The Girl with the Silver Eyes

Dashiell Hammett

“THE GIRL WITH THE SILVER EYES” seems to be a story about the Continental Op, the unnamed private eye who stars in most of Hammett’s best short fiction as well as in his first two novels, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse. It is actually the story of the very beautiful young woman with long, lush brown hair who calls herself Jeanne Delano; in a previous adventure, “The House in Turk Street,” she was Elvira, with bobbed red hair. A lot of people died in the first story, and more deaths followed in the second. It is Jeanne and her scheme that sets into motion the events that bring about the involvement of the Continental Detective Agency and its fat but very tough operative.

Like many of the women in the stories by Hammett (1894—1961), she is young, very pretty, feminine, an inveterate liar, and utterly without conscience. She is a chameleon, changing from a desirable kitten to someone so cold‐blooded that she will allow, even encourage, the slaughter of innocent people for her own selfish and greedy ends. Think of Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon and you know all you need to know about Hammett’s femmes fatales and, in fact, just about every sexy girl in every noir book and motion picture.

“The Girl with the Silver Eyes” is connected to “The House in Turk Street” in that it features Jeanne/Elvira as the catalyst for the ensuing action. It was originally published in the June 1924

issue of Black Mask. “The House in Turk Street” had been in the April 1924 issue.

The Girl with the Silver Eyes

Dashiell Hammett

A BELL JANGLED ME into wakefulness. I rolled to and there in unexpected places. A hard room to the edge of my bed and reached for the feel comfortable in.

telephone. The neat voice of the Old Man—the

Continental Detective Agency’s San Francisco

“My fiancée,” he began immediately in a

manager—came to my ears:

high‐pitched voice that was within a notch of

hysteria, “has disappeared! Something has

“Sorry to disturb you, but you’ll have to happened to her! Foul play of some horrible go up to the Glenton Apartments on sort! I want you to find her—to save her from Leavenworth Street. A man named Burke this terrible thing that...”

Pangburn, who lives there, phoned me a few

minutes ago asking to have someone sent up to

I followed him this far and then gave it

see him at once. He seemed rather excited. Will up. A jumble of words came out of his mouth—

you take care of it? See what he wants.” I said I ”spirited away . . . mysterious something . . .

would and, yawning, stretching and cursing lured into a trap”—but they were too Pangburn—whoever he was—got my fat body disconnected for me to make anything out of out of pajamas into street clothes.

them. So I stopped trying to understand him,

and waited for him to babble himself empty of

The man who had disturbed my Sunday words.

morning sleep—I found when I reached the

Glenton—was a slim, white‐faced person of

I have heard ordinarily reasonable men,

about twenty‐five, with big brown eyes that under stress of excitement, run on even more were red‐rimmed just now from either crazily than this wild‐eyed youth; but his dress—

sleeplessness or crying, or both. His long brown the parroted robe and gay pajamas—and his hair was rumpled when he opened the door to surroundings—this deliriously furnished room—

admit me; and he wore a mauve dressing‐robe gave him too theatrical a setting; made his spotted with big jade parrots over wine‐colored words sound utterly unreal.

silk pajamas.

He himself, when normal, should have

The room into which he led me been a rather nice‐looking lad: his features were

resembled an auctioneer’s establishment just well spaced and, though his mouth and chin before the sale— or maybe one of these alley were a little uncertain, his broad forehead was tea rooms. Fat blue vases, crooked red vases, good. But standing there listening to the vases of various shapes and colors; marble occasional melodramatic phrase that I could statuettes, ebony statuettes, statuettes of any pick out of the jumbled noises he was throwing material; lanterns, lamps and candlesticks; at me, I thought that instead of parrots on his draperies, hangings and rugs of all sorts; odds robe he should have had cuckoos.

and ends of furniture that were all somehow

queerly designed; peculiar pictures hung here

Presently he ran out of language and her. But whether or not she was really beautiful, was holding his long, thin hands out to me in an he thought she was, and he had fallen hard.

appealing gesture, saying:

This Delano girl had been living in San

“Will you?” over and over. “Will you? Francisco for only a little while, and when the Will you?”

poet met her she was living alone in an Ashbury

Avenue apartment. He did not know where she

I nodded soothingly, and noticed that came from or anything about her former life. He tears were on his thin cheeks.

suspected—from certain indefinite suggestions

and peculiarities of conduct which he couldn’t

“Suppose we begin at the beginning,” I put in words—that there was a cloud of some suggested, sitting down carefully on a carved sort hanging over the girl; that neither her past bench affair that didn’t look any too strong.

nor her present were free from difficulties. But

he hadn’t the least idea what those difficulties

“Yes! Yes!” He was standing legs apart in might be. He hadn’t cared. He knew absolutely

front of me, running his fingers through his hair. nothing about her, except that she was

“The beginning. I had a letter from her every beautiful, and he loved her, and she had day until—”

promised to marry him. Then, on the third of

the month—exactly twenty‐one days before this

“That’s not the beginning,” I objected. Sunday morning— the girl had suddenly left San

“Who is she? What is she?”

Francisco. He had received a note from her, by

messenger.

“She’s Jeanne Delano!” he exclaimed in

surprise at my ignorance. “And she is my

This note, which he showed me after I

fiancée. And now she is gone, and I know that—

had insisted point blank on seeing it, read:

”

Burkelove:

The phrases “victim of foul play,” “into a

trap” and so on began to flow hysterically out

Have just received a wire, and

again.

must go East on next train. Tried to get

you on the phone, but couldn‘t. Will

Finally I got him quieted down and,

write you as soon as I know what my

sandwiched in between occasional emotional

address will he. If anything. [These two

outbursts, got a story out of him that amounted

words were erased and could be read

to this:

only with great difficulty.] Love me until

I’m back with you forever.

This Burke Pangburn was a poet. About

two months before, he had received a note

YOUR JEANNE

from a Jeanne Delano—forwarded from his

publishers— praising his latest book of rhymes.

Nine days later he had received another

Jeanne Delano happened to live in San letter from her, from Baltimore, Maryland. This Francisco, too, though she hadn’t known that he one, which I had a still harder time getting a did. He had answered her note, and had look at, read:

received another. After a little of this they met.

If she really was as beautiful as he claimed, then

Dearest Poet:

he wasn’t to be blamed for falling in love with

It seems like two years since I

mysteries. Either I would find nothing at all or, if

have seen you, and I have a fear that it’s

by luck I did stumble on the right track, the

going to be between one and two

probabilities are that I would only muddle

months before I see you again.

things; add fresh complications, perhaps

endanger her life still further. I can’t go

I can’t tell you now, beloved,

blundering at it in that fashion, without knowing

about what brought me here. There are

whether I am helping or harming her. It’s a task

things that can’t be written. But as soon

for an expert in that sort of thing. So I thought

as I’m back with you, I shall tell you the

of your agency. You’ll be careful, won’t you? It

whole wretched story.

may be—I don’t know— that she won’t want

assistance. It may be that you can help her

If anything should happen— I

without her knowing anything about it. You are

mean to me— you’ll go on loving me

accustomed to that sort of thing; you can do it,

forever, won’t you, beloved? But that’s

can’t you?”

foolish. Nothing is going to happen. I’m

just off the train, and tired from

I turned the job over and over in my

traveling.

mind before answering him. The two great

bugaboos of a reputable detective agency are

Tomorrow I shall write you a

the persons who bring in a crooked plan or a

long, long letter to make up for this.

piece of divorce work all dressed up in the garb

of a legitimate operation, and the irresponsible

My address here is 21S N.

person who is laboring under wild and fanciful

Strieker St. Please, Mister, at least one

delusions— who wants a dream run out.

letter a day!

This poet—sitting opposite me now

YOUR OWN JEANNE

twining his long, white fingers nervously—was, I

thought, sincere; but I wasn’t so sure of his

For nine days he had had a letter from sanity.

her each day—with two on Monday to make up

for the none on Sunday. And then her letters

“Mr. Pangburn,” I said after a while, “I’d

had stopped. And the daily letters he had sent like to handle this thing for you, but I’m not sure to the address she gave—215 N. Strieker that I can. The Continental is rather strict, and, Street— had begun to come back to him, while I believe this thing is on the level, still I am marked “Not known.” He had sent a telegram, only a hired man and have to go by the rules.

and the telegraph company had informed him Now if you could give us the endorsement of that its Baltimore office had been unable to find some firm or person of standing—a reputable a Jeanne Delano at the North Strieker Street lawyer, for instance, or any legally responsible address.

party—we’d be glad to go ahead with the work.

Otherwise, I am afraid—”

For three days he had waited, expecting

hourly to hear from the girl, and no word had

“But I know she’s in danger!” he broke

come. Then he had bought a ticket for out. “I know that— And I can’t be advertising Baltimore.

her plight—airing her affairs—to everyone.”

“But,” he wound up, “I was afraid to go. I

“I’m sorry, but I can’t touch it unless you

know she’s in some sort of trouble—I can feel can give me some such endorsement.” I stood that—but I’m a silly poet. I can’t deal with

up. “But you can find plenty of detective

agencies that aren’t so particular.”

“She’s beautiful! The most beautiful

woman in the world!”

His mouth worked like a small boy’s, and

he caught his lower lip between his teeth. For a

That would look nice on a reward

moment I thought he was going to burst into circular.

tears. But instead he said slowly: “I dare say you

are right. Suppose I refer you to my brother‐in‐

“That isn’t exactly what I want,” I told

law, Roy Axford. Will his word be sufficient?”

him. “How old is she?”

“Yes.”

“Twenty‐two.”

