Murder Can't Stop by W.T. Ballard

1

BILL LENNOX was getting drunk. He had been working at it with steady purpose for almost an hour, and he was pleased to notice that the back-bar no longer made a sharp line against the yellow dirtiness of the wall.

Here, then, was proof that he was making progress, and that the quart of Scotch which he had already consumed had not been drunk in vain.

The excursion into the realm of alcoholic bliss was Lennox's way of illustrating a point. It was, he thought, as he watched the bartender open a second quart and pour a generous portion into the glass, what you could expect when a man stuck his neck out to help a friend.

Had he been one who became tearful while in his cups, he might have sobbed at this point, but he was not given to tears. He was angry, angry at himself for ever having embarked on such a life and for ever having let personal friendship sway him in his course.

He had never dreamed that at thirty, he would be an executive in one of the world's largest picture studios. He had not gone to college with that in mind. Nor had he worked three years on a Chicago newspaper in preparation for a producer's existence.

Accidents had shaped the course of his life. It was an accident that his paper had run a beauty contest and assigned him to cover the awards. An accident that a Hollywood publicist had noted his handling of the contest and offered him a job.

He'd liked that job. He'd liked the handling of the Santa Claus parade, and his work in that connection had brought him to the attention of Sol Spurck.

Spurck in his own way was king. Vice president in charge of production for General Consolidated's west coast studio, he had stretched out his short fingered hand and touched Lennox, hiring him away from the public relations agency for which he worked.

Lennox found himself an executive without a title, a high salaried employee without a job. Spurck had been busy. There were many men upon the sprawling lot. Lennox had looked around and found a dozen things which needed correction. By the time Spurck remembered his existence, he'd corrected them.

An executive producer, he found himself Spurck's unofficial assistant with more power on the lot than anyone save Spurck himself.

An ordinary man might have been happy. Lennox wasn't. He was bored. General Consolidated demanded his full attention and gave him no time for the things which he had meant to do.

In the ordinary run of things, Lennox would have enjoyed a month at Skull Lake. The place was beautiful, set as it was near the crest of the rugged Sierras, a dot of blue, some five miles long, and a mile wide, almost lost in the forest of green timber.

Two things ruined it for Lennox. First it was a movie playground. Expensive lodges nestled along the ridge which ran down the west side of the lake, and the movie great rusticated with the aid of their maids and Filipino house-boys.

His second objection was his companion. He loved Peter Ashley like a brother. He'd known Ashley five years, ever since the actor had made his first hit in New York. It was Lennox who had brought Ashley to the coast, Lennox who had signed him to a seven year contract.

But Ashley had cracked up. There'd been a love affair in New York. The girl had married someone else and Ashley had arrived on the coast, nervous, jumpy and in no condition to work.

Spurck had been ready to tear up the contract, but Lennox had pleaded for his friend.

“Give me a month,” he'd begged. “I need a vacation anyhow. Let me take him up to your Skull Lake lodge and get him in shape. In a month he'll be a different man.”

At the time it had seemed like a stroke of genius, but after the second day, Ashley had become bored. He'd started to drink, and his shattered nerves couldn't stand the strain.

Lennox had had enough. He'd show Ashley what drinking was. He'd make himself into a frightful example, one which Peter Ashley would recall to his dying day.

2

The town which huddled along the eastern shore of Skull Lake had nothing in common with the ornate lodges which faced it across the mile wide strip of blue water.

When the movie crowd had first come into the wilderness, a syndicate of lodge owners had approached Jake Sloane, the manager of the Skull Lake Mining and Metal Company. They offered to buy the town. They meant to move or destroy the shoddy brick buildings, the bars and gambling clubs and the rows of cribs perched in ordered array along the dusty ugliness of Skull Lake's back street.

Their offer drew a dry chuckle from the little mine manager. He and the Cullen brothers had owned this camp for years. He did not like the summer visitors, and he was not slow in telling them.

He finished by offering to buy their ornate lodges to house his miners and prostitutes. The lodges would be put to better use, he said, by people who would actually live in them. “If you people never come into my town again, I'll be very happy.”

The meeting had led to bad feeling, and few summer people ever ventured into the mining town, preferring the long drive to Placerville.

But Lennox had always made the town his hangout. He loved the Miners' Club, which Alf Jones ran, the old, long, semi-dark room with its ancient bar, its old roulette wheels and crap tables, its crowd of poker players, and the row of slot machines.

There was a dignity about the place which spoke of better days, days when a thousand miners had lost their dust in this very room, had stood and drunk, raising their glasses to the recumbent nude whose picture hung above the mirrored back-bar.

It was a place in which he could relax and dream, even as he was dreaming now. He was vaguely conscious of the bartender, a long, thin man with a hawklike nose who asked: “Don't you think you've had enough, Bill?”

Lennox definitely did not think that he had had enough. He was about to say no, with emphasis, when a voice called from the doorway.

“Why, William, T. for Tecumseh, Lennox. What do you think you're doing?”

He knew without turning that it was Ashley. No one save Ashley ever called him that. He kept his middle name a deeply buried secret.

But Ashley had discovered it. Ashley claimed that Lennox had not been named for General Sherman, but rather for the Shawnee Chief who had died in 1813. Ashley claimed that Lennox looked like the Chief.

Lennox ignored the actor as he said to the bartender, “Fill them up, to the brim, mind.” He gave the order with a grand manner. “A gentleman never drinks from a half-empty glass,” he added. He liked the phrase and repeated it solemnly.

The bartender gave him an appraising look. He filled the glass, using a gnarled forefinger to steady the neck of the bottle until the amber liquid made a beading around the rim of the glass.

Then he replaced the bottle and stepped back, watching Lennox with interested attention.

If Bill was conscious of the interest, he gave no sign. He raised the glass to his lips without apparent care and drained it without wasting a drop.

The bartender let out his breath slowly. Ashley hurried forward. He was almost sober and he regarded Lennox with startled attention.

“Hey! I'm the guy who has nerves, remember. I'm the sick man who you're taking care of. I drink to forget. You've nothing to forget.”

Lennox did not answer because he couldn't. For a whole minute after the whiskey rolled down his throat he had felt fine, wonderful, and he was just beginning to think that he should do this more often when it suddenly exploded inside his intestines.

The explosion created the same effect as if someone had hit him in the stomach with a sledge hammer. It bent him forward until his, forehead bumped the top of the bar and a moan he could not prevent escaped his lips.

Ashley stared at him, then threw the bartender a worried look. “Say, how much has he had?”

The tall man indicated the empty quart and the second bottle, which was well below the one-third mark. “All in a little over an hour.” There was awe in his voice. “I've seen them drink and drink, but nothing like this.”

Ashley swore under his breath. He looked at Lennox, hesitated, trying to decide what was the best thing to do. Finally he appealed to the bartender. “Can someone help me get him down to the boat?”

The bartender was regarding Lennox with scientific interest. “You think he'll die?”

“I hope he does,” Peter Ashley sounded bitter. “He's up here to take care of me, to mend my broken heart, so, he gets drunk. Why, hell, you know something? The outboard motor we're using is of 1915 vintage. I can't run it. No one can run it but Lennox. Look at him.”

Under the eyes of a dozen natives, loafing in the shade of a big fir, Ashley tugged hopelessly at the starting handle for fifteen sweating minutes without drawing one explosion from the single cylinder.

Lennox was too ill to care. Twice Ashley was forced to leave the motor to drag him back into the boat. Otherwise he might have plunged headlong into the lake.

Finally the actor could stand no more. He straightened, wiped his oily hands on the sides of his slacks, and looked at the placid natives, who watched him with direct yet impersonal stares.

“Five dollars to the man who starts this damn thing.”

A tall boy in faded denims rose wordlessly. He came down the log wharf, stepped sure-footedly into the boat and with a single jerk of his bony wrist spun the flywheel.

The motor coughed, caught, coughed again, then took up its steady chugging.

Ashley glared, too far gone for words. He fished in his pocket until he found a limp five dollar bill and placed it in the boy's hand as his rescuer stepped ashore.

Then he turned, lifted the piece of railroad rail which served as an anchor, and headed the flat-bottomed boat directly out across the lake.

Driven by a north breeze, the surface was a myriad of little ripples which were almost waves. They ran under the boat, giving it a leaping motion which was very pleasant.

Lennox was curled up in the bow, white-faced and apparently asleep. Ashley stared at him glumly as he recovered his breath, then dragged his pipe from his pocket, hooked one knee over the tiller as he had seen Lennox do, loaded the pipe and lit it.

Surprisingly he was more relaxed than he had been for a long time. He could almost feel his coiled muscles loosen, and he was actually enjoying himself for the first time since coming west.

Another look at Lennox heightened his enjoyment. Wait until tomorrow. Lennox was not going to enjoy tomorrow, and the prospect of his friend's discomfort made his grin widen.

The afternoon sun was warmly pleasant on his back, and he sat comfortably listening to the slap, slap of the water under the boat and the steady chug of the old motor.

Spurck owned fancier motors, but Lennox being something of a backyard mechanic had enjoyed unearthing this relic, cleaning it and putting it in repair. He used it on the boat as a constant reminder of his own ability.

But to Ashley, who had never changed a tire on his expensive convertible, the outboard was a product of the devil, a satanic mechanism of which he stood in awe.

But it was running smoothly now and as the distance from the town increased he gained confidence. With confidence came interest in other things.

Neatly clipped to the side of the boat were two fly rods and he stared at them. It might be fun to do some fishing. It would be fun to exhibit his catch to a remorseful Lennox.

He could deliver Bill to the lodge and come out and try his hand. Rany could serve the trout for breakfast.

