson said, half-angrily, �I�m beginning to feel like the sparrow that followed the automobile. You can�t live forever on promises. Especially when they�re nothing but wind.�

Joe closed his clarinet case, stuck it under his arm and went out front to the bar. He didn�t have the heart to put up an argument. Why blame Al for getting sore? For that matter, why blame Pee Wee Rousell for not showing up to hear them play on such a night?

Pete Bellardi joined Joe Chance at the bar. He noted the packed clarinet and said, �You ain�t going home now, Joe? The evening�s still a beagle pup. You and the boys sounded cool back there � real mysterious.�

Pete was a genial chunk of ex-racketeer who liked to feature jazz in his place, as long as he didn�t have to pay union prices for it. He used all the hip phrases lavishly.

Joe sipped a gin buck, his first of the night, and said, �Pete, stop kidding yourself. Nobody�s coming to hear us tonight. I�m going home and try to get some sleep.�

�You never know,� said Pete. �Better stick around awhile.�

�Pee Wee was due at ten,� Joe reminded him.

�So he�s late,� said Pete. �So what? As long as he hears you, what difference does the time make?�

�Maybe none,� said Joe. �But I�m beat to my shoes.�

Pete wandered away and Joe stood alone at the bar, letting the fear and excitement build up inside him. It was deadline time for him. He had promised himself that, if Mary failed this time to get anyone musically important to listen to him, he was going to abandon the shabby, scuffed-around thing his dream had become.

That was what usually happened to dreams. You had one and it was beautiful and you kept it nice and sharp in technicolor, to carry you through all the bad times you had to outlast. But when the bad times kept on and on, something happened to your dream. The bright colors faded and the edges got crumpled and cigarettes burned holes in it and drinks got spilled on it and left white-rimmed stains.

Finally, you had to throw your dream away and put something you could concretely realize in its place,

Joe�s dream had been born five years earlier, when he had found he could make a clarinet behave, back in the small town where he was born and raised. He hadn�t insisted on becoming a Benny Goodman or an Artie Shaw, for Joe was modest, even in his dream. But he had felt that he could do enough with the horn to make a good life for himself.

It had taken fourteen months of New York to destroy it. Fourteen months of part-time jobs, of a meagre, furnished-room existence, of playing for cakes at Pete�s. No one wanted to hear Joe Chance, no one wanted to hire him. He hadn�t even been able to get himself a card at Local 802.

It was time to drop the dream and pick up something in its place � even though the substitute had nightmare edges. You couldn�t hear the guys talking all the time of making a score here, or getting a rakeoff there, or living it up on minor rackets in the underpoliced city. You couldn�t hear these things day after day, night after night, without getting ideas.

Joe finished his drink and fingered the money in his pocket. He didn�t have to look at it to know how much was there. One damp, sticky, crumpled dollar bill, a quarter, three dimes and a nickel. Sure, Pete would slip him a five, maybe a ten, if he asked for it. But small change wasn�t the answer. Not anymore � not after fourteen months of bitter frustration.

With his clarinet-case still under his arm, Joe walked out into the fog, its gray mugginess no bleaker than his thoughts.

The soles of Joe Chance�s loafers went slap, slap, on the damp sidewalk as he approached the house he meant to rob. He knew the block like the back of his hand. He ought to � he�d been walking it, casing it, ever since the story in the paper, a week before, about the she-recluse who lived alone in the condemned Kipp Houses.

Her name was Marianne Carlin, and she had been an actress with society connections before the car-accident had messed up her face so badly no plastic surgeon could put it together again. So, ten years ago, she had moved into the house at the end of the row � her grandmother had been a Kipp � and had never come out, according to the paper, sleeping alone on the top floor of a three-story house packed with all the valuable junk a rich family could collect in New York in a hundred years.

The paper had run the story because the Kipp houses were to be torn down. But Marianne Carlin refused to move and, since she had owner�s rights, no one had been able to move her. There she sat, fair prey for anyone who wanted to rob her. Joe had been half-hoping someone else would beat him to it. But, so far, no one had.

Even if he made it � and he figured, with the fog, the odds were nine to one his way � Mary would be driven frantic when she found out what he�d done. And she was almost bound to find out in time. But she was too loyal to spill to the cops and, once he was a thief, she�d be better off without him. Her Aunt Alice, with whom she lived in an apartment just north of Washington Square, would say, �See � didn�t I tell you Joe was no good all along?�

It wouldn�t be the first time Aunt Alice was right.

The Kipp Houses loomed up ahead of him, their daytime raffishness cloaked in glamour and mystery by the smoggy drizzle. They were set back from the sidewalk, an unbroken brick row fronted by a triple tier of wrought-iron balconies. Five sets of steps led down from the long front porch, and five eroded front walks led to five gates in the iron fence out front. What had once been trim flowerbeds between the walks now grew waist-high in a welter of weeds.

Save for Marianne Carlin�s house at the far end, they were ghost-town stuff. But in the dim effulgence of the one mid-block lamp across the street, they looked to Joe Chance like a bit of old New Orleans, where Jelly Roll and the King and Louis and Bunk and all the other jazz saints once marched and played. Perhaps, Joe thought, he�d go to New Orleans if he managed to make a decent score.

Stop goofing off! he told himself sternly. He took a deep breath, then marched past the cobbled alley that sloped ramplike to the long areaway behind the houses. He walked along the front of the houses, reached the footway just beyond them, and looked quickly around. He saw the block was empty save for himself.

Sweating a little, Joe tiptoed down a flight of nine steps, turned right and was in the alley behind the houses. Here battered wooden porches sheltered the back doors and a cat darted angrily away from the garbage pail it was pilfering.