Roy Axford—R. F. Axford—was a mining

“Height?”

man who had a finger in at least half of the big

business enterprises of the Pacific Coast; and his

“About five feet eight inches, or possibly

word on anything was commonly considered nine.”

good enough for anybody.

“Slender, medium or plump?”

“If you can get in touch with him now,” I

said, “and arrange for me to see him today, I

“She’s inclined toward slenderness, but

can get started without much delay.”

she—”

Pangburn crossed the room and dug a

There was a note of enthusiasm in his

telephone out from among a heap of his voice that made me fear he was about to make ornaments. Within a minute or two he was a speech, so I cut him off with another question.

talking to someone whom he called “Rita.”

“What color hair?”

“Is Roy home? . . . Will he be home this

afternoon? . . . No, you can give him a message

“Brown—so dark it’s almost black—and

for me, though . . . Tell him I’m sending a it’s soft and thick and—”

gentleman up to see him this afternoon on a

personal matter—personal from me—and that

“Yes, yes. Long or bobbed?”

I’ll be very grateful if he’ll do what I want. . . Yes

. . . You’ll find out, Rita ... It isn’t a thing to talk

“Long and thick and—”

about over the phone . . . Yes, thanks!”

“What color eyes?”

He pushed the telephone back into its

hiding place and turned to me.

“You’ve seen shadows on polished silver

when—”

“He’ll be at home until two o’clock. Tell

him what I told you and if he seems doubtful,

I wrote down gray eyes and hurried on

have him call me up. You’ll have to tell him the with the interrogation.

whole thing; he doesn’t know anything at all

about Miss Delano.”

“Complexion?”

“All right. Before I go, I want a

“Perfect!”

description of her.”

“Uh‐huh. But is it light, or dark, or florid, but that meant nothing; that’s the purpose of or sallow, or what?”

an artistic photograph.

“Fair.”

“This the only one you have?”

“Face oval, or square, or long and thin,

“Yes.”

or what shape?”

“I’ll have to borrow it, but I’ll get it back

“Oval.”

to you as soon as I have my copies made.”

“What shaped nose? Large, small,

“No! No!” he protested against having

turned‐up‐”

his lady love’s face given to a lot of gumshoes.

“That would be terrible!”

“Small and regular!” There was a touch

of indignation in his voice.

I finally got it, but it cost me more words

than I like to waste on an incidental.

“How did she dress? Fashionably? Did

she favor bright or quiet colors?”

“I want to borrow a couple of her letters,

or something in her writing, too,” I said.

“Beaut—” And then as I opened my

mouth to head him off he came down to earth

“For what?”

with: “Very quietly—usually dark blues and

browns.”

“To have photostatic copies made.

Handwriting specimens come in handy—give

“What jewelry did she wear?”

you something to go over hotel registers with.

Then, even if going under fictitious names,

“I’ve never seen her wear any.”

people now and then write notes and make

memorandums.”

“Any scars, or moles?” The horrified look

on his white face urged me to give him a full

We had another battle, out of which I

shot. “Or warts, or deformities that you know?”

came

with

three

envelopes

and

two

meaningless sheets of paper, all bearing the

He was speechless, but he managed to girl’s angular writing.

shake his head.

“She have much money?” I asked, when

“Have you a photograph of her?”

the disputed photograph and handwriting

specimens were safely tucked away in my

“Yes, I’ll show you.”

pocket.

He bounded to his feet, wound his way

“I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing

through the room’s excessive furnishings and that one would pry into. She wasn’t poor; that out through a curtained doorway. Immediately is, she didn’t have to practice any petty he was back with a large photograph in a carved economies; but I haven’t the faintest idea either ivory frame. It was one of these artistic as to the amount of her income or its source.

photographs—a thing of shadows and hazy She had an account at the Golden Gate Trust outlines—not much good for identification Company, but naturally I don’t know anything purposes. She was beautiful—right enough—

about its size.”

the outlines of an athlete’s body. A big, full‐

“Many friends here?”

blooded man with the manner of one whose

self‐confidence is complete and not altogether

“That’s another thing I don’t know. I unjustified. “What’s our Burke been up to think she knew a few people here, but I don’t now?” he asked amusedly when I told him who I know who they were. You see, when we were was. His voice was a pleasant vibrant bass.

together we never talked about anything but

ourselves. There was nothing we were

I didn’t give him all the details.

interested in but each other. We were simply—”

“He was engaged to marry a Jeanne

“Can’t you even make a guess at where Delano, who went East about three weeks ago she came from, who she was?”

and then suddenly disappeared. He knows very

little about her; thinks something has happened

“No. Those things didn’t matter to me. to her; and wants her found.”

She was Jeanne Delano, and that was enough

for me.”

“Again?” His shrewd blue eyes twinkled.

“And to a Jeanne this time! She’s the fifth within

“Did you and she ever have any financial a year, to my knowledge, and no doubt I missed

interests in common? I mean, was there ever one or two while I was in Hawaii. But where do I any transaction in money or other valuables in come in?”

which both of you were interested?”

“I

asked

him

for

responsible

What I meant, of course, was had she endorsement. I think he’s all right, but he isn’t, got into him for a loan, or had she sold him in the strictest sense, a responsible person. He something, or got money out of him in any referred me to you.”

other way.

“You’re right about his not being, in the

He jumped to his feet, and his face went strictest sense, a responsible person.” The big fog‐gray. Then he sat down—slumped down—

man screwed up his eyes and mouth in thought

and blushed scarlet.

for a moment. Then: “Do you think that

something has really happened to the girl? Or is

“Pardon me,” he said thickly. “You didn’t Burke imagining things?”

know her, and of course you must look at the

thing from all angles. No, there was nothing like

“I don’t know. I thought it was a dream

that. I’m afraid you are going to waste time if at first. But in a couple of her letters there are you are going to work on the theory that she hints that something was wrong.”

was an adventuress. There was nothing like

that! She was a girl with something terrible

“You might go ahead and find her then,”

hanging over her; something that called her to Axford said. “I don’t suppose any harm will Baltimore suddenly; something that has taken come from letting him have his Jeanne back. It her away from me. Money? What could money will at least give him something to think about have to do with it? I love her!”

for a while.”

“I have your word for it then, Mr. Axford,

R. F. Axford received me in an office‐like room that there will be no scandal or anything of the in his Russian Hill residence: a big blond man, sort connected with the affair?”

whose forty‐eight or ‐nine years had not blurred

“Assuredly! Burke is all right, you know.

It’s simply that he is spoiled. He has been in

The single thing of importance that I

rather delicate health all his life; and then he learned at the apartment house was that the has an income that suffices to keep him girl’s two trunks had been taken away by a modestly, with a little over to bring out books of green transfer truck. Green was the color used verse and buy doo‐daws for his rooms. He takes by one of the city’s largest companies.

himself a little too solemnly—is too much the

poet—but he’s sound at bottom.”

I went then to the office of this transfer

company, and found a friendly clerk on duty. (A

“I’ll go ahead with it, then,” I said, detective, if he is wise, takes pains to make and getting up. “By the way, the girl has an account keep as many friends as possible among at the Golden Gate Trust Company, and I’d like transfer company, express company and

to find out as much about it as possible, railroad employees.) I left the office with a especially where her money came from. memorandum of the transfer company’s check Clement, the cashier, is a model of caution numbers and the Ferry baggageroom to which when it comes to giving out information about the two trunks had been taken.

depositors. If you could put in a word for me it

would make my way smoother.”

At the Ferry Building, with this

information, it didn’t take me many minutes to

“Be glad to.”

learn that the trunks had been checked to

Baltimore. I sent another wire to the Baltimore

He wrote a couple of lines across the branch, giving the railroad check numbers.

back of a card and gave it to me; and, promising

to call on him if I needed further assistance, I

Sunday was well into night by now, so I

left.

knocked off and went home.

I telephoned Pangburn that his brother‐

Half an hour before the Golden Gate

in‐law had given the job his approval. I sent a Trust Company opened for business the next wire to the agency’s Baltimore branch, giving morning I was inside, talking to Clement, the what information I had. Then I went up to cashier. All the traditional caution and Ashbury Avenue, to the apartment house in conservatism of bankers rolled together would which the girl had lived.

but be one‐two‐three to the amount usually

displayed by this plump, white‐haired old man.

The manager—an immense Mrs. Clute in But one look at Axford’s card, with “Please give rustling black—knew little, if any, more about the bearer all possible assistance’’ inked across the girl than Pangburn. The girl had lived there the back of it, made Clement even eager to help for two and a half months; she had had me.

occasional callers, but Pangburn was the only

one that the manager could describe to me. The

“You have, or have had, an account here

girl had given up the apartment on the third of in the name of Jeanne Delano,” I said. “I’d like the month, saying that she had been called East, to know as much as possible about it: to whom and she had asked the manager to hold her mail she drew checks, and to what amounts; but until she sent her new address. Ten days later especially all you can tell me about where her Mrs. Clute had received a card from the girl money came from.”

instructing her to forward her mail to 215 N.

Strieker Street, Baltimore, Maryland. There had

He stabbed one of the pearl buttons on

been no mail to forward.

his desk with a pink finger, and a lad with

polished yellow hair oozed silently into the

room. The cashier scribbled with a pencil on a

“Now how about Miss Delano’s

piece of paper and gave it to the noiseless withdrawals?” I asked.

youth, who disappeared. Presently he was back,

laying a handful of papers on the cashier’s desk.

He picked up the papers that had to do

with her account again.

Clement looked through the papers and

then up at me.

“Her statement and canceled checks for

last month haven’t been delivered to her yet.