It never occurred to Ashley that he might not catch anything. Peter Ashley had been spoiled by life. Everything had come his way with surprising ease, and there was no real failure against his record.

3

But he did not deliver Lennox before setting out on his angling expedition. A fish decided that for him. It jumped with lazy indifference as if it knew the insect could not escape.

It was a big fish, and broke water with effortless grace, seeming to stand for a full moment on its tail, its whole body exposed, clear of the surface, sparkling in the sun.

Ashley watched with open-mouthed disbelief. He was not an experienced angler and he had never seen anything like this before. He cut the boat's motor, hardly conscious of what he did. His eyes were fastened on the widening circle where the fish had disappeared.

It rose again, a little to the right of its last position, but still so close that he was certain it was the same fish. To his untutored eye it seemed to have the general dimensions of a small whale.

The motor was dead, but the boat still had enough way so that it drifted on toward where the fish was rising.

To the right, less than fifty feet from where the giant of the deep had broken water, two boats were anchored, trim inboards, tied to a rustically expensive wharf.

But Ashley had no eyes for the wharf, the boathouse, or the sprawling lodge which was almost hidden in the thick grove of second growth. He reached out and picked up one of the light rods.

He had never tied a fly, but he had watched Lennox on the evening of the first day at the lake, and he took up the leader box with confidence. It wasn't as easy as he had expected, but he finally succeeded in fastening a hackle to the end of the nine foot strand of gut, and stood up in the boat, testing the rod's slender length as if it had been a whip.

His first cast was very short, his second was better, and on his third, he succeeded in hooking himself in the seat of the pants.

It took a knife to remove the hook, but he was far from discouraged. With grim determination, he set himself to work out the line as he had seen Lennox do.

What he failed to realize was that the boat had been drifting steadily toward the shore and that he was much nearer to the point at which the fish had broken water. Even a child should have been able to place the fly directly over the spot. Ashley concentrated on the effort as he had not concentrated on anything for years.

His fourth cast was by all odds his best. The tuft of feathers which was the fly floated on the rippled surface a good twenty-five feet away from the boat.

He let it rest there for a minute, viewing his accomplishment with inward pleasure. Then he started to draw it in.

The fish struck. It had to come clear of the water to catch the withdrawing fly. It turned over with a flash and sank into the blue water, taking the fly and leader with it.

Ashley struck with both hands. The tip of the expensive rod bent until it was almost double. In anyone else's hands it would have snapped, but by some miracle it held, and Peter Ashley found himself hooked to a fish that knew this game thoroughly.

By the sheerest accident, he kept his rod up and let the heavy line run through his fingers, thus lessening the strain on the tip. But he could make no progress toward bringing the fish to the boat.

It had the hook in its mouth and was running for the nearest shelter. That shelter happened to be the two boats anchored at the wharf.

After a second the fish was under and a moment later the steady pressure on the line was gone, but the hook did not come free.

Ashley did not know exactly what had happened, but his instinct was surer than his knowledge. He guessed that his fish was gone and that his hook had fouled under one of the boats.

Still holding the rod with one hand, he picked up the paddle with the other and edged his craft forward until its battered prow rasped against the white side of the inboard. Then he pulled in the line until it was taut and, feeling along it, sought his captive hook.

He leaned far down, burying his arm in the icy water, so intent on what he was doing that he did not notice how his boat was tipping.

There was no real warning. At one instant he was kneeling on the dry slats which covered the bottom. The next instant he was thrown in the lake, as the boat went over.

The surface, closing above his head, cut short his startled yell, and it seemed to him that he went down and down, gulping water at every foot.

But his first thought was not for himself. It was for Lennox. In his friend's present condition, he might well drown without ever knowing what had happened to him.

Peter Ashley became a hero. He struck out savagely, fighting to bring himself to the surface in time to rescue his companion.

His head broke water and he looked wildly around; then slowly his expression altered from one of wild despair to one of silly embarrassment. The water was less than four feet deep. He was standing on the bottom.

Lennox came up some ten or twelve feet away, and his face showed no fear, only a deep and burning anger. “God damnit!” he said, trying to shake the water out of his ears, “can't you even sail a boat?”

Rollicking laughter cut short Ashley's retort. “I've never seen anything so funny in my life.”

Ashley turned. There was a girl on the wharf above the anchored boats, a fair-haired girl in riding breeches and flannel shirt. Strands of her light bob, loosened by the breeze from the soft knot at the back of her small head, fluttered about her face.

“Maybe some day you people will learn to leave Joel alone. He's too smart for you.”

“Who's Joel?” Ashley had forgotten Lennox entirely.

She was still chuckling. “My pet fish. I feed him every evening. At least twenty people have lost a hook under these boats trying to get him, but you're the first one to dive in and try it with your hands.”

Lennox was shivering. “Cut the comedy, Clara, and help me out of here. I'm freezing.”

“Why, Bill!” She turned to look at Lennox. “I didn't even recognize you. I thought you were a beaver, hunting winter quarters.”

He slushed forward and dragged himself up onto the nearest boat. He sat there for a moment, staring moodily at Ashley as if trying to decide whether to reach out and push the actor's head under.

Apparently he decided against it, for he bent down and unlaced his shoes; then he gravely poured the water from them and replaced them on his feet.

Ashley had not moved. He was staring at the girl as if he did not believe his eyes. Lennox said, sourly: “Get out of that water, dope. What do you want besides a nervous breakdown, a siege of double pneumonia?”

He reached out a hand and dragged Ashley to a place at his side.

Ashley was bitter. “This wouldn't have happened if you weren't drunk.”

“Was drunk,” Lennox said, sadly. “Anyone who could take a bath in that refrigerated snow water and stay drunk would be a wizard.”

“Hey,” said the girl. “Is this a private argument, or can a lady get in?”

“You're in,” said Lennox. “Clara Cullen, meet Pete Ashley. He's got nerves. His heart is broken. I'm trying to keep him from slicing up his throat.”

“And he got drunk,” Ashley was looking at the girl. “It was really something to see. I had to fight off eight men to get him into the boat.”

“You look it,” she said. “I had a pet white rat once. He fell in and drowned. You remind me of him.”

Ashley ducked and put up one arm as if it were a guard. “Hey, what a nice friendly land! You wouldn't want a couple of my ears for a souvenir now, would you?”

She smiled. “No. Actually I'm very glad to meet you, Mister Ashley. That's what I keep Joel for, so that I can meet unwary fishermen. I'm a siren, you know, a dangerous gal like the one that trapped Ulysses. I lie in wait behind the boathouse until Joel lures my victims to their doom.”

“Sounds swell,” said Ashley. “I like being lured.”

“And I like dry clothes,” Lennox cut in. “You wouldn't have a spare pair of slacks or maybe a panty girdle that I could crowd into?”

The girl's expression changed. “Look, Bill, I hate to seem to give you the brush-off, but Uncle Albert came up this morning and you know how he is.”

Lennox's expression showed that he knew. “A pleasant summer to you, my lass. If the old buzzard is going to hang around, I'm glad that we're only here for a couple of weeks. Come on, Pete. Let's salvage the craft and head for some dry clothes. I feel a sneeze coming on already.”

Ashley said: “Oh, no, you don't. All my life I've been looking for this girl. I find her through the good offices of a fish and you want to drag me away. I'm going to stay right here until she promises to marry me.” He walked forward and leaped lightly to the dock.

“I thought,” said Clara Cullen, “that the water had sobered you.”

“I've never been more sober in my life,” Ashley assured her, “but my head's whirling. I'm in love, and it's wonderful.”

“Jesus!” said Lennox. “First his heart is broken, then he falls in love again. Is there no end?”

Ashley ignored him. “You think that I'm kidding,” he said to the girl. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have sprung it this way, but I couldn't help myself. I'm going to see you every day, every waking minute. I'll be your slave. I...”

Lennox was looking from one to the other. “Now wait a minute. Clara's a nice kid. You're a friend of mine, but your emotions run around too fast. Last night you were sobbing that the only girl in the world had married someone else and now...”

“I hadn't met Clara then,” Ashley was abashed. “Sure, I'm a fool, a jerk, a dope. I didn't know that she existed...”

“He's not really crazy,” said Lennox. “He just has spells. Let's get out of here before we're thrown out.”

“You wouldn't throw me out?” Ashley was looking at the girl.

“But I will.” A man had stepped around the angle of the boathouse. He was short, and inclined toward flesh. He wore levis stuffed into laced boots, a big hat and an open vest over a stained grey flannel shirt. But it was the shotgun he carried that made him impressive. It had an extremely long barrel.

Ashley regarded the man with openmouthed surprise, but the newcomer looked directly at Lennox. “I've warned you and your friends to keep away from here. Get going before I blow you off the dock.”

“Wait a minute,” Ashley was getting mad.

“Wait hell!” The little man raised the shotgun and blew a hole in the dock not three feet from where Ashley was standing. He pumped a full shell into the chamber, spat with pleased satisfaction on the boards. “Just wanted to be sure she'd still shoot. Haven't tried her since I killed that director last summer.”

Lennox was taking no part in the argument. He reached out, caught their boat and dragged it toward him. Despite the water which still sloshed about in its bottom it was safe and seaworthy. He stepped forward and called to his companion. “Come on, Pete. Boat leaves in half a minute.”

Ashley looked helplessly toward the girl. He couldn't decide whether or not this was some kind of joke, being put on for his benefit.

“Better go,” she said, and, turning without another word, started up the ridge toward the lodge.

He stared after her, at the small man in the big hat, then with a shrug, followed Lennox into their own craft. Bill pushed off, and started the motor. A minute later they were chugging along toward their own landing.

Ashley said, angrily, “Who does that old bird think he's scaring?”