From his preliminary surveys, Joe knew the back door was securely locked. But alongside it was a window so rickety that it was an open invitation. He moved around a tattered glider-hammock, opened a pocket-knife and went to work on it.

It proved unexpectedly tough. He could insert the point of his blade all around the edges, but he couldn�t get enough purchase to work the catch loose. Perspiration rolled into his eyes, stinging, and trickled down his spine under his already damp shirt. Quivering, he stepped back, wondering shakily if he was going to have to break a pane.

Just then somebody threw a bottle from a window of one of the apartments that backed up on the far side of the alley. The crash of glass on the cobbles paralyzed Joe for an instant. Then he realized it was to his advantage. After such a crash, no one would notice the mere tinkle of a shattered window. He went around the end of the glider to pick up a soggy old cushion. With this, he could push through the glass without risking cutting his hand.

Thus, he was directly in front of the door when it was flung open without warning. Its sweep caught Joe from behind, knocking him down in the narrow space between the inner end of the glider and the wall, directly under the window he was about to break. Thinking himself assaulted, Joe lay there helpless, waiting for another blow.

But no blow came. Instead, something heavy was slid out onto the porch, holding the door open and cutting off Joe�s field of vision, already inhibited by the bottom of the glider. There was another heavy gliding sound and he heard a man grunt with effort as he moved the first object and kicked the door shut. Peering beneath the glider, Joe could see shoes, a pair of trousers, the bottom of a raincoat. The man had stooped to pick up a pair of suitcases that looked uncommonly large in the near-darkness.

There was another grunt of effort, followed by a whispered curse, as the man carried both bags from porch to alley. He set them down on the cobbles and, still invisible from the waist up, walked rapidly away toward the far end of the alley.

Joe thought, The so-and-so beat me to it! All at once, his fears and self-doubt were merged in anger. Somebody had got there first and was walking away with the loot. In a flood of frustration, he realized he wasn�t even good enough to be a successful thief.

Holding his clarinet-case clamped tightly under an arm, he scrambled to his feet, prepared to get out of there fast. It was an odds-on bet the successful robber was armed.

On his feet, Joe stopped short. The suitcases were standing right in front of him, where the man had put them down.

Convulsively, Joe grabbed their handles and lifted. He felt his clarinet-case slip, put the loot down, pushed the horn back into place. He was only going to be able to get away with one of the bags � and that with an effort. Wondering what it contained to make it weigh so much, he managed to get it safely into the footway and up the steps to the sidewalk, without being observed.

Joe heard the sounds of a car being backed into the far end of the alley as he left it behind him.

�Hey, you! Where do you think you�re going!� Joe didn�t need the corroboration of a furtive glance over his shoulder to know the voice was that of a cop. The twin rows of buttons on his jacket gleamed like silver beads in the diffused light of the lamp across the street, back by the other end of the Kipp houses.

It was thirty-five or forty feet to the corner, and Joe kept moving, half-expecting a bullet between the shoulder-blades. He knew he hadn�t a chance, but he kept on going, panting and terrified.

�Stop, or I�ll��

The cop�s warning cry was cut off by the sudden roar of a car, evidently the one Joe had heard backing around into the alley moments before. Now he heard it come barreling out of the cobbled ramp behind him, heard the cop�s shout of alarm as it slammed past him. Then a scream of breaks, a grind of gears, and a quick-growing and diminishing roar as its driver made his turn and high-tailed it toward the Hudson River five blocks away.

By then Joe was around the corner. There was no one on the sop-ping-wet avenue, and he gasped in relief as he turned the next corner with no sound of renewed pursuit. His breath came in wheezing gasps as he staggered to the front steps of the brownstone, where he had a room in the basement. All he could think of at the moment was that he hadn�t been caught after all. He was a thief! He�d gotten away with it.

Then a shadow detached itself from the darkness of the under-the-steps doorway and a familiar voice said, �Joe � thank heavens! I didn�t know where to look for you!�

It was Mary Mannis � the girl, his girl, the girl who had inexplicably chosen to ally her slender fortune to his even slimmer one. He stepped into the dark shelter of the entryway beside her, put down the suitcase with a sigh of relief.

Mary put her hands on his shoulders and pushed her soft body against his and said, �I�m sorry we were late, but you shouldn�t have taken off. There�s still time, darling. Pee Wee said he�d wait for me to bring you back to Pete�s. He�ll introduce you to some of the right people after he hears you go.�

Joe felt as if a pitfall, yawning beneath him, had suddenly sealed itself as he was about to tumble into its depths. So he�d stolen a suitcase. But he hadn�t been caught, mercifully, and the other man, the real thief, had drawn police attention elsewhere. And now his dream was back, awaiting him in the person of Pee Wee Roussell at Pete�s. He was actually going to be heard by someone who could do him and the dream some good!

He gave Mary a quick kiss, said, �Sorry I ran out, hon, but I didn�t think you could swing it. And when you were late...�

�I told you my boss is a friend of Pee Wee�s wife,� said the girl. �I wish you�d believed in me, Joe. But it�s all right now.�

�You�ve been crying!� he said with mock severity. And, when she shook her head violently, �Wait till I stash this bag and we�ll take off for Pete�s. Thanks, hon � thanks six million.�

Somehow, they made the bus-stop, which consisted of a raised concrete platform, shaped like a pear-cut diamond, and a ticket booth. There were perhaps fifteen people of assorted sizes, shapes and sexes there, some of them with luggage. Not many, but enough, he thought, putting the big suitcase down, far back against the platform wall.