“Miss Delano was introduced here by Everything is here. A check for eighty‐five Mr. Burke Pangburn on the sixth of last month, dollars to the order of H. K. Clute on the and opened an account with eight hundred and fifteenth of last month; one ‘to cash’ for three fifty dollars in cash. She made the following hundred dollars on the twentieth, and another deposits after that: four hundred dollars on the of the same kind for one hundred dollars on the tenth; two hundred and fifty on the twenty-twenty‐fifth. Both of these checks were

first; three hundred on the twenty‐sixth; two apparently cashed here by her. On the third of hundred on the thirtieth; and twenty thousand this month she closed out her account, with a dollars on the second of this month. All of these check to her own order for twenty‐one deposits except the last were made with cash. thousand, five hundred and fifteen dollars.”

The last one was a check.”

“And that check?”

He handed it to me: a Golden Gate Trust

Company check.

“Was cashed here by her.”

Pay to the order of Jeanne Delano,

I lighted a cigarette, and let these figures

twenty thousand dollars.

drift around in my head. None of them—except

those that were fixed to Pangburn’s and

(Signed) Burke Pangburn

Axford’s signatures—seemed to be of any value

to me. The Clute check—the only one the girl

It was dated the second of the month.

had drawn in anyone else’s favor—had almost

certainly been for rent.

“Burke Pangburn!” I exclaimed, a little

stupidly. “Was it usual for him to draw checks to

“This is the way of it,” I summed up

that amount?”

aloud. “On the first of the month, Pangburn

deposited Axford’s check for twenty thousand

“I think not. But we shall see.”

dollars. The next day he gave a check to that

amount to Miss Delano, which she deposited.

He stabbed the pearl button again, ran On the following day she closed her account, his pencil across another slip of paper, and the taking between twenty‐one and twenty‐two youth with the polished yellow hair made a thousand dollars in currency.”

noiseless entrance, exit, entrance, and exit. The

cashier looked through the fresh batch of

“Exactly,” the cashier said.

papers that had been brought to him.

Before going up to the Glenton

“On the first of the month, Mr. Pangburn Apartments to find out why Pangburn hadn’t deposited twenty thousand dollars—a check come clean with me about the twenty thousand against Mr. Axford’s account here.”

dollars, I dropped in at the agency, to see if any

word had come from Baltimore. One of the

Ten minutes of ringing Pangburn’s bell

clerks had just finished decoding a telegram. It brought no answer. The elevator boy told me he read:

thought Pangburn hadn’t been in all night. I put

a note in his box and went down to the railroad

BAGGAGE

ARRIVED

MT.

ROYAL

company’s offices, where I arranged to be

STATION ON EIGHTH. TAKEN AWAY

notified if an unused Baltimore‐San Francisco

SAME DAY. UNABLE TO TRACE. 215

ticket was turned in for redemption.

NORTH

STRICKER

STREET

IS

BALTIMORE ORPHAN ASYLUM. GIRL

That done, I went up to the Chronicle

NOT KNOWN THERE. CONTINUING

office and searched the files for weather

OUR EFFORTS TO FIND HER.

conditions during the past month, making a

memorandum of four dates upon which it had

The Old Man came in from luncheon as I rained steadily day and night. I carried my was leaving. I went back into his office with him memorandum to the offices of the three largest for a couple of minutes.

taxicab companies.

“Did you see Pangburn?” he asked.

That was a trick that had worked well for

me before. The girl’s apartment was some

“Yes. I’m working on his job now—but I distance from the street car line, and I was think it’s a bust.”

counting upon her having gone out—or having

had a caller—on one of those rainy dates. In

“What is it?”

either case, it was very likely that she—or her

caller—had left in a taxi in preference to walking

“Pangburn is R. F. Axford’s brother‐in‐

through the rain to the car line. The taxicab

law. He met a girl a couple of months ago, and companies’ daily records would show any calls fell for her. She sizes up as a worker. He doesn’t from her address, and the fares’ destinations.

know anything about her. The first of the month

he got twenty thousand dollars from his

The ideal trick, of course, would have

brother‐in‐law and passed it over to the girl. She been to have the records searched for the full blew, telling him she had been called to extent of the girl’s occupancy of the apartment; Baltimore, and giving him a phony address that but no taxicab company would stand for having turns out to be an orphan asylum. She sent her that amount of work thrust upon them, unless it trunks to Baltimore, and sent him some letters was a matter of life and death. It was difficult from there— but a friend could have taken care enough for me to persuade them to turn clerks of the baggage and could have remailed her loose on the four days I had selected.

letters for her. Of course, she would have

needed a ticket to check the trunks on, but in a

I called up Pangburn again after I left

twenty‐thousand‐dollar game that would be a that last taxicab office, but he was not at home.

small expense. Pangburn held out on me; he I called up Axford’s residence, thinking that the didn’t tell me a word about the money. poet might have spent the night there, but was Ashamed of being easy pickings, I reckon. I’m told that he had not.

going to the bat with him on it now.”

Late that afternoon I got my copies of

The Old Man smiled his mild smile that the girl’s photograph and handwriting, and put might mean anything, and I left.

one of each in the mail for Baltimore. Then I

went around to the three taxicab companies’

offices and got my reports. Two of them had

nothing for me. The third’s records showed two

“Far enough to convince me that she

calls from the girl’s apartment.

isn’t in a whole lot of distress. She got twenty

thousand dollars from your brother‐in‐law the

On one rainy afternoon a taxi had been day before she vanished.”

called, and one passenger had been taken to

the Glenton Apartments. That passenger,

“Twenty thousand dollars from Burke?

obviously, was either the girl or Pangburn. At She must be a wonderful girl! But wherever did half past twelve one night another call had he get that much money?”

come in, and this passenger had been taken to

the Marquis Hotel.

“From you.”

The driver who had answered this

Axford’s muscular body straightened in

second call remembered it indistinctly when I his chair. “From me?”

questioned him, but he thought that his fare

had been a man. I let the matter rest there for

“Yes—your check.”

the time; the Marquis isn’t a large hotel as San

Francisco hotels go, but it is too large to make

“He did not.”

canvassing its guests for the one I wanted

practicable.

There was nothing argumentative in his

voice; it simply stated a fact.

I spent the evening trying to reach

Pangburn, with no success. At eleven o’clock I

“You didn’t give him a check for twenty

called up Axford, and asked him if he had any thousand dollars on the first of the month?”

idea where I might find his brother‐in‐law.

“No.”

“Haven’t seen him for several days,” the

millionaire said. “He was supposed to come up

“Then,” I suggested, “perhaps we’d

for dinner last night, but didn’t. My wife tried to better take a run over to the Golden Gate Trust reach him by phone a couple times today, but Company.”

couldn’t.”

Ten minutes later we were in Clement’s

The next morning I called Pangburn’s office.

apartment before I got out of bed, and got no

answer.

“I’d like to see my canceled checks,”

Axford told the cashier.

Then I telephoned Axford and made an

appointment for ten o’clock at his office.

The youth with the polished yellow hair

brought them in presently—a thick wad of

“I don’t know what he’s up to now,” them—and Axford ran rapidly through them

Axford said good‐naturedly when I told him that until he found the one he wanted. He studied Pangburn had apparently been away from his that one for a long while, and when he looked apartment since Sunday, “and I suppose there’s up at me he shook his head slowly but with small chance of guessing. Our Burke is nothing if finality.

not erratic. How are you progressing with your

search for the damsel in distress?”

“I’ve never seen it before.”

Clement mopped his head with a white

Clement was all enormously relieved

handkerchief, and tried to pretend that he smiles and head‐noddings, with this twenty-wasn’t burning up with curiosity and fears that thousand‐dollar load lifted from his bank’s his bank had been gypped.

shoulders.

The millionaire turned the check over

Axford and I left the bank then and got

and looked at the endorsement.

into his coupé, in which we had come from his

office. But he did not immediately start the

“Deposited by Burke,” he said in the engine. He sat for a while staring at the traffic of voice of one who talks while he thinks of Montgomery Street with unseeing eyes.

something entirely different, “on the first.”

“I want you to find Burke,” he said

“Could we talk to the teller who took in presently, and there was no emotion of any sort

the twenty‐thousand‐dollar check that Miss in his bass voice. “I want you to find him Delano deposited?” I asked Clement.

without risking the least whisper of scandal. If

my wife knew of all this—She mustn’t know.

He pressed one of his desk’s pearl She thinks her brother is a choice morsel. I want buttons with a fumbling pink finger, and in a you to find him for me. The girl doesn’t matter minute or two a little sallow man with a hairless any more, but I suppose that where you find head came in.

one you will find the other. I’m not interested in

the money, and I don’t want you to make any

“Do you remember taking a check for special attempt to recover that; it could hardly twenty thousand from Miss Jeanne Delano a be done, I’m afraid, without publicity. I want few weeks ago?” I asked him.

you to find Burke before he does something

else.”

“Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Perfectly.”

“If you want to avoid the wrong kind of

“Just what do you remember about it?”

publicity,” I said, “your best bet is to spread the

right kind first. Let’s advertise him as missing, fill

“Well, sir, Miss Delano came to my the papers up with his pictures and so forth.

window with Mr. Burke Pangburn. It was his They’ll play him up strong. He’s your brother‐in-check. I thought it was a large check for him to law and he’s a poet. We can say that he has be drawing, but the bookkeepers said he had been ill—you told me that he had been in enough money in his account to cover it. They delicate health all his life—and that we fear he stood there—Miss Delano and Mr. Pangburn— has dropped dead somewhere or is suffering talking and laughing while I entered the deposit under some mental derangement. There will be in her book, and then they left, and that was no necessity of mentioning the girl or the all.”

money, and our explanation may keep people—

especially your wife—from guessing the truth

“This check,” Axford said slowly, after when the fact that he is missing leaks out. It’s the teller had gone back to his cage, “is a bound to leak out somehow.”

forgery. But I shall make it good, of course. That

ends the matter, Mr. Clement, and there must

He didn’t like my idea at first, but I finally

be no more to‐do about it.”

won him over.

