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Show 'i. Midden Was t-- By FREDERIC F. VAN DE WATE-R KilL IWll SYNOPSIS I David Mallory, In search of newspaper work In New York. Is forced to accept a Job as switch-board operator In a swank apartment house, managed by oJTiclous Timothy Higglns. There David meets Miss Agatha Paget, a crippled old lady, and her charming niece. AUegra. One day. talking with Higglns In the lobby. David Is alarmed by a piercing scream. David finds the scream came from the Ferriter apartment, not far from the Pagets". The Ferrlters Include Lyon and Everett, and their sister. lone. Everett, a genalogist. Is helping Agatha Paget write a book about her blue-blooded ancestors. an-cestors. Inside the apartment they find a black-bearded man dead. No weapon can be found. The police arrive. Hig-gins. Hig-gins. who actively dislikes David, informs in-forms him that he Is fired. David Is called to the Paget apartment. There he tinds elderly, prim-appearing Agatha Paget sipping a cocktail and smoking a cigarette. She offers him a Job helping write her family history which will unearth a few family skeletons. CHAPTER IV Continued 5 " "A muck-raking genealogy," I said, hoping I'd plague her. Agatha nodded. "If more of it was raked, every generation, there'd be less muck. I'll give you " She stopped and looked toward the door. The maid said, "Captain Shannon, Shan-non, ma'am." He held his hat and wore his overcoat. over-coat. I saw his eyebrows go up a little as he looked at me but there was no surprise in his voice when he spoke to Miss Agatha. "Thank you for your help, Miss Paget. I'm leaving." He looked from the fragile old lady to the cards and the emptied glass and grinned. "You're swell," he said. Miss Agatha beamed. "I won't argue it with you," she told him. "Anything new?" "Everett Ferriter came in," Shannon Shan-non reported briefly. "I've been talking to him across the way. I tried to get an identification out of him." "And what did he do?" Miss Agatha Aga-tha asked. "He wrung his hands," said Shannon. Shan-non. "He'd never seen Blackbeard. Hadn't any idea who it was. He's over there now if you want to see him." "I do not," said Miss Agatha. "My niece gave him an alibi. That's enough. And he can't bother his sister tonight, either. We've dosed her with sedatives and she's asleep. What about Lyon?" Shannon's eyelids puckered and a sullen sound came into his voice. "We're looking for him," he said. "Small chance of his getting clear. Every cop in town has his description descrip-tion by now. It's only a matter of time before we pick him up." "And the knife?" the old lady asked. He scowled. "No sign of it," he confessed. "We've tossed the whole place and it's not there." Feet came heavily along the hall. The maid appeared at the doorway and started to speak but two men stood behind her and one of them, the detective Jake, said proudly to Shannon: "Here's the guy. Cap." Miss Agatha was the first to find her voic and in it was no hint of surprise. "Come in," she invited. "Captain "Cap-tain Shannon, this is my neighbor, Mr. Lyon Ferriter." She turned to me, hesitated and then her eyelids puckered. "I don't know," she told the gaunt figure in the doorway, "whether you have met Mr. Mallory formally before. be-fore. Do come in." Ferriter was still the lank, brown figure in worn tweeds that I had seen striding through the foyer and I felt again, as he stood in the door and stared, the odd charm of his leathery person. His black hair was stippled with gray like a silver fox pelt and if he were alarmed, he hid it well. He bowed to the old lady and said in a pleasant, faintly English Eng-lish voice: "Good evening, Miss Paget. I'm sorry to intrude but " He shifted his attention to Shannon Shan-non and his tone was less agreeable. "I understand, Captain, that I must get your permission to enter my own apartment." "Who brought you in?" Shannon snapped. Ferriter nodded to his cigar-chewing companion. "This gentleman," he replied with a slurring gap between the words. The Captain beamed on Jake. "You're not so dumb at that," he told his underling. "Where did you find him?" Jake said, "I didn't. He walked right in on us, next door." Miss Agatha seemed amused but Shannon was not. He found the undeterred un-deterred return of Lyon Ferriter more affronting than his absence. "Came back!" the Captain stuttered. stut-tered. "Walked in, with all the cops in this town " He choked and color blurred the freckles on his obstinate face. Lyon shrugged wide, stooped shoulders. "Perhaps," he suggested politely, "someone will tell me why I shouldn't?" Jake started to speak but gagged and was silent under Shannon's glare. The Captain had got himself him-self in hand. Now he asked with a stealthy courtesy: "Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling tell-ing us where you've been." "Perhaps," Lyon replied and his long nose twitched humorouslyj "but why should I?" ' " His calm irked Shannon who blurted: "Why? Because a man was killed In your flat, this afternoon, Mr. Fer riter, at about three-thirty. Just where were you then, eh?" "Oh.1" Ferriter said and was still a moment. I thought it was not fear but surprise that silenced him. At last, he said simply: "I don't know." "Don't know?" Shannon echoed. "Exactly," the gaunt man said, standing wholly at ease in the doorway. door-way. "I was walking In the Bronx!" His mind ran ahead of Shannon's like a staghound before a terrier. As the Captain hesitated, Lyon said, still easily but with a shade of worry: wor-ry: "If you're looking for an alibi, sir, we're wasting time. I've been alone all day. It's been sunny and I wanted to stretch my legs. So I went for a tramp. Perhaps, if I admit ad-mit I have no alibi, you'll be good enough to tell me who was killed in my apartment?" His last words were strained. Miss Agatha understood and said: "Your brother and sister are in no way involved, Mr. Ferriter." The Captain frowned but Lyon ducked his grizzled head again and smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Miss Agatha," said he. "Then I'm entirely at your service, serv-ice, Captain. Perhaps I can save you time." He leaned against the door jamb and hooked one thumb into his vest. The other long brown hand hung easily at his side. His pleasant voice was unruffled as he told how, with sandwiches in his pocket, he had tramped north to Bronx Park and wandered most of the afternoon through wintry woods. "That's a good deal of a walk, isn't it?" Shannon purred. "That's what I wanted," Lyon answered. an-swered. "And you spent the whole day without talking to anyone?" the Captain Cap-tain asked. "I said," Lyon reminded him, "that I had no alibi. I had the solitude soli-tude you can get only in New York, or beyond the Arctic Circle. No," he exclaimed suddenly, "that isn't quite right. I helped a lady fix her car." "When?" "Sometime in the afternoon. I really re-ally don't know. She had ignition trouble I mean her car had. I fixed it for her." He spread his hands and showed his still soiled palms. "The grease sticks," he pursued. "She was driving a last year's Ford sedan, New York license. I don't recall the number. She was stalled near where Moshulu Parkway swings Over into the Bronx River Parkway. I didn't ask her name. You see, she was not exactly beauty in distress. An elderly person but not at all like Miss Paget." Miss Agatha caught my eye and winked shamelessly. ' Then she resumed re-sumed her careful regard of Lyon. "And then?" Shannon prodded. "I walked south to the 180th Street subway station. It was dusk when ; I reached it. I got off at Grand Central, scrubbed off some of the grime in the washroom, had supper at Mino's, 22 East Fifty-second and came on home." He paused, and blinked calmly at Shannon who scowled and bit his Up. "Ever," the Captain lunged, "know a man with a black beard?" Lyon smiled. "I've spent a winter in Alaska," he said. "I've known beards of all colors." "About your size," Shannon said, glaring, "carried a knife under his left armpit." "Wouldn't it be better," Ferriter asked, "if you let me see him?" He bowed to Miss Paget and, with Jake tailing close behind and Shannon glowering in the rear, led the way from the room. Their footsteps foot-steps went down the halL The door opened and closed. The old lady folded her hands on her lap and looked at me. "Well?" she asked. I found challenge chal-lenge in her voice. "Well?" I answered. "We seem to agree," she jeered. I did not understand her and after waiting a moment, she went on briskly: "When we were interrupted, I was about to offer you the job of writing the Paget book for me. Would fifty dollars a week be satisfactory?" I needed it badly, yet I found the offer hard to take. Its charitable flavor gagged me. I said "No" and she looked at me hard. "You'll work for it,"she assured me. "Don't think you won't. Or if fifty really isn't enough, sixty then." "Miss Paget " I began and then stopped and stood up. Allegra and Grosvenor Paget came in. They were like creatures from a world that knew no poverty or sorrow. He was smoothly handsome hand-some in evening clothes with little, I thought, between his blond face and his shining hair. His sister had the spark he lacked. They had breeding, or else long acquaintance with the whims of their aunt, for they spoke to me as easily as though hallmen were usually usu-ally to be found in Miss Agatha's room, and then addressed the old lady with irreverent hilarity, both talking at once. They were off to the Groesbeck ball. Bertha would listen for lone, in case she