He stood in front of it while Mary bought tickets to Jersey City. Then they stood close together, screening the bag, while they waited for their bus. At any moment, Joe expected the snarl of sirens to announce the police were coming to pick them up. He began to wonder if the bus would ever come.

Miraculously, minutes later, it pulled up, looking like a sanctuary on wheels. They stumbled inside and sank onto a seat and Joe, for the moment, could not quite believe in their good luck. He turned to Mary and managed a smile, drinking in reassurance from the fresh young comeliness of her, the wide-set blue eyes, the tender generous mouth, the smoothly combed brown hair.

He wondered what was the matter with women, and why a girl like Mary should bother with a jerk like Joe Chance. He wasn�t even aware they were in the tunnel until the bus stopped on the Jersey side and Mary tugged at his sleeve, saying, �Joe, dear, we get off here.�

Involuntarily, he looked for the suitcase, the Phineas Fogg bag with its wrap-around wire and built in half-body. It didn�t seem possible that he was rid of the horror. The dampness of the night air restored him a little, and he gripped his clarinet-case tightly and made a silent vow that never, never again, would he steal as much as a penful of ink from a post-office desk.

Mary looked up at him and said, �Joe, dear, you look half-dead. How about a cup of coffee? We�ve got twenty minutes before the bus comes back.�

�Okay,� he said. Then, �I�m sorry as hell I fouled up your deal with Pee Wee. Trust me to make a hash of things!�

She hugged his arm again and said, �This is a lot more important Joe, believe me. You�ll never do it again, will you?�

�I won�t even tilt a pinball machine, so help me!�

The bar-grill was hot and stuffy and reeked with a blend of old onions, older beer and raw whiskey. In back, a jukebox was blasting an idiotic rattle-and-roll number. But Joe wasn�t bothered by any of it till he caught a glimpse of himself in the back-bar mirror. He was white as the proverbial sheet. He looked sick.

All at once, now that he thought of it, he felt sick. The heat, the noise, the smells � they all closed in on him. He gulped and said, �Sorry, hon, I need air.� Feeling unsteady on his feet and all torn up inside, he slid off his stool and moved toward the door, with its promise of fresh air and relative quiet outside.

When Joe stepped onto the sidewalk, he stopped short. He felt his mouth open and a scream rise in his throat, only to have his larynx too constricted with sudden terror to permit any sound at all. He lurched back against the wall of the building, closed his eyes, forced himself to take a deep breath. Not until he heard Mary�s gasp did he know he had not suffered a hallucination.

There, in a rectangle of light cast through the glass upper portion of the bar-grill door onto the sidewalk, was the bag � oversized, of worn saddle leather, with straps, elaborate handle, bound with wire � just as it had looked when they left it in the bus-stop on the other side of the Hudson. It couldn�t happen, but it had. The suitcase had followed them, like some legless bloodhound, under the river.

He heard Mary say softly, �Oh my God!�

He wondered what she�d have said had she known what the battered old bag contained. And then, overwhelmingly, he realized that the suitcase could not have traveled by itself. Someone must have brought it through the tunnel. But who � and where?

As if in answer to Joe�s unuttered question, a man moved out of the night shadows into the rectangle of light. For a moment, either through a trick of position or through Joe�s own horrified suggestibility, he looked like Mephistopheles, with acquiline nose, bottomless pools for eyes, tufted brows, a cruelly curving mouth.

Then, as suddenly, he was merely a man in a seersucker suit, a stranger wearing an expression of amused concern, saying in medium-deep, well-bred accents, �I saw you youngsters forget this at the bus-stop in Manhattan.� A nod toward the bag. �I chased you all the way over here in my car, to return it to you. You wouldn�t have wanted to lose it, would you?�

Somehow, from the depths of the sickness that held him in its grip, Joe managed to mutter, �We�re very grateful to you. We must have forgotten all about it. Thanks a lot.�

He stood in front of them, across the suitcase, smiling, studying them. He was not much taller than Joe, but his shoulders were heavier. He said, just before the tension became unbearable, �You two youngsters must be very much in love. Right?�

Only it wasn�t a question. This man, this stranger, this busybody, was telling them, not asking them. Joe saw Mary nod, nodded himself. He couldn�t just stand there, like an idiot.

�Of course you are.� The stranger looked vaguely pleased. �Persons like me � who spend much of their lives alone in crowds � become sensitive to emotion in others. You two are bathed in love, you radiate it, you warm my heart with it.� Another pause, then, �Come on inside. You won�t mind my buying you a drink.�

He carried the suitcase into the bar-grill ahead of them. Helplessly, Joe and Mary followed. His sickness increased as he became aware of the extent of their disaster. This man, this stranger, this busybody � could not only identify them. He could chain them to the bag and the horror it held.

Mary murmured something about their bus being due and Joe could have wrung her neck. They�d look great to this unwanted helper, he thought, taking a bus back to New York now.

�Forget your bus,� said the stranger. �I�ve got my car outside. I�ll be glad to drive you wherever you wish. After all, I�ve come this far on your behalf.� There was a brief interruption, while they ordered drinks. Then he said, �I hope I�m not intruding. I merely want to help if I can. My name is Hornung � Arthur Hornung. My friends call me Art.�

There was something odd about him, some quality Joe couldn�t reach out and touch, something that made him feel like a bug pinned to a card. He tried to tell himself that, under the circumstances, he would be suspicious of John the Baptist. But when he downed his drink, quick and neat, he shuddered. And it was not alcohol alone that sent a chill racing up his spine.