“Certainly, Mr. Axford. Certainly.”

We went up to Pangburn’s apartment

then, easily securing admittance on Axford’s

explanation that we had an engagement with

“This is Mr. Fall, one of my employees,”

him and would wait there for him. I went Axford told me. “He said he saw Burke Sunday through the rooms inch by inch, prying into night.”

each hole and hollow and crack; reading

everything that was written anywhere, even

“Where?” I asked Fall.

down to his manuscripts; and I found nothing

that threw any light on his disappearance.

“Going into a roadhouse near Halfmoon

Bay.”

I helped myself to his photographs—

pocketing five of the dozen or more that were

“Sure it was him?”

there. Axford did not think that any of the

poet’s bags or trunks were missing from the

“Absolutely! I’ve seen him come in here

pack‐room. I did not find his Golden Gate Trust to Mr. Axford’s office often enough to know Company deposit book.

him. It was him all right.”

I spent the rest of the day loading the

“How’d you come to see him?”

newspapers up with what we wished them to

have; and they gave my ex‐client one grand

“I was coming up from further down the

spread: first‐page stuff with photographs and all shore with some friends, and we stopped in at possible trimmings. Anyone in San Francisco the roadhouse to get something to eat. As we who didn’t know that Burke Pangburn—

were leaving, a car drove up and Mr. Pangburn

brother‐in‐law of R. F. Axford and author of and a girl or woman—I didn’t notice her Sand‐patches and Other Verse—was missing, particularly—got out and went inside. I didn’t either couldn’t read or wouldn’t.

think anything of it until I saw in the paper last

night that he hadn’t been seen since Sunday. So

This advertising brought results. By the then I thought to myself that—”

following morning, reports were rolling in from

all directions, from dozens of people who had

“What roadhouse was this?” I cut in.

seen the missing poet in dozens of places. A few

of these reports looked promising—or at least

“The White Shack.”

possible—but the majority were ridiculous on

their faces.

“About what time?”

I came back to the agency from running

“Somewhere between eleven‐thirty and

out one that had—until run out—looked good, midnight, I guess.”

to find a note asking me to call up Axford.

“He see you?”

“Can you come down to my office now?”

he asked when I got him on the wire.

“No. I was already in our car when he

drove up.”

There was a lad of twenty‐one or ‐two

with Axford when I was ushered into his office:

“What did the woman look like?”

a narrow‐chested, dandified lad of the sporting

clerk type.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her face, and I

can’t remember how she was dressed or even if

she was short or tall.”

That was all Fall could tell me. We and came in. “ ‘Lo! How’s tricks?” He swaggered shooed him out of the office, and I used to a chair, leaned back in it, put his feet on the Axford’s telephone to call up “Wop” Healey’s table and reached for a pack of cigarettes that dive in North Beach and leave word that when lay there.

“Porky” Grout came in he was to call up “Jack.”

That was a standing arrangement by which I got

That was Porky Grout. A pasty‐faced

word to Porky whenever I wanted to see him, man in his thirties, neither large nor small, without giving anybody a chance to tumble to always dressed flashily—even if sometimes the connection between us.

dirtily— and trying to hide an enormous

cowardice behind a swaggering carriage, a

“Know the White Shack?” I asked Axford, blustering habit of speech, and an exaggerated when I was through.

pretense of self‐assurance.

“I know where it is, but I don’t know

But I had known him for three years; so

anything about it.”

now I crossed the room and pushed his feet

roughly off the table, almost sending him over

“Well, it’s a tough hole. Run by ‘Tin‐Star’ backward.

Joplin, an ex‐yegg who invested his winnings in

the place when Prohibition made the roadhouse

“What’s the idea?” He came to his feet,

game good. He makes more money now than crouching and snarling. “Where do you get that he ever heard of in his piking safe‐ripping days. stuff? Do you want a smack in the—”

Retailing liquor is a sideline with him; his real

profit comes from acting as a relay station for

I took a step toward him. He sprang

the booze that comes through Halfmoon Bay for away, across the room.

points beyond; and the dope is that half the

booze put ashore by the Pacific rum fleet is put

“Aw, I didn’t mean nothin’. I was only

ashore in Halfmoon Bay.

kid‐din’!”

“The White Shack is a tough hole, and

“Shut up and sit down,” I advised him.

it’s no place for your brother‐in‐law to be

hanging around. I can’t go down there myself

I had known this Porky Grout for three

without stirring things up; Joplin and I are old years, and had been using him for nearly that friends.

long, and I didn’t know a single thing that could

be said in his favor. He was a coward. He was a

But I’ve got a man I can put in there for a liar. He was a thief, and a hop‐head. He was a few nights. Pangburn may be a regular visitor, traitor to his kind and, if not watched, to his or he may even be staying there. He wouldn’t employers. A nice bird to deal with! But be the first one Joplin had ever let hide out detecting is a hard business, and you use there. I’ll put this man of mine in the place for a whatever tools come to hand. This Porky was an week, anyway, and see what he can find.”

effective tool if handled right, which meant

keeping your hand on his throat all the time and

“It’s all in your hands,” Axford said.

checking up every piece of information he

brought in.

From Axford’s office I went straight to

my rooms, left the outer door unlocked, and sat

His cowardice was—for my purpose—his

down to wait for Porky Grout. I had waited an greatest asset. It was notorious throughout the hour and a half when he pushed the door open criminal Coast; and though nobody—crook or not—could possibly think him a man to be

“Here’s some money.” I slid some bills

trusted, nevertheless he was not actually across the table. “If you’re down there more distrusted. Most of his fellows thought him too than a couple of nights. I’ll get some more to much the coward to be dangerous; they you. Keep in touch with me, either over this thought he would be afraid to betray them; phone or the under‐cover one at the office.

afraid of the summary vengeance that And—remember this—lay off the stuff! If I come

crookdom visits upon the squealer. But they down there and find you all snowed up, I didn’t take into account Porky’s gift for promise that I’ll tip Joplin off to you.”

convincing himself that he was a lion‐hearted

fellow, when no danger was near. So he went

He had finished counting the money by

freely where he desired and where I sent him, now—there wasn’t a whole lot to count—and and brought me otherwise unobtainable bits of he threw it contemptuously back on the table.

information.

“Save that for newspapers,” he sneered.

For nearly three years I had used him “How am I goin’ to get anywheres if I can’t with considerable success, paying him well, and spend no money in the joint?”

keeping him under my heel. Informant was the

polite word that designated him in my reports;

‘‘That’s plenty for a couple of days’

the underworld has even less lovely names than expenses; you’ll probably knock back half of it. If the common stool‐pigeon to denote his kind.

you stay longer than a couple of days, I’ll get

more to you. And you get your pay when the job

“I have a job for you,” I told him, now is done, and not before.”

that he was seated again, with his feet on the

floor. His loose mouth twitched up at the left

He shook his head and got up. “I’m tired

corner, pushing that eye into a knowing squint. of pikin’ along with you. You can turn your own

“I thought so.” He always says something like jobs. I’m through!”

that.

“If you don’t get down to Halfmoon Bay

“I want you to go down to Halfmoon Bay tonight, you are through,” I assured him, letting and stick around Tin‐Star Joplin’s joint for a few him get out of the threat whatever he liked.

nights. Here are two photos”—sliding one of

Pangburn and one of the girl across the table.

After a little while, of course, he took the

“Their names and descriptions are written on money and left. The dispute over expense the backs. I want to know if either of them money was simply a preliminary that went with shows up down there, what they’re doing, and every job I sent him out on.

where they’re hanging out. It may be that Tin‐

Star is covering them up.”

After Porky had cleared out, I leaned

back in my chair and burned half a dozen

Porky was looking knowingly from one Fatimas over the job. The girl had gone first with picture to the other. “I think I know this guy,” he the twenty thousand dollars, and then the poet said out of the corner of his mouth that had gone; and both had gone, whether twitches. That’s another thing about Porky. You permanently or not, to the White Shack. On its can’t mention a name or give a description that face, the job was an obvious affair. The girl had won’t bring that same remark, even though you given Pangburn the work to the extent of having make them up.

him forge a check against his brother‐in‐law’s

account; and then, after various moves whose

value I couldn’t determine at the time, they had

“Halfmoon Bay 51.”

gone into hiding together.

That was the roadhouse number. I

There were two loose ends to be taken passed over the five‐spot.

care of. One of them—the finding of the

confederate who had mailed the letters to

“Is 522 a permanent guest?”

Pangburn and who had taken care of the girl’s

baggage—was in the Baltimore branch’s hands.

“Yes. Mr. Kilcourse. He’s been here three

The other was: Who had ridden in the taxicab or four months.”

that I had traced from the girl’s apartment to

the Marquis Hotel?

“What is he?”

That might not have any bearing upon

“I don’t know. A perfect gentleman, if

the job, or it might. Suppose I could find a you ask me.”

connection between the Marquis Hotel and the

White Shack. That would make a completed

“That’s nice. What does he look like?”

chain of some sort. I searched the back of the

telephone directory and found the roadhouse

“He’s a young man, but his hair is turning

number. Then I went up to the Marquis Hotel. gray. He’s dark and handsome. Looks like a The girl on duty at the hotel switchboard, when movie actor.”

