====================== Nemesis Magazine #5: Gun Moll in Angel with No Hands by Stephen Adams ====================== Copyright (c)2005 Stephen Adams Renaissance www.renebooks.com Thriller --------------------------------- NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. --------------------------------- *NEMESIS MAGAZINE* Vol. II-No. 1 Featuring: *GUN MOLL,* Undercover Nemesis of Crime in *"THE ANGEL WITH NO HANDS"* By STEPHEN ADAMS Nemesis Magazine is published by Anvil Publishing Editor-in-Chief: Stephen Adams; Managing Editor: J. M. Stine Distributed by Renaissance E Books For information contact: Renaissance E Books publisher@renebooks.com ISBN 1-58873-395-5 Gun Moll, Angel with No Hands, and all characters in Angel with No Hands, including their depiction and the Nemesis logo are the creation and copyright property of Stephen Adams. Copyright 2004: Stephen Adams. All rights reserved. Copyright to all other new material in this issue assigned to the respective authors. This publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. Cover: Stephen Adams -------- *CONTENTS* GUN MOLL, Undercover Nemesis of Crime in -- *THE ANGEL WITH NO HANDS* A complete book length novel by STEPHEN ADAMS PLUS THESE GREAT MYSTERY STORIES *THE CON* -- A New Nick Bancroft Mystery by BOB LITER *THE DETECTIVE'S WIFE* -- A 1904 "Fair Play" Locked Room Puzzler by TUDOR JENKS *JADE MOUNTAIN* -- A Lt. Mark Stoddard Police Procedural by J. D. CRAYNE *THE BUNCH OF VIOLETS* -- A Rarely Reprinted WWI Case of Max Carrados, the Blind Detective by ERNEST BRAMAH *MURDER PICNIC* -- A Bizarre New Crime Story by S. A. GORDEN -------- *THE ANGEL WITH NO HANDS* A book length Gun Moll adventure as told by STEPHEN ADAMS -------- *CHAPTER I* High above the city, a raw wind gusted through the bare, steel frame of the Fortitude Building. Construction of the ironically-named building had begun before the stock market crash that had wrecked the nation's economy. After Black Tuesday three of the original investors were bankrupt, one had committed suicide, and the remaining three had shut down the site until money could be found to complete it. Tonight that search for funds was about to become irrelevant. A secret manipulator had his own plans for the property. A gang of men tramped over the plank flooring that stretched over yawning space twenty floors up. Each man lugged a big suitcase with one hand while gripping an electric torch in the other. Brutish faces could be glimpsed from time to time in that wavering light -- faces marked by hard jaws and flinty eyes -- faces stamped with expressions of ruthless determination. One by one the suitcases thumped down on the floorboards, much to the relief of their carriers. Latches snapped open and the torchlight played over the contents -- heavy bundles of dynamite. One by one the explosive charges were strapped to the uprights that supported to upper floors of the unfinished building. "Three more to go," rasped one of the thugs. "Start hooking them up to the detonator, Torcelli." The man so designated bent to his task. While an assistant held his light steady, Torcelli attached wires to the blasting caps in the dynamite and began to unreel them toward the timer he had placed in the center of the platform. His accomplices, having finished their own work, stood in a group nearby and waited impatiently. Most of them were uncomfortable working this high up and would be glad to return to solid ground. As the last wires were being attached, however, a new voice crackled through the air. "Hands up! Everyone stay right where you are!" The men whirled as they were lashed by the sharp commands. Torch beams cut through the darkness but it was impossible to be sure where that voice had come from. One man reached inside his jacket and tugged forth a revolver. It was the last move he ever made. The newcomer's location was revealed instantly by a tongue of red flame that spurted from the darkness near the workmen's lift, accompanied by the authoritative boom of an automatic. The man who had reached for his gun clutched instead at his shoulder and gasped at the searing spike of pain that ripped into him. He twisted, arms suddenly pinwheeling for balance. In that uncertain light his companions could only glimpse his horrified face as a terrible realization dawned upon him -- the realization that his right foot rested only on thin air. With a terrifying screech he plunged into the darkness before the rest of the gang could think to save him. At that same moment the powerful beam of an electric torch snapped on, bathing the gang in a harsh, yellow light. "F.B.I.!" shouted the voice from the darkness. "Up with your hands, now! You're all under arrest!" The cornered gangsters shuffled nervously but hands began to creep upward. "Come on, get 'em up!" ordered the disembodied voice. The source of the light beam began to move closer to the gang. "I'm going to throw you all some handcuffs. I want you to put them on and then we're all going to take a nice elevator ride down to the ground. No funny stuff now unless you want the same treatment your friend got!" Several pairs of handcuffs hit the planks at the gang's feet with a sharp clash of steel chains. One of the men bent to pick them up when yet another voice hissed through the darkness. "You are very clever, are you not? You think you have everything arranged." The new voice was boldly feminine, exotically accented and yet possessed of a dark and cruel undertone. It was so close behind the hidden g-man that he could feel warm breath caress his ear. The agent spun and through some miraculous instinct he also dodged to one side. That split-second movement saved his life for a smashing blow glanced off his skull instead of splitting it. He collapsed with stars in his eyes but the attack that was meant to kill had merely stunned him. In a second he was back up on his feet but that was one second too late for the unlucky agent. The gang of dynamiters had not hesitated to take advantage of their sudden reprieve. Their powerful arms held the man in a grip of steel. "He killed Tony!" roared one of the thugs. Before anyone else could react his fist slammed into the g-man's gut and left him doubled up and retching. The angry men yanked him up though as fist after punishing fist connected. The agent clenched his teeth and refused to give his tormentors the satisfaction of hearing a plea for mercy escape his bloody lips. Stubby fingers twined through his hair and pulled his face up into the light. "He's just a kid!" yelled one of the gangsters. Anyone looking up from the street would have seen bizarre show as torches waved wildly twenty floors above. The scene on the platform was illuminated only in flashes, yet through swollen eyes the agent glimpsed a face he knew. "Lowell," he gasped. "Stop them..." The man called Lowell shoved his way through the group. The agent gazed up at him, helpless in the grip of the furious mobsters. Instead of helping his acquaintance though, Lowell's own fist crashed into the g-man's face. As the man's limp body thumped to the floorboards he dragged forth his own automatic and took aim at the prone body. "Enough!" snapped the feminine voice. "Put that thing away, chien! You men have already drawn enough attention to our whereabouts by your lack of vigilance and this foolish brawl." Torch beams converged upon the source of the words. Through the darkness of the night they came to rest on a tall, dark woman whose curves could only be guessed at, hidden as they were beneath the long, black coat that she kept buttoned up against the wind. Her face, also, was shadowed by the sloping brim of a low-slung hat. What little of her features showed could have been beautiful, but with the terrible, heartless beauty of a poisonous serpent. "We gotta kill him," said one of the gangsters as he hauled out his revolver. "He recognized Lowell." "Stop this foolishness at once!" The man jumped back as if a cobra had struck at him from the shadows. "How dare you disobey my order!" The woman's arm swung at the man in a gleaming arc. Her craven underling cringed and the blow swished through empty air. But as that arm cut through space it was caught in the light of the electric torches. No hand graced the end of that black-clad arm. Rather, the woman's limb terminated in a cruel, steel hook! "Seize him," she ordered. "And bring him to me." The dark woman strode, carelessly surefooted, across the flimsy platform that held them suspended hundreds of feet above the bare earth below. She stopped at one of the upright girders and gestured with her hook. "Tie him here," she said. "Let the dynamite finish him off when the building is destroyed." The gangsters went to work and very soon the young man was securely bound to the girder. He glared angrily at the grinning mobsters but his rage was useless. He could not move a finger to help himself. The woman smiled and bent down. She reached out and he could see that she bore not one, but two hooks where her hands should have been. In a gesture that mocked gentleness she cradled his face. The cold steel dug into his cheeks and a trickle of blood ran down his face. "I almost feel sad to leave such a pretty, young boy to his fate." "You won't get away with this, you lousy crook," sputtered the agent. "They'll hunt you down, you can bet on it!" His eyes flicked up to Lowell, standing back in the shadows. "And you too, you rat! You'll pay plenty for double-crossing the agency! You can never run far enough!" The woman laughed in his face and her cruel pleasure burned him like a torturer's iron. "So feisty," she said. "Such a pity you will never have the opportunity to grow up and master your turbulent emotions." In a final gesture of contempt, the woman lowered her face to his and bestowed upon his mouth a long and passionate kiss. The caress went on and on while the agent thrashed his head to and fro, trying to escape those burning lips. When she finally released him and rose to her feet she looked down and sneered at his outrage and humiliation. "And so you now have an idea of what earthly delights you will be missing when you depart from this world in a great ball of flame in..." she checked her watch, "just twenty minutes from now. Long enough, of course, for us to be safely far away from the scene of this so-terrible tragedy." The mobsters guffawed while the young F.B.I. agent struggled uselessly. Just a few feet away from him the timer ticked away the seconds of his life and he could do nothing to stop it. As she turned toward the lift where her men were already gathering, the woman turned and spoke one last time to the doomed agent. Relax, cher. Do not dwell upon thoughts of the violent end you must face. Let your mind, instead, be filled with visions of the beauty you see before you now, myself." She spread her arms and dipped her head in a little bow. "I bid you one, last adieu from Giselle sans Mans." With those words she joined her underlings on the lift. The engine whirred to life and the gang disappeared from his sight. The young agent was left alone, high above the lights of the city, staring helplessly at the bomb that would soon end his existence. He continued to struggle against the ropes that cut cruelly into his flesh but he knew the effort was in vain. He was held fast. After ten minutes he fell limp against the cold iron behind him, sweating and exhausted from his exertions. There seemed nothing left but to prepare himself for the inevitable. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. Minutes went by. Somewhere below him he heard the lift motor switch on again and in the darkness he could just make out the movement of the cables. He couldn't imagine what this new development could mean. Did Giselle change her mind after all and send one of her gunmen back to finish him off? His eyes flickered feverishly as he waited to see what the rising car would bring. At last the lift rattled into view and settled into position with a muffled bang. The agent peered through the blackness to see what new danger it had brought. What he saw astonished him. Instead of Giselle or one of her gangsters he first saw another woman. She was clad in a long, white, satin dress over which she had carelessly draped a luxurious, fur coat. Her hair, a platinum blond, reflected beams of moonlight and the stars sparkled in the diamonds that clustered at her throat and wrists. Where Giselle sans Mains had been dark and vilely passionate, this woman seemed to be carved from a master sculptor from a block of ice. As she moved from the lift the agent perceived a second figure looming behind her. As coldly beautiful as the woman had been, so was this second person ugly and ungainly. He seemed more like a giant ape than a man, packed into clothing that could never fit his bulky physique. The young g-man called out, "Over here! There's a bomb! Hurry!" The two newcomers heard him and rushed over. The woman looked up at her companion with an I-told-you-so look in her eyes. Then she dropped her frosty, blue gaze onto the agent. "Well, well" she said. "Looks like you got yourself into quite a mess, doesn't it?" -------- *CHAPTER II* The utter implausibility of this woman and her apish companion suddenly appearing on the doomed construction site left the young g-man dumbfounded. If there was one thing he had not expected to see coming up the lift it was this glamorous, Jean Harlow look-alike. He ignored her flippant question and shouted at her, "Untie me and let's get out of here!" That outburst earned the g-man a thunderous look from the man but the woman seemed to lose all interest in him. She motioned for her hulking companion to stand easy while she knelt to examine the bomb's timing mechanism. The two newcomers then spoke together in an undertone too quiet for the agent to overhear. At last, the woman stepped back into the lift while the man turned and fished a large, folding knife out of his pocket. It opened with a decisive snap. Tension clawed at the g-man's spine as the big lug stumped toward him with the knife held out, ready for use. The man's face did nothing to inspire confidence as his low-slung brow and heavy jaw suggested the savage intent of a caveman rather than any civilized motive for his approach. From the way he thumbed the edge of his blade he might have scalping on his mind. The agent squeezed his eyes shut as the knife flashed down but instead of the sharp bite of steel he felt a welcome release as the ropes binding him to the girder were cut loose. He raised his face in thanks, expecting his hands and feet to be cut free but his hopes were dashed when he was seized by huge, hairy hands and tossed over his liberator's wide shoulder like a sack of flour. Facing to the rear, he could only guess that he was being carried back to the lift where the blond woman waited. He was correct in that assumption. As the apish man lugged him onto the trembling platform of the lift he saw the woman's jeweled hand operate the control that sent the car plunging through darkness down to ground level. The brief ride took place in silence, the man and woman letting level after level slide by as they stood without speaking. It was only seconds before the car bumped to a halt and the young agent was bouncing helplessly against the giant's back as they trudged over the uneven ground of the construction site. They stopped again and he heard the noise of a car door opening. Then he was dumped into the tonneau of a luxurious limousine. By the time he had recovered from his clumsy landing and squirmed up to his knees the gears had clashed and the car was jouncing over the rough access road and out onto the street. The g-man looked around and found that he was being watched by a pair of cold eyes set in a face that looked like a motionless mask of white porcelain. He returned the stare for as long as he could before dropping his own gaze in reluctant surrender. He heard the woman's voice snap an order her companion up front. "Just drive." Manicured hands of surprising strength dragged him up onto the seat and the agent recovered enough to demand, "Untie me right now!" "Nice manners," observed the woman. The car drove on through darkened streets, seemingly toward no destination. The woman made no further effort to see to his comfort and the agent shifted restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position. At last the woman spoke again. "Who are you, anyway?" "My name's Martin Tolliver," answered the g-man. "I'm a federal agent. Untie me and I'll show you my identification." The woman ignored this request and regarded him for a few seconds, her cool gaze showing that she was unimpressed by Agent Tolliver's F.B.I. affiliation. "They're taking them young these days," she remarked to the man up front. "Yes, Miss Moll. About fifteen from the looks of him." The grunted answer was barely audible over the purr of the powerful engine but Tolliver caught the name. He stared hard at the woman's face. "I thought I recognized you," he said. "You're the one they call Gun Moll." "Cute," she said, "and bright, too." The ghost of a smile played at her lips. Agent Tolliver couldn't contain his righteous outrage at this mockery." If that's who you are then you must be involved in this plot too, somehow. I'm placing you both under arrest until you can clear yourselves!" A muffled snort of amusement drifted back from the driver. It was cut short by the sudden roar of explosions behind them. Tolliver's eyes went wide. "You ... you didn't disarm the bomb! You let those crooks blow up the building!" Gun Moll again ignored his outburst. "Tell me what you know about them, Marty." "What?" he spluttered. "I'm not telling you anything about an ongoing investigation! I demand that you untie me and drive us to headquarters so that I can place you under arrest!" "You're mighty pushy for a young fellow who's all trussed up like a Christmas turkey. I thought you could be of some help. If I'd known you were going to act like this I'd have left you." "I am not a 'young fellow,' thank you very much," rapped out Tolliver. "I'm a duly appointed agent of the F.B.I., as you will see if you look at my identification." The g-man stopped talking before his frustration got the better of him. All through his training he had been plagued by his boyish looks. 'Young fellow' was hardly the most annoying term he had heard but it galled him that he received no respect from these denizens of the underworld. Still, he decided to make what use he could of the time he was forced to spend riding with these two. In the most authoritative voice he could muster he asked, "What can you tell me about a woman called Giselle sans Mains?" "Now that's more like it," said Gun Moll. "Politeness will get you a lot farther with women than acting the way you have been." Her eyes offered the slightest hint of approval. "As for Giselle ... I've heard the name but I didn't know she was mixed up in this. That was the woman we saw leaving the site?" "Yes," answered Tolliver. "She destroyed the building ... with your help, I might add! Why didn't you let me disarm the bomb? You're as guilty as she is." Gun Moll's eyes went hard again. "One," she said, "I don't care one bit about that building or its owners. From what I know of them they're the sort of speculators who helped bring this country to the state it's in now. Two," she continued, "there was no construction going on at that site anyway. No one got hurt in the explosion and maybe there'll be some work for men cleaning it up. Maybe there will be a few less families having to stand in line for charity for a little while." Tolliver's eyes widened in amazement at this sort of logic. In his view the woman beside him was not only a criminal but must also be a red, besides. "And three," she went on, "that gang could still have been lurking anywhere close by. Bad enough that they might have seen us leave, but they sure wouldn't be happy if we messed up their night's work, now would they? There's a lot more of them than there are of us." The young agent shook his head. "Doesn't matter. You aided and abetted a criminal act and you'll pay the penalty all crooks pay, sooner or later." Yet again Gun Moll paid no attention to Tolliver's outburst. Instead, she began to speak. "You remember the Olsen warehouse fire last week, Marty?" "Yes," answered Tolliver. "We think it was the same gang, trying to shake down the owners." The blond head dipped in a brief nod. "Right, Marty. It was the same gang. There was a night watchman there, old man named Pop Lennox." The name didn't ring a bell but Tolliver remembered that the body of a victim had been dragged from the smoking ashes of the conflagration. "He was just an old guy," said Moll. "Just an old guy trying to eke out a little bit of a living, you know? He was nothing special but I hate like hell to see these creeps step on innocent people that way. It wasn't just a shakedown, Marty, it was part of a bigger plan. And Lennox just got in the way." "I don't see why innocent lives should matter to a gangster like you." Tolliver glared at her through narrowed eyes. Gun Moll turned away. "I got ... personal reasons." For a tiny moment Tolliver felt a pang of pity for the icy woman who stared out the car window watching the lights of the city slide by. Somewhere in his heart grew a feeling that there might be a decent human being cowering behind the expressionless, mask-like face. But he fought down the wave of sentiment before it could overwhelm his police training. Regardless of anything else, crooks were crooks and the only place for them was behind bars. "This has gone on long enough. I'm taking charge now," he said with an attempt at authority he didn't feel. His bound hands and feet meant that he had only his personal, moral force to rely on. Drive us to F.B.I. headquarters and we'll take your statement there. I promise I'll put in a word for you if you both come in voluntarily." The gangster queen leaned forward and whispered something into her driver's ear. He grunted in reply and the heavy automobile swung in a new direction at the first intersection they came to. Tolliver realized that the new course would take them to the destination he had requested and he congratulated himself on how well he had handled these two. Now he waited impatiently for his release from the binding ropes. Instead of being cut loose though, he was ignored by his companions and the drive went on in silence through the streets of New York. At last they pulled up in front of F.B.I. headquarters and the driver lumbered around the car to Tolliver's door. The agent was just turning to congratulate Gun Moll on her wise course of action when he heard the door open behind him and felt the driver's powerful hands seize his coat. Before he could do more than squawk he was dragged from the automobile and deposited brusquely on the front step of the building. Tolliver had one last glimpse of Gun Moll's limousine before it sped away and turned the corner, vanishing from sight. Agent Martin Tolliver spent twenty cold minutes shivering furiously outside F.B.I. headquarters before one of the night workers happened to come out the door and find him. -------- *CHAPTER III* That same night, in the hour before dawn, a sweating, frightened man was dragged down a flight of stairs and into a basement room. Rough hands thrust him onto a chair where he was bound with cruel ropes and left helpless to defend himself from one, last slap. A quavering moan escaped his lips, drawn forth by pain and terror. This was greeted by amused chuckles and then there was stillness in the underground chamber. The man's head hung down on his chest as if he did not dare to look around him although there was light to see. The illumination did not come from a lamp or candle however, but from a brazier full of hissing coals that squatted near the chair where the man was held. It lit the room with a dull, lurid glow that extended a few feet in every direction, leaving the greater part of the room in shadow. A voice emanated from the darkness. "Oh Lowell, Lowell..." That voice was disturbingly familiar to the man's ears, feminine with an exotic accent. He did not need to look up to recognize the speaker. His only answer was the frantic panting of unbridled fear. An arm reached out of the darkness toward Lowell. A steel hook touched under his chin and lifted his reluctant head. As he raised his eyes he saw the face of Giselle sans Mains bent almost close enough for a kiss. "Such a waste," she purred. "And I had such high hopes for you. A pity you had to try and play a double game with me. You should have known better." When Lowell found the strength to speak his voice was a harsh rasp echoing off the stone walls of the chamber. "I swear to ya, Giselle," he panted, "I swear to ya I don't know how that guy found us." Giselle shook her head sadly. "Oh Lowell dear, you know I cannot permit such lies. Was the attention of your comrades upstairs not sufficient to convince you to tell me the truth?" The steel hook traced its way lovingly over the swollen, blackened eyes, the broken nose. "Will you not talk to your Giselle and make the ending easy for all of us? Don't you know how badly I want to be merciful?" Lowell knew Giselle and had feared he was going to die no matter what the outcome of this interrogation. Now his fear was confirmed by the woman's offer of a dubious mercy. He looked down at the threatening coals and wept. "Giselle," he sobbed, "if I knew anything I swear I wouldn't hold out on you. I mean it." The black-clad woman looked down at her cringing minion. Though her face wore the expression of sympathy it was glittering cruelty that burned in her hard eyes. Slowly, a mocking smile crept stealthily across her rouged lips. "I thought we had bought an ally when an F.B.I. agent was bribed to join me. Now I find that we have made a bad investment. I hate to make bad investments, Lowell. So does our backer." Lowell's head dropped again and wobbled from side to side. "No, it wasn't me." His eyes continued to wander toward the brazier although the image he saw was now misted with tears. "Petit Singe!" snapped Giselle. "Come to me at once!" The men crowded around stepped aside when they heard shuffling in the darkness. Had the light been strong enough it would have revealed expressions of disgust on faces that had not flinched at beating one of their own companions just minutes earlier. Something scuttled across the floor and took shape in the circle of orange light. "Good Petit Singe," crooned Giselle, holding out her hooks. "Come roll up my sleeves like a dear." The creature addressed as Petit Singe approached its mistress, scrabbling clumsily across the concrete floor. It wore a filthy rag wrapped about its body and crudely belted with a length of rope. Otherwise it was naked save for a tangled mass of hair that fell over its face and shoulders like a flea-infested haystack. Giselle beckoned it closer. "Good, sweet Petit Singe. Come to Giselle. Come help with the sleeves and I shall give you a treat." Petit Singe looked cautiously about, as if it did not quite trust the shadowy men that surrounded it. Then it crossed the last few feet to reach Giselle. As it rose to push back her cuffs it appeared unclear whether the creature was a dwarfed adult or giant child. Its age and sex were impossible to determine. It gazed adoringly up into Giselle's face and offered her the vacuous, drooling grin of an idiot. "There, there," purred Giselle sans Mains as it pushed her sleeves safely up her wooden forearms. "This coat was very expensive and we wouldn't want it scorched, would we?" There was no change in the uncomprehending expression of Petit Singe. A dog might have understood her words as well as did the creature. It merely waited eagerly while Giselle fumbled in a deep pocket of her coat. When the steel hook once again flashed into view it had a small piece of chocolate impaled upon its tip. The idiot thing stared, mesmerized by the candy while its mouth dripped in anticipation. "Come dear, here is your reward." Giselle swung the chocolate temptingly just inches from her mindless slave. "Take it," she said. The creature's misshapen hand stalked the offered sweet with infinite caution, inching closer with agonizing slowness. When it had reached some predetermined range it stopped, then suddenly whipped forward and back in a blur of motion. Greedy fingers snatched at the treat and in the blink of an eye Petit Singe had turned and fled into the solitude of some shadowy corner, there to consume the chocolate in safety. A moist, slobbering sound wafted from the inky depths. "Good lord, that's disgusting," breathed one of the gangsters, not quietly enough to escape the ears of Giselle sans Mains, and the comment roused her Gallic temper. "How dare you make such a comment!" she cried. "Petit Singe is worth more to me than all you pathetic chiens put together!" She held up the two hooks and shook them while angry, orange highlights winked from the steel. "Are you such dull fools that you do not realize," she ranted, "that a woman with two of these still has personal ... tasks ... that require hands to accomplish? Idiots! Petit Singe is my indispensable pair of hands! I would rather see you all perish than one hair on my faithful pet come to harm." Giselle turned back to Lowell and huffed a disgusted sigh. "They do not understand, the fools. But you and I understand each other very well, do we not, mon cher?" As she spoke she knelt and casually rested one of her hooks upon the bed of red hot coals. With the other she gestured to one of her men, who stepped forward and picked up a small bellows that lay on the floor nearby. He set to work and within minutes had the coals glowing so brightly that it was painful to look upon them. After a time, Giselle slowly raised the hook to Lowell's face. The orange steel threw off waves of searing heat. "Your last chance, Lowell," she said. At that moment the tension was broken by loud screeching and Petit Singe burst through the group, wild-eyed. It scrambled across the floor to Giselle and grabbed her arm, looking up at her with primitive terror sparking from its mindless eyes. "Poor Petit Singe," cooed Giselle, suddenly all gentleness. "Violence frightens you, does it not? Do not fear, darling. It will all be over soon." But the idiot creature, once stirred, was not so easily mollified. It tightened its grip on Giselle's arm and whimpered piteously. "Let go now." The dark woman's voice had developed a small but detectable edge of irritation. When Petit Singe still refused to release her she whirled to her men and snapped out an order. "Take it upstairs! Lock it in my room until we're finished here!" Two of the gangsters stepped forward and pried the sniveling creature loose. It was no small struggle for them to drag the kicking and screaming Petit Singe up the steps into the house. The scene in the basement froze until a door slammed somewhere and footsteps clattered back down the stairs. Only then did Giselle turn back to her victim. The man was clearly terrified out of his wits and would have said anything to save himself from what was coming. If he had possessed any information at all he would have shouted it to the rooftops. Yet he was powerless to save himself. He could manage no more than to throw his tormentor a beseeching look. "Hold him," was Giselle's merciless answer. Powerful hands twisted in Lowell's hair, dragging his head back. Without further comment Giselle let the searing hook fall to the man's face, held it there while the steel burned its way through skin and flesh, not stopping until it rested against charred bone. Lowell's inhuman scream of agony rocked the foundations, vibrating the rafters with its power and shaking dust down from the low ceiling. The black-clad woman leaped back as his body bucked uncontrollably. The chair tipped and he crashed to the floor. "I said, hold him, you fools!" Someone coughed as the stench of burnt flesh filled the air but men rushed forward regardless to pin Lowell fast against the floor. Giselle rested her hook once more on the bed of coals while she waited for his howls to die down into pathetic moans. When she was ready again she crouched over Lowell, the blistering hook mere inches from his eyes. "You should have known better," she sneered. "Double agent! Traitor! No one betrays Giselle sans Mains. Tell me how you warned the agency! Tell me ... or there will be more of ... this!" "Not ... me..." he gasped. The hook descended and once more Lowell's futile shrieks thundered against the walls. Again and again the scene repeated, the remorseless steel burning new pathways through his tormented body; the stink of torture growing so thick that even the most hardened mobsters gagged; Giselle growing ever more furious and irrational at Lowell's stubborn refusal to talk. "You will answer me! You will!" she screeched. At last the men had to drag her off the smoking, gibbering thing that had been Lowell. Giselle was completely beyond control and slashed out with her hooks until the gang was able to pin her arms behind her and muscle her up the stairs into the house. Her screaming tantrum went on until at last she collapsed from sheer exhaustion. In sleep she looked as peaceful as a baby, her face almost angelic in its unconscious sweetness. The men sighed with relief and exchanged apprehensive looks. Some hours later quiet footsteps scuffed against the concrete floor in the basement torture room. A shadowy form approached the victim, still stretched out in the darkness. "Lowell," a whispered voice called. "Lowell, can you hear me?" A hand reached out and shook Lowell, prodded him until a weak moan escaped him. "Good, you're still alive. Do you know who this is, Lowell?" Lowell began to mutter something incoherent. His voice gained a little strength as he went on but the shadowy figure stopped him. "That's good, Lowell. You know who I am. I guess there's something decent left in you after all." "Sorry..." gasped Lowell "Sorry ... rat..." "Yes, Lowell, you were a rat," agreed the newcomer. "And you got what a rat gets. And I'm sorry for you." A sob rose from the prone man's throat. "But you can make it better. You can rest easy. You're going to die but you can help stop the people who did this to you. Give me something ... something I can use, Lowell." Lowell's ruined lips twitched in the darkness. The torture might have driven him past the edge of madness but there was something left ... something that wanted revenge. "Mas ... terson," he croaked. "Jos ... iah ... Masterson..." A rattling breath clattered in the darkness. Lowell's muscles clenched, held, and finally relaxed. His body went limp as merciful death released him from his agony. Lowell's treacherous game had ended forever. The unseen interrogator straightened up. After a moment, quiet footsteps headed for the door. -------- *CHAPTER IV* The sun beat down on afternoon strollers in Central Park, the great public green in the heart of New York City. Ducks navigated the pond, keeping a greedy eye peeled for bread crusts tossed by pleasure-seekers relaxing nearby. Children scampered carelessly on the grass while mothers called at them to stay away from the water. A youthful-looking man lounged at the crest of Gapstow Bridge, smoking a cigarette and gazing off into the distance at the puffy clouds that marred the smooth, blue vault of the sky. After awhile he was joined by a dazzling blond who sauntered up and leaned against the bridge rail beside him. "I got your message, Marty." The man exhaled a lungful of smoke, flipped his coffin nail into the water and turned toward the source of that voice. Immediately the cold, sapphire eyes of Gun Moll locked onto his. Somehow, looking into them brought a chill to the otherwise warm spring day. Agent Tolliver shivered slightly as he answered. "I didn't know if you would. You're not an easy woman to reach." "Don't you worry about that," she answered. "If someone wants to see me I generally find out about it. Then I decide if I want to see them or not." "I'm honored," said Tolliver. "Yes, you are." Agent Tolliver had wondered what his impression of the gangster queen would be once he saw her in the revealing light of day rather than by the moon's glow or in the shadowed interior of her car. It took away the almost mythological sense of mystery that wrapped itself about her in the darkness of night, and yet if anything the sun's golden rays made her even more dazzlingly beautiful than he had remembered. Following a gesture of her hand he suddenly noticed a formidable negro woman at her side. "My maid, Daisy. She goes with me everywhere." The g-man tipped his hat and Daisy favored him with a very tiny, slow nod. It was difficult to tell whether the woman had nodded in greeting or was simply giving him the once-over. By her expression he could see that his company was no pleasure for her. He turned back to Gun Moll, happy for a change from that dark and forbidding face. "Thanks for coming on such short notice. A tip came in last night that I thought you might be able to help me with." Agent Tolliver extended his hand and Gun Moll offered her own for a friendly handshake. Her skin was cool and soft to the touch. Tolliver savored that hand for a lingering moment. Then his grip tightened like a steel band and his eyes went hard. When he spoke his voice had lost the friendly tones of just seconds earlier. "I'm placing you under arrest. Come along quietly and don't make a scene. You have my word you'll be treated fairly. We have a lot to talk about." An F.B.I. agent stepped out of the bushes at each end of the bridge. Bulges under their jackets indicated that the two men were armed. Tolliver's trap was complete. Gun Moll and Daisy had nowhere to run! The negro maid took one belligerent step forward but the gangster queen motioned for her to stand still. "Relax, Daisy. Marty here doesn't know what he's doing." She turned back toward Tolliver. "You really don't know what you're doing." "I'll admit, I wasn't sure it would be this easy. You have quite a reputation," answered Tolliver. But icy fingers of doubt began to play along his spine as he looked at his captives. Gun Moll's face, motionless as a mask of fine porcelain, betrayed no emotion. She scarcely seemed to notice that he had spoken to her. Instead, her gaze wandered over his shoulder to the end of the bridge where