He tried to catch Mary�s eye, to read in it what she was feeling, what she was thinking. But she was talking to the stranger, saying, �I�m Mary Mannis and this is Joe Chance.�

Something was wrong with the amplification system of Hornung�s costly high-fidelity sound equipment. When the volume was on full, there was a death rattle in its throat. Hornung had merely spread his long-fingered hands, smiled ruefully and said, �You see? Something like this always happens when I try to show off.�

Joe could not decide whether the older man was mocking them or himself. His whole manner seemed tinged with mockery, blanketing whatever might lie beneath. Since Joe had taken a brief course in television and electronic repair late the previous year, he had volunteered to take a look at the set and see if he could find the trouble and repair it.

Hornung�s apartment occupied the entire second floor of what had, long ago, been a Manhattan red-brick mansion. The rest of the house was a welter of paint pots, lumber, floorboards, stepladders, and other tools of reconstruction, through which they had picked their way upon their arrival a half hour earlier.

The living room took up the front half of the floor. It was a large, unexpectedly luxurious room with low, modem furniture, gleaming parquet floor, grotesque African lamps and a baby grand piano. Two thirds of the way back, it was almost partitioned by a well-stocked bookcase that rose almost to the ceiling. The rear of the bookcase, which was really a double one, held the hi-fi equipment and a vast stock of records, in albums or loose, that seemed to span all music, from early Montiverdi to late Duke Ellington.

At Joe�s back was a comfortable kitchen, with a door to the hall that ran the length of the floor on the north side. Behind it, he guessed, were the bath and bedrooms. These he had not yet seen. He had had little trouble in locating the loose connection that was causing the unwanted noise. But was finding it a slow business to rehook the wiring without proper tools.

In front, on the other side of the bookcase-partition, Hornung was reading aloud to Mary from a morning paper he had picked up on their drive back from Jersey City. His deep, rather mannered voice had droned on, and Joe was no longer listening.

Suddenly, however, as he finished the repair job, he came to full attention. Hornung was reading about the murder � the murder � in the Kipp Houses that evening. It might have been self-suggestion, but to Joe it seemed the older man�s voice took on richer, more significant tones.

�What a horror!� he exclaimed. �Listen, Mary, this must have happened a mere matter of hours ago. The sex murderer struck again, and not far from here. You may know the place � those picturesque old wrecks called the Kipp Houses. Think of it! The sixth time in less than four months. He seems to strike every three weeks.�

�You say the Kipp Houses?� asked Mary. �Why, that�s��

�Just a few blocks from here, my dear,� said Hornung. �Hmm � something seems to have gone wrong. They found half a woman�s body in an old-fashioned suitcase behind the murder house. You read about that pathetic actress lady who lived there alone. She must have been mad to let the newspapers write her up.�

�Half a body in a suitcase?� Mary sounded ill.

�Yes, my dear,� Hornung went on. �It seems the police almost caught him. Some patrolman blundered onto him, right after the murder. But they couldn�t stop him from making a getaway.�

�What sort of a suitcase?� Mary asked, her face very pale.

�My dear,� said Hornung, �the description sounds a little like that bag I rescued for you and Joe. If the two of you weren�t together, I might be suspicious.� He chuckled, and Joe, paralyzed, could picture his eyes fixing themselves on the stolen bag, which was currently resting on the parquet floor of the living room, just inside the hall door.

Hornung went on. �There isn�t much information in the paper. I suppose it�s too early yet. But I can just visualize the excitement in the block after they found the body. All those horrible little people feeling important merely because one of their neighbors was murdered. Imagine it. I can see them leaning out their windows in the fog, watching and listening and chattering amongst themselves. Fat, redheaded women in nightgowns, white-bearded old men, all the morbid and gruesome jetsam of the city. Can�t you see them, too?�

This was getting too close for comfort. Joe forced himself out of the stasis that held him in its grip. �Art!� he called. �Come here a moment, will you? I think I�ve got it fixed.�

Hornung appeared, checked what Joe had done, looked pleased. �Anything special you�d like to hear?� he asked. �I�ve got them all � Bigard, Benny, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Noone, Pee Wee Roussell, Johnny Dodds.�

�They�re all great,� said Joe.

�Good!� Hornung didn�t actually rub his hands but he looked as if he were doing so. �I�ll set up a concert with all of them � a real Clarinet Marmalade.�

�Great!� said Joe. He walked around the bookcase and almost let out a yell.

Mary, apparently spurred by Hornung�s reading from the paper, had crossed the living room and was squatted in front of the suitcase, her fingers busy undoing the heavy wire that was wound around it.

He wanted to call to her, tell her to get away from the horror, to let it alone. But he couldn�t call without giving the whole game away to Hornung. He took a quick step toward the girl, then another. If she did open it and the horror inside was revealed�

Without warning, the room was flooded with a blast of sound as the opening chorus of Duke Ellington�s ancient Tiger Rag came pounding on full volume. Through the blare of brasses and the drive of the rhythm section, which sounded as if they were right in the room, Joe saw, rather than heard, Mary give a quick little scream of fright and turn until her eyes met his.

They looked at him unblinkingly, almost without recognition. Then, slowly, she rose and walked across the room to the curved, sectional sofa. Her gaze never left his own. It was deep with accusation and � yes � fear.

At that moment, Hornung reduced the volume of sound and emerged around the bookcase, saying, �Nice job, Joe � she�s as good as new.� He looked from him to Mary and said, �Do you think Mary will be safe if I leave you while I get us some drinks?�

Hornung didn�t wait for an answer.

