The Clue of the Forgotten Murder

By

Erle Stanley Gardner

Chapter 1

CRIME SIFTED INTO POLICE HEADQUARTERS

and then seeped down into the press room in the basement with the unfailing regularity of dirty water draining through the waste pipe of a bathtub.

Charles Morden sat at his battered desk and held in his hand a telephone which was directly connected with The Blade. His left hand pressed the receiver to his ear. His right hand shuffled a few cards on which the date, March 19, and certain memoranda concerning the crimes, had been written. He dealt with the misery of others with that same impersonal regard with which a bank cashier deals out the money of his depositors.

"I've got another purse snatching for you," he droned. "Elizabeth Givens, forty-two, 3612 Reeder Street, alighted from Thirty-second Avenue car line at Waters Street. Half a block from the car line two men who had been walking behind her rushed past and snatched her purse. The purse contained seven dollars and forty-two cents in cash, some letters, a key ring with keys to her house, and a compact.

"There"s a stick-up out on Dobbs Heights. Frank Peabody, thirty-five, 23194 Boyle Avenue, walking toward the end of the street car line to meet his wife, who was returning from a picture show. Two men, one masked, one unmasked, stuck a gun into his stomach, took a wallet containing two five-dollar bills and one ten-dollar bill, small change of around two dollars, a gold watch and a stick pin.

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"Put a line in there that Peabody can positively identify one of die bandits that die police have a good description. We"re running that as a favor to Johnson, on the stick-up squad. Johnson thinks he"s picked up the two men. They"ve ditched the stuff, but Johnson wants to show them die newspaper account of the crime saying that Peabody got a good look at them. He"s going to play one against the other with a fake confession.

"Here"s a funny one A man who gives his name as John Smidi, forty-eight, 732 Maple Avenue, driving a Chrysler roadster, license number 6B9813, arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. There was a chicken with him. She gives the name of Mary Briggs, her age as twenty-two, and says she has no residence. She claims she was a hitch-hiker that Smith picked her up in the automobile a few minutes before his arrest. He had a minor traffic accident with a car driven by George Mofnt, thirty-two, 6l9 Melrose Street. The accident took place at the intersection of Webster and Broadway. Traffic Officer Carl Wheaton was on duty at the corner. He smelled liquor on Smidi"s breadi, started questioning him. Smith seemed anxious to get away. He had a wallet well filled with money, and tried to bribe the officer. Wheaton got suspicious. There was a report of a couple of service station stick-ups—the one I sent in about two hours ago—where a man and a woman drove up to the service station and die woman did the stick-up. The pair had been driving a Chrysler roadster, so Wheaton made an investigation ...

An officer appeared in the doorway and beckoned to Morden. Morden nodded his head, said into die transmitter, "Just a seconds Something"s up. I"ll give you some more dope in a minute. ... Yeah, I know twenty minutes is our deadline, but this may be hot.

Hold the line a minute. ... Okay, I"ll call you back."

Morden hung up the telephone and bounded into the corridor, where the officer passed him a written memorandum.

"This just came in," he said.

Morden glanced dirough die memorandum and gave a low whistle. He asked one or two questions, jotted down notes, then rushed back to the telephone and picked up the receiver. His voice still retained the droning monotone, but die words came out a litde more rapidly.

"It"s a murder case," he said. "Private detective killed by gangster. ... All right, I"ll hold the line."

There was an interval of silence, then Morden"s eyes gleamed with endiusiasm. He slid an appraising palm over his glossy black hair, making certain that the waves were smoodied into place. His voice took on a tone of bantering invitation.

"Hello, brat, I wondered if you"d give me a tumble. Listen, cutie, I've found a swell new eating place. They put on a good floor show. What do you say we toddle over and ...

Abruptly his voice returned to its droning, bored monotone

"Okay. Edward Shillingby, fifty-diree, 563 Monad-nock Building, at Ninth and Central, unmarried, licensed as a private detective, shot at ten-fifteen by a gangster on Western Avenue between Cypress and Hazel. A man driving a Cadillac automobile, with die left fender dented, drove slowly along close to die curb. Thomas Decker, forty-eight, 1542 Washington Street, unmarried, was walking along the sidewalk. The car pulled in close to die curb. A lone occupant raised a gun, said, "All right, you skunk, here"s where you get yours." Decker, in a panic, started to run. The

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man called after him, "Beg your pardon, buddy, I got the wrong guy." The car got into motion, went on past Decker. He had a good look at it, but couldn't get the license number. The tail light had been doctored, or else was dim. But he could see the dent on the left rear fender. It was a gray Cadillac coupe. The driver wore an overcoat and a black slouch hat. Fifty yards down the street, the car stopped. Shillingby was walking along the sidewalk. The man in the car got out, walked across the sidewalk, said something to Shillingby, stood close to him, and Decker says they seemed to be standing still for two or three seconds. Then the man from the Cadillac fired four shots at close range, turned, jumped into his car and swung around the corner. Decker ran to Shillingby, and was the first to reach the body. Officer Sam Greenwood heard the shots. He was two blocks away. He arrived about the time Decker stopped a passing motorist. The victim was dead. Two of the shots entered die heart. The other two were within three inches of die heart. Anyone of them would have been fatal. Death was instantaneous. ... And say, don't forget to mention Sam Greenwood. He"s a good cop.

"The dead man was Edward Shillingby. Identification made from letters in his pocket and his private detective"s license. There was a typewritten statement in his pocket that if he should be found dead, police were to call Fay Bronson, at Lockhaven two-nine-three-four and to question Philip Lampson, sometimes known as "Cincinnati Red".

"Officers called Fay Bronson. She lives at 1924 Ar-gyle, apartment 19B, age twenty-three. She said that Shillingby had been working up a case against Lamp-son. She didn"t know what the case was. Shillingby had said he was going out to shadow Lampson. He thought Lampson might grab him and frisk him, so he

had his secretary type out this statement. The secretary says the object of the statement was to keep Lampson from bumping Shillingby off. He wanted Lampson to think there was some evidence that was being held by the secretary. She says it was just a bluff. There wasn"t any evidence.

"That sounds fishy. Shillingby probably had something up his sleeve. He may have intended to talk widi Lampson and flash the statement on Lampson. Now, here"s another funny angle on die case Decker is in a panic. He made his statement to the police, gave his name and address, promised that he"d be available as a witness. He skipped out. Just a few minutes ago police received a telephone communication from Sidney Griff, the criminologist, stating that Decker had consulted him. He said Decker was afraid Lampson"s gang would kill him, to keep him from testifying. Griff says that he"ll produce Decker any time it"s necessary to have him as a witness, that in die meantime Decker is going to be very much under cover. There"s something funny about that. Decker"s statement to the police doesn"t indicate that he could be of very much help in convicting Lampson. The police figure he either knows something he didn"t tell them or that he has some other reason for being frightened. It might be a good plan to get in touch widi Griff and see if we can get a statement from him."

The receiver made squawking noises.

"Sure," Morden said, "I can get a good story out of that John Smith case and make a human interest yarn out of the hitch-hiker who was picked up for a ride and found herself under arrest. She isn"t hard on the eyes. She"d make a good picture and is the type that would sit on die edge of a desk and show plenty of leg. Too bad we haven't got time to get a photographer down here in time to make die first edition,

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but we might shoot her for a good follow-up yarn. ... Sure, John Smith is a phoney, but the officers are going to find out who he is before they turn him loose. They haven't got anything against him. He doesn"t check with the description of the service station stick-ups—not when they got a good look at him. They"re going to hold him until one of the men comes in from the service station, to see if he can identify the girl, but they haven't got anything against Smith. He"s had a couple of drinks, but he"s not intoxicated. ... Okay, I"ll bust in and get you some stuff for a human interest article. ... Yeah, I know. I can get it in ten minutes. If you want a picture, you"d better send a photographer down right away. ... Okay, I"ll call you back in seven minutes—ten at the latest." Morden slid the receiver back into place, lit a ciga-rstte and sauntered out of the press room, down a corridor filled with stale, lifeless air, and pushed open a door marked "Detective Bureau."

CHAPTER II

TOM CARSONS, OF THE DETECTIVE BUREAU,

was killing time until the men from the service station would arrive to make the identification. He looked up and nodded as Morden entered the room. Then he turned back to the tall, somewhat paunchy individual who sat on a wooden bench, his shoulders slightly stooped, his eyes nervously flickering about the room. Beside the man sat a girl with eyes that were dark.

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wary and watchful, lips that were a vivid crimson against her face, hair that showed a deep black.

Morden swept the girl with an appreciative eye, waited until her glance rested upon his face, and smiled. After a moment she returned the smile. Tom Carsons looked over at the man and said in a weary voice, "You"re talking just the way they all of them talk. If I had a nickel for every guy who claimed he was going to break me for holding him, I wouldn"t have to work. You say your address is 732 Maple Avenue. Then, when we prove you don't live there, you say you"re John Smith, of Riverview, and that you gave us a fake name and address because you didn"t want to be involved in a lot of scandal. The girl claims she"s a hitch-hiker and hasn"t any home that you picked her up, and ..."

"That"s right," said the man.

"Shut up," Carsons said. "I"ll ask you questions when I want you to talk." The telephone rang. Carsons scooped the receiver to his ear. "I'm going to check that Riverview business," he said. "Hello ... police headquarters at Riverview? Okay. This is headquarters in the city. We picked up a man on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, with a suspicion of robbery. He gave a phoney address here in the city, but now says he"s John Smith, living at the Rex Arms Apartments in Riverview says his telephone has been temporarily disconnected, but he"s got a wallet filled with money. Make a check and call me back, will you? Ask for Tom Carsons, in the detective bureau. ... Okay, thanks. G"by."

Carsons hung up die telephone and turned to face the man on the bench.

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"Now then," he said wearily, "if there"s anything phoney about that address you"re going to stay right here for the night. They"re making a check-up in River view."

The man wet his lips nervously with the tip of his tongue and shifted his eyes to the girl. The girl fidgeted on the bench, suddenly looked over to Carsons and correctly interpreted the cool humor of his gaze.

"Honest to God!" she said. "If I knew anything about him, I"d tell you. I'm telling you the God"s own truth. I was just walking, and wasn"t even giving the drivers a tumble, when this fellow pulled his roadster in to the curb and asked me if I didn"t want a lift. I told him I didn"t, and he put the car in low gear and crawled along ...

The telephone rang.

Carsons held the receiver to his ear, nodded his head and then looked across at the man on the bench.

"Now," he said, "we"re getting somewhere."

He spoke into the transmitter, "That"s all the dope you"ve got?"

He nodded, slipped the receiver back into place, wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper, then looked up at the man.

"All right, Mr. Frank B. Cathay, suppose you tell us the truth?"

The man on the bench did not wince. His eyes slit-ted slightly, as though concentrating in swift thought.

"You got that name from the place where I rented the car, didn"t you?" he said.

Carsons" manner was the manner of a cat torturing a mouse.

"Why?" he asked with smirking innocence. "Was that the name you gave when you rented the car?"

The man on the bench nodded.

"Yes," said Carsons. "The car registration was

checked to one of the places that rent cars without drivers. They said that you gave the name of Frank B. Cadiay of Riverview, and, furthermore, that you offered documents to prove your identity and by way of reference."

The man shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

"All righC he said, "there"s no use keeping up the pretense any more. I'm Frank B. Cathay of River-view."

Carsons chose to be scornfully cynical as he became

certain of his ground. "" "Oh, yes," he said, "you"re Cathay now. This is about the third name you"ve given. You"ll he Santa

Claus next."

"No," the man said, "I'm Cathay. I can prove it."

He got to his feet, took a card case from his hip pocket, opened the card case, showed driving license, lodge card memberships, golf club cards.

The telephone rang again. Carsons pressed the re-ceiver against his left ear, propped his left elbow on the desk, so that the receiver was held on an angle and his head was tilted over to one side, pushed against the receiver. His eyes never left Cathay"s face as he talked.

"Yeah, this is headquarters. Carsons speaking. No, I

know now that it"s a bum steer. But how about a chap

named Cathay? Seems to be rather a big bug, with

membership in a lot of country clubs, and... Oh, he

is, is he? That"s interesting Candidate for the of

fice of city councilman, huh? President of a luncheon

club, huh? Director in a bank, huh?... Well, he"s

held here—well, he"s just being held for questioning,

that"s all. Thanks I see.... Uh huh All right

—dianks. No, we haven't put a charge against him— just picked up for investigation in connection with a broadcast. He was driving a car that looked like one

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that figured in a stick-up. Yeah, I guess it"s all a mis-take."

He hung up the telephone and looked at the man on the bench with a new-found respect.

"Why the hell didn"t you come clean in the first place?" he asked.

"I couldn't afford to. I can"t afford to get mixed into this. I can"t stand any notoriety."

Carsons nodded.

"You should have come clean in the first place," he said. "You were only picked up on suspicion. Let"s just check your identity. What"s your address in Riverview?"

The man spoke without hesitation.

"My address is at 286 Walnut Avenue. My telephone number is Main six-eight-three-one. My office is in the First National Bank Building. I have Suite 908—a suite of five rooms occupying the entire front of the ninth floor."

"What do you do?" asked Carsons. "I supervise my investments," the man said with dignity.

Carsons slid over a pad of paper. "Sign your name," he said.

Charles Morden sauntered from the room. At the doorway, he paused, with the door open just a crack.

"Do me a favor, Tom, will you?" he said.

Tom Carsons turned his head and raised his eyebrows.

"Hold him for fifteen minutes," Morden said, and slammed the door, before Carsons could say anything. He raced down the corridor to the press room, thrust his head in the door and saw that Whipple of The Planet was seated at his desk, kept on going down the corridor until he came to a telephone boodi. He en-

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tered the booth, and, as he pulled the door shut, the light clicked on. Morden reached up and extinguished the light by unscrewing die globe a half turn. Enough light filtered in dirough the glass which partitioned the top of the door to enable him to see to drop the coin and dial the number of The Blade.

"Listen, cutie," he said, "put me on to Roy. ... Yeah, I know. Never mind that stuff.

"Sure, the invitation is good, but forget it. This is business. I'm using a nickel of my own money. ... Hello, Roy, this John Smith case has busted wide open. I'm telephoning from a booth in the corridor. Whipple of The Planet is on duty in the press room. He"s just got the memo that was handed out from the desk, and the thing has gone in to The Planet as an ordinary John Smith, suspicion of driving while intoxicated, but the man isn"t John Smith at all. He"s a big shot in Riverview, a man by the name of Cathay— C-A-T-H-A-Y. ... That"s right. ... Frank B. Cathay of Riverview. He lives at 286 Walnut Avenue, has offices in the First National Bank Building, is a banker and candidate for city councilman. There"s probably a hot political fight up there, and the news of his arrest will be big ammunition for one of die Riverview newspapers, depending on which one is fighting him. Yes, he was picked up witii a chicken. He admits he doesn"t know her and never saw her before. Her story is that she"s Mary Briggs, a hitchhiker. ... Well, he"s dough-heavy, and he"s getting ready to buy his way out. Tom Carsons is handling the investigation, and Tom has fallen like a ton of brick for the big banking business. Tom figures the man"s got political connections here he can work if he wants to. Cathay is going to pay about a hundred bucks to get eased out die back door and have die

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whole thing dropped. Carsons can do it because no charge was made. The guy was just picked up on suspicion, mostly suspicion of being mixed up in the service station stick-ups. ... Sure, I'm certain of my facts. I heard him when he kicked through and came clean. He"s got his card case with him, with his membership cards, his driving license and all of that stuff, and Carsons will have him verify the signatures on his lodge cards and operator"s license, just in order to make certain he"s got the right man. ... You can put in a call for Mrs. Cadiay at Riverview and get a statement out of her. ... How do I know he"s going to buy his way out? Helll How do I know this call is costing me a nickel? If you want him held long enough to get a photographer over here, you"ve got to bring some pressure to bear on Carsons and do it right now."

Morden slipped the receiver back into place, left the telephone booth and started down the corridor toward die room where Carsons was holding Frank B. Cathay. He had taken less than half a dozen steps from the telephone booth when Whipple of The Planet emerged from the press room and stood staring at him suspiciously.

"Where you been, guy?" he asked.

"Just fooling around, stretching my legs," Morden told him.

Whipple"s gaze became more suspicious. He walked past Morden directly to the telephone booth and jerked the door shut. The switch clicked, but the light did not come on. Morden had neglected to screw the bulb back into position. Whipple reached up, twisted die globe, and the light came on.

Whipple jerked open die door and ran down the corridor to the press room. He picked up his telephone and shouted into it, "Hold everydiingl Morden

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of The Blade has picked up something hot I don't know what it is. Let me find out."

Morden, standing in the door of die pressroom, lit a cigarette and grinned mockingly.

"You"re sure a suspicious cuss," he said. "My city editor would can me for that."

"For what?" asked Whipple.

"Holding up die paper on a bum steer," Morden said.

"I'm not so certain it"s a bum one," Whipple told him. "I'm going to mooch a little information."

He called the desk sergeant, called the radio broad-caster, even called the various precinct houses, widi-out learning anything.

Morden, afraid to leave the room, dropped into his chair, put his feet up on the battered desk and smoked placidly.

CHAPTER III

A FRECKLE-FACED LAD, WITH A SLIGHT CAST

in one eye, and who was particularly disliked by Charles Morden, brought him the news.

"On the carpet for you," he said.

Morden, always particular about his appearance, frowned at the boy even as he straightened his tie.

"Just what it it you"re trying to tell me, Squinty?" he asked.

The boy jerked his finger toward the editorial offices.

"Kenney, die city editor, wants to see you," he said. Morden ran a palm in a gesture of delicate adjust-

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mem about the wavy black hair, and the boy watched him with ill-concealed scorn.

"Why don't you get a hair net?" he asked.

"Shut up," Morden told him, "before I knock your eye back into place."

"Kenney said he wanted to see you right now—not next week," the boy told him.

"Probably," said Morden with dignity, "he wishes to commend me upon some excellent bit of work and raise my salary."

As he turned toward the editorial offices, Squinty gave him a very moist raspberry.

Morden strode toward the office with an expression of becoming modesty. He had, he knew, slipped a fast one over on Whipple. The Blade had been the only paper to carry the story of the Riverview scandal —the prominent citizen, candidate on the reform ticket for councilman, president of a luncheon club, banker, financier, general big shot, arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, in company with a young woman whom he claimed he had never seen before. He had lied about his identity, and police had only discovered his real name by tracing the car which he had been driving, a car which had been picked up at a renting agency, despite the fact that Cathay"s wife had cheerfully assured the newspaper reporter who interviewed her over the long distance telephone that her husband had gone to the city in his gray Hupmo-bile roadster.

All in all, it was a sweet piece of news, if one went in for scandal.

The Blade went in for scandal.

Morden opened the door of Dick Kenney"s office, stiffened slightly as he saw the big man in the well-tailored suit who turned pale gray eyes upon him in hostile appraisal.

Dick Kenney, seated behind the city editor"s desk, looked from Morden to the man.

"Well?" he asked of Morden.

Morden showed that he was puzzled.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked.

Kenney jerked his head toward the man in the gray suit.

"Know this man?" he asked.

Morden breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever the squawk, it wasn"t something which could be laid to him.

"No," he said blithely, "I never saw him before in my life."

"Take a look at diis," said Kenney.

The city editor slid a card across the desk. Morden picked the card up and stared at it. It read simply, "FRANK B. CATHAY—Investments—Suite 908, First Na-tional Bank Building, Riverview."

Morden turned to die man.

"You"re representing Mr. Cadiay?" he asked, with a peculiar sinking sensation making itself manifest in the pit of his stomach.

"I," said die man widi cold fury, "am Frank B. Cathay."

There was a moment of tense silence in die room, then the city editor looked across at Morden and said, "Well?"

Morden shook his head emphatically.

"No," he said, "diis isn"t Cathay. They"re about the same age and about the same build, but Cathay is stooped a little bit, and his eyes are a litde darker. He"s ..."

"I am Frank B. Cathay of Riverview," interrupted the man in a tone which quivered with fury. "I have already established my identity with your city editor, and I can do so again if necessary."

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"You"ve only given me a letter of introduction," said Dick Kenney cautiously.

The man pulled a wallet from his pocket, took out a folded clipping from The Riverview Daily Press. The clipping had headlines which stretched across the full top of the page

"CATHAY LIBELED BY CITY PRESS."

There were smaller headlines, a column and a half of space, and there was a picture of Frank B. Cathay prominently displayed.

Kenney stared at the picture, passed it over to Mor-den. Morden looked at the article, at the picture, raised his eyes once more to the man, felt clammy per-spiration oozing from his forehead and sliming the palms of his hands.

There could be no question but what the man who stood in the office, and the man who had posed for the picture in the newspaper, were one and the same. And there could be no doubt that this man was not the same one who had given the name of Frank B. Cathay at police headquarters the night before.

"I saw a driving license, lodge cards, membership cards in golf clubs, saw your signature and saw you signing the same signature," Morden said. "That is, I saw the real Cathay signing the signature."

Dick Kenney"s tone was ominous.

"Did you see him sign, Morden?" he asked.

Morden hesitated for a moment.

"Well," he said, "Carsons had him sign his name, and he was just in the act of signing when I sneaked out to telephone. But Carsons was checking up on him. Carsons wouldn"t have let him loose unless the signatures had tallied."

"But you said it was a pay-off," Kenney remarked.

"I said that he was going to grease the way with

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money," Morden explained, "but you know Carsons. Carsons would have taken a little tip to cut out a little red tape, but he wouldn"t have accepted a bribe to turn a man loose who was held on suspicion. He made this guy prove that he was Cathay. After he did that, Carsons was anxious to square himself. He slipped the guy out of headquarters so fast we didn"t even get a chance to look at him."

"Last night," said the man in the gray suit, with

hat same cold, impressive dignity, "my pocket was

picked. I lost a wallet and a card case containing not

only business cards, but my driver"s license and lodge

membership cards."

"You didn"t report it to the police," said Dick

Kenney.

"I didn"t have to," the man said. "I was careless. My pocket was picked. That was all there was to it. The police couldn't have done anything about it."

Morden was defiant and hostile.

"This newspaper clipping doesn"t prove anything," he said. "Suppose it is your picture? Maybe The Riverview Daily Press made a mistake, instead of The Blade."

The tall man laughed scornfully.

"That," he said, "is good! I've lived in Riverview for the past fifteen years. I've been identified with every prominent commercial expansion the city has undertaken during the past ten years. I've been pres-ident of the Chamber of Commerce. I'm president of the town"s biggest luncheon club. I'm a candidate for city councilman, and doubtless would have been elected had it not been for this libelous article. As it is, I shall probably be defeated. The newspaper which I am exhibiting here is the newspaper which is favorable to my candidacy.The other newspaper was more cautious. It steered clear of a libel suit. It stated that

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a man who had exhibited cards and a driver"s license in the name of Frank B. Cathay, and who had established his identity to the satisfaction of the metropolitan police as Frank B. Cathay, had been held on suspicion of driving while intoxicated that there was, at the time, a young woman in the car with this individual who had admitted she had never seen him before, but had been picked up on the street."

"How about the fact that the man signed your signature?" asked Morden.

"You didn"t see him sign," said the big man, his tone still hostile and savage.

."Perhaps I didn"t see him sign, but he signed all right," Morden said.

"It wouldn"t be the first time that a pickpocket had been a forger," the other retorted.

"Suppose, Mr. Cathay," said Dick Kenney in suave tones, as though he had already acknowledged defeat, "you sign your name for us, so that we can check it with the police records."

Cathay hesitated for a moment. "You have libeled me," he said. "You have done irreparable damage to a reputation which I have been building up for more than fifteen years. Now you have die temerity to insist on your libel and to reiterate it. Not satisfied with having unhesitatingly accepted the identity of an impostor, you add insult to your previous injury by refusing to accept proper proof of my identity." Dick Kenney was firm.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Cathay," he said, "I don't know, as yet, what the situation is going to lead to, but, since you have taken the trouble to come here to establish your identity, it would seem you would hardly hesitate to sign your name."

"Oh, that"s right," the man said quickly. "I forgot

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about the letter from the president of the First National Bank. I thought that I had given you that."

He took from his wallet a letter on the stationery of the First National Bank of Riverview. The letter stated that the person whose photograph was attached to the letter was Mr. Frank B. Cathay that Mr. Cathay"s signature also appeared below the photo-graphf that Mr. Cathay maintained a balance in the First National Bank of Riverview which ran well into six figures that he was a respected and esteemed citizen of Riverview and a member of the Bank"s board of directors.

Kenney read the letter and pointed to the signature.

"I take it," he said, "that the signer of this letter expected you would duplicate the signature."

"Isn"t the photograph sufficient?" asked Cathay.

"I would prefer," Kenney told him, still speaking with insistence, but with a courtesy which contained a note of deference in it, "to have you sign your name."

The man pulled the pad of paper which Kenney held out to him, grabbed the soft 6B newspaper pencil with which the city editor scribbled memoranda, and dashed off a signature which was a perfect duplicate of the signature underneath the photograph.

"That," said the city editor, staring pointedly at Morden, "settles the matter."

The room was silent, save for the rustle of papers as Cathay folded them, returned them to his wallet and pushed the wallet back into his pocket.

"Well," said Kenney in a tone of resignation, "what do you want?"

"I want a retraction," said Cathay, "and I want damages."

"If you have a retraction," Kenney pointed out, "there won't be any damages."

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Cathay"s face blazed into fury.

"Don"t talk to me like thatl" he said. "In the first place, you couldn't publish a retraction which would attract the attention that damnable article did. It"s been seized upon by every newspaper in the country. Members of the big press associations have been calling at my house. I have received hundreds of telegrams, and there have been several insulting letters. Riverview is seething with the news. Some people have decided that because of my great wealth I will be able to buy some sort of a retraction. The damage can never be undone."

Kenney toyed with the pencil, sliding his fingers up and down the brown wood. The thick, soft lead made little jabbing dots on the pad of paper. Cathay went on "I have been damaged in an amount that can probably never be compensated from a financial standpoint. However, I shall expect a very material contribution—not so much because of the money in-volved as because of the moral effect. I intend to deposit your check in die First National Bank at Riverview, but, before I have deposited it, I shall see that it is photographed and a facsimile is printed in The Riverview Daily Press."

Kenney"s face was savage.

"You talk like that," he said, "and it"ll be a long time before you get a checkl You can get a retraction any time you want. You"ve established your identity. There"s been a mistake made. But there are certain peculiar circumstances surrounding die making of that mistake. We telephoned your wife for confirmation. She stated that you were here in die city that she didn"t know what hotel you were stopping at."

"Quite true," said Cadiay.

"By the way," Kenney said, with elaborate careless-

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ness, "what hotel were you stopping at, Mr. Cauiay?"

Cathay snorted.

"I didn"t come here to be insulted still further," he said. "It"s none of your damned business where I stayed or what I did! I came to the city on business, and I don't have to disclose die nature and extent of that business to every libelous yellow sheet that wants to pry into my private affairs! I have told you what I expect. First, I shall expect a retraction. After that, I shall expect the check."

He turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

"Wait a minute," Kenney said, "let"s get at the bottom of this thing. I want you to meet Mr. Bleeker, the junior partner of the firm which publishes The Blade."

"And what do you expect me to say to him?" asked Mr. Cathay.

"You can tell him just what you"ve told me," Kenney said.

"No, thank you," said Mr. Cathay frostily. "I have given you my message. I inquired as to the proper person to see. I was directed to you. I am not accustomed to wasting my time. I shall expect your retraction. My suit for libel will be filed within a day or two, unless the matter is satisfactorily adjusted in the meantime. I wish you a very good afternoon."

The door banged.

Dick Kenney looked accusingly at Charles Morden.

"A hell of a scoop!" he said sarcastically. "The only newspaper in the city that published it!"

"It"s fishy as hell!" Charles Morden exploded.

Kenney pushed back his chair.

"You come with me, young man," he said. "We"re going to see Dan Bleeker."

23

CHAPTER IV

DAN BLEEKER WAS IN THE LATE, FORTIES. HE

was thin of frame, sallow of complexion. His black, smoldering eyes looked up in swift appraisal at the faces of the two men as they entered his private office.

"Looks serious," he said.

"It is," Dick Kenney assured him.

"Sit down and wait until I finish these letters," Bleeker snapped.

The men found chairs. Bleeker pulled freshly type-written letters into position on his desk, read briefly, drove his pen across the paper with nervous haste.

He signed his name as he did everything else—in a swiftly nervous manner. One gathered that his mind was in a state of perpetual irritation at the inability of the physical environment to keep pace with the man"s thoughts. When he spoke, his manner was explosive. His articulation was close-clipped his words volleyed forth with machine-gun rapidity. When he listened, his manner was that of impatient courtesy. It seemed that he anticipated the things that people were going to say to him and wished that they would get done so he could speak and get the matter disposed of.

He shoved his pen across the last of the letters. The last portion of his signature trailed away into a wavy line, as though, having taken time to form the letters of the first part of his signature, his perpetual impatience with tardy accomplishment got the better of him, and he simply jerked his pen through a few

22

indefinite, wavy motions and flourished the signature to a close.

He jabbed a button, and a tall, gaunt young woman with pop eyes strode into the room, cast an appraising glance at the two men who occupied chairs, picked up the letters and departed.

As the door closed, Dan Bleeker turned to the two men.

"All right," he said, "what is it?" His nervous, impatient manner made Dick Kenney speak in a quick tempo.

"That Frank B. Cathay story we ran last night," he said.

"What"s the matter with it?" asked Bleeker. "It"s sour."

"What"s wrong with it?" Bleeker demanded. "The man who was arrested wasn"t Cathay at all." Dan Bleeker gulped. He whirled about in his swivel chair, stared at the men with black-eyed, aggressive rage, jumped to his feet.

"Of all the bonehead plays!" he said. "Haven"t you been in the newspaper game long enough to know that you can"t run a scandal story about a man without being sure of your grounds? Don"t you know that the more prominent a man is, the worse the scandal? Don"t you know that ...

The very vehemence of his outburst choked him into silence.

"Bah!" he said, and dropped back to his chair. Dick Kenney"s voice was anxious. "It was just one of those things that couldn't be helped," he said. "It came in at the last minute. The man gave the name of John Smith. The police checked back on where he"d rented the roadster, and found that he"d given the name of Frank B. Cathay of Riverview. They confronted him with that state-

24

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ment, and he admitted his identity. He produced cards, all sorts of identification."

He looked over at Morden.

"Morden," he said, "was in a tough spot. The paper was all ready to go to press. Whipple of The Planet suspected something ...

Dan Bleeker snorted contemptuously.

"Cards!" he said. "My Godl You couldn't get a twenty dollar check cashed on the strength of that identification. Yet you go ahead and plunge the news-paper into a libel suit on identification that hasn"t got anything more to it than thatl"

"No, wait a minute," Dick Kenney told him, speaking with almost hysterical haste, trying to get his side of the case presented before Bleeker should take some drastic action. "We did a lot more than look at the cards. We telephoned to Riverview and talked with Mrs. Cathay. She admitted that her husband was in the city. And Tom Carsons down at the detective bureau didn"t release the man until he had given proof of his identity. There were signatures on the cards. Carsons had him duplicate those signatures."

Bleeker stared steadily at the city editor. Dick Kenney met his gaze calmly.

"That all your story?" asked Bleeker.

Kenney nodded.

"It"s a damned poor way to verify the man"s identity." Dan Bleeker said.

"We were just going to press," the city editor reminded him.

"That doesn"t make any difference. If it"s news, publish it. If it"s libel, lay off of it."

"But, after all," Kenney pointed out, "you can"t run a newspaper like a bank. It"s run at high speed. There"s ..."

"Wait a minute," Bleeker interrupted. "There"s something fishy about this."

"Of course, there"s something fishy about it," Morden said.

Bleeker raised black, smoky eyes and regarded die young man for a full second before saying, "Shut up!"

He dropped his chin to his hands, stared at the floor for a few minutes, then looked up at the city editor.

"How did you find out the man wasn"t Cathay?" he asked.

"Frank B. Cathay, himself, came to see me."

"What did he want?"

"Plenty."

"How much?"

"He didn"t say. He wants a retraction, and he wants damages."

"Oh, he does, does he?" said Bleeker grimly.

"He seems to have us in an awful spot," Kenney said. "He"s a prominent man in Riverview. He"s running for the city council. He"s been president of the Chamber of Commerce, the president of the town"s biggest luncheon club ...

"Never mind all the details," interrupted Bleeker explosively. "I know the type. I know all about him, more about him than he knows about himself. He"s one of those smug, complacent hypocrites who dominate the life of a suburban community. His wife is a social leader. She fixes the social status of every woman in town. He struts up and down the main stem and swells up like a poisoned pup at the deferential greetings of all the bootlicking citizenry. People toady to her and toady to him. How much money does he want?"

"He didn"t say."

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"Why didn"t he say?"

"Because he thinks that the amount of cash involved is secondary to the principle of the thing."

"All right, then, pay him one dollar and tell him to go to hell."

"It isn"t that. He wants to get a substantial check, so he can have a facsimile published in The River-view Daily Press, which is backing him in the political campaign."

"Wants to whatV yelled Bleeker.

"That"s what he said," Kenney remarked. "He wanted to have a facsimile of the check published, so he can convince the local citizens that atonement had been made for a great wrong."

"Did you kick him out of the office?" asked Bleeker.

"I thought," Kenney said, "we"d got in bad enough already. I thought that he might be laying some sort of a trap for us, to get us to do something just like that, so that he could show malice. As I remember the law of libel, it makes a great deal of difference whether the person complaining can show actual malice, or ...

"The law of libel be damned!" Bleeker exploded. "•"The law of libel isn"t going to enter into this at all. You"ve been in the newspaper business long enough to know better than that, Kenney."

Kenney said meekly, "That"s why I thought I should turn it over to you."

Bleeker whirled toward Morden.

"You"re the one that got us into this, huh?" he asked.

"I reported the case when it first came in. It was a John Smith case then. I was instructed to get a human interest article, and ...

"And you"re the one that got us into it, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

Bleeker sighed.

"That"s a lot better, my boy," he said. "When I ask you a direct question, give me a direct answer. The alibis can come later. If you"d kept beating around the bush I"d have fired you. As it is, I don't mind telling you that you did what any wide awake newspaper man would have done under similar circumstances. How did you get an exclusive on it?"

"I was covering the thing from a human interest angle," said Morden, "when they started checking up on the man"s identity. Then they found out the car he was driving was a rent car that when he rented the car, he had given the name of Frank B. Cathay of Riverview, had shown his driver"s license and exhibited his lodge and club cards by way of reference."

"How did he get those cards?" asked Bleeker of Dick Kenney.

"Cathay says his pocket was picked."

"Did he make a complaint to the police?"

"No."

"Did he say how much cash he lost?"

"No."

"Did you ask him what he was doing in town?"

"He said he was here on business."

"Did he tell you the nature of the business?"

"No."

"Tell you where he was stopping?"

"No. I asked him and he refused to answer."

Dan Bleeker fastened his glittering black eyes on Morden.

"Ever work for a newspaper on a libel suit, Morden?" he asked.

Morden shook his head.

"Know how it"s done?" asked Bleeker.

"I have an idea," Morden said.

"All right," Bleeker told him, "go into the morgue,

Z8

29

dig out everything we"ve got on Frank B. Cathay of Riverview. If he"s been a prominent citizen there for fifteen years we"ll probably have a lot of stuff on him. The Riverviexu Daily Press is his paper. That means The Riverview Chronicle will be fighting him. Run up and get in touch with the editor of The Riverview Chronicle. Find out all the stuff they"ve got on Cathay. Find out where he made his money, where he spends his nights when he"s in the city. Find out all the things about him that he doesn"t want to come out in public.