I got there, was one with whom I had done

business before. “Who’s been calling Halfmoon

“Bull Montana?” I asked, as I moved off

Bay numbers?” I asked her.

toward the desk.

“My God!” She leaned back in her chair

The key to 522 was in its place in the

and ran a pink hand gently over the front of her rack. I sat down where I could keep an eye on it.

rigidly waved red hair. “I got enough to do Perhaps an hour later a clerk took it out and without remembering every call that goes gave it to a man who did look somewhat like an through. This ain’t a boarding‐house. We have actor. He was a man of thirty or so, with dark more’n one call a week.”

skin, and dark hair that showed gray around the

ears. He stood a good six feet of fashionably

“You don’t have many Halfmoon Bay dressed slenderness.

calls,” I insisted, leaning an elbow on the

counter and letting a folded five‐spot peep out

Carrying the key, he disappeared into an

between the fingers of one hand. “You ought to elevator.

remember any you’ve had lately.”

I called up the agency then and asked

“I’ll see,” she sighed, as if willing to do the Old Man to send Dick Foley over. Ten her best on a hopeless task.

minutes later Dick arrived. He’s a little shrimp of

a Canadian— there isn’t a hundred and ten

She ran through her tickets.

pounds of him— who is the smoothest shadow

I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen most of them.

“Here’s one—from room 522, a couple

weeks ago.”

“I have a bird in here I want tailed,” I

told Dick. “His name is Kilcourse and he’s in

“What number was called?”

room 522. Stick around outside, and I’ll give you

the spot on him.” I went back to the lobby and his mouth that twitches was twisted into a waited some more.

knowing leer that would have fit a Solomon.

At eight o’clock Kilcourse came down

“I knocked it over for you, kid,” he

and left the hotel. I went after him for half a boasted. “Nothin’ to it—for me! I went down block—far enough to turn him over to Dick— there and talked to ever’body that knowed and then went home, so that I would be within anything, seen ever’thing there was to see, and reach of a telephone if Porky Grout tried to get put the X‐rays on the whole dump. I made a—”

in touch with me. No call came from him that

night.

“Uh‐huh,”

I

interrupted.

“Congratulations and so forth. But just what did

you turn up?”

When I arrived at the agency the next morning,

Dick was waiting for me. “What luck?” I asked.

“Now le’me tell you.” He raised a dirty

hand in a traffic‐cop sort of gesture. “Don’t

“Damnedest!” The little Canadian talks crowd me. I’ll give you all the dope.”

like a telegram when his peace of mind is

disturbed, and just now he was decidedly

“Sure,” I said. “I know. You’re great, and

peevish. “Took me two blocks. Shook me. Only I’m lucky to have you to knock off my jobs for taxi in sight.”

me, and all that! But is Pangburn down there?”

“Think he made you?”

“I’m gettin’ around to that. I went down

there and—”

“No. Wise head. Playing safe.”

“Did you see Pangburn?”

“Try him again, then. Better have a car

handy, in case he tries the same trick again.”

“As I was savin’, I went down there

and—”

My telephone jingled as Dick was going

out. It was Porky Grout, talking over the

“Porky,” I said, “I don’t give a damn what

agency’s unlisted line. “Turn up anything?” I you did! Did you see Pangburn?”

asked.

“Yes. I seen him.”

“Plenty,” he bragged.

“Fine! Now what did you see?”

“Good! Are you in town?”

“He’s camping down there with Tin‐Star.

“Yes.”

Him and the broad that you give me a picture of

are both there. She’s been there a month. I

“I’ll meet you in my rooms in twenty didn’t see her, but one of the waiters told me minutes,” I said.

about her. I seen Pangburn myself. They don’t

show themselves much—stick back in Tin‐Star’s

The pasty‐faced informant was fairly part of the joint—where he lives—most of the bloated with pride in himself when he came time. Pangburn’s been there since Sunday. I through the door I had left unlocked for him. His went down there and—”

swagger was almost a Cakewalk; and the side of

“Learn who the girl is? Or anything about

what they’re up to?”

At nine‐thirty that evening I was sitting

beside Axford on the front seat of a powerfully

“No. I went down there and—”

engined foreign car, and we were roaring down

a road that led to Halfmoon Bay. Porky’s

“All right! Went down there again telephone call had come.

tonight. Call me up as soon as you know

positively Pangburn is there—that he hasn’t

Neither of us talked much during that

gone out. Don’t make any mistakes. I don’t want ride, and the imported monster under us made to come down there and scare them up on a it a short ride. Axford sat comfortable and false alarm. Use the agency’s under‐cover line, relaxed at the wheel, but I noticed for the first and just tell whoever answers that you won’t be time that he had a rather heavy jaw.

in town until late. That’ll mean that Pangburn is

there; and it’ll let you call up from Joplin’s

The White Shack is a large building,

without giving the play away.”

square‐built of imitation stone. It is set away

back from the road, and is approached by two

“I got to have more dough,” he said, as curving driveways, which, together, make a he got up. “It costs—”

semi‐circle whose diameter is the public road.

The center of this semi‐circle is occupied by

“I’ll file your application,” I promised. sheds under which Joplin’s patrons stow their

“Now beat it, and let me hear from you tonight, cars, and here and there around the sheds are the minute you’re sure Pangburn is there.”

flower‐beds and clumps of shrubbery. We were

still going at a fair clip when we turned into one

Then I went up to Axford’s office. “I end of this semicircular driveway, and—

think I have a line on him,” I told the millionaire.

“I hope to have him where you can talk to him

Axford slammed on his brakes, and the

tonight. My man says he was at the White Shack big machine threw us into the windshield as it last night, and is probably living there. If he’s jolted into an abrupt stop—barely in time to there tonight, I’ll take you down, if you want.”

avoid smashing into a cluster of people who had

suddenly loomed up.

“Why can’t we go now?”

In the glow of our headlights faces stood

“No. The place is too dead in the sharply out; white, horrified faces, furtive faces, daytime for my man to hang around without faces that were callously curious. Below the making himself conspicuous, and I don’t want to faces, white arms and shoulders showed, and take any chances on either you or me showing bright gowns and jewelry, against the duller ourselves there until we’re sure we’re coming background of masculine clothing.

face to face with Pangburn.”

This was the first impression I got, and

“What do you want me to do then?”

then, by the time I had removed my face from

the windshield, I realized that this cluster of

“Have a fast car ready tonight, and be people had a core, a thing about which it ready to start as soon as I get word to you.”

centered. I stood up, trying to look over the

crowd’s heads, but I could see nothing.

“Righto. I’ll be at home after five‐thirty.

Phone me as soon as you’re ready to go, and I’ll

Jumping down to the driveway, I pushed

pick you up.”

through the crowd.

know his name, but I think I’ve saw him around

Face down on the white gravel a man town. He’s a tall guy, in fancy rags.”

sprawled—a thin man in dark clothes—and just

above his collar, where the head and neck join,

That would be Kilcourse.

was a hole. I knelt to peer into his face. Then I

pushed through the crowd again, back to where

“They talk for a while and then Joplin

Axford was just getting out of the car, the joins ‘em. They sit around the table laughin’ and engine of which was still running. “Pangburn is talkin’ for maybe a quarter of an hour. Then dead— shot!”

Pangburn gets up and goes indoors. I got a table

that I can watch ‘em from, and the place is

Methodically, Axford took off his gloves, crowded, and I’m afraid I’ll lose my table if I folded them and put them in a pocket. Then he leave it, so I don’t follow the kid. He ain’t got no nodded his understanding of what I had told hat; I figure he ain’t goin’ nowhere. But he must him, and walked toward where the crowd stood of gone through the house and out front, around the dead poet. I looked after him until because pretty soon there’s a noise that I he had vanished in the throng. Then I went thought was a auto backfire, and then the winding through the outskirts of the crowd, sound of a car gettin’ away quick. And then hunting for Porky Grout.

some guy squawks that there’s a dead man

outside. Ever’body runs out here, and it’s

I found him standing on the porch, Pangburn.”

leaning against a pillar. I passed where he could

see me, and went on around to the side of the

“You dead sure that Joplin, Kilcourse and

roadhouse that afforded most shadow.

the girl were all at the table when Pangburn was

killed?”

In the shadows Porky joined me. The

night wasn’t cool, but his teeth were chattering.

“Absolutely,” Porky said, ”if this dark

“Who got him?” I demanded.

guy’s name is Kilcourse.”

“I don’t know,” he whined, and that was

“Where are they now?”

the first thing of which I had ever known him to

confess complete ignorance. “I was inside,

“Back in Joplin’s hang‐out. They went up

keepin’ an eye on the others.”

there as soon as they seen Pangburn had been

croaked.”

“What others?”

I had no illusions about Porky. I knew he

“Tin‐Star, and some guy I never seen was capable of selling me out and furnishing the before, and the broad. I didn’t think the kid was poet’s murderer with an alibi. But there was this going out. He didn’t have no hat.”

about it: if Joplin, Kilcourse or the girl had fixed

him, and had fixed my informant, then it was

“What do you know about it?”

hopeless for me to try to prove that they

weren’t on the rear porch when the shot was

“A little while after I phoned you, the girl fired. Joplin had a crowd of hangers‐on who and Pangburn came out from Joplin’s part of the would swear to anything he told them without joint and sat down at a table around on the batting an eye. There would be a dozen other side of the porch, where it’s fairly dark. supposed witnesses to their presence on the They eat for a while and then this other guy rear porch.

comes over and sits down with ‘em. I don’t

Thus the only thing for me to do was to

“You!” Joplin grunted disgustedly as

take it for granted that Porky was coming clean soon as he recognized me. “What the hell do with me. “Have you seen Dick Foley?” I asked, you want?”

since Dick had been shadowing Kilcourse.