“Me,” said Lennox. “When Bert Cullen gets a shotgun in his hand, I want to be on the other side of the mountain.”

Ashley turned and considered Lennox with care. What he saw was not reassuring. Lennox's face was very white and he looked as if he might collapse at any instant.

“You look bad,” said Ashley.

“I feel terrible,” his friend admitted. “I can't seem to recall ever feeling this bad before.” He sneezed wholeheartedly. “If I don't get the flu, it won't be your fault.”

“All right,” the actor told him, “I'm a heel, a louse, and a fool, but I know one thing. That girl is wonderful.”

“Who, Clara?” Lennox was indifferent. “She's okay.”

“Okay? She's marvelous. I wasn't kidding, William. I'm going to marry her. When an Ashley makes up his mind, it's a settled fact.”

Lennox was giving most of his attention to the motor which had developed bronchitis. “You'd better figure Albert and his little shotgun into the deal.”

“Nuts. His act wasn't so good.”

“It wasn't an act,” Lennox said, soberly.

Ashley was curious. “Who is he, anyhow?”

The motor had died, and Lennox was picking up the paddle. “Dick Cullen's brother. He and Dick and Jake Sloane own Skull Lake and run it as they choose, which isn't a nice way.”

“But who's Dick Cullen?”

Lennox looked up. “I forgot you were a foreigner. If you'd been around Hollywood long, you'd know who he is. He's the meanest, dirtiest character that ever stole a player or a studio. He's Chairman of the Board of Pinnacle Pictures. They're a jerk-water outfit out in the Valley, but they have their hooks in a new color process and at the moment they are suing our boss for five million dollars, and they have a damn good chance to win.”

Ashley looked surprised. “I don't get it.”

“We've been using our own color,” Lennox explained. “They claim that our process infringes on their patents, and maybe it does. But if you want to see Spurck burst a blood vessel, all you have to do is to mention Cullen's name.”

Ashley wasn't much interested. “That doesn't explain why the little guy ran us off with a shotgun.”

“Doesn't it? Bert doesn't like picture people. His brother started the Skull Lake migration several years ago by bringing a couple of picture executives up fishing. They liked it so well they bought places, and Hollywood followed. Now, shut up, my head hurts.”

“Rany will fix you up,” Ashley promised, as the boat bumped the log dock. “Come on.”

They met the servant just inside the big house and there was a white slip of paper in his hand.

“A telegram,” he told Lennox. “They phoned it over.”

Lennox accepted it, gingerly, and unfolded it to read:

Dick Cullen missing, think perhaps headed, for Skull Lake. Contact him at once and work out agreement. Willing to settle on reasonable basis. Must be done at once. Case is called for next week. Get on your horse.

Spurck

Lennox groaned. “What in hell have I ever done to deserve this? Trouble, trouble. First you, and now I'm expected to make a deal with Cullen when all the high-priced lawyers in town have failed. To hell with it! I'm going to bed.”

2

LENNOX found himself sitting up in bed, his head against the mosquito netting. He was tense, his nerves jumpy, as he waited for the sound which had awakened him to be repeated.

He had no idea how long he had slept, but it was dark outside and the moon had already risen. He looked around, shaking his head vaguely, surprised that it no longer ached. That stuff that Rany had given him seemed to have done the work. He had viewed the glass of cloudy liquid with misgivings when Ashley's valet had handed it to him.

He'd drunk the glassful, and gone to sleep, and he would have been asleep yet if it had not been for the shot.

There had been a shot, he was certain of that. He swung his feet out of bed to the cold floor with a vague feeling of alarm, fumbled in the semi-darkness until he located a robe, and padded to the door.

Light burned from the big room downstairs and seeped up the wide stairway and into the upper hall. “Ashley,” he called. “Hey, Ashley. Did you hear a shot?”

There was sound from the lower floor and Rany appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Did you call me, Mister Lennox?”

“I was calling Ashley,” Lennox said. “Where is he?”

The servant's wooden face was expressionless. “I don't know exactly, sir. He said that he was going to call on the young lady and...”

“What young lady?” The memory of the afternoon flooded back on Lennox. “You mean that he went to call on Miss Cullen?”

“I believe,” Rany admitted, “that was the name he mentioned.”

“Damn it!” said Lennox. “Hasn't he got any sense...” He broke off, for the sound of a shot had come again. It was sharp and whiplike in the quiet mountain air, and seemed to be quite near.

Lennox turned and hurried back to his room, clicking on the light as he passed the switch. He pulled on his clothes, swearing under his breath. Damn the actor for a fool. Hadn't he realized that Lennox had meant what he said about Bert Cullen? The old man was half screwy, and if he caught someone prowling around his place at night, he'd shoot without bothering to ask questions.

He was only half dressed as he came down the stairs and dived across the front door with Rany excitedly following, demanding to know what had happened.

Lennox did not know himself. He almost fell down the dark path, reached the float and was relieved to see that the boat was anchored at the dock. He'd been afraid Ashley had taken it, and he knew that bucking the ridge trail in the darkness would take time.

The motor caught at once and he dragged in the anchor, shouting instructions for the valet to return to the lodge and stay there; then he turned his course out across the lake. There was a head wind and he made slow progress. Across the water on the right, the lights of Skull Lake mines showed faintly on the mountain side, while below them the streets of the town looked like beads of glowing gems.

Ahead he could see the Cullen lodge, but no sound reached him and his fears for the actor grew. There was no one at the landing, and no one in sight on the veranda. He fastened his boat and ran up the path, taking the steps to the porch three at a time.

The lights in the lodge's main room were on and the full-length windows illuminated the veranda. He crossed it and pounded on the door, wondering if it would open suddenly and Bert Cullen would shove a shotgun into his face.

Nothing happened, and he pounded harder than before, the feeling of dread with which he had awakened growing keener. Still receiving no answer, he tried the knob, found the door unlocked, pushed it open and entered.

The room was large; the ceiling was open, showing the log rafters running up to the sharp peak. Thick rugs and rich drapes made it resemble anything but a mountain lodge. Although he had been up here at intervals during the six years since Spurck had purchased a lake place, Lennox had never before entered the Cullen house.

A grand piano, lighted by two floor standards, stood on his right, its keyboard open and its rack filled with music. Against the wall, flanking it, was an expensive radio and phonograph combination.

The furniture was heavy, leather-upholstered, and had an old-fashioned look. The room was lit up as if for a party, but there was no sign of anyone.

Lennox hesitated, looking around. The shots which he had heard might not have come from here at all; but still, something must be wrong, or all these lights wouldn't be on at this hour.

He called, twice, then started across the room.

“Hands up!”

William Lennox swung around, his startled eyes meeting those of Clara Cullen. The girl had stepped from the shadow of one of the heavy drapes, and she held a rifle cradled in the crook of her arm.

2

“Bill Lennox!”

Instinctively Lennox had raised his hands shoulder-high before he had turned. He lowered them now and grinned at her a little in relief. “What are you made up for, honey? Calamity Jane or Annie Oakley?”

There was no answering smile on her lips. “What are you doing here? Did you see anyone outside?”

The urgency in her voice wiped the humor from his face. “I didn't see anyone, Clara. What goes on? I heard shots and came over to find out what's happened.”

She took a full minute to answer. He got the idea that she was thinking about something else. “Bill,” she said, “look, Bill. My uncle has had a stroke or something. Can you get Doctor Newcomb? I've tried the telephone, and it isn't working.”

He said, in surprise, “I didn't know that Newcomb was up here. I met him on the Boulevard last week and...”

“He came up yesterday,” she said. “Get him, will you, and hurry.”

His eyes rested on the rifle, then he thought of something else. “Your Uncle Dick isn't here, is he?”

Her surprise was genuine. “Dick? Of course not. He's busy suing Spurck. You know that. He wouldn't leave Hollywood on a bet. Please, Bill, hurry.”

There was nothing else to do but turn toward the door and go down the steps to the boat, though he suspected that something besides illness was striking at the lodge. Clara Cullen did not go around carrying a rifle for fun.

Halfway to the doctor's lodge, the outboard sputtered twice and died. Lennox swore under his breath, guessing before he looked that he was out of gas. With a resigned sigh, he paddled the rest of the way, encouraged to see that Newcomb's lights still showed faintly through the trees.

The doctor answered his first knock. The man was tall, slightly stooped, looking more like a retired midwestern farmer than Hollywood's pet psychiatrist with an income well above the hundred thousand mark; a man to whom the highly paid screen beauties brought their neuroses.

There was a shapeless robe about his gaunt shoulders as he opened the door, and his thin, greying hair was disheveled.

“Hello, Bill!” He was surprised, yet his expression did not alter.

“Hello!” said Lennox. “Bert Cullen's had a stroke, Doc, and Clara sent me to get you.”

“Stroke?” Newcomb's tight-lipped mouth went slack. “Stroke? How serious is it?”

Lennox shrugged. “I don't know. I haven't seen him. Clara sent me to get you, and I ran out of gas. Is there any around?”

“In the garage,” Newcomb told him. “Help yourself while I get into some clothes. So Bert finally had it.” He was half muttering to himself. “I warned the old bastard to watch his temper.” He turned without closing the door and disappeared. Lennox went around the log building to the big garage in the rear.

The door was closed and an open padlock was hooked in the hasp. The inside was black as a pocket and he put out one hand to feel his way. The hand touched the radiator of a car and he withdrew it quickly, for the radiator was hot.

For an instant he was motionless in the darkness. Evidently someone had just driven in, yet the doctor had been undressed when he answered the door. Had Newcomb just come home? And if so, why had he bothered to give the impression that he'd been home for some time?