Joe and Mary were alone � for the first time since Hornung had picked them up in Jersey City. Joe stood over Mary, who was sitting on the sofa, looking up at him as if he were something strange and horrible. She said, her voice very low, �Joe, you knew what was in the suitcase. You knew all the time.�

�Not all the time,� he said, with a desperate, pleading urgency in his voice. �I didn�t find out till I went back there to return the bag. Somebody told me.�

�Why didn�t you tell me then?� she asked. �Why, Joe?�

�Why didn�t I...? Because I couldn�t,� he replied desperately. �I was too sick myself. I didn�t want you to know. I didn�t want you mixed up in it. I tried to make you go away, but you wouldn�t.� And, when she still said nothing, �Honest, hon, it wasn�t me. You don�t think I go round sawing women in half for kicks!�

�I don�t know,� she said and her little hands became clenched fists as they rested on her thighs. �I don�t know anything, I guess.�

He couldn�t bare the unhappiness in her face, the fear � the fear of him. He said, �Hon, it wasn�t me. I never even got into the house, I swear it. I didn�t have time. You can check easily enough.�

�Who was it then?�

Joe ran a hand through his hair. He longed to pick her up, draw her to him, kiss away the terror and suspicion in her eyes. But he couldn�t � not while she looked up at him like that, like some trusting animal betrayed by its master.

�It was the guy with the car,� he said. �The guy that nearly ran down the cop. I swear it!�

Some of the suspicion, some of the hopelessness, left her face � not all of it but a little. She said, �The man with the car. I�d forgotten. But Joe dear, you should have told me anyway.�

�I couldn�t,� he said. �I was too sick, too shocked. I... well, I couldn�t, that�s all.�

�Joe!� she said, and she wasn�t back with him yet. �Joe, what are we going to do?�

�I don�t know,� he told her honestly, hopelessly. �What can we do?�

They were still staring at one another when Hornung came back with a drink-laden tray. With his return, Joe became aware that there was still music around them, one of Jimmy Noone�s old clarinet records. Briefly, he had forgotten everything but Mary and the suitcase.

Hornung put the tray on the low, round table in front of the curved sofa. �Help yourselves, kids,� he said. �This is liberty hall.�

Mary sipped at her drink, then set it down. She smiled at Hornung brightly � too brightly, Joe thought. She said, �Art, I don�t want to spoil the party, but I�ve had a long night. If I could lie down for a little while...�

Hornung was all solicitation, hovering over her like a Disney vulture in dove�s clothing. He said, �Of course, my dear, of course. You�ll find the bedroom in back, beyond the bathroom. Make yourself comfortable. But don�t sleep too long. We�ll miss you, won�t we, Joe?�

�Sure, hon,� said Joe. �But take it easy.� He knew what Mary wanted. She wanted to be alone, to think, to try and figure things out. He wished, longed to go with her. But that was impossible. Somebody had to stay with Hornung.

A half hour later, he and Joe were still sitting there alone, across the round table, listening to records again. There was something funny about the way Hornung listened to jazz, Joe thought, just as there was something funny about everything he did or said. Once again, Joe had the feeling that something obvious was eluding him, something he should have sensed much earlier.

Hornung didn�t clap his hands or weave his body or even tap his feet � for all of which Joe was grateful. The older man was much too mature for any such juvenile behavior. Yet he reminded Joe of a teen-ager by his very immobility, by the almost feverish raptness with which he listened, his head cocked a trifle toward the machine.

A man his age had no business taking it that seriously. It looked like an act. Yet somehow Joe knew it wasn�t an act, and that made it all the more wrong.

There was a moment of silence, while the changer operated, and Hornung took advantage of it to say, �They come and they go. Thirty years ago, your top clarinet men were Jimmy Lytell, Jimmy Dorsey, Pee Wee Roussell � with maybe a few of the negro players like Bigard, Noone and Buster Bailey.�

�You sure know your jazz,� said Joe, wondering how long this concert in hell was to go on.

Hornung stopped listening, a moment, said, �What was that?�

Joe lifted his range of hearing above the music. Mary was calling him. He glanced at Hornung, who nodded, and Joe went to the hall door, wondering how this man had established such control over him that he had to ask permission before doing anything. It wasn�t just the suitcase, he thought. There was something else � an odd, elusive sort of power that chilled him.

Mary called, �Joe, will you bring me my bag? I left it on the table. I want to freshen up.�

�Coming, hon,� said Joe. He went back and got the bag, a neat, inexpensive white plastic affair with gilt trimmings.

Hornung smiled and nodded and said, �Take your time, Joe. It�s all right with me.�

So what, Joe thought. So what if it wasn�t all right with him? But he knew he was whistling in the dark.

Mary was waiting for him, just inside the bedroom door. It was a big room, almost as big as the living room, with big furniture � a huge bureau, an immense wardrobe, a vast Hollywood bed. The prints on the walls were not actually pornographic, but they suggested odd, unpleasantly distorted eroticism � Watteau with a Kafka twist.

Mary�s blue eyes were alight with excitement as she pulled Joe inside and shut the door quickly, quietly, behind him. �Look!� she said. �Look at these, Joe.�

She was holding a mess of women�s garments, which she turned and dropped on the big bed � dresses, nightgowns, underthings.

Joe looked at them, poked at them, frowned, said, �So Hornung has girl friends. So what? He�s not a bad looking character, and with a setup like this�� He looked at the room around them.