Tolliver's man stood to block their way. Against his better judgment he turned to follow the direction of her gaze. Two tough-looking thugs had emerged from hiding just a few steps behind his own man. While Tolliver watched, they moved close enough to the agent that he could feel them jab concealed gun barrels into his back. A second later the man had been relieved of his weapon and stood helplessly sandwiched between his two new companions. With a sudden, sick feeling in his stomach the g-man turned back to face the women. Daisy had shifted her bulk aside so that he could see his other agent similarly neutralized. This time he recognized one of the mobsters as the simian brute who had carried him away from the construction site. When Tolliver focused again on the gangster queen he saw her lips curved in the merest hint of a smile. With an insultingly casual movement Gun Moll reversed his grip on her hand and suddenly Agent Tolliver was on his knees with bolts of fiery pain lancing up and down his arm. "Sshhhhhh..." hissed Gun Moll. "There are people all around. Don't embarrass yourself. Just act like you're proposing or something. No one needs to know that you just got beat up by a girl." She looked around and smiled as if everything was normal. Daisy snickered. "You're still ... under ... arrest..." he gasped. This time the reaction was so swift and terrible that Tolliver's mind went blank for a second. His whole world centered on Daisy's gigantic, stony fist just inches from his face. With a swiftness he had not dreamed possible she had lunged forward to add her own brand of persuasion to Gun Moll's words. "What did I hear you say, boy?" she demanded. Tolliver's vocal cords felt like someone had just tied a big knot in them. Daisy bent down even lower to bring her face to his level -- not an easy thing for a woman of her stature. Her eyes flashed pure murder. "I thought you were fixing to apologize to this lady! Was I wrong?" He gabbled some sort of gibberish. "What?" The exclamation was like a blast from a gigantic, black thunderhead. "I'm sorry," he squeaked. "Hmph!" Daisy backed off and relaxed her fist, muttering, "The idea of trying to get the drop on two defenseless women. And I thought you were a gentleman!" With no place else to spew her anger she turned on the mobsters who guarded the F.B.I. agents. "Well, what are you waiting for? Chuck those g-man guns in the pond! Move it, you good-for-nothing..." The end of the sentence was drowned by two large splashes as the captured guns hit the water. Even the behemoth, Jingles, didn't dare to keep Gun Moll's angry maid waiting. "Get up now, Marty," said Gun Moll as she released her grip. Any hint of friendliness had evaporated from her voice. Tolliver knew he dared not antagonize her. "That was a lousy trick," she said. You may or may not believe it but I'm on your side here." Tolliver dragged himself up onto the stone rail and rubbed his throbbing arm. "You've got a funny way of showing it, sister." Gun Moll didn't even bother replying to his petulant observation. "You said you'd gotten a tip. Were you on the level?" "I don't have to tell you anything," he grunted in reply. He was still shaking from pain and humiliation. It would be awhile before he was ready to admit that the situation had spun out of his control. "Take a look at your men, Marty." Gun Moll spat the words at him. Somehow, without changing the tone of her voice at all her words drenched him in contempt. "They're waiting for you to do something, Marty. You'd better think it over fast. I'm trying to give you a chance to look good here." Tolliver saw his men's eyes fastened on him. He suddenly wondered what they had thought as they watched him groveling before these two women had so confidently set out to capture. Ignoring the pain in his wrist he stood up and squared his shoulders. Something seemed to change in Gun Moll's cold, blue stare as he straightened up. He felt a little bit encouraged. "The chief got an anonymous tip last night," he said. "Just a name, Josiah Masterson. I looked him up. He's an investor..." "I know all about him," interrupted Gun Moll. "An investor, yes, but what you don't know is that before the stock market went bust he moved his money into other things. He's a big time smuggler -- booze, dope, anything illegal that can turn a profit. He's a smart boy." The g-man's astounded expression was proof that this was all news to him. Gun Moll's expression soured just a little. "You people need to start asking questions instead of pretending you know everything. You'd find out there's a big, wide world out there. By the way," she added, "your friend at the construction site last night ... Lowell? He must be on Masterson's payroll, indirectly, through Giselle sans Mains. You ought to find out how many more of your guys are on the take. Masterson has the dough to buy himself a nice collection." "I'm working on that," answered Tolliver. "This Giselle woman though, she pops up five years ago as a name in an arson investigation. She just appeared out of nowhere and there's no history on her at all." "Check your contacts overseas, if you have any," said Gun Moll. "Giselle sans Mains was a French spy during the war. She wasn't happy just spying for France, though. She had to play both sides of the fence. Her own ego tripped her up. She was so flamboyant that everybody knew who she was. After the Armistice she went into hiding but when the French caught up with her they ... um ... Well, you saw what they did. That's how she got the name sans Mains." Tolliver whistled at the image of crude justice that flashed through his mind. "So she's the organizer of this mob..." "Are you kidding?" the gangster queen retorted. "I told you she's too much of a show-off for her own good. She's a nut case. Always was. And getting her hands chopped didn't improve her mental outlook any. She's just a front to divert notice from Masterson. Giselle's a murdering lunatic and you've got to take her out of circulation but Masterson's your man if you can pin anything on him. He's got the money and brains to set himself up all over again with a new mob and his crew of pet g-men if you don't put him on ice." Tolliver leaned on the bridge rail with his chin in his hand. Gun Moll relaxed a bit and stood next to him. "We really ought to try and get some information from Masterson first hand," she suggested. "Sure!" sneered the agent. "Maybe we ought to just drive up to his estate and see if he's in." Gun Moll shrugged. "That's where I'm going tomorrow night. Want to tag along?" "Huh?" he exclaimed. "What do you mean by that?" "We're crime bosses, remember? We do business. We conduct negotiations. You know how it is. We talk just like the heads of legit companies." She winked a blue eye. "I've got an appointment." Tolliver shook his head in wonder. "Okay, and how am I supposed to get in? Or am I supposed to hang outside the window and eavesdrop?" "Easy," replied Gun Moll. "You government men are good at disguises, aren't you?" She looked him over. "Well, maybe not all that good, but Masterson doesn't know you and no one will question my bringing my little brother to the meeting." "Your..." "Yes, my little brother. I just might have one, you know. You don't know anything about me. Neither does Masterson. So I'm teaching you the rackets ... um ... 'Kelly." Yes, that's it. Kelly Walker, my little brother. You can take notes like my secretary. Wear something college-y looking and do something with your hair. You'll be cute." Agent Tolliver's freckled face burned with indignation at the comments his boyish looks had inspired. Still, he liked the plan. If nothing else it was daring. "Kelly Walker..." he mused. "And don't get too excited about the last name," said Gun Moll. "It's not like it's really my own. One more thing -- this whole collaboration is over unless you give me your word you won't lay a finger on me or my people while we're working together. Don't forget, Marty, I have friends who will be very disappointed in you if anything happens to me ... and they won't be as kind about it as I was just now when you tried to spring your little trap on me." After a second, Tolliver agreed. "You have my word as an F.B.I. man." Gun Moll smirked at her companion. "What do you think, Daisy?" "Hmph!" was Daisy's only comment but it spoke volumes. She folded her big arms and glared down at Tolliver. "I suppose that's good enough for me too," said Gun Moll. "I'll meet you in front of your HQ at eight tomorrow evening. It's a long drive out there so don't make me late." Tolliver nodded. "Eight o'clock." Gun Moll turned to the negro woman. "Daisy, tell our guys to let those g-men walk for now. I think we'd better all go before we attract any more attention than we already have." The strange group had been the object of quite a few unwelcome stares in the past few minutes. Daisy barked orders and the mobsters melted away. Gun Moll and Daisy walked off without a word and Agent Tolliver was left standing alone on the bridge. His last sight of them was Daisy's angry face turned back to give him a murderous stare. -------- *CHAPTER V* At nine-thirty the next night Gun Moll's limousine eased up the long drive that led into the Masterson estate. Josiah Masterson's home was far outside the city in forested countryside where his privacy was safe from the prying eyes of neighbors. The house stood alone in the center of the extensive and carefully manicured grounds. In his circle of business acquaintances the financier was well known as a recluse, although not one of those upright men of commerce would have suspected him to be involved with anyone who had the outlaw reputation that Gun Moll and her associates bore. Masterson was believed by all to be scrupulously honest in both his personal and business life. The car's headlights cast weird, moving shadows across the yard as they approached the financier's mansion. A brilliant light was burning in the porte cochere and it acted as a beacon. The big limousine pulled in and a servant hurried out to greet the newcomers. Before the man could reach them though, Jingles was already assisting Gun Moll to alight from the car. She was followed by Daisy and Agent Tolliver in his guise as Kelly Walker. The g-man had donned a varsity letter sweater and tweed jacket to give himself a collegiate look. By darkening his light brown hair with a mild dye and wearing a pair of steel-rimmed glasses he had altered his appearance enough to fool a casual observer. While Daisy and Jingles remained outside with the car, Gun Moll and Tolliver followed the servant into the spacious entry. There they were met by their beaming host, Josiah Masterson. He was clearly delighted to see Gun Moll. The financier's eyes devoured her with obvious intent, crawling over the generous expanse of white flesh exposed by her low-cut, satin gown. It was an easy matter for even Tolliver to see Masterson's imagination at work as he followed the concealed curves of her body. "I'm so glad you could come out tonight," Masterson enthused. "You and..." He paused and peered at Tolliver as if noticing him for the first time. "This is Kelly, my kid brother," explained Gun Moll. "Rocky's letting me bring him in on some of the business ... show him the ropes." "I see." Masterson's tone was slightly unfriendly and extremely dubious. He cast a tactfully unwelcoming eye on young 'Kelly.' The gangster queen fixed a cold and unrelenting glare upon her host. "It's okay. I say so. And if Rocky didn't want him here he wouldn't be here." She turned to her 'brother' and said, "You keep your mouth shut and your eyes open, kid. You'll learn something." Masterson considered for a moment. Gun Moll's reputation was above reproach by the twisted standards of the criminal underworld. Besides, the kid was hardly old enough to shave and he didn't exactly look like he had a lot of sense. "Probably just book-smart," thought Masterson. His own rise to wealth had begun in the depths of the city's worst slums. He shrugged his shoulders and gestured for them both to accompany him. "We'll go to my study where we can converse in private. May I have Randall bring either of you a refreshment?" Tolliver took this opportunity to study the butler. Despite a thickly slathered layer of polished manners and an expensive tuxedo the man still looked like a common thug. He was clearly employed for more than his ability to bow and fetch booze. The g-man had no doubt that Masterson's butler could serve up hot lead as easily as cold drinks. "Nothing for me, thanks," said Gun Moll. "Glass of milk for my brother. Right Kelly?" "That would sure hit the spot, sis." Tolliver fumed at the allusion to his boyish looks. "That is, if it's not too much trouble, sir." Masterson chuckled. "Not at all, my boy. It's a good thing for a young fellow like you to take good care of himself now, while the body's still growing. Milk for young Kelly here, Randall, and scotch for me." He turned to Gun Moll. "Sure I can't interest you? It's the real thing. Just in from Canada." Bootleg liquor held no fascination for the gangster queen, especially before a business discussion with someone as smart and slick as Masterson. She replied with a silent shake of her head. Once they were settled in the study, Masterson behind his big desk while Gun Moll and Tolliver occupied comfortable, overstuffed chairs, the discussions began. The g-man kept his mouth shut as Gun Moll had commanded and he did learn some very interesting items. He was amazed to find out some of the activities in which this paragon of ethical business practices was involved. By the time the talk was over it was quite evident that Masterson's image was a complete sham and that his vast wealth was drawn from sources deep within the international narcotics trade. Tolliver gazed about the room wondering just how many lives had been lost to misery and death to buy its rich furnishings. His flesh crawled at the touch of the expensive chair upon which he sat. But one of the most interesting things he learned was a new respect for the almost limitless cunning of Gun Moll. That expressionless mask of a face gave away nothing and the cold glare of her icy, blue eyes was enough to deflect any unwelcome prying. In spite of himself Agent Tolliver had to admire the way she led the financier in conversation. While Masterson let slip a wealth of incriminating information about his own activities, Gun Moll revealed virtually nothing that could damage her own patron, Rocky Brannigan. Tolliver realized he would never learn anything from her that did not suit her own, inscrutable purposes. As the meeting drew to a close Gun Moll leaned back and let her eyes wander about the study. Her attention was fixed on a framed sketch that hung on one richly-paneled wall. "That's new since I was here last," she remarked. "Jongkind, isn't it?" Masterson's eyebrows shot up in astonishment. "Not one person in a thousand would know that," he said. "You have quite an eye! It's recently acquired, in fact. As you know, I fancy myself to be an amateur collector." "Don't underrate yourself," returned Gun Moll. "That's a nice, little sketch. I didn't realize the real estate market was doing so well these days. Maybe you could help me set up some deals of my own." Her face had betrayed no hint of personal interest but Masterson was willing to interpret her suggestion as an encouragement. "It's a buyer's market," he said. "I would be happy to point you toward some interesting prospects if you would care to return alone some evening at your convenience. Perhaps we could meet over dinner sometime?" "We'll see about it. I wouldn't mind something where I could make a quick profit off my investment." Masterson laughed gently. "I'm sorry my dear, but my investments are strictly long term. With prices depressed these days I can easily buy up properties with the cash resources I have available. And I can be assured that their value will grow." "Yes, I see what you mean," said Gun Moll. "But even so you've got to be plunking down a pretty penny for some of these spots. I've kept an eye on the sales in New York, Josiah. I thought I recognized your mark on some of those investment companies." "Then you will have noticed that I have been especially careful to buy only properties that are in some ... distress." Masterson's mood had shifted slightly. He no longer seemed to be quite so eager to volunteer information as he had been a moment ago. "That's what I call good business," said Gun Moll. Another hour passed in pleasantries before Gun Moll rose to leave. As Randall brought her wrap she turned to Masterson and bestowed upon him a smile that glowed with rare warmth. "Thank you, Josiah. You're very kind to advise me like this. I may be back to take you up on that offer of help." Masterson's eyes churned in their sockets. "Whenever you're ready, I will be." Gun Moll's blue eyes gave back nothing. "We'll see about that." And with that she walked out the door. Tolliver nodded awkwardly to his host and scuttled after her. Once they were seated in the big limousine and it was rolling down the drive toward the road Tolliver spoke up. "You sure handled him alright. We got enough to put him away for good!" "If you can get the goods on him, that is," retorted Gun Moll. "All I did was give you an idea of what to look for. I don't believe it's going to be as easy as you think. He's a slick customer." Tolliver reluctantly agreed. "It's a good start, anyway. At least we know for sure he's been behind the wave of bombings and why. That's something." "It's not enough, though," she said. "I want to stop him but I also want Giselle sans Mains and I don't know where to find her." The car had left the estate and driven about an eighth of a mile back along the road. Gun Moll signaled to Jingles, pointing out a patch of woods that grew close to the byway. A faint trail was visible in the darkness between the crowded tree trunks. "Pull in here. Make sure we can't be seen from the road." With perfect obedience, Jingles eased the automobile onto the rough track and drove in about fifty yards until they rounded a curve and the road disappeared from sight. He set the brake and switched off the motor. The woods were silent now, save for the calling of hidden insects. With the headlights off there was no way for anyone to suspect a car was hidden in the darkness. Gun Moll opened the door to get out. "There's a suitcase in the trunk, Jingles. Get it for me." As Jingles complied she turned back and spoke to the other occupants of the car. "You come with me, Daisy. Marty, you stay here. I'll be right back." The negro woman opened the small case that Jingles handed her. Inside she found neatly folded, black clothing. "Help me change, Daisy." Gun Moll was already shrugging off her wrap. Daisy turned to glare at the apish driver. "Don't you think you'd better get back in the car?" Unseen in the darkness, Gun Moll spared an amused grin for the hulking Jingles as he scurried away from the maid's ire. "And don't let me see either one of you men turning your face back here until we're done!" The slam of the car door was Jingles' only answer. He knew he was better off just keeping his mouth shut. Shielded by the darkness, Gun Moll began to change her clothing. When she beckoned the men outside again her satin gown and glittering diamonds were gone, replaced by a sober black pullover and pants. Her feet were shod in black, rubber-soled shoes and a dark hat covered her gleaming, blond hair. A small automatic rested in a shoulder holster where she could reach it in case of need. She had not abandoned all her jewelry though. A heavy diamond choker adorned her throat. She gestured for Tolliver to join her. "We're going back, Marty, you and me." She looked at her other companions. "You two wait for us at the edge of the woods where it borders the estate. If we're gone too long or you think there's trouble ... Daisy, you're in charge. If you can't help us, get out of here." "Yes, Miss Moll," rumbled the big woman. "You two take care of things, okay? I'm counting on you." Gun Moll laid her hand gently on one of Jingles' pile-driver arms and gave him a wink. "We won't be long." And with those words she and Agent Tolliver plunged into the darkness of the woods. -------- *CHAPTER VI* Gun Moll slipped noiselessly through the darkness, her slim form gliding like a shadow between the clutching tree branches. She seemed as much at home in these scrubby woods as she would on a city sidewalk at high noon. By contrast, a constant crackling and thrashing of leaves behind her announced the passage of Agent Tolliver. He floundered along gracelessly, stepping on every dry twig in his path. Fortunately for the group no guards patrolled the grounds this far from the house. Behind them Daisy mimicked Gun Moll's stealthy tread, while even Jingles' bulky physique caused less disturbance than Tolliver. It was only a short time before they reached the edge of the woods and looked out on the moonlit lawn of Josiah Masterson's estate. Enough shrubs and trees dotted the grounds to offer concealment for a stealthy approach. Somewhere out there Gun Moll knew that hired guards made their watchful rounds but she was sure she could evade them. Of Tolliver she was not so certain, but she believed she could usher him from one point of concealment to the next without too great a risk of discovery. Across the yard she spotted a low window through which she hoped to gain access to the mansion. She turned to Jingles and her maid. "Remember what I said back at the car," she whispered. "You're in charge, Daisy. If you feel we've been in there too long, or something happens, you decide what to do. Get out of here if you think that's best." "You be careful in there, Miss Moll." "Don't you worry about me. I can take care of myself," answered Gun Moll. "It's not you I'm worried about." Daisy glared pointedly at Agent Tolliver. Tolliver's irritation was plain in his voice even if his face was concealed by shadow. "I've had about enough of..." Gun Moll's hand on his arm quieted him. "Save it for later. Right now you and I have work to do and you need to give it your full attention. Come on." She darted across several yards of open space to the shelter of a looming spruce tree. Tolliver launched himself after her. They crouched in its shadow looking about to make sure they were not observed. When Gun Moll was satisfied she sprinted to a bush not far away and waited for the g-man. As he jumped down beside her he whispered, "I hope nobody shines a light this way. That ice you're wearing around your throat will show up a mile away." "Call it an indulgence," hissed the crime queen, her attention still fixed on the lawn ahead of them. "A girl's entitled to a little style, isn't she?" Tolliver never got the chance to answer her. A careless rustling warned them that they were not alone. Another had been standing in those shadows. Too late, Gun Moll noticed a telltale whiff of cigarette smoke. A dark form moved uncertainly toward them. Apparently the guard hadn't spotted them and had only heard vague noises in the dark. He approached carelessly, as if expecting to find no more than some night creature foraging in the leaves. Gun Moll shrank back, her hand inching toward the butt of her automatic. She had caught the dull reflection of moonlight on the gun the man carried. Before she could draw though, a swift movement in the darkness caught her eye. The dull smack of knuckles on a heavy jaw reached her ears and she saw the guard crumple. It had taken Agent Tolliver only a second to deal with the threat to their mission. He eased the guard's body to the ground and dragged it out of sight under the bush. "He'll be out for a little while," said the g-man. He used the man's necktie and belt to bind him as well as possible. "Good work," said Gun Moll. "I'm lucky I had you along." Tolliver grinned at the rare praise. Then he had to move quickly because his companion was already covering the last few yards to the mansion. As he joined her at the wall she was already trying the window. They were not surprised to find it locked and Gun Moll did not lose a moment producing a thin, steel blade that she pressed up between the sashes. She slid it back and forth and when she was satisfied the blade disappeared back into whatever pocket had concealed it. She tried the window again and this time it opened with no resistance. Tolliver was surprised at the ease with which they had gained entry. "Not very well secured for the home of such a wealthy man, was it?" he remarked. Gun Moll shrugged. "He must have figured that the guards were all the extra security he needed." She turned her eyes upon him and they were cold and blue even in the darkness. "Come on, we're going in. Be careful, we don't know what kind of precautions he's taken inside. And for both our sakes be quiet." Tolliver nodded and boosted Gun Moll over the sill. A moment later he too was standing inside the study of Josiah Masterson. "You sure had the room picked out," he whispered. Gun Moll turned to him with a finger on her lips and a dangerous gleam in her eye. Tolliver shut his mouth and resolved to remain silent unless spoken to. The g-man kept his hand close to his gun and stood still. Gun Moll had not switched on a lamp and seemed as much at home in the darkness as he would be in the light of day. He watched her prowling, catlike, through the room, looking methodically through every cabinet and cubbyhole. He felt he could learn something about conducting a search just by watching her in action. Apparently she was finding nothing of use to their investigation though, for she went from one collection of papers to another without pausing overly long at any of them. Tolliver would have given his eye teeth to get his hands on any of the information she passed over so casually but Gun Moll had a specific goal in mind. As she searched the room her attention was drawn again and again to the Jongkind sketch that hung on the wall in its heavy frame. When her search reached that side of the room she examined it carefully. It was an excellent example of the artist's work and probably worth thousands of dollars but Gun Moll had not burglarized the mansion to indulge her interest in nineteenth century French art. She felt carefully around the frame and then stepped back to look it over once again. At last she seemed to come to a decision and stepped briskly over to Masterson's desk. She sat in the big, leather chair and spread her hands out on the polished surface of the desktop. Tolliver watched her, lost in concentration, running her sensitive fingers over the inlay, then tracing the ornamental carvings along the edge of the writing surface. It took her some minutes of probing to find what she sought, but at last the G-man heard a soft click. The framed Jongkind sketch swung away from the wall to reveal the door to a small safe. Without sparing a glance for Tolliver, Gun Moll returned to the newly revealed compartment. Another moment passed while she examined the small door and then once she had learned all she could from that examination she placed her ear to the metal surface and began to slowly twist the dial. Minutes passed -- long ones for Agent Tolliver but Gun Moll seemed to have lost all awareness of her surroundings as she worked to crack the safe. Her slender, black-clad body was absolutely still. Her eyes were closed and her red lips parted just enough to admit the shallowest of breaths. She could have been a statue depicting a state of total concentration. Only her long, white fingers moved -- tiny movements, absolutely steady. At last she seemed to emerge from her trance. She flashed Tolliver the faintest of smiles and turned the handle. The door swung open. The inside of the safe was illuminated by a small, electric bulb and Tolliver gasped at the sight of stacks of notes filling the space like so many green columns. He couldn't see the denominations but he had no trouble imagining that here rested a fabulous fortune in cash, yet only the smallest fraction of Masterson's vast wealth. Gun Moll pushed the money aside like so much rubbish. Her hand plunged into the safe and reappeared holding a simple sheaf of notebook papers. As she skimmed over them in the dim light Tolliver could see her eyes glowing with excitement over what she learned from those pages. Gun Moll had obviously found what she was looking for. However, that was all forgotten in a moment. The lights snapped on, blinding in their sudden intensity. Through his smarting eyes Tolliver saw the door to the study swing open and there stood Josiah Masterson clad in slippers and bathrobe, an ugly automatic clenched in one curled fist. "Well now, isn't this nice," exclaimed the financier. "This is quite a surprise. My dear, I didn't expect you to take me up on my invitation so soon!" He held the gun menacingly, covering them both. "Hands up, both of you, please." By sheer force of will Agent Tolliver stilled the trembling of his panicked body and raised his hands as calmly as he could manage. When he looked over at Gun Moll he saw her standing easily by the safe, her hands raised half way up in a gesture of contempt. Her fingers opened slightly and the papers fluttered to the floor. They lay there, stark white on the dark wood, a statement of purpose ... and a challenge. Her eyes shot a frozen stare at Masterson. The older man glanced down at the papers and then his gaze flicked back up to Gun Moll. His face darkened with barely suppressed rage. "I see you were quite serious about seeking my help for your real estate investments," he snarled. "It's simple enough when you apply the 'Masterson Technique' for success," she retorted. "A whole lot of money and not one shred of human decency." Josiah Masterson's face was grey and stony. "You don't understand," he growled. "This is business." Gun Moll's face didn't move but even so, Tolliver could sense the sneer she directed toward the furious Masterson. "I'm going to explain something to you before my men take you away," said Masterson. "Not that I owe you anything, but just so you'll understand how far out of your league you and your little friend are when you meddle in my affairs." "When enough wealth is amassed it reaches a critical point. It takes on a purpose of its own. From that moment on it becomes like a living thing. It must be fed. It must grow. And he who holds that wealth is merely its servant, merely the means to bring it sustenance. There is no such thing as human decency in the world of wealth and power. Great wealth is its own standard. It cannot be judged. It can only be nourished ... lest it turn on its holder!" "You, young lady, must understand that. If you came here to steal my secrets you must feel the birth of the same great forces that motivate me. But you must also understand that I will fight like a tiger to protect the wealth that has been entrusted to my care." The man was quivering with passion. Clearly, in some strange way, the single-minded pursuit of money had robbed him of his sanity. He was nothing more than the slave of the monster he had created. He raised the gun and stepped toward Gun Moll. -------- *CHAPTER VII* Gun Moll stood trapped with her back against the paneled wall. The slightest move of her hand toward the automatic in her shoulder holster would bring instant death from the barrel of Josiah Masterson's gun. Agent Tolliver stood helpless with his hands in the air. He too was under the cover of Masterson's weapon and an attempt on his part to aid the blond gangster queen might result in a lethal dose of lead for each of them. His muscles quivered with the urge to take action. The mad tycoon stalked toward Gun Moll, a leer of unmistakable intent marring his features. Masterson's eyes crawled over Gun Moll's lushly proportioned form. Then they flicked toward Agent Tolliver. "Turn around," he ordered. The g-man froze. Every instinct he possessed refused to allow him to turn his back on a woman in danger. "Move!" barked Masterson. He shoved the ugly, black automatic toward Gun Moll's face. "Or she gets it now!" Tolliver was in a quandary. He cast a desperate look toward Gun Moll. Her face remained as impassive as a mask of the finest Chinese porcelain. She nodded almost imperceptibly toward the stricken g-man. Shooting a last, murderous look at Masterson, he slowly turned to face the window. What he saw sent a thrill of hope through his nerves. Near the edge of the woods he could make out two intruders creeping through the silvery moonlight. Tolliver recognized the lumbering, simian gait of Jingles, the driver. Behind him stumped the almost equally large bulk of Daisy. The two were working their way forward under cover, as he and Gun Moll had done when they had approached the mansion. But they were moving far too slowly to save the situation in Masterson's study. Fighting down panic, Tolliver tried to think of a way to signal them without tipping off the financier. Gun Moll, however, was coping with the full attention of Josiah Masterson. He was close enough now to touch her, his breath coming in painful gasps. His hand stroked her gleaming hair. "Beautiful," he murmured. "You know I had hoped you would come back. Brannigan can't give you the things you deserve. This home is a setting worthy of a jewel such as yourself." His gesturing hand indicated the lavish surroundings of the study. The cold, blue eyes of Gun Moll revealed no pleasure in his offer. She remained silent, returning Masterson's burning gaze with a glare intended to freeze his passions, but it was Agent Tolliver who broke the financier's mood. "What's the idea of bribing an F.B.I. agent to join up with Giselle's gang?" he asked. There was no way for him to signal his compatriots outside but he could at least play for time. The g-man hoped that Masterson's ego would force him to explain his strategy. Josiah Masterson glanced quickly over at Tolliver. "Quiet, you," he growled. Can't you see that your companion and I have business to discuss?" Tolliver's gambit had failed, but Gun Moll now took up the thread. "I'm surprised you didn't figure that one out for yourself, Kelly," she said, referring to the alias that went with his disguise as her younger brother. "Masterson here is a big operator. He's not just active here in New York. He's got his fingers in pies all over the country." "Go on," breathed Masterson. He was clearly intrigued by Gun Moll's grasp of his plans. "Sure," she continued. A kingpin like Josiah Masterson isn't just buying up properties here. He's doing it in every major city in the country. I'll bet the reason the F.B.I. started looking into this case is because there's been a rash of these bombings and arsons at selected sites all over the country, followed by rock bottom purchase offers from shady real estate companies." "That's right," Masterson agreed. "I needed agents all over the country and the Bureau has branches in every big city in the nation. What does a field agent make? One thousand? Two? I can triple that ... quadruple it and never feel the pinch." Gun Moll nodded, "It's not an easy thing to locate the weak men in such an organization, but money finds a way, doesn't it?" "Always, my dear," breathed Masterson. "Always." He leaned so close that his breath warmed Gun Moll's face. His eyes stared into hers, warning her that he would allow no more delays to his plans for the evening. "Join with me," he said. "I could use a brain like yours." He didn't see Gun Moll's finger pressing a button adhered to the palm of her hand. Nor did he see the flesh-colored wire that ran from that button and disappeared under her sleeve. "You sure could," answered Gun Moll. She squeezed her eyes shut as a jet of vapor exploded from the jeweled choker at her throat. Masterson reeled back, clawing at his face that had received the full force of a tear gas blast. He dropped the gun and fell heavily to the floor, screaming with fury. Tolliver whirled and started toward him. "Leave him!" snapped Gun Moll. "His men are outside and they probably heard that yelling through the open window. We've got to get out of here." She bent and swept up the papers she had dropped, secreting them in some hidden pocket in her clothing. Out in the yard, Jingles and Daisy broke into a run. They too had heard the commotion and hurried to the gangster queen's aid. Suddenly they both pitched to the ground and scrabbled to the shadow of a nearby bush as tongues of flame licked out from the darkness. The staccato report of gunfire rolled across the lawn and sinister figures were glimpsed converging on the duo through the uncertain light. To the noise of gangland pistols was added the deep boom of Daisy's automatic and the whip-it gun Jingles favored. A mobster dropped at each well-aimed shot. But there were too many for the pair to handle alone. Within seconds the ring of death was tightening around their hiding place. Tolliver drew his pistol and crouched at the window, intending to snipe at the mobsters from the cover of the mansion wall but Gun Moll brushed him aside. Before he could stop her, the gangster queen had leaped through the open window and out into the yard, firing as she dropped. The g-man followed, rolling when he struck the grassy earth, bullets chipping at the brick wall inches from his head. He saw one crook taking careful aim at Gun Moll as she sprinted toward her friends' refuge. Tolliver's gun barked and the man went down with a moan. A blast of hot lead from Gun Moll and her companions was enough to silence the mobsters for a second and let Tolliver join the group under the safety of covering gunfire. When he threw himself to the ground alongside the three he heard Jingles and Daisy arguing furiously. "It's you they saw, running out there in full view with your skirts flapping!" Jingles insisted. "Who are you kidding?" retorted Daisy. "Unless I smiled they'd see you a lot easier than they'd see me, white boy, and I wasn't smiling!" "That's enough, both of you," hissed Gun Moll. "Ammo?" Both Jingles and Daisy were low, having used up most of their ammunition defending themselves from Masterson's guards. Gun Moll slipped her spare clip into her automatic. So far, Tolliver had fired only one shot. "There's a dozen men left standing out there," said the g-man. "We can't fight them all off with what we've got." Gun Moll agreed. "You're right. You three start crawling