"After you"ve got all that information, I"ll have a heart-to-heart talk with Mr. Frank B. Cathay, and when he leaves the office he"ll be crawling orf his stomach like a snake. Going to have a facsimile of a substantial check printed in The Riverview Daily Press, is he? Huh! I"ll show him. I don't know anything that"ll give me greater pleasure than to sit that bird across the desk from me and tell him, "Now, Mr. Cathay, you understand that if you try a libel suit, the question that"s naturally presented to the court is the damage to your reputation. Therefore, the nature and character of your reputation enters into it. Now, you try to show that you"re the most prominent citizen in the community we"ll try to show that you"re a damned hypocrite. Naturally, we don't want to do this. We just have to do it. We"d have to go into the matter of that chorus girl. We"d have to air those charges of fraud in connection with the big corporation merger you put across two years ago. We"d have to dig up that old business about you being die real beneficiary under a contract that you had the bank make with a sub-divider." "

Bleeker broke off and grinned sardonically.

"I've told you before, Kenney," he said, "and I'm telling you again that we"re publishing a newspaper

we"re not publishing history, we"re publishing news. Do the best you can. Get it while it"s fresh and publish it while it"s hot. When you have to take a chance, take it. When some fellow comes in and starts talking about libel suits, you send him to me. I"ll handle him. You understand?"

Dick Kenney nodded and sighed with relief.

"This one," he said, "looks like a humdinger."

"It"ll be a humdinger before I get done widi it," Bleeker said.

He turned back to Morden.

"I'm putting someone else at your desk down at headquarters," he said. "You get busy and chase down every lead you can get on this thing. Dig into Cathay"s life with a spade, and dig deep. There"ll be plenty of stuff there that he won't want to have brought out-there always is. The trouble with men of his type is that that pose as being altogether too damned good. They put up a front that isn"t human. When you get back of that front you find a lot of stuff that"s rotten. You get busy and find it."

"Yes, sir," said Morden.

"But don't spring any of it," said Bleeker. "You button it up under your hat and see that you keep your mouth shut. You get the information. As you get it, you bring it in to me. You"d better make daily reports."

"Suppose they get wise to me?" Morden asked.

"How do you mean?" Bleeker countered.

"Suppose," Morden said, "they find out that I'm making the investigation? They are almost certain to, you know, when I start prowling around in Riverview and ...

Bleeker"s words popped out with the explosive force of firecrackers.

"Don"t give a damn!" he snapped. "Let "em find

so

out. What do we care? Tell "em what you"re there for if they ask questions. Remember, young man, that this newspaper is back of you. Frank B. Cathay may be bigger than you are, but, by God, the newspaper is bigger than he isl He"s started a fight. All right, he"s going to get a fight. Tell him sol Stand up and look him in the eyes. Tell him you"re going to find out enough stuff to make his reputation stink like a rotten

"Whatever you do, don't be sneaky. Don"t get to skulking around corners, listening at keyholes, peering through windows. Bust right in. You"ve got a job —it"s a legitimate job. Frank B. Cathay is going to claim that his reputation is worth something and that we"ve damaged it. All right, the question of what that reputation is worth is a fact to be determined. It depends on a lot of things. You"re going to find out those things. Don"t be ashamed of what you"re doing. Don"t let anyone get you on the defensive. Do you understand?"

Morden nodded.

"You"re engaged in a fight," Dan Bleeker said, "and there"s a dignity about a fighter, as long as he stands on his two feet and fights. Remember this about The Blade, young man It doesn"t snoop—it fights. You"re going into Riverview as the representative of The Blade. You"re going to be fighting one of the most powerful men in the city. You"ll find all the home guard arrayed against you. They"ll try to frame you. They"ll do everything they can to make things disagreeable for you. Stand up and take it right on the chin, and don't let them stampede you or make you even- hesitate. If you get a chance, you tell them that The Blade is in this thing to the finish that if they frame something on you and get you out of Riverview, there"ll be another man to take your place.

31

"And as far as Frank B. Cathay is concerned, don't make any bones about it. Attend meetings of his luncheon club. Mingle around in the city. Smile at him. Be cordial to him. But never forget the one fact that you"re there to blast his reputation wide open. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Morden.

"Can you do it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get started, then."

CHAPTER V

ETHEL WEST, DAN BLEEKER"S SECRETARY, WAS

long-legged and languid. Her face held an expression of perpetual weariness which seemed due, not so much to a disapproval of her environment, as to the people who filled it.

She surveyed the woman with glassy eyes that stared in expressionless appraisal from behind spectacles.

"Your name," she said, "is Mrs. Frank B. Cathay. You"re from Riverview, and you wish to see Mr. Bleeker, but won't explain the nature of your business. Is that right?"

The woman was expensively gowned and well-groomed, her manner regal, yet worried. Her face was nestled against the collar of a fur coat, a collar which had been carefully selected to set off the delicate oval of the face, when the face was held against it at just such an angle.

"Yes," she said. "Will you be so good as to tell him that I am here."

Ethel West moved with slow deliberation.

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33

"You"ll have to wait," she said. "Will you be

seated?"

Mrs. Cathay bit at her under lip, dien her face once more relaxed into perfect repose.

"Thank you," she said in a voice that was neither cordial nor grateful. She remained standing.

Ethel West strode into Dan Bleeker"s private office.

"Mrs. Cathay is out there," she said.

Bleeker looked up at her with a swift frown.

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"What does she want?"

"She won't tell me."

"What does she look like?"

"She"s about thirty. She has lots of money and she"s spent a lot of it on her appearance. She"s got one of those school girl complexions. She hardly ever moves her facial muscles. Her eyes are nervous. She"s trying to make a good impression. She"s wearing a fur coat with a big collar she looks better in it when she"s standing up. She started to sit down and then changed her mind. She dunks perhaps you might come out to see her, instead of letting her come in to see you. She"s standing up so she can make a good impression."

"Fat?" asked Bleeker.

"No, she"s got a perfect figure, and die coat displays it to advantage."

"Show her in," said Bleeker.

Ethel West moved unhurriedly to the door which opened into the outer office.

"You may come in, Mrs. Cathay," she said.

Mrs. Cathay entered the office with short, quick steps. From the moment she reached a point from whih she could command a view of Dan Bleeker"s dck, "I-T eyes were wide, showing to advantage the long i ones. Her head was held slightly to one side

against the big coiiar of the coat. Her lips were curved in a perfectly arched smile.

"Mr. Bleeker!" she exclaimed. "It was so nice of you to see me, and so nice of you to see me so promptly. I know what a busy man. you are."

Dan Bleeker didn"t get up. Ediel West pulled the door shut behind her as she returned to the outer office. The door gave forth a sound which indicated that there had been some unnecessary emphasis in connection with its closing.

"Sit down, Mrs. Cathay," said Dan Bleeker. "I wanted to see you about my husband," Mrs. Cathay said.

"Yes, of course."

"Oh, did you know I was coming?" "No, but I naturally assumed that was what you wanted to see me about when my secretary said you were in die office."

She squirmed about in the chair, settling herself with a slight gesture of the shoulders, a quick twist to her head. Her eyes, a deep hazel, were smiling now. Her voice held a low note, suggestive of intimacy. " "You know, Mr. Bleeker," she said, "husbands would very frequently make fools of themselves, were it not for the restraining hand of a wife." Bleeker surveyed the woman widi acid eyes. "I'm a bachelor, myself," he said. She gave a low, nervous laugh. "And," went on Bleeker, "you can cut out die preliminaries and get down to business."

"My husband," she said, "is a man of very strong

will."

She paused, and Bleeker said nothing.

"At times he"s quite impulsive. That is, in his rages,

you know. He reaches some decision on die spur of

die moment when he"s really mad about somediing,

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and then he"s too proud and obstinate to back down."

She seemed .to snuggle into the fur coat with a quick squirming motion. Her head, tilted to one side, rested against the high fur collar. Her eyes, as well as her lips, smiled intimately at Dan Bleeker.

"Go on," Bleeker said.

She straightened her head. Her eyes ceased to smile. There was a swift, rushing impetus to her words.

"I'm going to speak frankly, Mr. Bleeker, because I can see that you"re a businessman, and that you like plain, frank dealing. I understand from my attorney that when an influential citizen files a libel suit against a newspaper, the newspaper immediately starts digging into his past, trying to find some old scandal or something that can be used against him. Is that true?"

Dan Bleeker met her gaze with somber savagery in his black eyes.

"Of course, that"s true," he said. "We"re publishing a newspaper. We work at high speed. We try to keep from making mistakes. Occasionally we make a mistake. That"s all it is, just a mistake. If we injure somebody, we do everything we can to rectify that injury. We publish a retraction. If it"s a very serious injury, we file the fact away in our minds. We try to give that man a break sometime we try to make it up to him. If a man wants to fight us, then we fight him. You know, and I know, that nobody was ever damaged by a libel that was the result of an innocent mistake. That is, there was never any damage done that couldn't be rectified by a retraction. We"re always willing to publish a retraction when we"re in the wrong. When a man wants to capitalize on our misfortune, we fight.

"When we fight, we fight. We use every weapon that we can get our hands on."

"Do you," she asked, "think that it"s fair to hit below the belt?"

"When a man starts fighting us, we fight him," Bleeker said. "If he kicks at us, we kick at him. If he gouges in the clinches, we gouge. If he hits below die belt, we hit below the belt."

"But," she said, "suppose you shouldn"t be able to find anything derogatory to a man"s character?"

"Bah!" Bleeker snorted. "We"re all of us human. You take a man who goes to a city and becomes a prominent citizen and he gets a lot of boot-licking. The first thing he knows, he"s trying to live up to it. He hasn"t got guts enough to come out and be human, and admit that he"s a human being like the other folks he starts in trying to act like he was God. A certain type of small town likes to play up to that sort of a man.

"Those are the men who always have something they want hushed up. We"re all of us just about the same. We"ve got just about so much good and just about so much bad in us."

"But my husband isn"t like that," Mrs. Cathay said.

Bleeker"s retort was blunt.

"Then what"re you here for?" he asked.

She made that quick biting motion with her teeth and lower lip.

"You making it very hard for me," she said.

"You"re making it hard for yourself," he told her. "Tell me what you"ve got to say and get it over with. It"s these gushing preliminaries of yours that are making the trouble."

She stared at him and took a deep breath. The ani-mation faded from her face her eyes ceased to sparkle at him. Her voice no longer gave a suggestion of well-modulated intimacy, but was cold, flat, and final.

"Frank," she said, "is a fool. He had no business

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taking the stand he did. You publish a retraction

that"s all there"ll be to it"

"Who says so?" asked Dan Bleeker.

"I say so."

"And what does your husband say?" he asked.

"What my husband says doesn"t count," she said. "I have Mr. Charles Fisher, of the firm of Fisher, Barr and McReady, in my suite at die Palace Hotel. Mr. Fisher is my husband"s intimate associate and attorney. He"s been widi him for years. He knows Frank better than almost anyone in the world. They were in business together in South Africa before Frank came to Riverview. In fact, Frank brought Charles Fisher to Riverview, put up the funds which sent him through law school and financed his first few years while he was building up a practice. It"s only one of numerous good turns that my husband has done.

"Mr. Fisher will give you whatever legal assurances you wish, that the matter will be dropped."

"Does your husband know you"re here?" asked Dan Bleeker.

Her face remained cool and expressionless. Her tone was blunt and final.

"No," she said.

"I want to talk with him," Bleeker said.

"It isn"t necessary."

"I'm the judge of that."

"Won"t you please come and talk with his lawyer?"

"Why should I?"

"It will save you a lot of disagreeable developments. It will save you from having a libel suit filed against you. It will perhaps save you thousands of dollars in legal fees, if nothing else."

"And if I don't come?" asked Bleeker.

She laughed, and die laugh was a mere empty ges-

ture, containing no mirth nor bitterness, as utterly meaningless as the good-by kiss of a faithless wife.

"Don"t you understand?" she said. "I'm trying to hand you an olive branch."

"Why doesn"t your attorney come over here?"

"Because," she said, "it wouldn"t be the thing for him to do. It wouldn"t look right. He prefers to remain in the hotel."

"How long has he been at die hotel?" Bleeker asked.

"Why?" she countered.

"Because," he answered, "I have a reason for ask-ing."

"I don't see what that has to do with it."

"You want me to go to the hotel," Bleeker said. "It"s an unusual procedure. I'm not going to do it until I know just what I'm getting into. In order to do that, I've got to get certain information. If you want me to ... ."

"We came there about eleven o"clock this morning. We left Riverview at nine thirty, and drove directly to the hotel."

"You"ve been there ever since?"

"What"s that got to do with it?"

"Simply this," Bleeker said, "you and your attorney have formulated some" carefully prepared plan of cam-paign. You took plenty of time to work-it out. Now you want me to give you a definite answer right off die bat." Her face showed relief.

"Why, no," she said, "there"s nothing like that at all. I had some shopping to do and Mr. Fisher ha-i some other matters to attend to. We reached die hotel about eleven o"clock, and then I didn"t see Mr. Fisher again until about thirty minutes ago."

38

39"

Bleeker eyed her appraisingly. "And, your shopping was sufficiently important," he said, "to make you postpone coming here while you kept a busy attorney waiting in a hotel, is that right?"

She iaughed nervously, then said, in a burst of swift frankness, "Oh, well, if you must know, I was very anxious to make a good impression on you. I left Riverview very hurriedly, so after I arrived here, I went to a beauty parlor, had a facial and had my hair done."

"Who suggested that, your attorney?" Bleeker asked.

Her laugh was spontaneous.

"Good heavens, no. When a woman is trying to make a good impression, she doesn"t need to have an attorney tell her to ...

"That isn"t what I mean," Bleeker said. "I mean, was it at the suggestion of your attorney that you left so hurriedly this morning?"

She avoided his eyes.

"Do you think that"s a fair question?" she asked.

Bleeker shrugged his shoulders.

"Don"t answer it if you don't want to," he said.

"Yes," she told him, after a moment of silence, "it was at Mr. Fisher"s suggestion that I came here."

"And you came in a hurry?"

"We left hastily, yes."

"And then waited long enough to make yourself as attractive as possible before coming here?"

"I've already told you that."

Dan Bleeker had the reputation of never failing in an instantaneous appraisal of character. He was known for his ability to reach lightning decisions and express them in explosive monosyllables.

"All right," he said, "I"ll go."

He pushed back his chair, jerked open the door of a small closet, pulled his hat well down on his head and struggled into an overcoat.

Mrs. Cathay"s face remained expressionless, but the shoulders of her coat rose and fell as she heaved a deep sigh. Bleeker held the door open for her. She swept through the outer office, chin high in the air, eyes straight ahead. "Palace Hotel?" Bleeker asked.

"The Palace Hotel," she said. "I have a car with a chauffeur."

In silence, they entered the huge elevator which swayed slowly down to the street level. Bleeker held the outer door of the office building open for Mrs. Cathay. A liveried chauffeur was standing beside a shiny black sedan. He opened the door with the snappy precision of a soldier on drill.

Bleeker"s eyes flashed to the man"s face. It was a handsome face, and there was something ruthless about it, the arrogant pride of one who is only too conscious of his power. The expression of the face was in strange contrast to the marked military bearing.

Mrs. Cathay stepped lightly to the running board. Bleeker didn"t bother with the formality of assisting her to enter the car, but, when she entered, dropped to the cushions beside her. The chauffeur regarded Mrs. Cathay with a glance of steady inquiry. She raised her eyes to his and gave an almost imperceptible nod of the head. The chauffeur smiled, a smile which was a mere upturning of the lip corners. The eyes did not change expression. Then the chauffeur slammed the door shut, squirmed in beside the steering wheel, started the car, and, without a word of audible instruction, drove directly to the Palace Hotel.

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Crossing the lobby, she seemed agreeably conscious of the admiring eyes which followed her. She went directly to the elevators, entered the cage and stood very erect against the paneled side of the elevator. Bleeker entered, removed his hat. The cage door slammed shut.

"Eighth floor, please," said Mrs. Cathay, and the cage shot smoothly upward, with Mrs. Cathay"s eyes fixed rigidly upon the glistening panels of the elevator, her figure held stiff and motionless.

When the cage stopped, Mrs. Cathay led the way, without a single backward glance, to Room 894. She tapped lightly with her gloved knuckles.

The door was opened by a tall individual whose gray eyes peered in eager expectation at Dan Bleeker.

"You brought him," he said, and there was unmis-takable relief in his voice.

Bleeker nodded, followed Mrs. Cathay into the room, turned to face the big man who was closing the door.

"Well?" he asked.

"It was very nice of you to come," said the man in a booming voice, which had"apparently been carefully cultivated to convey an atmosphere of impressive dig-nity.

He was a ponderous figure, somewhere in the forties. He was heavy, and his shoulders sagged forward, as though most of his work had been done over a desk.

"I," he said, "am Charles Fisher, senior partner of the firm of Fisher, Barr and McReady, with offices in the First National Bank at Riverview. We handle all of Mr. Cathay"s legal work. Won"t you please be seated, Mr. Bleeker?"

Mrs. Cathay walked to the full length mirror, surveyed herself quickly, turned, and, without a

glance at Bleeker, walked through a passageway into an adjoining room. Her manner was that of one whose work has been done.

"I"ll stand," Bleeker said.

"But you understand," Fisher went on, in his heavy ponderous manner, "the situation is one which may perhaps call for rather extended discussion, Mr. Bleeker. Certainly, you would hardly expect a matter of this gravity to be disposed of in a few words. I think, from a legal standpoint, you will readily agree

"Just what do you want?" Bleeker asked.

"Mr. Cathay," said Fisher gravely, "is a very important individual in Riverview. Perhaps, he sometimes over-estimates his importance. That is, however, neither here nor there, nor should I care to be quoted. He has quite a bit of pride, and, when he has once reached a decision, he is very much inclined to stay

"I've heard all that before," Bleeker said.

Fisher frowned. A swift flush of rage appeared on his countenance, and then he smiled slowly and gravely.

"Of course," he said, "I didn"t know to just what extent Mrs. Cadiay had gone into the preliminaries."

"Consider that the preliminaries are all over with," Bleeker said, standing with his feet wide apart, his black, smoky eyes staring steadily into the gray eyes of the big man who hulked above him. "Get down to brass tacks. What"s what?"

Fisher sighed.

"I am prepared to advise my client," he said, "to withdraw any libel suits, and give you a complete re-lease, in return for your assurance that a retraction will be published by the newspaper."

Bleeker"s voice was crisp, his manner truculent.

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"We"ll publish this sort of a retraction," he said, "and no other We"ll publish a statement to the effect that The Blade has discovered the man who gave the name of Cathay at police headquarters was an impostor, a pickpocket who had stolen Cathay"s wallet, and chose to masquerade under Cathay"s name. We will publish it prominently, not as a retraction, but as an additional development that has been uncovered through the diligence of our newspaper reporters. That"s our final answer. You can take it or leave it."

"I"ll take it," Fisher said.

Dan Bieeker, pushed past him toward the door.

"Wait a minute," Fisher told him, "you"ll want some sort of a receipt. Some kind of a release in full of all claims for damage."

Dan Blceker, with his hand on the door knob, stared at Charles Fisher and shook his head slowly from side to side.

"We don't want anything out of Frank B. Cathay," he said. "We"re going ahead and publish that retraction in just the manner that I outlined to you. Any time Cathay thinks he can make money out of suing our newspaper, we"ll show him where he can"t. That goes for him and for his laWyers. Do you get that?"

Fisher frowned.

"I had you brought here," he said with dignity, "so that we might arrange an amicable settlement."

"All right, we"ve arranged it, haven't we?" Bieeker said.

"It hasn"t been very amicable so far," Fisher remarked.

"It"s as amicable as it"s going to be," Bieeker told him and slammed the door behind him as he stepped into the corridor.

CHAPTER VI

DAN BLEEKER FROWNED IRRITABLY AT ETHEL

West.

"What was your last report from Charles Morden?" he asked.

Ethel West picked up a shorthand notebook from her desk.

"You talked with him personally day before yester-day, didn"t you?"

"Yes. What did you hear from him yesterday?" "He telephoned about one o"clock. It was right after lunch. He said that he had a live lead, but in order to get it he had to cultivate a girl. He said that he thought it wasn"t wise to mention names over the telephone, but that he"d come in to the office some time this morning, or late yesterday afternoon."

"Yesterday afternoon," said Bieeker meditatively. "What was I doing?... Oh yes, that conference with Mrs. Cathay, and Cathay"s lawyer," "You disposed of the case?" she asked. "Frightened to death," he told her. "The woman was speechless with fright. She rushed to the lawyer and got him to call the whole thing off. They tried to save their faces by making a bluff about it." "Did you make them crawl?" she asked. "Certainly not," he told her. "I just wanted to make certain that they understood what our position was."

"Do you suppose that was because of something Morden • uncovered?"

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"You can"t tell. It wasn"t something that affected Cathay, so much as it was something" that affected his wife."

"She"s the type who"s been in many a tight fix before," Ethel West said. "There"s a woman who "doesn"t let her left hand know what her right hand does."

Dan Bleeker frowned meditatively at the carpet.

"Ring Dick Kenney," he said. "Tell him that 1 want him to come in here for a conference."

"Anything else?"

"Not unless Morden telephones. I want to talk with him if he reports. Tell him to come in to see me if he can leave the case long enough."

Ethel West strode from Bleeker"s private office. A few minutes later Dick Kenney entered.

"That Cathay business," said Bleeker. "I want some action on it."

"But I understood die whole matter had been dropped," Kenney said, his forehead puckered widi a puzzled frown.

"Cathay"s dropped it," Bleeker snapped "we haven't."

"What do you want done?"

"I want that lead followed up. The angle of finding out who it was that picked Cathay"s pocket and posed as Cathay, and why he did it."

"But I thought that was just the angle we played to cover our retraction."

"It was, and we"re going ahead widi it."

Dick Kenney nodded.

"I want to find out more about Cathay," said Bleeker. "He was registered here in the city somewhere. Have the men cover all the hotels. Find out where Cathay was registered. See if you can find out something about his business. Find out if he was here alone, or if anyone was with him. And in particular

try and find out more about this pick-pocket business. There was a girl, a hitch-hiker, I believe she said. Mary Briggs I Uiink her name was. You should be able to locate her. Run down that angle of it. I want to find out where die man went when he left die police station and what he did."

"Mary Briggs probably cleared out of town just as soon as she got out of the police station," Kenney said.

"Then go out of town to look for her!" Bleeker snapped explosively.

The telephone rang. Dan Bleeker swooped down upon the receiver, held it to his ear, said, "Bleeker speaking," and then listened while the receiver made rapid squawking noises. "Where are you now?" he asked. "Very well, I"ll let you talk with him now."

Bleeker held die receiver over toward Dick Kenney.

"Fred Nixon, who"s covering headquarters," he said. "Listen to what he has to say."

Kenney took the telephone, said in a low conversa-tional voice, "All right, Nixon. What is it?"

Once more the receiver made a succession of squawking metallic noises. Kenney stiffened to rigid attention. The skin about his knuckles grew white as he gripped the receiver.

"Good God!" he said slowly. "Are they certain?"

There was another interval of noise from the trans-mitter. Then Kenney said, "We"re sending some men to help you. Wait there until they come, then start covering everything. The paper will see this thing through to a finish. You get hold of the homicide squad and let them understand we"re out for blood. Do you get me?... All right, just a moment dien, hold the telephone."

Kenney looked over at Dan Bleeker.

"Are there any instructions?" he asked. "Morden"s murdered."

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"You"ve given them," Bleeker said tersely.

"That"s all," Kenney said and pressed the receiver support down into place, then raised it again.

"Miss West," he said, "this is Dick Kenney. Will you get me Bill Osborne on the line right away?...

Yes, I"ll hold the line Hello, Bill, this is Kenney.

Nixon has just telephoned in from headquarters. He"s picked up a radio call. The police have found a body out on the outskirts of town, 192nd and Sanborne Streets. It"s a subdivision that"s gone sour. There are only a few houses out there. The police think the body is that of Charles Morden. Take Sam Lane with you. Go down to headquarters and get on the job. Contact the homicide squad. Tell them that Morden was working on an important matter and that we"re going to move heaven and earth to get the thing cleaned up. You can pass the word around that The Blade is going to expect results. You find out all the facts and then report back, and I"ll give you a line on the stuff Morden was working on. You pick up Fred Nixon and the three of you drop everything else to get this thing cleaned up. Understand?"

He nodded his head and dropped the receiver back into place as he turned a set, grim face toward Bleeker.

"Poor devil," he said.

Bleeker made a fist, pounded it slowly on the desk.

"I," he said slowly, "sent that boy to his death. I didn"t know it, and he didn"t know it, but that"s what it amounted to. Poor devill Just a newspaper man working on a case. He found out something and they rubbed him out.

"Can we get any clews from what he was working on?" Kenney asked. "The body was found twehty minutes ago. He"d been dead twenty-four hours. The

back of his head was smashed. He"d been taken out there and dumped."

"He telephoned yesterday," Bleeker said, "that he was working on a live lead. He had to play around with some woman to cultivate it. He didn"t mention names. You go ahead and handle this thing, Kenney. Put as many men on the job as are necessary. Morden was one of our boys. He was bumped off. We"re going to avenge his murder. More than that, it"s an insult to the paper. We"re going to clean this thing up, if we have to move heaven and eardi. I'm going to see Sidney Griff."

Kenney whistled.

"There"s more to this case," Bleeker went on, "than appears on the surface."

"Of course there is," Kenney said. "You know what it is and so do I. Morden was getting dope on Frank Cathay."

"But," Bleeker pointed out, "we made our peace with Cathay. The libel suit was called off."

"That doesn"t mean that Morden had to forget what he"d found out, does it?" Kenney asked impatiently. "Morden found out something Cathay killed him to keep it quiet."

Bleeker shook his head slowly.

"Men are killed, Kenney," he said, "for gain, for vengeance, for fear, for jealousy. We can"t figure where there was any revenge, gain or jealousy. Therefore, we jump at the conclusion it"s fear and immediately figure Cathay was mixed up in it. But Cathay is a prominent citizen. If there are any skeletons in his closet they"d be buried so deeply a casual investigation wouldn"t have disclosed them in three days."

"Well," Kenney remarked, "Griff can tell us more about it. He"s good. When you"re talking with him,

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try and get some information out of him about a man by the name of Thomas Decker. Decker was a witness to the murder of Edward Shillingby, a private detective. Philip Lampson is held under arrest. The story goes that Decker was frightened because he was a witness. He went to Griff, and Griff has buried him som-where. He says he"ll produce Decker at the time of trial, but that"s all he"ll say. There"s a story in it if we could get Griff to talk."

"He won't," Bleeker said.

"There"s no harm in trying," Kenney insisted. "If you work on this Morden case with him you"ll get chummy with him. Remember to ask him about Decker. In the meantime, I'm going to. work and dig out some more facts."

He left the room with quick, impatient strides.

Dan Bleeker, seated at his desk, got Ethel West on the telephone and said, "Get me Sidney Griff, the criminologist. Tell him that I want to see him upon a matter of major importance. I probably won't have all the facts necessary to make a presentation of the case, until after dinner tonight. I"d like to see him this evening."

Bleeker sat perfectly motionless. His body seemed relaxed. His attitude might have been mistaken for one of calm meditation upon some peaceful subject, by a casual observer.

The telephone rang. Bleeker snapped the receiver from its rest, and heard Ethel West say, "Mr. Griff will see you at eight-thirty tonight if that is convenient."

"Quite," Bleeker said. "Now get me the editor of The Riverview Chronicle, in Riverview. Rush the call."

He dropped the receiver back into position, but hefd his hand on it, and when, within a matter of a

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minute and a half, the telephone rang, he snapped the receiver to his ear with a quick motion.

"Hello," he said, "is this Beckley of The Riverview Chronicle? This is Dan Bleeker, of The Blade. We sent a man up to look over your morgue of Frank B. Cathay. A chap named Morden. Did you give him any information?"

Bleeker listened for a short time, then nodded his head.

"Now," he said, "I want you to do something for me. There may be a big story break from it. I want you to find out for me where Frank B. Cadiay was yesterday afternoon. In the morning, if possible, but in die afternoon for certain. I want to know every move he made. You can go to any necessary expense and send the bill to me....He"s what?...Are you certain?... Check that, will you? Find out about die doctor. See if you can approach the nurse. They probably have two or diree. Get all die information you can and telephone it in just as quickly as you can. That may be a matter of major importance. I'm calling on you because I know where you stand on die city election. I'm not making any promises so far, I'm just asking you to extend me a courtesy which we have extended to you in times past

"You call me back just as soon as you find out. If I'm not here, you can leave any information widi Ediel West, my secretary."

Bleeker dropped die receiver back into position, left his private office and pounded dirough die outer office with swift, nervous strides. He turned to the right in die corridor, walked down a long, musty passageway, widi a stock room occupying die space on die left, a photographer"s room, with a series of dark rooms, on die right. He passed a room from which came die clack of pounding typewriters driven at high speed.

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and pushed his way into Dick Kenney"s private office.

"I telephoned Beckley of The Riverview Chronicle," he said, "for a report on Cathay. He tells me that Cathay was taken very suddenly and seriously ill yes-terday morning, and has been in bed ever since. I told him to verify it. Illness is something that can be faked very easily. We can"t even be certain of the physician. Cathay is a prominent man, but we can probably find out something from the nurses. Beckley is working on it."

"You think Cathay and Morden had a conference somewhere?" asked Kenney.

"I'm not thinking anything just yet," Bleeker told him. "I'm getting facts. I have an appointment for eight-thirty tonight with Sidney Grift. What have you found out from headquarters? Anything?"

"It"s Morden, all right," Kenney said grimly. "They can"t tell the exact time of death yet, but it was some-time yesterday afternoon, probably the early part of the afternoon. He was dumped out in the abandoned subdivision during the night, probably around three or four o"clock this morning. No one knows anything about how he got there."

The telephone on Kenney"s desk shrilled into sound. Kenney frowned and pulled the receiver to his ear. "

"Kenney speaking," he said mechanically, then nod-ded to Bleeker. "It"s for you," he said.

Bleeker took the receiver, said, "Hello, this is BlecU-r," and then nodded to Kenney.

"This is long distance," he said, "Riverview calling.

They"re coming on now Hello, Beckley Yes.

... You"re certain There"s no chance of a mis

take. ... I see.... Okay. Thanks a lot. It makes a good

story for you at that end, anyway. Huh?... Yes, we"ll

run something on it down here. Telephone us a com-

plete report. I presume there"ll be quite a scandal in

Riverview All right, if you"ll send us in the story,

we"ll give it a good play. Get all the facts and telephone in as soon as you get them. Within an hour if possible. You can get us the facts, and we"ll put a rewrite man on it"

He handed the telephone back to Kenney. Kenney replaced the receiver, dropped the telephone into posi-tion on the desk, and raised his eyebrows at Bleeker. "What did you find out?" he asked. Dan Bleeker"s face was set in a mask of perfect composure.

"Frank B. Cathay," he said, "died about twenty

minutes ago. For some reason, they were trying to

hush up the news of his death. Beckley sent a veteran

reporter out to the house. The reporter got wise to it.

There were two doctors, and there"s going to be a

scandal. One of the doctors says Gathay was poisoned."

Kenney stared at Bleeker with wide, startled eyes.

"Poisoned!" he said.

Bleeker nodded.

"That," said Kenney, "makes things look a little tough for his wife. I presume there was a lot of property?" "Around two million," Bleeker said. "How long had Cathay been sick?" "He was taken sick yesterday morning. Apparently there"s no question about the illness. He was stricken at his office. He was taken home and put to bed. As usual, the doctors fooled around with a lot of funny ideas, and then Cathay lost consciousness. That was about three o"clock yesterday afternoon. He"s been unconscious ever since. He died without regaining consciousness."

"Then his wife," said Kenney, "must have known he was seriously ill."

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Bleeker nodded his head in slow acquiescence.

"And," Kenney went on, "the man was on his death bed when she and the lawyer made such a hurried trip down here to quash that libel case. Why did they do that if Cathay was going to die? Dead men can"t bring libel suits. And, it"s not likely that their reputations will be blasted."

"Perhaps," Bleeker remarked, "they didn"t know how serious the illness was when they came down."

Kenney gave a cynical laugh.

"If she gave him poison," he said, "she knew how serious the illness was. And while she was waiting for the poison to take effect, she was in a beauty parlor having herself made pretty so she could vamp you into going over to the hotel and reaching a settlement with her lawyer. If you can ask for anything more cold-blooded than that..."

Bleeker"s tone was impatient.

"You use a lot of "ifs"," he said. "As a matter of fact, if she did have anything to do with giving him the poison, she couldn't have given, herself any better break than by coming down here with the family lawyer. It shows that she was loyal to her husband"s interests that she thought his sickness was the result of a nervous collapse, from worrying over what we might do to his reputation. And she couldn't have possibly made a better gesture that would show she regarded the illness of her husband as relatively trivial."

Kenney stared thoughtfully at the publisher.

"But," he said, "if Cathay was murdered, then the person who poisoned him knew that Cathay was going to die. If he knew Cathay was going to die, what was the object in killing Charles Morden?"

"I told you," said Bleeker explosively, "that you"re jumping at conclusions without knowing enough

about the facts. You get the facts, then we"ll put them together."

"I'm getting the facts all right," Kenney told him grimly.

"Get more, then," said Bleeker, and banged the door behind him as he strode into the corridor.

CHAPTER VII

SIDNEY C. GRIFF WAS IN HIS LATE THIRTIES.

A woolen bathrobe stretched to his ankles, slapped about his legs as he walked. He was pacing the floor with a restless rhythm.

Dan Bleeker sat in an over-stuffed leather chair, his teeth clamped on the stem of a pipe, his dark eyes watching Griff with an expression of frowning irritation.

"You"ve told me everything?" asked Griff.

"Everything," said Bleeker. "And I wish you wouldn"t keep pacing the floor. You"re making me nervous."

"Sorry," said Griff, with a grin, and dropped into a big chair, pulled up an upholstered stool and thrust his legs out in front of him, wrapping the bathrobe around them. He settled back in the chair and lit a cigarette.

"I'm a restless cuss," he said.

"I know it," Bleeker told him, "but so am I. What do you make of this business?"

Sidney Griff was long-armed and long-legged. He

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reached out with his right hand, spread the extended fingers apart and made little wavy motions with his arm, as though he might be feeling the texture of the air.

"It"s something that requires work and thought," he said.

"Have you any ideas about it?" Bleeker inquired. "Yes."

"Let"s hear them."

"In the first place," Griff said, "I can"t understand why the man who was arrested took the name of Frank B. Cathay. Of course, he"d taken the wallet. Let"s suppose that he did pick Cathay"s pocket. Now he was either a professional pickpocket or an amateur."

Bleeker regarded the outstretched arm. "My God!" he said, "that makes me nervous too." Griff sighed and dropped the arm back to his lap. "It"s a habit of mine," he said, "when I'm thinking. I don't know why I do it. It seems to give me some measure of contact with the people I'm thinking about. Are you interested in any of that sort of stuff?" "What sort of stuff?" asked Bleeker. "Mental telepathy, hypnotism, and all that," Griff said. "You know there"s something peculiar about our personalities. They"re filled with life. Life is vibration. Vibrations are sent out and received. Every man"s brain is to a certain extent, a broadcasting station. There"s too much interference in the receiving stations. Too much static to bring it in clearly, particularly with the conscious mind. The subconscious mind gets a lot of that, that the conscious mind doesn"t comprehend."

Bleeker tamped the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe with a quick thrust of his right forefinger.

"No," he said, "I'm not interested in that stuff."

There was silence for a moment.