With a shrug, he dismissed it from his mind, struck a match and, locating the switch, turned on the lights. There was a gallon can against the far wall. He filled the can, added oil, and, carrying it down the path, emptied it into the outboard. By the rime he had replaced the can the doctor had come out onto the porch, carrying a small bag, and they walked together down to the boat.

“Lucky you were around to come after me,” he told Lennox, “I haven't had my phone connected yet.”

Bill didn't answer as he swung the boat around. Newcomb's voice reached him above the steady chugging. “Pretty girl, Clara Cullen, and she has sense, too.”

Lennox looked at him. There was something in the doctor's tone that he did not like. “What are you trying to say, Newcomb?”

The doctor hesitated. “Nothing. I just didn't know that you were a friend of Bert's.”

“I'm not,” said Lennox. “I don't want any part of the screwy old hillbilly. I just happened to show up at a time when Clara needed an errand run.”

“A lucky accident, what?”

“Yes,” said Lennox. “A damn lucky accident.” His tone was even shorter than he intended. His headache was gone, but he was feeling far from his best, and he was still worried about Ashley and the shots he had heard. This, coupled with Newcomb's obvious curiosity, bothered him. What the devil was going on around here?

He did not voice the question aloud. He contented himself with running the boat, and he was very glad when it bumped the Cullen dock and Newcomb scrambled ashore. He did not wait for Lennox, but hurried up the path toward the lighted lodge. When Lennox had moored the boat and followed, Newcomb was in the living room, talking to Clara.

“Where's Chang?” he was asking when Lennox came through the door.

“With Uncle Bert. Go on in.”

Newcomb turned and gave Lennox a long look; then he disappeared through the door beside the stairway. The girl had discarded the rifle and she gave Lennox a slow, weary smile. “Thanks, William, that was sweet.”

“I'm a sweet boy,” he said. “I'm also a curious one. What in hell gives?”

She said. “Now, Bill, please...”

“Sure,” he said, bitterly. “You're appealing to my better nature. A gentleman wouldn't ask a girl embarrassing questions. The hell of it is, I'm no gentleman and I'm worried about my lovesick Romeo.”

She looked startled. “You mean Mister Ashley?”

“Are there two Romeos around here? I was sleeping off my hangover when a shot woke me up. Ashley was gone, and his man said that he'd come calling on you.”

“'On me? But I haven't seen him.”

Lennox shrugged. “Sold again,” he said. “I'm the prize sucker. He probably told Rany to say that he was calling on you, just in case I should wake up. Then he cut loose for the town. He's probably flat on his back under one of the bars at the moment.”

Clara Cullen looked concerned. “Does he actually drink so much?”

“Only recently,” said Lennox, who did not believe in protecting one's friends. “But he's the world's greatest screwball.”

“He seemed nice.”

“Most screwballs do.” He changed the subject abruptly. “You wouldn't care to tell me why you were dragging that rifle around when I first showed up, now would you?”

She looked at him squarely. “No, Bill, I wouldn't.”

Lennox shrugged. “I thought not. Well, so long, chum. I know when I'm not wanted. You can loan the doctor one of your boats to go home in.” He turned toward the door and the girl came out onto the porch after him. “Bill!”

“Yeah?” Lennox stopped.

“Look, Bill. I don't want to talk about the—rifle, but, well, thanks for going after Newcomb.”

He nodded. “Okay, baby. Don't worry. Little William has forgotten about the gun.” He went on down the steps, conscious that she was still on the porch, staring after him.

He pushed the boat away from the dock and turned to wave, but the porch was empty. The girl had disappeared.

3

Lights burned in Spurck's lodge when Lennox pushed open the front door and stepped into the big room, but the silence in the house was heavy.

He called Rany's name, got no answer, and went through into the kitchen. The lights were on here, too, but there was no sign of the valet.

Lennox went back through the pantry, picked up a half-full bottle of Scotch and went back to the living room. He filled a glass, downed it, considered, and then had a second.

He felt better. His muscles tight around his stomach loosened a little, and the nerves at the back of his neck slackened their tension.

He walked into the dark den and to the phone. Three turns of the crank got him the Miners' Club and he asked for Alf Jones.

“Seen anything of that actor friend of mine?”

Jones denied seeing Ashley. “He hasn't been around all evening.”

Lennox hung up. He went back to the main room and had another drink, then he climbed the stairs and went back along the hall to the room which Rany occupied. The door was open; the valet wasn't there.

Puzzled and a little worried, he stuck his head out of the window and peered around at the dark trees. The moon was almost down and the sky behind the dark peaks to the east was beginning to show a rim of light.

He called the valet's name and his own voice echoing from the trees gave the only response. He waited for a couple of minutes, then, swearing softly to himself, he pulled in his head and went down the hall to his room.

To the devil with it! He was going to bed. He did not bother to turn on the light, but sat down on the bed to pull off his shoes.

He jumped as if the bed had been hot. He had sat down on something hard, unyielding.

He reached the tight button in two jumps, clicked it and turned around.

A big man lay across the bed, lay on his side, the face turned to the wall, for just an instant, Lennox thought that he might be asleep, hoped that he was. But even before he went forward to lay a hand on the still shoulder, he guessed that the hope was vain.

Remembering back, afterwards, he thought that he must have recognized something in the set of the shoulders, for he was not surprised to see the dead man's face.

It was Richard Cullen.

A hundred thoughts flooded through Lennox's startled mind as he stood beside his bed and stared down at the dead man's face. The face, he thought, was a perfect mirror of the man.

Even in the passiveness of death it still held the stern ruthlessness which in life had driven this man forward.

A knife thrust had stopped him now, and the knife remained in the wound, a cheap, broad-bladed hunting knife. There were thousands like it in these hills.

A great many people in the picture world Would breathe easier because of this death, and a great many people in Skull Lake and in the hills behind it would give heartfelt thanks to any gods they knew, for this man's shadow had fallen as heavily over the hill country as it had across Wall Street and the Boulevard.

To Lennox personally, Cullen Or his death meant nothing, though the effect of his death might mean a great deal. In a way, he had felt a secret, somewhat qualified admiration for the man's impudence, for his daring in fighting the movie barons in their own private domain. He had fought for power, for control, using whatever weapons had come to his hands; that he had stolen millions rather than pennies did not alter the basic pattern of his behavior.

There would be few mourners at his bier. Even his brother and Jake Sloane had feared and hated him. But their interests and holdings were so bound up with Richard's that they had followed his leadership in self-protection.

Lennox gave the body a long, thoughtful stare. Spurck, then, had been right in thinking that Richard Cullen was headed for Skull Lake; but Lennox would no longer be called upon to attempt negotiating a settlement of the color suit with him.

Spurck would have to work on someone else now, Scranton perhaps, the nominal head of Pinnacle Pictures. Scranton, too, was a robber baron, but not of Richard Cullen's class.

No, in the general run of things, Cullen's death could be regarded as a godsend to the studio. Lennox's mouth twisted as he considered this. He wondered how many other people would think the same, and after all, it was his bed in which Cullen had finally come to rest.

Well, that couldn't be helped now. He'd had enough of moving bodies. He headed toward the phone and put in a call for the police.

4

Fred Hampton had been sheriff for better than twenty years. Big, slow, rather soft-spoken, he was unexcited and certainly unmoved by the news of the murder.

He gave Lennox a hard-palmed hand and said, evenly: “Killings aren't uncommon in this country, but mostly there ain't no doubt who did them.” He shoved his battered felt hat well back on his forehead and a lock of heavy grey hair slipped down to drop across his eyes.

He brushed it back and wiped his forehead on his shirt sleeve. It was hot.

“Nice place.” He looked about the big room of the lodge speculatively. “I'd like Mamma to see it some time. She's a great one for fixing things up.” He pulled out a battered paper of tobacco and filled his cheek comfortably with fine cut. “You all alone here?”

Lennox shook his head. “There's another man staying with me, an actor named Ashley. He isn't here now. I suspect that he's over in town somewhere, probably lying under a bar.”

The sheriff showed little interest in Ashley. “I'm not up on this business much,” he admitted. “Maybe the best way would be if you'd tell me exactly what happened here last night.”

Lennox did so. He began with his drinking bout of the afternoon, of his and Ashley's fall into the lake, of meeting the girl and being ordered off the place by Bert Cullen.

“When the shot awakened me,” he continued, “and I found Ashley gone, my first thought was that he'd tried to call on the girl, and that Bert had used him for a target.”

The sheriff chuckled. “Bert has a way with him,” he admitted. “Me, I never felt like arguing with him when he had a gun, or when he didn't, for that matter, but Miss Clara now, there's a nice girl. What was she doing with that rifle?”

“I don't know,” Lennox told him. “I couldn't figure it out, and I couldn't very well give her a third degree. That's your job. Anyhow, I got the doctor for them, and came back here to find Rany missing. I called for him, then gave it up. When I tried to go to bed, I found it occupied and called you.”

Hampton looked around for a place to spit, found none, and swallowed resignedly. The coroner, who was also the county seat's only undertaker, appeared at the top of the stairs and the sheriff turned his attention to him.

“How long's he been dead, Sam?”

The coroner was a long, thin man with a prominent Adam's apple. He wore a low-cut stiff collar which made his scrawny neck seem longer than it actually was.

“Well, now,” he scratched his nose with a yellowed forefinger, “that's kind of hard to say. He died as a result of that knife being stuck into his heart.”

“That's right interesting,” the sheriff winked at Lennox. “Make a guess, Sam. You've seen enough stiffs. How long do you figure he's been dead?”

The coroner hated to be pinned down. “Well, it's kind of hard to say. I'd guess that maybe he was killed around twelve-thirty or maybe one o'clock. Might have been some later, but not much earlier.”