back to the woods. I've got a full clip. I'll cover you. When you get to the trees you can cover my escape." All of them protested but Gun Moll was firm and there was no time to argue. She would not be denied and the three knew it. They began to worm their way backwards, belly to the grass. A blizzard of gunfire from the bush told the companions that the gangster queen was holding Masterson's men at bay. Although stray bullets slammed into the ground nearby, none of the shots were aimed and they would only have struck home by accident. Good odds for those to whom gunplay was a way of life. At the edge of the woods the three stopped and raised their weapons to fire. When the gangsters dropped, Gun Moll would have a fleeting second of safety in which to run back to the sheltering trees. But before they had a chance to squeeze the triggers a voice commanded, "Stop!" Tolliver and the other two whirled at the interruption. They found themselves peering straight into the black muzzle of an automatic. Caught by surprise, they hesitated for one, fatal second. In that second Josiah Masterson took command. He had obviously recovered quickly from the face full of teargas that Gun Moll had used to overpower him. When he was able to look out the window his keen mind had sized up the situation and he immediately suspected that she and whoever had come to rescue her would make for the woods. Gun in hand, he had circled around the fight and come up behind Jingles, Daisy, and Tolliver before they had been able to clear the way for Gun Moll's escape. Now, still clad in bathrobe and slippers, he took charge of the situation. "Hold your fire!" Masterson yelled at the top of his lungs. "Hold your fire!" His men recognized their master's voice and gradually the sound of gunfire dribbled off to a few pops, then died away completely. "I've got your people out here," he called to Gun Moll. "Better take it easy or they'll be the ones to pay for it!" There was no reply but the silence meant that she must have understood. "Drop those guns right now before I drill the three of you!" he ordered. Having been caught unprepared, the companions had no choice but to comply. The heavy firearms thudded down onto the leaf strewn ground. "Now march!" ordered Masterson. "Back to the yard! I want all of you together!" Reluctantly, the three shuffled at gunpoint out into the open where they saw Gun Moll surrounded by the six guards she had left standing. Daisy, Jingles, and Tolliver joined her, huddled together in the circle of smirking criminals. Masterson pulled back the hammer of his gun. "Relax, boys," he said. "I'm going to do what I should have done back in the house. I'm going to show you exactly how to deal with intruders on this estate!" -------- *CHAPTER VIII* Once again Gun Moll was held at gunpoint by the mad tycoon, Josiah Masterson. This time though, it was not only the cold-eyed gangster queen but Jingles and Daisy, as well as F.B.I. Agent Martin Tolliver who were squeezed in a vice of doom, surrounded by half a dozen bloodthirsty killers. And this time there was no mistaking Masterson's savage intent to gun down the four companions once and for all. Gun Moll braced herself for a leap at the older man. If there was no escape she would at least put up a fight while there was breath left in her body. Around her she felt the others in her group tensing. Masterson would find that he wasn't mowing down a quartet of helpless victims. "You should have known better than to try and out-fox me on my own territory," growled Masterson. "Here, everyone and everything works for me. There's nothing on this estate that my wealth doesn't control." He looked at his men. "Ready?" From all around came clicks as rounds were chambered. Wickedly mirthful eyes gleamed from behind the muzzles of raised automatics. Gun Moll could see the hungry set of the mobsters' jaws as they waited for Masterson to give them leave to blast her and her companions to oblivion. Masterson's mouth opened to give the fatal order. Instead of a command to fire however, all that emerged from Josiah Masterson's mouth was an agonized gurgle. His eyes bulged and he began twisting and jerking in a way that reminded Gun Moll of the frantic thrashings of a hooked fish. His forgotten gun thudded to the ground while his men looked on in amazement, scarcely believing what they saw. "Behind me..." gasped Masterson. But before he could say anything more there was a flash of steel that threw off glints of starlight before a cruel hook buried itself in his throat. He sagged to his knees and only then did a black form become visible looming over the twitching corpse. Blood dripped redly from two steel hooks where hands should have been. Giselle sans Mains smiled darkly from under the brim of her low-slung black hat. Behind her a mob of armed gangsters stepped into the open from between the dense trees. "What is the meaning of this?" she asked. Gun Moll's impassive face betrayed no emotion as she replied. "This creep invited me out here to talk over some business he has going with my boss, Rocky Brannigan. I could tell right off the bat he wasn't on the up and up. When he tried to get me to double cross Rocky I wouldn't play ball, so he brought me and my people out here and tried to get tough with us. If you were working for him you might like to know what kind of a boss he was. The guy writes everything down ... for instance..." She brought forth the paper she had scooped up from the floor of Masterson's study. "Here." One of Giselle's men stepped forward to take the sheet and hold it out for her to read. The Frenchwoman's face twisted with rage as she scanned the typed characters. She looked down and spat upon the body of her dead employer. "And so you thought I had outlasted my usefulness, eh?" Gun Moll spoke up. "Looks like he was trying to pull a fast one on us both. He was ready to cut Rocky out on our deal too, and wanted me in the bargain." "Chien!" sneered Giselle. "I did not need him anyway." She looked up hard at Gun Moll's companions. "Who are these people?" "Jingles, my driver." She gestured toward the apish man beside her. "And this is my maid, Daisy. The kid is my brother, Kelly." "The boy looks familiar," said Giselle. "Have I seen you before?" Gun Moll began to answer but was interrupted by one of Giselle's men. "What are we supposed to do with this bunch, boss?" The woman's dark eyes flashed dangerously but she turned her attention to the six men of Masterson's guard force who remained standing. They hadn't been told to drop their guns but they were outnumbered and surrounded. With the example of their dead employer lying in front of them resistance was the farthest thing from their minds. Gun Moll's "brother" was now momentarily forgotten. "To the house," ordered Giselle. "We will take whatever we can carry before we burn it to the ground. These men will carry our loot out for us." She gestured with her hook to start the group moving. "What then?" asked Giselle's man. "What then?" she echoed the question. Her only reply was a careless shrug. Gun Moll spoke up. "I don't think there's any reason for us to stick around. The place is yours now." She looked down at Masterson. "My business with this character is concluded." "So it is," said Giselle. "Be on your way." Giselle was no longer interested in the little band whose lives her timely appearance had saved. Her eyes glowed with a light that was kindled by thoughts of loot and destruction. Gun Moll held out one, graceful hand. "If you don't mind?" she said. "Rocky will want to see this." She took the papers from Giselle's henchman and they vanished once again. "Bon noit," she said to Giselle. "Bon soir," answered the Frenchwoman. The two groups parted, Giselle's gang walking through the yard toward the mansion that would soon be a smoking ruin, Gun Moll and her companions disappearing into the woods. In the ever-widening space between them lay the forgotten corpse of Josiah Masterson, the man who had lived to serve his wealth. Gun Moll and her companions made their way as quickly as possible through the dark woods and had reached the car before Agent Tolliver released a sigh of relief and said, "Good grief, that was close!" "Lucky thing you're good enough at disguise to fool Giselle or she might have made an example of all of us," said Gun Moll. "You never know when a talent like that might come in handy on a case." "No kidding," replied Tolliver. "But why was she so mad at Masterson?" "It's the papers I got from his safe," she said. "Giselle was only a little cog in his machine and she's too crazy to be trusted. Masterson was going to put her out of the way once he got his F.B.I. connections securely in place. She must have got wind of something and decided to put him out of the way first." Tolliver nodded. "So with Masterson out of the picture the case is closed, then. I guess he won't be forcing anymore bargain basement real estate deals." "He's out of the picture for good," said Gun Moll, "but you've still got some bad apples in your agency to clean out. I'll make you a copy of the papers I picked up. There are names and dates for you. I think you can weed out the bad guys easily enough. Masterson hadn't gotten very far with that plan." But the g-man wasn't satisfied. "If it's evidence you need to turn it all over to me. We'll make the determination of what's relevant." Gun Moll shot him an icy glare. "Don't get grabby with me, Marty. I don't like grabby boys. I might have uses for some of this stuff myself, you know." Suddenly Tolliver realized that Jingles and Daisy were looming close on either side of him. He hadn't noticed their approach but now he was very much sandwiched in by Gun Moll's two burly associates. He wisely quieted down and they all got in the car together. Minutes later the big limousine was on the road barreling back along the way it had come, carrying the four back to the city. It was late at night when they dropped Agent Tolliver off in front of F.B.I. headquarters in New York. As he got out of the car Gun Moll said to him, "Don't worry about the papers. You'll have a copy on your desk first thing in the morning." "Thanks," said Tolliver. "With that we can get the agency cleaned up the way it should be." But Gun Moll shook her head. "There's no 'we' to it. I'm not interested in your agency, Marty. This is a personal thank you from me to you. You could have stayed back in the house and left us to face those goons all by ourselves but you pitched right in. You did good work back there, Marty. I hope this does you some good." Tolliver saw Daisy and Jingles nod in solemn agreement and he was suddenly glad the night was dark enough that they couldn't see him blush. When he had joined the F.B.I. he had never in his wildest dreams imagined that he would be grateful for the approval of notorious gangsters like these three, or that he would accept their help to move against corrupt members of his own agency. It seemed that the world was far more complex than his training had prepared him to believe. He waved and trotted up the steps to the front door. Through the glass panel he saw two of his fellow agents walking toward him. He smiled and glanced back to make sure Gun Moll's car would be safely gone before they walked out. After what he had been through with those three tonight he didn't like to think of them being discovered and hunted down, at least not just now. Once the investigation was over, that would be another story. But he needn't have worried. The car had already pulled away, its taillights already gleaming from halfway down the block. He turned back again to open the door. "Hold it right there, Tolliver!" Tolliver's startled eyes suddenly focused on the two men walking toward him. They had their guns out and were pounding heavily up the hallway toward him. He looked at their hard faces and could see no sign of mercy there. Driven by instinct he bent low and leaped down the steps. His movement came just in time, for behind him the glass panel of the door exploded into a million, glittering fragments as heavy slugs from the agents' guns crashed through where Tolliver had just stood. Had his reaction been a mere fraction of a second slower he would have lain sprawled on the sidewalk in a pool of his own blood. He turned to the right and began running for his life. Ahead of him he saw Gun Moll's limousine halt. With a sharp squeal of protest, the big car reversed toward him, the acrid smoke of burning rubber billowing up from tortured tires. Behind him the two renegade agents had stormed out the door after him and were firing wildly. Bullets ricocheted about him but the men weren't taking time to aim and the shots were wide of their target. He was not nearly so terrified of these two as he had been while fighting the mob of gangsters earlier that night but still, it would take only one, lucky hit to end his law-enforcement career for good. Gun Moll's automobile skidded to a halt beside him and the door swung open. Daisy's heavy arm shot out, grabbed his coat, and dragged him through the opening as if he was no more than a child's doll. Before the door had even closed behind him Jingles had slammed the heavy car into gear and stamped the accelerator down to the floorboards. In a second they were rocketing down the street and the two murderous agents were left standing helplessly on the sidewalk as they watched it disappear. -------- *CHAPTER IX* The big limousine leaped forward with a screech of spinning tires and roared up the street with Gun Moll, Daisy, Jingles, and Agent Tolliver safely sheltered inside the tonneau. A few stray bullets whizzed past, unnoticed, until Jingles twisted the wheel and slewed the automobile around a corner and out of the line of fire. Once he had put a couple of blocks between them and the F.B.I. headquarters Gun Moll's apish-looking driver slowed to a normal rate of speed. There was no point in attracting more unwanted attention from the police. He set a twisting course across town that would have been impossible for any but the finest tracker to follow. Tolliver still lay like a child across Daisy's great lap marveling at his narrow escape from death at the hands of his fellow law-enforcement agents. Now he wondered if there was anyone in the agency that he could trust. Suddenly he noticed Gun Moll's rare expression of amusement and realized his embarrassing position in the car athwart the bulky negro maid. He scrambled to the seat and tried to assume some appearance of dignity. "Don't you mind, young man," said Daisy. "I've been rocking little babies since I was a child myself. You're no trouble." Tolliver looked heavenward and wished for the moment to pass. "Where to, boss?" asked Jingles from up front. "Back to the ... to our place," answered Gun Moll. "Daisy?" The maid had already anticipated Gun Moll's request. Her hand was digging inside the voluminous handbag she carried and emerged holding a brightly printed scarf. She held two corners and with expert movements whipped it around Tolliver's head and knotted it tightly. Before he realized what was happening the g-man had been plunged into total blackness. "Don't even let me see your hands get close to that blindfold," Daisy hissed into his ear, "or you'll regret the day you were born. Tolliver had no doubt that she meant every word she said and was fully capable of carrying out the threat so he sat very still throughout the rest of the long ride. He tried to estimate their direction and the distances between turns but soon gave up the effort as useless. He hadn't even been sure of their exact location at the time he was blindfolded and with Jingles constantly doubling back to elude any possible pursuit it was impossible for the g-man to form even a rough guess as to where they were headed. Eventually the car slid to a halt and Tolliver heard the doors open. His arms were gripped and he was eased out into fresh air. "Watch it. We're going up some steps here." Jingles' rough voice saved him from stumbling as he was guided up into a building. Around him Tolliver could hear furtive movements and sense the sudden hush of voices gone silent. Unseen eyes seemed to burn into him as he was led across an open space and into the confined space of an elevator car. The lift seemed to rise several floors before the gate rattled open and he was taken down a thickly-carpeted hallway and through more doors. At last the blindfold was whisked away from his face and Tolliver found himself blinking in the unfamiliar light of a well-furnished room, face to face with a square-built, middle-aged man in a heavy wool suit. The hard, seamed face radiated a power that dominated other men and the g-man felt himself inwardly acknowledging the man's preeminence in this underworld fiefdom. The mug photos had scarcely done the man justice. He was in the presence of the one and only Rocky Brannigan. "Sit down," rasped the gangster lord and Tolliver noted the faint wheeze as he spoke. It was said that he had suffered a terrible chest wound in a police ambush and been rescued from capture at the last moment by the mysterious blond known as Gun Moll. "Smoke?" When Tolliver shook his head Brannigan tapped a cigarette out for himself and lit up. He inhaled deeply and blew an impressive cloud of smoke up toward the ceiling. As his host exhaled the g-man took a second to examine the room more closely. There was a worn couch, a coffee table, some overstuffed chairs scattered about the room. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and the lingering reek of old liquor. A couple of doors led off to other rooms. Tolliver noted the windows, their vistas obscured by drawn blinds and curtains. Brannigan followed his gaze. "Don't get too curious, kid. It ain't healthy." Tolliver's eyes snapped back to the man at the desk. His obedience had been automatic, instinctive, and he understood how Brannigan maintained his iron grip upon the reins of power. "Normally I don't encourage feds to come up here for a visit but I've been told you handled yourself pretty well at Masterson's place tonight." Brannigan's thick features widened into a slight smile. The change in expression made him look, if anything, even more tigerish than before but Tolliver sensed that the sentiment was genuine. "I appreciate you jumping in on the lady's behalf." "I didn't do so much," said Tolliver. "I'm not sure she needed my help anyway, looking back on it." Brannigan's wide shoulders twitched in a noncommittal shrug. He seemed to agree that Tolliver's leap into battle on Gun Moll's behalf had been little more than a gallant gesture. "It was a gutsy move, kid. I won't forget it." The mobster's hand disappeared behind his desk and emerged with a half-full bottle of liquor and a couple of shot glasses. He splashed some of the amber-colored liquid into each glass and shoved one toward Tolliver. "Drink?" he said. Coming from Brannigan it seemed more like a command than an offer. The gang lord seized his own glass and tossed it back with a relaxed sigh. Tolliver picked his drink up off the stained desktop and examined it with a feigned casualness. His strict upbringing had never brought him into contact with intoxicants and until now it had never occurred to him he should break the law he had sworn to uphold and take a drink himself. As he looked at it he remembered stories of pathetic rummies and blind drunks. "It's okay," Brannigan reassured him. "No popskull here. It'll put hair on your chest, kid." That last reference to his boyish looks was all it took for Tolliver to make up his mind. He was not going to look like a child in front of one of New York City's most powerful mob bosses. Following Brannigan's example he tilted back his head and downed the burning liquid. And suddenly the world exploded. Tolliver was breathing fire and desperately trying to hide it. Through watery eyes he saw the fuzzy outline of Brannigan regarding him with a fatherly benignity. He made out Brannigan's voice remarking, "Good, huh?" through the roaring in his ears. It took a moment for Tolliver to find his own voice but after a few seconds he squeaked out, "Smooth." "Rocky I'm ashamed of you!" Gun Moll's voiced lashed across the room, cold as always but not lacking an undertone of affection. She strode across the room and poured Tolliver a glass of water from a pitcher nearby. Brannigan smiled sheepishly at the blond's mock anger. As Tolliver greedily drank the water he realized that with Gun Moll's appearance a personality even more powerful than Rocky Brannigan's had entered the room. She sat down in one of the chairs and examined the g-man with her expressionless face. With a careless flip of her hand she tossed the papers stolen from Masterson's safe onto the desk. As Brannigan flipped through the pages she gave him a full account of the night's events. "Giselle hooked him right through the moneybag then, huh?" Brannigan smiled at his own joke and tossed the papers back across the desk. In just those few seconds his keen mind had absorbed and understood their contents. In spite of himself Tolliver couldn't help but admire the man's obvious intelligence. I remember hearing about Giselle sans Mains back during the war," Brannigan continued. "Of course, back then she wasn't 'sans Mains.' She only took that nickname after the French caught up with her after the cease fire." He eyed Tolliver. "You know anything about her, kid?" Tolliver shook his head in the negative and Brannigan went on. "She'd sell information to anyone and she was good at getting it, too. They said her only real motivation was hate for the world, although it's anyone's guess why that would be. No one knows how many French soldiers died because of information she sold to the Huns but at the time people though it might be tens of thousands. And that's not including British, Americans, even Germans. She'd sell anything to the highest bidder." Brannigan poured himself another dollop of liquor and drank it down. "She must have had plenty of that money salted away because after her hands were chopped off and she was left for dead she somehow lived and made her way here. She was a marked woman in Europe. She's run a gang of hired killers for the last few years, doing murder for hire. Just small-time stuff though until she hooked up with Masterson ... so to speak." "You think she'll go back to being a small operator now that Masterson's dead?" asked Tolliver. "I dunno, maybe," said Brannigan. "But personally I think she's had a taste of bigger things and won't want to give it up. She's nuts, you know. Money aside, I think she just likes destruction. The war was her element. Maybe she wants to recreate that here." "If those papers can give me a clue how to find her or where she'll strike next..." said Tolliver. "I'm having a copy typed up for you tonight," said Gun Moll. "You'll have it first thing in the morning." "You need a safe place to stay?" asked Brannigan. "You can't stay here and it doesn't sound like you can go back to your agency HQ. If someone wants to rub you out they'll have your home staked out too." "I have a place to go," said Tolliver. "You don't have to worry about me. Just have those papers on my chief's desk in the morning, okay?" "I will," said Gun Moll. "If you want to clean up or eat something we can offer you that. Then we'll drop you off where ever you want." Visions of a hot sandwich rose temptingly in Tolliver's mind. "I am hungry," he admitted. Gun Moll rose to order a plate of food. As Brannigan's hand strayed toward the liquor bottle again Tolliver quickly shook his head. "Thanks," he said, "but I don't like to drink on an empty stomach." -------- *CHAPTER X* Giselle sans Mains rose late in the afternoon of the next day. On returning home from the burning of Josiah Masterson's mansion she had been too keyed up to sleep. Instead she had paced the floor, trying to work off her pent up energy while her men examined the loot she had stolen from the doomed structure. Priceless paintings, sculptures, and other objects now crowded the living room of her rented house. As much as she could cram into her car and Masterson's two automobiles, which she had commandeered, had come with her to festoon her lair. The rest had gone up in smoke along with Masterson's last six men. Giselle had decided on the spur of the moment that they should accompany the body of their boss and be given to the flames, like the slaves of some oriental despot sacrificed to attend their master in the afterlife. Since leaving her bed she had bathed and cleansed herself of the lingering scent of wood smoke that clung to her hair and skin. Giselle had found Petit Singe hiding in a closet and the promise of a tempting chocolate had lured it out. She needed the idiot creature's hands to help her in the bath. It attended to all her personal needs -- strapping on her hooks and dressing her, even applying her makeup with astonishing skill. Though most would say its mind had developed scarcely beyond that of a monkey, Giselle had long suspected that it was some sort of idiot savant, a defective child born with no reasoning ability and yet blessed with internal talents that made it the unexpected master of certain skills. Indeed, that strange quirk in its personality was the very reason she had stolen it in the first place from the home where it had languished in its own filth, penned up inside a concrete cell. Dressed now in her trademark long black coat and low-slung hat, Giselle stepped out into the living room where her underlings lounged, listening to the radio or dozing. The mobsters did little else with their time when they weren't out on a job for the French woman. They all looked up when Giselle walked into the room. Even the sleepers were kicked or elbowed until they snapped upright. It was by mutual agreement that they did this for no one wanted to be singled out for sloth by those flickering, dark eyes. "So!" she said, not fooled for a moment by the sudden show of alertness. "What are you all doing lying around my house in the middle of the day?" The gangsters all looked at one another, not sure who should speak, and yet knowing that their silence could also irritate her into a powerful explosion of rage. At last one of them cleared his throat and gestured at the stolen spoils from the mansion. "We were just wondering when you think it might be a good idea to fence some of this stuff," he said. "Some of the boys are getting a little low on dough." He drew some angry glares from his comrades who did not wish to be included as party to such a request even though they clearly hoped to benefit if Giselle gave the go-ahead to sell some of the loot. Giselle barely glanced over the goods. She had all the money she would ever need saved from her wartime exploits in France. Material things held little interest for her. Even looting Masterson's home had been little more than a gesture of contempt toward her former employer. To her, most of the objects were merely clutter. Then her eyes fell upon the little, framed sketch from Masterson's study. She gestured with one polished, steel hook. "That sketch ... in the frame there. That is a Jongkind, is it not?" It took the man a few seconds to locate the picture she indicated, lost in the jumble as it was. He picked it up and stared at it blankly, then held it up for her and shrugged. Giselle cursed in French and snarled, "Fool that I am to expect a modicum of culture from you American thugs! Of course it is Jongkind! Any idiot can see it! Bring hammer and nail ... you will hang it in my room immediately! As for the rest of this ... rubbish," she scarcely deigned to notice the rest of the precious things. "What do I care? Do as you like. Burn it if you wish! But get it out of here immediately!" The men wasted no time snatching up everything they could lay hands on and moving it out of her sight immediately. At any moment their boss might change her mind and they knew the best chance of satisfying their greed was to sell it all as quickly as possible. Giselle paid them well but the lure of easy riches was impossible for them to ignore. A pounding could be heard from Giselle's bedroom where the Jongkind sketch was being hung. The mobsters all knew that when Giselle sans Mains gave an order she expected instant compliance. Any less than that was to risk a very uncertain future. She flopped down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. "Petit Singe!" she called. "Come to Mama." The creature scuttled forward and crouched at her side, staring at her with vacant, mindless eyes. Its listless jaw swung freely like an old door it had forgotten to close. "Good Petit Singe," purred Giselle. She stroked the shaggy head as if it was a pet that fawned upon her. "My only true friend. The only one I can count on." She gazed at its slack features. "And only because you are like a little, stupid dog that knows only how to love its master." She stretched again. "Rub my feet, Petit Singe." The witless thing moved to the other end of the couch and began massaging its mistress' feet. The hands which looked so clumsy and awkward actually moved with a strangely empathetic skill. Giselle luxuriated in the pleasure of its touch. After some minutes the men returned to the living room. "Giselle, we got all the stuff moved out. We're ready to take it to a guy we know..." "So quickly you carry out my requests when you see a benefit to yourselves." She laughed at the man's look of consternation. "Come and sit, all of you." She waved a hook to indicate chairs around the room. "What ... uh ... what's on your mind, Giselle?" The men took seats and faced their boss. A mood like this could mean a very profitable job or it could mean a horrific scene like what they had witnessed in the basement the other night. None of them had forgotten the sight of Giselle's victim writhing on the floor and none of them wished to give her any reason to make him the next in line. Giselle regarded them lazily. She had a low opinion of them as mercenaries whose thoughts never strayed beyond the lust for quick cash. But an idea had occurred to her and she needed their help to carry it out. "I will buy the loot from you," she said. Her men stared at her, puzzled. By rights the lion's share already belonged to her if she wished it. "I will buy it," she repeated, "and I will pay you ten times what your fence, as you call him, would pay you. I know the value of these things and I know that it is incalculable wealth for you. I will do this if, and only if, you will agree to carry out my orders to the letter from now on." A murmur of agreement rose from the seated gangsters. They already followed her orders for the money she had been paying them and had expected to in the future. The prospect of this amazing windfall excited both their curiosity and their avarice. They leaned forward to hear what their boss would ask of them. When they heard it they smiled hard smiles at the cunning of their leader. She waved a sheaf of papers at them. "This, gentlemen, is the list of properties our deceased patron expected us to destroy for the paltry sum he paid us." She flipped a page. "And this is the list of financiers whom he expected to intimidate into selling their wrecked properties for next to nothing." Only one of the men had seen that list before. Giselle had dictated it to him before she had retired the night before, relying on her memory of the papers Gun Moll had shown her. It was a remarkable demonstration of the mental power locked inside that unbalanced brain. "We do not wish to encumber ourselves with properties," she sneered. "For myself, I wish only to glory in destruction on a scale to rival the Great War. It was then that I created my own masterpieces, painting in flame and blood on a canvas the size of a continent." She laughed at the shock they registered at hearing her words. To her they looked like a row of twittering, cowardly little birds who had just seen a cat take position under their tree. Then one of the mobsters stood up and spoke. "I don't care how much you say you'll pay me. This is just nuts. Destruction just for its own sake? Forget it." He looked around at his companions. "This is the kind of operation that can only go from bad to worse. We're all bound to get caught and if we're real lucky maybe we'll just spend the rest of our lives rotting in a hole in Sing Sing. We get enough people killed and we could all end up riding the lightning. You can count me out." He turned to leave. "Is that your final word?" asked Giselle. "You heard me," said the man as he stepped to the door. "You guys got any brains you'll come with me. I've had enough." With that he walked out. The door slammed shut behind him and they heard his steps walking across the porch. Silence reigned in the room. "Kill him, s'il vous plait" said Giselle. The phrase was quiet and simple, but it was meant to be obeyed instantly. One of the men jumped up without a word and walked out the door. Again the room was quiet. Seconds ticked by as each man looked nervously at his neighbor while Giselle smiled to herself and watched them sweat. There was a single gunshot from outside. Then another. A minute later the second man to walk out reentered the house and took his seat. Not a word was exchanged but it was understood that there was only one way to leave this gang now. "Do not worry," said Giselle. "As our unfortunate comrade would have learned, had he decided to remain with us, I will see to it that there is something in this for you, too." She held up the paper and one of the financiers' names was circled in red. "You see," she said, "we shall destroy every building on this list. The city shall cry out in terror from a wave of horror the like of which it has never seen. But we shall save the name I have marked for last. This is the wealthiest group of businessmen on this list. Once they know we can and will do what we set out to do we will bleed them dry of their wealth. You all will spend the rest of your lives richer than you had ever dreamed possible." -------- *CHAPTER XI* Two nights later the Reliance Hotel burned after a devastating explosion in its boiler shook the great building halfway to the ground. All night long firemen trained their hoses on crumbling brick walls silhouetted against roaring flames. By morning little more remained than a field of smoking rubble through which searchers picked carefully for the victims. The next night it was a waterfront warehouse that went up. Witnesses reported seeing the entire roof rise into the air before crashing down upon the ruined structure. Investigators declared the building and its contents a total loss and the owners, woefully under-insured, faced financial disaster. The public was shocked, but not surprised, four nights later when a block of tenements went up in a blinding sheet of flame. Hundreds were trapped in the crowded labyrinth of windowless rooms and narrow hallways. The death toll was appalling and calls flooded the mayor's office demanding action. Every police officer from the commissioner on down to the lowest beat patrolman was drafted to catch the terrorists before they could strike again. While officials at the highest levels bickered around conference tables in richly appointed conference rooms another discussion took place in a lower east side speakeasy on a grimy sidestreet where few of the city's top officials would ever dare to show their faces. Finnegan's Speak boasted stained and peeling plaster instead of walnut paneling and its light fixtures were only a few, bare bulbs instead of cut glass electroliers. But it was here in this dive where Gun Moll chose to confer with her contact on the police force, the incorruptible old beat cop named Flynn. A few trusted allies crowded around the crooked table, all grizzled veterans with decades of service behind them. They were the lowest, left-behind remnant of their generation of officers and had no official influence with their superiors but all of them, especially Flynn, were known to have sources of information that had cracked many an unsolvable case. Gun Moll shared a table with the old men, a fabulously out of place blond wearing a low-cut black dress and laden with diamonds and costly furs. Though any single item of her jewelry might be a year's income to the petty thieves and thugs who roamed these streets by night, Gun Moll could walk alone in perfect safety for she was known to be under the special protection of Rocky Brannigan, toughest of all New York City's crime bosses. Even the police were under strict orders not to harass her for city officials secretly dreaded what compromising information the gangster queen could let slip if pushed. Since the day her husband and child had been mowed down by the crossfire of a gangland shootout Gun Moll had become a law unto herself. A byword for terror in the shadowy half-world of corruption, she had secretly dedicated her life to destroying the great crime mobs of New York from within. "That's all I know about Giselle and her gang," said Gun Moll. She tossed a copy of the papers from Masterson's safe onto the table. "And this is the list of buildings they're scheduled to hit. According to the news they've followed this to the letter so far. So tell me what you can do to help stop her." The men grumbled over their whiskey as they took turns reading through the list. Their tired feet knew each crack in the city's sidewalk by memory and most of these buildings were familiar places to at least some of them. "Three targets hit so far," said Flynn, "and three more to go. D'ye think there's a plan there somewhere or is it all random?" "Hard to tell at this point," answered Gun Moll. "But look here." Her gloved finger stabbed at one of the listings. Flynn leaned forward and squinted at the paper. "A construction site, it is. The Pollack Building. One of those skyscrapers." "Now there's a big project," one of the other cops spoke up. "The Pollack Group is supposed to be one of the wealthiest concerns left in the country after the Crash." "Rumor is," said another, "they even made money on that Black Thursday." They all looked at Gun Moll as if expecting her to shed light on the truth of that last statement, but she remained mum on the subject. Instead she said, "It occurs to me, boys, that our little, French friend might have a goal in mind. Maybe big-time vandalism isn't her only motivation." Flynn and a few of the others caught on immediately. "Maybe