"What were you saying about the pickpocket?" asked Bleeker.

"He was either a professional pickpocket, or an amateur pickpocket," Griff said. "If he"d been an amateur, it"s hardly possible that he"d have managed to pick Cathay"s pocket without Cathay knowing it. Of course, he might. On the other hand, a professional pickpocket invariably strips the wallet of money, and throws the wallet itself away. Obviously, there"s nothing that"s more incriminating than to be caught with a man"s wallet in your possession, particularly when that wallet contains cards and other means of identification."

"That doesn"t mean very much as far as the solution of the mystery is concerned," Bleeker pointed out.

"It may and it may not," Griff said. "Now, here"s something else. There"s a woman mixed up in the case somewhere. This Mary Briggs, the hitch-hiker. She must know something about the man who posed as Cathay."

"We"re going to find her," Bleeker said. "I've already figured she might be a key witness."

"All right, so much for that," Griff said. "We"ll let that wait a moment. Now we come to the fact that Morden told you he was contacting a woman, but didn"t want to mention her name."

"I don't think there"s any question," Bleeker said, "but what that woman was one who was connected directly with Cathay. You understand Morden was investigating Cathay"s life. Cathay isn"t what he"s cracked up to be."

"How do you know he isn"t?" Griff asked.

"Because," said Bleeker, "I've been in the newspaper business too long to accept any small town god at his face value."

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"Riverview isn"t exactly a small town," Griff pointed out.

"The same principle applies," Bleeker said. "It"s a suburb, and, as far as that"s concerned, I won't accept any man at his face value. Not unless he"s a gangster, or a crook. That"s one thing you find out from being in the newspaper business. You"re a criminologist, Griff you know crooks. I am a newspaper man I know people. If the newspaper boys only wanted to, they could puncture most of the public idols. And this man Cathay is simply too good to be true. The president of the luncheon club, the president of the chamber of commerce, director of the bank, candidate for city councilman on a reform ticket, and all that sort of stuff. And his wife had fear in her eyes."

"Fear?" asked Griif.

"Fear," repeated Bleeker. "She was afraid of something."

"Afraid of the newspaper?" asked Griff.

"Perhaps," Bleeker said. "But it looked to me as though she was too adept at covering up the fear to have recently acquired it. I would say it was something she had been living with for weeks or months."

"And there was some talk about Cathay"s death being due to poison?"

"Apparently there was," Bleeker said, "but it"s being hushed up. Cathay was an influential man in Riverview. The family have influential friends. There were two doctors on the case. One of the doctors thought there were circumstances surrounding the death that made it resemble poisoning. The older doctor attributed it to natural causes. He"s signing a death certificate."

"There"ll be no autopsy?" asked Griff.

"There"s going to be an autopsy," Bleeker said

grimly. "I'm going up to interview Beckley, the editor of The Riverview Chronicle. That was the newspaper that was on the opposite side of the political fence from the Cathay side. Beckley and I have exchanged favors in the past. He started in investigating the Cathay death and then telephoned me that he was going to have to lay off, because of pressure that was being brought to bear on him by advertisers, members of the Chamber of Commerce, of the luncheon club, and various banking influences."

"In other words," Griff said, "Cathay"s friends are trying to stop a scandal." Bleeker nodded.

"Subject, of course," Griff went on, "to the fact that there"s a strong probability that this was due to natural causes, and that the younger doctor simply made a mistake in diagnosis.""

"That, of course, is a possibility," Bleeker said. "Getting back to this woman angle," Griff told him, "I take it you feel Morden was murdered because he was on the trail of some woman who had been having an affair with Cathay. Is that right?" "That"s right."

"Then, obviously," Griff went on, "the woman would not have been guilty of the murder."

Bleeker stared at him. "How do you figure that out?" he asked.

"Quite simple. A woman"s good name is, of course, an important possession to her. But, a woman of the type who could carry on an affair with a man of fhe social prominence of Frank B. Cathay, is probably the type of woman who does very much as she pleases. She"s probably a woman who has an apartment of her own, who comes and goes as she pleases, and doesn"t have to account to any man."

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"That"s reasonable," Bleeker agreed. "Therefore," Griff went on, "such a woman would hardly commit murder in order to protect her so called "good name". On the other hand, Cathay"s good name involves political prestige, social prestige and rich financial returns."

"I see what you"re getting at," Bleeker remarked. "I'm not certain that you do," Griff told him. "Here"s the point I had in mind Let us suppose that Morden was about to contact, or had contacted some woman who offered him an opportunity to get some information concerning Cathay. And we"ll further suppose that that information was of a nature which would be derogatory to Cathay"s character.

"Obviously, if Morden was to contact a woman, he expected to get some information from the woman. If he was murdered because of that contact, he was murdered by someone who was anxious to keep Morden from getting that information. Now then, let us put ourselves in the position of the murderer. Having eliminated Morden from the picture, what would be his logical next step?"

"You mean the woman?" Bleeker asked. "Exactly," Griff said. "He would see that the woman was removed from the picture, either by seeing that her lips were silenced, or by seeing that she was placed in a position where she was not readily accessible to those who were investigating Morden"s death. Remember this, that the murderer knew that Morden was working for the newspaper. He knew that he was working to uncover evidence against Cathay. He doubtless surmised that Morden was making daily reports. He didn"t know the nature of those reports. Morden told you over the telephone that he didn"t wish to mention any names, but the man who mur-

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dered htm—and the crime indicates that it was a man —didn"t know how much Morden had told you." Bleeker nodded thoughtfully.

"Therefore," Griff said, "I would suggest that you do two things. That you concentrate upon finding Mary Briggs, and that you make a complete investigation of every disappearance case where the party who disappeared was a woman, and the time of disappearance was within the last forty-eight hours." Bleeker"s eyes glinted with appreciation. "That," he said, "is an idea."

There was a moment of silence. Bleeker took the pipe from his mouth, scraped out the ashes and dropped the pipe into his pocket.

"You understand. Griff," he said, "this is the first time we"ve ever had occasion to employ you. I know something of your work from a standpoint of results, but I don't know how you work. Now just how much of this investigation will you take over, and just how much are we expected to do?"

"Let"s not have any misunderstanding," Griff said, "you"re supposed to do it all." "All?" asked Bleeker.

"Every bit of it," Griff said. "All I do is furnish ideas, and correlate information. You get the facts. I fit them together and direct the search for additional facts."

"It virtually amounts," Bleeker said, "to putting our men at your disposal."

"You can hire private detectives if you wish," Griff said.

"Our men are better than private detectives." "Then you can use them if it"s economically advantageous for you to do so. But don't gather any facts. All I do is interpret the facts that are gathered and

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suggest the direction in which a search should be pros-ecuted for additional facts. Also, I play human checkers."

"Human checkers?" Bleeker asked.

"That"s what I call it," Griff said. "A lot of detectives monkey around with dead clues. They take some inanimate object and attach a great deal of importance to it. I don't feel that the solution of every crime depends upon the animate, rather than the inanimate. Not that I overlook inanimate clues. I try to notice such clues, and to give them due importance, but I don't attach an undue importance to them.

"On the other hand, I don't try to follow a cold trail while our quarry sits still. I try to devise ways and means of keeping the quarry restless, keeping it moving around. Then it"s always leaving a fresh trail. In other words, I play checkers with them. I keep moving my men so that they are forced to make some move.

"If you"ve ever hunted deer, you know what 1 mean. The hunter who tries to follow a cold trail doesn"t get his bucks as regularly as the man who sits down some place on a rock and makes the deer keep moving."

"But," Bleeker said, "suppose you sit on a rock and the deer doesn"t move?" He grinned reminiscently. "I know, because I tried that, last deer season."

"That"s just the point I'm making," Griff said. "You"ve got to keep them moving. You can do that by making some commotion elsewhere which makes them uneasy and apprehensive. Then they start moving around through the brush."

"Well," Bleeker said, "you"ve got quite a reputation for getting results. I'm not going to worry about methods those are up to you. Specifically, you want us to try and concentrate on Mary Briggs, which we"re already doing, and on the disappearance cases in-

volving some woman who has disappeared within the

last forty-eight hours."

"Correct,"" said Griff. "And in the meantime, I will see the doctor in Riverview who thinks it"s a poison case, and w- also interview Mrs. Cathay."

Bieeker sho«..i some surprise.

"I thought you wanted us to make all the contacts," he said.

"No," Griff told him. "I want you to get the facts. I'm a criminologist, not a detective. I don't go out and gather facts, but I want to contact die principals. I want to watch them talk."

Bleeker smiled and said, "You mean listen to them talk."

"No," Griff replied, "I want to watch them talk. I've found out you can learn more about a person"s character by watching his lips when he talks than in any other way."

Bleeker looked thoughtful and slowly nodded his head."

Griff scribbled a number on a sheet of paper, which he tore from his notebook. "That," he said handing the paper to Bleeker, "is the private, unlisted telephone number which is assigned to you for the life of this case. Give that number only to the men who are in your closest confidence. Don"t ever try to call me on any other telephone. When this case is over that number will be changed."

Bleeker folded the paper thoughtfully.

"There"s something I"d like to ask you about."

"What is it?"

"Around ten o"clock on Monday night—the night our newspaper pulled its boner by mistaking the impostor for Cathay, a detective by the name of Shill-ingby was murdered. A man by the name of Decker

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was apparently the only eye witness to that murder. He told his story to the police officer who first appeared on the scene, and promised that he would be available whenever he was needed as a witness. There was a lot of confusion. Decker took advantage of it and disappeared. Later on, you telephoned the police that Decker had come to you."

Griff watched the newspaperman with frowning concentration.

"What about it?" he asked. "How does that effect

11 this case?"

"It doesn"t," Bleeker said. "I'm representing a news-paper. Decker came to you. That was an unusual thing for a witness to do. He told you something that he didn"t tell the police. As a newspaperman, I'm interested."

"And," Griff said ominously, "you"re using this other case as a lever to pry my lips open, and make me disclose a professional confidence. Is that right?"

"No, badly as I want the news, I wouldn"t do that. But remember that The Blade is employing you. It"s Blade money that is going to pay you. We make our money from distributing news. Sooner or later the facts about Decker are going to come to light. You"ll know when that time will be. When that time doe"s come, I want The Blade to have the first chance at the story. I want it on the inside track."

"Suppose," said Griff slowly, "it should appear that Decker was unnecessarily alarmed? Suppose that he doesn"t know a thing other than what he told the police? Suppose he came to me in a state of fear which bordered on hysteria? Suppose, further, that there was no reason why Decker shouldn"t have vanished for awhile? He had no business matters which necessitated his presence here. Suppose I put Decker under

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cover, not because I thought it was necessary, but simply because he was nervous, because that was what he wanted and because he was willing to pay for my services in covering him up?"

"Would you," asked Bleeker, "say that those were the facts?"

"No, I wouldn"t make any such statement. I am simply asking you what your position would be if it should turn out those were the facts."

"Then I"d appreciate it very much if you"d let The Blade "discover" Decker when it"s time for him to put in his appearance."

Griff dropped his legs to the floor, pushed his tall frame up from the chair, and stood, six feet of lean, hard efficiency. The bathrobe flared open enough to show his silk lounging suit as he strode to the door and placed his hands on the knob.

"Perhaps," he said in a tone of finality which left no doubt that the interview was over, "that might be ar-ranged."

He bowed and held open the door.

CHAPTER VIII

DOCTOR P. C. COOPER WAS FAT, CHERUBIC,

steely-eyed and thoughtful. He surveyed his visitor ap-praisingly, studied Griff"s card.

"Criminologist," he said musingly.

Griff nodded.

"You"re investigating some particular case?" Cooper asked.

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"The death of Mr. Frank B. Cathay. He died yester-day afternoon, I believe."

"That is correct. May I ask just what is the nature of your interest in the case, Mr. Griff?"

"I am investigating it."

"You said that before."

"I am seeking information."

"For whom?"

Griff smiled and shook his head. Doctor Cooper"s eyes became more thoughful.

"I can tell you," said Sidney Griff, "what I want to find out, and that"s all."

"And I," Doctor Cooper said, "can tell you noth-

ing." "Even in the interests of justice, Doctor, you cannot

discuss a case?"

"When I have been employed to treat a person," Doctor Cooper said, "I can tell no one what I have discovered in connection with my treatment, save the properly constituted authorities, and only then, when I am subpoenaed as a witness, and even under those circumstances I would not be free to divulge any matters of professional confidence. That -is, any com-munications which were made to me by my patient."

Griff watched the man narrowly, his eyes level-lidded in thoughtful concentration, and focused upon Doctor Cooper"s mouth.

"Only, Doctor, matters which were necessarily com-municated to you in connection with the diagnosis and treatment. Isn"t that correct?"

"That is technically correct. Such matters as were communicated to me by my patient, for the purpose of assisting me in making a diagnosis, or giving treatment. But, you will understand, my own judgment upon those matters is final. In other words, the law al-

05

lows ray own conscience to be the sole judge of what is, and what is not, a professional confidence."

"The seal might be removed from your lips by the surviving representatives of the dead man?" asked Griff.

"I believe not. It is a personal and privileged com-munication."

Griff extended his hand, and after a moment"s doubtful delay, Doctor Cooper took it.

"I am," said Griff, "very pleased to have made your acquaintance, and very grateful for the information you have given me."

Doctor Cooper"s eyes widened in surprise. "But I have given you none," he said.

Griff"s smile was one of calm amusement.

"Oh, yes, you have, Doctor. You"ve told me, not in so many words, but in between die lines, so to speak, a very important fact."

"What fact?" Doctor Cooper demanded truculently.

"That competent legal counsel has seen fit to see to it you were properly and forcefully coached upon the law of privileged communications made by a patient to a physician. Good morning, Doctor."

And the criminologist left a slightly confused, very much annoyed doctor staring at him.

Chuckling to himself, Griff went to Doctor Am-stead"s office.

It pleased Doctor Amstead to surround himself with an air of professional dignity, and his appearance was inseparably associated with the insignia of his profession. A round, polished mirror was strapped about the middle of his forehead, a concave mirror, with a hole in the center, to accommodate tJie pupil of the doctor"s eye when it became necessary to throw reflected light down the throat of some patient.

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Doctor Amstead was attired in a white robe and the atmosphere about him was impregnated with the smell of medicinal antiseptics. His eyes were not quite so steady as those of Doctor Cooper, and were far less thoughtful. His cheekbones were high. His figure was tall and gaunt and he had a catfish mouth.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Griff?" he inquired.

"You can discuss the Cathay case," said Sidney

Griff.

"No, I can"t," said Doctor Amstead. "There is nothing to discuss. The man died of natural causes. My death certificate is on file. I will refer you to that for any specific information. More than that, I cannot give you."

"Can you tell me," Griff asked, "anything about Mr. Cathay"s symptoms?"

"No."

"Anything about the degree of temperature?"

"No."

"Anything about the time which elapsed from the appearance of the first symptoms, to the time when the coma developed, which, as I understand it, lasted until death?"

"No."

"May I ask you why, Doctor?"

"Those are matters of professional confidence."

"I see. Now can you tell me anydring which is not a matter of professional confidence?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I should ask you a question, and it had nothing to do with a professional confidence, would you answer it?"

"I drink so, yes."

"Is it true," said Sidney Griff slowly and solemnly, "that in your presence, and in the presence of a news-

67 paper reporter, Doctor P. C Cooper, who was associ-ated with you on the case, stated that the symptoms were identical to those of luminol poisoning?" Doctor Amstead flushed.

"I'm not responsible for what Doctor Cooper may have said," he remarked.

"What I am asking you is if Doctor Cooper did make such a statement."

"I believe," Doctor Amstead said, "that he ... I think I shall refuse to answer that question." "Upon what ground, Doctor?" Doctor Amstead flushed. "Upon the ground that it is none of your business," he said.

"But it happens," said Griff, smiling urbanely, "that that is very much a part of my business. It is one of the things which has brought me to the city." Doctor Amstead"s mouth was a firm line of lipless rigidity, upon which Sidney Griff"s eyes were focused. "I still maintain that it is none of your business," Doctor Amstead said truculently.

Sidney Griff continued to stare at Doctor Amstead"s mouth.

"It just happens, Doctor," he said, "that a post mortem has been ordered in connection with an autopsy. If the post mortem should show the presence of poison, it would seem to me that it would very much improve your standing in the community for you to at least discuss the possibility of a mistaken diagnosis." Doctor Amstead"s eyes wavered for a moment, then stared belligerently at Sidney Griff.

"You are mistaken," he said. "There will be no post mortem, no autopsy."

He spoke with cold finality, turned abruptly and called over his shoulder, "You will excuse me. I am busy."

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The door slammed shut.

The office nurse looked at Sidney Griff with curious

eyes. "That is all, Mr. Griff," she said "Doctor Amstead

will not return."

Sidney Griff smiled at her.

"Bless your heart," he said, "I didn"t think he would. I was just waiting to see ...

The panel switchboard in the office emitted a buzzing sound. The office nurse raised the receiver to her ear, said "Yes?" in the tone of voice one uses in asking a question. Then she snapped up a key on the switch-board, dropped the receiver and turned to Sidney

Griff.

"You were waiting," she reminded him, "to see?

"To see," said Sidney, Griff, smiling triumphantly, "whether Doctor Amstead made a telephone call as soon as he reached his private office. You might explain to him that my curiosity upon that point has been satisfied. Good morning."

He left the office, crossed the street to the First Na-tional Bank Building, and went to the offices of Fisher, Barr McReady. He presented his card to the young woman who occupied the desk by the telephone switchboard, and said, "Please tell Mr. Charles Fisher that I wish ten minutes of his time, upon a matter of major importance."

The young woman summoned a boy, gave him the card, and Sidney Griff"s message. The boy disappeared, and a moment later the switchboard buzzed into life. The operator listened for a moment, then nodded to Sidney Griff.

"Mr. Fisher," she said, "will see you at once." The boy appeared once more and beckoned to Sidney Griff.

69

"This way, sir," he said.

Sidney Griff followed the boy into Charles Fisher"s private office.

Charles Fisher"s manner was one of beaming cordiality. He advanced with outstretched hand.

"Mr. Griff," he said, "I'm mighty glad to know you. I've heard a good deal of you and have followed some of the cases in which you have appeared, with a great deal of interest. Do come in and sit down."

Griff shook hands and dropped into a chair by the lawyer"s desk.

"What brings you here specifically?" asked Fisher. "Are you here on business, and if so, is there any way in which our office can be of assistance to you?"

Griff, his eyes fastened upon the lawyer"s lips, nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I was here making some investigations about the death of Mr. Frank B. Cathay." Fisher raised his eyebrows. "Indeed," he said. Griff remained silent.

Fisher pursed his lips closed his eyes for a moment in thought, shook his head dubiously from side to side.

"Most strange," he said. "You mean the death?" asked Griff. "No," the lawyer hastily told him, "I mean the fact that you are here. That you have been retained to look into the matter of Mr. Cathay"s untimely demise."

"What"s strange about that?" Griff inquired. "That"s my business, you know, a consulting criminologist."

"I understand," Fisher said hastily, "but you see, it happens I am attorney for the Cathay interests. I was, perhaps, one of the closest friends Cathay had in this

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city. I owe everything to him. Naturally, I am quite familiar with his affairs and quite friendly with .his widow."

"Yes?" asked Griff.

Fisher nodded and went on, "Under those circum-stances, I repeat, that it is strange that you have been retained to investigate Mr. Cathay"s death. Because, I happen to know that none of Mr. Cathay"s personal representatives has retained you. Had any of them done so, I would, of course, have known of it. Therefore, I can"t understand who else would be interested in the matter."

Griff"s smile was enigmatical.

"Was it, perhaps," asked Fisher, "that is, if it"s a fair question, the district attorney of the county, or someone connected with the police force?"

"The question," said Griff, "is fair enough."

There was a moment of silence.

"The answer?" Fisher purred in his most suave

voice.

"Oh, the answer?" Griff said. "That would be man-ifestly unfair. It"s perfectly fair for you, representing your clients, to ask a question, but you understand, we all of us have our professional obligations, Counselor."

"I see. I see," Fisher remarked, toying with a pencil on his desk nervously. "That Doctor Cooper should be prosecuted for criminal malfeasance. He disregarded his professional duties and obligations, and made an erroneous diagnosis, which was subsequently made public."

"What was the diagnosis he made?" Griff asked.

"I would prefer not to discuss it, in view of my con-nections with the family," Fisher said firmly.

"I see," Griff told him. "There isn"t any chance that his diagnosis was right, is there?"

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"Not one chance in a million. Not one chance in ten million," Fisher said emphatically. "His diagnosis is a shining example of just how much harm a doctor can do when he shoots off his face. It"s an insult to Mrs. Cathay."

"Indeed," said Griff, "how is Mrs. Cathay affected by it?"

"Well," Fisher said, "I'm not going to discuss it, but you can use your imagination, Mr. Griff. Naturally, if a man is poisoned, one naturally suspects the young widow who will be beneficiary under the estate, to the tune of several million dollars ... That is, you understand, I'm simply commenting now upon the popular trend of thought, the idle street car gossip, the whispered comments of sewing circles."

"And Doctor Cooper has now abandoned that diag-nosis?" Griff asked.

"Oh, certainly. In fact, he never made any such diagnosis. He simply said that the symptoms were similar to ...

Charles Fisher clamped his lips together and shook his head. He smiled tolerantly at the criminologist.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Griff," he said, "you"ll be drawing me out before I know it. I think, perhaps, you"re rather an adroit cross-examiner." Griff laughed.

"Well," he said, "I talked with Doctor Cooper this morning, but I couldn't draw him out any."

"Doctor Cooper," said Fisher grimly, "will probably find himself called before the medical board to explain his rather strange statements, particularly in view of the fact that he made those statements in the presence of a newspaper reporter."

Griff seemed completely uninterested in the future of Doctor Cooper.

"I would," he said, "like to see Mrs. Cathay."

72

"It"s impossible," Fisher said, "she"s prostrated. She isn"t seeing anyone. She talked with me over the telephone, and her voice was so choked and broken I could hardly understand what she said."

"That," asked Griff, "is the only way you knew she was prostrated?"

Fisher"s eyes grew hard. He said "Don"t misunderstand me. I'm her attorney. I'm also her friend. I was her husband"s friend. Her husband"s generosity was responsible for my success. I worked for Frank Cathay when he was in South Africa. Then he sold out his interests and came here. He sent for me to join him. He put up the money which put me through law school. He loaned me the money which established me in my law practice. I would cheerfully have died for him. I"d do anything for his widow. I say she"s prostrated, and I know what I'm talking about. Cathay"s death was entirely due to natural causes. Those causes were brought about by a dastardly libel which was perpetrated by a metropolitan newspaper." "The newspaper published a retraction," Griff said. "In a way it was a retraction," Fisher admitted. "It was skillfully worded. It wasn"t an apology—not by a long ways. The newspaper admitted the mistake of the previous story, however, but did it under the guise of publishing an additional item of news. Whatever retraction there was, was merely incidental and by way of background for a new story."

"Will you," asked the criminologist, his eyes fastened intently upon the lawyer"s lips, "claim that it did not constitute a retraction?"

"Certainly not," Fisher said. "In the first place, I believe that the action died when Cathay died, which, of course, was a break for the newspaper. However, the matter had been amicably adjusted prior to Cathay"s death. I handled the adjustment personally."

73

Griff raised his eyebrows in interrogation.

"Can you tell me about that?" he asked.

"Unfortunately," said Fisher, "I am not in a position to disclose the exact terms of the settlement. I may assure you, however, that they were in every way satisfactory to Mr. Cathay. However, the settlement came too late."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that die shock had prostrated Cathay. He was a very sick man from the moment the slanderous attack upon his character was made by the newspaper."

"When was the settlement made?" Griff asked.

"On Thursday afternoon."

"Why was it made?" Griff asked.

"Because," Fisher said with feeling, "I could see that my client was on the verge of a complete collapse. I took Mrs. Cathay with me. We went to the Palace Hotel in the city, and got in touch with the paper"s publisher. We reached an amicable settlement of the entire matter upon terms which were quite satisfactory to all concerned. I returned to make a report to Mr. Cathay. It was too late. He was unconscious. He never regained consciousness iiiwiitrhe died. He died without knowing that his good name had been vindicated, and the newspaper had published a retraction."

"He was, then," said Griff, "sick when you left for die city?"

"Certainly. That"s what I am telling you."

"And that was one of the reasons you made such a hurried trip?"

""Yes," Fisher said, "I don't mind admitting that was one of the reasons for rushing the matter to a conclusion, rather than to go through the formality of filing suit, and negotiating a compromise afterwards."

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"Was there any other reason for expediting matters?" Griff asked.

Fisher toyed with the lead pencil. His eyes turned away from the criminologist"s face, and sought the sunswept street, which appeared through the open

window.

"I don't know," he said slowly, "as there is any reason why I should tell you. I take it that you might, however, get the information from the newspaper if I didn"t give it to you."

"I don't want you to betray any professional confi-dence," Griff said.

Fisher whirled to face him.

"That damnable newspaper," he said, "as soon as it learned that its slanderous attack upon my client would probably furnish the basis for a libel suit, sent a reporter to this city a reporter who made no secret of the fact that he was about to engage in a most extended investigation to ascertain facts which would be embarrassing to my client, facts which would be suffi-ciently embarrassing to blacken Mr. Cathay"s reputation, if they were brought out in court, and skillfully presented with all of the innuendo and sneering insinuations which could be commanded by some clever

attorney."

"Did that fact have a tendency to expedite the settlement?" Griff asked.

"It had a tendency to put my client on his death bed," Fisher snapped.

"How long was this reporter here?" the criminologist inquired.

"Just a day, I think perhaps not a day. I dort know. He made some investigation and made some comments. He spent most of his time in the office of The Riverview Chronicle, a newspaper, by the way,

75

which has been hostile to Mr. Cathay"s political can-didacy for membership on the city council."

"Did that man," asked Griff, "call on you. Counselor?"

"On me?"

"Yes."

"No, certainly not. He was collecting evidence which would have a tendency to undermine my client"s reputation. Naturally, he would hardly have called upon me."

"You didn"t know him, then?"

"No."

"Perhaps then," said the criminologist, "you entirely missed the significance of the account in The Blade this morning, of the murder of one of its reporters."

Charles Fisher gripped the edges of his desk. His head was thrust forward. His eyes fastened upon the criminologist"s face, and gradually grew wider and wider.

"Good heavens!" he said. "You don't mean to tell me ... It can"t be ... It isn"t ... That is, it wasn"t the same man?"

Griff nodded.

Charles Fisher got slowly to his feet. He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, regarded Griff with wide, startled eyes.

"Good heavens!" he said.

Griff said nothing.

"Now," said Fisher slowly, "I can understand your interest in the matter. I understand who is employing you."

Griff remained silent.

The attorney looked at his watch, went to the window and stood with his back to Griff, looking down at the street. He turned at length to the criminologist.

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"Has the newspaper," he asked, "any idea of the motive for the murder?"

Griff shrugged his shoulders.

"Really, Counselor," he said, "I can"t tell you just what the newspaper knows, or what it suspects."

Charles Fisher made clucking noises with his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook his head from side to side, after the manner of one who has heard most disagreeable news.

"This," he said, "is very likely to complicate the situation, to complicate it most dreadfully."

Griff got to his feet.

"Well," he said, "I've enjoyed meeting you, Counselor. I just dropped in to say hello. This is Saturday, and I presume you"ll observe the usual half-holiday."

"Is there," asked Fisher with a forced attempt at his old cordiality, "anything I can do to assist you, Mr. Griff, which will not in any way conflict with my professional obligations to my clients?"

Griff smiled at him.

"I think not," he said.

The two men shook hands.

Griff went at once to a public telephone, called the office of Doctor P. C. Cooper and explained to the nurse that it was quite important that he talk with Doctor Cooper upon a personal matter.

A moment later he heard Doctor Cooper"s voice on the wire.

"This is Griff, Doctor Cooper," he said, "I called on you earlier this morning."

"Yes," said Doctor Cooper in a tone that was calm and wary. "What is it you wish, Mr. Griff?"

"I just wanted to tell you," Griff said, "that I have been in communication with the counsel who is representing Mrs. Frank B. Cathay, and that the Cathays are planning to have you cited before the medical

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board, because of the statements you made concerning the symptoms of Mr. Frank B. Cathay."

"Yes?" said Doctor Cooper in the tone of voice one uses in asking a courteous question.

"Yes," Griff said, "and I just thought, Doctor Cooper, that if a post mortem should disclose that your diagnosis was correct, and that of Doctor Am-stead incorrect, it might go a long ways toward eliminating the necessity for any defense upon your part."

Griff ceased talking and held the telephone to his ear. For a moment there was only the buzzing noise of the wire, then Doctor Cooper"s voice said in the same cautious, thoughtful tone, "Thank you."

There was a click at the end of the line.

Griff slipped the receiver back on its hook.

CHAPTER IX

SIDNEY CRIFF"S TAXICAB DEPOSITED HIM AT

the wide entrance to the Cathay mansion. Griff in-spected the well-kept grounds, the huge building which, despite its magnitude, seemed to blend into the grounds with such perfect harmony. The building looked as though it might have grown there.

"You want me to wait?" asked the cab driver.

"Yes," Griff said, and started up the long cement walk which led from the ornamental wrought-iron gate to the porch on the front of die house.

He had almost reached the porch when the door opened and a tall man, with broad shoulders and a slight paunch which bulged out his waistcoat, stepped

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7»

with quick vigor from the house and turned sharply to the right, walking across the porch to stairs which led to a driveway that came from the garage.

Griff called a low comment

"Hello, Racine," he said. "You going to pass me

up?"

The man whirled at the sound of the voice. His eyes stared at Sidney Griff with an expression of quick recognition which speedily gave way to wary appraisal. He turned and walked back toward Griff with a leisurely manner. The quick, purposeful vigor of his stride was now entirely absent.

Griff watched him with eyes that twinkled with amusement, yet were cautiously watchful.

"Business here, Racine?" he asked.

Carl Racine stood with his feet planted slightly apart, his big shoulders squared, his eyes staring steadily at the criminologist.

"Business here, Griff?" he asked mockingly.

Griff nodded. "Yes," he said, " want to see Mrs. Cathay."

"Hardly a time for social visits," Racine pointed out.

Griff shrugged his shoulders in a polite gesture of dismissal.

"After all, Racine," he said, "that is a matter for Mrs. Cathay to determine. If she has been able to see Carl Racine, of the Racine Detective Bureau, she doubtless will be able to see me."

"Perhaps," Racine said.

There was a moment of silence.

"I wonder if you can tell me just what angle of this case you"re working on?" Racine asked.

"How many angles has it?" Griff countered.

Racine frowned impatiently.

"Oh," he said, "I'm just a square-toed dick. I can"t

match wits with you, if it comes to a matter of being indefinite in conversation. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but don't be so damned superior. After all, you"re only human, you know, even if you are Sidney C. Griff."

Griff said nothing. His eyes held a twinkle of amuse-ment.

"I thought," Racine said, "that you might like a chance to pool information on this."

"Sure," said Griff, "that"s fair enough. You start off. You tell me something, then I"ll tell you something."

"That"s a bargain," Racine said. "Who are you working for?"

Griff"s laugh was almost sarcastic. "So that was the way you wanted to pool information, was it, Racine?" A smooth running motor slid into view, stopped where the side steps of the porch met the driveway. The Cathay chauffeur slid from behind the wheel, opened the rear door of the car and stared steadily at the two men.

"There is," said Griff musingly, "something strange about that chauffeur, Racine. Turn around and take a look at him. He wears the livery of a servant, but notice the expression on his face. He"s evidently very much irritated because we"re talking together."

Racine did not turn, but he straightened abruptly and his tone became formal.

"He"s in a hurry," he said. "He"s under instructions to get me to a certain place. I've got to start. Good-by, Griff."

Racine crossed the porch with long strides. The

chauffeur stood at rigid attention, his face a mask. As

the detective entered the car, the chauffeur slammed

die door, turned to face Sidney Griff.

"You can"t see Mrs. Cathay," he said, jerking open

80

the front door of the car. He did not wait for a reply, nor did he turn back for any instructions from the

detective.

The chauffeur wormed back behind the wheel. The gear-shift lever snapped home, and the big car slid smoothly down the driveway, progressing as effortlessly as a trout gliding through the dark depths of a forest pool.

Sidney Griff watched the car until it had turned the corner of the block, then he stepped to the doorbell and a moment later was handing his card to a solemn-faced butler who assured him that Mrs. Cathay was receiving no one.

"You will tell her," said Sidney Griff, "that I have no wish to intrude upon her grief. It is, however, important that I see her. You will explain to her that I am a criminologist, and that if she can grant me an audience now it may save her much inconvenience

later."

The butler took his card, showed him into a reception hallway, and a few moments later returned widi the information that Mrs. Cathay had decided to see him for a very few moments.

The interior of the house was hushed, and there was about it the aura of death. A musty smell struggled with the cloying odor of flowers that were dying, and, in turn, were used to ornament death. Servants walked about on tiptoe, with strained, set faces. In die midst of this atmosphere of hushed restriction, the healthy thudding of Griff"s footfalls were as the influx of an outside life, pushing aside decaying tissues, dissipating dead atmospheres with the tang of a salty sea breeze.

Mrs. Cathay was stretched in a reclining chair. A robe was drawn about her. Her face was white and the

81

eyes were dark-rimmed. Her hands seemed like white wax, and there was something piteously padietic in her eyes as she stared at her visitor—eyes that held curiosity, grief, tragedy, and, more that ail, die dark luster of fear.

"Please be seated," she said.

Sidney Griff thanked her, dropped to a chair.

"Believe me, Mrs. Cathay," he said, "I had no wish to intrude upon your grief. I came to make a suggestion, and a suggestion merely."

"What is it?" she asked.

"That you will not," he said, "oppose an autopsy."

She shuddered and said nothing.

"I have," said Griff, "discussed certain phases of die case with your attorney, Mr. Charles Fisher. He tells me that a hurried settlement was completed with The Blade because your husband was taken seriously ill, and you both attributed that illness to mental anxiety caused by the article which had been published."

"Not because of the article," said Mrs. Cathay, "not because of that alone, but because of the tactics of the newspaper people. They were going to blacken Frank"s reputation by every means in their power, and Frank"s reputation was all that he had to live for. Money meant but little to him. That which he prized more that all was his reputation and standing in the community."

Her voice was weak and toneless, without animus, without enthusiasm, without vigor. She spoke as one would speak of a thunder shower which had passed after doing damage to some prize bed of flowers.

"Did you," asked Griff, "let your husband know that you were going to the city to negotiate a settlement?"

She stared at him steadily.

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"Why do you want me to answer that question?" she asked.

"Let it go," he told her, his eyes now focused upon her pale lips. "It is, perhaps, of no matter. But would you mind telling me why you and your husband became so greatly concerned over the fact that a reporter was making an investigation for the purpose of determining facts about Mr. Cathay"s reputation?" "What do you mean?" she asked. "Was there," he asked, "some specific fact that you were afraid the reporter would uncover?"

"Certainly not. My husband"s life has been an open book."

"Then why were you so afraid of what the reporter might uncover?"

"It wasn"t what he might uncover," she said, "it was the idea of the thing the loss of prestige die loss of dignity the certain knowledge that some shrewd attorney would twist and distort the little incidents, the minor matters, so as to make them seem big and important."

"What little incident? What minor matter?" pressed Griff. She said nothing. The corners of her lips quivered. "Please," she said, "you didn"t come here to bait me, but to ask me something or to tell me something. Please get it over with and go," Griff"s voice was low-pitched and confidential. "I want to ask you," he said, "if you knew that the reporter who had been sent by the newspaper to investigate your husband"s reputation was murdered? His body was found yesterday afternoon."