“What’ve you got?”

“No.”

My mind wasn’t on this sort of repartee,

“Hunt around and see if you can find however; I was studying the girl. There was him. Tell him I’ve gone up to talk to Joplin, and something vaguely familiar about her—but I tell him to come on up. Then you can stick couldn’t place her. Perhaps I hadn’t see her around where I can get hold of you if I want before; perhaps much looking at the picture you.”

Pangburn had given me was responsible for my

feeling of recognition. Pictures will do that.

I went in through a French window,

crossed an empty dance‐floor and went up the

Meanwhile, Joplin had said: “Time to

stairs that led to Tin‐Star Joplin’s living quarters waste is one thing I ain’t got.”

in the rear second story. I knew the way, having

been up there before. Joplin and I were old

And I had said: “If you’d saved up all the

friends.

time different judges have given you, you’d

have plenty.”

I was going up now to give him and his

friends a shake‐down on the off‐chance that

I had seen the girl somewhere before.

some good might come of it, though I knew that She was a slender girl in a glistening blue gown I had nothing on any of them. I could have tied that exhibited a generous spread of front, back something on the girl, of course, but not and arms that were worth showing. She had a without advertising the fact that the dead poet mass of dark brown hair above an oval face of had forged his brother‐in‐law’s signature to a the color that pink ought to be. Her eyes were check. And that was no go.

wide‐set and a gray shade that wasn’t

altogether unlike the shadows on polished silver

“Come in,” a heavy, familiar voice called that the poet had compared them to. I studied

when I rapped on Joplin’s living‐room door. I the girl, and she looked back at me with level pushed the door open and went in.

eyes, and still I couldn’t place her. Kilcourse still

sat dangling a leg from the table corner.

Tin‐Star Joplin was standing in the

middle of the floor: a big‐bodied ex‐yegg with

Joplin grew impatient: “Will you stop

inordinately

thick

shoulders

and

an gandering at the girl, and tell me what you want

expressionless horse face. Beyond him Kilcourse of me?” he growled.

sat dangling one leg from the corner of a table,

alertness hiding behind an amused half‐smile on

The girl smiled then, a mocking smile

his handsome dark face. On the other side of that bared the edges of razor‐sharp little the room a girl whom I knew for Jeanne Delano animal‐teeth. And with the smile I knew her!

sat on the arm of a big leather chair. And the

poet hadn’t exaggerated when he told me she

Her hair and skin had fooled me. The last

was beautiful.

time I had seen her—the only time I had seen

her before—her face had been marble‐white,

and her hair had been short and the color of

fire. She and an older woman and three men

and I had played hide‐and‐seek one evening in a in the blackness, but none got between me and house in Turk Street over a matter of the the lighter square of windows.

murder of a bank messenger and the theft of a

hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Liberty

Something clicked softly in front of me—

Bonds. Through her intriguing, three of her too thin a click for the cocking of a gun—but it accomplices had died that evening, and the could have been the opening of a spring‐knife, fourth—the Chinese—had eventually gone to and I remembered that Tin‐Star Joplin had a the gallows at Folsom Prison. Her name had fondness for that weapon.

been Elvira then, and since her escape from the

house that night we had been fruitlessly hunting

“Let’s go!” A harsh whisper that cut

her from border to border, and beyond.

through the dark like a blow.

Recognition must have shown in my

Sounds

of

motion,

muffled,

eyes in spite of the effort I made to keep them indistinguishable . . . one sound not far away . . .

blank, for, as swift as a snake, she had left the

arm of the chair and was coming forward, her

Abruptly a strong hand clamped one of

eyes more steel than silver.

my shoulders, a hard‐muscled body strained

against me. I stabbed out with my gun, and

I put my gun in sight.

heard a grunt.

Joplin took a half‐step toward me.

The hand moved up my shoulder toward

“What’s the idea?” he barked.

my throat.

Kilcourse slid off the table, and one of

I snapped up a knee, and heard another

his thin dark hands hovered over his necktie.

grunt.

“This is the idea,” I told them. “I want

A burning point ran down my side.

the girl for a murder a couple of months back,

and maybe—I’m not sure—for tonight’s.

I stabbed again with my gun—pulled it

Anyway, I’m—”

back until the muzzle was free of the soft

obstacle that had stopped it, and squeezed the

The snapping of a light‐switch behind trigger. The crash of the shot. Joplin’s voice in me, and the room went black.

my ear, a curiously matter‐of‐fact voice: “God

damn! That got me.”

I moved, not caring where I went so long

as I got away from where I had been when the

I spun away from him then, toward

lights went out.

where I saw the dim yellow of an open door. I

had heard no sounds of departure. I had been

My back touched a wall and I stopped, too busy. But I knew that Joplin had tied into me crouching low.

while the others made their get‐away.

“Quick, kid!” A hoarse whisper that

Nobody was in sight as I jumped, slid,

came from where I thought the door should be.

tumbled down the steps—any number at a

time. A waiter got in my path as I plunged

But both of the room’s doors, I thought, toward the dance‐floor. I don’t know whether were closed, and could hardly be opened his interference was intentional or not. I didn’t without showing gray rectangles. People moved ask. I slammed the flat of my gun in his face and went on. Once I jumped a leg that came out to of the road shooting at a metal comet that trip me; and at the outer door I had to smear rushed down upon him. . . .

another face.

I didn’t see the end.

Then I was out in the semi‐circular

driveway, from one end of which a red tail‐light

I confess frankly that I shut my eyes

was turning east into the country road.

when his set white face showed close over my

radiator. The metal monster under me

While I sprinted for Axford’s car I noticed trembled—not very much—and the road ahead

that Pangburn’s body had been removed. A few was empty except for the fleeing red light. My people still stood around the spot where he had windshield was gone. The wind tore at my lain, and they gaped at me now with open uncovered hair and brought tears to my mouths.

squinted‐up eyes.

The car was as Axford had left it, with

Presently I found that I was talking to

idling engine. I swung it through a flower‐bed myself, saying, “That was Porky. That was and pointed it east on the public road. Five Porky.” It was an amazing fact. It was no minutes later I picked up the red point of a tail-surprise that he had double‐crossed me. That

light again.

was to be expected. And for him to have crept

up the stairs behind me and turned off the lights

The car under me had more power than wasn’t astonishing. But for him to have stood I would ever need, more than I would have straight up and died—

known how to handle. I don’t know how fast

the one ahead was going, but I closed in as if it

An orange streak from the car ahead cut

had been standing still.

off my wonderment. The bullet didn’t come

near me—it isn’t easy to shoot accurately from

A mile and a half, or perhaps two—

one moving car into another—but at the pace I

was going it wouldn’t be long before I was close

Suddenly a man was in the road ahead—

enough for good shooting.

a little beyond the reach of my lights. The lights

caught him, and I saw that it was Porky Grout!

I turned on the searchlight above the

dashboard. It didn’t quite reach the car ahead,

Porky Grout standing facing me in the but it enabled me to see that the girl was middle of the road, the dull metal of an driving. While Kilcourse sat screwed around automatic in each hand.

beside her, facing me. The car was a yellow

roadster.

The guns in his hands seemed to glow

dimly red and then go dark in the glare of my

I eased up a little. In a duel with

headlights—glow and then go dark, like two Kilcourse here I would have been at a bulbs in an automatic electric sign.

disadvantage, since I would have had to drive as

well as shoot. My best play seemed to be to

The windshield fell apart around me.

hold my distance until we reached a town, as

we inevitably must. It wasn’t midnight yet.

Porky Grout—the informant whose There would be people on the streets of any

name was a synonym for cowardice the full town, and policemen. Then I could close in with length of the Pacific Coast—stood in the center a better chance of coming off on top.

A few miles of this and my prey tumbled

“I’m going to try to knock him off from

to my plan. The yellow roadster slowed down, the ditch. Take a shot at him now and then to wavered, and came to rest with its length across keep him busy.”

the road. Kilcourse and the girl were out

immediately and crouching in the road on the

“I can’t see him,” the girl protested.

far side of their barricade.

“Your eyes’ll be all right in a second.

I was tempted to dive pell‐mell into Take a shot at the car anyway.”

them, but it was a weak temptation, and when

its short life had passed I put on the brakes and

I moved toward the radiator as the girl’s

stopped. Then I fiddled with my searchlight until pistol barked at the empty touring car.

it bore full upon the roadster.

Kilcourse, on hands and knees, was

A flash came from somewhere near the working his way toward the ditch that ran along roadster’s wheels, and the searchlight shook the south side of the road. I gathered my legs violently, but the glass wasn’t touched. It would under me, intent upon a spring and a blow with be their first target, of course, and . . .

my gun upon the back of his head. I didn’t want

to kill him, but I wanted to put him out of the

Crouching in my car, waiting for the way quick. I’d have the girl to take care of, and bullet that would smash the lens, I took off my she was at least as dangerous as he.

shoes and overcoat.

As I tensed for the spring, Kilcourse,

The third bullet ruined the light.

guided perhaps by some instinct of the hunted,

turned his head and saw me—saw a threatening

I switched off the other lights, jumped to shadow.

the road, and when I stopped running I was

squatting down against the near side of the

Instead of jumping I fired.

yellow roadster. As easy and safe a trick as can

be imagined.