there's big money to be made here -- extortion, insurance fraud. One or the other, I'm betting." "But which is it?" asked one of the cops. If it's extortion Giselle's planning then she'll probably hit every other target first just to throw a scare into the Pollacks. If it's insurance then she'll work the Pollack Building in between the others so it won't stand out to the investigators." "I've done a little nosing around already," said Gun Moll. She picked up a cigarette that had huddled in an ashtray among a crowd of cigars and pipes and took a last drag before crushing it out. She exhaled a cloud of blue smoke and continued. "The Pollack Concern is rock solid. They're clever operators but they've always stayed very legit. There's nothing to suggest they'd be hiring Giselle to pull off an insurance scam. I'm thinking Giselle's planning to have her fun and then let the Pollacks pay for it through the nose in order to stay off her hit list." "You could be right," offered Flynn. "And I could be wrong," Gun Moll retorted. "I doped all this out on my own and there may be angles I haven't considered. I wanted to know what you boys thought." Some discussion ensued but in the end it was agreed that Gun Moll's idea was the more likely of the two scenarios. "That's assuming she even has a plan," said one of the cops. "From what I heard about Giselle during the war she didn't have much rhyme or reason for anything she did except spite." There were some murmurs of agreement around the table. "You could be right," answered Gun Moll. "It's just an idea. That's why I asked you boys for your comments." Flynn set down his drink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "If you're right we don't need to bother guarding the Pollack site for now. It's the other two that are in danger. What are they?" Gun Moll didn't bother checking the list. She had memorized its contents at a glance. "One of them's a hospital," she said. "It takes up a whole city block. The other is an apartment building. They're both pretty high profile properties. If they're hit it'll sure make an impression on the Pollack Concern." "No fooling," said Flynn. "It'll make an impression on the whole city. The mayor's already breathing fire now. With a few squads of bluecoats we can protect those buildings at the very least. Maybe even nab the gang in the bargain." "Good thinking," Gun Moll approved. "You boys take care of that. In the meantime I'll pay the Pollack Concern a little visit. If Giselle isn't caught at the other two buildings we'll have to trap her there. They might be willing to help out if they know they're in danger." "Great," said Flynn. "Monahan, Roark, you get a squad and take the apartment building. O'Dell, you and I will get two squads and watch the hospital. We can stake men around the perimeters and inside the buildings. Giselle and her hoods will have their work cut out for them trying to get past us. The buildings are only a few blocks apart so we'll all make sure to have a man ready to go summon the other team when she does attack one of the buildings." The old warhorses raised their glasses in a toast. They all relished the prospect of a good fight and the battle ahead promised to be a memorable one. Gun Moll raised her own glass and sipped at the smoky liquor. As tongues loosened and tales of long-forgotten brawls began to ebb and flow Gun Moll rose. "Leaving so soon?" asked Flynn, his eyes shining with excitement. "Why the evening's just starting. Why don't you bring that big driver of yours in for a wee drop?" Gun Moll's smile bore a trace of warmth as she looked down at the old cops. They had all been out protecting the streets since before she was a little girl and she felt an almost daughterly affection for the gruff Flynn. "I've got things to do," she said. "And so do you boys. If I was you I'd take it easy on the firewater. I need you all to be on your toes starting tonight." The men all pledged to make this their last round. Gun Moll knew it was an ambitious promise but she also knew that they would be on the job when and if Giselle struck. She walked out the door confident that the terror targets were well-protected. Outside, the evening sun was setting, streaking the western sky with flame, nature's anticipation of the conflagrations to come if Gun Moll could not stop the madwoman's reign of fear. Jingles was lounging against the car. He jumped to attention and opened the passenger door when he saw Gun Moll come out of the speakeasy. "Where to?" he asked as he settled into the driver's seat. "Across town," she replied. "You know where the target buildings are located. Let's find a diner somewhere in between them. I'm famished." With that, the big limousine sped down the street into the growing dusk. -------- *CHAPTER XII* At midnight the shadowy exterior of the Arlington Arms apartment building frowned down upon a street empty of all save a few late night strollers. A heavy touring car slowed and stopped opposite the ornate entrance. Six men jumped out of the auto and ran across the street and up the concrete steps. They ran swiftly despite the heavy suitcases they carried. Their footfalls gritted startlingly in the silent darkness. A liveried doorman loomed up ahead of them, stepping into their path to intercept them. He stuck out a warning hand and started to speak. One of the raiders shoved him to the ground with a contemptuous sneer. "Out of the way, General, if you know what's good for you." But the determined guardian scrambled back to his feet and prepared to defend his post. He moonlighted as a sparring partner and knew how to take care of himself but his experience in the ring had not prepared him to deal with six ruthless gangsters who were determined to carry out their mission. Before he could take his fighting stance two men grabbed him, one on each arm. They bore him back against the brick wall of the building and pounding fists began to sink into his gut. After a few seconds of this treatment he sagged limply in his captors' grasp, struggling to get his feet back under him. A blackjack smashed into his skull and the lights went out. The gang stepped over his body and entered the building. The outer front door swung open easily on oiled hinges, admitting them to a marble foyer. It was the locked, inner door that they had to kick open. It yielded with a sharp crack of splintered wood and the tinkle of glass shards. The men stamped into the main lobby of the building and looked about, getting their bearings. The leader, a short, squat fellow with a thin moustache pointed to a door. "That leads to the basement. Two of you get down there and get to work." The selected men turned toward the doorway. They stopped and spun when they heard a metallic rattle at the far side of the lobby. A panicky elevator operator had slammed shut the gate of his lift and was at the controls, ready to make his escape to an upper floor. The gangster leader wasted no time in yanking out his gun. He fired once and the slug spanged off one of the bars in the elevator gate. The car began to rise and the raider's gun roared once more. This time a scream rang out in answer to the shot and the leader of the mobsters ran to the elevator in time to hear the thud of a body hitting the floor as the car rose into darkness. He turned back and gave orders for his men to hurry. Two of them ran up the winding staircase to the second floor. The leader and his partner took up positions to guard the front door. The pair designated to go to the basement opened the door and ran down the stairs. A few dusty bulbs offered dim illumination to the gangsters as they moved through the cellar. Their destinations were two of the great, concrete pillars that supported the vast structure. "Over here! We'll start with this one," hissed one of the thugs. They threw down their suitcases and opened them, reaching in to drag out heavy bundles of dynamite which they began strapping to the pillar. The men worked fast, concentrating totally upon the work before them. Suddenly they were trapped by powerful beams of light that stabbed out of the darkness. "Hands up, you bums!" The men whirled like trapped rats. Dynamite sticks rattled to the floor and in their place the gangsters clutched menacing automatics. Without hesitation they began to lay down a curtain of fire, tongues of orange flame streaking toward the sources of the light. A scream split the darkness and in that second a storm of hot lead blasted from every corner of the basement, riddling the two bombers before they had a chance to move. By the time the last echoes died and blue-uniformed officers stepped out of the shadows there was not a flicker of movement from the two, ragged forms that sprawled at the base of the pillar. Patrolman Roark kicked at the bodies and barked a quick order. "These two are done. Up the stairs, everybody!" The stairwell trembled to the thud of a dozen pairs of heavy shoes stamping up the treads. The squad of officers stormed up into the building lobby and were met by a hail of bullets. The policemen fell back, using the doorway as cover from the mobsters who had stayed behind to guard the entrance. Those two had heard the fusillade from below and knew there had been no aiding their accomplices in the basement. Only a few seconds later the thunder of another gun battle upstairs reached their ears and they knew that they had walked into a trap. The mustached leader tore open his suitcase and yanked out the bomb he carried within it. A few deft touches of his fingers set the timer, giving them just one minute to get away. He thrust the device under a table where it might escape casual notice and shouted to his accomplice, "Come on!" At that instant the police crashed through the basement door and began pouring into the room. The gangsters crouched and opened fire, hoping to buy a few seconds in which to get clear of the coming explosion. As the crowd of police at the doorway stormed in and then dove for cover the two men turned and prepared to flee. Too late! A shower of gunfire from the stairway pinned them to the floor like bugs as Monahan led his own squad down from the second floor toward the sound of battle. The pair staggered toward the front door, dropping to their knees as bullet after bullet ploughed into their flesh. The leader crawled the last few feet in a trail of his own blood, gasping for breath as he clawed for every inch. He only noticed that the firing had stopped when a heavy, black shoe slammed down on his wrist with crushing force and kicked away his gun. He had forgotten that he still clutched the empty automatic in his trembling fist. He turned his battered face up and laughed as the police crowded around him. "You lousy coppers ... Yeah, you nailed us ... but I'll take you all with me!" His dying gaze flickered toward the table under which his bomb lay ticking away the seconds. Monahan followed the direction of the man's glazing eyes. Suddenly his own eyes snapped wide. "Bomb!" he screamed. Half a dozen men leaped out the door. The rest flattened themselves against the marble floor as a terrific explosion ripped through the lobby of the Arlington Arms, tearing away the ornate decorations and tossing furniture around like toys. The huge windows shattered outward and drenched the sidewalk in a shower of broken glass. Men flew through the air and smashed with bone-shaking force against the walls. Fire sprayed through the space from torn gas lines, creating huge blossoms of flame that ignited curtains and carpeting. The men who could drag themselves up off the floor and shifted rubble, searching for their comrades. Monahan was down and unconscious but Roark staggered to his feet, bleeding from a cut on his forehead, and took command. "You and you and you," he singled out a few of the more able-bodied. "Get upstairs and start pounding on doors. Evacuate this building! Is there a phone working in here?" Someone shouted, "I don't even know where to look in this mess!" "Get outside then!" ordered Roark. "Run to the call box and get the fire department. Everyone who's able, help me fight these fires!" He grabbed a piece of shredded curtain material off the floor and began beating at the flames. A few other men followed suit with whatever materials they could lay hold of. It was an impossible effort but they had to delay the conflagration as much as possible until the building was clear. Within a few minutes shell-shocked residents were filing down the staircase, led by one of the officers. Some gasped in amazement at the destruction of the once-beautiful hotel lobby while others screamed in blind panic. The police drove them all ruthlessly past the threatening flames and out to safety on the sidewalk. As the last of the residents was stumbling out the door a police motorcycle skidded to a halt in front of the building. "I need to speak to whoever's in charge," yelled the cop. After some more yelling Roark, bloody and blackened with soot, staggered out to meet the man. "What is it?" he bellowed with a voice hoarse from breathing smoke. Roark had to repeat his question a couple of times before he finally grabbed the man's jacket and shook him. The motorcycle officer had been totally absorbed by the scene of mayhem that lay before him. "What do you want? We're busy here if you can't tell!" snarled Roark. "Flynn sent me," answered the man. "I was supposed to come get you and your men." "What does he want? Go back and tell him that Giselle has struck here. We need him!" "That's what I was sent to tell you!" insisted the officer. "He needs you! Giselle's attacking the hospital in full force!" -------- *CHAPTER XIII* Just about the time that the attack on the Arlington Arms had gotten underway two more large automobiles had driven up to the entrance of Memorial Hospital just a few blocks away. Ten men threw open the doors and strode into the front entrance carrying large suitcases in their fists. The nurse at the front desk jumped up as they shouldered through the door. "Can I help you gentlemen?" One of the men pulled an automatic out of his jacket and swung the muzzle toward her. Her mouth made a perfect 'O' as her face went white with shock. "You can't..." she spluttered. "What is the meaning...?" Her question was never finished though. One of the men grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and gave her a brutal shove along the hallway that led to the interior of the building. "Shut up, sister! You're our new guide, see?" He pushed the nurse hard, making her stumble along in front of him. "Show us the stairwell ... now! If you behave yourself we might just take you with us when we leave!" The men had already dragged the nurse into the stairwell with them when another menacing figure walked in through the door. It was only her bearing that identified her as a woman for she was draped from head to foot in a long, black coat. A low-slung hat of the same dark hue shaded her face from prying eyes. Unlike the men who preceded her she carried nothing, for it was not hands that protruded from her long sleeves. Instead, her arms ended in two gleaming, steel hooks. With a slow and measured step, Giselle sans Mains entered the hospital and imagined the destruction to come. "Excuse me?" Giselle's train of thought snapped and her cruel eyes swept the lobby until they found the voice's source. Her gaze came to rest upon a middle-aged woman seated by the far wall. The unexpected sight brought a strange smile to her lips. "Those men," continued the woman. "What did they want?" No answer came from Giselle. She remained still and stared silently at the woman as if the sight of her inspired thoughts deep within her soul. The woman squirmed in her chair, becoming more and more uncomfortable in the presence of this spectral figure. "My husband..." the woman stammered. "He's in surgery..." A light seemed to flicker in Giselle's eyes. Her musically accented voice held a subtle tone of mockery as she answered. "Remain still," she said. "Calm yourself. You will see your husband very soon." With that, Giselle sans Mains turned and walked down the corridor leaving the woman to wait with only her own thoughts as company. Across the street was a little diner that made its business by serving the relatives of patients in the hospital. Gun Moll and Jingles had stationed themselves at a table in the front window and were sipping coffee when Giselle's gang had pulled up. Gun Moll's cold, blue eyes watched the men enter the front door of the hospital and then took careful note of the black-clad figure that followed them. She threw some money on the table and stood to go. "Come on, Jingles," she said. "Police or no police I'm going to see to it myself that she doesn't get away with this." Her simian giant of a driver rose and dutifully followed Gun Moll across the street and up the steps to the building's front door. As they entered, the middle-aged woman looked up in amazement. In the space of just a few minutes she had seen ten armed men carrying suitcases, a sable-garbed woman with two steel hooks for hands, and now a diamond-studded blond followed by a hulking, apish brute of a man. Both of the newcomers were carrying drawn guns. "Well, I never..." she gasped. Jingles threw a quick glance in her direction. "You'd better get out of here, lady," was his terse warning. A moment later he and Gun Moll disappeared down the same corridor that had swallowed up the men and the strange woman. Down in the basement and up on the third and sixth floors bombers were at work. With staff and patients held at gunpoint they pulled dynamite charges out of their suitcases and began setting the timers to detonate in fifteen minutes' time. Heedless of the certain carnage their bombings would cause, they began to carry out their mission to destroy the great hospital. Thousands of lives meant nothing to the gangsters who did the bidding of Giselle sans Mains. It was the thugs on the third floor who first discovered to their regret that the police were there ahead of them as Flynn's squad leaped out from behind closed doors to seize their prey. At first it seemed the element of surprise would ensure a peaceful surrender but the four mad dog killers had other ideas. With their guns laying down a curtain of deadly fire they abandoned the bombs they had brought in and ran for the stairwell to escape. Flynn and his men threw themselves behind anything that might offer cover from the bullets screeching through the ward. Nurses flung their bodies over the bedridden patients, becoming human shields to protect their helpless patients. The instant the gunfire began to slack off Flynn and his men charged the stairwell. A lucky shot winged one of the gunmen as he disappeared through the door but the wounded man kept running. A second later, blue-coated officers were pounding down the stairway while bullets from below struck sparks from the iron steps. Meanwhile in the basement, O'Dell's men were confronting the three bombers who were getting ready to dynamite the building's foundations. When half a dozen police officers stepped out from the darkness the gangsters knew they were trapped like rats and surrendered without resistance. The police snapped handcuffs on their wrists, sat them down against one concrete wall, and left two men behind to guard them while O'Dell and the bulk of his squad went back upstairs to join Flynn. They reached the ground level just in time to run smack into the fleeing mobsters from the third floor with Flynn's squad hot on their heels. The bombers, seeing that they were caught between two forces of bluecoats, tried to stampede their way to freedom like a herd of maddened bulls but O'Dell's men stood their ground. At these close quarters it was bludgeoning fists that decided the battle's outcome rather than gunplay and the stairwell erupted in a boiling mass of grappling, rolling figures. The bombers never stood a chance against those odds. In a mass they went down beneath a pile of uniformed officers and when they finally emerged, handcuffed and clearly worse for wear, they were led outside where paddy wagons awaited them while Flynn and O'Dell charged back up the stairs to search for more of the gang. In the meantime, Gun Moll and Jingles had used the hospital's telephone system to figure out which floor the last group of bombers had targeted and minutes later the cornered men were staring into her icy blue eyes as Jingles moved to seize their guns. The Beretta in her white fist was small but deadly and they knew her reputation as a crack shot. "What do you want with us?" asked one of them. "This ain't Brannigan's territory and we ain't threatening him." "No," was Gun Moll's cold retort, "but blowing up a hospital is pretty low, isn't it? And who's to say you might not want to expand your operation?" The gangster shook his head. "This is our last job. Once we get our big payoff we're done with this racket for good." The crook looked around at the frightened nurses and patients. "I ain't crazy about this either, but Giselle gave us our orders, see?" "Well, I'm giving you new orders," said Gun Moll. "We're all going to march downstairs..." But before the gangster queen finished her sentence the stairwell door flew open and the squads of police thundered into the room. One of them spotted Jingles carrying the bombers' guns and opened fire. Gun Moll's hulking driver groaned and crashed to the floor unconscious, bleeding from his head. The crooks' guns spilled from his nerveless hands. With a horrified cry, Gun Moll leaped to the fallen man's side and Flynn ordered his men to hold their fire lest the next bullet strike his Mollie. And in that second the quick-witted gangsters snatched at the guns scattered over the floor and opened fire on the police. The officers in the hall tried to leap back into the stairwell for cover while those in the stairwell surged forward toward the sound of gunfire and that moment of confusion was all the gangsters needed. Two of them reached down and seized Gun Moll as she knelt by the side of her motionless driver. "Let me go!" she hissed, twisting in the men's grasp. Her struggles were ended as a heavy gun butt cracked against her head. The men fired a final volley into the mass of policemen and ran down the hall dragging the unconscious Gun Moll with them. "There's another stairwell around the corner!" snarled one of the bombers. They found the door and were already leaping down the steps before the police could follow. All this while, Giselle sans Mains had been silently stalking through the hospital corridors like a black-clad angel of death. No one tried to stop her. The staff and patients shrank from her strange, cruel eyes and let her pass, relieved not to have attracted her attention. She patrolled the building unaware of the presence of police who had already foiled her plot for destruction, feasting on the sight of the doomed hundreds who would soon lie beneath tons of rubble. At last, satisfied that her plans had been carried out, she stepped into the elevator and rode back down to the lobby. When she walked out of the car she knew instantly that something was wrong. Through the glass panel of the front door she saw police milling about on the sidewalk. Black paddy wagons were taking on a group of her handcuffed men. She snarled and leaped for the basement door. The policemen downstairs heard the door open and then running feet on the steps but they were too slow to realize it was death coming down that stairway to claim them. A great, flapping, black shape was all they saw before steel hooks struck and ripped. Before the men's screams had died Giselle whirled upon her bound underlings, her face black with fury. "You call yourselves men!" she screeched. "You cringing cowards! If I could pick up a gun I would shoot you all!" Ignoring the gangsters' pleas for help, Giselle turned to examine the explosives. A cruel smile crept across her face as she saw that the devices had not been disarmed. Even her steel hooks could throw the final switch that would unleash the explosive force of her bombs. Her men's futile screams drowned out the ticking of the timers as she turned her back and calmly walked up the stairs. Giselle sans Mains had abandoned the men who failed her and now her only thoughts were of escape. As she stood in the lobby pondering her next move she heard footsteps charging up the hallway toward her. A second later her last three men slammed through the door with the helpless Gun Moll in their grasp. Giselle bared her teeth in a wolfish grin. "Giselle!" shouted one of the gangsters. "The cops are right behind us!" "If you look out the door," she replied, "you will see that they are in front of us as well." "What are we going to do?" begged the desperate men. Giselle glanced down at the automatics the bombers clenched in their sweating fists, then back at the door through which they had come. "Do you have ammunition? Can you hold off the police?" "Maybe for a couple of minutes," was the reply. Giselle looked up at the clock on the wall. "I believe that may be just enough time. Set the girl down and prepare to fire when the police appear at the doorway." -------- *CHAPTER XIV* Giselle's three men crouched on the lobby floor, guns raised to fire, as they waited for the arrival of Flynn and his men. The old cop didn't keep them waiting long. It seemed to the men that they had barely time to take their positions before the hallway door was smashed open and the first officers sprang through. At that instant their automatics boomed and searing lead streaked into the blue-coated mass. Flynn grabbed a wounded man by the collar and hauled him back into the corridor. "Wait!" he barked. "There are men outside. We'll catch these rats between us!" He peered carefully through the tiny window in the door in hopes of seeing some sign that the men by the paddy wagons had heard the commotion. And they had. At the sound of gunfire heads had turned in the direction of the hospital. With Giselle's men crouched low and Flynn's force taking cover in the hallway none of the policemen outside could see anything unusual in the lobby from where they stood outside. One of the men took a step toward the front door. Giselle sans Mains had melted back into a corner of the lobby, out of the line of fire but in a spot where she could survey both the hallway door and the front entrance. Her eyes flicked back and forth from one to the other, gauging the activities of both groups against the sluggish hands of the wall clock. "You men," she hissed, "Watch that door carefully. I will delay the police out front. Look at the clock." She pointed with one of her hooks. "When three minutes have passed you must run for the front door." "But where are you going?" bleated one of the gangsters. Giselle shot him a contemptuous look. "Just do as I say if you value your worthless life." So saying, she stepped to the front door where she could be seen by the men out front and raised her arms. Though she was only visible as a black silhouette with the room's light behind her the steel hooks she bore in place of hands made her instantly recognizable. She pushed the door open and stepped outside. Instantly the police leveled their guns at the sable-coated French woman and two of them ran forward to seize her. "Wait!" she screamed, and the power of her voice was like a barrier thrown across the men's path. They stood uncertainly for a second and their indecision gave her the opportunity she needed to speak. She pointed upward, vaguely indicating the windows above. "My men have you covered from the upper floors. If you try to seize me they will open fire and shoot you all down. I have come to talk." "So talk!" rasped the unit's commander. "But I warn you, we've got you covered too. If this is a trick..." "Are you all so afraid of one, unarmed woman?" she sneered. "I have placed myself at your mercy in order to negotiate a bloodless surrender and this is how I am greeted?" "I'm not authorized to negotiate!" shouted the commander. "You get in there and tell your men to drop their weapons and walk out with their hands in the air or we'll carry them out feet first!" "But officer," purred Giselle, "there are hundreds of innocents within this building. Surely you do not wish to be the cause of unnecessary bloodshed? My men require only certain assurances that they will be taken into custody unharmed. Let us reason together and we can avoid so much unpleasantness." The commander swore while he weighed his options. He could well imagine the carnage that might take place if he stormed the building. There had been no communication from the officers inside the hospital and he could have no way of knowing that Giselle's threat about having gunmen in the upper windows was merely a bluff to gain precious minutes. It appeared that the French woman had placed herself in his hands as an act of good faith. "Alright!" he shouted. "We'll talk. Let's end this peacefully." Giselle began to rattle off a ridiculous list of demands, her agile brain pulling ideas out of thin air to keep the dialogue going. In the meantime she mentally counted the seconds as they ticked by. A cruel smile began to spread over her features as she realized her countdown was drawing to a finish. The puzzled officer listened with growing disgust to the conditions Giselle laid down for a peaceful surrender. Not only were they outrageously unacceptable, they were contradictory and confusing, as if she was making them up on the spot. He could feel the growing restlessness of the men behind him. He opened his mouth to speak and as he did the front door flew open. Three men leaped out the door and down the steps. Their appearance was so startling that the first gunshots from the police went wild and spattered harmlessly on the building's brick facade. Giselle seemed to melt into the shadows and as she did an ominous rumble emanated from somewhere underground. Suddenly, men were flung to the pavement by a terrific upheaval and the entire front of the hospital seemed to rise into the air and hang there in a growing cloud of dust. The awestruck police scarcely noticed Giselle fleeing through their ranks followed by the three men, one of whom carried a beautiful, unconscious blond in his arms. As they ran they snatched a few of their captured men from the officers' grasp. All this happened in the second after the dynamite blast wrenched the front of the hospital loose from its foundations. In the next second the massive structure crashed to the ground in a roaring chaos of flying bricks and rubble. The choking dust cloud rolled over all of the men outside, blinding officer and criminal alike in a suffocating mass that was darker than the night itself. The gang groped their way to where their cars were still parked on the street and tumbled inside one of them, Giselle in the front seat beside the driver. The engine spun to life and headlamps snapped on to reveal nothing more than a solid, grey wall of dust. Giselle pounded the driver with her artificial arm. "Drive, damn you!" she screeched. "But I can't..." Giselle screamed in the man's ear, "Go, go, GO!" and stamped her own foot down on the accelerator, mashing it to the floor. The car leaped forward and the man at the controls twisted the wheel desperately, trying to avoid a crash while he bumped over chunks of concrete and brick. A uniformed officer suddenly loomed in front of the speeding car, his face a white mask of terror in the light of the headlamps. He threw up his hands as if that gesture could ward off the certainty of onrushing death that bore down upon him. The car jolted its passengers with a violent bump and the man was gone as quickly as he had appeared. "Faster!" Giselle shrieked. "Don't stop for anything!" The gang never looked back. With another violent wrench of the steering wheel the car suddenly shot out into open air and Giselle laughed and cried hysterically as they sped away. She turned along with the rest of her group to look back at the awe-inspiring scene of destruction they had left behind them. What she beheld filled her heart with a savage exultation. The dynamite had done its work well. The main part of the building still stood but the entire front had collapsed to the ground, leaving a vast, gaping wound from which chunks of broken masonry still tumbled into the darkness. A veil of fluttering, white papers shimmered in the illumination of the streetlights, dancing on the breeze as they scattered across the block. The whole, ruined structure rose eerily from a cloud of swirling dust inside which a few blinking red lights could be faintly seen, evidence of the emergency vehicles within. Giselle gasped in cruel wonder at what she had wrought. Without even realizing it the driver had stopped and he too stared wide-eyed at the demolished side of the great building. Time seemed to have come to a standstill in the face of this horror and majesty. "Imagine," Giselle breathed, "if all three charges had gone off..." Her men gaped at her in stunned silence. Giselle's reverie snapped and her sharp eyes flashed across the faces of the gangsters in her car. Her spell of amazement had passed as quickly as it had possessed her. "What are you all looking at?" she snapped. "Back to the house! Now!" With a metallic clash, the driver threw the automobile back into gear and the big touring car lurched forward, gathering speed as it hurtled along the dark street past growing crowds of frantic people who had been jolted from their slumber by the thundering explosion. A few of them pointed and gestured at the speeding car but most of them took no notice of Giselle's flight. In moments the car was gone and the scene was left to the struggling, choking police. -------- *CHAPTER XV* Rocky Brannigan ignored the waiter who took his plate. Often he was friendly with the underlings who served him and was known as a generous tipper. It was a good policy that had helped to save his life more than once. Tonight though, he loomed heavy and massive at the head of the restaurant table and his attention was centered squarely upon the belligerent face of Gun Moll's friend and contact on the police force, Flynn. The old cop looked anything but pleased to find himself in the presence of the notorious Rocky Brannigan. Behind him sat the apish behemoth Jingles with his head swathed in white gauze. All the tables had been cleared of patrons, at the polite but firm insistence of Rocky's men who now stood behind their chief, and so the small group enjoyed a certain amount of privacy. Late afternoon sunshine poured in through the windows of the little, store-front restaurant. Rocky favored places like this where he knew the owners and often had helped them to get started. This place had been opened by an Italian immigrant who gotten his first job in the States running errands for the ganglord. With Rocky's help he had brought his family over from the old country and was now a hard-working business owner who cherished the hope of seeing his sons make something of themselves. Flynn allowed the waiter to take away his own plate untouched. "By all the saints," he growled, "I never thought to be sitting down to a meal with the likes of you." Rocky ignored the words. Instead he devoted himself to firing up a huge cigar. When it was burning well he drew in a great lungful of smoke and then blew a vast blue cloud up toward the ceiling. Only then did he speak and he did not reply directly to the policeman's comment. "Thanks for bringing my man back to me." "I did it for Mollie, not for you," huffed Flynn. "I'd just as soon see him get his just desserts in the big house like you will someday, Brannigan, but I know she depends on him and I'll not deprive her of a man who can help save her from that hooked devil who's got her now." Rocky's hard eyes swung around and bore down on Jingles. The hulking driver felt that gaze pummel him like the worst beating he'd ever taken and he cringed in forlorn silence, wishing he had died at the hospital. "He was shot in the head!" burst out Flynn. "Are you blind that you can't see the bandages? It's that thick skull that saved him. Solid bone, it must be! The bullet bounced right off it. But it knocked him out, it did, and it took me and three other men to drag him out of the building after the explosion and get him patched up." "I'll deal with you later," rumbled the ganglord. He hadn't listened to a word Flynn had said. In his mind only one fact was important: Gun Moll was in the clutches of Giselle sans Mains and no one knew where she had been taken. He would do whatever it took to find her. Even now word was being sent out to every gangland nook and cranny seeking information that would lead the vengeful Rocky Brannigan to Giselle's lair. Jingles nodded in reply. He didn't try to offer explanations. The mere fact that he was still alive after Gun Moll had been captured was evidence enough of his failure to protect her. Whatever punishment Rocky saw fit to mete out could hardly be less merciful than his own self-castigation. Flynn looked at the ganglord and could see the anguish behind the stony exterior. As tough as he was on the outside, inside Rocky was frantic with worry about the blond gangster queen. In spite of his principles, some small corner of Flynn's heart pitied Rocky Brannigan. "I've known you since you were just a lad, Rocky, running around with that gang of hoodlums back in the old neighborhood," said Flynn, "and I knew you'd come to no good. Your sainted mother begged me to look after you but you would never listen, would you? And now look where it's all led, my Mollie in the hands of that madwoman and you not able to do a thing about it." Rocky blew out another cloud of smoke. "You know as well as I do nothing good ever came out of that old neighborhood. I did what I could with brains and luck and I'm not sorry for the life I've led. At least I've had a life. I've clawed and fought for everything I've got, not like those bums that stand outside in the breadlines all day waiting for whatever slop some charity will dish up for them. And not like a broken-down, old cop who's got nothing to live for but his pension ... if they don't take that away from you too." Flynn stiffened in his chair. His pity had evaporated now, replaced by the fierce loathing he felt toward all crooks. "I may not have much," he said, "but at least I have a clear conscience. I've lived clean, Rocky. I've fought for the law all my