Had some electric current galvanized her to sudden activity, she could not have reacted more quickly or violently to his words. She sat bolt upright. The filmy

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negligee fell open in the front and away from one shoulder. The dark panic of her eyes was now intensified. Her bloodless lips quivered before they managed to mouth the one word—" Murdered!" "Yes," he said. "You hadn"t heard about it?" "Murdered!" she said. "Oh, my God!" She dropped back against the chair and lay very still and very motionless.

Griff went to her side, felt of her pulse, went to the door of the room and jerked it open. A maid was standing within a few feet of the door, her face flushed.

"Your mistress," said Griff, "has fainted. See what you can do for her." The maid stared at him accusingly. "I think," said Griff, "you had better telephone for a physician."

He raised his voice slightly as he made the suggestion, and then turned to regard the still form which reclined in the over-stuffed chair. That form stirred. A weak voice said, "No, I don't want a doctor. Get me some brandy, Marie." Griff faced the maid once more. "Under the circumstances," he said, "I will not make my farewells to your mistress. Please tell her that I have gone and that I am grateful for the interview."

The maid said nothing, but followed him with hostile, sullen eyes, as Griff found his way out of die house. The butler reached die front door just as Griff had stepped to the porch. He extended a liveried arm, grasped the knob of the door and slammed it shut.

Griff walked rapidly down die cement to die place where his taxicab was. waiting. "Get me," he said, "to a public telephone, where I

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can put in a long distance call. Don"t lose any time."

The cab driver drove at high speed down the winding road which led from die big mansion to die nearest through boulevard. He pulled in at a drug store and held the door of die car open.

Sidney Griff entered the drug store, put through a long distance call to Dan Bleeker at The Blade.

"The woman in die case," he said, "has employed Carl Racine, of die Racine Detective Bureau. She ordered up her car for him, to take him to die city. She is obviously very much frightened. It would probably be advisable for you to have two of your best men waiting along die boulevard. I believe that you are familiar with her car and can give the men a description of it. Doubtless some of your reporters know Racine personally. When he passes, drop in behind and see if you can follow him. I think he has been sent upon a mission of the greatest importance—a mission which requires some skill and daring to handle. Racine was hostile when I met him."

Bleeker"s reply was directly to die point.

"When did they leave?" he asked.

"Approximately fifteen minutes ago."

"The road will be covered," Bleeker said. "We have just received assurances from die audiorities at Riverview that an autopsy will be ordered."

Griff gave a low whistle.

"You must," he said, "have exerted considerable pressure."

"We did," said Bleeker, "but we received unexpected reinforcements from a confidential communication made to the authorities by one of the physicians in the case. It represented a complete change of attitude on his part since an earlier interview. I was wondering if, perhaps, your presence in Riverview had

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been responsible for die physician"s change of atti-tude."

Sidney Griff laughed

"My presence in Riverview," he said, "has hpen re-sponsible for a lot of tilings. I told you I liked to play human checkers. I"ll see you diis evening."

Smiling, he slid the receiver gently back on the hook. His face was alert, the eyes narrowed, wary and watchfuL

CHAPTER X

SIDNEY GRIFF, ATTIRED IN LOUNGING SUIT AND long woolen bathrobe, stared into the spiraling smoke from his cigarette. Across from him, Dan Bleeker seemed very much excited.

"Anything about this man you"re covering up.

Decker?" he asked. "Any news for us?" «

Griff"s face froze into rigid impassivity.

"No," he said.

Bleeker spoke rapidly. "Remember, he said, "you"re going to give us the breaks when the time comes. You know, Griff, there"s somediing uncanny about you, at that."

Griff stared through the cigarette smoke and said, "I presume you"re about to tell me tiiat you"ve found the woman in the case."

"We know who she is," Bleeker said. "We haven't found her. That hunch of yours was one of the most remarkable tilings I've ever encountered."

86 "Go ahead," Griff said, "tell me about it" "We got the lead not over half an hour after I was talking with you on the long distance telephone from Riverview," Bleeker said. "Bill Osborne, one of our reporters, made a check on a disappearance case which had been reported by a Miss Alice Lorton, residing at the Elite Apartments, 319 Robinson Street She had reported the disappearance of Esther Ordway, twenty-two, who shared her apartment."

The intense nervousness which had characterized Sidney Griff the night before seemed to have left him now. He stretched out, physically relaxed, the only sign of nervousness being the quick, vigorous puffs on the cigarette which indicated an inner tension.

"That," he said, "is what I like about dealing with you newspaper chaps. You get all of the essential information and pass it on in a concise manner. Tell me some more about Alice Lorton."

"You mean about Esther Ordway, the one who dis-appeared?" asked Bleeker. Sidney Griff shook his head.

"No," he said, "about Alice Lorton, the one who reported her disappearance." Bleeker looked mildly surprised. "I didn"t talk with her personally," he said. "The reporters gathered die information. She is, I understand, blonde, blue-eyed and pretty—not outstandingly beautiful, you understand, but pretty, age twenty-four."

"Go ahead," Griff said. "I want to know everything I can about her. I want to get a complete picture."

"Let me tell you first about the apartment and about Esdier Ordway," Bleeker said.

Griff once more extended his right arm, with the fingers outstretched, seemed to be groping his way through a maze of intricate droughts.

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"All right, go on," he said almost dreamily. "Alice Lorton said this Ordway girl had mysteriously disappeared without leaving any word. She"d taken a suitcase and some clothes. After a couple of days passed and- Alice Lorton didn"t hear anydiing from her missing friend, she notified the police and the Bureau of Missing Persons.

"We"d never have bodiered with it, only because of what you said, and the fact that she must have disappeared at about the same time Morden was murdered. We sent a fingerprint expert up to th§ apartment. He used a pass-key. No one knew he went in there. He developed latents in places where a male visitor might have left fingerprints, on ash trays, on the bass bedstead, on doorknobs, and places like that. We had Morten"s fingerprints oit file at die paper, you know. "And1 byGodl we found some of Morden"s fingerprints! There can"t be any mistake. He way in that apa»m«nt" "Haw you "tiJf the police?"

"No we"re keeping it under cover until you tell us to release it. We figure w« may be able to do better playing it under cover."

"What"s this Ordway woman like?" Griff asked,

dropping his hand to the arm of the chair, his eyes

closed, his manner that of one who is completely re

laxed. ,

"From the. description we get, she"s twenty-two, medium sized, brunette, with black eyes. She used lots of make-up, and there was more or less mystery about her. Alice Lorton says she doesn"t know very much about the girl that they shared the apartment, and the girl always paid her share of the rent promptly that she was supposed to be out of work and looking for a job, but she always seemed to have plenty of money."

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"Not a very good, description," Griff said. "How about photographs?"

"That"s the funny thing," Bleeker said, "we can"t seem to get hold of a photograph. There"s just a chance that die girl played foxy and took all of her photographs with her. Alice Lorton says she was certain there was a snapshot or two in a photograph album the girl had, and a framed picture that was on the dresser, but the girl seems to have taken those things with her."

"Pretty smart." Griff said.

"I"ll say it was plenty smart," Bleeker agreed.

"Know anything else?" asked Griff.

"Yes, we covered Carl Racine, the detective. It was a cinch to follow him. Apparently he didn"t suspect anything, and the boys didn"t have any difficulty getting on his trail. Now, that"s an angle we can"t figure out. He"s trying to find a Mrs. Blanch Malone. He"s prowling around through die registrations, city directories, and has gone to die light and gas companies, trying to find out if they"ve connected a meter for a Mrs. Blanch Malone anywhere in the city."

"You don't know who she is, what she looks like, how old she is, or anydiing about it?" asked Griff.

"No. All we can get is die name. He"s looking for a woman of that name, that"s all."

"Anything else?" Griff asked.

"That about sums it up," Bleeker said. "The medical examination of Morden"s body shows that he was killed about noon on Thursday, perhaps a few minutes after noon. It"s impossible to tell. He hadn"t had any lunch. He"d been doing quite a bit of running around. He hadn"t kept any notes of what he"d discovered, but there was a notebook in his pocket in which he"d kept his expense account, and he had spent quite a bit for cab money."

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Griff closed his eyes once more. "Remember die items?" he asked. "No, I don't," Bleeker said. "There were two or three small ones, and then a bill of two dollars and fifty cents all at once, as diough he"d taken a long trip somewhere in a cab." Griff frowned for a moment. "Anything else?" he asked. "No." . Griff got to his feet, started pacings die floor, the long legs taking swift, nervous strides, die woolen bathrobe flapping against his shins. Once or twice he reached out in front of him with the extended fingers of his hands, as though trying to feel his way through the room, giving the impression of stroking the atmosphere with the tips of his fingers. Bleeker watched him anxiously. Abruptly, Griff turned, and when he spoke, his voice was as rapidly explosive as that of Bleeker, himself, in his most driving moments.

"This thing is delicate," he said. "It"s got to be handled with die delicacy of a surgeon performing a brain operation. But the thing is here. It"s in our grasp. It"s all ready to be smashed wide open. And we are overlooking something somewhere. There"s some point, probably an obvious point, something that"s logical as the very devil, and yet we aren"t getting it. I have that feeling. I'm never wrong when I have that feeling. There"s something Uiat I'm overlooking, something big, something vital, something that"s already in our minds—somediing that"s staring us in the face so close that we can"t see it," Bleeker shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. "We"ve got to find the man in the case," Griff went on. "I want that apartment shadowed. I want a check-up on Uiis thing from every angle. 1 want a re-

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port on everyone who comes and goes to that apartment. How quick can you get the men there?"

Bleeker spoke in a voice in which there was no en-thusiasm.

"Remember," he said, "that we"re running a news-paper. We can"t take all of our men to chase down Morden"s death. We"re doing a lot of work now."

GrifFs voice was cold and ominous.

"You mean you"re lying down on the job?" he asked.

"No, I don't mean that," Bleeker said.

"You mean you"ve lost your enthusiasm for bringing Morden"s murderers to justice?"

"No, we"re going to get them. But, frankly, Griff, it seems to me you"re using up a lot dl energy on a blind lead."

Griff stared steadily at die publisher.

"It wasn"t a blind lead," he said, "when I told you to check up on die women who had disappeared. Now I'm telling you I want to check up on die men who come to that apartment. There"s a man in die case somewhere."

"But he wouldn"t come to the apartment after the girl had disappeared," Bleeker said.

Griff shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"Eidier," he said, "you"re going to work with me on this diing, or I'm not going to work widi you. You can get some detective agency to put on men to do die mechanical shadowing work if you want to."

"I diink," Bleeker said slowly, "I"ll have to ask you more about your dieory before we put men watching that apartment. It seems utterly useless, to me."

Griff flung off his badirobe, strode toward die bed-room, and was stripping off his silk lounging suit as he walked.

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"All right," he said, "we"ll go to die apartment. I've got a dieory. I want to check it there anyway."

In less dian diree minutes he was clodied in a tweed suit and tan, rubber-soled shoes. He strode into die room, jerked open die door of a closet and struggled into an overcoat.

"Come on," he said, "we"ll take a look at that apart-ment. ... By die way, what are die police doing? Are that interested in die Ordway disappearance?"

"They"re treating it as a casual disappearance so far," Bleeker said. "We haven't told them about the fingerprints. I wanted to get your reactions to it before we did anything with die police."

"I diink," Griff told him, "we"ll forget the police for die moment, until we"ve done some experimenting of our own. Come on, we"ll go see diis Alice Lorton. In die meantime, I want you to telephone your paper to publish die best photograph of Charles Morden you can dig up, and ask particularly if any taxicab driver who remembers being hired by die hour by this person will communicate with die paper.

"You see, that big taxi entry far more likely meant he had engaged a cab by the hour for lots of short trips, dian that he had taken a long trip. He could have taken a long ride much more expeditiously and cheaply dian in a taxicab. But, if he had been fighting against time, trying to do somediing in a hurry, as his reports indicated, and had uncovered a red-hot trail, he would have rented a cab by die hour. In that way he wouldn"t have lost any time while he went from place to place—places that probably were not in districts where he could pick up cabs easily."

Bleeker nodded.

"That," he said, "is logical. We"ll see that die morning newspaper carries the photograph and request."

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CHAPTER XI

ALIC£ LORTON, LOOKING PATHETICALLY TEM-

inine, helpless and dazed, surveyed the two men uom wide, blue eyes.

"The police," she said, "don't seem to pay any at-tention to it at all. They seem to think that Esther just decided to move out and go some place else, or that she ran away with a boyfriend for aa—"

"Week end?" offered Sidney Griff by way of sug-gestion.

The girl nodded.

"They were rather crude about it," she said.

"They would be," Griff told her sympathetically.

Alice Lorton raised her eyes to Bleeker.

"Your paper, Mr. Bleeker," she said, "has been per-fectly splendid. They"ve gone to no end of trouble trying to find out about it."

"How much of her stuff did she take when she left?" Griff asked.

"Just some of her clothes and personal belongings. I would say not more than one suitcase full, at the most."

"Looks as though she might have gone by plane." Griff suggested, "taking only that amount of baggage."

Alice Lorton"s face lit up.

"That might be a clue," she said, "but who would have made her go by plane? Somebody must have forced her to leave."

"Have you any idea what sort of an outfit she was wearing when she left?"

"Yes, I think she was wearing her black dress with the red trimming black shoes and light stockings

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and she had a little black hat-one of the close-fitting kind that pull down over one side of the head, it was trimmed with white."

"She"s about twenty-two?"

"I think exactly twenty-two," Alice Lorton said. "I think her birthday was just a month or so ago. 1 know she had a birthday, and I think it was her twenty-second. It may have been her twenty-third, but I think she was twenty-two."

"And she"s a brunette?"

"Yej, she has black eyes and black hair. She has a wind-blown bob."

"How tall is she?"

"She is just about my build. We could wear each other"s clothes. In fact, she let me wear her clothes lots of the time."

"She had plenty?" asked Griff.

"She had a lot more than I did." Alice Lorton waved her arm in an inclusive gesture. "Nearly all of this stuff is hers—the books, many of the clothes, nearly all of the little knick-knacks. I didn"t have very much. She had quite a few things."

Sidney Griff crossed to the bookcase, picked out sev-eral of the books, looked at the names on the fly leaves.

"Is this her signature?" he asked.

Alice Lorton came and looked over his shoulder.

"Yes," she said, "that"s it."

Griff glanced meaningly at Bleeker.

"I think," he said, "when they travel by plane they"re required to sign a duplicate ticket that has certain clauses in it concerning limitations of liability, the right to ground planes under adverse weather conditions, the excess rate on baggage, and things of that sort. By checking up the signatures on the outgoing planes, we might find out if she took passage

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under an assumed name, and we"ve got a pretty fair

description of her clothes."

Bleeker pulled out a notebook and made a notation.

"How much," asked Griff abruptly, "were you paying for the apartment?"

"I don't know," she said slowly, "how much Esther was paying for it. Esther was the one who had the dealings with the landlord. She paid him. I paid her what she said my share amounted to."

"How much did she say your share amounted to?"

"Twenty dollars a month," Alice Lorton said in a low voice.

Griff looked about the apartment.

"You didn"t get this apartment for any forty dollars a month," he told her.

"I know it," she said. "That is, I suspected it, but Esther always told me it was none of my business that she made the business arrangements, and if she could get the apartment cheap, I didn"t have to worry about it."

"You mean she knew die landlord personally ... that is, there was some reason why die landlord made her a reduced rate?"

"Oh, no," Alice Lorton said hastily, "I don't think there was anything like that. I don't diink she even knew die landlord."

"You paid her the twenty dollars every mondi?"

"Yes. Once or twice I had to skip a month, but Esdier carried me. She seems to have plenty of money."

"You don't know what she was doing?"

"No, she said she was looking for employment."

"Who"s the landlord?"

"The Lippman Realty Company have charge of die apartments. There isn"t a manager in the building. I

95 don't know dieir address. I remember hearing Esther say that she made checks to the Lippman Realty Company."

"Do you mind," asked Sidney Griff, "if I look around?"

"Oh, no," she said anxiously, "I want you to. You know, I can"t help but feel something awful has hap pened to Esther. I feel that she went away, but she went away because of some cloud, some horrible mis-understanding. Perhaps she was forced to accompany someone."

"How about men friends?" asked Griff.

"She had one or two. I don't know their names. That was one understanding we had about boyfriends. Whenever I had a boyfriend coming to the apartment to see me, I would tell Esther and she"d leave the apartment. Whenever she had a young man coming to see her, I"d leave. That was one of the arrangements that Esdier insisted on. She said that she"d had roommates before, and that they"d always tried to steal her men, or had accused her of trying to steal dieirs."

Griff nodded and stood for a moment widi his eyes closed, his right hand stretched out in front of him, die fingers moving in that peculiar groping, stroking motion.

"I see," he said at lengdi.

He walked about die apartment, which consisted of a sitting room, a bedroom and a bath.

"One of you girls slept in die wall bed in die sitting room?" he asked.

"Most of the time," Alice Lorton said, "we slept togedier."

"Then you shared diis dresser?"

"Of course."

Griff looked die place over dioroughly.

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9

"You think she took a photograph album?"

"Yes, I think so. I know she had one, and now I can"t find it."

"You"ve looked?"

"Yes, of course. The newspaper wanted a picture. Even the police asked for that, although they seemed to think it was just a joke of some kind—I mean about her leaving."

"Her mail came here to the apartment?" Griff asked.

"Oh, yes."

"You"re certain of that?"

"Of course. This is where she lives why wouldn"t her mail come here?"

"I'm asking you if you"re certain," Griff said.

"Why, yes, I've brought her up mail quite a few times when I've been coming in and have looked in the mail box."

"Any idea who her mail came from?"

"N-n-n-n-o, I can"t say that I have. It seems to me there have been business letters, that is, letters with printed return addresses on the envelopes. I haven't noticed."

"Not just circular advertising letters?"

"No," she said, "first class mail—letters that came in crisp envelopes."

Griff started pacing the floor. Bleeker watched him with frowning speculation. Alice Lorton"s eyes were fastened upon him with wide candor, the candor with which a young patient regards a skilled physician who has come to minister to her suffering, an expression of blind faith which bordered upon devotion.

"How about magazines?" he asked, sweeping his hand in an inclusive gesture toward the magazines on the table. "These weren"t purchased at news stands, were thev?"

She shook her head.

Griff picked several up, looked at the back pages.

"They were all hers," Alice Lorton said. "She sub-scribed to them. Some of them came in wrappers, some of them had her name stamped on the covers."

"You don't know anything about her family?"

"No."

"Know whether she"d been married or not?"

"I don't think she had. She didn"t have much use for men."

"That might indicate she"d been married and sepa-rated."

"Yes, it might, but she seemed sort of ... well, un-sophisticated, if you know what I mean."

"Humph!" Griff said skeptically. "How often did she ask you to leave when she had men friends coming?"

"Not very often—just once or twice a month per-haps."

"What did she do with her evenings?"

"She read."

"Didn"t go out?"

"No, she was a shy, retiring girl in many ways. She was always a mystery to me. She had quite a bit of mail come in, and she wrote quite a few letters. But that seemed to be about the only social contact she had. She loved to read. She was very much inclined to curl up on the couch and spend an evening read-. ing."

"What did she do the evenings when you had your boyfriends come to see you?" Griff asked.

"She went out to picture shows I think, although she didn"t care much for them."

"She came home late?"

"Yes, quite late."

"Did you tell her what time to come home?"

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"No, I just used to tell her that I would have a boyfriend in for the evening." "How often did you have your friends here?" "Not very often—not as often as she did. You see, I don't know many boys." "You"re working?" "No, I haven't been for some time." "You"re here quite a bit, then, during the daytime?" "Some times, yes."

"And Esther Ordway was here quite a bit during the daytime?"

"No," Alice Lorton said, "dial"s the funny thing about her, she used to get up early, before anyone was stirring. She got up at six o"clock in the morning and always left the apartment by quarter to seven, sometimes earlier. She was gone all day, invariably. I don't know where she went or what she did." "But you don't think she was working?" Alice Lorton lowered her eyes. "I don't know" she said. Griff looked over at Bleeker.

"I think," he said, "this is about all we can find otft here." In the hallway, Griff turned to Bleeker. "Has it impressed you," he said, "how closely the description of this missing girl checks with the description Morden gave of the girl who claimed to be die hitch-hiker? The one who gave the name of Mary Briggs, and who was riding in the car with die man who had been using the name of Frank Cathay?"

Bleeker paused mid-stride, gave a quick exclamation.

"That"s so," he said. "But it"s not much, of a descrip-tion."

"Such as it is," Griff said, "it checks point for point, size, weight, complexion, age, and how about clothes?"

"The clothes check," Bleeker said.

Griff said nothing more until they were in the taxicab. Then he turned to Bleeker.

"You going to have men shadow the apartment?" he asked. Bleeker nodded.

"I'm going to play ball with you, Griff," he said. "There are times when I think your methods are wild, and then I see them check out, and they seem perfectly logical. There"s something uncanny about the way you get to the heart of a situation."

"We had a little luck on that girl business," Griff said dreamily, "but there"s something else we"re overlooking, something that"s a key point, something that"s been reported to us, and the significance of which we haven't appreciated."

"Don"t you think that always happens in a criminal investigation?" Bleeker asked.

"Not always," Griff said. "You"ve got several things to do, things that are more or less matters of routine. And then you"ve got one thing to do doat may make trouble."

"What"s that?" Bleeker asked.

"I"ll tell you the routine things first. You"ve got to try arid find out what bank Esther Ordway carried an account in. You"ve got to get in touch with the Lipp-man P„ealty Company and find out what they know about her. You"ve got to have men watch the apartment. You"ve got to try and locate that Mrs. Blanche Malone before Carl Racine locates her. But, in order to be certain, you"ve got to keep a man tagging Racine."

"What would Mrs. Malone have to do with die cast??" Bleeker asked. "We seem to have located die woman in die case."

Griff shook his head.

"You can never tell," he said, "until the cards are all

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101

on the table. You"ve got to get all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle before you can put the thing together and have it make sense. I think Mrs. Cathay employed Racine to locate Mrs. Blanche Malone. At any rate, she"s connected with the case in some way.

"Now here"s something you"ve got to do that may make trouble You"ve got to get some young woman in whom you have confidence. She should go to an apartment and take the apartment under the name of Esther Ordway. Then she should go to the post office and leave a forwarding address, forwarding the mail of Esther Ordway from the Elite Apartments at 319 Robinson Street to this apartment that she has taken."

"That"s going to get us into trouble with the postal authorities," Bleeker said.

"It won't if they don't find out about it," Griff remarked.

"But they"ll be sure to find out about it."

"I'm not so certain."

"But why go to all that trouble to read the woman"s mail? Whoever is mixed up in the case with her, or knows she"s mixed up in the case, knows that she"s disappeared. You can"t make me believe that she was spirited away. I think she deliberately stepped out of the picture, and I'm willing to bet two to one that we find where she took a plane."

Griff shook his head.

"I've got a theory about Esther Ordway," he said. "So far I haven't got enough data on the subject to back up the theory, but I want to get some additional facts just as rapidly as possible. In the meantime, you can have your men cover the out-going planes if you want to, but if you make a bet, you"re very likely to lose it."

"You don't think she took a plane?" asked Bleeker. "Everything certainly points to it."

"Why," said Griff, "should she have gone to the trouble to take her photographs with her?"

"Because," Bleeker said, "she"s none other than Mary Briggs, and she knew that the police would recognize her photographs, that"s why."

"That, of course," Griff told him, "is a possibility. But at the present time that"s all it is. . .". When will you hear the result of the post mortem performed on Cathay?"

"This is Saturday night," Bleeker said. "I have an idea the doctors are working on the case right now. They should make a report to the district attorney and the coroner before midnight. We probably won't be able to get a copy of that report before we go to press, but we should have it some time in the morning."

"You"ll let me know?" asked Griff.

"Certainly. And you think it"s important to get hold of Esther Ordway"s mail?"

"Yes."

"I hate to do it," Bleeker said, "I've got to put a woman on the spot."

"Have you got one who knows her way about?"

"Yes. Ethel West, my secretary, is right up on her toes. She"s the sort of girl who can do anything and get away with it."

"I don't want her to stay in the apartment too long," Griff said. "It"s dangerous. Just stay there until she"s got two or three letters. Then she can check out, and she can put the letters back in the box, with a notice, "Opened by Mistake", or she can leave another forwarding address back to the Elite Apartments and say nothing about the letters. It depends on what"s in them."

"I don't like it," Bleeker said doggedly.

The criminologist frowned.

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103

"I gathered that you didn"t," he said.

"By the way," Bleeker said, "there"s one other de-velopment we uncovered late this afternoon. We"ve found the hotel where-Cathay was registered."

"Where was it?" Griff inquired.

"The hotel is the Hillcrest, and Cathay had Room 964, but he didn"t occupy the room."

"What makes you think he didn"t?"

"We took a photograph of Cathay to the hotel, and the clerk says he"s positive it isn"t a photograph of the man who occupied the room."

"How about the signature on the register?"

"The signature on the register seems to be Cathay"s signature. That is, it has points of similarity."

Griff squinted his eyes thoughtfully.

"But," he said, "the detective who examined the man who posed as Cathay says that the man signed Cathay"s name that the signature was a perfect match for the signatures on the lodge cards and the automobile driving license."

"I've thought of that," Bleeker said. "We are making a further check on the hotel. The bell captain remembers that Cathay was paged several times during the course of the evening."

"And there was no answer?"

"No answer."

"How about the room? Was it slept in?"

"We"ve talked with the maid, but the maid doesn"t remember."

Griff nodded thoughtfully.

"Well," he said, "I guess there"s nothing much to do except kill time until we learn some more facts. We should pick up something definite within the next twenty-four hours. You let me know, will you?"

"We"ll have that woman located within another twenty-four hours," Bleeker promised, "and then

you"ll find that she went somewhere by aeroplane. We"ll probably have the pick-pocket who posed as Cathay rounded up. We"ve gone after the police department hard on it, and they"re making a round-up of every pickpocket in the city."

Griff leaned back against the cushions, yawned wearily and said, "That"s what I hate about this business."

"What?" Bleeker asked.

"All this damn detail work. I want to play human checkers. I want to start people moving around a little bit. I want to get them worried."

"Well, go ahead," Bleeker said, irritably, "no one"i stopping you."

Griff"s lips were twisted into A" smile.

"Yes," he said, "I'm going to."

Bleeker said quickly, "You"re not doing that with Decker in that murder case. You"re keeping him from moving around. The police are commencing to believe Decker knows a lot he hasn"t admitted."

Griff"s silence was significant.

"Can you," asked Bleeker, "tell me just one thing-did you hide him because he was nervous or because you thought his life was really in danger?"

Griff"s face suddenly stiffened to rigid concentration. He said nothing.

Bleeker looked at-him for several seconds, then re-marked irritably, "There"s no reason why you can"t answer that question, is there?"

"What question?"

"About why you"ve got Decker concealed and when you"re going to bring him out in the open."

Griff said slowly, "Bleeker, there"s something about this case that we"re overlooking, something that"s right in our hands. I almost had it for a moment—something was knocking at the door of my consciousness,

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something that I know already, something that you know already. But we don't, either one of us, appreciate its significance. Something that we"ve been talking about, something that one of us said started my mind on a train of thought that made me feel I was just on the verge of getting one of those flashes of mental perspective that we call inspiration.

"Then you interrupted me with that question about Decker. I've told you that I"ll let you know when I reach a decision. I haven't reached a decision yet. You"re not going to get anywhere by harping on the subject, and when I'm concentrating, don't interrupt me."

"Can"t you tell what you were thinking about?" Bleeker asked.

Griff"s exclamation was one of extreme irritation.

"Damn it," he said, "I've tried to think back to what was in my mind and all I can think about was that chap Decker and his fear that gangsters were going to rub him out because he"d seen a murder. That"s because you imposed Decker on my consciousness and drowned out the thought that was just about to enter my mind. Lots of times the subconscious mind realizes the significance of things. It fits things together better than the conscious mind. Then it tries to give the thought to the conscious mind and ... But I forget —you"re not interested in problems of psychology. You"re not concerned with the conscious and the sub-conscious thought processes."

"No," Bleeker said with emphasis, "I'm not interested. And I'm aware that, in spite of all your talk, you haven't, as yet, told me anything about Thomas Decker or why you"re keeping him concealed." Griff"s smile was disarming in its frankness. "That"s right," he agreed cordially, "I haven't."

CHAPTER XII

ALICE LORTON ANSWERED GRIFF"S THIRD RING

at the doorbell. She was attired in pyjamas, slippers, and a kimono. Her wide, innocent, blue eyes stared at Griff in startled appraisal, and then her lips broke into a smile.

"Oh," she said in a throaty tone, "it"s you."

"Yes," Griff said. "I'm sorry I disturbed you, but I've got to ask you a"few more questions."

"Come in," she said.

Griff entered the apartment. The windows were open, and a night wind whipped the lace curtains about. Alice Lorton went to the windows, closed them, shivered slightly and dropped into an over-stuffed chair, curling her feet up under her.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Not very late," he told her. "Somewhere around midnight."

"I guess I"d just dropped off to sleep," she said, and yawned.

Griff took a cigarette case from his pocket, extended it to her. She hesitated for a moment, then took a cigarette. Griff took one and held a match to the tip of the girl"s cigarette. Just as the flame illuminated her countenance, he said casually, "You knew Cathay was dead, of course?"

The girl"s face stiffened into rigid immobility. She remained perfectly still, the flame from the match blackening the paper tip of the cigarette. She did not inhale the smoke.

Griff watched her with narrowed eyes. 105

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After a moment she sucked a deep inhalation and expelled a cloud of smoke, drew back from the flame of the match and settled down in die chair.

"Who," fhe asked, "is Cathay?"

"A man in Riverview," Griff said.

"I didn"t know him," she said. "What did he die of? Was he a friend of Esther"s?"

"And then, of course," Griff went on, "Morden is dead."

"Oh," she said, "I knew that. He"s the newspaper reporter. I read about him in the newspapers and saw his picture."

"Did you know him?" asked Griff.

She shook her head.

"Never saw him?"

"No," she said. "Why?"

"We have reason to believe that he was here in the apartment the day he was murdered."

She looked at him with wide, startled eyes. She made a fist with her right hand and pressed it against her lips.

"Oh!" she said in a suppressed voice.

"And you"re certain you"d never seen him?" asked Griff.

"I'm certain," she said.

Griff stared searchingly at her. Her face, now devoid of make-up, showed a pasty white. Her lips were taut and pale. Her eyes were dark with panic.

Griff"s eyes focused steadily upon her lips.

"Even," he said, "if it should appear that Morden knew you, you would still insist that you didn"t know him?"

She tried to speak twice before words came. "Knew me?" she asked. "But how could he, when I didn"t know him?" "Suppose I should tell you," said Griff, "that your

name was entered in his notebook, together with this

address?"

"My name?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "Alice Lorton, Elite Apartments, 319 Robinson Street. How would you explain that?"

She looked at him, and the fear fled from her face as hot chocolate syrup slips from a ball of ice cream.

"Oh," she said, laughing, "you"re just trying to pump me, aren"t you? No, really, Mr. Griff, I don't know him. You startled me for a moment with those statements. But I'm telling you the truth. I didn"t know the man. I never saw him in my life."

Griff"s eyes remained fastened upon her lips.

"You don't seem to attach much importance to the fact that your name was in his notebook."

"It couldn't have been," she said, "unless Esther had given it to him. Of course, that might have happened. He might have mentioned to Esther that he had a friend, and that he"d like to make a foursome some night. Then Esther might have given him my name. But I think she"d have spoken to me about it if she had. ... Do you suppose, Mr. Griff, there"s any possibility that Esther"s disappearance had anything to do with the fact that this reporter was here on the day he was murdered?"

"That," Griff said grimly, "is what I'm trying to find out."

"Oh," she said, "I'm sure it couldn't have. Esther Ordway was mysterious, very mysterious. She liked to keep her affairs to herself. She wanted to be secretive about everything. She was a great individualist. She carried the apartment in her own name, and made me have my mail sent in her care, and all that sort of stuff. But I know it was just some peculiar quirk of her character. It wasn"t because she had anything to conceal."

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Griff regarded her with a stare which was not unkindly.

"Don"t you think," he said, "you"ve carried this quite far enough, Miss Ordway?"

"What are you talking about?" she gasped.

"You know what I'm talking about," he said. "You"re Esther Ordway. There never was any Alice Lorton. You just took that name in order to give Esther Ordway a chance to disappear. You betrayed yourself just now, and you"ve betrayed yourself by half a dozen little things since I first came to the apartment, but, mainly, you showed your relief when I mentioned that the name of Alice Lorton was written in Morden"s notebook. You knew that it couldn't have been, because the name of Alice Lorton was one that you had made up on the spur of die moment after Morden had been killed."

She took the cigarette from her lips, tried to knock off the ashes. The hand quivered. The cigarette dropped from the nerveless fingers to the carpeted floor. Her face was a dead-white, her lips pale, the eyes wide and startled.

Griff picked up the cigarette, pinched out the end and dropped it into the ash tray.

"Are you," he asked, "going to come clean?"

"Whyl" she gasped, "I never heard of any such thing! What ... what ... makes you think that I'm Esther Ordway?"

"The fact that you"ve been living in the apartment several months, for one thing, without having a single belonging that you could identify as yours. The further fact that the clothes you claim are Esther Ord-way"s, are the type of clothes that would be worn by a blonde and not the ones that would be worn by a brunette. The further fact that you"ve taken such elaborate pains to convince us that under no circum-

stances could you possibly have been acquainted with any boyfriend of Esther Ordway. The fact that the apartment is registered in the name of Esther Ordway that the name of Alice Lorton doesn"t appear upon the directory ..."

"But," she said, "I've explained all that. I've told you just how it happened."

"Yes," he said, "it"s a good explanation—just a little bit too good, Miss Ordway. Don"t you think you"d better give me the complete story before I call in the police?"

She stared at him, wan and pathetic.

"The police!" she said in a voice that was almost inaudible.

"Of course," he told her. "There"s been a murder committed. That"s what the police are for. Did you diink you could get mixed up in a murder and then have someone just slap your wrist and tell you not to do it again?"

"But I'm not mixed up in a murder," she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

There were several moments of silence. Sidney Griff seemed to be waiting, the girl to be thinking.

She squirmed restlessly in the chair. Her feet shot out from under her kimono. She leaned forward and put a cold, white hand on his wrist.

"Listen," she said, "please believe me. I'm telling you the truUL My name is Alice Lorton. I don't know anydaing at all about EsUier Ordway. Perhaps if I did I"d try to protect her, I don't know. But I'm telling you the God"s truth. Please believe me. It"s vital that you do believe me."

Griff frowned thoughtfully, seemed undecided.

The girl"s otfier hand clung to his arm, as though she had been trying to drag herself out of a quicksand. The quivering of her hands was visible, despite the

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tight grip which she held upon the criminologist"s arm.

"You"ve got to believe me. It means a lot to me. I'm about to be married and to be happy. Anything that might come up that would connect me with a scandal of this kind would ruin my entire life. I'm telling you the truth. I'm Alice Lorton. I can prove it to you. I"ll write out for you my whole life"s history if you want. I"ll tell you where I was born where I went to school. I"ll bring in people who know me."

Griff"s tone was that of a man who is growing less sure of himself momentarily.

"But how does it happen that all of the things around here are Esther Ordway"s? Why "haven't you something here?"

"Because," she said, "I didn"t have anything. I came here broke. Esther picked me up on the street. Oh, it was ghastly! I can"t even tell you about it. I was broke and hungry and desperate, and Esther Ordway came and picked me up. I didn"t want to tell the newspaper men about it. I didn"t want my folks to find out about it. You see, I came on here to take part in a show. I wanted to be an actress. They told me what an awful life it was, but I wouldn"t listen to them.