roused but the'- doctor had said she would not. They did not know when they would be in. "I don't see," Grosvenor said defensively, de-fensively, "why we shouldn't go. Aft er all it isn't our murder and lone is down under and we can't do any good by moping at home." AUegra bent and kissed the old woman, snorting in her neck till Miss Agatha giggled and pushed her away. Her brother leaned over his aunt's chair as Allegra moved toward to-ward the door. She said good night to me. Her smile was trite but her clear eyes, I thought, questioned and dared me. Her look upset, yet lifted lift-ed me. I bowed and mumbled. I' was afraid she might read my face. Her soft laughter came back to us as she and her brother went down the hall. I found Miss Agatha staring star-ing at me. "She's easy to look at," the old lady said, with elaborate indifference. indiffer-ence. "And in a few years, on her birthday, she will inherit two million mil-lion dollars." "Won't that be nice!" I retorted. I knew she had warned me. Her chuckle was understanding. "We're having a hard time," she apologized, "getting this settled, David. Da-vid. Sixty dollars a week, one week's salary in advance and you start work at nine tomorrow morning." It wasn't the price she set. It wasn't thought of the dark jobless world outside. I looked toward the door where Allegra had stood and made up my mind. "I'll be here at nine," I told Miss Agatha, "but my price is forty dollars." dol-lars." They were carrying the body from the Ferriter apartment when I went into the hall, so I walked downstairs. down-stairs. Fineman, at the switchboard, hailed me as I went past him. "What about Lyon?" I asked. "Hadn't you heard?" asked Fine-man. Fine-man. "Oh, he's pinched. He done it." "Pull yourself together," I told , him. "Who gave you that steer?" "Him and the Captain and that dick in the hard hat went out together," to-gether," Fineman insisted. "I know a pinch when I see it." CHAPTER V The policeman no longer guarded the Morello vestibule. Walters, the night doorman, kicked his feet together to-gether and blew on his fingers as I passed into the street toward the service entrance. One man still waited before the Morello front door. He followed me down the street. I wondered whether wheth-er Shannon was having me shadowed shad-owed and then forgot about him. I had not eaten since morning. Hunger drove away even thought of Allegra Paget's beauty in the clinging light blue gown and the ribald gaiety of her passage with that amazing old woman. I turned into the first lunch room I passed. As I gave my order, a man sat down opposite me at the white-topped table. "Coffee and butter cakes," he told the waitress. He was plump and mild but the eyes in his wind-reddened face seemed drowsy. I met his stare and that made him speak, though he cleared his throat several times first. "You're Mallory?" he asked. "Hallman at the Morello?" I had been right then. It was another an-other detective. "So what?" I asked, and he grinned. "I'm Cochrane, Jerry Cochrane of the Press. Larry Duke was speaking speak-ing about you." The bowl of soup before me was more interesting, but as its warmth spread inside me, I looked up and told him: "Get your dope from Shannon. I'm out of newspaper work." He sipped his coffee and said at last: "It might mean something for you on the Press if you and I could bust this case wide open." He waited while I abolished ham and eggs and, when I had finished, asked: "Got time to listen to me now?" At my sulky nod, he leaned across the table and spoke rapidly. Duke had cursed me in his hearing. It had given Cochrane an idea, which he had carried to Milligan, his city editor, who had approved it. "You know yourself," the chubby man said bitterly, "what chance a reporter has at the Morello. Those stuffed shirts have hearts as hard as their arteries. If you'll work on the inside for us while I do the outside, the Press will have this story by the slack of the pants and, if we do break it together, there'll be a nice piece of change in it for you." "I keep telling you," I said, "that I don't want a piece of change. Stool-pigeoning isn't my line. I could use a newspaper job, but otherwise it's out." "Agreed," he said so calmly that he took my breath, "you're working for the Press from now on. You're on the payroll at twenty-five a week. If you and I can beat the town on this yarn, it'll be fifty and a permanent perma-nent job." He misread my stare. "I'm not kidding," he told me. "Milligan will write you a letter confirming it. Only you're to keep your present job and say nothing." Excitement that had burned me for the Press had been a newspaper when the Sphere still had been trees in a forest died and left nothing but ashes. I did not feel Me laughing laugh-ing but I did. (TO BE comimed |