life and when I face my maker I'll stand proud!" "You've fought for what?" snarled Rocky. "I'll tell you what. The biggest bunch of no-good bums in town, that's what you've fought for. The politicians that hide behind their smiles and skin the city alive, that's what you've fought for. When you look in your mirror every night are you really so sure you've traded your life for some great ideal? At least I'm an honest crook. I don't fool anybody about what I am. But you ... you've been fooling yourself your whole life!" There was a crash as Flynn's chair fell to the floor. The old cop stood, fists clenched, trembling with rage. "I brought back your man for you. I violated my own principles for the first time in my life because I believe he's the best man to help you get her back -- and boy, you need all the help you can get!" Flynn strode to the front door but as his hand pressed the latch he turned back to face Rocky one last time. His words seared the air of the little restaurant as he spoke. "I came to see you this one time to do you a good turn. Watch your back, Brannigan, because the next time I come for you it'll be to bring you in!" With that the old cop turned and stalked out. A strained silence fell in the little restaurant during which Rocky took another thoughtful pull at his cigar. After exhaling luxuriously he motioned one of his men over and whispered something into the fellow's ear. With a brief nod the gangster donned his hat and walked crisply out the door, taking the same direction as had Flynn. Rocky allowed himself a little inward chuckle. Soon enough the rest of those gathered here would learn that he had only sent his man to tail the old cop and make sure he got home safely. It would take a lot more than a few harsh words to make the ganglord turn his back on someone from the old neighborhood. He motioned Jingles to take the seat next to him. "So how's the head?" "Boss," said Jingles, "I'm okay. That slug just grazed me. It knocked me out and when I came to the cops told me about Giselle taking her. I swear boss, I would've died myself rather than let anything happen to her. If I ever get my hands on..." "Save it," Rocky snapped. The anguish on Jingles' brutish face was genuine and everyone in gangdom was well aware of his devotion to Gun Moll. There was no question but that Jingles would have sacrificed his own life to keep her out of Giselle's clutches. The poor man looked so remorseful now that Rocky was almost afraid he might break down and start crying right there. "Pull yourself together," commanded the ganglord. "We don't have time for this. You got work to do tonight." Jingles looked up. "You know where to find Gun Moll?" Rocky nodded tersely and said, "Maybe. It'll take time for me to run down Giselle's hideout but I've got a good idea where to find her tomorrow night. You round up a couple dozen of the boys. Make sure they're handy with a gun but level-headed, see? I want Giselle and as many of her men alive as possible. Once I've got them in my hands they'll talk alright, and talk fast. And they'd better hope Moll's okay, or else." From the look in Jingles' eye it was evident he was already considering who to choose for the mission. For all his naivete and bestial appearance he had a thorough knowledge of the men in the gang and was a solid tactician when it came to gunplay. Rocky knew he could count on the apish driver to assemble a good mob. "Boss, I ... I'd like to ask you one favor." Jingles stammered as he framed the words, half ashamed to ask after his failure to protect Gun Moll. "Can I go along with them? I'd like to try and help make things right, if I can." Rocky snorted a harsh laugh and Jingles bowed his head again but the ganglord demanded his attention. "Jingles, you're something else, you know that? I told you to get the gang together. You're not going along. You're going to lead them!" -------- *CHAPTER XVI* Unknown to Giselle's gang, Gun Moll had been awake for some time listening to the conversation around her and using her other senses as well to get her bearings. From the coolness of the air and its damp, earthy smell she assumed she was underground in a cellar room. The gritty scrape of shoe leather over a concrete floor helped to convince her she must be correct. She could hear the voices of several men speaking from time to time as well as one female voice, French-accented. This could be no one but Giselle sans Mains. Obviously the gangster queen had been taken to the terrorists' hide out, for what purpose she supposed she would learn in due time. Stout ropes cut into her wrists and ankles, binding her upright to an uncomfortable, wooden chair. It was all she could do to refrain from shifting positions as the dull ache of the bare, uncushioned seat became more insistent while time ticked by. There was another smell too, besides the musty basement odor. Her nostrils caught a whiff of smoke, like charcoal smoke, wafting through the air -- maybe coming from the furnace? Drops of cold water spattered on her face. Gun Moll allowed her eyelids to flutter a bit as if she was awakening from a deep sleep. Obviously her captors were now ready for her to share the pleasure of their company. When her eyes opened completely she saw one of the men flipping water at her with a wet towel. She moaned a little and shook her head, trying to look as if she was in a daze. "She's coming to, Giselle," said the man with the towel. Gun Moll watched carefully from hooded eyes as a tall woman in a long, black coat and had stepped up to her. A touch of cold steel under her chin lifted the gangster queen's face into the light of the electric bulb. Gun Moll looked straight into the eyes of Giselle sans Mains and those eyes flashed sparks of fury. "How interesting to meet you again," snarled Giselle. "I cannot help but be amazed that our paths should cross so soon after the other night and in such an odd place." Blue eyes struck back against Giselle with an icy stare. Gun Moll's face betrayed no emotion as she replied, "I thought so too. Did you have a sick aunt up there or something?" "You think you are so very clever." Giselle's hook caressed Gun Moll's cheek. The gesture was so gentle it could almost be thought loving until one saw the cruelty stamped on the French woman's features. She laughed quietly. "I believe you will now tell me how you happened to be at the hospital. No doubt the explanation will be most interesting to me." The whisper of a smile stole across Gun Moll's lips, only to fade as quickly as it had appeared. Her face took on the immobile quality of a white, porcelain mask. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "But I do know that the people who are looking for me right now are very powerful and very angry. And when they find me, and find me they will, they will want someone to vent that anger on." She shifted her cold gaze from one man to the next before returning to Giselle. Most of the men knew her as Rocky Brannigan's good luck charm and they knew exactly what she meant. It was never healthy to get on Rocky's bad side. A faint trickle of nervousness began to make itself felt. "If you think to frighten me with these threats you are wasting your breath," answered Giselle. "I am well aware of who you are and although I do not understand why you tried to interrupt my operation last night, it really is of no matter to me. I saved your life and let you walk away the other night when I could have killed you as easily as I killed Josiah Masterson and this is how you repay me?" "There were innocent people in that hospital," said Gun Moll. "And in the apartment building, too. I know all about your little plan to squeeze money out of the Pollacks and I don't care about that. They probably deserve whatever they get. But mass murder is where I draw the line." Giselle scowled down at her captive. Her hook slid down over Gun Moll's pale skin and came to rest at the hollow of her throat. As her gaze bore into those icy, blue eyes she pressed, ever so gently, the razor-sharp steel point into Gun Moll's skin. A tiny, red dot of blood appeared, a dot that blossomed until it grew too heavy and trickled down between her breasts, trailing off beneath the neckline of her gown. The crime queen's mask-like face never changed its expression. "Nice trick," she said. "But now you owe me a new dress. I'll never get the stain out of this." "You will have more than stained clothing to concern yourself with very soon," replied Giselle. "I have a special way of repaying those who betray my generosity and interfere with my plans. I do not know if your Rocky will ever find this place or not. In any case, we will soon be leaving here for good so it is of no concern to me." Giselle walked a few steps away and now Gun Moll realized where the smoky smell she had noticed earlier was coming from. A glowing brazier squatted in one corner of the room, its coals shimmering feverishly in the semi darkness. Giselle let her hook drop with almost careless ease onto the brazier while one of her men fanned it with a bellows so that the coals turned nearly white with the savage intensity of their heat. "Now that I think of it," said Giselle, "we may leave a message for Rocky Brannigan so that he will find you with ease once we leave. You may have thought my methods at the hospital were extreme but I assure you I am not so heartless as to abandon you to die alone in this basement." She raised her arm and Gun Moll could see the hook once again. Now the steel glowed a pale orange and the air above it rippled with waves of heat. Giselle took a step forward. "Of course, when your Rocky finally arrives he may decide that he does not want you back after all." Giselle waved the hook gently in front of Gun Moll's face. Even at several inches' distance the crime queen could feel her skin redden from the steel's burning radiance. Her eyes leveled a glare so cold and intent upon Giselle that for a moment the French woman hesitated to proceed. A single bead of sweat upon her forehead caught the hook's lurid reflection. The crowd of men leaned forward, horribly fascinated by what they were about to see. "Is that fear I see in your eyes?" mocked Giselle. "Well, cheri, I am going to remove it permanently ... for a start!" The searing hook swept down toward Gun Moll's upturned face. In that instant the basement rang to a bloodcurdling screech and the men jumped aside as a hairy, misshapen form sprang out of the darkness and lunged toward the two women. "Petit Singe! Stop!" But Giselle's cry was useless. As the glowing hook fell, Petit Singe's hand darted out to cover Gun Moll's face. With a scream of unspeakable agony the creature shielded Gun Moll with its own flesh. A wisp of reeking smoke curled up from its sizzling flesh as the steel burned through skin and muscle, straight to the bone. For just a fraction of a second Giselle was too shocked to move. She watched with helpless horror the mutilation she inflicted on her beloved pet. Then, as if she had just realized the truth of what she had done, Giselle yanked her arm back and Petit Singe fell back screaming. It hit the floor and rolled like a mad thing through the knot of men, thrashing its knotted limbs. The brazier fell as the gangsters scrambled away from the frantic creature and glowing coals scattered over the floor. "Petit Singe! Mon Dieu!" howled Giselle as she hopped about the room, trying to gather the crazed thing into her arms. She screamed a string of vile curses as she planted her own foot squarely on one of the coals. "Catch it!" she shrieked to her men. "Don't let it get away!" The gangsters looked at one another doubtfully, no more eager to tackle the frenzied Petit Singe than they would be to grab the tail of a mad dog. But as Giselle's screeches became more hysterical they decided that the idiot creature was the lesser of their two fears. The French woman was capable of any madness if her temper gave way completely. In a mass, they hurled themselves upon Petit Singe, pinning its arms and legs and staying as far as possible from its snapping jaws. Giselle flew to its side, weeping with rage and pity. One of her men yelped as her still-hot hook burned through his coat sleeve. "Oh Petit Singe ... Petit Singe..." she wailed. "What have I done?" The creature itself was almost forgotten as Giselle worked herself into a fit of near insanity, sobbing and beating her hooks on her men, on Petit Singe, on herself until she gradually ran out of steam and sank down, exhausted. Her men waited a bit to see if the calm after the storm was genuine and when they decided it was safe they picked her up and carried her limp body out of the basement. Petit Singe huddled on the concrete floor, whimpering in its pain. Gun Moll's cold, blue eyes lingered over the creature that had saved her from an agonizing mutilation. She was not surprised when it looked back. -------- *CHAPTER XVII* A cool wind whipped against Gun Moll's bare arms as the lift carried her up into the open frame of the Pollack Building. She was far too high now to go back to the warmth of the car and even if she had been of a mind to do so the six men crowded around her on the platform made such an act impossible. The watchful eye of Giselle sans Mains noted her every movement. The gangster queen had no warmer garment to wear than her thin, satin gown. Her fur coat had been stripped from her the previous night when she had been dragged down to Giselle's basement torture room but she had been occupied with far more important things since then. After Petit Singe's interference had sent Giselle into hysterics the subterranean gathering had broken up and Gun Moll had shivered the night away in the damp chamber, still bound to her chair. At some point she must have dozed off because she was suddenly shocked to find herself in the grasp of powerful hands, untied, and allowed to move around the room at will. She was still locked in but a sandwich and a cup of cold coffee had been left for her. Petit Singe had disappeared and she spent the long day alone in the dusty darkness, waiting to see what would come next. Gun Moll had heard the floorboards creaking above her head and the sound of muffled voices seeped through the cracks but tedious hours passed before anyone had come down for her. When the basement door finally opened it was two men who stamped wordlessly down the stairs. One of them had tied her hands in front of her and then they propelled her, still without talking, back up and into the main part of the house where she stood blinking in the unfamiliar light of electric lamps. "So you finally decide to join us. Welcome to our little gathering." It was the accented voice of Giselle sans Mains that she had heard. At first Gun Moll couldn't decide whether her captor was seriously suggesting she had snubbed the group upstairs or was making some kind of joke. The faces of the men in the room gave her little to go on for they were all carefully blank. Perhaps they had learned the hard way what it meant to display the wrong reaction when the French woman spoke. Gun Moll's own face was as immobile as a white mask. It was only her blue eyes that had moved, scattering their frozen glare about the room. Giselle stood, black and ominous, in a doorway as if she had just emerged from another room. Her idiot creature squatted at her feet, its hand swathed in a massive, dirty bandage. "We are making a drive into the city now," said Giselle. "Would you like to join us? I'm sure a breath of fresh air would do you good after spending the day by yourself in that filthy basement." Somehow Gun Moll was pretty sure that the offer of a drive was an order and not an option. Although there was every reason for her to be apprehensive about just where this drive might end up, she had no choice but to accept. "Sure," she said. "I was going a little stir crazy down there anyway. Let's get out of her for awhile." The moonlight had shown brightly on the skeletal frame of the unfinished Pollack Building when they finally reached their destination. It glimmered upon the bare, iron girders and made a black silhouette of the crane that squatted atop the structure. Even in the heart of New York City the construction site was a lonely spot in the middle of the night, surrounded by a plank fence that shielded it from the prying eyes of onlookers. Giselle led her gang, with Gun Moll safely in their midst, over the torn earth and into the iron framework of the building. The faithful Petit Singe scampered alongside. By the time the lift had taken them half way up, Gun Moll had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering from the chill. Giselle, clad warmly in her long, black coat and low-slung hat, eyed her with cruel pleasure as they stepped out onto a rough, wooden platform laid across open girders twenty stories above the earth. "A little cold for you, my dear?" She stroked Gun Moll's shivering, bare arm with a steel hook. "Do not concern yourself. Soon you will feel one, searing wave of heat and then the cold will never bother you again." "Cold comfort, Giselle," answered Gun Moll. The French woman broke out laughing. "Ah, a joke! You see, there is always a humorous side to any situation. Too bad that for you that knowledge has come very late in life." She paused and looked at Gun Moll expectantly. "You see? I make a joke too!" Gun Moll offered her a thin, fleeting smile. "Ha ha. You're a regular Gracie Allen." Giselle shot her a puzzled look. "Who?" "Forget it," replied Gun Moll. "So what's the plan for tonight?" "Naturally you would be curious about that," said Giselle. The humor in her face now became tinged with cruelty. "You must understand that when the police interfered with my raids last night they frustrated my entire plan to gain wealth for my men. The owners of this building site would have paid a vast sum to spare it ... if they had taken me seriously. After last night's fiasco they seem to have decided they did not need to bother and I received a message from them saying that they preferred to keep their money. I, of course, have wealth enough of my own, but my men ... My men are very angry." A glance around convinced Gun Moll that Giselle spoke the truth. The gangsters' set jaws and hard-eyed glares offered ample evidence that they were not pleased with how events had turned out. "And you must also understand," Giselle continued, "that you are all they have to take their anger out on." With that, Gun Moll was seized and roped to a cold, iron column. She didn't bother to struggle. The cords dug into her flesh with such severity that she could scarcely breath, let along wiggle loose. Instead she watched calmly while Giselle's men unpacked bundles full of dynamite and began strapping them to the girders, criss-crossing the platform with wires that led to an electric detonator that Giselle, with a twist of cruel humor, had placed directly in front of Gun Moll. Their electric torches waved about, sending beams of light randomly through the darkness. "I did this once before, just a few days ago," she explained. "I believe the young man must have appreciated knowing exactly how many minutes he had left to live. It is a rare gift, knowing the span of one's life down to the last second." "You have my eternal gratitude," said Gun Moll. "Is this another joke?" asked Giselle. "You Americans. Sometimes I do not understand your humor." A voice thundered out of the darkness. "Can you understand this?" The gently puzzled look instantly vanished from Giselle's face, replaced by baffled rage as she whirled to find the source of the booming voice that had intruded on the scene. Her men whipped out revolvers and automatics and swung their torches, probing through the shadows. Before they located the unseen lurker a spurt of red flame cut through the darkness and a bullet from a booming automatic found its mark. One of Giselle's men clutched his chest and pitched forward off the platform to disappear in the yawning, inky vastness below. Gangster torches converged on the spot where the shot had come from but Gun Moll already knew what they would reveal. That voice could belong to no one but Daisy, the brawny, negro maid. The furious woman stepped out from her hiding place behind a girder, her eyes flashing as brightly as her gun muzzles. Suddenly the darkness was filled with fiery trails. Tommyguns snarled from every corner of the building's skeleton as Rocky Brannigan's men opened fire on the gang of Giselle sans Mains. The French woman's hoodlums didn't wait to be shot down like sitting ducks. They leaped, rolled, dove for whatever cover the open frame could provide. Red hot slugs spanged off the iron and kicked up sparks as they whined off into space. Giselle, not waiting for the fight's outcome, leaped to the detonator and slammed her hook down onto the button that activated the mechanism. She cast a withering glare up at Gun Moll as she hissed, "No matter what happens here tonight I will not be cheated again! You and I and everyone here will die in minutes!" The clock ticked on through the thunder of warring guns. Gun Moll could see the seconds melting away as the hand inched closer to the moment of doom. Giselle, crouched over the detonator, watched the battle. Her laugh of mad triumph filled the air. Jingles emerged from cover with Rocky's other men. With his whip-it gun blazing, he charged out onto a girder from which he could leap to the wooden platform where Giselle's men were making their stand. Running full tilt along the iron, he barely managed to stop before crashing into Petit Singe. The mindless thing had been caught crouching there when the shooting had begun. Jingles leveled his sawed-off B.A.R. at the creature. "Get out of the way or I'll blow you to kingdom come!" Petit Singe looked around wildly, seeking a safe haven from the bullets that streaked through the air all around it. Only the covering gunfire from Jingles' mob had prevented the bombers from drawing a bead on the exposed pair. But that protection couldn't last much longer. "Move!" roared Jingles. His finger tightened upon the trigger. The creature screeched and glared up into Jingles' furious eyes. Petit Singe faced the huge, apish driver across the narrow girder of iron. Suddenly Gun Moll's shout pierced the din. "For Pete's sake, will you two knock off the nonsense and get over here? The bombs are going to blow any minute!" And then Jingles' eyes widened as Petit Singe rose. The hunched creature straightened, standing taller than anyone had supposed it could. It reached a hand up to its head, digging its fingers into the shaggy hair that fell to its shoulders and tossed away ... a wig! And now, even under the heavy makeup he wore it was possible to discern the features of F.B.I. agent Martin Tolliver! -------- *CHAPTER XVIII* The sound of gunfire stopped for just a moment as the men and women on both sides of the battle stared. Martin Tolliver stood erect on the girder where he had faced Jingles over a twenty-story chasm, still clad in the rags belonging to Petit Singe, but unmistakably the F.B.I. agent whom Giselle thought she had blown to bits back at the Fortitude Building. "But you're dead!" she shrieked. Instead of answering, Agent Tolliver took the opportunity given to him by the sudden cease-fire and leaped across space. His bare feet hit the rough, wooden planks of the platform and with one more bound he reached the detonator where Giselle crouched like a mother rat guarding her young. From somewhere under his clothing he produced an automatic which he aimed at the French woman's snarling face. "Tell your men to drop their guns and come out with their hands up," he ordered. "And step away from that detonator!" Giselle sneered back, "Shoot me if you wish, American! By the time you pry this detonator away from my dead body it will be too late for you all!" The young agent looked down and saw that Giselle had tangled her hooks into the thicket of wires that sprouted from the device. Even if he killed her it would take him precious seconds to disengage her and roll the body away so that he could get at the mechanism. "Last chance," he warned. And then suddenly he heard a booming thud and felt the platform shudder under the impact of a massive body. Giselle screamed as a huge, hairy hand locked in her hair and yanked her away from the detonator. She landed hard, several feet away, her hooks still tangled in a mass of torn wires. Towering over Agent Tolliver was the hulking form of Jingles. "Can you disarm this thing?" he asked. His back was already turned to the g-man as he hurried to where Gun Moll was still tied to the upright. "No problem," answered Tolliver. That was until a bullet smacked into the wood next to him. It had been only a few seconds since the agent had revealed himself and Giselle's mobsters were quickly regaining their wits. He turned and raised his gun to defend himself when a firestorm of gunshots swept through the open framework. Daisy had decided to settle things once and for all and along with the rest of Rocky's men she laid down a blistering curtain of gunfire. The gangsters forgot all about Tolliver. Instead, the instinct for self-preservation forced them to concentrate their attention -- and their bullets -- on the attacking force. But their efforts were useless. In minutes their pistols were silenced by the firepower of the Tommyguns with which Jingles had equipped his squad. At the end of a short but fierce battle Giselle's six men lay sprawled and lifeless. Newly freed from the cords that had bound her, Gun Moll leaned down over Tolliver's shoulder. The young agent was working quickly and efficiently, disconnecting the wires that led to bundles of dynamite all around the unfinished building. "When did you first know it was me in this get up?" he asked, not looking up from his work. Gun Moll allowed herself a brief smile. "Well, you showed up awfully conveniently at the Fortitude Building the other night, all alone, too. I had wondered what tipped you off to where they'd be that night." "Yes," said the agent, "I had to have had some inside source of information." "And when I was tied up in Giselle's basement there was only one person there she would never have suspected of betraying her. I just don't understand how you managed to create the disguise in the first place." Tolliver pulled loose the final wire and sighed with real relief. He looked up at Gun Moll and explained, "The real Petit Singe is safe in an institution, poor thing. Giselle had stolen it from its caretakers a year or so back and trained it to take care of her personal needs -- things she couldn't do for herself without hands." Gun Moll wrinkled her nose at the thought and Agent Tolliver nodded. "Yes, it was no picnic, let me tell you." "Anyway," he continued, "when I was assigned to the case I knew I wanted to be on the inside where I could really get the goods to put these babies away for good. So I grabbed the real Petit Singe and disguised myself to take its place." Jingles lumbered over to join them. "Giselle's men are all dead. Giselle's gone though. One of the boys said she got caught in the crossfire and he thought she fell off the platform during the fight." "We can't stay here looking for her," said Gun Moll. "Somebody must have heard this racket and the cops are bound to be here soon. You and Daisy get the boys out of here." When Jingles walked off to pass on Gun Moll's orders she turned back to Tolliver. "What about your agency? Can they ferret out the crooked g-men?" Tolliver grinned. "Thanks to those papers you got from Masterson's safe my chief was able to finger them. He and I had been in communication all this time and when I got that information to him he went right into action. Said he'd suspected some of them all along." "Well then," said the crime queen, "I guess you must be quite the hero back at HQ." "We'll see. Some of the guys might not like the idea of a g-man getting his fellow agents thrown in prison, but I'll live with it." Gun Moll shrugged. "I reckon all they have to do is obey the laws they're hired to enforce and they won't have to worry about that kind of trouble." Tolliver was about to reply when he was interrupted by a bloodcurdling screech. Gun Moll and the g-man whirled to see the dark figure of Giselle sans Mains hurtling toward them. Her black coat flapped behind her as she ran and blood from a dozen bullet wounds splattered in her footsteps. Her hooks were still bound by a dark tangle of wires. She lunged at Tolliver, her hooks whistling through the air as she struck. Tolliver leaped back just in time but Giselle swung again and again. Caught off guard, the agent could do little more than scramble away from the vicious assault. As they battled across the platform Gun Moll lunged, but not toward Giselle. Instead she ran to where the hook of the construction crane atop the frame hung idle. A rope attached to the hook allowed her to drag it into her grasp. As she took possession of it she shouted to Tolliver, "Over here!" Whether by luck or by design, the g-man dodged and stumbled his way in Gun Moll's direction with the raging Giselle hot on his heels, swinging her tangled hooks and using the trailing wires as a lash to torment her prey. Fueled by mindless hatred, Giselle allowed Tolliver no chance to fight back as she slashed and shredded his clothing, raking the skin underneath. Every move he made seemed to expose some new vulnerability for her to attack in her quest for revenge. "You took my Petit Singe!" she cried. "For this outrage I shall rip the skin from your bones!" She struck Tolliver with a vicious kick and tumbled him to the rough floor. Before he could recover, her hooks rose high in the air for the killing strike. "Not so fast." Giselle looked around just in time to see Gun Moll, using a strength no one would suspect in her slender body, give the crane hook a powerful shove. The massive, iron hook swung through the air while Giselle gaped, too startled to move. With her train of thought unexpectedly broken, her wits deserted her until the last instant when the hook bit into the tangle of wires that draped from her raised arms. Instantly then a light of realization flashed in Giselle's eyes, but too late! Gun Moll launched herself in a lightning-fast leap and smashed against the French woman with a body check that would have put any college gridiron hero to shame. Gun Moll slammed to the floor while Giselle, held by the crane's cable and hook, swung out crazily over open space. The French woman thrashed and spat curses while Tolliver dragged himself to his feet, but Gun Moll was already on the move, running toward the controls for the crane. A quick glance told her what she needed to know. In the space of a few seconds she had the motor running and engaged the gear that sent power to the cable. Giselle jerked up a few feet before the crane halted, leaving her bouncing helplessly in mid-air. "I will kill you for this!" screamed Giselle. "But first I will make you watch as I kill every member of your family before your eyes." Gun Moll stood silent at these words. A cold fury slowly gathered in her eyes, a fury whose origins only she knew. Giselle had no way of knowing that when she tore open the wound that Gun Moll kept hidden from the world, the wound that tormented the gangster queen night and day, she had signed her own death warrant. Staring silently and pitilessly at the thrashing Giselle, Gun Moll engaged the gears and let the crane lift the French woman higher and higher, another twenty stories to the very top of the structure. Tolliver scrambled to his feet and lurched toward the gangster queen. "No!" he cried. But with one, powerful thrust of her arm Gun Moll shoved him back. The crane rattled up with Giselle dangling from its hook until it reached the very top. There, Gun Moll disengaged the gear and shut down the motor. Tolliver stared in disbelief. "But this is murder," he gasped. Far above, Giselle raged and cursed at the night sky. She wanted to kill, to destroy in revenge for the g-man's betrayal and her defeat by the forces of Gun Moll. She thrashed wildly, imagining the city below her as a vast field of burning rubble. And then she felt something that made her cease her struggles and hang very still. She felt the straps that held her hooks in place begin to slip. Bit by bit the leather gave way, sliding along her arms. She strained and tensed her muscles but all her efforts were of no use. She had no way of holding on to the prosthetic arms. Helpless to save herself, she felt the hooks escaping her. For a moment she hung motionless in the air, staring up in disbelief at her bare, white stumps, at the steel hooks that hung tangled in the wire just out of her reach. Then she fell. Tolliver and Gun Moll both watched as the screaming Giselle sans Mains plunged through the air, flashed past them and disappeared into the darkness. Her coat spread out around her like the great, black wings of a fallen angel. They stared down until her scream came to an abrupt halt. Five minutes later on the ground, the four of them, Gun Moll, Daisy, Jingles and Tolliver looked down at the mortal remains of Giselle sans Mains. "I don't know what made you do that," muttered Tolliver. "And you don't want to know," Gun Moll snapped back. "Let's go," he said. Daisy spoke up. "What do you mean, 'let's go?' Where do you think we're going with you?" Tolliver produced his automatic again and waved them away from the body. "The investigation's over," he answered wearily. "You know the deal. Drop your weapons." "Well of all the rotten ... I oughtta..." Jingles spluttered in helpless rage. He might well still attack the g-man and his act might even allow the women to escape but his death would be certain. A well-placed slug from the big .45 would end his career for good. "Come on," said Agent Tolliver. "Even if I wanted to let you go, the chief would have my head if I just let you walk away." He urged them toward Jingles' car. The rest of the mob had already departed as the simian driver had ordered. They crunched across the uneven ground until they reached the automobile. Tolliver halted them and motioned for Jingles to open the trunk. "I want to see what kind of evidence you're carrying in there," he explained. Daisy began to speak but Gun Moll silenced her with a cold glare. Jingles opened the trunk and stepped back to allow the g-man a clear view. Tolliver held up the tire iron. "This might be a weapon," he said. "We'll want to check that out." He tossed the metal rod to the ground and bent to examine the interior of the trunk more closely. He took his time doing it. A silent conversation was carried on between the three companions. It was conducted by means of nods and winks and shrugs. Finally Jingles reached down and silently picked up the iron. Tolliver was still rummaging around in the trunk with his back turned. Jingles looked down at the g-man and then back at Gun Moll. His face contorted in a pained wince. Gun Moll nodded. Jingles raised the tire iron and brought it down with a thunk on the back of Tolliver's head. The young agent gasped and collapsed to the ground. Jingles dragged him aside and tried to make him comfortable. "I hope you didn't hit him too hard, you big ape!" huffed Daisy. "Naw," said Jingles. "He'll wake up with a headache and a nice goose egg but he'll be okay." "The boy's hard-headed," said Gun Moll. "But I think that as g-men go he'll be a good one." The three got into the car and Jingles started the engine. "When we get back I'll send someone out here to make sure he's alright," he said. He sounded as if he felt a bit guilty about hitting the young man. With that, he put the car in gear and drove Gun Moll and Daisy off into the night. *THE END* -------- Angel with No Hands (c) 2004 by Stephen Adams Nemesis Magazine, Anvil Periodicals are fictitious creations of Stephen Adams and do not represent any real publication or publishing company, past or present.. Gun Moll, Rachel Rocket are creations of Stephen Adams and (c) Stephen Adams. No part of this story may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from Stephen Adams, 307 S. Montgomery St., Spencer, IN 47460. Email: solitarybird@yahoo.com -------- *IN OUR NEXT ISSUE...* *RACHEL ROCKET IN THE CLUTCHES OF A FASCIST MILLIONAIRE'S DEATH MACHINE!