The sheriff looked toward Lennox, who shook his head. “Couldn't have been. I was in that bed at the time. I'll grant that I was tight, but I wasn't so tight that I wouldn't have known it if I had a corpse in bed with me.”

“'Twasn't much blood on the sheet,” the coroner suggested. “If you ask me, he was killed somewhere else and carried up here.”

“Have to be a big man,” Hampton suggested. “Dick Cullen weighed a good two hundred. I'd hate like hell to pack him very far. Tom! Hey, Tom!”

“Yeah.” A man appeared at the coroner's side.

“What'd you find in his pockets?”

The deputy came down the stairs. “A lot of dough,” he said. “Must be at least two grand. I haven't counted it yet.” He paused beside an end table and began to remove the contents from the side pocket of his coat.

“You know Tom Shea?” the sheriff asked Lennox.

Bill shook hands with the deputy. “I've seen you over in town.”

Shea nodded. He extracted a slip of yellow paper which he passed to the sheriff. Hampton unfolded it and Lennox read the message across his shoulder. It was addressed to Richard Cullen, Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, and ran:

Come at once, situation serious.

 

The message was signed Jay and had been filed at Placerville two days before.

The sheriff folded the message and returned it to the big deputy. “It was serious for him. Wonder how he got up here? If he drove, his car must be around somewhere.”

“Probably left it across the lake at the mine garage,” Shea offered. “Usually does, and rents a boat.”

“Then where's the boat?”

The big deputy did not know and lapsed into silence. The sheriff looked at the other articles which Shea had spread out upon the table. There was a gold-bound notecase, well filled; a small cardcase, several letters, a patent cigar lighter, a bunch of keys, a handful of silver and small bills, a couple of handkerchiefs, and a small, compact automatic.

The sheriff picked up the little gun, which fitted nicely into the palm of his hand. He removed the clip, noted that it was filled, and held the barrel to his nose. Then he used the point of a lead pencil and a handkerchief corner. The gun had evidently not been fired recently.

He returned the gun to the table and picked up the notecase, opening it to expose a thick sheaf of bills of large denomination. “Picture business must be good,” he commented, as he returned the case to the table. “I think I'll take a run down to Hollywood. They should be able to use a couple of sheriffs in pictures.”

Hampton broke off as a car ground to a stop behind the lodge. “See who that is,” he called to Shea.

The big deputy vanished soundlessly and the sheriff turned to Lennox. “Well, we don't seem to be getting any place.” He sounded apologetic. “Gotta move slow on a thing like this. Don't want to stir up any bad feeling.”

Lennox knew that the sheriff was thinking of Bert Cullen.

He didn't answer and the sound of feet on the veranda turned their attention to the door. Shea appeared, followed by a younger man whom Hampton greeted without pleasure. “Oh, it's you.”

The newcomer was as tall as Lennox and a couple of years younger. His features were heavy, and his carefully trimmed hair grew down his forehead in a pronounced widow's peak. He was good looking, with a confident air about him.

“You might have notified me. I have to find out everything from our telephone exchange.”

“This is the district attorney,” Hampton told Lennox. “Name's Morgan, Vance Morgan. He's Sloane's man.”

Lennox knew enough about local politics to know that if Morgan was Sloane's man, he was no friend of the sheriffs, and he found that he did not like Morgan on first sight.

If the district attorney was conscious of this dislike, he gave no sign. Instead he rubbed his hands briskly and started to ask a flood of questions.

Hampton cut him short. “Now, Vance, take it easy. Murder is murder. We have them once in awhile and will have 'em as long as human nature stays what it is.”

Morgan stared at him. “Damn it, Fred. Stop acting like a comic. This is important. Cullen was important. What's going to happen to his picture studio? Why, say, this Lennox. Isn't it his studio that Cullen was suing for five million dollars, five m....” his eyes centered on Lennox, and for the first time he seemed to realize who Bill was.

William Lennox did not deny it. He'd been waiting for this ever since the sheriff had arrived.

Morgan was getting a little excited. “And you got a wire from your boss last night, telling you that Mister Cullen was coming to Skull, and that you were to meet him and make a settlement. Is this the kind of settlement he wanted?”

Hampton had turned to look at Lennox. “You didn't tell me about any wire, Bill?”

Lennox shrugged wearily. “It didn't seem important. I don't know how Morgan found out about the wire, probably through his connection with the telephone exchange.

“It doesn't matter,” he went on. “I got the wire, yes. I asked Clara last night if her uncle was at the lake and she denied it. I had no idea that Cullen was within a hundred miles of here until I found him in my bed.”

Morgan was still excited. “How do we know that?” he demanded. “I've heard the stories they tell about you, Lennox. You're the smart boy of Hollywood. What are you doing up here, anyhow?”

“Vacation.” Lennox did not expect to be believed and Morgan did not disappoint him.

“Don't you see?” the prosecutor demanded of the sheriff. “This case is coming up. They probably thought that Lennox could do something with Bert or with Jake Sloane. They both own stock in the studio, you know. He was sent up here to talk to them, and Dick hears of it, so he rushes up himself. They have an argument and Lennox knifes him.”

“And put him in my own bed,” Lennox said with vast disgust. “I always do that with all my victims and then arrange it so that I haven't a ghost of an alibi.”

Hampton laughed and Morgan glared at him. “Take it easy, Vance; if Lennox killed him, we'll find out soon enough.” He turned to the coroner. “What about the inquest? Want to hold it tomorrow?”

The coroner agreed and the sheriff told Shea: “You camp over here with Lennox, Tom, and keep any tourists from running all over the place. I'm going over to Bert Cullen's. Will you run me up, Bill? It's quicker by boat than trying to drive the ridge road.”

“I'm coming,” said Morgan. He sounded like a sulky child who just had his fingers slapped.

Lennox said: “Of course I'll run you up, if Morgan doesn't think that I'll take the boat and head for China.”

“Go to hell!” the district attorney told him.

Hampton paid no attention. He turned to the phone, called the Skull Lake marshal and asked him to try to locate Ashley and the valet Rany. “You'd better send Bill Moore over with his truck,” he added. “We've got to move a body.”

“Okay,” he told Lennox. “Let's go.”

3

CLARA CULLEN came out on the porch, attracted by the sound of the outboard, and stood at the head of the steps as they came up the path, an expression of surprise lighting her eyes as she saw the sheriff.

“Is Mister Ashley still lost?”

Bill nodded. “That's right. Haven't seen him, have you?”

She shook her head. “There was a funny little man here asking for him about ten minutes after you left last night. He seemed quite concerned.”

“That's Rany,” said Lennox. “What happened to him?”

“I think he walked on around the lake toward town.”

“Probably got lost in the brush. Damn tenderfeet. They never would learn to stay on beaten paths.”

The girl turned her attention to the sheriff. “How are you, Mister Hampton? Hello, Vance.”

Morgan seemed strangely tongue-tied. “I'm fine,” he managed. “I'm just fine.”

The sheriff's easy tones covered his obvious confusion. “Bill says that Bert had a stroke last night. How is he?”

For an instant the girl's eyes were on Lennox as if accusing him of a breach of confidence, then she said: “He seems better this morning. It's affected one side and he can't speak. Uncle Jay...Doctor Newcomb is with him now. He stayed all night.”

The sheriff shoved his hat far back on his head. “That makes it bad.” He sounded unhappy. “I wanted to talk to him. You see, Clara, we've got some bad news for you.”

It seemed to Lennox that the girl's eyes narrowed a trifle. “Bad news? What kind of bad news?”

“Did you know that your Uncle Dick was at Skull Lake last night?”

Her eyes went to Lennox. “Why no, Bill asked me the same thing. I'm certain that he wasn't. I wired him at the studio this morning.”

“He never got your wire,” said Hampton. “He's dead, Clara. Bill found him when he got back to Spurck's camp last night.”

“Dead, you...you mean murdered?”

“What makes you say that?” Lennox had not known that the sheriff could speak so rapidly. His words hit at the girl like bullets from a machine gun.

Morgan it was who answered: “Stop it,” he said, angrily. “Leave her alone, Hampton.”

Everyone looked at him in surprise; then the girl said, uncertainly, “It's all right, Vance. I don't need any protection.” She robbed the words of any sting with a little twisted smile. “I don't know what made me say that, Mr. Hampton. It's just that ever since last night I've had the strangest premonition of impending evil. I... I guess that it's nerves, and worry about Uncle Bert, and that terrible man coming and...”

“What's that?” said Hampton. “What man?”

She hesitated. “I... I didn't tell Bill last night, because Uncle Bert made me promise not to say anything to anyone, but now, since you've told me about Uncle Dick... a man came here last night. I'd never seen him before, but I knew who he was. His name is Scribbs and he used to know my uncles in Tonopah, Nevada.”

She broke off as if trying to find the proper words, then said: “My uncles lived in Tonopah until Uncle Dick went east in the early twenties. They had some trouble with this man Scribbs and Scribbs shot Uncle Bert in the back.

“It wasn't serious, but Scribbs was sent to prison. Anyhow, last night Scribbs showed up here. I was with Uncle Bert when he came, and Bert warned me never to tell anyone. Then he got his rifle and went out to talk to the man.”

Hampton looked at her. “What then?”

“In about five minutes there was a shot. I was scared. I rushed into the main room. Uncle Bert was standing in the center of the floor cursing terribly. Even as I came in, he let the rifle drop, and fell.

“I called Chang and we got him onto the couch. I tried to phone the doctor, but his phone hadn't been connected. I started down to the boat, but a sound in the bushes frightened me. I ran back into the house and hid behind the drapes. Someone came in and I stepped out with the rifle, then I realized it was Bill Lennox.”

Hampton was not satisfied. “And you saw nothing further of this Scribbs?”

She shook her head. “I didn't see anyone save the funny little man who came looking for Mr. Ashley.”