"And tlien I got on here and went broke, and I was out on the street, wondering where my next meal would come from. I was thinking of suicide—thinking of everything horrible. Arid then Esther was walking along beside me before I knew what had happened. She held my elbow in her hand and smiled at me just as friendly as though she"d known me all my life, and said, "You look like you"re pretty much up against it, kid."

"There was a sympathy in her tone that I hadn"t heard in weeks. It brought out all the homesickness in me. I just started to cry right there in the street. She

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asked me how long since I"d eaten, and I told her it had been a day, perhaps two days. It had seemed as though it had been weeks. But it wasn"t the food, it was the sympathy."

"And how long ago was this?" Griff demanded.

The girl lowered her eyes.

"This," she said in a slow, hesitant voice"was only two weeks ago."

"Why did you lie to us?"

"Because I didn"t want to have the story come out in the newspaper. I know what the newspapers do. They look out for articles of human interest, sob sister stories, and things like that."

"And you"re engaged?" asked Griff.

"Yes," she said.

"Who is the man you are going to marry, Alice?" he asked in a kind, fatherly tone.

"A man back in my home town," she said. "He thinks that I've made good here in the city as an actress, but that I'm giving up my career in order to come back and marry him. Tell me, was it very wrong for me to deceive him like that?"

He laughed, patted her cold hand, pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

"I'm not a moral arbiter, Alice I'm just a criminologist working on a case and trying to find out some of the facts. Forgive me for bothering you after you"d retired."

"Oh!" she said, with a quick little exclamation "you"re so nice. You approve, don't you?"

"I don't know," he told her, "as it makes any difference whether I approve or not."

"But you understand, anyway."

"Yes," he said, "I think I do."

She watched him as he buttoned his coat and reached for his hat, which he held by the brim. •

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"Good night, Alice," he said.

"Good night," she told him, "and thank you so much."

She came close to him, stood for a moment looking up into his eyes, her own eyes wide and starry.

"You"re ... you"re wonderful," she said.

Before he could stop her, she stooped swiftly and kissed his hand.

A moment later he was in the hallway, with the sound of the closing door and the clicking spring lock ringing in his ears.

Sidney Griff strode swiftly down the corridor to the elevator, paused in the lobby and found a public tele-phone. He dropped a coin and called the number of a detective agency which sometimes did work for him.

"Griff talking," he said. "I'm at the Elite Apartments, 319 Robinson Street. Send an operative with a car out here right away. Get him here just as soon as you can. I"ll be waiting across the street."

Griff hung-up the telephone, left the lobby, pulled his coat about him as he felt the bite of the night wind, crossed the street, to stand in the shadows, occasionally pacing back and forth, his head bowed in thought, but his eyes always watching the entrance to the Elite Apartments.

It was some twenty minutes before a light roadster slid in close to the curb. A man opened the door and stepped out to the sidewalk.

"Griff?" he asked in a low voice, as Sidney Griff came forward.

"Yes," Griff told him. "There"s a young woman in that apartment house. She"s about five feet two, blonde, about twenty-four years of age, with a trim figure. She weighs around a hundred and five pounds. She"ll be coming out of die apartment house pretty

113 quick. I think perhaps a man will come for her. I want her shadowed. It may be that another man will take up his position here to keep a watch on the apartment house. Don"t pay any attention to him. Keep out of sight yourself. You"d better go down the street about half a block and park. Investigate everyone who comes out of the apartment house that might be the party described."

The detective looked at his watch.

"Let"s get the time straight," he said. "It"s twelve forty."

"That"s right," Griff told him. "I have twelve-forty-one, but twelve-forty is near enough."

"Okay," the man said, "I"ll stay on die job and make reports. After I've got her located do you want me to telephone you?"

"No," Griff said, "telephone your agency, but keep her shadowed. You"d better have them send out a couple more men if you are able to keep her in sight until she gets to where she"s going."

Sidney Griff returned to his own car and drove at once to the Hillcrest Hotel. He .got in touch with the bell captain on the night shift and gave him a five dollar bill by way of introduction.

"I want to find out," he said, "about a man by the name of Cathay who was registered here on Monday night in Room 964."

"There"s been two or three people asking about him," the bell boy said.

"Showed you photographs?"

"Yes."

"The photographs they showed you weren"t the photographs of the man who was here?"

"No."

"Can you remember what he looked like?"

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"He was rather a big fellow, and I think he had blue eyes. I can"t remember too much about him to describe him, but I could tell him if I saw him again."

"He was paged several times during the evening?"

"Yes."

"Who took him up to the room when he came in?"

"I did."

"Did he have any suitcases?"

"I can"t remember, mister," the bell boy said, "but I think he did, because if he hadn"t had any I"d probably have remembered."

"Can you tell me about the calls he received? You paged him during the evening here in the lobby."

"It must have been fifteen or twenty times."

"Were the calls telephone calls, or was it someone who was here in the hotel and wanted to talk widi

him?"

"Someone here in the hotel—a little guy witfi gray hair and blue eyes. I remember him well. He was mad as a wet cat about something. He had an appointment with this guy, Cathay, that Cathay hadn"t kept. He was some kind of an inventor I think, and there was some kind of a deal on that Cathay was to close."

Griff"s eyes were thoughtful.

"I wonder if we can find out who that man was?" he said.

"I think so," the bell captain told him. "I think the man had a room here in the hotel, at least for the night, and I think he waited over. It seems to me I saw him checking out about the time I came on duty Tuesday night."

"What time was that?"

"Eight o"clock in the evening."

"If he checked out that late," Griff said, "he either paid for an extra day, or else he had some understanding with the room clerk."

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"Probably an understanding with the room clerk. We"re not particularly crowded," the bell captain told him.

"Let"s go see if we can find out.

"Okay," the bell boy said. "You wait here, chief, and I"ll go prowl around a little bit I think maybe I can find out. I tell you what I think I can do. I think I can contact one of the boys who took some highballs up to his room. I remember the boy asked me to check up on the room number. He thought there"d been a mistake in it. I don't remember the details, but it was some slip-up on the part of the telephone operator."

The bell captain departed and was back within less than five minutes.

"I've got him located for you," he said. "His name is Harry Fancher, and he lives at 3692 Kenwood Avenue, Millvale. At any rate, that"s the address he gave on the register."

Sidney Griff looked at his watch.

"A night drive," he said, "would bring me into Mill-vale just about daylight."

The bell boy regarded him curiously.

"It would," he said, "be a long ways to go if the man had given a phoney address. Lots of them do, you know."

The bell boy grinned with die worldly wisdom of a youth who has made his living in and about hotels.

Sidney Griff nodded thoughtfully. He handed the boy another five dollar bill. He went to the telephone booth and put through a call for the police headquarters at Millvale. Within ten minutes he had them on the line.

"You have a city directory there, as well as a register of voters?" he asked. "This is Sidney Griff, die criminologist."

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"What is it you want?" asked a gruff voice at the odier end of the line.

"I want to find out whether you have a Harry Fan-cher registered in town, what his occupation is, and where he lives."

"Hold the line," said the voice, with a weary lack of curiosity, engendered by a life that made crime a mere matter of daily routine.

After a moment, the voice came over the wire.

"Yes, there"s a Harry Fancher registered. He lives at 3692 Kenwood Avenue, and he"s an inventor and ma-chinist."

"Thank you," said Griff, and hung up.

CHAPTER XIII

HARRY FANCHER, ATTIRED IN TOUSLED PY-

jamas, with his hair in wild disarray, regarded Sidney Griff widi meek brown eyes.

"Did I get you up?" asked Griff, smiling cordially.

Harry Fancher nodded his head, then added after a moment, "I'm sorry."

Griff raised his eyebrows. Fancher went on to explain.

"I shouldn"t have slept so late," he said, "Usually I'm up earlier, but diis being Sunday morning, I stayed in bed."

Griff regarded the man with curious, speculative eyes.

"I am the one who should make the apologies," he said, "for disturbing you at this hour. But I drove all

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night in order to get here, that is, the best part of the night."

"To see me?" asked Fancher, raising his brows, in turn.

"Exactly," Sidney Griff agreed.

"Won"t you come in?"

Fancher led die way into die house, his slippers sliding along the floor. He waved a hand and indicated a chair in the sitting-room.

"I'm sorry," he said, "the room looks like this. It"s just the way I left it when I went to bed last night. I do quite a bit of reading and research work, and I'm not always tidy about putting my books back."

Griff surveyed the litteredable, and picked up one of the trade magazines at random.

"You"re an inventor, I believe?" he said.

"Well," Fancher said, "I don't know as you could call me that. I'm a tinkerer. I like to tinker with things."

"Did you know Frank B. Cadiay, of Riverview?" asked Griff.

There was a flicker of fire in the meek brown eyes.

"He had me come on a wild-goose chase all the way to the city," Fancher remarked. "If he didn"t want to finance my invention, why didn"t he say so in the first place? Why did he go to the trouble of writing me a letter and telling me how wonderful he thought my invention was, and then fail to keep die appointment he made with me?"

"He wrote you?" asked Griff.

"Yes."

"Have you his letter available?" Griff inquired.

"Why, yes, I think so."

"I wonder if I could see it?"

Fancher"s slippered feet made shuffling sounds as he

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crossed to a writing desk. He opened the desk and turned to die criminologist.

"I'm sorry," he said, "about die condition of this desk. I haven't been able to get at my filing for a few days. It"s in pretty much of a litter."

"Quite all right," Griff said. "Don"t bodier to apol-ogize."

The inventor fumbled around through papers, finally brought out an envelope, from it he took a letter.

"Here it is," he said.

Griff examined die letter carefully. It was written on the stationery of Frank B. Cathay, stationery which read simply, "FRANK B. CATHAY—Investments—908 First National Bank Building, Riverview."

There followed a date line, with the name of the city and state. The letter, which was addressed to Harry Fancher, at Millvale, read

"DEAR MR. FANCHER I have been very much in-terested in your correspondence relating to your new static eliminator for radios. While, ordinarily, I do not finance inventions, I would be very glad to have a discussion with you for the purpose of ascertaining upon what mutually profitable basis we can arrange for die manufacture and sale of your device. Will you please meet me at Hillcrest Hotel on Monday, the 19th of March at the hour of ten o"clock p. M. I will be glad to go into matters in detail at that time, as I expect to be in the city in connection with other business. I would suggest that you bring with you your patents and any data you may have on the cost of manufacture. Very truly yours, Signed FRANK B. CATHAY"

"That"s Cathay"s signature, all right at any rate it looks like it," Griff said.

"Certainly," Fancher replied. "The letter came through die mail in response to one I had sent to Mr. Cathay."

"Have you the envelope?" Griff asked.

Fancher handed him die envelope. Griff regarded it thoughtfully.

"I wonder," he said, "if I might keep this letter and die envelope for a few days—just long enough to have photographs made? I"ll return them to you."

Fancher"s face showed surprise.

"Perhaps," Griff told him, "you haven't heard, but Mr. Cadiay died late Friday afternoon."

"Good heavens!" Fancher exclaimed.

Griff nodded. "Now," he went on, "would you mind telling me exactly what happened? You can see that it"s important."

"Why, there was nothing happened," Fancher said, "except that Mr. Cadiay didn"t keep his appointment. I was very much put out about it."

"Did you," asked Griff, "telephone him about it or get in touch widi him in any way?"

"Certainly not," Fancher remarked. "The appoint-ment was definite enough. When Mr. Cathay didn"t keep it and didn"t, make any effort to communicate with me, I considered that I had been insulted enough. I returned to my place here in Millvale and decided that Mr. Cathay, for all of his money, wasn"t a particularly good businessman. I think a good businessman keeps his appointments, don't you?"

"He was registered in the hotel," Griff said.

"Certainly he was registered. I saw him earlier in die evening."

Griff snapped to attention. "Oh, you did?" he asked.

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"Yes, I saw him, and there was a young woman. with him. They were ... they were drinking."

"Where did you see them?" Griff asked.

"In the dining-room of the hotel. They had ginger-ale highballs served at their table."

"Did you speak to Mr. Cathay?"

"No."

"How did you know who he was?"

"I saw that he was registered in the hotel, and I asked one of the bell boys if he knew Mr. Cathay. He said that he had taken him to his room and that he thought Mr. Cathay was in the dining-room. He pointed him out to me."

"And you watched him for some little time?"

"Oh, for several minutes. I wanted to size him up a little and find out what sort of a man I was doing business with."

"Could you describe his appearance?"

"He was a big man, about forty-seven, I guess, and the girl with him was more than twenty years younger. She was a brunette."

"Can you describe Cathay any better than that?"

"Why, no, that"s the best description I can give you of him. I"d know him probably if I saw him again."

"That was the first time you"d seen him?"

"Yes."

"But you made no effort to speak with him?"

"Certainly not. My appointment wasn"t until ten o"clock. I didn"t wish to intrude. I gathered that Mr. Cathay had other business."

"I see. So you continued to wait in the Jobby?"

"Yes, I had a room there at the hotel and I waited in the lobby. At ten o"clock Mr. Cathay didn"t appear. I called his room. He didn"t answer. I had him paged. There was no answer. I had him paged at intervals for

more than an hour, until almost midnight, I guess. Then I got disgusted."

"Have you," asked Griff, "any idea whether die woman was registered at the hotel or not? Did you notice whether she checked anything at the entrance to the hotel dining-room?"

"You mean a coat—things like that?"

"Yes."

"No, I don't think so. I remember, they came out of the dining-room while I was standing in the lobby. They walked to the elevators."

"They both went up?"

"Both went up."

"She may have left her things in Cathay"s room," Griff suggested.

"She may have."

"Did you see them come out again?"

"Yes, I saw them come out and get in a Chrysler roadster."

"You"re sure about the car?"

"Quite sure. You see, I'm interested in things me-chanical. I was interested in some of the mechanical workings of that particular model of the Chrysler. I knew it well, knew every nut and bolt in it."

"The woman must have had a hat and coat when she came down to the lobby the time that she went out in the car," Griff said.

"Doubtless," Fancher told him. "I suppose she did I don't remember very much about her. I noticed it was die same young woman, and that was all. I'm quite certain, now that I think of it, she had on a long coat. I was more interested in Mr. Cathay. I wanted to size up the type of man I was doing business with."

"But you still didn"t say anydiing to him?"

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"No, of course not., my appointment was for ten o"clock. He wouldn"t have liked it if I had butted in ahead of that time and told him who I was."

"Did you read anything about Mr. Cathay in The Blade the next morning?"

Fancher"s eyes showed surprise.

"Why, no," he said. "I don't take The Blade. Was there anything in there about him?"

Griff nodded, but made no other answer to the question.

"You"re certain," he asked, "that Cathay was driving a Chrysler roadster?"

"Yes."

"You"re positive of that?"

"Of course."

"And he was registered at the Hillcrest Hotel?"

"Yes."

"You made no effort to communicate with Mr. Cathay afterwards?"

"No, sir," said Fancher with dignity, "I did not. Mr. Cathay made the appointment, and he was the one to break it. I felt that it was up to him to get in touch with me. My invention is going to make someone a lot of money. Unfortunately, 1 haven't the money to put it on the market myself, but Mr. Cathay could have added materially to his millions if he had only kept his appointment."

There was a wistful look in the meek brown eyes.

Griff got to his feet and extended his hand.

"I wanted to talk with you," he said. "I'm not going to keep you here in the cold."

"Oh, it"s warm in here. The furnace is on," Fancher said. "I wanted to ask you some questions."

"What questions?" Griff inquired.

"Oh, I don't know—just questions about how it happened that Mr. Cathay died about what brings you

down here to see me—you know, we don't have very much to occupy us, other than the daily routine of life, here in Millvale."

"There isn"t very much to tell—yet," Griff said. "Cathay was taken seriously ill Thursday morning. He died Friday afternoon."

"Do you know of any particular reason why Cathay didn"t keep the appointment with me?" Fancher asked.

Griff watched him narrowly.

"It"s been intimated," he said, "that it may not have been Cathay who was there at the hotel It may have been an imposter."

"Why," Fancher exclaimed, "that couldn't have been possible. Why, Mr. Cathay wrote me himself that he was going to be there."

Griff made no comment upon that point, but said, at length, "Have you any idea why Cathay should have failed to keep his appointment with you?"

Fancher said moodily, "I guess he just changed his mind. People who have built up considerable fortunes become inconsiderate when they"re dealing with inventors. Anyway, that"s been my experience. Lots of times they fail to keep appointments, break promises, and all that sort of thing."

Griff nodded.

"You have a telephone?" he asked. "I may want to talk with you on long distance."

"I'm sorry," Fancher told him, "but the telephone has been temporarily disconnected. I can"t be called. I'm very sorry."

"Never mind, I"ll send a messenger for you if I need you," Griff said.

"Thank you," said Fancher meekly, and stood in the doorway watching Griff stride down the cement walk toward the car.

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"That wind," Fancher said, "has made the yard look like a mess. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, -no," Griff called as he climbed in his car, "I don't mind in the least."

Before Griff started his drive back to the city, he telephoned the detective agency which had shadowed Alice Lorton the night before. From that detective agency he found out that Alice Lorton, together with a male companion, had journeyed to the Trent Apartments on 312 West 16th Street that the couple had entered the apartments and had not left them that, as nearly as the detective could ascertain, the man was Kenneth Boone, who rented Apartment 209 in the front of the apartment house. A light had shown in the window for a moment, just after the pair had entered. Then a man had pulled down the shade, and the detective felt certain that the man was the same one who had escorted die young woman to the apartment.

Griff instructed them to keep the apartment house under surveillance and to shadow the pair whenever they should leave, putting sufficient men on the job so that that could shadow both the man and the woman. He also instructed them to cover the Hillcrest Hotel thoroughly, searching for a young woman who had been registered there on Monday night, who was about twenty-two years of age, a brunette, and who had had dinner with the man who had registered as Frank B. Cathay of Riverview.

He also instructed the detective agency to ascertain whether the man who had registered under the name of Frank B. Cathay at the Hillcrest Hotel had issued any checks, and if so, what had happened to die checks.

Having set those wheels in motion, independently

of die investigation which was being made by die newspaper, Sidney Griff yawned, climbed back in his car and started die long ride back to die city. When he had arrived, he went directly to a Turkish badi, and remained Uiere until morning, when he had a leisurely breakfast, and then strolled to his apartment.

CHAPTER XIV

IT WAS APPROXIMATELY TEN-THIRTY ON MON-

day morning when Bleeker telephoned Griff and an-nounced that he was on his way widi important news. He arrived less than fifteen minutes later.

Griff, looking fresh and rested from his Turkish bath, reclined in the large lounging chair. There was a glint of lazy humor in his cold, blue eyes—eyes that could, upon occasion, become as penetrating as twin searchlights. Now he seemed utterly relaxed, completely at ease.

"You"ve got important information?" he asked.

Bleeker nodded, took a notebook from his pocket.

"In the first place," he said, "we found die taxi driver."

"What does he remember?"

"A lot. He says that Morden engaged him by die hour on Thursday morning that Morden went to a garage at the corner of Robinson Street and HunUey Street. He made some investigations there, went to die Elite Apartments at 319 Robinson Street, returned to the cab within five minutes, went to Nindi and Central Streets, had die cab park around die corner on Central while he went into an office building some-

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where near the corner of Ninth and Central. The cab driver thinks it may have been the Monadnock Building. Morden was gone for nearly half an hour, returned, and drove once more to the Elite Apartments that he remained there for a few minutes, then returned to the cab and discharged it, remaining on at the Elite Apartments."

Sidney Griff jumped to his feet, dropped the cigarette into an ash tray. His lazy relaxation had vanished as completely as a cloud wisp drifting from the edge of a snow-capped mountain out over a dry desert.

"And I claim to be a criminologist!" he.exclaimed.

"What"s the matter?" Bleeker inquiied.

Griff swept his hand toward a battery of filing cabinets which lined one side of the room.

"I study crime," he said. "I study the modes and methods of operation. I study the habits of criminals. In those card indexes, you"ll find digests of every major crime for half a century. The big embezzlements! The big murders! The big hold-upsl Crimes of passionl Crimes of deliberation! Crimes of violence!

"I've concentrated for years on the best methods of getting quick results in criminal cases, and here an ordinary newspaper reporter thinks of something that has entirely escaped my mind!"

"What do you mean?" Bleeker asked. "I don't see it. I don't get the sketch."

"The garage!" said Griff, striding up and down the long room, flinging the words over his shoulder without turning his head. "It"s a new city ordinance, of course, but I should have thought of its possibilities."

"I don't follow you," Bleeker remarked. "Do you think you know what Morden had in mind? What he was doing?

"Of course, I know what he had in mind and what

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he was doing," Griff said, turning on his heel and Striding back toward Bleeker, making fierce, impatient gestures with his hands as he walked, emphasizing his words with little jabs of his extended right forefinger. "It"s that new city ordinance, the one that requires garages to turn in the license numbers of all cars that are stored in the garage over night. It was sponsored by the automobile insurance companies in order to give the police a chance to check up on stolen cars. Every public garage has to submit such a report."

"I still don't see," Bleeker said, "what you"re driving at ... ."

"Morden," said Griff, "wanted to check up on what Cathay was doing in the city. Remember that he wasn"t sent out to check up on the man who had assumed Cadiay"s identity he was sent out to check up on Cathay. You wanted to get something that would put Cathay on the defensive. Very well, Morden found out Cathay had been here in the city on Monday night. Cathay"s business was somewhat mysterious. Morden wanted to find out what it was. He got the license number of Cathay"s automobile and checked down through die numbers that were reported of cars stored in public garages. It was probably a tedious job, but he found die car number, found that Cathay"s car had been stored in the garage there at the corner of Robinson and Huntley. From there, he got a lead that took him direct to the Elite Apartments. He went there and found that Alice Lorton, or Esdier Ordway, as the case may be, wasn"t in, so he went out and ran down another lead and then returned, and either found the party he wanted in the apartment, or found that the party was going to be there shortly, and decided that he"d wait. So he paid off the taxicab."

Bleeker nodded his head in slow affirmation.

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"Yes," he said, "when you express it that way, it"s logical enough."

"Now then," Griff said, "having established that this young man, Morden, was a logical worker, and a fast worker, the question arises why he went to Ninth and Central."

"Probably some other lead," Bleeker said, "But how did he get it?"

Griff shrugged his shoulders. "No matter," he said. "We"ll run that down a little later. In the meantime, we"ve got a live lead on this garage business. Suppose you have one of your men run over to the garage with a picture of Morden. Find out if Morden wasn"t there making inquiries about die car that was registered in die name of Frank B, Cathay of Riverview. You can get that registration number by checking up die records in die Motor Vehicle Registration Department. You can put through a telephone call and get that information." "Now?" asked Bleeker. Griff nodded.

"Let"s get that disposed of," he said, "before we go any fardier. I want a check on that. It"s going to make quite a difference in die way we handle diis diing." He jerked his head toward a desk telephone. "You can use that telephone," he said. While Bleeker was telephoning, Sidney Griff paced restlessly up and down die room. His head was dirust forward. His eyes were squinted in diought. He seemed utterly oblivious of Dan Bleeker and of die telephoned instructions which Bleeker was giving to his newspaper. When Bleeker had hung up the receiver and returned to his chair, Griff suddenly whirled on him.

"You didn"t make a very good job of putting men on that Elite Apartment house."

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Bleeker said defiandy, "Frankly, I considered that a wild goose chase. I did it because you were so insistent. The woman who figures in die case had already disappeared. I don't see any use watching die stable after die horse has been stolen. However, you insisted, so I did put die men there. They"re watching the apartment. Everydiing"s quiet. No one has entered or left."

"I"ll tell you more about that later," Griff told him. "What else have you got?"

"The mail," Bleeker said. "I can"t understand it."

"What about it?"

"We made a wonderful catch," he said. "I'm afraid we"re going to have trouble about it. There"s going to be trouble with the postal audiorities."

"That"s all a matter of history now. It"s been done," Griff said impatiently. "What did you get?"

"We got her banking statement, with die canceled checks. It had been mailed to her by her bank, appar-ently in response to a request she had telephoned in."

"Ah," said Sidney Griff, and his tone contained die purring satisfaction of some huge cat that has just been given a dish of raw liver. "Ah-h-h-h," he said again, and rubbed his hands togedier.

Bleeker pulled a long envelope from his pocket, took from it die stiff yellow paper statement of a bank balance, widi machine-stamped figures on die margin.

Griff reached forward, took die checks and die folded statement from Bleeker"s hands, crossed to a table, sat down and spread out die checks. His face lit widi satisfaction.

"Ah," he said, "a young woman who is out of work, and yet she makes radier large deposits. A deposit of five hundred dollarsl Then one of seven hundred and fiftyl And here"s one of two diousand dollarsl"

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He picked up the checks one by one, suddenly stared at one of them.

Bleeker spoke impatiently. "That"s the only one that counts," he said. "It"s a check payable to Kenneth Boone, for the entire balance on hand. It cleans out the account."

Griff nodded slowly. "The check," he said, "is dated on the day Charles Morden was murdered."

Bleeker took a letter from his pocket.

"Here," he said, "is a letter from the bank, stating that in pursuance of telephoned instructions, they are sending her her canceled checks and statement showing that the account has been cleaned out."

Griff took the letter.

"And," Bleeker pointed out, "the date jf the telephone conversation is the day following Morden"s murder."

Griff studied the letter, with his forehead in furrows of scowling concentration.

"If," Bleeker said, "we only had some way of locating this Kenneth Boone, we could ...

"If," Griff interrupted impatiently, "you had followed my instructions by placing your men on duty at the Elite Apartments, you would have known all about Kenneth Boone by this time."

Bleeker stared steadily at the criminologist.

"Do you," he asked, "know what you"re saying, or are you just talking?"

"I know what I'm saying," Griff said, continuing to examine the checks. Abruptly he turned to Bleeker.

"What else do you know?" he asked.

Bleeker took a letter from his pocket.

"There"s a letter," he said, "sent to Esther Ordway. Apparently, it"s something in the nature of a love letter. It"s signed Robert Cheiton. It"s sent from Sum-

merville. It was sent out Sunday—that"s yesterday—and arrived in the early mail this morning. It"s rather ardent in its terms of affection. One gathers that Miss Ordway has been the recipient of several proposals of marriage from Robert Cheiton, but she has remained firm in her conclusion to live a single life. Apparently she"s been divorced once before and is finished with all forms of matrimonial venture."

The criminologist turned the letter over slowly in his fingers.

"You have, of course, taken steps to find out about the writer of this letter?" he asked.

"I've taken the steps, yes," Bleeker said "It"s too early, as yet, to get a report."

"When you get a report," GrifF said slowly, "you will find that Robert Cheiton is registered at a hotel in Summerville, that the address which he gave was either so general as to be of no assistance, or that it was fictitious that he remained long enough to write and mail this letter, and that he then checked out of the hotel, and no one knows where he went."

"You"ve already checked him?" asked Bleeker.

"No," Griff said, "I know who he was and why the letter was written, and, without reading the letter, I am willing to wager there is some reference in it to her roommate, Alice Lorton."

"There is," Bleeker said. "He has a paragraph about how charmed he was to meet Miss Lorton, and how pleased he is that Esther Ordway has so delightful and charming a roommate."

Griff nodded slowly.

"But aren"t you .ing to read the letter?" asked Bleeker.

Griff shook his head and tossed the letter to the

desk.

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"There is no need," he said. "It was a red herring drawn across our trail, but it arrived too late. However, one thing is certain An attempt will be made on the part of Alice Lorton to get the mail from die apartment some time this morning. She will either return to the apartment or send some .young man there with a key to the mail box. She will be anxious to get this letter with the checks."

"You mean Esther Ordway?" asked Bleeker.

"No," said the criminologist, "I mean Alice Lorton. Aldiough Esther Ordway is probably her real name."

"They"re one and the same?" gasped Bleeker.

"They"re one and the same," Sidney Griff told him. "Beyond any doubt."

"But why should Alice Lorton report die disappear-ance of Esther Ordway?"

"Because," Griff said slowly, "it was imperative that Esther Ordway should disappear. It was also, for certain reasons, either impossible or unwise, for Esther Ordway to give up her apartment and flee. Therefore, she simply took the name of a mysterious Alice Lorton and told us the story about the disappearance of her fictitious roommate, dressing the story up so that the disappearance would indicate die possibility of foul play, or of a flight from the consequences of some unlawful act, whichever way we might choose to consider the matter."

"But surely," Bleeker said, "she couldn't have ex-pected to have such a story stand up. Under a rigid police investigation, the deception would have been noted almost immediately. She couldn't have accounted for herself ...

"Don"t be too certain about that," Griff said. "There undoubtedly was an Alice Lorton. The Alice Lorton merged her identity into that of Esther Ordway for certain purposes. Then, when it became ap-

parent that die Ordway identity was going to get her into trouble, she switched back to the identity of Alice Lorton. She could have given die police a fairly accurate history up to approximately the time that Esther Ordway entered the apartment."

"But die police could have confronted her widi die people in the apartment, and . , ."

"And would have got noplace," Griff interrupted. "The police would have found that persons in the apartment had seen her coming and going. They would have known that she was living in the apart ment. They wouldn"t have known whether she was Esther Ordway or Alice Lorton. The only persons who might have given testimony that would clinch her identity, were the persons in the bank. For that reason, she wanted to get her bank account closed and sent to her before there was any possibility of police interference. The fact that mail is not delivered on Saturday afternoon nor on Sunday brought about the downfall of die scheme. The letter containing the checks, giving the name of her bank and the data concerning her account, is one of the outstanding weaknesses of die scheme, but she intended to get hold of that letter prior to the time any police investigation was launched. There is, of course, also a possibility that the account, in some manner, was opened by signature and that die bank is familiar with the signature of Esther Ordway, but not familiar with her identity. However, that is a possibility which is probably too remote to give us any concern."

"Then this Ordway woman, or Alice Lorton, as she calls herself, is probally die woman in die case."

"You forget," Griff pointed out, "that we have, as yet, to account for the mysterious Mrs. Blanche Ma-lone, who is being eagerly sought by die bereaved widow."

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"Perhaps Mrs. Malone is merely a friend of the family widi whom Mrs. Cathay desires to communicate," Bleeker said.

The criminologist"s tone was filled with doubt.

"Perhaps," he said.

There was an interval of silence.

The telephone rang. Griff scooped up the receiver, listened for a moment, then nodded to Bleeker.

"For you," he said.

Bleeker listened while die receiver made a succession of rasping noises, dien looked up at Griff and nodded.

"A check-up on die Summerville end shows that Robert Chelton did just what you said he would do, or rather, what you said he had done."

Griff waved his hands in a gesture of dismissal.

"Should I give them any furdier instructions?" asked Bleeker.

"No," Griff said, "tell them to drop it. It"s unimportant now."

Bleeker relayed die instructions over the wire, hung up the telephone, dien frowned thoughtfully at Griff.

"It seems to me," he said, "that it"s a matter of major importance. If what you say is true, diis man Chelton must be an accessory. Obviously, some man figured in the murder, particularly in connection with moving the body. If Esther Ordway and Alice Lorton are one and die same person, and this man writes a letter in which he refers to them both, he must have done so for a very definite purpose. That purpose was to baffle die investigating audiorities. Therefore, it would seem to me ...

Griffs tone was flat, cold and final.

"It"s unimportant," he repeated, and his eyes were staring in preoccupied concentration at a spot on the carpet as he spoke.

Bleeker frowned impatiently.

"You"re a criminologist," he said. "I'm a newspaper man. I've solved a few mysteries, myself. I say 11 isn"t unimportant."

Griff stood facing the newspaper man, his eyes slit-ted in concentration, his face preoccupied. But his tone wa? as crisply effective as the nervously explosive words of die newspaper publisher.

"It"s unimportant," he said, "because I know all about that angle of the case. Robert Chelton is the same person as Kenneth Boone. Kenneth Boone has been located. Alice Lorton, alias Esther Ordway, is vidi him. They"re under surveillance right now."

Bleeker"s expression was one of eager enthusiasm.

"You"ve anticipated all of this?" he said. "You"ve uncovered all of this information?"

Griff nodded.

"Good heavens! How did you do it?" Bleeker asked.

"I did it," Griff said slowly, "by doing what I told you to do and what I knew you wouldn"t do—putting a shadow on the Elite Apartment house to check up who came in and who went out."

He whirled abruptly, started pacing the floor.

"But I didn"t think," Bleeker said, "that ...

"Don"t interrupt me," Griff told him, "I'm thinking. I tell you, we"ve got the facts of the case in our hands. That is, we"ve got enough facts to give us the key clue that we want. There is something that"s right under our eyes, something big, something that we"re overlooking."

He paced the floor in silence, his feet pounding rhythmically upon the rug.

Bleeker ventured a suggestion.

"Do you suppose," he asked, "that it"s something about the girl"s connection with Cathay?"

Griff said slowly, "It"s someUiing that"s bigger dian

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that, something that"s staring us right in the face. It"s not an inanimate clue it"s a big, vital clue—something that"s a new angle of the case.

"Obviously, the connection of this girl has something to do with it. Obviously, the impersonation of Cathay by this so-called pickpocket has something to do with it. Obviously, the connection between Kenneth Boone and this girl has something to do with it. Those are things that we know about. We haven't run them down yet, but we know about them. But this is something bigger something that"s a new angle of the case something that"s right under our noses, and yet we haven't seen it."

He fell to pacing the floor again.

The telephone rang.

Griff scowled impatiently, hesitated a moment, then picked up the receiver, listened for a moment and nodded to Bleeker.

"Your newspaper," he said, "calling you. They say it"s important."

"I told them not to call this number unless it was connected with the case and very important," Bleeker said by way of explanation.

He took the telephone, listened for nearly half a minute, then asked, "Did you get anydiing else?"

The receiver made metallic noises, and Bleeker grunted a reply and hung up.

"Well," Bleeker said, staring steadily at Sidney Griff, "here"s one you can play with Cathay committed suicide."

"Did what?" Griff demanded.

"Committed suicide. They"ve held up making any announcement until they could get a complete analysis of the vital organs. There was enough poison in them to have accounted for his death a dozen times over. Moreover, from the nature and quantity of the

poison taken, the doctors are unanimous in deciding that die poison must have been taken voluntarily. In other words, it wasn"t something that could have been given him in his food or administered to him without his knowledge."

Griff shook his head slowly.

"No," he said, "Cathay didn"t commit suicide he couldn't have. It doesn"t check in with the facts as we know them."

Bleeker"s tone was impatient.

"But," he said, "the physicians are positive upon that point. It couldn't have been a case of accidental death by poisoning, or of poisoning that was administered in food."

Griff"s gesture of dismissal was that characteristic flinging gesture of his hands, and was made with die greatest impatience.

"All of these so-called clues," he said, "aren"t clues at all. The only facts that count are the animate facts —the facts having to do with motive, with opportunity, with the conflict of characters. The things that you find picked upon so often in detective stories as clues aren"t clues at all in fact, they are circumstances, and circumstances can be interpreted in almost any light you want to interpret them. Take, for instance, the case of statistics You frequently hear people taking opposite sides of an argument and bolstering their case with the same set of statistics."

"But if Cadiay knew he was about to be disgraced, if he didn"t know that his wife and his lawyer could call off die newspaper, what more reasonable dian to suppose he"d become despondent and end his own life?"

"I tell you," Griff said slowly, "Cathay didn"t commit suicide. He wasn"t in a position where he had to commit suicide. He had no reason for committing sui-

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cide. Moreover, the method wasn"t one he would have adopted had he been committing suicide. He ...

Griff broke off in the middle of his sentence, staring at Bleeker with wide, unseeing eyes.