* Investigating a mysterious cloud of smoke on the Caribbean Sea, Rachel Rocket and her partner, Hank Rowan, land in the middle of an Axis plot to devastate the cities of America's Atlantic coast, Greeted by a fusillade of gunfire, Rachel finds herself on an island where an evil industrialist is building the world's most terrible weapons of mass destruction! Soon Rachel has been sentenced to a life of soul-destroying drudgery in the bowels of a mysterious factory no one leaves alive. While Hank and his newfound companion, an island native longing for escape, battle the sea in an open boat, Rachel Rocket discovers the secret her masters have worked so hard to protect -- a weapon that harnesses the power of the universe to rain down fire upon from the sky upon helpless victims of tyranny's lust for power. With the aid of unexpected allies, Rachel resolves to destroy the weapon -- even if it costs her life. Battling a machine-gun wielding army of guards and dodging the blazing fury of a U.S. Navy air raid, Rachael faces barehanded the unimaginable power of a dictator's most dangerous toy, the Molten Image. Battling for her life, Rachel knows that stopping the _March of the Molten Image_ is only the first step in a desperate effort to save the East Coast from destruction. Don't miss this thrilling novel plus new and classic science fictions in the next issue of _Nemesis_, the modern pulp magazine. -------- *THE CON* A NICK BANCROFT MYSTERY *BOB LITER* The Hole in the Wall was a small dimly lit joint with a bar on one side and mismatched tables and chairs in various stages of disrepair on the other. The blonde waitress, dark-hair roots and all, came to my table and said, "What would you like?" That was the start of it. I looked her over and figured she got the message that what I would like was her, but I said, "A shot of Lord Calvert and a glass of beer." She went to the bar, talked to the bartender for a moment and returned to say, "Sorry sir, we don't have any Lord Calvert. Will anything else do?" "Bar whiskey will do for now. I'm here on business, this place is close so I'll be back for the next several afternoons if you stock a bottle or two of Lord Calvert." She went back to the bar, held an animated conversation with the bartender, a bald guy who wore suspenders, and returned to my table with my order. "He says he'll get the whiskey. You must be new in town." "You're right Roxie, I'm here on business. That is your name isn't it? I heard the bartender call you that." By the third day Roxie was getting real friendly. She hitched up her brassiere. The weight of her ample breasts must have been a burden. She called me Jay. I'd told her my name was Jay Winthrop. I ordered another round. While she was gone I adjusted my Armani shirt and Gleason slacks and made sure my scuffed loafers were out of sight. She returned and placed the glasses on the table in front of me, offering me a close, revealing view of her breasts. "My feet hurt," she said. "They always hurt this time of day." "Why don't you sit down, Roxie." "Would you mind, Jay. I won't stay long." I pushed the glass of beer her way, said, "Have some if you want or will the bartender object." "He can object all he wants. He's not my boss. Who cares what he thinks anyway. I don't make enough money in this joint to care what anybody thinks." I sipped a bit of Lord Calvert and said, "I'm sorry to hear that. Tips must not be that good, huh." "Tips! You're the first guy that give me more than a quarter. As a matter of fact I never had a five dollar tip before." "My pleasure," I said. I wondered if it was time to make my move. I'd already spent three days. It was now or never. "I'm staying at the Roosevelt. It's a cab trip away. Wish I had a place to take an afternoon nap closer," I said. She had removed her shoes. She wiggled her foot, replaced one shoe and said, "Heck, guess you could flop at my place. I live above this joint. Not the greatest but good enough to catch a nap if you want." I sipped a bit more whiskey, looked over the rim of the glass at her and said, "Gee, that's awfully nice of you. Sure I wouldn't be intruding. If I wouldn't I'd go up there soon as I finish this drink and sleep." "Well, why not?" she said. She put the other shoe on and said, "Soon's as you're ready." There were two guys sitting at the bar but no one else at the tables. "Can you just leave?" She nodded toward the bartender and said, "He can wait on anyone that comes in while I'm gone. Do him good to get off his ass." Her round ass bobbed in rhythm to our steps as we climbed the stairs. She was right, the apartment wasn't much. A small kitchen with worn oil paper on the counter and a rusty sink. The living room included a couch, a couple of chairs and a television set. The window looked out on a rooftop across the way and an alley below. "The bedroom's in here," she said. An ash try on the dresser was nearly overflowing with cigarette butts. "You can put your coat over the chair there and lie down," she said. "If I didn't have to work I wouldn't mind joining you." I turned away from her, took off my coat, and adjusted my shirt. I lay on the bed on my side. She lay close beside me, her face next to mine. She kissed me. She put her arm around my shoulder, moved my body closer to hers and kissed me again. "Well, that's all I can do for you now. I've got to get back to work." An hour later I went back down to the bar, ordered a beer and sat at my usual table. "No whiskey?" she said. "No, I'm through with the whiskey. Hope you don't get stuck with much of the Lord Calvert left." "No problem. We'll sell it, don't you worry. But you will be back tomorrow won't you?" I stood, put on my sports coat and top coat, smiled at her and said, "I'll be back tomorrow for sure." I returned the next afternoon at my usual time. Sat at my usual table and ordered a glass of beer. Roxie seemed *nervous*. The bartender brought the beer and a manila envelop and sat down across from me. "You know Roxie's my wife?" he asked. "Yeah I kinda figured that's the way it was, or at least that's what you'd claim. Nothing serious happened between us, if that's what you're worried about." "You're the one ought to be worried. Look at these. And don't get any ideas. I've got the negatives." He flipped the photos across the table to me. They showed me and Roxie in bed kissing. "I'm sorry. Didn't really know she was your wife. Besides, that's all we did was kiss." He pointed at me and said, "Look, mister. Nobody fools with my wife and gets away with it. You pay me or I'll find out where you live, give the pictures to your wife, maybe your boss, too. I can find out where you work, Mister Winthrop." "What makes you think I'm married?" he grinned. "You ain't too smart, wearing a wedding ring when you plan to fool around." Roxie was behind the bar waiting on the same two guys who had been there the day before. She glanced at me and glanced away. "So what do you want me to do?" I asked, as if I didn't know. "You pay me ten thousand dollars, I give you the photos and negatives," he said. "Ha. Where the hell am I gonna get ten thousand dollars? Think I carry that kinda money around with me?" He scrapped the chair as he stood and said, "You be back here tomorrow with the money or I start looking for your wife or anybody else who would be interested in seeing a copy of these photos." "Damn," I said. "Look at all the money I spent in here. Just trying to relax after a big deal and you pull this. I been set up. Damn you and your wife." "That's right, Mister Winthrop, you've been set up. You should know better." I pushed myself away from the table, stood and glowered at the bartender and said, "I'll be back tomorrow." "No hard feelings," he said. I left. I ordered a beer the next afternoon as I sat at my usual table. The bartender left his post to wait on me. Roxie didn't seem to be around. He brought the beer and said, "Got the money." I reached into my inside coat pocket and handed him a tape recording. "What's this crap?" he said. "You listen to that. You'll hear a guy sounds just like you trying to blackmail me." "But I got the pictures. I'll expose you if you don't pay up." "No you won't. Not unless you're stupider than I thought." He snapped one of his suspenders against his chest and said, "Who the hell are you?" "My name's Nick Bancroft. One of your clients hired me because he didn't want to pay you more blackmail. I won't tell you which one he is. But if he tells me you're still squeezing him I'll turn a copy of that tape you're holding over to the police. Roxie came down the stairs. I waved at her as I left. -------- THE DETECTIVE'S WIFE TUDOR JENKS "I say it is impossible!" "And I repeat that it is the simplest matter in the world." "But it is a mere matter of mathematics!" "As for your mathematics, they are stupid. I thought so when I was a little girl in school, and I am sure of it now. It is your foolish figuring that make you men such idiots. Any woman with a spoonful of common sense can twist you around her little finger." "My love," said the famous detective becoming calmly superior, "you forget yourself in speaking so; you forget also that I have passed years in perfecting myself in my profession. I will not continue the discussion -- it is undignified." "Very well," his wife replied; "you may cease the discussion if you wish since words can prove nothing. But there is another method of settling on little difference of opinion. Let us put it to the proof, here and now." "How can it be done?" "We will enact a little comedy, you and I. You tell me that it is difficult to conceal even a small object so that it can not readily be found by a skillful search. I say that it is easy. Now, let us see. I will take my wedding ring..." she drew from her finger the small gold band. "And then you and I will go into the hall together; I will return to this room, and in sixty seconds from that time you shall follow me; if in half an hour you cannot find the ring, then you have won. Otherwise, you must acknowledge that you have lost. I warn you however, that I shall win, and I shall exact a penalty. Do you agree?" The detective considered. "What is the penalty?" he asked. "Nothing to regret. The opera for two tonight, and a little supper afterward." "Ah!" he exclaimed with a smile, as he put aside his newspaper. "It is to be merely a comedy, then?" "Merely a comedy," she, assented, returning his smiling glance, "But let us retake a few conditions," said he, "for you have limited the time for the search." "And the time for hiding," she retorted. "But no matter. I will be generous, since I am sure to win. Come, I will agree not to conceal the ring upon my person -- for I do not wish to be disturbed -- nor where any demolition is necessary. That is, I will not drop it into any crevice, nor make any special place for its reception. Indeed, you shall be the judge of my fairness. If I lose, you shall impose your own penalty. Is it agreed? "You will hide it in this room?" said he, rising. "Yes," she said, rising also. "I will suppose myself a pickpocket, or a smuggler detected in possession of a contraband jewel. You have followed me so closely that I have only one minute to spare. You will knock, I will admit you, and behold, there shall be no trace of the crime!" "And you will produce the ring at once when the half hour has expired?" "In two seconds," she said promptly. "My dear wife, it is impossible," he insisted, walking to the door. "The simplest thing in the world," was her reply as she followed him into the hallway. He drew out his watch and noted the place of the second hand. "In a moment more," he remained, raising his finger; and then he said almost at once, "Go!" She held the ring up before him, opened the door, went in briskly, and closed it. Her husband watched the, seconds no more keenly than he listened. He heard distinctly the rustling of a newspaper, and he smiled. Then he heard one of the fire-irons moved gently, and distinguished his wife's footsteps as she crossed the room. He counted the steps, but did not lose sight of the watch-dial. The time was up. He was at the door in an instant, and knocked sharply. "Enter!" was the instant reply. He went in and found his wife awaiting him at the door with a roguish smile. "I hope," she said, putting her arm affectionately on his shoulder, "that you can afford to buy the tickets?" "Come, come," he replied with affected severity, "no impudence, you little baggage! Where is that priceless jewel you have concealed?" She curtsied politely, saying at the same time: "You are at liberty to search the premises." He went straight to the table. His ears had not deceived him; there was a piece torn from the corner of his newspaper. Then he crossed the room to the fireplace. Within the grate was a crumpled piece of paper. He seized it, unwrapped it eagerly, only to find it empty. Next he fitted the paper to the torn place, but found it came short by nearly half. He looked at his wife. She had resumed her sewing, and seemed indifferent. Again he went to the fireplace and knelt down, looking up the chimney. Then his wife spoke: "Do not soil your hands, dear. It is not in the chimney, nor in the fireplace." He rose, turned, and looked sharply about the room. There was a scarf across the top of his wife's dressing-table, and it was slightly disarranged. He hastened to examine the articles on the top, raising the little pincushion, the bottles, the hand-glass. "It is not on my dressing-stand," she said, "nor concealed in any drawer. To find it you need disarrange nothing." He stooped and raised the rugs. "Don't do that, dear," she said quietly, "it makes a dust. It is not within two feet of the floor." This was a valuable hint. He glanced over the ceiling. "Nor of the ceiling," she added quietly. "Nor of the walls?" he asked, as if in sarcasm, thinking to convert the search to a game of twenty questions. "Nor of the walls," she answered tranquilly, biting off a thread. Apparently this confined the field of research materially. It was becoming an example in elimination. There was the table, upon which were a lamp and a number of books. A bright idea struck him. He began to unscrew the top of the lamp. "I hate to empty the reservoir -- " he began, but she said decisively. "I answer no more questions." He carried the lamp to the pantry sink, took down a tin dish, and carefully poured out the oil. Then he shook the reservoir. It was as empty as a drum and gave forth no sound. He returned to the sitting-room and stood at gaze. Time pressed. He raised each book and shook it. No returns rewarded him. The newspaper was tried without result. He looked suspiciously at his wife. "Will you rise, my dear?" She stood before him while he examined the wicker chair. She had not concealed the ring by sitting on it, and it was not anywhere about the chair. As she seated herself she glanced at her little watch, remarking: "Twenty minutes." He had another brilliant idea. He cleared the top of the table, and reversed it, examining all the lower surface. There was nothing visible except a lonely cobweb. The table was restored. He was at his wits' end, and looked about him helplessly. "Five minutes more!" came the voice of doom. Ah, a gleam of hope! His wife's workbasket was on a high stand by her side. He had dismissed this basket as too evident, but recalling Poe's story, "The Purloined Letter," he now risked his remaining minutes upon it. He unrolled four pairs of stockings awaiting repair. He opened his wife's thimble-box, her case of assorted scissors, drawing each from its compartment to see if it had been thrust through the wedding ring, He broke open a cake of innocent beeswax, but found nothing. "One minute!" came the warning voice. He turned the basket upside down, spread out the array of buttons, tapes, needle-books, emery -- but without result. He carefully went over every inch of the basket itself -- and had just put it down in despair when his wife closed her watch with a snap. "Time is up, my dear!" He sank into a chair and settled back in despair. As he did so, he felt something pressing into his back. He raised himself and turned to examine the back of the chair, but found nothing. Then, as his wife began to laugh aloud, he had an inspiration. Reaching over his shoulder, he felt something. She laughed at his queer expression. "Turn around," said she, and she took something from the back of his coat. "Well, I'll be blowed!" he said, as he wheeled about to see his wife holding up the wedding ring, a bit of paper, and a bent pin. "Perhaps," she suggested, you might go and buy the tickets." "But when -- " he began. "I pinned it to your back as you came in," she replied. Without a further word the great detective betook himself to the box-office to pay the penalty like a man. -------- *JADE MOUNTAIN* A LT. MARK STODDARD MYSTERY *J. D. CRAYNE* "Very pretty," Detective Mark Stoddard said, looking at the pale eight-inch stone carving that was sitting on antique-dealer Warren Legacy's desk. "What is it?" "It's what collectors call a 'jade mountain'," Legacy said. "It's intended to look like a miniature mountain top, covered with houses, temples, and people." "I thought jade was green," Stoddard said casually, sitting down in a spare chair next to Legacy's other guest. "Not white and yellow. That thing looks like a big pastel Easter egg." "Most jade is green," the woman agreed. She was middle-aged, tall and expensively dressed, with iron-gray hair and a smooth face that was still lovely in spite of her age. "That pale color is called mutton-fat and it's rather rare. The carving is probably about two hundred years old." "Expensive?" the detective asked. "You could probably buy a good-sized house with it," the woman said dryly. Stoddard raised his brows. "Where did it come from?" "That's what we're trying to find out," Legacy said, "and why I asked you to come over this morning. Carolyn, here," he nodded toward the woman next to Stoddard, "found it in a safe deposit box after her partner died." "If you're trying to trace a missing owner," Stoddard said mildly, "a private agency might be a better bet. The police aren't set up to do that sort of thing." "I understand that," Carolyn Covert said in a pleasant contralto, and smoothed her gray wool jacket with slim fingers. "There are some strange things about this, and when I told Warren, he suggested that I talk to you." "Okay," Stoddard said, leaning back and crossing his ankles. "Tell me what you've got." "First of all," she said, "I ought to explain that Michael Kilbride and I were in the importing business together for nearly twenty years. I originally went to work for him as his secretary and general dogsbody, and things went on from there." She smiled pleasantly. "And in case you're wondering -- yes, we were lovers. We had some wonderful years together and never found it necessary to get married. I valued my freedom, and so did he." Stoddard nodded and waved for her to go on. "We had showrooms in Beverly Hills, not too far from Warren's antique shop, and that's how we got to know him." She smiled briefly at Legacy. "In fact," the antique dealer added, "it was at Michael's suggestion that I moved up here when I wanted to get out of Southern California. He spent some time in Mendocino County when he was a graduate student, back in the 'Sixties." "Michael died six weeks ago," Carolyn continued. "He was run down by a hit and run driver while crossing the street and he died in the hospital two days later. His mind was wandering at the end, and he kept saying 'jade, jade." The last thing he said before he died was 'jade' again, and then 'wa shin.' It didn't mean anything to me, until I found the mountain in his safe deposit box a week later and realized he must have been trying to tell me about it." "That's all that was in the box?" Stoddard asked. "Just the jade and the cloth it was wrapped in." She laughed softly. "It was an old t-shirt, of all things. That was so like Michael -- to wrap a priceless stone carving in a dirty old black t-shirt!" Carolyn opened her black leather handbag and took out a long envelope. "Then, two weeks ago I found this in his private papers." She held the envelope out to Stoddard, who opened it and found a yellowed newspaper clipping from a 1961 edition of the Ukiah Daily Journal. It was headed, "Ft. Bragg Man Murdered," and covered a story about a man named James Wa Shin who was beaten to death in his office on a summer night. "You see?" Carolyn said. "Wa Shin. That was what Michael said. It must have been that man's name." She held out expressive hands. "I keep having this horrible idea that Michael was mixed up in that murder somehow." "You mean that he killed a man for that rock carving?" Stoddard asked bluntly. She nodded. "But he was an importer, right? He must have seen a lot of things like that, and sold them for whatever they'd bring. If he did steal something that expensive, why would he keep it?" Carolyn shook her head. "Michael was an importer, but he never dealt with anything like that," she said, gesturing toward the jade mountain. "He handled porcelain, exclusively." "And you reckon without the soul of a true collector," Legacy added. "Every once in a while even the most hardened business man finds something that he can't bear to give up. Perhaps Michael felt that way about the mountain." "I think he was feeling some kind of remorse at the end," Carolyn said, "and he wanted the mountain to go back to its rightful owners, maybe the heirs of that James Wa Shin." She looked squarely at the detective. "I loved him, and I want to do what he was asking me to do." "If it's worth as much as you say, you'd be giving away quite a chunk of cash," Stoddard said. "I don't care. I never knew Michael had it, and I don't feel like it belongs to me anyway." Stoddard scratched his nose. "Well, I don't have anything pressing at the moment. I'll look into it and see what I can find out for you." * * * * It was a fine, warm, spring day and after Stoddard left Legacy Antiques, he sauntered north along School Street, and over to the newspaper office on Commercial, admiring the roses blooming in the yards, and the bare-midriffs of the young women he passed along the way. The Pomo Courier was a typical small-town California newspaper, with editorial and news offices in town, and a printer -- which handled a dozen or more similar papers -- down in the Bay Area. Stoddard knew most of the staff and both liked and respected them. For their part, they were more than happy to do what they could for the police, considering it a good investment in tips, information, and on-the-spot news reports. Stoddard's request to see the archives brought him a seat in front of a computer, and a list of files. "Anything else you want, just give me a holler!" the clerk said. "Thank heaven we finally got everything scanned and on the system. I used to hate having to drag out all of those old microfilm reels!" She waved cheerily and left Stoddard to his files. James Wa Shin, he found, had owned an antique shop called Far East Imports, in Fort Bragg. He was a widower and a family man, with a son and three daughters, and they all lived in an apartment above the store. The morning of July 17th, 1961, his clerk arrived to find the building unlocked, and his employer bludgeoned to death in the upstairs office. None of the children had been at home that night. The middle girl was in the hospital, recovering from appendicitis, the youngest had been at a pajama party all night, and the eldest spent the evening with a male companion. The son was out of town. Stoddard scanned through the next week's editions of the paper. The son came back from Emeryville, where he had apparently been playing poker, and was being questioned. The girls were in the care of an aunt and uncle. The weapon had not been found. By the end of the second week, Paul Wa Shin had been arrested for his father's murder, the police citing frequent arguments between the two over his drinking and gambling losses. Whatever weapon he used was believed to have gone into the ocean somewhere between Fort Bragg and the Bay Area. Stoddard thanked the Courier clerk and strode thoughtfully back to the police building, some six blocks away. He tackled paperwork until early afternoon, and then drove down Main Street to The Peony Bush restaurant. The lunch crowd had thinned out, and the clerk at the front register was polishing the counter with a white cloth. "Hello, Mark!" she said cheerfully. "You haven't been in for a while. Table or take out?" "Not today, Angie. I need to talk to Amber or Pearl for a few minutes." "Oh-oh!" she said, with an impish grin. "I'd better remind the girls to declare all of those tips! Amber's in the office. Go on back." The restaurant office was strategically located next to the kitchen, where Brian Lee was doing something with a couple of chickens. When business was brisk the whole family was apt to be there, dicing, slicing, and stirring. The office door was open, and Stoddard rapped lightly on the jamb, to catch the attention of the Chinese woman behind the desk. "Mark Stoddard!" she said, smiling at him. "I haven't seen you in an age. Come on in and sit down. What can I do for you?" "I'm hoping you can give me a little information," he said easily, sitting down on one of the straight-backed chairs. "Do you keep in touch with the Chinese community in the County?" "Such as it is!" she said, tucking back a strand of her dark hair, which was just beginning to show threads of gray. "We're not exactly a majority presence around here, you know." "No, I wouldn't say that you are," Stoddard agreed. "I'm trying to find some people named Shin. Relatives of a man named James Wa Shin who lived in Fort Bragg back in the 'Sixties." Amber Lee was silent for a moment, turning a pencil over in her fingers. "My maiden name was Shin," she finally said. "James Wa Shin was my father." "Amber, I am sorry. I had no idea. I was reading the newspaper reports this morning, but the girl's names weren't listed." She nodded absently. "My aunt and uncle tried to keep us out of the news, as much as possible. It was an awful time. I was only a kid, of course. Just turned fourteen. Anyway, that was a long time ago. How did you get involved, after all these years?" "I need to know if your father ever owned a piece of carved jade. About so big," he described a space with his hands. "The owner of an import business in Los Angeles found it in a safe deposit box, and she thinks it might have belonged to your family." Amber Lee thought for a moment and then shook her head. "I don't remember anything like that. Papa had a carving that used to sit on his desk, but it was some kind of an off-white stone; it wasn't green. None of us was allowed in his office much. He had a lot of things that had belonged to Granddad and some of it was valuable. That statue of Kuan Yin out by the register was one of his pieces. My aunt and uncle sold most of his collection, and put the money in a trust fund, to send me and Pearl through college. Our sister Janice married a few months after Papa died and I don't know if she got anything or not." Stoddard nodded. "Would Pearl remember anything else?" "She might. She's two years older than I am and she used to help dust his office. She and Janice did most of the housework." Amber flashed a quick smile. "I was usually in the kitchen, getting in Su Lin's way. She was an old cousin of Papa's and did the cooking." "Su Lin? I don't remember reading about her in the newspaper articles," Stoddard said. "She was in San Francisco, visiting relatives. She moved back down there permanently, afterwards." "Pearl was in the hospital when your father was killed, wasn't she?" Amber nodded. "And for two weeks afterwards. Appendicitis. She went directly from the hospital to our aunt and uncle's house and never saw our home again. She used to cry about that." Amber drew some angles and crosses on a pad in front of her and then looked up with her quick smile. "Oh well! That was over forty years ago." I've about forgotten it." "Is Pearl home?" "Probably. She phoned me a couple of hours ago. She and Phil just got home from Arizona last night. They've been on vacation." She briskly tore off the sheet she'd been doodling on, wrote down an address and phone number on a fresh piece of paper, and handed it to Stoddard. "If she's not there, she'll be here tomorrow morning." * * * * Pearl Stewart was home, a trim figure in a red blouse and dark slacks, happily scrabbling around in a cheerful shambles of bags, boxes, and papers that were scattered all over the living room. "Come in and try to find a place to sit down!" she said. "I'm still unpacking. Phil is all over my case for doing so much shopping, but you've got to have souvenirs, right?" She picked up a bright blue blouse embroidered with butterflies and held it up in front of herself. "It was on sale! What do you think?" "Very pretty," Stoddard said, moving a box of Navaho silver and turquoise off of a chair and sitting down. "So, why are you here?" she said suddenly, folding the blouse and putting it back in its box. "I'm sure it's not to admire my trinkets and trophies." "Amber didn't phone you?" She shook her head. "I talked to her this morning, but not since." "It's a little awkward," Stoddard said, "and I hate to bring back bad memories, but I need to know if your father ever owned a piece of carved jade. A good-sized thing; maybe eight inches long by about six inches high." "The King of the Yellow River!" she said, delighted. "The King...?" Pearl nodded. "It used to sit on Papa's desk. It was pale, almost white and there was a pale yellowish streak along one side. It was carved so that the yellow streak looked like a river, with little houses and people along the sides. There were some Chinese characters carved on the bottom. I couldn't read them, but Papa said it was the name of the carving; 'The King of the Yellow River'. I haven't thought of that in years!" "Do you know what happened to it?" She shrugged. "I suppose Aunt Mai and Uncle Tim sold it." "Would there be any list of the things they did sell? You see, a woman from Los Angeles -- a friend of Warren Legacy at Legacy Antiques -- found a carving like that in a safe deposit box after her partner's death. He said something about jade, and the name Wa Shin, before he died, and she thinks the carving might belong to your family. She also found a newspaper clipping about your father's murder in her partner's papers." It seemed to Stoddard that shutters had suddenly come down behind Pearl Stewart's eyes. "That was a terrible time," she said shortly. "I suppose it was," he said, and waited. She moved some cartons from the couch to the coffee table and sat down wearily, looking her full age for the first time. "I was in the hospital, having my appendix out. By the time I got out, Papa was dead, Paul was in jail, and Janice had run off with that rancher she was stuck on. Aunt Mai closed up the store and moved Amber and me over here to Pomo, where she and Uncle Tim lived. I always resented that. That I didn't even get to say goodbye to my home, you know. They meant it for the best of course. I didn't get back to Fort Bragg until I was nearly eighteen, and by then Papa's store was a head shop with bead curtains and hash pipes in the windows." She laughed shortly. "Time marches on." "Are your aunt and uncle still alive?" "Oh, no. They died years ago. If you want to know anything else about Papa's collection, you'd better talk to Janice. She's two years older than I am and probably remembers more." "Does she live around here?" "No. She has the ranch that Ted Beecham left her, just north of Mendocino." "Beecham was the rancher that she ran off with I suppose," Stoddard said. "She married him?" "Oh yes, she married him. He died about ten years later and she never married again. Amber and I don't see much of her." "That's too bad," Stoddard said. "It's her choice, not ours," she said with a shrug. "She never liked being Chinese, you see. I think she wanted to put as much distance between us as she could. She wanted to be like the local girls, with that beatnik look they all wore then; white makeup and black clothes. She hated her name and she hated having a grandfather who wore a pigtail and felt slippers." "Teenagers are like that sometimes," Stoddard said. "They usually grow out of it, in time." "I suppose so. Of course, Papa was pretty old fashioned, and he was strict with us girls. He wanted Janice to marry a friend's son in Singapore. I think that's why she started running around with Ted Beecham, just to spite him. There was some college kid from USC hanging around, too. He was just crazy about her. I don't think Papa would have minded about him so much, because he was studying Chinese culture, but he went right through the roof over Ted." She sighed softly. "Papa was right, of course. Janice married Ted a few months after the murder, and she had ten years of hell. He was a drunk and he chased around all over the county. I think he used to slap her around too, but she never would admit it. He finally got into a brawl in some bar and had his brains knocked out with a beer bottle." She reached out and flicked a piece of tissue paper with one lacquered fingernail. "Your brother, Paul..." "Died in prison. He was just 23, and one of those Mexican Mafia characters stabbed him with a knife made out of a spoon. His lawyer was working on an appeal." There was silence for a long moment, and then Stoddard said, "That college kid, the one that was stuck on your sister, you don't remember his name, do you?" "Nope. You'd have to ask Janice. He'd finished the paper he was working on and went back to wherever he came from. Janice got a few letters from him. I think he expected to marry her, but she was so stuck on Ted Beecham that she wouldn't look at anyone else. Ask her. She can tell you all about it." * * * * The next morning Stoddard looked up the Beecham address in the phone book, and drove over to the coast and then south toward Mendocino. He found the way to the Beecham ranch without any trouble; the name and address were on a large mailbox next to a dirt road leading up into the hills. There were cattle grazing on the fenced acreage, and a separate plot of land held waving stalks of corn. The ranch house, when he reached it, was a tidy two-story white frame place, with green trim around the windows. Flower beds along the front held lavender, rosemary, and cistus -- three of the few shrubs that the deer would leave alone. The woman who came to the door at Stoddard's ring was plain, dumpy and middle-aged; dressed in a shapeless brown and yellow dress. He would not have known her for a sister of Amber or Pearl. "Mrs. Beecham?" "Yes. What do you want?" "I'm Detective Mark Stoddard, with the Pomo Police Department. I'm trying to trace the owners of an antique that surfaced recently. Your sisters, in Pomo, suggested that I talk to you about it." "I see. Well, come in then." She led Stoddard into a clean, neat, and characterless room. It might have been furnished out of some magazine spread, for all the personality it showed. There were chairs and a couch upholstered in rose color, a couple of landscape pictures on the walls, and a collection of Dresden figurines in a maple hutch. "Sit down," she said, and lowered herself onto the couch. "What is this antique you're talking about?" "It's a large piece of carved jade, about six inches by eight inches. It was found in Los Angeles, in a safe deposit box, and the woman who has it thinks it might belong to your family. Your father was an importer, wasn't he?" "Sort of. He had a gift shop, over in Fort Bragg, but that was a long time ago." "Do you remember a piece of jade like that?" She looked down at her fingers as she plucked at the arm of the couch. "No, sorry. I don't remember. My father had some things that my grandfather brought with him when he left San Francisco, after the 1906 earthquake. Maybe it was one of those things." "Your aunt and uncle sold your father's effects after his death," Stoddard said. "Do you have any record of what they sold?" "No, nothing." "Nothing at all?" "I don't know anything about it, I tell you," she said peevishly. Stoddard looked at her with a feeling of exasperation. "Okay, fair enough. I'm trying to find out how the jade could have gotten from Fort Bragg to Los Angeles, if it did belong to your father. You knew a young man who was going to college in Los Angeles, I think. Do you remember his name?" She shook her head. "No." "But you did know him?" "Oh, briefly, that's all," she said, looking up at Stoddard for the first time. "He was a graduate student, writing a paper about Chinese culture in Northern California. That's all. I think his name was Mikey ... Mickey ... something like that." "The piece of jade I'm talking about is quite a valuable antique," Stoddard persisted. "If you can prove ownership, it might mean a good deal of money for you and your sisters." "Look, that was a long time ago. It was an awful time! I've spent most of my life trying to forget about it. I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know anything." * * * * Stoddard left the dumpy little woman in her tidy house and anonymous room, and drove north to Fort Bragg, where the Shin family met disaster so many years ago. The local police were happy to meet a colleague from inland, and dug out the official records for him. There was little in them that he didn't already know, but he did make a note of the Shins' address, and found out that one of the people questioned was a USC graduate student named Michael Kilbride. So, Carolyn Covert's partner had definitely been in town. He also found the name of the investigating officer. "This detective, Andrew Farcas," he said to the sergeant who was helping him sort through the folders, "is he still alive?" "Old Andy? He sure is! Retired of course. He must be in his eighties by now. Lieutenant Barberry married his daughter and they live over on Sherwood Road." "How's his memory? Would he remember anything about this?" Stoddard waved a hand at the folders on the table. "Nothing wrong with his mind at all. He's a little stiff in the joints, but as far as memory goes he's sharp as a tack. You want his address?" Stoddard did, and a few minutes later he was driving up Sherwood Road, a pleasant residential street that was supposedly the continuation of Sherwood Road in Pomo. It was theoretically possible to get from one town to another on the same road if you had a four-wheel drive, but Stoddard had never met anyone who'd tried it. The Barberry home was pleasantly cluttered with books, potted plants, and photos. Mrs. Barberry, wife of the police lieutenant, welcomed Stoddard in and led him through the house to her father. "Dad, this is Detective Mark Stoddard, from the Pomo Police." Andy Farcas, a pudgy gray-haired man with a round face, was reading the newspaper in a sunny garden room at the rear and looked up at the visitor with a pleased smile. "Sit down, sit down! I could do with a bit of company!" He tossed the paper aside and leaned forward in his white wicker armchair. Mrs. Barberry whisked out and came back in a moment with two cold bottles of beer and a basket of pretzels and salted nuts. "Dad, I have to go to the market. I'll be back in about an hour, and you behave yourself!" She went out again, and Andy Farcas chuckled. "She means I'm not to have another of these," he said, handing one bottle to Stoddard and taking the other himself. "Doctor's orders, but I'm not going to let them take all of the fun out of life. Cheers!" They drank, and Farcas sighed appreciatively. "Now, what's up? I'll bet you didn't come over just to shoot the breeze with an old duffer like me." Stoddard smiled at him. "I want to pick your brains, if I may. Do you remember the murder of James Wa Shin? That was back in 1961, here in Fort Bragg." Farcas rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "James Wa Shin. Yeah, sure. He had a little gift and import shop. Got his head beaten in one night, and we arrested the son for it. The kid was convicted, and died in a prison fight a few years later. Too bad." "What did you think about the conviction?" Stoddard asked. "I wasn't all that happy about it, if that's what you mean. It was all circumstantial evidence. The boy was on the wild side and had a lot of fights with his father over gambling and drinking. Some people who lived on the street behind the shop gave statements about that. Apparently they were going at it hammer and tongs