�Joe!� Mary was actually shaking him. �Look at them. Here�s a bra that must be a forty-eight � and here�s a size twelve skirt. And this nightgown � those look like bloodstains to me!�

�Good God!� said Joe. His liver turned over again and he had to sit down on the bed as the meaning of Mary�s discovery got through to him.

�They belong to five different women,� Mary told him, frowning with desperate earnestness. �According to that story he read me, this sex-killer is supposed to have murdered five other women besides the one in the...� Her voice trailed off.

�Where�d you find them?� said Joe, shaken.

She nodded toward a large cedar chest on the far side of the bed. He got up, told her, �Better put them back for now. After all, they don�t prove anything. I�m afraid the whole thing�s impossible.�

�What do you mean � impossible?� she demanded, dropping the lid of the chest on the suspicious garments.

�Just that,� he told her. �It�s a nice theory but it just won�t wash. Suppose he is the sex-killer. How in hell did he manage to trace the suitcase to where we left it. How did he manage to trace us? It just can�t be, hon.�

Mary scowled out a rear window at a backyard vista already touched with the grey of early summer dawn. She said, �But it could have happened if he followed us. He has a car. He could have done just as he said.�

�But where could he pick us up?� Joe asked helplessly.

�I heard him take off from the murder scene in his car.�

�Suppose he circled, parked the car and went back to make sure he was safe,� said Mary. �He might have seen you when you tried to return the bag. Surely, if he was there, he�d have spotted it like a shot.�

�Wait a minute, hon.� Joe sank on the bed, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids. Then, looking up at her, he said, �You remember when he was describing the scene on the block to you just before I interrupted him?�

�Yes.� Now Mary was dubious. �But he was just making that up.�

�But he wasn�t!� Joe was on his feet, holding her arms tightly. �That�s just it � he wasn�t. I saw the red-headed fat woman in the nightgown leaning out her window, and the man with the white beard. He couldn�t have made them up. He must have been there.�

�Joe!� Mary�s voice was a whisper. �But if he is � if he did � why has he brought us here? What�s he planning to do with us?� Her face crumpled with fright.

�I don�t know, hon,� he said. �I don�t know. All we can do is play it cosy until he tips his hand.�

�Why don�t we just get out of here?� Mary asked. �We can�t stay here and let him � let him do whatever he�s planning.�

�We can�t leave now,� Joe told her fiercely. �He�s got us in a cleft stick. Remember, the cop saw me. If Hornung goes to the police and tells them about the suitcase, and about us, we�re dead. At least I am, and you�re in a mess that will ruin your life. He�s got us just where he wants us.�

Mary shuddered and Joe held her close a moment. �Aunt Alice will go to the police,� she said. �She always worries when I�m late getting home. Especially since yesterday was payday. But she won�t know where to tell them to look.�

�She�ll have the police on my tail,� he said grimly. �You can lay odds on that.� He released her, scowled, ran a hand through his short hair. �What have they got to go on? Just the suitcase? Remember, they�ve got its mate. And it�s individual enough. It�s the only thing they can be looking for. And it�s the only thing we can use to bring them here. With those things you found in the chest, we might be able to pin it on him.�

Mary grabbed him fiercely. �Joe!� she said. �Joe, don�t do anything foolish. If he finds out we�re onto him, we�re as good as dead.�

He managed a smile. �I�ll be careful,� he said. �You root around some more and see if you can turn up anything else. If we do get out of this, we�ll need everything we can get. Remember, he can make out quite a case against me � and you�ll be caught in it with me, no matter how it comes out.�

�Don�t worry, darling � we�re going to be all right!� she said and kissed him.

Joe Chance sat in the living room with Hornung, wondering what he could do, wondering what Mary was doing, watching his host and trying not to show it, knowing that Hornung was watching him. Fingers of daylight poked their way through the slats of the Venetian blinds, but the terror of night lingered in the dimly lit room. It was a sealed crate, an artificial satellite shut off from the world.

And the suitcase still stood against the wall beside the hall door. Sooner or later, Joe thought, it would begin to smell in this heat.�Sooner or later, Hornung would drop the masquerade of geniality. Meanwhile, the music kept on, relentlessly pounding its beat through Joe�s skull until he was ready to cry out in agony.

Jack Teagarden�s big horn, Krupa�s driving drums, Bubber Miley�s growling trumpet, Coleman Hawkins� thick-toned tenor sax, Harry James, George Wettling, Benny Goodman � each of them distinct in Joe�s mind and memory and inner ear, as different from one another as Scotch and rum, became blurred and fused like a kaleidoscope twirled too rapidly to be followed by the eye.

Terror stalked the room when Hornung spoke, when he moved, when he stayed still. Yet, if Joe hadn�t known he was sitting with a madman who pulled women apart as readily as a schoolboy tears the wings from a fly, he might have sensed nothing wrong.

True, there was a trace of strangeness in his talk � in the way he touched on love, on hate, on death, on the futility of all things, that might have sounded mad. But, as Joe well knew, Greenwich Village is full of mad talkers and beatniks, who would shudder at the thought of drowning a kitten.

�...love is more than a biological trap, set by nature to put man to genetic use,� Hornung said while the music was briefly soft. �It destroys man�s very soul.� He smiled oddly, distantly, then put down his glass and rose, adding, �Speaking of nature... You�ll excuse me, I hope?�

Joe nodded. What a ridiculous mockery of the conventions! He watched Hornung leave the room and his eyes fell to the suitcase. He studied it, half-consciously, while his brain raced through a rat maze of dead-end passages. What to do? How could he put it to use? He could feel the sweat on his forehead, mopped it off with a crumpled handkerchief.

