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Show jS,.vBy FREDERIC F. VAN DE YVATE.R lV?"lo 'WMl Dav d find, T. y 3 p'ercln8 scream. Fwriter ,rt SCJeam came from th PaeeU' ThJ "me?y not tar frm the Everett" S fu7ile,TS taclude and 1 ,.an-d their slster' Ione. Everett wrftP l08'?' iS helpins Agathf Paget I b ark hi id5 the aPart'"ent they find ?aaabCekf0elanrdded man-deaa- N weapon CHAPTER III The patrolman still stood before the Ferriter door. It was open and I could hear men inside talking and furniture being moved and I saw the short white glare of a flashlight. Jake pushed me oft the elevator and I kept from asking him how he'd like a sock in the nose, remembering remember-ing just in time that this wasn't my town. "Whoa," he said as I turned toward to-ward the open door. "Not there, sap. In here." He jerked his head towara the Paget apartment, turned the doorknob door-knob and waved me in before him. It was dark by now and all the lights were on in the workroom. Three men were there. The ember head, who I learned was Captain Ma-lachi Ma-lachi Shannon of the Homicide Squad, kept walking up and down before Higgins who sat and sweated in a chair by the desk where a greasy little dick took shorthand. In the corner, calmly alert, Miss Paget occupied her wheel chair. She seemed more out of place, yet even more wholly enjoying herself, than a bishop in a crap game. I must have showed what I thought for in the moment's silence, while Shannon walked up and down the rug again and Higgins perspired more, the old lady said: "The Captain's associates are still busy in the Ferriter flat, David. So I put my own at his service." The grin, that lent her withered face youth, heartened me. Shannon I gave me a farewell dinner on the News and a gold watch. I haven't either of them now. My boss in Omaha, Gilchrist, raised Lomax from a pup, but not very far. Gilchrist Gil-christ gave me a letter. He was certain it would get me the job Hunter Hunt-er had promised. Well, it didn't. Or it hadn't up to noon today, which was the last time I called at the Sphere office." "I won't crawl back home, whipped. That's why I'm in this handsome, second-hand uniform. It lets me stay alive here, and I make the rounds of the papers in my spare time. Every office boy in town now locks the city room door when he sees me coming." I hated the shaky quality of my laugh. "You can check up," I invited, "through the Omaha chief or the News but you can see why I'd rather rath-er you didn't." He nodded, thought a minute and then sat down with a sigh. "All right, fella," he said with the comradeship cops can always show when they need newspaper help. "Here's what we know so far." He rattled through a catalogue of unrelated details: Blackbeard had been stabbed through the heart. No one knew how he got into the Morello, for there was no entrance to this main building except the foyer or by elevator ele-vator from the basement. No identification iden-tification had been found in his clothes, though there was money in ' his pocket. No one knew whether the Ferriters knew him. lone was still too hysterical to be questioned. Neither of her brothers had come in. Everett had gone out at four o'clock. No one had seen Lyon, the older brother, since he left the apartment house that morning. "That," said Shannon, "is as far as we've gone. What have you got to add?" I was so slow in answering that his eyes grew hard again. Astonishment Aston-ishment silenced me. In the confusion confu-sion before and after the finding of the dead man, I had forgotten that last telephone call from the Ferriter flat. Memory of it, flashing back now, blew my mind about. "Sorry," I told the Captain and gave a weak grin. "I just remembered remem-bered something. I took a phone call from Three B a half-hour maybe twenty minutes before Miss Ferriter began her screaming. Perhaps Per-haps I heard the man killed." Even the oily little stenographer stared at me. "What time was this?" Shannon asked hoarsely. "Just before Miss Paget' s chair broke down. That made me forget." I told of the phone call from the Ferriter fiat, 'of the comment in a thick, foreign tongue, apparently to someone else in the apartment and of the muffled thump that followed. "What number was it?" Shannon asked. I shrugged. "Spring something. It's on the pad downstairs." "Jake," the Captain snapped. The detective clumped