earlier that evening, and the kid slammed out of the house. He always said he'd gone down to Emeryville, to play poker, but of course he had no proof of that. The Prosecutor claimed he came back, got into another fight, and killed the old man. The aunt, old Shin's sister, said that there was an antique rock carving missing off of the desk and that it was worth a lot of money. The idea was that the kid hocked it somewhere and used the money for gambling." "But you didn't like the idea?" "Well, the Shin boy didn't have any history of violence; you know what I mean. He owed a lot of money to a lot of people around town, but that was all. It bothered me a little that he'd suddenly haul off and clobber his old man like that." "Did you have any better thought?" Stoddard asked. "I don't know that it was better, but I wondered about a fellow named Beecham, Ted Beecham. Now, there's a guy who was a little too ready with his fists. He'd been arrested on assault charges a few times, and we had him up for drunk and disorderly. He was seeing a lot of the oldest Shin girl, and apparently Mr. Shin didn't like it very much. We asked around, and it came out that Shin knew, or claimed he knew, something about Beecham being involved in a burglary a few months earlier. The aunt told us that he'd threatened to have Beecham in jail if he didn't leave the girl alone." "Did Beecham have an alibi?" "Well, sort of," Farcas said, taking another drink of beer and smacking his lips. "He claimed he was out drinking with buddies in Ukiah. That's hard to prove or disprove, and any of the bunch he hung around with would have lied themselves blind for each other." Farcas shrugged. "The girls were all out of it?" Stoddard said "Oh yeah. The youngest one was at a pajama party and the middle girl was in the hospital with appendicitis! The oldest one went to the movies with a boyfriend and stayed out all night. I ran her down at his place that next morning, sitting there on his couch, wearing one of his flannel lumberjack shirts over those tight black pants the girls used to wear, and smoking a cigarette." "The boyfriend, that would be Michael Kilbride?" "Umm, I think so. He was a grad student working on his Master's degree, I remember that." Farcas shook his head in disbelief. "I still remember the title too. Chinese Cultural Influence on the California North Coast. He showed the manuscript to me; said the Shin girl had been sitting up all night helping him type it. Suure, I really believe that! If those two were typing, that's another name for it!" He chuckled again. "Where was Kilbride living?" "A couple of streets away from Shin's store, over on Breeze. That used to be a row of small apartment buildings along there, but they took the whole street out about three years ago and put in a shopping center." "Yeah, there's a lot of that going around," Stoddard said. "Landmarks disappear right and left." They spent a little more time talking about things in general, companionably finishing their beer, and when Mrs. Barberry came back, Stoddard thanked Farcas for his time and left. He drove over to the shopping mall that Andy Farcas had described, bought a chocolate bar in the market, and then walked across the few blocks between the market and the address where James Wa Shin once lived and died. The years had been kind to the old building. It was painted pale blue and housed a small art gallery called The Rising Moon. From what he could see of the white lace curtains fluttering in the open second story windows, the proprietor probably still lived upstairs, just as in the Shins' time. Time, he thought, had come full circle. * * * * It was late afternoon by the time that Stoddard reached Pomo again. He drove to Legacy antiques and waved casually to Legacy's clerk, Muriel, as he came in the door. "Is Warren in his office?" "He certainly is," she said, giving an expert turn to her wheelchair and heading toward the front counter. "Go ahead. I'll buzz and let him know you're coming up." "Good afternoon," Legacy said pleasantly, as Stoddard came in the door and headed for one of the deep leather guest chairs in front of the antique dealer's desk. "Do you have any information I can pass along to Carolyn?" "Yes, I think so," Stoddard said, sinking into the welcoming cushions. "As it turns out, the sisters who own The Peony Bush are James Wa Shin's two younger girls. Amber Lee, the youngest, only vaguely remembers a carving of some kind sitting on her father's desk, but her sister, Pearl Stevens, described it right down to that pale yellow streak along the side. She told me that it's called 'King of the Yellow River,' and says so on the bottom in Chinese characters." "That seems definite enough," Legacy said, "and it's certainly something that Carolyn can check." "Also," Stoddard went on, "I paid a visit to the Fort Bragg police and looked through their archives. Michael Kilbride was one of the people who was interviewed when James Wa Shin was killed." "So, he was there at the time," Legacy said slowly. "He was, but apparently he was never a serious suspect. The girls' brother was arrested, convicted, and died in a prison fight a few years later. One of the things against him was that the jade carving was missing. The prosecution claimed that he'd taken it and turned it into cash to pay his gambling debts." Legacy tapped his fingers on the green desk blotter. "But he didn't take it, because Michael Kilbride had it. He had it for over forty years." "Yes, and that's why I came up here to talk to you. Just what sort of man was Michael Kilbride?" * * * * Early the next morning, Mark Stoddard took the road to the coast again. He drove out to Mendocino; up the little dirt road to the Beecham ranch; and rang the bell. The dumpy little woman, dressed in unattractive gray, opened the door and stared at him. "It's you again? I told you all I had to say." "Yes, I supposed you did, but it wasn't all of the story, was it? I have some news for you. May I come inside?" He almost expected her to say no, but she stood mutely inside and let him come through the door and into her featureless home. "First of all," Stoddard said, seating himself in one of the rose-colored chairs, "Your sister Pearl was able to give me a description of the jade carving that your father kept on his desk, and it matches the one found in Los Angeles. The woman who has it wants to return it to your family. Your and your sisters will have to decide if you want the carving, or if you want to sell it for the money. I suggest that you talk to a lawyer about it." She sat down in a chair opposite, and looked at him without speaking, as if the matter were of no interest to her at all. "There's still the question of how it got from Fort Bragg to Los Angeles. Michael Kilbride, the college kid who was so crazy about you, the kid whose name you claimed you couldn't remember -- he took it with him, didn't he?" Stoddard leaned back in the chair and considered her. "Do you know what Kilbride's last words were, when he was dying? His partner, a women who loved him for twenty years, was at his bedside and she remembers. He said 'jade wa shin'. She thought he was talking about the carving, but he wasn't, was he? I thought about that when I was driving back from Fort Bragg yesterday. Your sisters are Amber and Pearl. Pearl said that you hated your name, and I thought she meant the Shin part. You married to get rid of that, but you changed your first name too, didn't you? Your father would never have named you Janice. Amber, Pearl ... and Jade. Jade Wa Shin. It was your name that Michael Kilbride whispered when he was dying. Your name, after all those years. He loved you, and you made a patsy out of him." Mrs. Beecham stirred restlessly in her chair, rubbing a finger over the rose-colored fabric. "When the detective who was investigating your father's murder found you at Kilbride's apartment the next morning, you made a big show of having been there all night, sitting on the couch in tight black pants and a lumberjack shirt, smoking a cigarette. There's no way you would have been caught dead in a thick flannel shirt in the middle of July, unless you didn't have any other choice. Unless the shirt you really wore was stiff with blood. When Michael Kilbride's partner found that chunk of rock in his safe deposit box, it was wrapped in a black t-shirt. That t-shirt was yours, and it was what you were wearing when you bludgeoned your father to dead with a fortune in carved jade." "It's a lie," she said, so softly that he barely heard her. "I won't listen." "There's no way I can prove it, not after all these years, but I think you found out that your father was threatening to have Ted Beecham thrown in jail. You had a fight with him, grabbed up that jade mountain and hit him with it. Then you ran to Kilbride, because he was close, and because you knew he would do anything for you. Did you take the rock with you, or did Kilbride go back and get it? It doesn't matter, really. It came to the same thing. He was an accessory after the fact." "Get out," she whispered. "Get out of my house." "Yeah sure, I'll go," Stoddard said, getting to his feet. "I only have a couple more things to say anyway. Kilbride wanted to marry you, in spite of what you'd done. He was an idealist young fool, and as crazy about you as you were about Beecham. He kept faith with you for over forty years, even when you left him high and dry, with a murder weapon and a blood-stained blouse. Oh yeah, and your brother died in prison for a crime he didn't do. But you married Ted Beecham. Tell me, was it worth it?" He waited a moment, but she didn't answer; she simply stared unseeing into space. Stoddard left her alone in her quiet house, closing the door softly behind him. -------- THE BUNCH OF VIOLETS *ERNEST BRAMAH* WHEN Mr. J. Beringer Hulse, in the course of one of his periodical calls at the War Office, had been introduced to Max Carrados he attached no particular significance to the meeting. His own business there lay with Mr. Flinders, one of the quite inconspicuous departmental powers so lavishly produced by a few years of intensive warfare: business that was more confidential than exacting at that stage, and hitherto carried on a deux. The presence on this occasion of a third, this quiet, suave, personable stranger, was not out of line with Mr. Hulse's open-minded generalities on British methods: "A little singular, perhaps, but not remarkable," would have been the extent of his private comment. He favoured Max with a hard, entirely friendly, American stare, said, "Vurry pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Carrados," as they shook hands, and went on with his own affair. Of course Hulse was not to know that Carrados had been brought in especially to genialise with him. Most of the blind man's activities during that period came within the "Q-class" order. No one ever heard of them, very often they would have, seemed quite meaningless under description, and generally they were things that he alone could do -- or do as effectively at all events. In the obsolete phraseology of the day, they were his "bit." "There's this man Hulse," Flinders had proceeded, when it came to the business on which Carrados had been asked to call at Whitehall. "Needless to say, he's no fool or Jonathan wouldn't have sent him on the ticket he carries. If anything, he's too keen -- wants to see everything, do anything and go everywhere. In the meanwhile he's kicking up his heels here in London with endless time on his hands and the Lord only knows who mayn't have a go at him." "You mean for information -- or does he carry papers?" asked Carrados. "Well, at present, information chiefly. He necessarily knows a lot of things that would be priceless to the Huns, and a clever man or woman might find it profitable to nurse him." "Still, he must be on his guard if, as you say, he is. No one imagines that London in 1917 is a snakeless, Eden or expects that German agents today are elderly professors who say, 'How vos you?' and 'Ja, ja!'" "My dear fellow," said Flinders sapiently, "every American who came to London before the war was on his guard against a pleasant-spoken gentleman who would accost him with, 'Say, stranger, does this happen to be your wallet lying around here, on the sidewalk?' and yet an 'unending procession of astute, long-headed citizens met him, exactly as described, year after year, and handed over their five hundred or five thousand pounds on a tale that would have made a common or Michaelmas goose blush to be caught listening to." "It's a curious fact," admitted Carrados thoughtfully. "And this Hulse?" "Oh, he's quite an agreeable chap, you'll find. He may know a trifle more than you and be a little wider awake and see further through a brick wall and so on, but he won't hurt your feelings about it. Well, will you do it for us?" "Certainly," replied Carrados. "What is it, by the way?" Flinders laughed his apologies and explained more precisely. "Hulse has been over here a month now, and it may be another month before the details come through which he will take on to Paris. Then he will certainly have documents of very special importance that he must carry about with him. Well, in the meanwhile, of course, he is entertained and may pal up with anyone or get himself into Lord knows what. We can't keep him here under lock and key or expect him to make a report of every fellow he has a drink with or every girl he meets." "Quite so," nodded the blind man. "Actually, we have been asked to take precautions. It isn't quite a case for the C.I.D. -- not at this stage, that is to say. So if I introduce him to you and you fix up an evening for him or something of the sort and find out where his tastes lie, and -- and, in fact, keep a general shepherding eye upon him -- " he broke off abruptly, and Carrados divined that he had reddened furiously and was kicking himself in spirit. The blind man raised a deprecating hand. "Why should you think that so neat a compliment would pain me, Flinders?" he asked quietly. "Now if you had questioned the genuineness of some of my favourite tetradrachms I might have had reason to be annoyed. As it is, yes, I will gladly keep a general shepherding ear on J. Beringer as long as may be needful." "That's curious," said Flinders looking up quickly. "I didn't think that I had mentioned his front name." "I don't think that you have," agreed Carrados. "Then how-? Had you heard of him before?" "You don't give an amateur conjurer much chance," replied the other whimsically. "When you brought me to this chair I found a table by me, and happening to rest a hand on it my fingers had 'read' a line of writing before I realised it -- just as your glance might as unconsciously do," and he held up an envelope addressed to Hulse. "That is about the limit," exclaimed Flinders with some emphasis. "Do you know, Carrados, if I hadn't always led a very blameless life, I should be afraid to have you around the place." Thus it came about that the introduction was made and in due course the two callers left together. "You'll see Mr. Carrados down, won't you?" Flinders had asked, and, slightly puzzled but not disposed to question English ways, Hulse had assented. In the passage Carrados laid a light hand on his companion's arm. Through some subtle perception he read Hulse's mild surprise. "By the way, I don't think that Flinders mentioned my infirmity," he remarked. "This part of the building is new to me and I happen to be quite blind." "You astonish me," declared Hulse, and he had to be assured that the statement was literally exact. "You don't seem to miss much by it, Mr. Carrados. Ever happen to hear of Laura Bridgman?" "Oh, yes," replied Carrados. "She was one of your star cases. But Laura Bridgman's attainments really were wonderful. She was also deaf and dumb, if you remember." "That is so," assented Hulse. "My people come from New Hampshire not far from Laura's home, and my mother had some of her needlework framed as though it was a picture. That's how I come to know of her, I reckon." They had reached the street meanwhile and Carrados heard the door of his waiting car opened to receive him. "I'm going on to my club now to lunch," he remarked with his hand still on his companion's arm. "Of course we only have a wartime menu, but if you would keep me company you would be acting the Good Samaritan," and Beringer Hulse, who was out to see as much as possible of England, France and Berlin within the time -- perhaps, also, not uninfluenced by the appearance of the rather sumptuous vehicle -- did not refuse. "Vurry kind of you to put it in that way, Mr. Carrados," he said, in his slightly business-like, easy style. "Why, certainly I will." During the following weeks Carrados continued to make himself very useful to the visitor, and Hulse did not find his stay in London any less agreeably varied thereby. He had a few other friends -- acquaintances rather -- he had occasion now and then to mention, but they, one might infer, were either not quite so expansive in their range of hospitality or so pressing for his company. The only one for whom he had ever to excuse himself was a Mr. Darragh, who appeared to have a house in Densham Gardens (he was a little shrewdly curious as to what might be inferred of the status of a man who lived in Densham Gardens), and, well, yes, there was Darragh's sister, Violet. Carrados began to take a private interest in the Darragh household, but there was little to be learned beyond the fact that the house was let furnished to the occupant from month to month. Even during the complexities of war that fact alone could not be regarded as particularly incriminating. There came an evening when Hulse, having an appointment to dine with Carrados and to escort him to a theatre afterwards, presented himself in a mixed state of elation and remorse. His number had come through at last, he explained, and he was to leave for Paris in the morning. Carrados had been most awfully, most frightfully -- Hulse became quite touchingly incoherent in his anxiety to impress upon the blind man the fullness of the gratitude he felt, but, all the same, he had come to ask whether he might cry off for the evening. There was no need to inquire the cause. Carrados raised an accusing finger and pointed to the little bunch of violets with which the impressionable young man had adorned his button-hole. "Why, yes, to some extent," admitted Hulse, with a facile return to his ingenuous, easy way. "I happened to see Miss Darragh down town this afternoon. There's a man they know whom I've been crazy to meet for weeks, a Jap who has the whole ju-jitsu business at his fingerends. Best ju-jitsuist out of Japan, Darragh says. Mighty useful thing, ju-jitsu, nowadays, Carrados." "At any time, indeed," conceded Carrados. "And he will be there tonight?" "Certain. They've tried to fix it up for me half-a-dozen times before, but this Kuromi could never fit it in. Of course this will be the only chance." "True!" agreed the blind man, rather absentmindedly. "Your last night here." "I don't say that in any case I should not have liked to see Violet -- Miss Darragh -- again before I went, but I wouldn't have gone back on an arranged thing for that, continued Hulse virtuously. "Now this ju-jitsu thing I look on more in the light of business." "Rather a rough-and-tumble business one would think," suggested Carrados. "Nothing likely to drop out of your pockets in the process and get lost?" Hulse's face displayed a rather more superior smile than he would have permitted himself had his friend been liable to see it and be snubbed thereby. "I know what you mean, of course," he replied, getting up and going to the blind man's chair, "but don't you worry about me, Father William. Just put your hand to my breast pocket." "Sewn up," commented Carrado's, touching the indicated spot on his guest's jacket. "Sewn up: that's it; and since I've had any important papers on me it always has been sewn up, no matter how often I change. No fear of anything dropping out now -- or being lifted out, eh? No, sir; if what I carry there chanced to vanish, I guess no excuses would be taken and J. B. H. would automatically drop down to the very bottom of the class. As it is, if it's missing I shall be missing too, so that won't trouble me. "What time do you want to get there?" "Darragh's? Well, I left that open. Of course I couldn't promise until I had seen you. Anyway, not until after dinner, I said." "That makes it quite simple, then," declared Carrados. "Stay and have dinner here, and afterwards we will go on to Darragh's together instead of going to the theatre." "That's most terribly kind of you," replied Hulse. "But won't it be rather a pity -- the tickets, I mean, and so forth?" "There are no, tickets as it happens," said Carrados. "I left that over until tonight. And I have always wanted to meet a ju-jitsu champion. Quite providential, isn't it? It was nearly nine o'clock, and seated in the drawing room of his furnished house in Densham Gardens, affecting to read an evening paper, Mr. Darragh was plainly ill at ease. The strokes of the hour, sounded by the little gilt clock on the mantelpiece, seemed to mark the limit of his patience. A muttered word escaped him and he looked up with a frown. "It was nine that Hulse was to be here by, wasn't it, Violet?" he asked. Miss Darragh, who had been regarding him for some time in furtive anxiety, almost jumped at the simple question. "Oh, yes, Hugh -- about nine, that is. Of course he had to -- " "Yes, yes," interrupted Darragh irritably; "we've heard all that. And Sims," he continued, more for the satisfaction of voicing his annoyance than to engage in conversation, "swore by everything that we should have that coat by eight at the, very latest. My God! What rotten tools one has to depend on!" "Perhaps -- " began Violet timidly, and stopped at his deepening scowl. "Yes?" said Darragh, with a deadly smoothness in his voice. "Yes, Violet; pray continue. You were about to say -- " "It was really nothing, Hugh," she pleaded. "Nothing at all." "Oh, yes, Violet, I am sure that you have some helpful little suggestion to make," he went on in the same silky, deliberate way. Even when he was silent his unspoken thoughts seemed to be lashing her with bitterness, and she turned painfully away to pick up the paper he had flung aside. "The situation, Kato," resumed Darragh, addressing himself to the third occupant of the room, "is bluntly this: If Sims isn't here with that coat before young Hulse arrives, all our carefully-thought-out plans, a month's patient work, and about the last both of our cash and credit, simply go to the devil! ... and Violet wants to say that perhaps Mr. Sims forgot to wind his watch last night or poor Mrs. Sims's cough is worse ... Proceed, Violet; don't be diffident." The man addressed as "Kato" knocked a piece off the chessboard he was studying and stooped to pick it up again before, he replied. Then he looked from one to the other with a face singularly devoid of expression. "Perhaps. Who says?" he replied in his quaintly ordered phrases. "If it is to be, my friend, it will be." "Besides, Hugh," put in Violet, with a faint dash of spirit, "it isn't really quite so touch-and-go as that. If Sims comes before Hulse has left, Kato can easily slip out and change coats then." Darragh was already on his restless way towards the door. Apparently he did not think it worth while to reply to either of the speakers, but his expression, especially when his eyes turned to Violet, was one of active contempt. As the door closed after him, Kato sprang to his feet and his impassive look gave place to one almost of menace. His hands clenched unconsciously and with slow footsteps he seemed to be drawn on in pursuit. A little laugh, mirthless and bitter, from the couch, where Violet had seated herself, recalled him. "Is it true, Katie," she asked idly, "that you are really the greatest ju-jitsuist outside Japan?" "Polite other people say so," replied the, Japanese, his voice at once gentle and deprecating. "And yet you cannot keep down even your little temper!" Kato thought this over for a moment; then he crossed to the couch and stood regarding the girl with his usual impenetrable gravity. "On contrary, I can keep down my temper very well," he said seriously. "I can keep it so admirably that I, whose ancestors were Samurai and very high nobles, have been able to become thief and swindler and" his moving hand seemed to beat the air for a phrase -- "and lowdown dog and still to live. What does anything it matter that is connected with me alone? But there are three things that do matter -- three that I do not allow myself to be insulted and still to live, my emperor, my country, and -- you. And so," concluded Kato Kuromi, in a somewhat lighter vein, "now and then, as you say, my temper gets the better of me slightly." "Poor Katie," said Violet, by no means disconcerted at this delicate avowal. "I really think that I am sorrier for you than I am for Hugh, or even for myself. But it's no good becoming romantic at this time of day, my dear man." The lines of her still quite young and attractive face hardened in keeping with her thoughts. "I suppose I've had my chance. We're all of a pattern and I'm as crooked as any of you now." "No, no," protested Kato loyally; "not you of yourself. It is we bad fellows round you. Darragh ought never to have brought you into these things, and then to despise you for your troubles -- that is why my temper now and then ju-jitsues me. This time it is the worst of all -- the young man Hulse, for whose, benefit you pass yourself as the, sister of your husband. How any mortal man possessing you -- " "Another cigarette, Katie, please," interrupted Violet, for the monotonous voice had become slightly more penetrating than was prudent. "That's all in the way of business, my friend. We aren't a firm of family solicitors. Jack Hulse had to be fascinated and I -- well, if there is any hitch I don't think that it can be called my fault," and she demonstrated for his benefit the bewitching smile that had so effectually enslaved the ardent Beringer. "Fascinated!" retorted Kato, fixing on the word jealously, and refusing to be pacified by the bribery of the smile. "Yes, so infatuated has become this very susceptible young man that you lead him about like pet lamb at the end of blue ribbon. Business? Perhaps. But how have you been able to do this, Violet? And your husband -- Darragh -- to him simply business, very good business -- and he forces you to do this full of shame thing and mocks at you for reward." "Kato, Kato -- " urged Violet, breaking through his scornful laughter. "I am what your people call yellow man," continued Kato relentlessly, "and you are the one white woman of my dreams -- dreams that I would not lift finger to spoil by trying to make real. But if I should have been Darragh not ten thousand times the ten thousand pounds that Hulse carries would tempt me to lend you to another man's arms." "Oh, Katie, how horrid you can be!" "Horrid for me to say, but 'business' for you to do! How have you discovered so much, Violet -- what Hulse carries, where he carries it, the size and shape the packet makes, even the way he so securely keeps it? 'Business' eh? Your husband cares not so long as we succeed. But I, Kato Kuromi, care." He went nearer so that his mere attitude was menacing as he stood over her, and his usually smooth voice changed to a tone she had never heard there before. "How have you learned all this? How, unless you and Hulse -- " "Sssh!" she exclaimed in sharp dismay as her ear caught a sound beyond. "-oh yes," continued Kato easily, his voice instantly as soft and unconcerned as ever, "it will be there, you mean. The views in the valley of Kedu are considered very fine and the river itself -- " It was Darragh whom Violet had heard approaching, and he entered the room in a much better temper than he had left it. At the door he paused a moment to encourage someone forward -- a seedy, diffident man of more than middle age, who carried a brown-paper parcel. "Come on, Sim; hurry up, man!" urged Darragh impatiently, but without the sting of contempt that had poisoned his speech before. "And, oh, Phillips" -- looking back and dropping his voice -- "when Mr. Hulse arrives show him into the morning-room at first. Not up here, you understand? Now, Sims." After a rather helpless look round for something suitable on which to lay his parcel, the woebegone-looking individual was attempting to untie it on an upraised knee. "Yes, sir," he replied, endeavouring to impart a modicum of briskness into his manner. "I'm sorry to be a bit late, sir; I was delayed." "Oh, well, never mind that now," said Darragh magnanimously. "Thing quite all right?" "Mrs. Sims isn't worse?" asked Violet kindly. Mr. Sims managed to get his back to the group before he ventured to reply. "No, miss," he said huskily; "she's better now. She's dead: died an hour ago. That's why I wasn't quite able to get here by eight." From each of his hearers, this tragedy drew a characteristic response. Violet gave a little moan of sympathy and turned away. Kato regarded Sims, and continued to regard him, with the tranquil incuriosity of the unpitying East. Darragh -- Darragh alone spoke, and his tone was almost genial. "Devilish lucky that you were able to get here by now, in the circumstances, Sims," he said. "Well, sir," replied Sims practically, "you see, I shall need the money just as much now -- though not quite for the same purpose as I had planned." He took the garment from the paper and shook it out before displaying it for Darragh's approval. "I think you will find that quite satisfactory, sir." "Exactly the same as the one your people made for Mr. Hulse a week ago?" asked Darragh, glancing at the jacket and then passing it on to Violet for her verdict. "To a stitch, sir. A friend of mine up at the shop got the measurements and the cloth is a length from the same piece." "But the cut, Sims," persisted his patron keenly; "the cut is the most important thing about it. It makes all the difference in the world." "Yes sir," acquiesced Sims dispassionately, "you can rely on that. I used to be a first-class cutter myself before I took to drink. I am yet, when I'm steady. And I machined both coats myself." "That should do then," said Darragh complacently. "Now you were to have -- " "Ten guineas and the cost of the cloth you promised, sir. Of course it's a very big price, and I won't deny that I've been a bit uneasy about it from time to time when I -- " "That's all right." Darragh had no wish to keep Mr. Sims in evidence a minute longer than was necessary. "I shouldn't like to be doing anything wrong, sir," persisted the poor creature, "and when you stipulated that it wasn't to be mentioned -- " "Well, well, man; it's a bet, didn't I tell you? I stand to win a clear hundred if I can fool Hulse over this coat. That's the, long and short of it." "I'm sure I hope it is, sir. I've never been in trouble for anything yet, and it would break my wife's 'art -- " He stopped suddenly and his weak face changed to a recollection of his loss; then without another word he turned and made shakily for the door. "See him safely away, Katty, and pay him down below," said Darragh. "I'll settle with you later," and the Japanese, with a careless "All right-o," followed. "Now, Violet, slip into it," continued her husband briskly. "We don't want to keep Hulse waiting when he comes." From a drawer in a cabinet near at hand he took a paper packet, prepared in readiness, and passed it to her. "You have the right cotton?" "Yes, Hugh," said Violet, opening a little workbasket. She had already satisfied herself that the coat was a replica of the one the young American would wear, and she now transferred the dummy package to the corresponding pocket and with a few deft stitches secured it in the same way as she had already learned that the real contents were safeguarded. "And, Hugh-'" "Well, well?" responded Darragh, with a return of his old impatience. "I don't wish to know all your plans, Hugh," continued Violet meekly, "but I do want to warn you. You are running a most tremendous risk with Kato." "Oh, Kato!" "It is really serious, Hugh. You don't believe in patriotism, I know, but Kato happens to. When he learns that it isn't ten thousand pounds at all, but confidential war plans, that this scoop consists of, something terrible may happen." "It might, Violet. Therefore I haven't told him, and I am so arranging things that he will never know. Cheer up, my girl, there will be no tragedy. All the same, thanks for the hint. It shows a proper regard for your husband's welfare." "Oh, Hugh, Hugh," murmured Violet, "if only you were more often -- " Whatever might have been the result -- if indeed there was yet hope in an appeal to another and a better nature that he might once have possessed -- it came too late. The words were interrupted by the sudden reappearance of Kato, his business with Sims completed. He opened and closed the door quietly but very quickly, and at a glance both the Darraghs saw that something unforeseen had happened. "Here's pretty go," reported the Japanese. "Hulse just come and brought someone with him!" For a moment all the conspirators stood aghast at the unexpected complication. Hugh Darragh was the first to speak. "Damnation!" he exclaimed, with a terrible look in his wife's direction, "that may upset everything. What ghastly muddle have you made now?" "I-I don't know," pleaded Violet weakly. "I never dreamt of such a thing. Are you sure?" "Slow man," amplified Kato with a nod. "Fellow who walk -- " He made a few steps with studied deliberation. "'Blind! It's Max Carrados," exclaimed Violet, in a flash of enlightenment. "They have been great friends lately and Jack has often spoken of him. He's most awfully clever in his way, but stone blind. Hugh, Kato, don't you see? It's rather unfortunate his being here, but it can't really make any difference." "True, if he is quite blind," admitted Kato. "I'll look into it," said Darragh briskly. "Coat's all ready for you, Kato." "I think not yet," soliloquised the Japanese, critically examining it. "Keep door, 'alf-a-mo', Violet, if please." His own contribution to the coat's appearance was simple but practical -- a gentle tension here and there, a general rumple, a dust on the floor and a final shake. "One week wear," he announced gravely as he changed into it and hid his own away. "Take your time, Mr. Carrados," Darragh's voice was heard insisting on the stairs outside, and the next moment he stood just inside the room, and before Hulse had quite guided Carrados into view, drew Violet's attention to the necessity of removing the button-hole that the Americans still wore by a significant movement to the lapel of his own coat. It required no great finesse on the girl's part to effect the transfer of the little bunch of flowers to her own person within five minutes of the guests' arrival. "A new friend to see you, Violet -- Mr. Carrados," announced Darragh most graciously. "Mr. Carrados, my sister." "Not to see you exactly, Miss Darragh," qualified Carrados. "But none the less to know you as well as if I did, I hope." "I wanted you to meet Max before I went, Miss Darragh," explained Hulse, "so I took the liberty of bringing him round." "You really are going then?" she asked. "Yes. There seems no doubt about it this time. Twelve hours from now I hope to be in Paris. I should say," amended the ingenuous young man, "I dread to be in Paris, for it may mean a long absence. That's where I rely on Carrados to become what is called a 'connecting file' between us -- to cheer my solitude by letting me know when he has met you, or heard of you, or, well, anything in fact." "Take care, Mr. Hulse," she said. "Gallantry by proxy is a dangerous game." "That's just it," retorted Hulse. "Max is the only man I shouldn't be jealous of -- because he can't see you!" While these amiable exchanges were being carried on between the two young people, with Max Carrados standing benignly by, Darragh found an opportunity to lower his voice for Kato's benefit. "It's all right about him," he declared. "We, carry on." "As we arranged?" asked Kato. "Yes; exactly. Come across now." He raised his voice as he led Kato towards the other group. "I don't think that either of you has met Mr. Kuromi yet -- Mr. Hulse, Mr. Carrados." "I have, been pining to meet you for weeks, sir," responded Hulse with enthusiasm. "Mr. Darragh tells me what a wonderful master of ju-jitsu you are." "Oh, well, little knack, you know," replied Kato modestly. "You are interested?" "Yes, indeed. I regard it as a most useful accomplishment at any time and particularly now. I only wish I'd taken it up when I had the leisure." "Let me find you an easy-chair, Mr. Carrados," said Violet attentively. "I am sure that you won't be interested in so strenuous a subject as ju-jitsu." "Oh, yes, I am, though," protested the blind man. "I am interested in everything." "But surely -- " "I can't actually see the ju-jitsuing, you would say? Quite true, but do you know, Miss Darragh, that makes a great deal less difference than you might imagine. I have my sense of touch, my sense of taste, my hearing -- even my unromantic nose -- and you would hardly believe how they have rallied to my assistance since sight went. For instance..." They had reached the chair to which Miss Darragh had piloted him. To guide him into it she had taken both his hands, but now Carrados had gently disengaged himself and was lightly holding her left hand between both of his. "For instance, Hulse and I were speaking of you the other day -- forgive our impertinence -- and he happened to mention that you disliked rings of any sort and had never worn one. His eyes, you see, and perhaps a careless remark on your part. Now I know that until quite recently you continually wore a ring upon this finger." Silence had fallen upon the other men as they followed Carrados's exposition. Into the moment of embarrassment that succeeded this definite pronouncement Mr. Hulse threw a cheerful note. "Oh ho, Max, you've come a cropper this time," he exclaimed. "Miss Darragh has never worn a ring. Have you?" "N-o," replied Violet, a little uncertain of her ground, as the blind man continued to smile benevolently upon her. "A smooth and rather broad one, he continued persuasively. "Possibly a wedding