It was obvious that Hampton hated to keep questioning the girl but he asked: “And you're sure your Uncle Dick wasn't here, couldn't have come into the lodge without you knowing it?”

She looked surprised, her eyes shifting from one to another before she answered. “I don't think so. Why should he come here without seeing me?”

Hampton wasn't through with Scribbs. “You say he hated both your uncles. Maybe he could have killed Dick? I wish Bert could talk. I'll have to ask Jake Sloane if he knew Dick was coming up here last night.”

“I've already asked him,” said Morgan. “I called him on the phone as soon as I heard the news. He was amazed to hear of Dick's death. The last he knew, Dick was still in Hollywood.”

Hampton nodded and turned back to the girl. “Do you know anything about this trouble your uncle was having with General Consolidated?”

She shook her head. “Neither of my uncles ever discussed anything with me. They didn't think much of women. I only know what I've read in the papers.”

“And what time did Lennox leave here?”

She looked startled. “Are you trying to suggest that Bill Lennox killed Dick because of that silly color process? If you are, I never heard of anything so stupid in my life. He left here at twenty-five minutes past three. I looked at the clock as soon as I got back into the house.”

“And he called my office at five minutes to four,” Hampton was again talking to himself. “Not much time to meet a man and kill him, still... if I could only talk to Bert.”

“You can't,” she told him decisively. “Doctor Jay says that he must be kept absolutely quiet. I've wired Reno to send a nurse. She'll be up on the evening bus. I only hope that Chang won't cause too much trouble. You know how he is. He thinks that when Uncle Bert is sick, he's the boss. He doesn't have a very good opinion of women, either.”

Vance Morgan said, “This is terribly hard on you, Clara. I wish I could help. If there's anything I can do...”

“Thanks, Vance,” she gave him another smile. “I wonder if you could meet the nurse and bring her over. I'm almost afraid to send Chang for fear he'll drive her away before she ever gets here.”

Morgan looked suddenly confused. “I'd love to, but I...I've got an appointment with Jake Sloane at seven and...”

“I'll meet her,” Lennox said. “I can run her across in the boat. That is, if Morgan doesn't have me in jail by that time.”

2

Tom Shea was sitting on the dock when they pulled up to Spurck's landing, examining one of the rods which Lennox had stuck up on the boathouse wall to dry.

“Must have cost a pretty penny,” said Shea, testing it with a slight motion of his big wrist.

“Spurck bought it.”

Lennox was anchoring the boat.

“Then it cost twice too much,” Shea spat into the water. “Those movie guys don't believe anything can be good unless it costs too much. Find out anything?”

“Bert Cullen had a stroke.” The sheriff was speaking, “Some guy named Scribbs came to see him. Maybe you knew Scribbs, Tom?” He turned to Lennox.

“Tom was born in Tonopah when she was a snorting gold camp, grew up with the Cullens. He owned one of the mines that started the rush to Weepah in the early twenties.”

“And sold it for twelve thousand,” Shea said, reminiscently. “A bunch of New Yorkers bought it. I thought that I'd cheated hell out of them, but they took four million from that hole. You never know in mining.” He grinned wryly, then said, in a different tone:

“Yeah, I remember Scribbs, lousy little runt, but boy, how he hated the Cullens! I was in Bert's assay office the day Scribbs come in with the gun. Bert didn't have a gun, and he tried to get out the back door. Scribbs was so all fired anxious he didn't even get his gun up; let him have it right in the rump. It wasn't fatal, but it was painful as hell.”

He broke off to fill one cheek with fine-cut. “The Cullens had made dough when they were kids, buying stolen ore during the miners' strike at Goldfield. Jake Sloane had a mine and they peddled the ore as if it came from his hole. Damn near drove the Goldfield Consolidated crazy.

“Anyhow, they pulled a lot of weight, and they sent Scribbs to prison for twenty years. Otherwise he'd have gotten six months for being such a rotten shot.”

Lennox listened with interest. He always enjoyed hearing the stories of the mining camps, but Hampton interrupted. “Well, maybe Scribbs is the guy we're looking for. We'll see if he's around, and if your man Ashley and this Rany don't show up, Bill, we'll get out a search party. Come on, Morgan, you can drive me back to town. Tom can bring my car in tomorrow.”

Morgan hesitated. “You mean, you're just going to leave Lennox loose without anything...”

Hampton was impatient. “Look, Vance, if Bill did that killing, he's not going to run. If he'd intended to run, he'd have been long gone. Come on, let's get moving.”

After the sound of the car had faded along the ridge, Shea said, conversationally, “You look kind of bad. I heard about your drinking. Alf Jones can't talk about nothing else.”

“That's a compliment, coming from Alf,” Lennox admitted, “but I'm more worried about Peter Ashley than I am about my head.” Shea seemed to want to talk, and Lennox let him go on while he thought about Ashley.

“Always expected Bert to bust a blood vessel,” Shea was saying. “He used to get so sore at Dick that he couldn't talk for days.

“Remember one time Dick picked up a dance hall gal and took her over to the Goldfield Hotel. The hotel wasn't what it had been in '10 or '11 when she was new, but it was still pretty nice and only the nice people went there. But that didn't stop Dick. He was a heller in them days, young and full of vinegar. Him and me had some times till he got too big for his britches and went off east...” He broke off. “Say, who's this guy?”

Lennox turned to see Ashley coming around the driveway. The actor swayed as he walked, and there was a strip of white cloth around his dark head.

He saw the men and raised his hand feebly. Lennox ran forward and put an arm around his friend's shoulders. “What in the devil happened to you?”

Ashley managed a grin. “Look. Could I have one drink, Willie, just one little drink? I need it, pal; I need it as no man has ever needed a drink since the beginning of time.”

Lennox did not argue. He did not need to be told that the actor was near exhaustion. He steered Ashley's uncertain footsteps toward the porch, calling to Shea for help. Between them they got him up the steps and into the swing. Then, telling Shea to look at the man's head, Lennox went inside after some brandy.

When he returned, Ashley had introduced himself and Shea was seated at his side, his feet on the porch rail and a villainous pipe between his teeth.

He lowered his feet and gravely accepted the brandy which Lennox offered him after dosing the actor. “Kinda hard night, he had.” Shea swallowed the brandy and wiped his mustache with the back of his big hand. “Tough country to get lost in. Reminds me of a fisherman that got himself lost back before the other war. Wandered around five days and never was further than ten mile from Fuller's Ranch. We tracked him, for the fun of it.”

Ashley shuddered. “I guess that I should have paid more attention to my scoutmaster. Hell! Every hill looks the same, especially when you have a cracked skull.”

“And just how did you get the skull cracked?” Lennox wanted to know.

Ashley shrugged and helped himself to more brandy. “After I dunked you into bed last night, I got to thinking about that girl. Finally I decided to walk over there, hoping the old boy with the shotgun wasn't around.

“I walked over okay, and there were a lot of lights on. I stopped to give the place the once over. Someone sneaked up behind me and hit me over the head. His first blow didn't knock me out and I came up fighting. We had quite a battle for a few minutes, and then he socked me again and I went out like a light.

“When I woke up it was morning and I was lying in a clump of pine on the side of a hill. I lay there for a while trying to figure out where I was, and finally I got enough strength to get up. I figured the lake would be down hill, so I went that way. I ran into a little stream at the bottom and started to follow it down, thinking it would run into the lake.”

“Must have been on the other side of the ridge,” Shea suggested. “If you'd have walked far enough you'd have probably hit Carson.”

“I walked a hell of a ways,” Ashley groaned, as he stooped and began to unlace his shoes. “Rany, hey, Rany! Where in hell are you?”

“Rany isn't here,” said Lennox and told the actor what had happened.

Ashley looked up with rounded eyes. “Jesus! I always miss the fun. Imagine finding a stiff in your bed.”

“I don't have to imagine it,” said Lennox. “I did.” He shuddered at the thought and poured himself a drink. “That goddamn district attorney was trying to suggest that General Consolidated had had trouble with Dick Cullen and that I'd probably tried to earn a bonus by knifing the bastard.”

Ashley's eyes took on a new interest as he thought of something. “And you say the other one, the little one with the big hat and shotgun has had a stroke? Swell. Then there's no reason why I can't go calling on Clara.”

“You'd better lay off.” Lennox was sour. “You don't know Bert Cullen. He may have a stroke, but if you come around I'll give you even money that he gets out of bed long enough to blow a hole in you. That guy never loses an idea once he gets it. You don't have to believe me. Ask Shea. He grew up with the Cullens in Tonopah.”

The deputy knocked the heel of tobacco from his pipe, made certain that there was no fire. “That's right,” he admitted. “Bert Cullen is tough. There aren't many like him left.”

“You mean he was actually a Western badman?” Ashley sounded incredulous. “Don't give me that stuff.”

Shea shrugged. “I don't care what you believe, mister. Bert Cullen wasn't more than sixteen when he started buying high grade ore that the miners stole from the Goldfield Consolidated. He's done everything from salting mines at Weepah to shooting his man on the street of Skull Lake. That's the trouble with you Easterners. You think all the shooting happened a hundred years ago. Don't forget, the last rush was in the twenties, and there was plenty of rough stuff. I should know. I was there.”

“Nuts,” Ashley was not convinced. “I'm going to have a bath. I wish Rany would show up. I'm worried about the jerk.” He rose and disappeared into the house. Shea stared after him. “Boy, what ignorance!”

“He's never been west of the Harlem River,” Lennox explained. “We should be thankful he doesn't expect to find an Indian behind every tree. Well, you know why he's cleaning up. He's going to see Clara, and I can't stop him. I suppose that I'll have to go along to make sure he doesn't get lost again. There's food in the kitchen and plenty of drinking liquor. Make yourself at home.”