"By heavenl" he said after a moment.

"What?" asked Bleeker.

"That big fact that"s been staring us in the face all this time," the criminologist said slowly. "It just crashed home to me. It"s so weird, so utterly bizarre, that it"s absolutely incredible, and yet it"s so logical that it must be the keynote of the case. That"s the thing that Morden blundered onto—the thing that made his death inevitable."

Griff whirled and started pacing the room once more.

"Well," Bleeker said irritably, "what is it?"

"You remember," Griff told him, "that on the night when ... abruptly he broke off, narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "No," he said, "we"re dealing with a clever mind. It won't do to even think about it, much less talk about it, until we"ve got definite proof."

Bleeker frowned irritably, then became dignified and distant.

"After all," he pointed out, "I have retained you, and I'm entitled to the benefit of your investiga-

"You"ll get it," Griff said, his manner preoccupied, "when the time comes. Good heavens, we"ve just been running around in circles. We"ve overlooked the logical starting point—both of us."

Bleeker spoke with nervous rapidity.

"We are trying," he said, "to locate the young woman hitch-hiker, who gave the name of Mary Briggs. We have made some search, and ...

Griff interrupted, "I've got a live lead on her. I"ll have her located soon. She wasn"t the logical starting point."

"I thought she was the key witness in the case," Bleeker remarked.

Griff stood staring at him thoughtfully.

"The key witness in the case," he said, "when we can find her, if we can find her while she is still alive, is going to be Mrs. Blanche Malone—the woman Cathay"s widow is looking for."

"But who is she?" asked Bleeker. "What has she got to do with the case? Why is Mrs. Cathay so anxious to get in touch with her?"

Griff"s smile was enigmatic.

"Bleeker," he said, "I'm not going to help you. You"ve got to figure the thing out for yourself, The facts are in your possession just the same as they"re in mine."

"No," Bleeker said irritably, "there"s something you know that I don't-this big fact that you were talking about."

Griff shook his head.

"You know it," he said, "just as well as I do."

"Why won't you tell me?"

"Because we, both of us, overlooked an important bet. If you think it out for yourself, you"ll feel a lot better dian if you let me tell you. I think you"ll figure it out for yourself."

"For a man who"s supposed to be in my employ," Bleeker exploded, "you certainly seem to give a mini-mum of cooperation."

Griff laughed and said, "Well, I'm going to give you a break on one thing."

"What"s that?"

"This Decker business. You remember that I prom-

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ised you I"d let you have the story when I was ready to release it."

The newspaper man watched him curiously.

"You"re going to release it now?" he asked.

"I think so."

"What is it?"

"I don't know yet, but I know what I think it is."

"And that"s what?" Bleeker asked.

"That Decker was lying both to the police and to me. I think he got a better view of the man who murdered Shillingby than he was willing to admit. I think that"s what"s been frightening him. I think he knows that the murderer realizes just how dangerous a witness Decker could be if he told the truth. That"s got him frightened. He thinks the gangsters would rub him out to keep him from talking."

"Any fool would have known that much," Bleeker said, irritably.

Griff kept smiling.

"Don"t jump at conclusions," he said. "I think I can surprise you, and perhaps surprise Decker."

"Surprise Decker!" Bleeker echoed.

Griff nodded, extended his index finger and pushed an electric bell button. A minute or so later a door opened and a man clad in livery bowed somewhat obsequiously.

"Was there something you wanted, sir?" he asked.

Griff nodded to Bleeker. "My valet," he said.

Bleeker .said rather impatiently, "I'm not a detective myself, but even I deduced as much."

Griff smiled

"You see," he said, "as soon as the police knew that I was keeping Thomas Decker concealed, they tried to locate Decker by checking over all of the hotels and rooming houses, paying particular attention to anyone who had registered on the night of the murder. I

anticipated this move on their part. Therefore, I put Decker in a place where they would hardly expect to find him, yet where he would be instantly accessible if I should desire to consult with him."

Bleeker"s eyes suddenly widened. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, Griff nodded and said to the man who posed as his valet, "Come in, Decker, and sit down. I want you to talk with this man."

The man in livery hesitated for a moment, then took four swift steps, sat down abruptly in a chair, said nervously, "You"ve let the cat out of the bag now. Why did you do it?"

Griff"s tone was not unkindly.

"Decker," he said, "you told me and you told the police that you couldn't be certain of the identity of the man who drove that gray Cadillac car."

"That"s right," Decker said, "I couldn't."

"Then," Griff said, "your testimony wouldn"t have helped the police in the least."

"That"s what I told them," Decker said. "I explained that to the officer."

"And," Griff continued, "since your testimony couldn't have hurt anyone, no one would harm you to keep you from giving that testimony."

Decker moistened his lips with his tongue, swallowed and said nothing.

"Therefore," Bleeker said, "you must know something that you"re keeping back."

Decker stared at Dan Bleeker, then turned to Griff.

"Damn it," he said "I hired you to protect me. What"s the idea of putting me on the grill in front of a witness?"

"Because I think you"re getting off on the wrong foot," Griff said slowly.

He took a picture from his inside coat pocket, the

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photograph of a man"s face—a man with wide cheek bones, sullen eyes, a rather high forehead and a slightly crooked nose.

"Look at it," he said.

Decker took the photograph and studied it.

"Ever see him before?" asked Griff.

"No, who is he?"

"That," said Griff, "is the latest authentic photograph of Philip C. Lampson, sometimes known as "Cincinnati Red"."

Decker stared at the picture with wide eyes,

"You"re trying to trap me in some way," he said.

Griff took a folded newspaper clipping from his pocket.

"Look at it for yourself," he said. "The newspaper clipping shows Lampson"s photograph. You can com-pare the two."

Decker looked from one to the other. Slowly a look of relief came over his face.

"That wasn"t the man," he said, "who was driving the gray Cadillac."

Griff nodded.

"I thought so," he said. "Now, let"s have the truth. Decker."

"The man tried to keep me from seeing his face," Decker said, "but a gust of wind blew back his hat and there was enough light for me to see him plainly, I"d know him if I saw him again. I don't know as I could describe him. He"s sort of big-featured. I can"t tell it exactly, but it isn"t this man. The eyes weren"t so wide apart, and he didn"t have those big cheek bones."

Griff nodded to Bleeker.

"Get your newspaper on the telephone," he said. "Your reporters can "discover" Decker. I don't care where they discover him, just so it isn"t here. Shown a

photograph of Lampson, Decker states positively that Lampson was not the driver of the car."

"And then you"re going to let me out where the Lampson gang can get me?" Decker asked.

"Be your age," Griff retorted sharply. "Lampson would put a bodyguard around you to see that nodi-ing happened to you. You"re his best life insurance."

"But I thought sure it was Lampson," Decker said.

"That"s what the police thought," Griff replied. "Why didn"t you tell me the truth?"

"I don't know I was afraid, I guess."

Bleeker picked up die phone, called The Blade. While he was talking, Sidney Griff opened the drawer of his desk and took out an automatic.

"Carry a gun?" he asked casually of Bleeker.

Bleeker slipped the receiver back on its hook.

"No," he said, eying die automatic widi frowning distaste, "and I don't want to. I don't believe in carrying weapons."

"Put this in your pocket," Griff said.

"Why?"

"Because we"re going to see Mr. Kenneth Boone, and the party may get rough."

"Look here," Bleeker protested "aren"t you going radier far in this diing without notifying die police?"

"We"re going a lot farther," Griff told him. "This is one of the cases that die police would fall down on. They"d give out a lot of newspaper publicity and get die thing all tangled up. They"d wind up by convicting an innocent person and letting the guilty escape."

"What case are you talking about?" Decker asked. "This murder case?"

"About die murder of die newspaper reporter," Griff said, "and while we"re about it, die deadi of a man named Frank B. Cadiay."

"Don"t you think Cathay committed suicide?" asked

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Bleeker. "Are you contending that he didn"t, in view of the statements of the doctors who conducted the post mortem?"

Griff opened a box of cartridges, slipped some extra ones into his pocket and said, "I"ll admit this much, he took the poison voluntarily."

"You"re going to leave me here?" Decker asked.

"Down in the vestibule," Griff told him. "You"re going to wait until the newspaper reporters come and then you"re going to tell your story, and tell the whole story just as it actually happened."

Decker"s face showed relief as he remarked, "Gosh, what a load this is off of my mind! Why didn"t you show me Lampson"s picture sooner, Griff?"

"Because I thought it was Lampson until about an hour ago. I thought he must have done the killing."

"How did you find out it wasn"t Lampson?"

"I just happened to think things over and decided I"d better check up by showing you Lampson"s picture. Remember now, Decker, when the newspaper reporters interview you, you aren"t telling them where you were hiding during the time the police were looking for you. You"re not going to tell anyone that. And, incidentally, the police are going to think that Lamp-son"s men bribed you."

"I don't give a damn what the police think. I'm telling the truth," Decker retorted.

"Okay," Griff said. "Let"s go, Bleeker."

CHAPTER XV

GRIFF LOCATED TWO MEN FROM THE DETEC-

tive agency seated in automobiles in front of the Trent Apartments, the place where Alice Lorton and her male companion had gone after leaving the Elite Apartments.

"Are they in?" he asked, when he had identified himself.

One of the operatives nodded.

"Both of them," he said. "That"s the apartment up there. You can see the window, with the curtains pulled down."

"We"re going up," Griff told him. "If you hear a racket, come on up."

Griff led the way to the apartment and pushed his finger on the buzzer. There was no answer. He pounded with his knuckles on the door—still no answer.

"Open up!" Griff shouted. "We know you"re in there, Boone. Open that door!"

This time there was a rustle of surreptitious motion from behind the door.

Griff stepped to one side. Bleeker pulled his gun from his pocket, stared grimly at the door. Griff motioned the publisher to keep the gun out of sight. There was the sound of a rattling chain, the click of a catch. The door opened, and a man of about thirty stood staring at them in hostile appraisal.

Griff swept his eyes over the dark skin of the face, the snapping black eyes, the coarse black hair which came low on the forehead, the bushy black eyebrows.

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"Boone?" he asked.

"Yes," said the man in surly tones. "Who are you?"

"Just two men who want to talk with you," Griff told him, and started to push his way through the door.

"Wait a minute," Boone said. "I don't want to talk with you."

"Oh, yes, you do," Griff told him. "It might be so much better for you to talk here than to talk at head-quarters."

"Are you dicks?" asked the man.

"Do you want us to tell the hallway about it?" Griff inquired.

Boone hesitated, seemed to be weighing the chances for a sudden dash for liberty. Finally he stood to one side.

"All right," he said. "Come in."

The two men entered die apartment. It was a single apartment, consisting of a combined sitting-room and bedroom, a small kitchenette, a bathroom, and a closet, widi a wall bed behind mirrored doors. The curtains were down, and the lights were on.

"You," said Griff, dropping into a chair, "knew a woman named Esther Ordway."

Boone knitted his brows thoughtfully.

"No," he said slowly, "I didn"t."

"Oh, yes, you did," Griff said.

"No," Boone replied with more confidence, "I knew her roommate, Alice Lorton. I didn"t know Esther Ordway."

"Never had anything to do widi Esther Ordway?"

"No."

"When was the last time you saw Alice Lorton?"

"I don't know—a couple of weeks ago, maybe. She and I had a little argument." "You knew where she lived?"

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"Yes."

"Over in the Elite Apartments?-

"Yes."

"Did you ever meet Esther Ordway?

"I've seen her a couple of times, but that"s all. She wouldn"t stay in the apartment when Alice had com-pany coming. I met her in the hallway once or twice and knew who she was, but we never spoke. I don't think she knew who I was."

"How did you know who she was?"

"I saw her coming out of the apartment once."

"That"s die only way you knew who she was?"

"Yes."

"Would you recognize her if you saw her again?"

"Yes."

Boone settled in his chair and sighed. He seemed much more certain of himself now.

"Ever know a man named Morden—a newspaper reporter?" Griff asked.

"You mean the man who was murdered? The one whose picture was in die papers?"

"Yes."

"No, I never saw him."

Griff exchanged glances with Bleeker.

"Get ready, Bleeker," he said, "to use die diing that I gave you."

Boone"s tone was suspicious.

"What"s that?" he asked.

"Nothing," Griff said.

"Listen," Boone told him, "I don't like your attitude. You come busting in here and act as though I was on a hot spot, just because I knew a jane that roomed with a jane that might have been mixed up in this case you"re talking about"

Griff pulled from his pocket the check payable to Kennedi Boone and signed by Esdier Ordway.

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"That your signature?" he asked, showing Boone his endorsement on the back of the check.

Boone"s face twisted suddenly. His eyes shifted from the check to Griffs face, then from Griff"s face to the watchful eyes of the publisher. He moved uneasily in his chair. His hand moved toward his hip pocket.

Griff got to his feet

"We may as well have a quorum here," he said, and strode toward the closet.

Boone"s hand whipped up in a quick half circle. The light of the room glinted on blued-steel.

"Get away from that closet," he said, "or I"ll blow you apart."

Bleeker"s voice was strained and harsh.

"Drop that gun," he said, "or I"ll make a sieve out of you."

Kenneth Boone hesitated, Bleeker"s gun covering him, his gun covering Griff. The criminologist was cool and smiling.

"You don't want to do that, you know, Boone," he said. "The place is surrounded. We took that precaution before we came up. There are two detectives downstairs. You can"t possibly kill us both. You may stand some chance of beating the other murder case, but you stand no chance of beating this."

The door of the closet burst open. Alice Lorton pushed her way into the room, disregarding Griff and Bleeker, running straight to Boone.

"Don"t do it, Kenny I" she said. "Please don't do it. Please drop the gun. I got you into this don't let me get you in any deeper. I"ll take my medicine."

The man"s extended arm slowly dropped. "Now drop the gun," Griff said in a kindly tone. Boone let the gun slip to the carpet, "Now," Griff said, "let"s come down to earth. Boone, you took Morden"s body out to the place

where it was found and planted it. Personally, I don't think you killed him I think the girl killed him and you did it to protect her."

"I'm not making any statements," Boone said.

The girl started to say somediing. Griff silenced her with a motion of his hand.

"What"s the use of lying?" he said, "You"re just going to make things worse. Let me sum up the case the way it stands Morden is murdered. His body is found in an abandoned subdivision. It had been taken there in an automobile and dumped. Obviously, a woman wouldn"t have had the strength to carry the body to the automobile and dump it. We know something of Morden"s movements on the day he was killed. We have absolute proof that he was in the apartment of Esther Ordway. We locate that apartment and find a young woman there who swears that she is Alice Lorton, a roommate of this mysterious Esther Ordway. She can"t make her story quite convincing enough until after she"s planted a few more alibis, so she gets you, Boone, to go down to Summerville and write a letter to Esther Ordway, to which you sign the name of Robert Chelton, and in which you mention Alice Lorton. She thinks the authorities will get that letter and that it may help establish secondary identity. The weak point in her whole alibi is the bank account that is kept under the name of Esther Ordway. She tries to clean that account out and get the checks delivered as soon as the account is closed out and balanced. It took a day or two to do that. The fact that a Saturday afternoon and a Sunday intervened, enabled us to get the checks when they were ready for delivery. That gives us all we need. We can get die bank to identify Esdier Ordway as being this young woman. We can show from her signature that she is. We can identify die letter from Summerville as having been posted by

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Robert Chelton. The hotel men can identify him. We can show that Kenneth Boone was in direct communi-cation with Esdier Ordway, by the check made in his favor and his endorsement on the back of that check also, the bank will remember cashing it

"Now suppose you people act sensibly and tell us the truth. Why did you kill Morden, Esther?"

"1 didn"t kill him!" she flared.

"I"ll take the responsibility for that," Boone said sullenly.

"Kenny!" she screamed. "Don"t say that! You don't know what you"re talking about!"

Griff stared steadily at the young woman.

"Suppose," he said, "you tell me the truth."

She made a gesture of resignation. There were, how-ever, no tears in her eyes. She stood slim, straight and white-faced.

"I didn"t kill him," she said, "but Kenny thinks I killed him."

"Aw, Esther," he muttered reproachfully.

"Don"t interrupt, Kenny," she said. "You keep out of this." She turned to face the criminologist with dry-eyed defiance. "You can believe it or not," she said, "I found Morden in my apartment, and found him dead. I don't know how he got there. I should have telephoned the police, but I lost my head and telephoned for Kenny instead. He said there was no reason why I should get mixed up in a scandal that we could leave him there until dark and then dump the body some place."

"That," said the criminologist, "is all right, so far as it goes. It doesn"t go far enough."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, "that your reason for not telling the police isn"t credible. Even Kennedi Boone, who is

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infatuated with you, didn"t believe it. You can"t ex pect us to believe it and you can"t expect the police to believe it."

She was silent, white-lipped. "Go on," Griff said, "tell us the truth." She shook her head in mute, white-faced negation. "You can question me all you want to," she said, "but you won't make me change my story. That"s the only reason that I did what I did. I didn"t want the newspaper notoriety."

Griff"s eyes were staring steadily and appraisingly at her lips as she talked.

"Did you," he asked, "know who Morden was when you saw him?" "No," she said. "Did you have any idea?" "No."

"You searched his pockets?" i "No."

Griff"s smile was cofcl and cynical. "I'm not entirely certain just whom you think you"re protecting, Miss Ordway," he said, "but I want to assure you that your attempted protection is simply going to make things harder for both of you. Why don't you tell me the truth?" "I am telling you the trudi."

"You haven't," he said, "told me the truth at any time since I've come in contact with you. You lied to me most dramatically and almost convincingly ... "Only about not being Esther Ordway," she said. "About Esther"s disappearance, with all of the weird story about her having taken her pictures, the photograph album, and the way she was dressed when she left about how she happened to pick you up when you were down and out, and all of that stuff."

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She remained silent

"Lay off of her," Kenneth Boone muttered thickly. "You can"t pin a murder rap on her." "Shut up!" Griff snapped.

There was an interval of silence. The eyes of all three men were focused upon the girl"s face, a face which was as white as the back of an invalid"s hand. The orange make-up on her cheeks flared into crimson brilliance against the contrast of the dead-white skin. "I think," said Griff slowly, "that you"re trying to protect Mr. Frank B. Cathay, aren"t you?"

Her lips quivered. She tried to say something, but the words did not come.

Boone glowered at her with sudden suspicion distorting his features.

"Say," he said, "am I a sucker in this thing? What the hell is Frank B. Cathay to you?"

The girl made no answer. It was the criminologist who answered the question, speaking in low tones, his eyes boring steadily into the girl"s face. "I think," he said softly, "that he"s her father." She looked at him, her eyes dark with pain. Slowly, her head drooped forward. She pressed her hands against her eyes. Her shoulders shook with sobs. Boone put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She shook off the hand savagely. "Don"t touch me, you beast!" she screamed. Boone"s jaw sagged. He touched her again, only his finger-tips this time contacting her shoulder.

She gave a shrill scream and then burst into high-pitched, hysterical laughter.

Griff picked up the telephone receiver, "Police Headquarters," he said.

CHAPTER XVI

SIDNEY GRIFF EMERGED FROM THE ROW OF

telephone booths and waited impatiently until Bleeker came from an adjoining booth. "Have you found out anything?" he asked. Bleeker nodded, his face grim. "Racine," he said, "the detective, has located the Malone woman—that is, we think it"s the Malone woman, although she"s not going under that name right at present. She"s located at 922 East Elm Street, and is going under the name of Blanche Stanway, Evidently, Racine found out about her earlier in the day and kept his information under cover, because he went to the Palace Hotel and waited there for fifteen minutes. At the end of that time a woman joined him. From the description, I gather that it"s Mrs. Frank B. Cathay. Together, they went to call on Blanche Stan-way. They"re still there. As soon as the boys got a line on them, they telephoned a report in to the paper." Sidney Griff frowned meditatively. "We"ll go there first," he said. "Detectives who are working for me have located Mary Briggs, the hitchhiker. Naturally, she"s important, but she"s not as important as the Malone woman."

"Just who," asked Bleeker, "do you figure this Malone woman is?"

"That," Griff told him, "is something that remains to be determined. So far, I am working in this case on a theory and only on a theory."

"But you drink it"s going to check out?" "It is checking out," Griff said. 153

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"What"s the theory?"

"In every case," Griff told him, "there"s some key clue—something that dominates all of the other clues —something that points directly to the motive for the crime and the manner of its execution, as well as the identity of its perpetrator. The key clue in diis case was the counterfeit crook."

"The counterfeit crook?" Bleeker asked. "Whom do you mean?"

"The man who posed as the pick-pocket, who had Cathay"s wallet, driving license and credentials."

"Why do you say he couldn't have been a crook?" Bleeker asked.

"Observe carefully," Griff told him. "I do not say the man is not a crook I say that he was a counterfeit crook. In other words, he was posing as a pick-pocket, and yet he was no pick-pocket, as even a casual exam-ination of the evidence would have shown."

"How do you mean?"

"He gave a very fair imitation of Cathay"s signature at the police station. He gave a fairly accurate imitation of Cathay"s signature when he registered at the hotel."

"He might have been a forger," Bleeker pointed out.

"Those things," Griff said, "take practice. But mark you, here is the most significant thing of all He cashes a check at the hotel where he is registered under the name of Frank B. Cathay and that check passed through the bank at Riverside. Moreover, he went to the hotel to keep an appointment with Harry Fancher, an inventor. That appointment had been made in advance, on stationery which either came from Cathay"s office in Riverview, or else was printed with consummate care, so as to duplicate such station-

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ery. Moreover, that letter seems to have been signed by Cadiay.

"Therefore, this pocket-picking was no casual lifting of a purse. It was a part of a carefully planned scheme, a scheme which would have worked to perfection if the man hadn"t taken a couple of drinks. He was stopped for a minor traffic violation. The officer smelled liquor on his breath, and found that his description checked with that of a man who had been holding up service stations. The officer took him to the station for examination.

"Now, notice carefully what happened next. This man who had taken such pains to assume the identity of Frank B. Cathay now took equal pains to deny that identity. Only when he was surprised into betraying it by a check-up on die name under which he had rented the automobile, did he admit die name of Cathay. Yet, as was shown by subsequent developments, he had only to proclaim himself as Cathay to bring about his immediate release.

"However, we"re wasting valuable time talking over clues, while there"s work to be done, so let"s get to work."

"But look here," Bleeker demanded, "you don't have any doubt that Kenneth Boone and the girl, between them, were the ones who killed Morden, do you?"

"As to that," Griff said, "we are going to make some interesting and I diink some rather startling discoveries. Come, let"s see if we can"t get to 922 East Elm Street before the conference breaks up. It may be a conference that is worth some careful attention."

Much puzzled, Bleeker followed the criminologist to a taxicab.

"Remember," he said, when the cab was swaying

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through the streets, "that I'm a man of action. I"d prefer to start smashing this case wide open, by bringing pressure to bear on the parties who are under suspicion, instead of being dead certain we are right before we go ahead. You"re interested in dovetailing a lot of facts together. I'm interested in results. I don't give a damn how we get those results.

"Morden was a newspaper reporter, and a good one. He was working for me when he was killed. I want to get die people who killed him. Don"t waste too much time on a lot of theory. Let"s have some action."

Griff smiled, and said, "I understand how you feel, Bleeker, but there are some things that can"t be han-" died by strong-arm tactics, even when you"re virtually certain you know what happened."

"That"s the way Morden got his knowledge," Bleeker said, "and he must have found out more dian you know even now."

Griff said, soberly, "That probably is something I"ll never know."

"What is?" Bleeker asked.

"Whether Morden merely blundered upon the dis-covery which led to his death, or whether he figured it out by a process of reasoning that was at least brilliant."

"He was not a brilliant man," Bleeker said. "He wasn"t afraid of anything and he was resourceful, but he was not brilliant."

Griff closed his eyes. Slowly he shook his head from side to side.

"I am not certain," he said. "At times I feel that he must have been brilliant. It is, perhaps, something we shall never discover."

"What are you referring to?" Bleeker asked- "The location of Esther Orchvay?"

"Not that," Griff said.

"Do you drink that he knew she was Cathay"s daughter?"

"As to that, we can"t say, but I am inclined to think he did not," Griff said. "The evidence all points to the fact that he was trailing Cathay, trying to find what Cathay was doing on tbat Monday night. He had no luck with the hotels, or, perhaps, he simply disregarded the hotels and concentrated his search upon the garages. It is a good point, one that I shall remember."

"How," asked Bleeker, "did you know drat she was Cathay"s daughter?"

"I didn"t know," Griff said. "I watched her lips when she spoke. I knew that she was nervous and that she was lying. I knew, also, that her lies were not the swift, extemporaneous lies of one who has been unexpectedly cornered, but that that had been carefully rehearsed. They were lies which were not impregnable, but that had been given to her to use for die purpose of delaying investigation until a certain thing could be accomplished."

"And that certain diing?" asked Bleeker.

Griff shrugged his shoulders.

"It mav already have been accomplished," he said. "Who can tell?"

"Don"t you think you"re all wet on that business?" Bleeker insisted. "Morden conceived the idea of trying to trace Cathay through his car. He found the garage. In some way, from the garage, he got a lead to the apartment house, and someone in die apartment house gave him the information that he wanted. He, therefore, diought this young woman was merely a woman in the case, a person whose name might be linked with that of Cathay. He went to see her she was out. He rode around, investigating odier clues for an hour or so, and then returned. She was in. He

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talked with her. Kenneth Boone came in. Boone had a jealous disposition. He is hot-headed and impulsive. We know he carries a weapon. Probably he tried to throw Morden out. Morden would have taken a great deal of throwing out. There was a struggle. Boone lost his head and hit Morden over the head with the gun. That"s all there is to it."

Griff did not argue the point. "Perhaps," he said, in a tone that was almost dreamy, "but let"s not make the mistake of reconstructing our crime until we have all of the facts. Here"s 922 East Elm Street. We"re going to get something here."

He told the cab driver to wait, and the pair ap-proached the house, a house which had, at one time, been a pretentious private residence, but was now given over to furnished rooms.

"Shall we," Bleeker asked, as they entered the door, "get die landlady and inquire for Blanche Stanway?" "I doubt," Griff told him, "if it"s necessary." He led the way up one flight of stairs, paused to listen in the hallway.

room.

The sound of swift, excited voices came from a room toward the rear. Griff nodded toward that

rrwrri

"I think," he said, "that what we want is in there." He walked noiselessly down the corridor, paused before a closed door. On the other side of that door a woman was talking. Her voice was audible, but not her words. Griff placed his hand on the knob, turned it noiselessly, shoved the door open.

A fleshy woman with hard, green eyes, stringy, lack-luster hair which had been cut in a square bob, was seated on a chair, a mocking smile playing about her lips.

Standing near the window, clad in black, was Mrs.

Frank Cathay. Her face was white and tragic There was a baffled look of hopeless defeat in her eyes.

Nearer die doorway, standing with his side to die door, his big shoulders squared, his face flushed widi rage, was Carl Racine, die detective.

Griff"s voice was cheerful.

"Do we intrude?" he asked.

They stared as him. Mrs. Cathay"s face showed be-wilderment. Racine"s face was white with cold anger. The woman who was seated in die chair shifted her hard, green eyes to regard the visitors with a curiosity which seemed almost casual.

"We want very much," Griff went on, "to interview Mrs. Blanche Stanway, or perhaps she might prefer to be called Mrs. Blanche Malone."

The smile faded from the lips of the woman.

"I don't know any Blanche Malone," she said. "My name is Blanche Stanway. Tell me what you want."

"You," Racine said to Griff in a voice that quivered with rage, "can wait in the corridor until we get done talking. This is none of your damn businessl"

Griff smiled serenely.

"Racine," he said, "you are a man who knows die law. Perhaps you also know die penalty for compounding a felony."

Mrs. Cathay surveyed the men with tired eyes which seemed weary of it all, eyes from which hope had van-ished. There remained only die grim tenacity of a fighting breed.

Carl Racine moved ominously forward.

"I'm telling you fellows," he said, "to get out. This is a private conference."

Dan Bleeker, thirty pounds lighter than die big detective, and ten years older, pushed aggressively forward.

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"Try and put us out," he snapped, "and I"ll knock your front teeth down your throat."

Sidney Griff spoke in tones that were calmly suave.

"It happens," he said, "that Mr. Bleeker represents The Blade. It also happens that The Blade is interested in this interview, as doubtless the police will be. If, of course, you desire to adopt this attitude, the newspaper will govern itself accordingly. It will not, perhaps, add to Mrs. Cathay"s peace of mind."

Racine glowered at Bleeker, his manner truculent, but his eyes suddenly shifted to those of the criminologist as Griff finished speaking.

Mrs. Cathay, white-lipped, her nostrils dilated, re-garded Griff with eyes that were dark with emotion.

"I presume," she said, "you want me to beg and cringe. I won't do it. Your detestable newspaper has never added to my peace of mind or shown me the slightest consideration, and I don't expect it to now."

"How," asked Racine, "did you find out about this?"

Griff smiled at him.

"How did you find out about it?" he countered.

Mrs. Cathay whirled to the hard-faced woman who sat in the chair, regarding them with glittering appraisal.

"If you talk," she said, "you"re not going to do yourself any good."

Griff swung to her instantly.

"If you don't talk," he said, "you"re going to put yourself in a very questionable position."

The woman laughed. Her laugh was harsh, rasping and discordant.

"My, my," she said, "how important I seem to be getting all of a sudden. Well, I'm not going to talk-not because she told me not to," and the woman spat

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out the feminine pronoun with a bitter, scornful emphasis, "but because I'm going to get a lawyer to do my talking for me."

"Who," asked Griff, "is your lawyer?"

"I don't know," she said. "I'm going to get one."

"The police," said Griff, "may want to know something about this."

"The police," she retorted calmly, "can keep on wanting."

"I'm going to ask you just once more," Mrs. Cathay said, "to consider my position."

The woman"s eyes swept Mrs. Cathay in hostile ap-praisal.

"You went to a lot of trouble to find me, didn"t you?" she said. "Just because you thought I could do you some good. How about the long years before? You didn"t take any trouble to find me then. You didn"t care what I was doing. If you v?ant to know, I was scrubbing floors in office buildings. Think of that! Down on my hands and knees, crawling around, scrubbing floors, cleaning spittoons, my hands in dirty soap suds, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing! Always scrubbing! While you were powdered and perfumed, painted and manicured, riding around with a chauffeur in a shiny automobile reclining on soft cushions, having maids to do your hair and keep your face beautiful ..."

She broke off abruptly and once more gave that harsh, scornful laugh.

"I will say this," she said, "the world has handed me enough knocks. I know enough now to look out for myself, and I'm going to look out for myself."

"Will you," asked Griff, "make any statement?"

"My statement," she said, "will be made through my attorney."

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Griff turned to Bleeker and shrugged his shoulders.

"I think," he said, "we know all we need to know."

Mrs. Cathay"s eyes watched the criminologist with stark terror appearing in their depths.

"Will you," she asked, "please consider my side of this case?"

Racine spoke to her in a rumbling monotone.

"They"re newspaper men," he said. "Don"t talk to them. Anything you say will be construed as an ad-mission."

She bit her lip and was silent.

Racine crossed to Mrs. Cathay, took her by the arm and piloted her toward the door.

"Remember," he said, "we"ve got other places to go and other things to do."

"You won't find her I" shrilled the woman, who re-mained seated in die chair by die window. "Go ahead and try all you wanrto—you can"t find her."

"If," said Griff in calm tones, "you"re referring to the girl who is variously known as Esther Ordway, or as Alice Lorton, the girl who was the daughter of Frank B. Cathay, you will find that she is registered at the Elite Apartments, number 319 Robinson Street." . Mrs. Cathay stared at him, her eyes wide.

The woman who had been seated by the window jumped to her feet. Her face was livid with fury. Her gnarled hands were clutched into fists.

"Damn you!" she said.

"And," went on Griff, his eyes fastened upon the face of Mrs. Cathay, "if you want to see her, you"ll find that she isn"t in her apartment. You"ll need a pass from the police if you"re going to visit her. At die present moment she"s at police headquarters, where she"s booked on suspicion of murdering Charles Mor-den, a reporter for The Blade."

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Mrs. Cathay stood perfecdy still, her head thrown back, her chin in the air. Her manner was that of having steeled herself against showing any emotion.

The woman who had given her name as Blanche Stanway strode toward Griff.

"You lie!" she screamed. "You"re a dirty, damn liar!"

Griff continued to watch Mrs. Cathay.

Racine had tiptoed to the door of the room. He jerked it open, said to Mrs. Cathay, "Come on, let"s get out of here. He"s trying to keep us here. He"s stalling for time."

Blanche Stanway stopped within a couple of feet of Griff. Her face was twisting with emotion. The corners of her hard, defiant mouth turned down. Tears came to her eyes. She broke into harsh sobs.

Mrs. Cathay swept toward the door which Racine was holding open, but the detective did not wait for her to join him. He turned toward the corridor, took half a dozen rapid steps, and then broke into a run. His feet could be heard thudding down the corridor.

Griff said in a low voice to Mrs. Stanway, "I'm sorry."

She looked at him through tear-flooded eyes, took a groping step toward him, dropped her head to his shoulder, and clung to his coat with the work-bent fingers of leathery hands.

Griff patted her shoulders reassuringly.

"There, there," he said. "It"s going to be all right."

Her face twisted into a savage grimace while the tears were still coursing down her cheeks. This woman who had been forced to fight the world forsso many years was not going to let her feminine desire for sympathy betray her into making any disclosure.

"Damn you," she said, in between sobs, "see... my . . lawyer ... you cheap heel!"

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CHAPTER XVII

IN THE TAXICAB, GRIFF BECAME TALKATIVE.

His manner was that of a surgeon who has performed a difficult operation and who is anxious to discuss the technique with a colleague.

"Observe, Bleeker," he said, "what an interesting thing the truth is. Falsehoods may be built up which seem to have the appearance of truth, but they have no foundation to back them. They are like mirages, like the fronts of structures which are used in motion picture sets things that look all right when viewed from one angle, but have nothing back of them, if one will but take pains to view them from all sides."

Bleeker"s tone was gruff.

"These things photograph well enough to deceive everyone who sees them," he said.

"Certainly," the criminologist agreed, "if one but looks at the photograph. That is why it is always so vitally important to look at the object itself and to look at it from all angles.

"The truth is like some placid sheet of water. Some extraneous fact is dropped in it, and immediately the calm surface becomes ruffled. The reflections become distorted. There are rippling waves which start out in circles and go in every direction as far as there is any surface to the water."

"That stuff doesn"t interest me at all," Bleeker said. "To hell with your abstract philosophies. I want re-164

suits. You"re talking in circles, trying to kill time, trying to distract my thoughts."

Griff placed a placating hand on the publisher"s arm.

"Not at all," he said, "we"re going to solve this case within a short time. I want you to appreciate the solution when we uncover it. Solving a mystery is like hunting big game. Your quarry has the start on you. You engage in a chase, a chase which must inevitably take you on many a blind trail, lead to many a disappointment. Eventually you quit following these false leads, and start to make some definite progress."

"I know all that," Bleeker said, "but what"s that got to do with a lot of abstract philosophy about trudi and falsehood?"

"Simply this," Griff told him, "a man who would make a successful detective must learn to differentiate between the real trails and those blind trails which look so inviting. In order to do that, he must learn to get a proper mental perspective. That can only be done by getting some appreciation of the motives of the man whom he is trailing. Now, Morden was fortunate in that he started almost at once upon the right trail. As I've told you before, it will always be a matter of regret that I"ll never know whether he blundered onto this trail by accident, or whether he was shrewd enough to appreciate the deadly significance of the forgotten facts."

"What do you mean when you say forgotten facts?" Bleeker asked.