ring?" "Wait a minute, Violet, wait a minute," interposed Darragh, endeavouring to look judicially wise with head bent to one side. He was doubtful if Violet could carry the point without incurring some suspicion, and he decided to give her a lead out of it. "Didn't I see you wearing some sort of plain ring a little time ago? You have forgotten, but I really believe Mr. Carrados may be right. Think again." "Of course!" responded Violet readily, "how stupid of me! It was my mother's wedding ring. I found it in an old desk and wore it to keep it safe. That was really how I found out that I could not bear the feel of one and I soon gave it up." "What did I say?" claimed Darragh genially. "I thought that we should be right." "This is really much interesting," said Kato. "I very greatly like your system, Mr. Carrados." "Oh, it's scarcely a system," deprecated Max goodnaturedly, "it's almost second nature with me now. I don't have to consider, say, 'Where is the window?' if I want it. I know with certainty that the window lies over here." He had not yet taken the chair provided, and suiting the action to the word he now took a few steps towards the wall where the windows were. "Am I not right?" And to assure himself he stretched out a hand and encountered the heavy curtains. "Yes, yes," admitted Violet hurriedly, "but, oh, please do be careful, Mr. Carrados. They are most awfully particular about the light here since the last raid. We go in fear and trembling lest a glimmer should escape." Carrados smiled and nodded and withdrew from the dangerous area. He faced the room again. "Then there is the electric light -- heat at a certain height of course." "True," assented Kato, "but why electric light?" "Because no other is noiseless and entirely without smell; think -- gas, oil, candles, all betray their composition yards away. Then" -- indicating the fireplace -- "I suppose you can only smell soot in damp weather? The mantelpiece" -- touching it -- "inlaid marble. The wallpaper" -- brushing his hand over its surface -- "arrangement of pansies on a crisscross background" lifting one finger to his lips -- "colour scheme largely green and gold." Possibly Mr. Hulse thought that his friend had demonstrated his qualities quite enough. Possibly -- at any rate he now created a diversion: "Engraving of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, suspended two feet seven inches from the ceiling on a brassheaded nail supplied by a one-legged ironmonger whose Aunt Jane -- " All contributed a sufficiently appreciative laugh -- Carrados's not the least hearty -- except Kato, whose Asiatic dignity was proof against the form of jesting. "You see what contempt familiarity breeds, Miss Darragh," remarked the blind man. "I look to you, Mr. Kuromi, to avenge me by putting Hulse in a variety of undignified attitudes on the floor." "Oh, I shan't mind that if at the same time you put me up to a trick or two," said Hulse, turning to the Japanese. "You wish?" "Indeed I do. I've seen the use of it. It's good; it's scientific. When I was crossing, one of the passengers held up a bully twice his weight in the neatest way possible. It looked quite simple, something like this, if I may?" Kato nodded his grave assent and submitted himself to Mr. Hulse's vigorous grasp. "'Now,' said the man I'm speaking of, 'struggle and your right arm's broken.' But I expect you know the grip?" "Oh, yes," replied Kato, veiling his private amusement, "and therefore foolish to, struggle. Expert does not struggle, gives way." He appeared to do so, to be falling helplessly in fact, but the assailant found himself compelled to follow, and the next moment he was lying on his back with Kato politely extending a hand to assist him up again. "I must remember that," said Hulse thoughtfully. "Let me see, it goes -- do you mind putting me wise on that again, Mr. Kuromi? The motion picture just one iota slower this time, please." For the next ten or twenty minutes the demonstration went on in admirable good humour, and could Max Carrados have seen he would certainly have witnessed his revenge. At the end of the lesson both men were warm and dusty -- so dusty that Miss Darragh felt called upon to apologist laughingly for the condition of the rug. But if clothes were dusty, hands were positively dirty -- there was no other word for it. "No, really, the, poor mat can't be so awful as that," declared the girl. "Wherever have you been, Mr. Kuromi? and, oh, Mr. Hulse you are just as bad." "I do not know," declared Kato, regarding his grimy fingers seriously. "Nowhere of myself. Yes, I think it must be your London atmosphere among the rug after all." "At all events you can't -- Oh, Hugh, take them to the bathroom, will you? And I'll try to, entertain Mr. Carrados meanwhile -- only he will entertain me instead, I know." It was well and simply done throughout -- nothing forced, and the sequence of development quite natural. Indeed, it was not until Hulse saw Kuromi take off his coat in the bathroom that he, even thought of what he carried. "Well, Carrados," he afterwards pleaded to, his friend, "now could I wash my hands before those fellows like a guy who isn't used to washing? It isn't natural. It isn't human." So for those few minutes the two coats hung side by side, and Darragh kindly brushed them. When Hulse put on his own again his hand instinctively felt for the hidden packet; his fingers reassured themselves among the familiar objects of his pockets, and his mind was perfectly at ease. "You old scoundrel, Max," he, said, when he returned to the drawing room. "You told Kuromi to wipe the floor with me and by crumbs, he did! Have a cigarette all the same." Miss Darragh laughed pleasantly and took the opportunity to move away to learn from her accomplices if all had gone well. Carrados was on the, point of passing over the proffered olive branch when he changed his mind. He leaned forward and with slow deliberation chose a cigarette from the American's case. Exactly when the first subtle monition of treachery reached him, by what sense it was conveyed -- Hulse never learned, for there were experiences among the finer perceptions that the blind man did not willingly discuss. Not by voice or outward manner in that arresting moment did he betray an inkling of his suspicion, yet by some responsive telephony Hulse at once, though scarcely conscious of it then, grew uneasy and alert. "Thanks; I'll take a light from yours," remarked Carrados, ignoring the lit match, and he rose to avail himself. His back was towards the, others, who still had a word of instruction to exchange. With cool precision he handled the cloth on Hulse's outstretched arm, critically touched the pocket he was already familiar with, and then deliberately drew the lapel to his face. "You wore some violets?" he said beneath his breath. "Yes," replied Hulse, "but I -- Miss Darragh -- " "But there never have been any here! By heavens, Hulse, we're in it! You had your coat off just now?" "Yes, for a minute." "Quietly. Keep your cigarette going. You'll have to leave this to me. Back me up -- discreetly -- whatever I do." "Can't we challenge it and insist -- " "Not in this world. They have at least one other man downstairs -- in Cairo, a Turk by the way, before I was blind, of course. Not up to Mr. Kuromi, I expect -- " "Cool again?" asked Miss Darragh sociably. It was her approach that had sent Carrados off into irrelevancies. "Was the experience up to anticipation?" "Yes, I think I may say it was," admitted Hulse guardedly. "There is certainly a lot to learn here. I expect you've seen it all before?" "Oh, no. It is a great honour to get Mr. Kuromi to 'show it off,' as he quaintly calls it." "Yes, I should say so," replied the disillusioned young man with deadly simplicity. "I quite feel that." "J. B. H. is getting strung up," thought Carrados. "He may say something unfortunate presently." So he deftly insinuated himself into the conversation and for a few minutes the commonplaces of the topic were rigidly maintained. "Care for a hand at auction?" suggested Darragh, joining the group. He had no desire to, keep his guests a minute longer than he need, but at the same time it was his line to behave quite naturally until they left. "Oh, but I forgot -- Mr. Carrados -- " "I am well content to sit and listen," Carrados assured him. "Consider how often I have to do that without the entertainment of a game to listen to! And you are four without me." "It really hardly seems -- " began Violet. "I'm sure Max will feel it if he thinks that he is depriving us," put in Hulse, loyally, so with some more polite protestation it was arranged and the game began, Carrados remaining where he was. In the circumstances a very high standard of bridge could not be looked for; the calling was a little wild; the play more than a little loose; the laughter rather shrill or rather flat; the conversation between the hands forced and spasmodic. All were playing for time in their several interpretations of it; the blind man alone was thinking beyond the immediate moment. Presently there was a more genuine burst of laughter than any hitherto. Kato had revoked, and, confronted with it, had made a naive excuse. Carrados rose with the intention of going nearer when a distressing thing occurred. Halfway across the room he seemed to slip, plunged forward helplessly, and came to the floor, involved in a light table as he fell. All the players were on their feet in an instant. Darragh assisted his guest to rise -- Violet took an arm; Kato looked about the floor curiously, and Hulse -- Hulse stared hard at Max and wondered what the thunder this portended. "Clumsy, clumsy," murmured Carrados beneath his breath. "Forgive me, Miss Darragh." "Oh, Mr. Carrados!" she exclaimed in genuine distress. "Aren't you really hurt?" "Not a bit of it," he declared lightly. "Or at all events," he amended, bearing rather more heavily upon her support as he took a step, "nothing to speak of." "Here is pencil," said Kuromi, picking one up from the polished floor. "You must have slipped on this." "Stepping on a pencil is like that," contributed Hulse wisely. "It acts as a kind of roller-skate." "Please don't interrupt the game any more," pleaded the victim. "At the most, at the very worst, it is only -- oh! -- a negligible strain." "I don't know that any strain, especially of the ankle, is negligible, Mr. Carrados," said Darragh with cunning foresight. "I think it perhaps ought to be seen to." "A compress when I get back will be all that is required," maintained Carrados. "I should hate to break up the evening." "Don't consider that for a moment," urged the host hospitably. "If you really think that it would be wiser in the end -- " "Well, perhaps -- " assented the other, weakening in his resolution. "Shall I 'phone up a taxi?" asked Violet. "Thank you, if you would be so kind -- or, no; perhaps my own car would be rather easier in the circumstances. My man will be about, so that it will take very little longer." "I'll get through for you," volunteered Darragh. "What's your number?" The telephone was in a corner of the room. The connection was soon obtained and Darragh turned to his guest for the message. "I'd better speak," said Carrados, -- he had limped across on Hulse's arm -- taking over the receiver. "Excellent fellow, but he'd probably conclude that I'd been killed ... That you, Parkinson? ... Yes, at 3155 Densham Gardens. I'm held up here by a slight accident ... No, no, nothing serious, but I might have some difficulty in getting back without assistance. Tell Harris I shall need him after all, as soon as he can get here -- the car that's handiest. That's -- oh, and, Parkinson, bring along a couple of substantial walking -- sticks with you. Any time now. That's all ... Yes ... yes." He put up the receiver with a thrill of satisfaction that he had got his message safely through. "Held up" -- a phrase at once harmless and significant -- was the arranged shift-key into code. It was easy for a blind man to receive some hurt that held him up. Once or twice Carrados's investigations had got him into tight places, but in one way or another he had invariably got out again. "How far is your place away?" someone asked, and out of the reply a time-marking conversation on the subject of getting about London's darkened streets and locomotion in general arose. Under cover of this Kato drew Darragh aside to the deserted card table. "Not your pencil, Darragh?" he said quietly, displaying the one he had picked up. "No, why?" "I not altogether like this, is why," replied the Japanese. "I think it Carrados own pencil. That man have too many ways of doing things, Darragh. It was mistake to let him 'phone." "Oh, nonsense; you heard what he said. Don't get jumpy, man. The thing has gone like clockwork." "So far, yes. But I think I better go now and come back in one hour or so, safer for all much." Darragh, for very good reasons, had the strongest objections to allowing his accomplice an opportunity of examining the spoil alone. "Look here, Katty," he said with decision, I must have you in case there does come a scrimmage. I'll tell Phillips to fasten the front door well, and then we can see that it's all right before anyone comes in. If it is, there's no need for you to run away; if there's the least doubt we can knock these two out and have plenty of time to clear by the back way we've got." Without giving Kato any chance of raising further objection he turned to his guests again. "I think I remember your tastes, Hulse," he said suavely. "I hope that you have no objection to Scotch whisky, Mr. Carrados? We still have a few bottles left. Or perhaps you prefer champagne?" Carrados, had very little intention of drinking anything in that house, nor did he think that with ordinary procrastination it would be necessary. "You are very kind," he replied tentatively. "Should you permit the invalid either, Miss Darragh?" "Oh, yes, in moderation," she smiled. "I think I hear your car," she added, and stepping to the window ventured to peep out. It was true. Mr. Darragh had run it a shade too fine for once. For a moment he hesitated which course to take -- to see who was arriving or to convey a warning to his henchman down below. He had turned towards the door when Violet's startled voice recalled him to the window. "Hugh!" she called sharply. "Here, Hugh," and as he reached her, in a breathless whisper, "there are men inside the car -- two more at least." Darragh had to decide very quickly this time. His choice was not without its element of fineness. "Go down and see about it, Katty," he said, looking Kato straight in the eyes. "And tell Phillips about the whisky." "Door locked," said the Japanese tersely. "Key other side." "The key was on this side," exclaimed Darragh fiercely. "Hulse -- " "Hell!" retorted Beringer expressively. "That jacket doesn't go out of the room without me this journey." Darragh had him covered before he had finished speaking. "Quick," he rapped out. "I'll give you up to three, and if the key isn't out then, by God, I'll plug you, Hulse! One, two -- " The little "ping!" that followed was not the automatic speaking, but the release of the electric light switch as Carrados, unmarked among this climax, pressed it up. In the absolute blackness that followed Darragh spun round to face the direction of this new opponent. "Shoot by all means, Mr. Darragh, if you are used to firing in the dark," said Carrados's imperturbable voice. "But in any case remember that I am. As I am a dead shot by sound, perhaps everyone had better remain exactly where he -- or she, I regret to have to add, Miss Darragh -- now is." "You dog!" spat out Darragh. "I should not even talk," advised the blind man. "I am listening for my friends and I might easily mistake your motive among the hum of conversation." He had not long to wait. In all innocence Phillips had opened the door to Parkinson, and immeasurably to his surprise two formidable-looking men of official type had followed in from somewhere. By a sort of instinct -- or possibly a momentary ray of light had been their guide they came direct to the locked door. "Parkinson," called Carrados. "Yes, sir," replied that model attendant. "We are all in here, Mr. Hulse and myself, and three -- I am afraid that I can make no exception -- three unfriendlies. At the moment the, electric light is out of action, the key of the locked door has been mislaid, and firearms are being promiscuously flourished in the dark. That is the position. Now if you have the key, Hulse -- " "I have," replied Hulse grimly, "but for a fact I dropped it down my neck out of harm's way and where the plague it's got to -- " As it happened the key was not required. The heavier of the officers outside, believing in the element of surprise, stood upon one foot and shot the other forward with the force and action of an engine piston-rod. The shattered door swung inward and the three men rushed into the room. Darragh had made up his mind, and as the door crashed he raised his hand to fire into the thick. But at that moment the light flashed on again and almost instantly was gone. Before his dazzled eyes and startled mind could adjust themselves to this he was borne down. When he rose again his hands were manacled. "So," he breathed laboriously, bending a vindictive eye upon his outwitter. "When next we meet it will be my turn, I think." "We shall never meet again," replied Carrados impassively. "There is no other turn for you, Darragh." "But where the blazes has Kuromi got to?" demanded Hulse with sharp concern. "He can't have quit?" One of the policemen walked to a table in the farthest corner of the room, looked down beyond it, and silently raised a beckoning hand. They joined him there. "Rum way these foreigners have of doing things, remarked the other disapprovingly. "Now who the Hanover would ever think of a job like that?" "I suppose," mused the blind man, as he waited for the official arrangements to go through, "that presently I shall have to live up to Hulse's overwhelming bewonderment. And yet if I pointed out to him that the button-hole of the coat he is now wearing still has a stitch in it to keep it in shape and could not by any possibility ... Well, well, perhaps better not. It is a mistake for the conjurer to explain." -------- MURDER PICNIC *S.A. GORDEN* The first time I saw a murder victim was the first time I saw a body before a mortician prettied it up. The day started like most days on the farm. Pa was plowing the backfield and Ma was baking. At breakfast, my brother said that he didn't want to be cooped up in the woodshed on such a warm sunny day. He asked to trade his normal firewood job for checking the fence lines. His school grades were up so Ma nudged me to let him trade. When I got to the woodshed, I realized the reason for the change in chores. He hadn't kept the tools maintained. Since it takes forever for the linseed oil to dry, I first fixed the wooden handled tools. I blended a mix of turpentine and boiled linseed oil in a jar. The axes and maul came first. A few minutes with a sharpening stone, a wipe with an oily rag, followed by hand rubbing the linseed on the wooden handles. Next came the cant hook and pickaroon. The hook only needed an oil wipe of the metal parts and linseeding the wood handle. The pickaroon needed more work. The spike head was loose on the axe handle. I drove a new wedge into the handle and tested out the pick. A swing lodged the spike into a log and a pull/twist moved the log into position on the saw table. I checked the spike. It was still firm on the handle. I poured the turpentine/linseed mix on the head sealing and swelling the wood handle into position. I leaned the pickaroon against the wall to dry and started getting ready to sharpen the buck saw. I had the spider guide out and was checking the kerf on the buck saw's teeth when Pa showed up on our Alice Chalmers C. "Son, we gots-to-go to Frank's. The sheriff wants us there with the tractor and chains. Frank rolled his tractor and we need to pull it off him." "God. I'll get the chains." It only took a few minutes to throw our two twenty-foot logging chains into the box bolted to the orange fender of the tractor. Pa started up the tractor and I climbed behind, one foot on the hitch and the other on the axle. I held onto the fender and the back of the seat as we bounced the mile to Frank's farm. There were two deputy sheriff's cars parked in the yard. A deputy waved us to a backfield. We saw Frank's green John Deere lying on its side before we saw the body. Frank was pinned under a spring plow with the tractor over both. The plow had a dozen two inch wide, curved, spring steel blades. Instead of digging into the ground the blades impaled Frank's body. It looked like Frank had somehow fallen in front of the plow while the tractor was running. The tractor then dragged him across the field and rolled on top of him when it angled into the ditch at the edge of the field. Our small Alice wasn't going to pull the John Deere upright but we hooked the chains to the front axle and swiveled the tractor off the plow. Pa and I, with the two deputies who followed us into the field, flipped the plow over. The two deputies got sick so we were left to pull the skewered Frank off the plow. We had to wiggle and wrench the body from three of the plow blades that had lodged deep in the torso. Pa and I tried to straighten out the broken bones and torn clothing. It was when I was pulling his wool shirt down his back that I saw the puncture wound. The plow blades were two inches wide and a quarter of an inch thick. The wound was about a half inch across and went deep into the body. "Pa. Look at this." "It sure doesn't look right. Wait here. I'll get a deputy." The green-faced deputy looked for a second before backing away and heaving. We shrugged our shoulders and waited for the local funeral parlor's hearse to arrive. It was another hour before a second tractor came and we flipped the John Deere back on its wheels. We drove back to the farmhouse. Dad went in to say a few words with the widow. Four more cars, filled with neighbors, had come in our absence. I went to the yard pump. I tried to wash the smell and feel of the dead body off. It didn't work. The afternoon sun was hot, with the farmhouse filled with people, I decided to go into the shade of the woodshed while I waited for father. After my eyes adjusted to the dark, I looked over the tools. Every tool was neatly hung on the walls, cleaned, oiled, and sorted. All except the pickaroon. It was lying on a small pile of split wood. It looked clean but the spike at the head of the axe handle was the same shape as the hole in Frank's back. I found a deputy. I was unlucky enough to find Joe Czesnic. When I was still going to school, he was the bully two grades ahead. He picked on everyone younger or smaller than he was. I was in eighth grade when I overheard him talking to his friends about turning over Leroy Jenson's outhouse. He was an old man living at the edge of town and two blocks from the school. After school, I stopped by old man Jenson's and told him about his outhouse. He laughed and asked me to help him move the outhouse a few feet back. We then placed thin branches across the smelly hole and covered it with some gunny sacks and dirt. The next day the whole school was buzzing about Joe and his friends falling into the hole. Leroy forced them to promise to never bother him again before he put a ladder down for them to climb out. I was in tenth grade, an inch taller and twenty pounds heavier than Joe when someone finally told him that I had helped Leroy. Joe wasn't in school anymore but in a small town we still saw each other too often. He hated me ever since. It took a bit of palaver but I finally talked Joe into coming down to the shed and pointed out the pick. "You got to be kidding me. Go back to the plow farmboy and leave the police work to those who know what they are doing." We got home in time for a quick wash before my date with Emily. My parents wanted me married before officially turning over control of the farm to me. They liked Emily. We had known each other for years but only started dating for the last few months. Emily was fun but I wasn't going to let my parents push me into marriage until I was ready. Her father had a bit of money and didn't like her going out with a farmer's son so we met at the drugstore. I ordered my usual vanilla phosphate and she had her chocolate shake. I loved watching her with a shake. She had one small dimple that showed on her left cheek every time she sucked on the straw. "It was a strange day. The sheriff asked us to help pull the tractor off Frank's body." "Did you hear that John Morgan was also killed today?" "What?' "Supos'da been a logging accident. A tree fell on him. An' yesterday old Jimmy Pike died in a car crash." Emily just listed the three farmers who lived closest to us. I had to find out more. "Emily. Would it be alright not seeing the movie? I should check out what happened." "You're not doing anything until you tell me why this is so important." "Come on." "Nope. You tell me or I'll talk to my brother." Her brother, Tom, was the town cop. It was a nonthreat that she had used before but arguing would take time. "I don't think Frank was killed by the tractor. Our farm is between Pike's and Morgan's and Frank's is just the next one over. I gotta find out what happened." Emily had an interested look on her face. "Okay ... You don't have to take me to a movie but you got to take me with you." "Come on. You can't be serious." "Sure can." "You'll just slow me down." "You think so? Do you know where Pike's car is?" "Okay. Where?" I really didn't want her coming along but one thing I did know about Emily was that once she made up her mind you couldn't change it. "Behind Ben's Garage. We can go after I finish my shake." Looking at Pike's car was a bust. It looked like a smashed up car. After crawling around the car for a half hour, we decided to look at where Morgan was killed. I didn't want to worry Mrs. Morgan so I parked down the road from the farm. I started to walk through the woods to where I knew John had been cutting firewood. For the first time, Emily started to slow down. She had dressed for a movie and not a walk in the woods. She hitched her dress up showing her knees. When she heard me chuckle, she gave me a kick in the shin. We finally got to where the trees were being cut. The tire tracks from the hearse were easy to follow. The last tree cut was at the end of its tracks. The tree was an average size ash. You could see a section cut from the tree twenty feet up the truck where it had been sawed to remove the body. I checked the stump. The tree fell where it had been notched to fall. I walked up the trunk looking for anything unusual. Nothing. "Morgan wasn't killed by the tree." "How do you know?" "You see the notch on the stump?" "Yes." "You notch the stump in the direction you want the tree to fall. It fell where it was suppose to. You have to be at the base of the tree to cut it down. Morgan's body was twenty feet away from the stump. When you drop a tree you watch the direction the trunk moves and back away from the direction it moves. The trunk is sound so the tree didn't split or bounce before falling. John would never have been where he was found. I don't know anyone who would voluntarily stand under a falling tree so he would have to have been placed and the tree dropped on him. "Frank had a hole in his back that looked like it came from a pickaroon I saw in his woodshed and now we have Morgan placed under a tree..." "We need to find out what they had in common." "You're right. Ma knew the Morgans real well so I can ask her about them but we never got to know Pike and Frank has only been living here for a year." "My brother knew Pike." "Do you think you can stand another date tomorrow?" "I guess I can force myself to see you again." "Great. We can compare notes at the drugstore." It was getting dark so I drove Emily home. Ma was helpful but knew Mabel better than John. I only got a few details about John's life. Ma was making casseroles for Mabel Morgan and Joan Frank. It seemed when anything bad happened Ma would make casseroles to help out. I asked if I could deliver them tomorrow. It would give me a chance to quiz the two women about yesterday. The morning broke with a purple red dawn. After the morning chores, I talked to Dad about yesterday and the deaths. He looked worried but couldn't tell me much. I got in the car and went to Morgan's farm. I heard a tractor running behind the barn. When I got there, I saw Mabel pulling the manure wagon out into the fields behind an old Oliver tractor. She saw me and stopped. "Thought I should stop by and see if you needed help." "Thanks. Help me spread the load?" "Sure." I spent the next half hour standing on a bouncing honey wagon with a fork tossing manure across the fields. When we got back to the barn, I again washed at a pump. Mabel did the same. I saw black and purple bruises on her limbs. Her upper arms and legs had a few marks that could be seen under the edge of her clothes but the nastiest one was under the collar of her blouse. I glimpsed the black mark when she tossed her hair back and washed the back of her neck with the pump water. She invited me in for a cup of coffee and I took the chance to quiz her about Frank, John, and Pike. Three dying in twenty-four hours was unusual enough for my questions to raise only one or two suspicious glances as she served the coffee. I left the casserole filled crockpot with the new widow and went to Frank's farm. Joan thanked me for the food. I noticed that the woodbox next to the kitchen stove was nearly empty and asked if I couldn't fill it for her. There were only a couple of blocks of wood in the shed. I started splitting and Joan grabbed a bucksaw and started cutting blocks off an eight foot log. We had two day's worth of split wood in a few minutes. The nice thing about working together is that people talk more openly and I started to get information from Joan. It also helped that Joan wasn't the sharpest tack in the drawer. I knew Emily would make it a contest on who found out more. I figured I would win this one. Emily made some great crusty bread. A bet for a Sunday picnic with homemade bread and cold cider should be something she would go for. Emily was dressed for work and not a movie when I saw her. The drugstore had four booths along the wall opposite from the counter. She was waiting in the corner booth when I arrived. We were going to be a while so I ordered two shakes. A second shake was for me instead of my usual vanilla phosphate. We waited for the shakes to arrive before any serious talking. "I figure we should bet on who found out more." She did exactly what I thought she would wanting to make it into a contest. "You're going to lose." "Think so?" "Know so?" "Okay, what's the bet." "How about a Sunday picnic after church at the falls?" "Sounds good so far." "You bake bread and bring food if I win." "Okay, but if I win you get your mother to make fried chicken and I want potato salad." "Deal." "Deal." "Ladies first." "You are sure pushing it today." "Just following your lead." "Well I talked to Tom when I got home last night. I asked him about Jimmy Pike. He told me an interesting story. "It turns out that Jimmy is a regular customer in the jail. About once a month, he gets into a fight with his girl friend, Donna Koski. The fights usually start in Donna's apartment or on the street outside. You know Donna is a big girl but Jimmy is even bigger. Donna starts out holding her own with Jimmy but, after a few punches, she's in trouble. The neighbors call the police right-a-way so they usually stop it before she gets too beat up. "Tom thought that some-un might of decided to stop Jimmy from beating Donna up but her brothers were out-a-town when his car crashed and Donna was at church cleaning." "Is that all?" "Ya?" "Could you make those small six inch across flat breads for the picnic?" "What makes you think you won?" "'Cause I think I know what happened?" "Okay spill it." "Well first off the ladies cleaning the church this month are Donna Koski, Mabel Morgan, and Joan Frank. Get the picture?" "You mean they killed their men?" "Yup." "Why? And how?" "Mabel and Joan both have bruises." "You think they decided to do it together. Wait ... Wasn't it last month the theater had Hitchcock's 'Strangers on a Train.' Could that have got them thinking?" "I don't know. But I got my Ma to admit that it was an open secret that they were being beaten by their husbands or in Donna's case boyfriend and that they started meeting privately after church. Ma was surprised about the friendly private get-togethers because Mabel used to talk so nasty about Donna seeing Jimmy for so many years an' still not marrying." "I don't know what happened with Jimmy Pike but Mabel was probably the one who drove the tractor an' plow over Frank and Joan was the one to drop the tree on John. I saw Mabel driving a tractor and Joan admitted to doing much of the firewood cutting. They could'a easily staged how the bodies were found." "I guess I should talk to Tom." "No. We got no real proof on what happened. An' Ma and the other church ladies are going to talk to Donna, Mabel, and Joan after church on Sunday. You know how Ma looks at you when she has decided on something?" "Sure do. I was never so scared as when she caught me doin something wrong in Sunday School." "She told me in no uncertain terms that I'd done enough and she would take over from here." "I hate to be those ladies when your Ma talks to them. Do you think she will force them to confess to the police?" "I don't know. I think the church ladies are a little ashamed they didn't stop things from getting this far ... I am just happy I won't be anywhere near when they meet. I'm going to be at a picnic." Emily gave me an elbow in my side for the last comment. The day was perfect, warm and sunny. Emily and I spread a blanket close enough to the falls to feel the spray but not get wet. The cool moist air kept most of the 'skeeters and flies away. I had stopped by the river before church and tied a jug of cider in the turning water under the falls. When I got back from retrieving the cold cider, Emily had the food laid out. Her crusty personal sized bread had fresh turned butter brushed on top and thin sliced smoked ham inside. There was potato salad and a chunk of brick cheese from the local co-op. The food was great and the day lazy. An hour, later Emily was lying with her head in my lap and I was tickling her face with a leaf. Her dimple would appear with every stroke of the leaf. "I heard there was a murder across the county line." "Really?" "Want to bet your mother's fried chicken on who will solve it first?" "You're on." -------- *MYSTERY, ADVENTURE AND SUSPENSE FROM PAGETURNER E BOOKS* *THE CLASSIC WOMEN DETECTIVES* The Legendary Women Detectives: classic tales of the world's greatest female supersleuths-edited by Jean Marie Stine Constance Dunlap -- Arthur B. Reeve Fox Red: The Adventures of Grace Culver, PI -- Roswell Brown The Investigations of Clara Linz, or Advice Limited -- E. Phillips Oppenheim Madam Storey, Private Investigator -- Hulbert Footner Lady Molly of Scotland Yard -- Baroness Orczy The Problems of Violet Strange-Anna Katherine Green Madame Storey, Private Investigator-Hulbert Footner The Experiences of Loveday Brooke-Catherine Louisa Prikis The Amy Brewster #1. A Knife in My Back-Sam Merwin Jr. Amy Brewster #2. A Matter of Policy-Sam Merwin Jr. Amy Brewster #3. Message to a Corpse-Sam Merwin Jr. Constance Dunlap, Detective -- Arthur B. Reeve Lady Molly of Scotland Yard-Baroness Orczy The First Mary Roberts Reinhart Omnibus: The Bat; The Breaking Point; Where There's a Will-M. R. Reinhart THE LT. MARK STODDARD MYSTERIES Corpse in the Abstract-Jeraldine Dian Crayne Corpse in the Camera-Jeraldine Dian Crayne Corpse in the Concrete -- J. D. Crayne AGATHA CHRISTIE The Mysterious Affair at Styles The Secret Adversary THE CLASSIC GENTLEMAN-THIEVES ALIAS THE GRAY SEAL: THE JIMMY DALE OMNIBUS-The First Two Books About the Legendary Fin-de-Siecle Gentleman Thief-Frank L. Packard THE RAFFLES OMNIBUS: All Four Classic Novels Featuring the Famous Gentleman Thief-E. W. Hornung THE LONE WOLF OMNIBUS: All Four Original Novels About the Sophisticated 1920s Jewel Thief-Louis Joseph Vance THE NICK BANCROFT MYSTERIES August is Murder-Bob Liter Death Sting-Bob Liter Murder by the Book-Bob Liter A Point of Murder-Bob Liter THE CLASSIC 1920s GILLIAN HAZELTINE COURTROOM MYSTERIES The Diamond Bullet Murder Case-George F. Worts The Hospital Homicides Murder Case-George F. Worts The Gold Coffin Murder Case-George F. Worts The Crime Circus Murder Case-George F. Worts The High Seas Murder Case-George F. Worts THE CLASSIC SEMI-DUAL ASTROLOGICAL MYSTERIES The Ledger of Life Mystery-Giesy and Smith The House of Invisible Bondage Mystery Giesy and Smith PETER RUBER'S MODERN PULP SAGAS Savage #1: Murder in Macao Zero Hour: A Novel of Adventure in China During the Early Days of WWII OTHER FINE MYSTERY CLASSICS The Lone Wolf-Louis Joseph Vance Doctor Syn, Alias the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh Grey Shapes-Jack Mann Four Just Men-Edgar Wallace The Legendary Detectives: classic tales of the world's greatest sleuths-edited by Jean Marie Stine The Legendary Detectives II-edited by Jean Marie Stine Max Carrados, The Original Blind Detective -- Ernest Bramah The Man in the Corner -- Baroness Orczy The Scarlet Pimpernel-Baroness Orczy The Elusive Pimpernel-Baroness Orczy The Scarlet Pimpernel: "I Will Repay!"-Baroness Orczy *BARGAIN MYSTERY EBOOKS IN OMNIBUS EDITIONS* (Complete & Unabridged) THE FATHER BROWN OMNIBUS: The Innocence of Father Brown; The Wisdom of Father Brown-G. K. Chesterton THE RAFFLES OMNIBUS-E. V. HORNIG THE SECOND MARY ROBERTS REINHART OMNIBUS: The Circular Staircase; The Confession; Dangerous Days THE THIRD MARY ROBERTS REINHART OMNIBUS: The Man in Lower Ten; The Street of Seven Stars; Sight Unseen THE FU MANCHU OMNIBUS: The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu; The Return of Fu Manchu; The Hand of Fu Manchu-Sax Rohmer THE SAX ROHMER OMNIBUS: Fire Tongue; Dope; The Yellow Scorpion More Titles in Preparation *Visit Us At* *renebooks.com* ----------------------- Visit www.renebooks.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.