3

Lennox was surprised to see Morgan's car parked in the Cullen drive as he turned the boat toward the landing. “Now, listen,” he said to Ashley, who was hunched in the bow of the boat, “you aren't going to be very welcome here, so don't start anything.”

“Who's going to start anything?” Ashley had shaved and had a bath. Aside from the crossed adhesive tape with which Shea had decorated one side of his skull, he looked almost human, and Lennox had to admit that, with the dark hair, the paleness of his skin made him decidedly handsome.

“Well, don't,” he said, running the boat along the wharf and stepping out. “There's been enough trouble here for twenty-four hours.” He led the way up the sloping path and found the sheriff on the wide veranda.

A moment later the screen opened and Newcomb came out on the porch.

Hampton acknowledged Lennox's arrival with a little nod, looked hard at Ashley, and then turned his attention to the doctor.

“Sorry to bother you, Doc, but there are a few questions that have to be asked.”

Bill saw Newcomb's lips twitch slightly and his eyes avoid the sheriff.

“That's all right, Hampton. I'm glad to help; but, hell, I don't see how I can.”

“Let's sit down.” Hampton drew out a stogy and forced it between his lips. He waited until Newcomb was seated, then said: “How long until Bert can answer questions?”

The doctor placed the tips of his long, tapering fingers together and studied them intently. “You can see him now,” he said, after a moment's hesitation, “but it won't do you any good. He can neither move, nor speak. I believe that he can hear, but I have no way of being certain.”

“What's wrong with him?” It was Lennox who asked.

Newcomb glanced at the studio man for one fleeting second, then looked again at the sheriff. “Call it a stroke. A stroke covers a lot of things. Bert suffers from high blood pressure, and the sight of an unwanted visitor last night was too much for him.

“I'm trying to get the blood pressure down. He's not an old man, but he's lived hard, eaten and drunk too much, and not taken sufficient care of himself.”

The sheriff had been staring out across the lake. “Didn't you know the Cullens in Tonopah, Doctor?”

Even in the half dusk, Lennox saw Newcomb start. For an instant there was silence on the wide porch, and then the doctor chuckled. “Your past always catches up with you. Yes, I knew the Cullens in Tonopah. I came there as a young fellow, just out of medical school. My lungs weren't all that they should have been.

“I was there until after the last war. When I came out of the army, I settled in Los Angeles. But how in the world you knew that...”

“My deputy was born in Tonopah,” Hampton explained.

“Shea?” Newcomb's voice had become musing. “I'd forgotten that. Yes, I knew Tom. I knew a lot of men who became famous afterward.”

“But you kept up your friendship with the Cullens?”

Newcomb said: “I did more than that. I've had a business partnership with them for years. Once a man is bitten with the mining bug, he never completely recovers.”

“And you knew this man Scribbs, the one who called on Bert Cullen last night?”

Newcomb nodded. “I treated Bert on the day that Scribbs shot him, and I was one of the witnesses at the trial which sent Ben Scribbs to prison. Yes, I knew him, but I haven't seen him for a long, long time.”

“Isn't your name Jay?” Lennox demanded.

“Why, yes.” Newcomb seemed vaguely amused. “It's no secret.”

“A telegram was found in Richard Cullen's pocket,” Lennox continued. “It was signed Jay, and evidently it was the message that brought him north. Did you send it?”

Newcomb took a full minute to answer. “Yes,” he admitted. “I sent it.”

“Then...”

“But I didn't see Dick. I sent it at the instance of Jake Sloane. He wanted to talk to Dick about this color suit that we've filed against your studio. Dick was supposed to arrive in Skull Lake last night. I waited at Sloane's office until midnight, but he didn't show up, so I drove home. I'd barely gotten into the house when you arrived.”

The sheriff interrupted. “Yet the garage man in town says that Dick Cullen drove in and left his car at eleven.”

“I can't help that.” The doctor did not seem worried. “Ask Jake Sloane. Neither of us saw Dick last night.”

Lennox glanced at his watch. “Well, if I'm going to meet Clara's nurse, I've got to be going. Where's Morgan?”

“In town,” the sheriff told him. “He went on with the body. I came back to talk to Newcomb. And,” his mouth twisted, “it looks as if I might have saved myself the trouble.”

4

It was fully dark by the time Lennox reached the town side of the lake. He moored his boat and started up the main street toward the Chinese restaurant. As he entered the long room, he saw the town marshal at one of the rear tables and went back to join him. “Hello, Pepper! Did you find Rany?”

“We found him.” The marshal was a small man with a big, white mustache. “Turned up about noon in one of the cribs, drunker than a billy goat. I tossed him in the can.”

Lennox stared at Pepper's weather-seamed face. “Not Rany. Why, hell! I never heard of his taking a drink.”

“He made up for it last night,” Pepper chuckled. “Wanted to fight when we picked him up. I had to cool him with my gun.”

As Lennox ate the steak, beans, and potatoes which the waiter delivered, he looked around the hot, steamy room. It smelled faintly of cooked cabbage and was as dirty as the rest of the town. Flies had left their signatures on the panels of metal which sheathed the room, and there were two bullet holes in the ceiling above the cashier's desk.

The marshal had finished and was sucking on a wooden toothpick. “There's twenty bucks against that Rany guy.”

“Let him stay in jail,” said Lennox. “He doesn't work for me.” He drank a cup of coffee, watched the marshal leave and then watched three “line” girls from the dance hall down the street.

From their clothes and appearance, they might have stepped off Hollywood Boulevard. Maybe they had, or from San Berdoo. The army had cleaned them out down there. He finished his coffee, paid his check, and went out.

A pattern of deep shadows and bright lights, flanked by sharp neon of red and green, the street itself was paved, and there were no longer hitch racks and wooden sidewalks, but for the most part, the buildings, and the businesses which occupied them, were unchanged. A chain store with an open vegetable stand, a five-and-ten, and a cut-rate drugstore were the only modern touches. He stood in the restaurant entrance long enough to light his cigarette, then drifted along the sidewalk toward the bus stop at the south end of town.

The street was pretty well deserted. In two hours, it would be crowded. He peered over swinging doors at the two bars which he passed, trying to decide whether he needed an after-dinner drink. He had not decided when a man suddenly came from an open stairway to block his progress.

“You Lennox?”

Startled, Bill nodded, and then looked sharply at the speaker. There was nothing to distinguish the man. He wore a blue shirt, dungarees, and a tattered hat. He might have been a miner, off shift, or a swamper from one of the saloons.

“Sloane wants to see you,” said the man. “He's in the office upstairs.” The message delivered, he turned flatly on his heel and started down the street, not looking back.

Lennox stared after him, wondering what in the devil Jake Sloane could want with him. Perhaps Sloane wanted to discuss the color process suit. After all, the man was a heavy stockholder in Pinnacle Pictures. He hesitated, wondering if he should talk to the man, then glanced at his watch. It lacked fifteen minutes of the time the nurse's bus was due.

Curiosity won. The boss of Skull Valley had always intrigued him. He turned toward the stairs and mounted the broken treads to the second floor.

There was a single bulb, lighting the full length of the bare hall. Lennox hesitated uncertainly at the top of the steps.

There was a door on the right, standing open some half dozen inches, just enough to show that the lights were on in the office beyond.

He crossed the hall and pushed open the door. Nothing happened, no sound reached his listening ears. He called again, and then from the office beyond came the sharp, stinging sound of a shot.

Lennox's action was entirely instinctive. He jumped forward across the outer office, around a high desk, and pulled open the connecting door.

The first thing he saw as he got the door open was Jake Sloane. The mine owner was standing behind a desk, leaning forward, his clenched fists resting on the edge of the desk.

“Damn you!” he whispered. “God damn you!” With that he fell forward, his short body and arms sprawling across the broad top of the desk.

Lennox ran forward and caught the man's shoulder, trying to turn him over, His fingers struck a spot that was wet and sticky and he recoiled instinctively.

Turning, he saw the gun. It lay a couple of feet inside the open window and, before he thought, he had stooped and picked it up. He was still examining it when he heard the quick click of footsteps across the outer office and realized that a woman was standing in the connecting doorway.

He had the impression that she was not young. He also had the impression that she was expensively dressed, too well dressed for this mountain town.

Then her eyes focused on the still figure and on the stain which was spreading gradually from under Sloane's armpit.

She screamed, a short, sharp sound which filled the confines of the room.

The sound jerked Lennox's eyes up to her face, He saw her eyes, grey and round and staring. He saw her smooth cheeks, looking a little out of place beneath the grey border of her hair.

“You killed him,” she said, and she was no longer screaming. “You killed him.” The even modulation of her words was more telling than any scream. “Go ahead. Kill me, too. Use the same gun. Use it quickly before I call for the police.” Lennox did not move. She stared at him as if she did not believe her own eyes. Then she turned and her heels clicked hurriedly across the brown linoleum of the outer office. He heard her reach the hall and run quickly down the stairs. Then he turned and looked at Jake Sloane. After a moment he laid down the gun and bent over the prostrate man. Jake Sloane was dead.

4

CALEB PEPPER was still chewing his toothpick when he came into the office. He looked small and tired and his mustache drooped discouragedly.

There were several townsmen with him and Lennox nodded to Alf Jones of the Miners' Club, then told them what had happened.

Pepper listened without appearing to hear the words. He seemed stunned and he kept repeating over and over to himself: “It ain't going to be the same town without Jake. It ain't going to be the same town.”

He was interrupted by Morgan, who came charging up the stairs like a race horse. “What's this I hear?” He was talking as he shoved his way through the outer office. “What's this I hear about Jake?”