down the hall. Shannon ran fingers through his hair again and squinted at nothing. "Know anything about these Ferriters?" Fer-riters?" he asked suddenly. "No. I've been here only a week." "Never heard why the three of them came here?" Miss Paget cleared her throat and then spoke precisely. "It was through me, Captain. Everett Ev-erett Ferriter, as I told you, is a genealogist of some reputation. He has been helping me with a book I'm compiling. When Mrs. Reynolds wished to rent her apartment, I told Everett about it. They are apparently appar-ently gentlefolk, if that means anything." any-thing." "Not much, begging your pardon," par-don," Shannon retorted. Miss Agatha nodded. "I quite agree," she said. Amusement puckered the Captain's Cap-tain's eyelids. He turned to me. "When did this other one, this Lyon Ferriter, go out?" 1 I thought and shook my head. "I haven't seen him today at all. The others on tho hall " Shannon's angry grunt cut me short. "They didn't see Blackbeard come in; they didn't see this Lyon go out. Yet he is out. And Blackbeard is across the hall. And you say someone some-one made a phone call from that apartment and, unless he was talking talk-ing to himself, there was another guy with him." He rumpled his hair further. I asked Miss Agatha: "Are the Ferriters foreign born?" She shook her head. "I believe not. They speak excellent ex-cellent English." "Then," I went on, "it was Blackbeard Black-beard who telephoned. A thick voice that sounded as though it might be German." Jake entered with the call sheet The half-devoured cigar wabbled in his mouth and his finger shook as he handed the page to his chief and pointed. The Captain said no word but looked for a long minute before he held the paper out to me with his thumbnail indenting its margin. "That the call?" he asked in a voice I felt he kept so mild by great effort. "Yes," I said. "At three-thirty by the clock on the switchboard. I don't know whether it was completed complet-ed or not I plugged in and then--" (TO DE C0.T1.L'EDJ CHAPTER n Continued 3 Hoyt had brought down a thick-shouldered thick-shouldered person with an unlighted cigar clamped in his jaws who advanced ad-vanced and tapped Higgins on the shoulder so that the superintendent jumped. "Higgins?" his accoster asked. "Cm on. Captain wants you." My employer cast a look of appeal ap-peal over his shoulder as he was marched away. It puzzled me. I could not imagine him a murderer, yet he had asked me for an alibi. An elderly young man in a Chesterfield Ches-terfield overcoat, with a cane hooked over his arm and glasses tethered to a black cord, approached the policeman po-liceman at the door, stood for some minutes, not inargument but conversation con-versation with the sentinel, and then pushed past him, undeterred. Something in his cocksure swagger swag-ger irked me and woke foggy recollection. recol-lection. As he spoke, I recognized him. He had strolled through the anteroom of the Sphere's offices that noon while I had waited for the scornful office boy to tell me once again that Lomax, the city editor, could not see me. " 'Evening," said the intruder briskly. "I'm from the Sphere. Duke. Larry Duke." It was childish to vent my grievance griev-ance against Lomax upon his reporter, report-er, but my nerves were jangled and I had had no lunch, thanks to my fruitless journey to the Sphere's office. of-fice. "Yes?" I said. Duke leaned against the switchboard switch-board and lit a cigarette. That made me angrier. I needed one so. "Had a little killing upstairs, eh?" he asked. "Know anything about it?" "Plenty," I told him. "I found the body." That shook him up. He jerked so that his eyeglasses fell oft. He hauled copy paper from his pocket. "Ain't," he grinned, "ain't this somepin? First, let's get your name right." I gave it to him. He printed it carefully at the top of the page. "Now," he gloated, "tell me all about it. How did you know there'd been a killing? When did it happen?" "Easy," I said. "I'm not working work-ing for the Sphere." He put on his glasses again and stared at me. "I don't get you," he said at last. "Sure you don't," I told him and I loved it. I was landing a punch at last after being hammered all over the ring. "You don't get me or a word out of me." He looked at me harder. "Now wait," he wheedled. "Don't be that way. If you can give this to me