And then he heard the answer, as if sent by some capricious Providence that had, till now, delighted in twisting him ever deeper in the toils of terror that had closed around him since he left the safety of the Cote d�Azure. It came from somewhere down the street, somewhere in the middle distance, the clatter of metal canisters, the sounds of men�s voices, the growl of a heavy, slow-moving vehicle.

The city garbage disposal truck was making its rounds!

Quickly, silently, Joe moved to the window, pulled up the blinds, looked out onto the slum street, deserted in the dawn, its broken sidewalks lined with cans and cartons, drawn up like opposing armies that would never meet in battle. Three blocks away to the southward, he could see the monstrous bulk of the great silvery truck. Through the open window, the crash and clatter of cans sounded louder, sharper, than it had inside. The truck was moving his way!

Joe darted to the suitcase, picked it up, grunted anew at its heaviness. And he recalled unhappily the comparative ease with which Hornung had carried it in from the car. Two of them had been too much for him, back at the Kipp Houses. But he was strong enough to handle a single heavy bag a lot more easily than Joe ever could.

Joe hoisted the bag onto the window sill with a tremendous effort. He tilted it there briefly, slid it slowly out, watched it fall end over end, almost in slow motion, till it struck the sidewalk with a thud and rolled over. For one terrified instant, Joe thought it was going to burst open and spatter its ghastly contents all over the street. But the locks held firm.

He was still looking out, blocking the window, when a hand fell on his shoulder, making him gasp and start with fright. Hornung�s voice said, �I wouldn�t put too much weight on that coping, Joe. The wood�s very old and it might give way and throw you out. It�s a nasty drop � enough to kill a man.�

Joe moved back quickly, dropped the blind. Had Hornung seen him push the bag out, had he seen it lying there on the sidewalk?

Hornung said, �It�s better to keep the blinds down, Joe. That way, the heat stays outside. And if we keep the lights on in here, we can pretend it�s night and not realize how tired we are.�

He went back behind the bookcase, said, �How about some of the old Trumbauer and Bix things, Joe? We haven�t played any yet, and I�ve got some of the rare ones � Three Blind Mice, Krazy Kat, Apple Blossoms. Tram plays a bassoon in Apple Blossoms, believe it or not.�

�Sounds great,� said Joe. �Put them on, Art�

The garbage truck was only a block away now. Soon they would be directly beneath, and it would hardly do for Hornung to hear any remarks the men might make about the bag. The music would keep his interest diverted.

Joe sat there, trying to look interested in the music, while his hopes, his soul, his entire attention was focused on the unseen sidewalk beneath. Salvation � or catastrophe � might lie within the next few minutes. He looked at his watch, saw it was after eight o�clock.

Frankie Trumbauer�s slick, sweet, C-melody sax tones came on in Three Blind Mice, and Hornung murmured, �He had something, that fellow � something rich and real. A pity he became a pilot instead.�

But Joe barely heard him. The disposal truck was directly under the front windows. He heard a crash as an empty can was dropped to the sidewalk. Then a voice, a hoarse male voice, saying, �No, Tony, not that old bag! You wanna rip the teeth right out of the unit?�

�Okay, but it�s just junk.� This from a higher-pitched voice.

�So let somebody else take care of it,� said the first voice. �You don�t want to damage the unit. Leave it lay.�

The truck moved slowly on, and Joe felt palsied with reaction, with fear, with a sense of utter and total helplessness. He looked at Hornung and wondered if he and Mary, out of their own desperation, had not created a fantasy about their host. Sitting there, absorbed in the music, a half-empty glass in his hand, he did not look the part of a sex fiend. But then, Joe wondered, how exactly did one look?

He thought of something then. The man he had seen emerge from the murder house with the two suitcases had worn a raincoat. When Hornung picked them up, he had been wearing none. Then he discarded this idea � the weather was hot and, in the shelter of his car, the older man might have dropped the garment in the back of the car somewhere.

As for the clothing Mary had found in the bedroom chest, they might merely have been relics of romantic evenings in this apartment. The brown stains might not have been blood at all � or, if they were blood, their source might not have been criminal.

Even the fact Hornung must have been on the scene of the crime shortly afterward was not necessarily damning. His purpose in following them, in returning the suitcase, in bringing them here, might not have been sinister. Often lonely men seem sinister to those more gregarious than themselves.

Mary wandered in from the bedroom, looking fresh and lovely with her hair combed, her makeup renewed.

Hornung sighed, shook his head and said to Joe, �You know, you�re a lucky guy.�

�Think so?� said Joe. He got up, put his arm around the girl, gave her a quick hug, whispered, �Find anything else?�

She shook her head faintly. �I�m starved. Is there anything here for breakfast?�

�Just about everything,� said Hornung rising and leading the way to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, said, �Eggs, bacon, sausages, butter, milk, frozen fruit.� Then flinging open a high cupboard, �Canned hash, beans, chili, Vienna sausage, kippers. You name it, we�ve got it.�

�I�m dying for some coffee,� said Mary. She tested the faucets, said, �Oh-oh, no hot water.�

�That damned heater!� said�Hornung. �I�ll go downstairs and get it going. It won�t take long. This weather, and with the house in a mess, it�s hard to remember everything.�

�I could heat some water on the stove,� said Mary, but he was already gone.

�Joe!� she said tensely. �Joe, what happened to the suitcase? When I looked just now, it was gone.�

He told her what he had done, what had happened, what he was beginning to feel about Hornung. She said, �I hope you�re right � oh, how I hope you�re right! If you are, then we can simply walk out of here. Oh no� � dismay spread over her face � �the suitcase. Even if he isn�t � even if he isn�t what we thought, he knows we had it.�

�Maybe I shouldn�t have flung it out the window,� said Joe.