"Facts upon which the whole case hinges," Griff told him, "facts that have always been at our fingertips, but which we have forgotten—that is, we haven't forgotten them, we"ve overlooked their significance."

"What the devil are you trying to do," Bleeker de-

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manded, "stall along for time, or make a grand-stand finish?"

"Nothing. I'm simply verifying in my own mind the fact that we"re on the right trail at last."

"Well, what is that trail? Where does it lead to?"

"That is something we"ll have to find out," Griff said. "I think I know the answer, but I'm not going to allow myself to speculate about it out loud. Thoughts are things—definite, vibrant, pulsating things. When droughts are crystallized into words, it very frequently happens that the mere expression of those thoughts has a tendency to make the thoughts themselves common property. I can"t account for the process by which diis is accomplished. It"s a species of mental telepadiy. Patent office records show that inventors will grope for an idea for years widiout ever getting a solution. Then, applications for patents will be received, featuring almost identical inventions, coming from different parts of the country and filed almost simultaneously. The fact that one inventor has solved die problem and crystallized that solution into tangible form, seems to speed other inventors to reach a similar idea."

Bleeker gave a contemptuous snort.

"If you"re pulling all that stuff as a stall," he said, "you can forget it. If you"re seriously trying to convince me, you"re crazy. All that stuff is die bunk. I don't believe in it."

Griff lapsed into silence.

After a moment, Bleeker, too nervous and impatient to refrain from speech, said, "How about that Stanway woman? Why wouldn"t she tell us what was on her mind? She came to us for sympathy and tiien suddenly started fighting, just when I thought she was going to tell us what we wanted to know."

Griff"s eyes slitted with thought.

And, again he said, "You"ve got to consider human psychology in order to understand the truth. At one time, this woman was beautiful. It wasn"t a fragile, aristocratic type of beauty, but a flaming, vital beauty, die beauty of passion, die beauty of a burning flame, a beauty that spends itself widiout caring for the consequences. When beauty of that type is gone, it is gone forever, leaving only a burnt out shell. And then comes bitterness. It is not as though such a woman had not known the thrill which comes from having men pay homage to her. It is not as diough ...

Bleeker interrupted.

"I suppose," he said, "you mean she was the un-married mother of die girl in die case."

Griff frowned.

"You continually revert to the material facts," he said. "I'm trying to see die reasons back of those facts, die underlying motives which must be understood in order to enable one to appreciate a solution.

"The most prized possession that a woman can have is beauty, the type of beauty which attracts men to her. And yet, it is die most dangerous possession which she can have. How much more fortunate this woman would have been had she never been beautiful how much less keen would have been her subsequent suffering had she never known the adulation of men how much less bitter she would have been had she always been a scrub woman."

"What"s her bitterness got to do with it?" Bleeker asked.

"Lots," Griff said. "You"ve got to appreciate motives in order to understand crime. You can"t appreciate motives unless you can understand character, and you

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can"t detect crime successfully unless you can appreciate to the fullest the motives which prompted the person who committed the crime."

Bleeker"s voice showed his impatience. "I don't give a damn about all that," he said, "I want facts. You"ve got some facts you"re holding back. I presume you"re trying to build up to a spectacular finish. You want to play magician and pull a rabbit out of the hat. Whenever I try to pin you down to facts, you start stalling me with a lot of hokum that"s the same type of stuff a stage magician keeps handing out to an audience to distract attention from the sleight-of-hand stuff he"s pulling with his hands. I don't give a damn about ..." The cab swung into the curb and came to a stop. "Now, what?" Bleeker asked. "This," Griff told him, "is the hotel where Mary Briggs, the hitch-hiker, is registered under the name of Stella Mokley."

Bleeker thrust a bill into the outstretched hand of the cab driver, and while he was waiting for change, said, "My God, this case is full of women, and every woman has at least one alias. We started with the hitch-hiker, who gave the name of Mary Briggs to the police. We now find her in a hotel registered under the name of Stella Mokley, and probably that"s not her real name. Then, there"s this Stanway woman, who apparently is Blanche Malone and there"s Alice Lor-ton, who built up a fictitious Esther Ordway. I wouldn"t doubt if it turns out that Mrs. Cathay really isn"t Mrs. Cathay at all." Griff nodded his head, and laughed. "In that petulant outburst, my friend," he said, "you"ve come nearer putting your finger on the real solution of this case than in any other single thing you"ve said."

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Bleeker pocketed his change and stared at Griff in-quiringly. Then, when he saw die criminologist was not disposed to make further explanation, turned toward the hotel.

"Anyway," he said, as he savagely lunged against the swinging door of the lobby, "we"ll get something definite here, and get away from all this talk."

"Go easy," Griff motioned, "let"s not rush in until after we"ve ... Just as I feared—too late. And we"ve tipped our hand."

Bleeker turned to stare at Griff, followed die direction of his gaze, and paused.

A big man with stooped shoulders was standing talking with a man at the desk. Bleeker"s eyes squinted for a moment in an attempt to refresh his memory, then he muttered in an undertone, "It"s Charles Fisher, Mrs. Cathay"s lawyer."

"Over this way quickly," said the criminologist, "perhaps he has not seen us."

He.stepped behind a potted palm, dragging die pub-lisher with him.

The two men stood motionless. Fisher did not once glance in their direction, but finished his conversation with die man at the desk, stood for a moment, apparently undecided. Then, flinging his chin up, as one does when reaching a decision to plunge boldly into some unwelcome situation, he strode toward the elevators.

Griff squeezed the publisher"s elbow.

"Quick!" he said, "we can"t let him beat us to it."

The two men crossed the hotel lobby, their feet pounding the flagged floor with quick impatience. Their gait was almost a run.

An elevator door slid open. Two women and a man got out. Fisher stepped in. The elevator operator looked out toward the lobby in a perfunctory survey,

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and then placed his left hand on the door, preparatory to sliding it shut.

Griff gave a shrill whistle. The startled elevator op-erator looked at the two men hurrying across die lobby.

"Hold it" said Griff.

The elevator boy held the door open.

Fisher, who had been staring at the toes of his shoes in frowning concentration, looked up, with annoyance stamped on his countenance. The annoyance gave place to surprise, the surprise to a friendly smile and dien the smile faded, as an expression of annoyance once more came across his features.

"Well, well," he said "it"s Mr. Griff and Bleeker, publisher of The Blade. How are you gentlemen? You"re going up?"

"Yes," said Griff and pushed his way into the elevator, shaking hands with die attorney.

The elevator boy slid the door shut.

"Ninth floor," said die lawyer.

"Nindi for us," Griff said.

The elevator shot upward.

"What brings you to die city?" asked Griff.

"Oh, just a matter of routine business. I've got to see about taking the deposition of a witness in a will case. Wasn"t it unfortunate about poor Frank ... Cadiay, you know."

"Indeed, it was," Griff said. "Apparently there was poison administered."

The lawyer shook his head.

"I'm afraid," he said, "it is a very serious matter."

"You don't think it was suicide?" asked Griff.

The elevator slid to a smooth stop at the ninth floor. The operator opened the door. The lawyer was speaking as he stepped into the corridor.

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"No," he said slowly, "I don't think that it was suicide. However, I am frank to say that I don't know just what it was, and I doubt if we can ever prove that it was not suicide."

"You"ll make die attempt?" Griff asked, standing in the corridor.

"It depends," Fisher said with a burst of frankness. "There"s no particular secret about it. The feelings of the widow, of course, are concerned. There is, so to speak, the honor of the family. Those things are sentimental matters, but more than that, there may be a very material cash consideration involved. There was life insurance of something like five hundred thousand dollars. The insurance policies provided that in the event of a death by accidental means, die amount of die policies would be doubled."

"You mean," Griff asked, "if it should appear Cathay took poison accidentally, it would make a difference of five hundred diousand dollars to his estate?"

"I am not prepared to go that far," Fisher said. "It depends somewhat upon die facts surrounding the ad-ministration of the poison. I believe that the authorities hold that a death by accidental means implies that die means by which the death is brought about must be accidental. In other words, an accidental death is not a deadi by accidental means. It"s radier a fine distinction widi which the layman is not ordinarily interested, aldiough he should be, because a large number of persons have similar clauses in their insurance policies."

"A most interesting legal point," Griff said, apparently intending to pursue die subject further.

Fisher suddenly smiled.

"Well," he said, "I'm standing here gabbing like

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some gossipy woman. I've got work to do, and I pre-sume you gentlemen have, too. It was a pleasure to have seen you."

He bowed, smiled, turned abruptly to the left, strode down the corridor, paused and knocked on the door of a room.

Griff and Bleeker stood by the elevator where die lawyer had left them, watching him attentively.

The door of the room opened a few inches. A woman"s voice said, "What is it?"

The lawyer"s booming voice came down die corridor, plainly audible to die ears of his listeners.

"You," he said, "were a witness to the will of Frank Appleton. Mr. Appleton is dead. There is a contest on concerning his will. I am an attorney from Riverview who represents the Appleton heirs. It is important that I should talk with you. You"ll excuse me for not telephoning before I came up, but ...

"But I don't know any Mr. Appleton," the woman"s voice said.

"I beg your pardon," the lawyer insisted, "but this is Room 927, is it not?"

"It is," she said.

"And you"re registered here?" Fisher asked.

"Certainly I'm registered here," she said. "I'm Virginia Stratton, and I don't know any person by the name of Appleton, I don't know anyone in Riverview, and I didn"t sign any will as a witness."

"Most strange," said die lawyer. "I can"t understand such a similarity in names. You"ve got die same name as the witness to the will, and I was advised by detectives whom I employed to locate die missing witness that you were registered here in the hotel."

"Well," said the woman"s voice, "I don't know anything about the will. It"s probably a mistake in identity. If you"ll pardon me, I'm dressing."

The door slammed.

Fisher stood for a moment as diough undecided what course to pursue, then shrugged his shoulders, turned, and walked down die corridor toward die two men who were waiting at the elevator.

The lawyer"s smile held just die proper amount of apologetic sheepishness.

"Not often," he said, "that my detectives make a mistake like that. I keep the best firm in the city, and that chase down witnesses and addresses for me. This was just one of those unusual and unfortunate circumstances of a similarity in names."

He pushed his finger on die bell-button for die elevator.

"You"re going down?" asked Griff.

The lawyer nodded.

"You were mentioning something about insurance," Griff said. "Who is die beneficiary under die insurance policies?"

"The wife, Mrs. Cadiay," die lawyer said. "She"s also beneficiary under die will, but there are certain provisions in die will that I didn"t like. I warned Cathay against them."

"Can you discuss them?" Griff asked.

"It might be a little irregular," Fisher told him, "but I don't mind telling you that the one that I objected to most strenuously was the gift to his chauffeur —a matter of fifteen thousand dollars in cash."

"He was quite attached to his chauffeur?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders, "You can draw your own conclusions," he said.

"How long had die chauffeur been widi him?"

"Not quite a year."

Griff frowned.

"Isn"t that rather unusual?" he said.

"It is most unusual," die lawyer said.

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"I am wondering," said Griff with his eyes narrowed, "if perhaps the gift in the will was not to insure silence on the part of the chauffeur, concerning some fact about which he might have known, rather than because of friendship?"

The elevator came to the ninth floor.

"You," said the lawyer, "are at liberty to draw your own conclusions."

"And," Griff said slowly, his eyes slitted thoughtfully, "if I had been tricked into making any such provisions in a will, I would dislike to be careless about leaving medicine around. That is, medicine that I was going to take. Fifteen thousand dollars in cash might be quite a temptation to the average chauffeur."

The lawyer stepped into the elevator, bowed formally.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you both have the privilege of reading my mind, but you will both remember that I have made no expression of opinion concerning the subject matter of our discussion."

The elevator door slammed shut and dropped down the shaft.

Gi iff stood by the shaft, watching the arrow of the indicator. . "We"ll see what floor he stops at," he said.

The hand of the indicator came to die seventh floor and paused.

Griff raced for the stairs.

"Come on," he said.

The men ran down two flights of stairs, came out in the corridor of the seventh floor, looked up and down. There was no sign of the lawyer. They ran to the place where the corridor made a right angle turn and looked to the left. The lawyer was just entering a room.

Griff chuckled.

"This," he said, "is going to be good."

Upon swiftly noiseless feet, he led the way to the room into which die attorney had disappeared and tapped on the door.

There was a moment of silence. Then there sounded surreptitious rustlings, the hissing of a whisper.

Griff knocked again.

A young woman opened die door, staring at them with alert, dark eyes.

"Miss Mokley?" asked the criminologist.

She nodded.

"We want to talk with you," said Griff, "and the fact that Mr. Fisher is also here doesn"t need to matter in the least."

CHAPTER XVIII

CHARLES FISHER TWISTED HIS tIPS IN A

sheepish smile.

"Gentlemen," he said, "may I congratulate you upon your perspicacity."

Griff met his gaze steadily.

"I want to congratulate you," he said, "upon your quick presence of mind. I wasn"t certain that you had seen us there in die lobby when we entered die hotel."

"Will you please," said die young woman in tones of icy dignity, "explain to me die meaning of diis— all diree of you."

Fisher"s smile faded from his face. He glanced sig-nificantly at Griff.

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"Gentlemen," he said, "I had, as you know, just entered the room when you knocked. I had not had an opportunity to state the purpose of my errand to Miss Mokley. I think that you will, perhaps, benefit far more if you let me ask the questions. After I have finished, you are, of course, at liberty to ask any questions that you wish."

Griff nodded.

"I'm not so certain," Bleeker said, "but what ...

"Naturally," Griff broke in, "Mr. Fisher knows more about the matter than we do. He"s in a position to ask more intelligent questions."

"Thank you," said Fisher with dignity.

"I am still waiting," said the young woman, "to know what this is all about."

Fisher faced her and stared accusingly into her alert black eyes.

"When you were arrested a few days ago and gave the name of Mary Briggs to the police," he said, "and insisted that you were a hitch-hiker, you must have known that eventually you were going to be called upon to make a more complete explanation."

The young woman stared at him with eyes that slowly widened. Her lips parted, her quick breathing showed her sudden agitation. She took two steps and dropped into a chair, as though the strength had left her knees.

"How did you find out?" she asked.

Fisher"s smile was the smile of a vigorous attorney, who is about to embark upon the cross-examination of a helpless witness, a witness who is hopelessly trapped before the examination even starts.

"Just how we found out about you," he said, "doesn"t matter. What we are primarily interested in, is the reason for your falsehood to the police."

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"Need you ask?" she inquired. "Naturally, I didn"t want to get mixed up in a crime. They rather suspected I was a female bandit who had been holding up service stations. After that, they got the idea that my companion was on the dodge, and had been driving a car while intoxicated. You can imagine how sweet a position I"d have been in to have had my picture on the front pages of the newspapers, as the woman who was held under suspicion of being the bobbed-haired bandit who had been robbing service stations, and who had been picked up while driving with a man who was intoxicated."

"The name, then," he said, "that you gave the police was false?" "Of course, it was false."

Fisher suddenly grew accusing. He stood with his feet spread apart. His big frame seemed to be crouching, as though ready to spring. His right arm was extended, flexed at the elbow. His right forefinger pointed accusingly at the girl and was held less than a foot from her face.

"I am going to give you one chance," he said, "and one chance only to show your good faith in this matter. Do you know anything about prison, young woman?"

Her eyes had lost their glittering assurance. She was no longer sure of herself. She spoke with a voice that quavered.

"Why," she asked, "should I know about prison?" "Because," he said, "that"s where you are going, unless you are very, very careful. It happens, young woman, that I am an attorney. I am an attorney who is representing the estate of Frank B. Cathay. Frank B. Cathay is the man who was impersonated by this companion who was with you."

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"Yes," she said in a weak voice.

"I am going to give you one opportunity, and only one opportunity," Fisher bellowed. "I want the truth and I want the whole truth. You gave the police a false name. You also gave the police a false story about being a hitch-hiker."

She nodded mutely.

"I want you," Fisher said, "to tell the whole story. I don't want you to spare yourself. I want the story from beginning to end."

"I wasn"t guilty of anything," she said. "I only ..."

"You don't know whether you were guilty of anything or not," Fisher boomed. "You made yourself an accomplice. You were an accessory after the fact. You lied to the police when they were making an investiga-tion. Therefore, in the eyes of the law you are equally guilty with the man whom you were assisting. You as-sisted him to escape, unscathed, from a police net. You doubtless realize now that this man was not Frank B. Cathay at all, but was an impostor. I may further tell you that this man cashed a large check at the hotel where he. was staying. The check was drawn upon the bank in Riverview where Mr. Cathay keeps his account. The check was signed, apparently, with the signature of Frank B. Cathay. It was a clever forgery, an excellent forgery—a forgery which had been long rehearsed.

"This impersonation was no casual matter, no idle vagary of a common crook. It was a thing which had long been planned in this man"s mind, something that had been carefully thought out. We know of that check which was cashed. We do not know what else was done. There may have been other checks cashed, there may have been other frauds perpetrated. It is even possible that this man had, on previous occasions, represented himself as being Frank B. Cathay, and

sowed the seeds of crimes which have yet to make themselves manifest. Therefore, young woman, you have definitely placed yourself beyond the pale of the law."

Fisher glowered at her.

"But," she said, "I was entirely innocent..."

"You were not innocent," the lawyer interrupted. "You were technically guilty. You were both an accomplice and accessory after the fact. You assisted a felon to violate the law. Therefore, the law says you yourself are guilty."

"But I didn"t know that about the law," she said.

"Ignorance of the law excuses no one," Fisher told her. "Now, under those circumstances, and with a complete knowledge of that which has happened, I am going to call upon you to make a complete and ac-curate statement of that which occurred. There can be no ignorance, on your part, of the law now. You understand what it is, do you not?"

"Yes," she said.

"You understand, if you tell any lies now you are making yourself an accessory after the fact, and that that is just as serious as though you had committed the crime yourself."

"Yes," she said, "if you say so."

"I do say so," he said. "I am a lawyer and I know. Here, I will give you one of my cards."

He pulled a card case from his pocket, fished out a card, whipped it about in a flourishing half circle, and presented it to her, holding it in front of her face.

"Take it," he said.

His booming voice filled the room. He was not shouting. It was rather as though ordinary conversation coming in over a radio had been so amplified by a dynamic speaker that sound filled every nook and corner oi the room.

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The girl took the card with a quivering hand, he stared at it steadily for several seconds, then her hand dropped uncertainly to her lap.

"What is it you want?" she asked.

"I want the truth," he said. "I want the whole truth. I want it told without any attempt to spare yourself, and I may say further that these gentlemen also want the truth. They too are interested in the case, and they will be witnesses to every word that you say. If you depart from the truth in the slightest degree, I shall see that you are prosecuted, and these gentlemen will see that you are prosecuted."

The lawyer turned to Bleeker.

"That is right, gentlemen?" he asked.

Bleeker nodded.

The lawyer turned back to the girl with the lashing fury of a pouncing cat returning to the attack upon a crippled mouse.

"Tell us," he said, "what happened."

The girl"s voice was weak and low-pitched, but came steadily. The words were uttered with tense, nervous rapidity.

"I told the police the truth about one thing," she said. "It was a pick-up. I don't want you to think that I'm the type of girl who falls for a pick-up. I don't ordinarily. But this was exceptional. I don't know how it happened.

"It happened there at the hotel. The man was regis-tered as Mr. Cathay, Frank B. Cathay of Riverview. I didn"t know at the time who he was, or even whether he was staying at the hotel. It started as an accident. I brushed against him in the elevator when the cage gave an unexpected start. I apologized, just one of those routine "pardon me"s". He said "not at all" and his fingers closed for a moment about my arm.

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"I don't know what it was about the physical contact that thrilled me. It was something, then his voice had something to do with it. He had a beautiful voice. "I got off at my floor and he got off at the same floor. I think he was trying to pick me up. I thought so at the time, but I'm free, white and twenty-one, and after all, I didn"t see any reason why I shouldn"t"pursue the acquaintanceship a little farther if I wanted to. But I wasn"t easy, I didn"t give him even a glance as I went into my room and closed and locked the door. He got the number of my room, and, of course, found out who I was.

"Then, later on, in the lobby, before dinner, I saw him again. He didn"t seem at all fresh. Didn"t seem inclined to take undue advantage of what had happened between us, but l4tould see that he was lonely. Appar-ently he didn"t know what to do widi himself. He"d read for a while, and then he"d throw die magazine away and smoke a cigarette, and then he"d throw the cigarette away and pace around the lobby a little bit. I was reading a magazine. I lived there in the hotel, you know. I guess that"s the way you located me.

"I let him catch my eye finally, and gave him just the faintest suggestion of a smile. He came over and we got to talking. He seemed a very fine fellow the more I talked with him, the more I liked him. I was lonely myself. I"d been going with a steady and he"d stepped out on me. I was on the loose. This man suggested dinner. I ate with him there at the hotel. Then he suggested a ride. He said he had a car parked near the hotel.

"We rode around for a while. This man didn"t seem to know the town very well, and I piloted him into a couple of bars where there was a little life. We had two or three drinks, and then I suggested a dance. He

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said he had an appointment back at the hotel. We were on the way back and a car in front of us made a left turn. This man I was with didn"t see the signal, and smashed into the bumper of the other car. It didn"t amount to much. There was no damage done, but it brought a cop over to bawl him out for poor driving. Then the cop smelled liquor on his breath, and that started an argument. My man started getting rough with the officer, and the next thing I knew, die cop climbed on the running board and told us to drive him to police headquarters, that we were going to be questioned about some stick-ups of service stations.

"Right away, I had visions of my picture being in die paper, and I whispered to him to remember that I was a hitch-hiker pick-up, and he didn"t even know my name."

She paused for a moment and stared pathetically at the attorney, as diough begging him with her eyes to believe her.

Fisher, however, remained stern-visaged, and un-compromising.

"Tell it all," he said, "every bit of it."

"That"s all," she said, "you know die rest."

Fisher shook his head impatiently.

"This man had given you a name," he said, "when you met him?"

"Of course," she said.

"What was that name?"

"Frank B. Cathay."

"Did he tell you he was from Riverview?"

"Yes."

"Did you know he cashed a check?"

"Only a small check. I think it was a fifty dollar check. He got some money before we went out."

"And that"s all?" asked Fisher.

"That"s all," she said.

Fisher turned to Griff, dien looked at Bleeker.

"Satisfied?" he asked.

Griff shook his head slightly.

"Neither am I," said Fisher.

Fisher whirled once more to the attack.

"Immediately after that," he said, "YOU left the hotel, you came here. You registered under die name of Stella Mokley."

"Yes," she said.

"Why did you do that?"

"I didn"t want to be traced," she said.

"It wasn"t your name," Fisher said. "Your real name was the one that you were registered under at the hotel, Edith Nevers. The name Mary Briggs that you gave the police was merely an alias you thought up on the spur of die moment. Thie name Stella Mokley that you assumed when you came to this hotel, was also an alias."

She nodded.

"And your new-found friend," he said, "was the one who paid the bill."

"No," she said, "I did it myself."

"Don"t lie to me," thundered Fisher, "I've told you what"s going to happen if you lie. I am telling you that die man who posed as Frank B. Cathay is the one who footed the bill."

She lowered her eyes and regarded die tip of her shoe.

"Isn"t it a fact," Fisher insisted, his forefinger once more pointing at die girl"s face.

"Yes," she said in a low voice.

"Ah," he said, "now we"re getting somewhere."

She said nothing, but there was a little shiver that rippled her shoulders.

Fisher sneered.

"You would want to stop there," he said. "You

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would want us to believe that was all. Now go ahead and tell us all of it. Tell us the rest of it. Don"t try to spare yourself, or if you do, so help me heaven, I"ll have you in a cell before another hour has passed."

"You know the rest," she whimpered.

"Go ahead," he said, "tell it to me. I may surmise the rest or I may know it. That"s neither here nor there. You tell me."

"He put me in this hotel," she said. "He told me that it had been just a prank, that he had a wife and that he couldn't afford to have me interviewed by the newspapers. Then, after the newspapers came out, I knew that he wasn"t Cathay at all. The newspapers said he was a pick-pocket."

"You discussed that matter with him?"

"Of course."

"What did he say?"

"He said that the impersonation was entirely inno-cent," she said, "that he was trying to help a man get a good position, that this person had to have first class references from Mr. Cathay that it was necessary for Mr. Cathay to sign some sort of a bond. He said that Cathay wouldn"t do it that he would give references, but he wouldn"t give the kind of references that were required, and he wouldn"t sign the bond."

"So this man "was impersonating Cathay and was going to see that his friend got the job?"

"Yes."

"Who was his friend?"

"I don't know. It was someone he called Frank."

"Go on," Fisher said belligerently, "come clean. Who was that friend?"

"All I know," she said, "is that it was someone who was called Frank."

"You"re lying," Fisher said. "You know more than that. Who was that friend?"

"Just Frank," she said.

Her eyes refused to meet those of the attorney.

"Who ... was ... that ... friend? ... the lawyer said with slow insistence.

She raised her eyes to his, said desperately, "I can tell you something more, but he told me that he"d find me and kill me if I ever told anyone."

"Never mind that," Fisher said. "What is it you"re going to tell me?"

"I can tell you," she said, "that Frank lived at Riverview."

"That he lived in Riverview?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"Because of the telephone calls."

"What telephone calls?"

"A telephone call that the man put through from my room here in the hotel."

"When did he put it through?"

"Just last night."

"And he called this person in Riverview?"

"Yes."

"Do you know the number?"

"Yes," she said in a voice that was almost inaudible.

"Was was that number?"

"The number," she said, "was the number of Mr. Cathay"s residence. I took occasion to look it up in the book, and then, after I found it out, I got frightened. I thought that perhaps it was something that was a lot more serious than I had at first thought I didn"t know what to do. I was commencing to get suspicious of this man."

"He didn"t continue to go under the name of Cathay after you found out about the impersonation?" Fisher asked.

"No," she said in a weak voice.

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"What was his name?"

"Malone," she said.

"His first name?"

"Pete."

"Who else did he call besides Frank? Did he seem to have any other person here in the city that he was reporting to?"

"Yes."

"Who was it?"

"A woman."

"Who was the woman?"

"I think," she said, "it was his wife."

"What was her first name?"

"Her first name was Blanche."

She gave a sigh, dropped forward in the chair and put her hands to her face.

The lawyer continued his aggressive cross-examina-tion.

"Where did this woman live?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said.

"None of that," he told her, "or it"s going to be just too bad."

She dropped her hands from her face, jumped to her feet, screamed at him, "I don't know! I don't knowl I don't know! I tell you I don't know! Don"t you stand there and tell me I lie!"

Fisher stepped forward, put a heavy hand on her shoulder, pushed her back into the chair.

"Sit down," he said, "and tell me where this woman lives."

The girl pressed her lips together in stony silence.

"Go on," the lawyer said, "I'm waiting."

"I told you I don't know," she said doggedly.

"You"re either going to tell us where that woman lived " said Fisher, "or you"re going to go to jail."

"I think," Bleeker interrupted, "we may be able to ..."

Griff whirled and clamped his hand on the publisher"s arm.

"Keep out of it," he said.

"Go on," Fisher said, staring steadily at Stella Mok-ley, "you"ve got your chance—either take it or leave it."

"I've already told you," she said, "I don't know."

Fisher strode across the room to the telephone, jerked the receiver off the hook with an air of brisk finality.

"I want," he said, "to talk widi police headquarters."

The girl gave a half scream, stared at him with eyes that were wide and round.

"Out on Elm Street," she said "922 East Elm Street."

The attorney spoke suavely into the telephone.

"Never mind," he said. "I wanted to try and find out about a parking tag I received, but I guess I had better call in person."

He dropped die receiver back on its hook and turned to the girl.

"That"s better," he said. "Now I want you to under-stand one diing If you hold out on me on anything, I don't care how little it is, or how trivial it is, you"re going to go right to jail. Do you understand that?"

"Yes," she said, "I do now."

"I want to know," he told her, "who this Peter Malone talked with in the Cathay residence."

"With Frank Bliss, the chauffeur," she said.

"Was there any conversation about medicine, or sickness, or poison?"

"No," she said. "They talked about things that you

188 THE CLUE OF THE FORGOTTEN MURDER

couldn't understand. Pete would say, "Did you do what I suggested, Frank," and then Frank would evidently say, "Yes," or "No," and Pete would say, "Where"s the party we were talking about yesterday?" and Frank would make some reply, and then Pete would say, "Do you think that any suspicion has been aroused," or something like that. The conversations were just like that. I'm not trying to tell you exactly what they were, because I can"t remember, but it was something like that things that no one could understand that had been listening in."

Fisher scowled at her moodily.

"I'm wondering if you"re telling the truth about" that," he said.

"Yes," she said in a tone of voice that indicated all of the resistance had left her, "I'm telling you the truth about everything now. It doesn"t stand to reason that they"d let me in on dieir secrets. If they had, I"d probably have been killed by this time."

"And what happened to Pete?" the attorney asked.

"He left. There were some telephone calls that came in late last night and one early this morning. Pete called Frank at the Cathay residence before he left and said "I've done my part of it, now it"s up to you to do yours," or something like that, and then he packed his suitcase."

"Now, did these telephone calls take place from your room here?" Fisher asked.

"Some of them did."

"How about the others?"

"They were from other places. Pete didn"t, seem to want to call from any one telephone too much. We"d be out to dinner in restaurants and he"d put in calls from the restaurants, or sometimes he"d stop in drug stores and put through the calls."

"Are you holding out anything on us?" asked

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Fisher. "Is there anything else that you know that you haven't told us?"

"I've told you every single thing," she said, raising her eyes mournfully, "and when Pete finds it out, he"s going to kill me."

"Evidently," Fisher said, "you think that this man Pete wouldn"t stop at murder?"

"He wouldn"t stop at anything," she said.

"Why did you keep on with him?"

"I don't know1," she said, "there was some fascination that he had for me. I don't know what it was. Something that pulled me to him. It was an attraction at first and after that it was fear."

"What were you doing when you first met this man?" Fisher asked.

"I"d been out of work for some little time," she said slowly. "I was borrowing money from friends."

"What sort of friends?"

"Men friends."

"You mean friends that you"d picked up?"

"They"d pick me up," she said.

"That"s better," Fisher told her. "Now we"re getting the picture."

He turned to the two men.

"Have you gentlemen," he asked, "any questions you want to ask?"

Griff shook his head. "I'm satisfied," he said.

Bleeker hesitated for a moment, then said, "No, there"s nothing I can think of."

Griff turned to the girl.

"I want her promise," he said, "that she won't leave this room for at least an hour."

Fisher turned to the girl.

"You heard what he said?"

"Who is ht?" she asked. "And why do I have to do what he says?"

190 THE CLUE OF THE FORGOTTEN MURDER

"Because I'm elling you to," Fisher said. "He"s working on the same side of the case that I am."

"Very well," she said. "I"ll promise."

"Naturally," Griff remarked, turning to the attorney, "we should look up this Malone woman."

"She comes next," Fisher agreed.

"Can you," asked Griff, "tell me what this thing is all about?"

"You know almost as much as I do," the lawyer told him. "I have been having some Hifficulty tracing this young woman. I finally succeeded. I think that there is a very deep-laid plot afoot. I am afraid that the plot has already gone too far."

"You know this chauffeur well?" Griff asked.

"Not well enough," the lawyer said. "I will admit that I overlooked a bet there. I thought that there was something mysterious about the bequest to the chauf-feur which Mr. Cathay insisted on putting in the will. I have thought from time to time that the chauffeur was a little too sure of himself, that his manner at times bordered on insolence, but I haven't taken the trouble to make any complete investigation. I see now that I should have done that, as Cathay"s attorney and as a friend of the family."

Griff nodded. His eyes were half closed.

"I suggest," he said, "that we discuss this matter further in the lobby of the hotel. Stella Mokley has promised us to remain here. I feel certain that she will do so. I think that now she realizes only too well the seriousness of the crime in which she has become involved."

The girl nodded her head.

Fisher took Griff"s arm, nodded to Bleeker. The three men left the room and walked slowly down the corridor.

CHAPTER XIX

"GENTLEMEN," SAID FISHER IN A LOW VOICE which showed the intensity of his concentration, "you can commence to appreciate the real situation. Here we have a crook whose name, evidently, is Peter Malone. He has undoubtedly made a study of the life and habits of Frank B. Cathay. Why, I do not know. He cashed a small check while he was masquerading as Cathay. I do not know the reason for that, unless it was, perhaps, to test out his signature.

"I am commencing to think that this scheme is something that has been years in brewing that for some sinister purpose, Peter Malone is about to confuse his identity with that of Frank B. Cathay."

"But," Griff pointed out, "Cathay is dead. A live man could not very well confuse his identity with a corpse."

"That is true," the lawyer said. "But, let us not lose sight of the salient and significant facts. Let me check them with you. First, Peter Malone takes steps to identify himself as Frank B. Cathay. He goes to the trouble of perfecting his signature so that it is an almost perfect forgery of the signature of Frank B. Cathay. He goes to the trouble of picking the pocket of Frank B. Cathay, in order to secure identifying cards. He goes to considerable expense in connection with the renting of an automobile and getting a room in a hotel where he can masquerade for a short time only as Cathay. While he is making tins masquerade, he cashes a small check. I ask you, therefore, what can possibly be die motive of such a crime?"

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Griff suddenly gave an exclamation.

"By Jove!" he said. "I have it!"

Fisher stared steadily at him.

"Wait a moment," he said, "and see if your conclu-sions check with mine."

"I was thinking," Griff said slowly, "that cashing the check might be much more important than the amount of cash received."

Bleeker frowned at the two men.

"I confess," he said, "I don't follow you."

Fisher"s nod became gloomily emphatic. " "Beyond any question," he said, "that is it"

"What is?" Bleeker asked.

The attorney turned to him.

"You are a newspaper publisher, Mr. Bleeker. I am acting as attorney for Mrs. Cathay, and for the Cathay estate. My duty to my client probably requires me to keep silent, and yet we have been thrown together in this investigation sufficiently so that I feel it is, in a measure, a joint undertaking. I am, therefore, going to outline this theory to you, a theory which I feel certain will be amply supported by proof. I am going to ask you, however, for your word of honor—that you will allow no rumor of this to creep into your paper until we are ready to make the announcement."

"Fair enough," Griff said to Bleeker. "Promise him."

"I"ll promise no such thing," Bleeker said, "until I know what I am promising."

Griff regarded the attorney thoughtfully.

"Couldn"t you go one step further, Mr. Fisher," he said, "and promise Mr. Bleeker that, while he must refrain from publishing until you"re ready, that you"ll see his newspaper gets the news in advance of any competitive paper?"

"1 can do that easily enough," Fisher agreed.

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"I'm making no promises," Bleeker stubbornly in-sisted. "I"ll listen to what you have to say and dien" I"ll decide when it will be published."

Griff reached out to press the button which would call the elevator.

"Don"t do that just yet," Fisher said. "I want to think."

He moved slightly apart from the two men, started pacing thoughtfully up and down die carpeted corridor. Bleeker caught Griff"s eyes.

"I make no blind promises," he said. "What is your theory?"

"I"d prefer you hear it from die lips of the attorney," Griff said, "but evidently we"re faced with a conspiracy of murder. I think Fisher is going to tell us about it. It wouldn"t have hurt you to have given him that promise. I can assure you you won't suffer by it."

"I'm not relying on your assurance," the publisher said. "I'm making no promises."

Fisher apparently reached a sudden decision. He turned and strode along the corridor until he faced the two men.

"Gentlemen," he said in tones of quiet determination, "promise or no promise, I am going to tell you my theory of diis case. It is a theory which is amply substantiated by the facts. In the developments which are bound to follow we will have need of some friendly newspaper that understands what is back of the entire situation. I can justify the disclosures which I am about to make upon that ground. It is vital to my client that she have some newspaper that understands die complete situation.