I didn’t look to see whether I had hit him

or not. At that range there was little likelihood

The girl and Kilcourse had been looking of missing. I bent double and slipped back to the into the glare of a powerful light. When that rear of the roadster, keeping on my side of it.

light suddenly died, and the weaker ones Then I waited.

around it went, too, they were left in pitch

unseeing blackness, which must last for the

The girl did what I would perhaps have

minute or longer that their eyes would need to done in her place. She didn’t shoot or move readjust themselves to the gray‐black of the toward the place the shot had come from. She night. My stockinged feet had made no sound thought I had forestalled Kilcourse in using the on the macadam road, and now there was only ditch and that my next play would be to circle a roadster between us; and I knew it and they around behind her. To offset this, she moved didn’t.

around the rear of the roadster, so that she

could ambush me from the side nearest

From near the radiator Kilcourse spoke Axford’s car.

softly:

Thus it was that she came creeping

around the corner and poked her delicately

chiseled nose plunk into the muzzle of the gun

“Now stand there,” I said, “and behave.

that I held ready for her.

The first break you make, I’m going to shoot a

leg out from under you,” and I meant it.

She gave a little scream.

I found Kilcourse’s gun, pocketed it, and

Women aren’t always reasonable: they knelt beside him.

are prone to disregard trifles like guns held

upon them. So I grabbed her gun hand, which

He was dead, with a bullet‐hole above

was fortunate for me. As my hand closed his collar‐bone.

around the weapon, she pulled the trigger,

catching a chunk of my forefinger between

“Is he—” her mouth trembled.

hammer and frame. I twisted the gun out of her

hand; released my finger.

“Yes.”

But she wasn’t done yet. With me

She looked down at him, and shivered a

standing there holding a gun not four inches little.

from her body, she turned and bolted off

toward where a clump of trees made a jet‐black

“Poor Fag,” she whispered.

blot to the north.

I’ve gone on record as saying that this

When I recovered from my surprise at girl was beautiful, and, standing there in the this amateurish procedure, I stuck both her gun dazzling white of the headlights, she was more and mine in my pockets, and set out after her, than that. She was the thing to start crazy tearing the soles of my feet at every step.

thoughts even in the head of an unimaginative

middle‐aged thief‐catcher. She was—

She was trying to get over a wire fence

when I caught her.

Anyhow, I suppose that is why I scowled

at her and said:

“Stop playing, will you?” I said crossly, as

I set the fingers of my left hand around her wrist

“Yes, poor Fag, and poor Hook, and poor

and started to lead her back to the roadster. Tai, and poor kid of a Los Angeles bank

“This is a serious business. Don’t be so childish!”

messenger, and poor Burke,” calling the roll, as

far as I knew it, of men who had died loving her.

“You are hurting my arm.”

She didn’t flare up. Her big gray eyes

I knew I wasn’t hurting her arm, and I lifted, and she looked at me with a gaze that I knew this girl for the direct cause of four, or couldn’t fathom, and her lovely oval face under perhaps five, deaths; yet I loosened my grip on the mass of brown hair—which I knew was her wrist until it wasn’t much more than a phony—was sad.

friendly clasp. She went back willingly enough to

the roadster, where, still holding her wrist, I

“I suppose you do think—” she began.

switched on the lights. Kilcourse lay just

beneath the headlight’s glare, huddled on his

But I had had enough of this; I was

face, with one knee drawn up under him.

uncomfortable along the spine.

I put the girl squarely in the line of light.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ll leave Kilcourse

and the roadster here for now.”

our party in Turk Street. Tai was hanged last

She said nothing, but went with me to month. Now I’ve got you. We had enough Axford’s big machine, and sat in silence while I evidence to swing the Chinese, and we’ve even laced my shoes. I found a robe on the back seat more against you. That is done—finished—

for her.

completed. If you want to tell me anything

about Pangburn’s death, I’ll listen. Otherwise—”

“Better wrap this around your shoulders.

The windshield is gone. It’ll be cool.”

I reached for the self‐starter.

She followed my suggestion without a

A pressure of her fingers on my arm

word, but when I had edged our vehicle around stopped me.

the rear of the roadster, and had straightened

out in the road again, going east, she laid a hand

“I do want to tell you about it,” she said

on my arm.

earnestly. “I want you to know the truth about

it. You’ll take me to Redwood City, I know. Don’t

“Aren’t we going back to the White think that I expect—that I have any foolish Shack?”

hopes. But I’d like you to know the truth about

this thing. I don’t know why I should care

“No. Redwood City—the county jail.”

especially what you think, but—”

A mile perhaps, during which, without

Her voice dwindled off to nothing.

looking at her, I knew she was studying my

rather lumpy profile. Then her hand was on my

Then she began to talk very rapidly—as

forearm again and she was leaning toward me people talk when they fear interruptions before so that her breath was warm against my cheek. their stories are told—and she sat leaning

“Will you stop for a minute? There’s slightly forward, so that her beautiful oval face something— some things I want to tell you.”

was very close to mine.

I brought the car to a halt in a cleared

“After I ran out of the Turk Street house

space of hard soil off to one side of the road, that night—while you were struggling with Tai—

and screwed myself a little around in the seat to my intention was to get away from San face her more directly.

Francisco. I had a couple of thousand dollars,

enough to carry me any place. Then I thought

“Before you start,” I told her, “I want that going away would be what you people you to understand that we stay here for just so would expect me to do, and that the safest long as you talk about the Pangburn affair. thing for me to do would be to stay right here. It When you get off on any other line—then we isn’t hard for a woman to change her finish our trip to Redwood City.”

appearance. I had bobbed red hair, white skin,

and wore gay clothes. I simply dyed my hair,

“Aren’t you even interested in the Los bought these transformations to make it look Angeles affair?”

long, put color on my face, and bought some

dark clothes. Then I took an apartment on

“No. That’s closed. You and Hook Ashbury Avenue under the name of Jeanne

Riordan and Tai Choon Tau and the Quarres Delano, and I was an altogether different were equally responsible for the messenger’s person.

death, even if Hook did the actual killing. Hook

and the Quarres passed out the night we had

“But, while I knew I was perfectly safe up for a trimming, Fag would have let me alone, from recognition anywhere, I felt more would have kept his hands off. But when I told comfortable staying indoors for a while, and, to him that I was through with the graft, had ‘gone pass the time, I read a good deal. That’s how I queer,’ that made me his meat. You know how happened to run across Burke’s book. Do you crooks are: everyone in the world is either a read poetry?”

fellow crook or a prospective victim. So if I was

no longer a crook, than Fag considered me fair

I shook my head. An automobile going game.

toward Halfmoon Bay came into sight just

then—the first one we’d seen since we left the

“He learned about Burke’s family

White Shack. She waited until it had passed connections, and then he put it up to me—

before she went on, still talking rapidly.

twenty thousand dollars, or he’d turn me up. He

knew about the Los Angeles job, and he knew

“Burke wasn’t a genius, of course, but how badly I was wanted. I was up against it there was something about some of his things then. I knew I couldn’t hide from Fag or run that— something that got inside me. I wrote away from him. I told Burke I had to have him a little note, telling him how much I had twenty thousand dollars. I didn’t think he had enjoyed these things, and sent it to his that much, but I thought he could get it. Three publishers. A few days later I had a note from days later he gave me a check for it. I didn’t Burke, and I learned that he lived in San know at the time how he had raised it, but it Francisco. I hadn’t known that.

wouldn’t have mattered if I had known. I had to

have it.

“We exchanged several notes, and then

he asked if he could call, and we met. I don’t

“But that night he told me where he got

know whether I was in love with him or not, the money; that he had forged his brother‐in-even at first. I did like him, and, between the law’s signature. He told me because, after ardor of his love for me and the flattery of thinking it over, he was afraid that when the having a fairly well‐known poet for a suitor, I forgery was discovered I would be caught with really thought that I loved him. I promised to him and considered equally guilty. I’m rotten in marry him.

spots, but I wasn’t rotten enough to let him put

himself in the pen for me, without knowing

“I hadn’t told him anything about myself, what it was all about. I told him the whole story.

though now I know that it wouldn’t have made He didn’t bat an eye. He insisted that the money any difference to him. But I was afraid to tell be paid Kilcourse, so that I would be safe, and him the truth, and I wouldn’t lie to him, so I told began to plan for my further safety.

him nothing.

“Burke was confident that his brother‐in‐

“Then Fag Kilcourse saw me one day on law wouldn’t send him over for forgery, but, to

the street, and knew me in spite of my new hair, be on the safe side, he insisted that I move and complexion and clothes. Fag hadn’t much change my name again and lay low until we brains, but he had eyes that could see through knew how Axford was going to take it. But that anything. I don’t blame Fag. He acted according night, after he had gone, I made some plans of to his code. He came up to my apartment, my own. I did like Burke—I liked him too much having followed me home; and I told him that I to let him be the goat without trying to save was going to marry Burke and be a respectable him, and I didn’t have a great deal of faith in housewife. That was dumb of me. Fag was Axford’s kindness. This was the second of the square. If I had told him that I was ribbing Burke month. Barring accidents, Axford wouldn’t discover the forgery until he got his canceled

“When I told Burke that, he went to

checks early the following month. That gave me pieces. All his faith in his brother‐in‐law’s practically a month to work in.

forgiveness went. I couldn’t leave him the way

he was. He’d have babbled the whole thing to

“The next day I drew all my money out the first person he met. So I brought him back of the bank, and sent Burke a letter, saying that to Joplin’s with me. My idea was to hold him I had been called to Baltimore, and I laid a clear there for a few days, until we could see how trail to Baltimore, with baggage and letters and things were going. If nothing appeared in the all, which a pal there took care of for me. Then I papers about the check, then we could take it went down to Joplin’s and got him to put me for granted that Axford had hushed the matter up. I let Fag know I was there, and when he up, and Burke could go home and try to square came down I told him I expected to have the himself. On the other hand, if the papers got the money for him in a day or two.

whole story, then Burke would have to look for

a permanent hiding‐place, and so would I.