�If anything does happen,� said Mary, �and Mr. Hornung is all right, the only thing we can do is level with him. Maybe that�s what he�s waiting for.�

�He�s going to have to wait a while longer then,� Joe said grimly, his castle of hope toppled by Mary�s logic. �I must have been crazy to kick that suitcase out. But I couldn�t keep it here.�

�I�m going to look,� said Mary, darting from the kitchen toward the front of the house. Following her more slowly, Joe watched her pull the blind, saw her peer out the window, draw back, drop the blind, turn to face him.

�Joe!� she half-whispered. �Joe, it�s gone!�

�Let me see.� He took a quick look himself. Save for the empty ashcans the track had left behind, the sidewalk below the house was quite empty. He pulled back inside hurriedly.

�Quick, Joe!� Mary said. �He�s coming back.�

They darted back to the kitchen. They heard Hornung�s footsteps on the stairs, heard him enter the apartment, move past the kitchen down the hall. �Just checking thermostat in the back closet,� he explained. �Why in hell they had to put it there I�ll never know.�

Then he was with them in the kitchen. He said, stiffling a yawn, �It will take about half an hour. I�d better put some more records on. You kids need anything, just holler.�

Joe stared after him. At the moment, he didn�t know whether he wanted Hornung to be the fiend or just an interfering bystander. Either way, he and Mary were in grave danger. He wished he�d forced Mary to leave him alone with the suitcase right after he�d learned what was in it. He wished that he had�

But it was a little late for wishing.

While he was daydreaming, Mary had darted into the hall. A moment later, she reappeared, her face drained of color, her legs unsteady.

�Joe!� she said. �Joe, the hall closet. It was locked before.� Her voice was more a croak than a whisper. But it was urgent, terrified.

Joe slipped past her into the hall. The closet door was ajar. His eyes noted the thermostat gauge on the wall just inside the door. Then he looked down.

There it was, as if he had never left it at the bus stop, as if he had never pushed it out the window and watched it land on the sidewalk beneath. There it was, the bag, the suitcase, the carryall for half a dismembered corpse, the cause of all his trouble!

From somewhere in the distance, somewhere ridiculously far away, he half-heard the driving introduction to That�s A Plenty, the big Eddie Condon record with Bill Davison�s hard, brilliant trumpet. And with the sound, with sight of the suitcase, the baseless, optimistic theory he had built about Arthur Hornung�s innocence shattered to fragments.

No wonder the suitcase was gone from the sidewalk. Hornung had seen it there, over Joe�s shoulder. He had waited until the garbage-men were gone, biding his time, playing with them like a very unhungry cat, toying with a pair of mice for which it had no immediate appetite.

No wonder Hornung was in no hurry, Joe thought. After all, he had made his last kill only a few hours earlier. And according to the schedule of his past murders, he needed a body only once every three weeks.

But Hornung wouldn�t wait three weeks this time. He couldn�t. His retrieving the suitcase meant just one thing � he knew the two of them were aware of his real nature, his real identity. He would have to put them out of the way quickly, before they could get to the police.

But they couldn�t go to the police without risking Hornung�s framing them for the crimes he himself had committed. They couldn�t go to the police � because Hornung couldn�t afford to let them. He could not even frame them safely until they were dead.

Mary was in the kitchen, with nothing to protect her from a man who had already slaughtered six women to satisfy his mad impulse to kill. Even at this moment...

Joe Chance raced back to the kitchen. Mary was there, alone, unharmed, waiting for him. The music buried their voices.

�You saw it � the suitcase?� she asked.

He nodded. �Honey,� he said, �he�ll be coming in here any minute.� He looked around for a weapon, anything, that would serve as a weapon.

Mary handed him an old-fashioned rolling pin. �I found it back of the breadbox,� she whispered.

�Got breakfast started?� Hornung�s voice sounded just as it had sounded all night. Although Joe could not hear his footsteps above the jazz, he knew Hornung was coming. He gripped the rolling pin, gave Mary a push toward the hall door.

�Run!� he said. �I�ll stop him, slow him down with this.� He looked at the improvised weapon in his hand. �You saw the back door � open it, get out, run for help. It�s our only chance.�

�Oh, Joe!� she said.

But Mary went, darting around the corner out of sight just as Hornung appeared in the other door. He said, �You�re awfully quiet out here. I was wondering if you��

Joe hit him with the rolling pin, just as hard as he could, right on the top of his head. Hornung made a funny noise and half-turned toward Joe, lifting his arms to ward off another blow. But he was too slow. Joe hit him again and then ran, leaving him sprawled on the kitchen linoleum.

Mary was still at the back door, sobbing a little as she wrestled with the lock. �I can�t get it open!� she gasped.

�Here!� Joe pushed her aside, found the spring catch under the old-fashioned lock, turned the bolt, swung the door open. �Out you go!� he cried, giving her a shove.

She moved only a few inches.

The doorway had been boarded up from the outside! And the music went driving on, louder and louder, building toward its climax.

Joe grabbed Mary, turned her around. If he had hit Hornung hard enough, they�d have time to make a break for it through the front door. Surely they could get the police back before Hornung could-destroy the evidence of the stained woman�s clothing, the suitcase, what was in it.

�Come on!� he urged, half-dragging her along with him. �Come on, hon!�

But Joe had not hit hard enough � or perhaps he had not placed his blows to do the most damage. Hornung stepped out of the kitchen in front of them, blocking their passage.