"For some reason, this man, Peter Malone, wishes to take the identity of Frank B. Cadiay, not for something that is to be done in die future, but for something that has been done in die past. He has, over a

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period of years, perfected his signature so that it re-sembles that of Frank B. Cathay. However, he knows that there is likely to be some question as to the signa-ture. Therefore, he desires to have an identical signature for purposes of comparison which handwriting experts can uncover among the supposedly genuine documents of Frank B. Cathay. For that reason, it becomes imperative that he cash a check under the forged signature that such a check be found among the effects of Frank B. Cathay, as unquestionably a genuine check. He takes the trouble to go, therefore, to a hotel. He knows he will require some cards of identification. He takes the trouble to pick Cathay"s pocket of these cards. With that as a background, he cashes a check at the hotel. That was all that he intended to do. That was the purpose of his impersonation. He then intended to disappear.

"Unfortunately, however, he was of an amorous dis-position, as is so frequently the case with criminals of his type. He allowed himself to become involved with a young woman who, according to her own account, made things very easy for him. In fact, considering her story in the light of her background, she was perhaps the aggressor in making the acquaintanceship. The man saw no reason why he should not yield to the temptation of the moment, but fate intervened. In company with the young woman, he was arrested for a minor traffic violation. He was taken to police headquarters. He tried desperately to secure his release, without giving the name of Cathay. He might have done so had the police not checked up the registration of the car he was driving and found that it had been rented under the name of Cathay. Having gone that far, there was only one thing to do. That was to rely upon the identity of Cathay to get, him released from jail as quickly as possible."

"But," Bleeker objected, "that doesn"t make sense-it isn"t logic." "Why isn"t it logic?" the attorney asked. "Because, if this Peter Malone wanted to establish his signature as that of Frank Cathay, he defeated his own purpose. Just as soon as Cathay would receive his statement from the bank, he would recognize that the check was one he had not given, and that it was a forgery." Fisher"s smile was just a little patronizing. "I think, Mr. Bleeker," he said, "that you have missed the deadly significance of this entire matter, but I feel certain that your companion, Mr. Griff, is keenly aware of it. Shall you tell him, Mr. Griff, or shall I?"

"You tell him," Griff said.

"At the time the check was cashed," Fisher said, speaking slowly and with grave emphasis, "the plot, whatever it was, was about to culminate. This man, Malone, knew that Cathay would not be in a position to make any complaint. In other words, he had anticipated the death of Frank B. Cathay, in which event the canceled check, with the forged signature, would be found among his effects. A check-up of the hotel register would show that Cathay was registered there that night that the man who had cashed the check had exhibited documentary evidence showing that he was the real Frank Cathay. Of course, this matter would not come up until months after Cathay"s death, when the estate had been probated and the claim of this man Malone, whatever the nature of it, would be presented against the estate and brought up to trial. As you are doubtless aware, litigation takes time and is subject to annoying delay.

"The attorneys representing the Malone claim, whatever its nature, would demand that the estate

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produce all documents and vouchers which were in its possession. The canceled check could not have been destroyed because it would have come into die posses-sion of the estate instead of the possession of Cathay before his death. It would, therefore, make an excellent demonstration of the genuineness of the forged signature."

"And what," asked Bleeker, "is the nature of diis claim that Malone is to make?"

"I wish I knew," Fisher said. "I can surmise and I can suspect, but my obligations to my client, gentlemen, prevent me from communicating my suspicions or my surmises. It even goes so far as to seal my lips upon facts, save such facts as I believe I may communicate without detriment to my client."

Griff stared in fixed concentration at the patterned carpet of the hotel hallway.

"I think," he said slowly, "that I see what you have in mind."

"I am quite sure you do," Fisher said readily enough, "but I cannot confirm your surmises, and I do not wish to. You can, however, appreciate the importance of getting Frank Bliss into custody and getting an interview with Mrs. Blanche Malone before Peter Malone is able to get in touch with her. Naturally, also, it becomes vitally important to apprehend Peter Malone."

"Don"t you think," Griff asked, "that Peter Malone has done all that he cares to do that he has fully performed his part in the scheme of things and is now ready to vanish?"

"I think," Fisher said, "he already has vanished."

"Your plan?" asked Griff.

"I think," Fisher said, "we should call upon Mrs. Blanche Malone."

Bleeker started to say something but Griff checked him with a pressure of thumb and forefinger on the publisher"s elbow.

"Do you," asked the criminologist, "know anything about an Esther Ordway, or Alice Lorton, as the case may be?"

Fisher scowled.

"No," he said. "Why?"

"Only," Griff told him, "because she is mixed into the case in some way. That is, the woman is mixed in the Morden murder case. She and a male companion by the name of Kenneth Boone were taken into custody today by the police and are now being interrogated. It is possible that she has already made some statements."

"You consider the murder of Morden connected with the plan of this Peter Malone?" the lawyer inquired.

"I think," Griff said, "there cannot be the slightest doubt about it. Morden found out something. He was murdered because it was vital that this information Morden had acquired be suppressed, and the conspir-ators decided to silence Morden"s lips before he could convey that information to his newspaper."

"I think you"re right," die attorney said, "but I do not care, at the present time, to allow myself to get side-tracked on die matter of this Morden murder. After all, you must admit, it may have been due to other causes. In other words, it may be one of Uiose coincidences which happen in real life and which are so baffling to an investigator. For instance, it is very possible that this woman, Esther Ordway, actually had no connection with die Cadiay case whatever, but that Morden thought she had some information which would be of value, or Morden may have merely

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scraped an acquaintance with her in a social way. Her male companion may have been exceedingly jealous. He may have murdered Morden in a fit of jealousy, and, because Morden was investigating this Cathay case, we would naturally jump to the conclusion that he lost his life because of the case he was investigating.

"No, gentlemen, while I think that theory is, perhaps, sound, I must refuse to be misled by it. I prefer to keep to the main trail."

"But," Bleeker said, "we have evidence that Cathay left his car near the apartment house where this woman lived that he spent some time in her apartment, and ..."

"That is what I am conceding," Fisher said, "that the woman either had some contact with Cathay, or that Morden thought she had some contact widi Cathay. It makes but little difference which. My point remains unshaken, that Morden"s death may have nothing whatever to do with the conspiracy that I am investigating."

Griff nodded.

"I see your point," he said, "although I am not inclined to agree with it."

"Whether you agree with it or not," Fisher said, "you must admit the logic of refusing to be drawn from a hot trail. We are now in a position to run down the conspiracy against Cathay. We have brought home to Frank Bliss a grave suspicion of having been implicated in the murder of Frank Cathay."

"You think it was a murder?" Griff asked.

"Beyond any doubt."

"Go on," Griff said.

"We have," die lawyer went on, "secured the address of Blanche Malone, and I say to you gentlemen that it is by no means improbable Mrs. Malone is the

one who is to profit by the years of preparation which have been made by Peter Malone that it is not incon-ceivable that Malone was prepared to make it appear that he and Cathay were one and the same person, and that Mrs. Malone, her marriage, once having been established, is, in fact, the surviving wife of Frank Cathay." Bleeker"s eyes sparkled with sudden understanding. "Good heavens!" he said, "that must be it! But can it hold up in view of the testimony of this young woman?"

"That," Fisher said, "remains to be seen. But, of course, that is the thing I am trying to do—to thwart this conspiracy. I think, gentlemen, it will be better if I go to see Mrs. Malone, without having you along. The interests of my client are vitally involved. I pledge you to make a complete disclosure of whatever I find out. After I have talked with her, you may talk with her, but I think you will agree it may be much more possible to get a complete statement from her if I talk with her alone, than if I have an audience." Griff nodded.

"That," he said, "is fair enough." "Where," asked Bleeker, "can we get in touch with you after you have finished your interview widi Mrs. Malone?"

"I would suggest," Fisher said, "that you go to Mr. Griff"s office and wait there. I will telephone as soon as I have discovered anything of importance."

Griff took a card from his case, scribbled a telephone number on the back of it and handed it to the attorney. "Call me at this number," he said.

"Now," said Fisher, "we"re commencing to get some-where."

He jabbed his finger against the call button on tfae side of die elevator shaft.

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The men rode down in the elevator in silence-Fisher strode toward the door.

"I"ll call you," he said, and dien caught the eye of the door-man. "Taxi," he called.

Griff turned to Bleeker.

"You," he said, "have got your work cut out for you. You have got to get men to locate Frank Bliss, the chauffeur for Mrs. Cathay. Your men must take Bliss in custody. If he will accompany them of his own free will, they should hold him somewhere where he is safe, where no rival reporters can get to him. If he refuses to accompany them, then they must make some charge against him and have him taken at once to police headquarters. It is going to be something in the nature of a responsibility. You will have to stand back of the charge."

"Shall I charge him with murder?" Bleeker asked.

"Charge him with anything," Griff answered. "It"s going to be a rather awkward procedure. I dare not do it. The man would undoubtedly bring a suit against me for malicious prosecution and false arrest. But the situation is different with a newspaper. You can probably tip off some friendly officer, and the man can be taken into custody without a formal complaint, or, if you make a formal complaint, you doubtless have ways of discouraging a prosecution if the complaint should prove unfounded."

"You think it necessary he should be apprehended?" Bleeker asked.

"I consider it very necessary."

"In clearing up Morden"s murder?"

"In clearing up Morden"s murder."

"Then," said Bleeker grimly, "we"ll get him."

He left Griff and strode to the telephone booths.

While Bleeker was telephoning. Griff paced slowly and meditatively up and down the space between die

hotel desk and the row of telephone booths. His man-ner was that of one who makes a final check of various and sundry bits of information before proceeding to final action.

"That"s taken care of," the publisher announced, emerging from the telephone boodi. Griff walked to the hotel exit with the man. "It remains," he said, "to investigate die discovery which led to Morden"s death."

He hailed a taxi at the door. "Monadnock Building on Ninth and Central," he said. As they entered the cab, Griff looked at his watch. "It"s twenty minutes to five," he said. "We will probably be able to see the party we want at the office." Bleeker regarded him thoughtfully. "Ninth and Central," he said. "That"s where Mor-den went in the cab."

"Exactly," Griff agreed, "and it was that journey which brought about his death." "Why?" Bleeker asked.

"I am not making any guesses," Griff said, "but I would not be surprised if we found that the trail of Mrs. Blanche Malone led directly to die office of Edward Shillingby, a private detective."

"He was murdered by gangsters," Bleeker said. "Exactly," Griff commented, and then settled back into the cushions and wrapped a cloak of silence about him, a silence which he did not break until die pair stood in the corridor on the fifth floor of the Monadnock Building in front of an office marked "EDWARD SHI LLINGB Y—Investiga ti ons."

It was then that the criminologist said, almost casually, but widi a note of calm authority in his voice, "You will, Bleeker, please leave the talking to me." Griff opened the door and entered the room.

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A young woman, some twenty-three years of age, with alert brown eyes and quick, nervous mannerisms, looked up from a book of accounts which lay opened on a secretarial desk. A green shaded reading lamp flooding the book with brilliant light, a typewriter was at her right. There was a pile of bill-heads at one side of the typewriter, stamped envelopes on the other side.

"Mr. Shillingby?" Griff asked. "Mr. Shillingby is dead. I am his secretary. I am winding up his affairs, trying to collect some of his bank accounts."

Griff nodded. "Permit me," he said, "to introduce myself. I am Sidney C. Griff." "I've heard of you," she said. "Your name?" he asked. "Fay Bronson," she told him.

"The information that I want," Griff said, "is relatively simple, and yet quite important."

He took a picture from his pocket, placed it on the desk directly under the reading lamp.

"Have you," he asked, "ever seen this man before?" She stared at the picture, with frowning concentration, as she said, "There"s something vaguely familiar about him. I think I've seen him, but I can"t place him. Who is he?"

"His name," Griff said, "was Morden. He was a re-porter for The Blade. He was murdered. Perhaps you saw his picture in the newspaper."

She studied the picture carefully, slowly shook her head.

"No," she said, "I've seen him before somewhere. There"s an expression about the eyes that"s familiar." "But you can"t place him?" "No." "Perhaps," Griff told her, "it will come to you after

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a while. Now, let me ask you some questions about Mr. Shillingby. He was, I believe, murdered on the evening of March 19, is that right?"

"You"re interested professionally?" she asked.

"Very much so," he said.

"I hope," she told him, "you can do something about it. The police are getting ready to turn Lamp-son loose. There was only one witness—a man named Decker—and Lampson bribed Decker to fall down on the identification. I think you represented Decker, didn"t you?"

"Let"s pass that for the moment," Griff said. "Tell me precisely what happened, please."

She stared steadily at him for a moment, then said "Mr. Shillingby was employed to get some information concerning Lampson. He shadowed Lampson. On die night of the murder, a gray Cadillac car, with die left rear fender dented, drove up to the curb and parked. A gangster got out, approached Mr. Shillingby, fired several shots into his body, jumped in the car and drove away."

"And the witness—Decker?" Griff asked.

"You should know all about Decker," she said. "He was walking along the street a hundred yards or so behind Mr. Shillingby. The man in the gray Cadillac coupe thought at first Decker was the man he wanted. He slowed die car and poked out a gun. Then he realized his mistake and drove on."

"He didn"t get out of the machine?"

"No."

"But he did get out of die machine when he killed Mr. Shillingby?"

"Yes, I believe that"s right."

"Then," Griff said slowly, "the man who did die killing was someone Shillingby knew and in whom he had confidence."

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"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Because," he said, "Mr. Shillingby knew that he was in a position of danger. Yet, when this man stopped the car by the curb and approached Mr. Shillingby, Shillingby made no effort whatever to draw his gun or to protect himself."

"Yes," she said slowly, "I guess that"s right, although that hadn"t occurred to me before."

"Now then," Griff said, "can you tell me about a Mrs. Blanche Malone?"

She frowned thoughtfully.

"That name," she said, "is familiar."

"Could you perhaps look it up in your books?"

"Yes," she said dubiously, "I could."

"Please do so," he told her. "I can assure you it may make a great deal of difference."

She arose from behind the desk, moved to a card in-dex, opened a drawer, looked through several cards, crossed to a correspondence file, opened it, looked at several letters, then returned to the desk.

"A client wished a report upon that woman," she said.

"Did Mr. Shillingby make it?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell us the name of the client?"

"It was a bank."

"And I take it it was a bank in some distant city."

"Yes," she said, "it was."

"Would you object to giving us the name of the bank? I can assure you that it is important, Miss Bronson."

"It was," she said, "the Second Security Trust of El Paso, Texas."

"And just what did they want?" he asked.

"They said that Mrs. Malone was connected with an embezzler. They wanted to make certain that cer-

tain moneys which she had received did not come from an embezzler. She had been employed as a scrub woman for many years, trying desperately to make both ends meet. Then, suddenly, she seemed to have some money. The bank had been keeping in touch with her. Naturally, the bank was suspicious."

"And Mr. Shillingby made the investigation and reported to the bank?" "Yes."

"What did he report?"

"He reported that, apparently, her money came to her as the result of investments which she had made from her savings—very fortunate investments in cer-tain oil stocks."

"Just one more point," Griff said, "and that is about the work that Shillingby was doing when he was killed. He was getting information about Lampson?" "Yes."

"He was getting it for some other gangster?" "I didn"t think so at the time, but that seems to have been the case."

"I take it, it seems to be the case," Griff said, "because the client who employed Shillingby to shadow Lampson gave a fictitious name and address. When you tried to get in touch widi him, following Shillingby"s death, you found that die name he had given you was fictitious, that the address was fictitious, and that you were unable to get in touch with him." Abruptly her face lit up.

"Now," she said, "I remember where I saw that photograph you showed me." "The photograph of the man—Morden?" he asked. "Yes," she said.

"Tell us about it," Griff invited. "He was in here," she said, "a day or two after Mr. Shillingby"s deadi. He was very much interested in

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the identity of the man who had employed Mr. Shil-lingby. He wanted me to describe the man to him."

"Can you describe him?" asked Griff. "Did you see him?"

"Oh, yes," she said, "I saw him and can describe him. He was ..."

"Perhaps," he said, "I can save a little time here."

He took another photograph from his pocket and slid it across the desk under the bright rays of light which came from the desk lamp.

"Is that," he asked, "the person who employed Mr. Shillingby?"

"Good heavens, yes!" she exclaimed. "How did you know? Who is it? Tell me, can we get in touch with him?"

Bleeker crowded forward, to stare down at the photograph, and then gave a sudden exclamation.

The photograph was that of Frank B. Cathay.

CHAPTER XX

IT WAS GETTING DARK AS THE TWO MEN

climbed into the taxicab. The driver switched on the headlights as he slid the cab away from the curb.

Bleeker leaned forward to peer through the gathering darkness, searching Griff"s face as he poured forth eager questions, questions which, for the most part, the criminologist answered with short, terse sentences.

"What was Cathay"s interest in Lampson?"

"I doubt if he had any."

"Why was he poisoned, then?"

"He took the dose of poison deliberately," the crim-inologist remarked.

"Why?"

"So that he would have an alibi."

"An alibi for what?"

"Why, for his whereabouts when Morden was mur-dered."

"He knew, then, that Morden was to be murdered?"

"Yes."

"But why did he take poison to give himself an alibi?"

"He wanted to be ill in bed. He got an overdose of the drug he took."

"You mean it was administered to him purposely?"

"Yes."

"By whom?"

"That," Griff said, "remains to be determined."

"What are your plans?"

"We are going to try and prevent another murder."

"Who?"

"The young woman, Stella Mokley."

"Why should she be murdered?"

"Because she is too dangerous a witness to leave at large."

"But she has already told her story in the presence of witnesses. Whatever damage she could do has already been done."

Griff shrugged his shoulders.

"I would," he said irritably, "much prefer to con-centrate on that which is to happen, rather than to talk about that which has happened. Knowing so much, it is possible to anticipate that which is to happen if we concentrate. It is difficult to concentrate when one is talking or listening."

Bleeker stared for a moment at Griff, seemed on the point of making some retort, then dropped back to

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the cushions of the cab and remained silent until the cab had taken a position in front of the hotel where they had located Stella Mokley.

"You"ve got your gun? The one that I gave you?" Griff asked.

Bleeker nodded.

"Do we wait here?" he asked.

"Yes."

The men were silent for fully fifteen minutes. Then Bleeker said, "But it"s been proven that "Cincinnati Red" had a gray Cadillac coupd with a dented left rear fender."

"Exactly," Griff said.

"Then it must have been Lampson or one of his men who killed Shillingby."

Griff shrugged his shoulders.

"I am very sorry," he said, "but I would much prefer to think. We can talk later."

"But," Bleeker said, "I feel that you owe me ...

He broke off as Griff"s left hand gripped his knee. Bleeker followed the direction of the criminologist"s eyes. Stella Mokley was just leaving the hotel, stepping into a taxicab which came forward in response to a signal from the door-man.

"Did you know that was going to happen?" asked Bleeker.

"I surmised it," Griff said.

He leaned forward and addressed the cab driver in a low tone.

"Follow that other cab," he said, "but first" let me get up in the front of the cab with you."

"What"s the idea?" asked the cab driver.

"Never mind the idea," Griff told him. "It"s important that you follow instructions. I want to be up here where I can see what"s going on."

He climbed into the front of the cab. Bleeker

leaned forward and said authoritatively, "It"s all right. I'm Bleeker, one of die publishers of The Blade. This man is a detective."

"Okay by me," die cab driver said. "Just so I get die meter."

"You get twice die amount of die meter," Bleeker said. "But don't lose that other cab."

They swung out into traffic, moving at a reasonable rate of speed. The cab ahead turned to a side street and made time. The driver shortened the space between them. The cab turned once more to die left, and ran along a residential dioroughfare which was almost devoid of traffic.

Bleeker leaned forward and tapped on die glass.

"This is die same street where Shillingby was mur-dered," he said.

Griff nodded.

A car swung around a side street behind them.

"Pull into the curb as though we were stopping," Griff told the driver. "Let that car behind us get ahead."

The car pulled in to die curb. The odier cab ran on ahead. Griff got out and stood by die side of die cab, his head bent forward, his right hand in his trouser pocket, as diough reaching for change.

The odier car slid smoothly by widi constantly ac-celerated speed. It was a gray Cadillac coup£, widi a dented left rear fender.

"Quick!" Griff shouted, springing to die running board of the taxicab. "Go after that car. Give it every-diing you"ve got."

He reached to die shoulder holster which was sus-pended under his left arm-pit and pulled out a heavy caliber automatic. Bleeker excitedly tugged the gun which die criminologist had given him from his hip pocket.

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The cab jumped into quick acceleration. The big Cadillac ahead was still gaining, overhauling the first cab in which the girl rode.

"Faster!" shouted Griff.

"I'm giving her all she"s got," the driver said.

The cab was built for quick pick up in traffic, and, momentarily, it increased its speed, at first holding its own with the Cadillac, then creeping up on it just as the Cadillac was creeping up on the first cab.

"Step on itl" the criminologist implored frantically. "He"s got too big a lead."

The cab driver "said nothing.

Griff, standing with one foot on the running board, clinging to the rod of the windshield support with his left hand, held the heavy caliber automatic in bis right.

The gray Cadillac drew abreast of the first taxicab. It swerved in to the right, until its right running board was crowding against the running board of the cab. The lone figure in the driver"s seat shifted its position.

"Look out!" yelled Griff.

The first cab slowed. Flame spat from the side of the gray Cadillac. Griff pressed the trigger of his weapon. The automatic crashed out three shots. The taxicab in which Stella Mokley was riding was braked to a sudden stop. The gray Cadillac swept on, wobbling slightly. There were two more flashes of fire from the Cadillac, two more thundering shots from Griff"s automatic. The Cadillac swerved sharply, climbed a curb, crossed a sidewalk, crashed through shrubbery, swung drunkenly back to the street, slammed against a lighting fixture and went over on its side with a crash.

Griff swung from die running board widi die grace

of a brakeman jumping from a moving railroad coach. He was just abreast of the first taxicab.

As the criminologist"s feet touched the pavement, the cab in which he had been riding swayed and swerved as the driver applied die brakes. Bleeker tugged with the catch on the cab door. The driver of the Mokley cab pushed his hands high in the air, staring at the glinting reflection of light on Griff"s gun with wide eyes and sagging jaw. His face showed white and pasty.

"Are you hurt?" Griff shouted to Stella Mokley. She seemed as one in a daze. For a moment she didn"t answer, then her hand fumbled with the door catch. Griff jerked the door open.

"He hit me once," she said. "I don't think it"s serious." Griff inspected the streaming blood. "Just through the upper shoulder," he said "We"ll get you to a hospital. You"ll be all right."

She pitched forward in a faint, into Griff"s arms. He carried her across to die taxicab and put her in the rear seat.

"Stop at that Cadillac," he said, and jumped to die running board.

The cab moved slowly forward. "Listen, boss," said the cab driver, "I don't know what this is all about, but ..."

They came abreast of the Cadillac. Griff jumped to the pavement. Bleeker was behind him. A figure lay twisted under the steering wheel of the wrecked Cad-illac. Griff produced a flashlight. The beam struck the calm features. It needed but a glance to see that die man was quite dead.

"Good heavens!" Bleeker exclaimed. "It"s Charlei Fisher—die lawyer!"

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Griff"s voice was quick with impatience.

"Who the hell did you think it was?" he asked.

There was the sound of a siren as a police radio car came roaring down die avenue.

"Around that corner and to a hospital," Griff told the cab driver, "and make it snappy."

CHAPTER XXI

GRIFF COMPLETED HIS STATEMENT TO CAP-

tain Mahoney of the homicide squad.

"I admit," he said, "that I cut it a little fine, but I thought that when I told Fisher of the arrest of Kenneth Boone, and of the girl who was known both as-Esther Ordway and Alice Lorton, I would account for his time for at least an hour."

"Then he didn"t go to see Mrs. Malone at all?" asked Bleeker.

"Of course not," Griff said. "He wanted to try and get some message through to die girl who was arrested, and he wanted to arrange to secure counsel who would get her out on habeas corpus, before she could make too many damaging statements."

"Then," Bleeker said, "Fisher must have just been leaving Miss Mokley"s room instead of going to it when we saw him Uiere in die hotel."

"Of course," Griff said. "Fisher had just drilled her on die story she was to give if she was questioned. Then he saw us coming in. Naturally he wanted to n«ike sure that we were on die trail of the girl, and second, if we were there, that he was present when she told her story. You will notice that, by his leading

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questions and his manner, he managed to coach her from time to time in what she was to say. Having told her story, to our apparent satisfaction, it became imperative that she have no chance to change that story under pressure. So Fisher wanted to rtmove her."

"But," protested Bleeker, "wasn"t Fisher in so deep that he couldn't have extricated himself even by murdering the girl?"

Griff shook his head.

"No," he said, "with the girl out of the way, Fisher could very probably have escaped detection. You see, he had coached the girl in the story she told us. That story created a fictitious character, who, apparently in league with Cathay"s chauffeur, had been responsible for Cathay"s death, and probably the deadi of Mor-den. That fictitious character had given die name of Peter Malone. That name might well have been an alias. Once the girl had told her story to us, suspicion would have been definitely diverted from Fisher. Then, widi the girl murdered, it would seem logical to suppose this Peter Malone had murdered her because of her disclosures. Fisher would have rushed back to Riverview and, if possible, would have murdered the chauffeur and concealed his body. We would then naturally suppose the chauffeur had skipped out when diings got too hot for him, or, if we had discovered his body, that he had been murdered because he knew too much.

"The fact that diis Peter Malone continued to exist after Cathay"s deadi, would have prevented us from suspecting that Cathay was die real Peter Malone, while the Malone woman could have blackmailed Mrs. Cadiay of a big slice of die estate."

"Then Frank B. Cathay was really Peter Malone, die embezzler, and Fisher was his accomplice?" Captain Mahoney asked.

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"Yes," Griff said. "Peter Malone embezzled more than twenty-five thousand dollars from the Second Security Trust of El Paso, Texas. That was more than twenty years ago. He ran away and left a wife and daughter. The wife subsequently, divorced him. She came to this city. In the meantime, Peter Malone had gone to Riverview, taken the name of Frank B. Cathay, posed as a businessman who had sold out interests in South Africa, and therefore had some cash to invest. His accomplice, whom we knew as Fisher, naturally shared in his resulting prosperity. The two men became prominent in Riverview. They had the secret of their past locked safely in their own breasts. Then Mrs. Malone happened to make the discovery that her husband was a Riverview millionaire. Immediately, she commenced to participate in his wealth, and so did her daughter, who had been going under the name of Alice Lorton. The fact that the daughter"s name was Alice Lorton was, of course, a disturbing factor so far as Fisher was concerned. That might have given Cathay"s wife a clue to the real facts of the case. Mrs. Malone had married a man by the name of Lorton after she obtained her divorce from Malone. She, therefore, had no legal claim upon Ma-lone"s estate. It was a question of blackmail, pure and simple. The daughter, however, was in a different position she had some legitimate claim."

"Then," Mahoney asked, "the marriage of Cathay was legal?"

"Yes," Griff said. "Mrs. Cathay is really his wife, al-though she did not know it. She knew enough of his past history to realize that he had probably left a wife. She knew his real name, and knew that the wife"s first name was Blanche. When Cathay died, she moved heaven and earth to try and find Mrs. Blanche Malone and make some sort of a deal with her so that die scan-

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dal wouldn"t come out, and so that Mrs. Cathay could get at least a substantial part of the estate."

"And Mrs. Malone wouldn"t settle?"

"No. She had been carefully coached by Fisher."

"How was that?"

Griff said, "Perhaps I had better explain from the beginning. The two men embezzled money. They be-came respected citizens in Riverview. Then, the bank employed Shillingby to investigate Mrs. Malone.

"I shall continue to refer to the real Malone as Ca-thay, because, that is the name under which we knew him. Mrs. Malone reported to Cathay that Shillingby was making an investigation, and, naturally, Cathay thought that Shillingby had uncovered the secret of his past and was going to threaten him with exposure.

"Cathay"s appearance had, of course, changed in the twenty odd years since he had been guilty of the em-bezzlement, a fact upon which he decided to capitalize. He talked it over with Fisher and they agreed that Shillingby must be killed before he could capitalize upon his information. Incidentally, Shillingby may have had more information than his secretary is inclined to believe.

"In any event, it was agreed that Cathay was to kill Shillingby. In order to do that, however, he wanted first to have an alibi as Cathay. Second, to have it appear that Shillingby had been killed by a gangster. Therefore, Cathay, posing as another gangster, employed Shillingby to shadow the most dangerous gang ster he could think of. He selected "Cincinnati Red" Lampson.

"Lampson had a gray Cadillac coupe" with a dented left rear fender. Cathay secured a duplicate of such a car, kept it stored at a place near Lampson"s headquar-ters. When Shillingby had shadowed Lampson to this neighborhood, Cathay drove up to the curb. Shilling-

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by, recognizing the man who had employed him, naturally was not suspicious. It gave Cathay an op-portunity to shoot him and escape."

"And Decker," asked Bleeker, "—the man who was a witness?"

"Was an innocent cog in the murder machine. Of course, Cadiay needed a witness who could testify to the gray Cadillac coupe So he trailed Shillingby, who was trailing Lampson, until a pedestrian was encountered. Then Cathay worked his prearranged plan. He tried to keep his face concealed, but a chance gust of wind blew back the brim of his hat and gave Decker a glimpse of his features. It is, of course, significant that with Decker, Cathay merely brandished a gun, and did not get out of the machine, because he did not want Decker to know what he looked like. In dealing with Shillingby, he stopped the car and got out, because he did want Shillingby to recognize him.

"Fisher was to take the name of Cathay, go to a hotel, register, keep an appointment as Cathay and cash a check. He went to the hotel, registered and cashed the check, but before he could keep the appointment, he got playing around with Stella Mokley. They had a few drinks and the unexpected happened. Fisher was arrested. It became necessary for him. eventually to assume the identity of Cathay with the police. That led to the publication of the story. Cathay had to make a gesture of suing for libel. He did not realize what would inevitably happen. The newspaper would start checking into his past.

"When that happened, the men were in a panic. And there, gentlemen, is where we must give tribute to Morden. Perhaps, he stumbled upon the information, perhaps he reasoned it out. I wish that I knew. I never will know. If he reasoned it out, he had the brain of a marvelous detective.

"And yet it was simple. Great pains had been taken to establish an alibi. Obviously, the man who registered at the Palace Hotel, and who claimed to be Cathay, had gone to considerable trouble to learn to forge Cathay"s signature. Also, since he had Cathay"s driving license and cards, it is reasonable to suppose that Cathay had participated in the inpersonation. The only logical reason a man would have to do that, would be to build up an alibi. The only thing that would cause a man of Cathay"s standing to go to such trouble to build up an alibi, was obviously because he intended to commit a murder. It was, therefore, only necessary to look about for some murder which was committed at that time, in order to get another angle of approach.

"We know that Morden took a taxicab. That he went to Ninth and Central. That he went to Shil-lingby"s office and asked questions. Undoubtedly, Morden was shadowed. That trip cost him his life. The conspirators were in a panic. It was decided that Morden must die. Morden had also uncovered Alice Lorton, who was then going under the name of Esther Ordway. That was a serious matter, but it could have been rectified by some means other than murder. It was the knowledge that Morden was investigating the murder of Shillingby, with an inkling as to who was guilty, that made the men determine upon immediate action.

"They knew that Cathay would be suspected. There-fore, he must have an alibi. Fisher undoubtedly agreed to give him some medicine that would make him quite ill, so that he could be under the care of a doctor. That was Fisher"s opportunity. He suddenly realized how much better off he would be if he could kill Cathay, stand in with Mrs. Malone, and milk Mrs. Cathay by blackmail. Mrs. Malone was to do the black-

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mailing. Fisher would ostensibly be representing Mrs. Cathay. Therefore, as attorney for the estate, he would advise Mrs. Cathay to continue paying until she had been bled white.

"Therefore, he gave Cathay some capsules to take which were to make him desperately ill. Then Fisher and Mrs. Cathay came to the city. Mrs. Cathay understood the purpose of the trip was to make an immediate compromise of the libel suit, so that the newspaper would quit its investigations. She didn"t realize that a murder was to be committed.

"Fisher had been having Morden shadowed, and, therefore, had no difficulty locating him. Morden was waiting for Alice Lorton to come in. Fisher showed up and produced a key to the apartment. Morden recog-nized Fisher as the man who had been arrested and given the name of Cathay. Fisher clubbed Morden from behind, left the body in the apartment and slipped out.

"Alice Lorton found the body when she returned to her apartment. Boone helped her get rid of it. Alice Lorton probably appealed to Fisher by telephone and he advised her what to do. Remember, he must have been both an attorney and a friend to her.

"In the meantime, the girl who had been with Fisher at the time he was arrested while impersonating Cathay became an important witness. Fisher undoubtedly intended to kill her, but he had her pretty much under his power. Therefore, he wanted to get her to tell a false story before she died.

"Fisher knew that Cathay had left his chauffeur a large bequest. This had probably been done for a reason. We may never know what that reason was. I was afraid that they would either murder the chauffeur or get him to skip out of the country for a large cash con-

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sideration. Therefore, I was anxious to hold him as a witness. The story, of course, which Stella Mokley told us about the mysterious conversations of Peter Malone over the telephone with the chauffeur at the Cathay residence, was made up out of so much whole cloth. She had been carefully coached in that story by Fisher. When she had told her story, Fisher wanted her re-moved. He telephoned her to take a taxicab and meet him at a certain place, then he took out the gray Cad-illac, which had undoubtedly been stored in some pri-vate garage near the scene of the crime. He intended to kill the girl and the cab driver, and make his escape. After that he would be in an impregnable position, with Mrs. Malone blackmailing the money from Mrs. Cathay, and Fisher getting the lion"s share of the money. You see, Cathay had the money all Fisher had was the law practice. He had been successful in that law practice, but he was envious of Cathay"s financial success. They had started with a stake of embezzled money, and Cathay had run that stake up into mil-lions."

"When did you first uncover all this?" Captain Ma-honey asked.

"I should have known it much sooner," Griff said apologetically. "1 realized what must have happened when I began to realize that the man who had as-sumed the identity of Cathay, must have done so with Cathay"s knowledge, consent and cooperation. Then I realized, of course, that it had been done to give Ca-thay an alibi, and that a man would go to such trouble to get an alibi only in the event he planned to commit a murder. I then thought back to remember if a murder had been committed at that exact time, and re-membered at once that Shillingby had been murdered at ten fifteen o"clock in the evening of that night. I

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then uncovered the fact that Cadiay had a mysterious past and that this mysterious past had been shared by his attorney, Charles Fisher.

"I knew at once what had happened. It remained to secure proof of that which had happened."

"Then Morden might have gone to Shillingby"s office because he reasoned exactly as you did," Bleeker said.

Griffs voice was tinged with regret.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I wish that I knew. I wish that I had known Morden in his lifetime. It is one of the dungs which will always bother me—die fact that I can"t tell whether Morden uncovered some accidental lead which took him to Shillingby"s office, or whether his trip to the Monadnock Building was because of a logical deduction on his part from the fact that an alibi had been built up."

The criminologist sighed as he got to this feet.

"Doubtless," he said, "so far as you gentlemen are concerned, die case is completely explained. As far as I am concerned, it will never be explained."

"If Morden merely obtained some tip," Bleeker said, "how could he have obtained it?"

Griff shook his head.

"I wish," he said softly, "that I could answer that question. The murder of Shillingby was the key to die entire mystery—and yet that murder was overlooked by all of us—all except Morden. He remembered the forgotten murder. "Gendemen, good morning."

The End.