“He came down nearly every day after

that, and I stalled him from day to day, and each

“Tuesday evening’s and Wednesday

time it got easier. But my time was getting morning’s papers were full of the news of his short. Pretty soon Burke’s letters would be disappearance, but nothing was said about the coming back from the phony address I had given check. That looked good, but we waited another him, and I wanted to be on hand to keep him day for good measure. Fag Kilcourse was in on from doing anything foolish. And I didn’t want the game by this time, of course, and I had had to get in touch with him until I could give him to pass over the twenty thousand dollars, but I the twenty thousand, so he could square the still had hopes of getting it—or most of it—

forgery before Axford learned of it from his back, so I continued to string him along. I had a canceled checks.

hard time keeping off Burke, though, because

he had begun to think he had some sort of right

“Fag was getting easier and easier to to me, and jealousy made him wicked. But I got handle, but I still didn’t have him where I Tin‐Star to throw a scare into him, and I thought wanted him. He wasn’t willing to give up the Burke was safe.

twenty thousand dollars—which I was, of

course, holding all this time—unless I’d promise

“Tonight one of Tin‐Star’s men came up

to stick with him for good. And I still thought I and told us that a man named Porky Grout, who was in love with Burke, and I didn’t want to tie had been hanging around the place for a couple myself up with Fag, even for a little while.

of nights, had made a couple of cracks that

might mean he was interested in us. Grout was

“Then Burke saw me on the street one pointed out to me, and I took a chance on Sunday night. I was careless, and drove into the showing myself in the public part of the place, city in Joplin’s roadster—the one back there. and sat at a table close to his. He was plain rat—

And, as luck would have it, Burke saw me. I told as I guess you know—and in less than five him the truth, the whole truth. And he told me minutes I had him at my table, and half an hour that he had just hired a private detective to find later I knew that he had tipped you off that me. He was like a child in some ways: it hadn’t Burke and I were in the White Shack. He didn’t occurred to him that the sleuth would dig up tell me all this right out, but he told me more anything about the money. But I knew the than enough for me to guess the rest.

forged check would be found in a day or two at

the most. I knew it!

“I went up and told the others. Fag was

for killing both Grout and Burke right away. But I

talked him out of it. That wouldn’t help us any,

I cleared my throat, and the hand that

and I had Grout where he would jump in the held the mangled cigarette was suddenly ocean for me. I thought I had Fag convinced, steady.

but— We finally decided that Burke and I would

take the roadster and leave, and that when you

“Now don’t be crude, sister,” I said.

got here Porky Grout was to pretend he was “Your work has been too smooth so far to be hopped up, and point out a man and a spoiled by rough stuff now.”

woman—any who happened to be handy—as

the ones he had taken for us. I stopped to get a

She laughed—a brief laugh that was

cloak and gloves, and Burke went on out to the bitter and reckless and just a little weary, and car alone—and Fag shot him. I didn’t know he she thrust her face still closer to mine, and the was going to! I wouldn’t have let him! Please gray eyes were soft and placid.

believe that! I wasn’t as much in love with Burke

as I had thought, but please believe that after all

“Little fat detective whose name I don’t

he had done for me I wouldn’t have let them know”—her voice had a tired huskiness in it, hurt him!

and a tired mockery—”you think I am playing a

part, don’t you? You think I am playing for

“After that it was a case of stick with the liberty. Perhaps I am. I certainly would take it if others whether I liked it or not, and I stuck. We it were offered me. But— Men have thought me ribbed Grout to tell you that all three of us were beautiful, and I have played with them. Women on the back porch when Burke was killed, and are like that. Men have loved me and, doing we had any number of others primed with the what I liked with them, I have found men same story. Then you came up and recognized contemptible. And then comes this little fat me. Just my luck that it had to be you—the only detective whose name I don’t know, and he acts detective in San Francisco who knew me!

as if I were a hag—an old squaw. Can I help then

being piqued into some sort of feeling for him?

“You know the rest: how Porky Grout Women are like that. Am I so homely that any came up behind you and turned off the lights, man has a right to look at me without even and Joplin held you while we ran for the car; interest? Am I ugly?”

and then, when you closed in on us, Grout

offered to stand you off while we got clear, and

I shook my head. “You’re quite pretty,” I

now . . .”

said, struggling to keep my voice as casual as

the words.

Her voice died, and she shivered a little.

The robe I had given her had fallen away from

“You beast!” she spat, and then her

her white shoulders. Whether or not it was smile grew gentle again. “And yet it is because because she was so close against my shoulder, I of that attitude that I sit here and turn myself shivered, too. And my fingers, fumbling in my inside out for you. If you were to take me in pocket for a cigarette, brought it out twisted your arms and hold me close to the chest that I and mashed.

am already leaning against, and if you were to

tell me that there is no jail ahead for me just

“That’s all there is to the part you now, I would be glad, of course. But, though for promised to listen to,” she said softly, her face a while you might hold me, you would then be turned half away. “I wanted you to know. You’re only one of the men with which I am familiar: a hard man, but somehow I—”

men who love and are used and are succeeded

by other men. But because you do none of

these things, because you are a wooden block

of a man, I find myself wanting you. Would I tell

Porky Grout, whose yellowness was

you this, little fat detective, if I were playing a notorious from Seattle to San Diego, standing game?”

rigidly in the path of a charging metal monster,

with an inadequate pistol in each hand. She had

I grunted non‐committally, and forcibly done that to Porky Grout—this woman beside restrained my tongue from running out to me! She had done that to Porky Grout, and he moisten my dry lips.

hadn’t even been human! A slimy reptile whose

highest thought had been a skinful of dope had

“I’m going to this jail tonight if you are gone grimly to death that she might get away—

the same hard man who has goaded me into she— this woman whose shoulders I had whining love into his uncaring ears, but before gripped, whose mouth had been close under that, can’t I have one whole‐hearted assurance mine!

that you think me a little more than ‘quite

pretty’? Or at least a hint that if I were not a

I let the car out another notch, holding

prisoner your pulse might beat a little faster the road somehow.

when I touch you? I’m going to this jail for a

long while—perhaps to the gallows. Can’t I take

We went through a town: a scurrying of

my vanity there not quite in tatters to keep me pedestrians for safety, surprised faces staring at company? Can’t you do some slight thing to us, street lights glistening on the moisture the keep me from the afterthought of having wind had whipped from my eyes. I passed bleated all this out to a man who was simply blindly by the road I wanted, circled back to it, bored?”

and we were out in the country again.

Her lids had come down half over the

At the foot of a long, shallow hill I

silver‐gray eyes, her head had tilted back so far applied the brakes and we snapped to that a little pulse showed throbbing in her white motionless.

throat; her lips were motionless over slightly‐

parted teeth, as the last word had left them. My

I thrust my face close to the girl’s.

fingers went deep into the soft white flesh of

her shoulders. Her head went further back, her

“Furthermore, you are a liar!” I knew I

eyes closed, one hand came up to my shoulder.

was shouting foolishly, but I was powerless to

lower my voice. “Pangburn never put Axford’s

“You’re beautiful as all hell!” I shouted name on that check. He never knew anything crazily into her face, and flung her against the about it. You got in with him because you knew door.

his brother‐in‐law was a millionaire. You

pumped him, finding out everything he knew

It seemed an hour that I fumbled with about his brother‐in‐law’s account at the starter and gears before I had the car back in Golden Gate Trust. You stole Pangburn’s bank the road and thundering toward the San Mateo book—it wasn’t in his room when I searched County jail. The girl had straightened herself up it—and deposited the forged Axford check to in the seat again, and sat huddled within the his

credit,

knowing

that

under

those

robe I had given her. I squinted straight ahead circumstances

the

check

wouldn’t

be

into the wind that tore at my hair and face, and questioned. The next day you took Pangburn the absence of the windshield took my thoughts into the bank, saying you were going to make a back to Porky Grout.

deposit. You took him in because with him

standing beside you the check to which his

signature had been forged wouldn’t be

questioned. You knew that, being a gentleman,

I yanked my head away and got the car

he’d take pains not to see what you were in motion.

depositing.

Just before we swept into Redwood City

“Then you framed the Baltimore trip. He one of her hands came up to my forearm,

told the truth to me—the truth so far as he rested there for a second, patted the arm twice, knew it. Then you met him Sunday night—

and withdrew.

maybe accidentally, maybe not. Anyway, you

took him down to Joplin’s, giving him some wild

I didn’t look at her, nor, I think, did she

yarn that he would swallow and that would look at me, while she was being booked. She persuade him to stay there for a few days. That gave her name as Jeanne Delano, and refused to wasn’t hard, since he didn’t know anything make any statement until she had seen an about either of the twenty‐thousand‐dollar attorney. It all took a very few minutes.

checks. You and your pal Kilcourse knew that if

Pangburn disappeared nobody would ever know

As she was being led away, she stopped

that he hadn’t forged the Axford check, and and asked if she might speak privately with me.

nobody would ever suspect that the second

check was phony. You’d have killed him quietly,

We went together to a far corner of the

but when Porky tipped you off that I was on my room.

way down you had to move quick—so you shot

him down. That’s the truth of it!” I yelled.

She put her mouth close to my ear so

that her breath was warm again on my cheek,

All this while she watched me with wide as it had been in the car, and whispered the gray eyes that were calm and tender, but now vilest epithet of which the English language is they clouded a little and a pucker of pain drew capable.

her brows together.

Then she walked out to her cell.