exclusive, there'll be a piece of change in it for you." "I can," I said, "but I won't, and I'll tell you why." It felt so good to get a little of my own back that I wanted more. And besides I never saw a man with a black tie-rope to his glasses whom I liked. In my mind I combined com-bined Duke and his boss, Lomax, retaining the worst features of both. "Believe it or not," I told the reporter, re-porter, "I used to be a newspaper man myself. I came to this town with a letter to Lomax from Doc Gilchrist. When Lomax didn't have two nickels to rub together. Doc gave him a job and taught him all he knows. I sent in the letter. Lomax Lo-max was busy; come back in a week. In a week he was still busy. And the week after and the week after that." "Boy," said Duke, "there are a lot better newspaper men than you'll ever be looking for work in this town and not finding any." "Maybe," I granted. "If you knew the story I could write at present, you'd change your mind. Not getting get-ting a job isn't what gripes. Your boss is too important even to give old Doc Gilchrist's friend a handshake hand-shake and wish him luck. Doc read me his letter to Lomax. Which is one of the reasons why I say hell with him and with you." The thick man stood beside me; he had chewed an inch off his cigar tince I had seen him last. "Hi, Larry," he said to Duke and turning to me: "If you've finished the lecture, mug the Captain wants you up-ttair's. up-ttair's. As a matter of fact, he wants you anyway. On your feet. "Hey listen, Jake," the reporter jegged, "give me a steer, will you? What's going on? Is it big? Colossal," the other replied, pushing me toward the elevator Shannon'll seeyou boys later. I can't stop now." He Blared at me all the way upstairs up-stairs I glared back. I felt : better somehow. They had cops like him in my own town and besides, for me first time since I reached New York, I felt I was important to aomebody. "I came East for work I didn't get." turned on Higgins again, started to speak, bit his lip, rumpled his hair and said at last: "All right. You can go. But not far. I may want you later." "Yes, sir." Higgins grunted, heaving heav-ing himself up. The chair I took was warm from the superintendent's stewing. Jake stood in the doorway, door-way, and chewed his cigar. Shannon Shan-non rumpled his hair some more and then wheeled on me. "Now get this," he stormed, "I want the truth out of you." Partly, it was the presence of the old lady; partly, it was because I hadn't liked being pushed around by Jake. My squabble with Duke had boosted my morale, too. "And get this," I told Shannon and he gaped: "I'll tell you just as much more if you don't yell." His eyes were clever for all the Irish obstinacy of his freckled face. "Tough, eh?" he asked at last. "With tough guys." I thought 1 saw traces of amusement amuse-ment on his face. I did not know whether Miss Agatha coughed or snorted. Shannon hesitated. I said: "To save us both time, my name is David Mallory, twenty-nine, employed em-ployed since last Saturday as a hall-man hall-man here, living in the superintendent's superintend-ent's flat in the cellar." "Ah," Shannon purred, looking at me hard, "one of these wise birds?" "I passed for one," I replied, "in my home town. Even the cops said so." "Cops knew quite a lot about you, eh?" the Captain asked politely. "They did," I admitted. "I was a reporter on the News, in Omaha. You can check up on that, though I'd rather you wouldn't." "I see," said Shannon in a deceptively decep-tively mild voice, "then what are you doing on a job like this?" "I have a yen for food," I answered an-swered and wished that Miss Paget were somewhere else. "I just can't get along without it I came East for work I didn't get I ran into Eddie Hoyt he's on the elevator-last elevator-last week. His father had worked for mine. Eddie got me this job. We were kids together." "And if you were so hard up as that," the Captain went on and I felt something tense behind his pleasant manner, "why didn't you go back to Omaha?" I drew a breath. "I'll make this," I said, trying to be jaunty about it. "as short and as cheerful as I can. Hunter, who was city editor of the Sphere, liked my work. He sent for me to come on. Hunter was canned the day I'd planned to come and a so-and-so named Lomax took his place." "I know him," Shannon nodded. "It's nothing to boast about. They |