He reached the connecting doorway and stopped, his quick black eyes snapping a little as they ranged from Jake Sloane's body up to Lennox's face. “Oh! You again?”

“Me,” said Lennox. He found that his dislike of Morgan was growing. “I suppose I have to tell it all over again for your benefit. It's a shame you couldn't have come sooner.”

Vance Morgan flushed. “I was waiting to see Jake over at the mill.”

“That's rather a strange place to wait for him when he was here,” Lennox said.

Morgan muttered something under his breath. “They say that you killed him.”

Lennox was looking at Pepper. “Who was the grey-haired dame that reported this?”

The marshal still did not seem to be fully awake. “Mary Crewe.”

Vance Morgan looked surprised. “What has she got to do with this?”

Pepper shrugged. “How do I know?” His old voice sounded defensive. “She came running down the street. I was standing on the corner talking to Alf. She said that Jake was dead, that one of the movie crowd had killed him. She ran on down toward her place as if all hell was after her.” He spat out the frayed toothpick and chewed on his mustache instead.

“Hell of a thing. I heard the shot but didn't think nothing about it. Someone's always letting fly with a gun.”

Morgan had recovered some of his dignity. His voice, which he tried to make austere, was merely harsh. “All right, Lennox.”

Bill repeated the story. He did not expect Morgan to believe him and was, therefore, not surprised to see the skepticism which grew in the district attorney's eyes.

When he had finished, Morgan said: “I should think you could make up a better one than that. After all, you make your living in pictures.”

Lennox ignored the slur and glanced at his watch. “The sheriff sent me over to meet a nurse. Her bus must be in by now and the poor dame is probably scared to death. Will you have someone hunt her up?” He appealed to Pepper, knowing that it would be useless to try to talk to Morgan.

The little marshal cleared his throat. “Don't see any reason you shouldn't meet her yourself.”

The district attorney exploded. “What in hell's the matter with you, Caleb? Are you going to turn a murderer loose, just because some dame has to be met?”

Pepper spat toward a battered brass cuspidor. “Now, Vance, I've knowd Bill here for five or six year. Suppose he is the killer. He's not going to run away, not with that fancy-pants job he's got down in Hollywood. He'll be around, any time I say, won't you?”

Lennox looked from one to the other. “Certainly.”

Morgan snorted. “Of all the damn fool things I ever heard of. No wonder Skull Valley is the most lawless town in California. It's a wonder we don't have keys to the city made and hand them to every killer that comes our way.”

Pepper blinked at him. “Key wouldn't unlock nothing,” he said, mildly. “Ain't a door in the whole valley that's been locked these twenty years. Run along, Bill, and you'd better tell the sheriff what's happened as soon as you get over to Cullen's.”

Lennox did not wait for more. He pushed his way through the crowd which filled the outer office and went down the worn stairs. Several people stopped him to ask questions, but he hurried on toward the little magazine stand which served as a bus station.

2

The nurse was tall and angular, and the eyes which she turned on Lennox were slate grey. “I'm Ellen Dawson,” she said. “I had a telegram from a Miss Cullen.”

He nodded. “The name is Lennox. They sent me over to meet you.”

Interest lighted her colorless eyes. “You're the man who found the body in his bed.”

Lennox stared at her. “Where in the devil...?”

She told him. “It was all in the papers. You work for the movies, don't you? Did you ever meet Melvyn Douglas?”

Lennox admitted that he had and said, hastily: “We'd better be moving. We've got a long boat ride and there's a west wind.”

“Boat ride? You mean that I've got to go out on that lake?”

“It's perfectly safe,” he told her. “I was a life guard on Lake Michigan when I was sixteen. Sorry I haven't got my medals with me.”

She protested, but he gathered up her two paper suitcases and walked out of the little waiting room. Damn women, he thought. They always picked the worst time to argue.

There was a wind blowing, and the lake was rough, but fortunately the outboard behaved itself and they were soon chugging across the rippled water.

After her first few minutes, the nurse gained confidence and began to talk. “How many in the Cullen family?”

Lennox was nursing the engine. “Three. Mr. Cullen, his niece and a Chinese servant. However, the doctor has been staying there.”

“Doctor? Hold old is he?”

Lennox looked up at her sharply, then away, and the darkness covered his grin. “Fifty, sixty-five, hard to tell. His name is Newcomb.”

She was silent for a few minutes then she said, “I suppose that there are a lot of men around—police and such?”

Lennox looked at her again. All he could see was an outline of her gaunt figure in the half moonlight, but some devil prompted him to say:

“There's an actor, a fellow named Ashley. Quite handsome, and he likes older women. You'll have to watch yourself, Miss Dawson.”

“Really?”

“I'm not kidding,” said Lennox.

The nurse stared at the dark ragged line which the trees made along the distant shore. “It's so lonely up here after Reno. How much further do we have to go?”

“Not far,” Lennox reassured her. He was having trouble keeping his attention on her words. His mind was busy with Jake Sloane's death. Who was Mary Crewe, the grey-haired woman who had accused him of murdering Sloane? And what had she been doing in the mine owner's office? Yes, and why had Vance Morgan been so surprised that she should have been there?

Deep in thought, he almost ran the flatboat against the small landing before he realized where they were. There was a burning lantern hung on a peg in the boathouse wall, and its dim light showed Clara Cullen waiting for them.

“I heard the motor,” she told Lennox, after he had introduced her to the nurse.

Miss Dawson was making sure of her suitcases. Then she turned and looked at the gleaming lights of the lodge and sighed with relief. “It doesn't look so lonesome.”

“It's lonesome, all right,” Clara Cullen contradicted, “but you get used to it. I'll show you to your room. Come on, Bill. You can carry the suitcases to the porch.”

He followed them up the path to the porch. Ashley rose from a shadowed chair and Lennox realized that the actor was a little drunk. He waited until the girl had led the nurse inside, then asked, “Where's the sheriff?”

“Gone,” said Ashley. “Gone on official business.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Nice guy, the sheriff. Left me all alone with my girl.”

“You're drunk,” said Lennox. “Not even a couple of murders can make a sober citizen of you.”

Ashley grinned vaguely. “I'm drowning my sorrow,” he confided. “Clara doesn't love me. She thinks I'm silly.”

Lennox looked at him. “Which shows a high I.Q. on her part. You are silly. You are, in fact, stupid.”

“Lay on, MacDuff.” Ashley was not even insulted. “The nurse, was she presentable? I couldn't tell in this light.”

“A honey,” Lennox lied. “Never have I seen such a honey, and you should have heard the buildup I gave you.”

Ashley regarded him with bitter suspicion. “I'll bet. I know you, old pal, old pal. My throat is probably cut from here to Frisco. Which reminds me, did you hear anything about Rany?”

“He's in jail.” Lennox retreated behind the shelter of one of the porch posts to light a cigarette. “He got himself a snoot full and wound up in a crib. The cops are holding him for twenty bucks.”

“Rany?” Surprise made Ashley almost sober. “Rany drunk, and in a crib? He must have gone to watch. He hasn't had any manhood for twenty years. Why the hell didn't you bail him out?”

“Why should I? You're trouble enough.”

The actor was bitter. “I knew I should have left you in the lake yesterday. Well, just for that, you can do the cooking.

“Shea can cook,” Lennox told him. “As long as we have the law quartered on us, we might as well make it work. Which reminds me.” He turned and went into the house, locating the old-fashioned telephone at the rear of the lower hall.

He spun the crank and asked the girl to find Caleb Pepper. When the marshal's tired voice answered Lennox said: “I'm over at Cullen's. The sheriff had already gone before I got here. What'll I do?”

“Better come back,” said Pepper. “Morgan is raising hell all over the place. He's threatening to issue a warrant for your arrest and I haven't found Hampton.”

“Okay,” said Lennox, and swore softly as he hung up.

“What's the matter?”

He turned to find Clara Cullen standing at the bottom of the wide staircase, looking at him. He hadn't heard her come down and had no idea how long she had been there.

“Nothing,” he said, “except that district attorney friend of yours is on the prod. Someone is going to have to teach that kid sense.”

“Poor Vance,” her eyes were somber. “He takes himself so seriously.”

“I'm liable to take him seriously,” Lennox said, darkly. “How goes it, honey?” .

She hesitated. “Come outside; no, not that way. Peter is on the porch, and I want to talk to you alone.”

Wordlessly he followed her through the kitchen and around the garage to a seat under the trees. “I'm worried, Bill. I shouldn't bother you with my troubles, but there isn't anyone else.”

His mouth was a bitter line. “Trouble is my business, baby. They've been throwing it at me in one form or another ever since I could walk. So give out; a little more won't make any difference. What's the matter?”

“I'm worried.” She reached out, took the cigarette from between his fingers, and inhaled deeply. “I'm having trouble with Chang. He doesn't want to let the nurse into Uncle Bert's room. Doctor Jay is arguing with him now, but he's very stubborn, you know. He's been with the family for years and years. Sometimes I think he is older than God.”

Lennox laughed. “Those old Chinamen are all alike, honey. They have to run things. So what? He can take care of Bert, and we'll ship the old hen back to Reno.”

“What's this all mean, Bill? Ever since I heard of Uncle Dick's murder I've felt like a mental depressive. I have a sense of impending doom which I try to laugh off and can't. Now I've got to go across the lake and talk to Jake Sloane.”

Lennox was genuinely startled. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Jake is my uncles' partner, you know. With one dead and the other paralyzed, it's up to him.”

“Don't worry. I can skin my own cats. Morgan hasn't a thing on me. You have to show a motive for a crime before you can get a conviction, even with a mountain jury. I was just warning you, and if you weren't kidding about the girl...”

“I wasn't kidding,” said Ashley. “Maybe I'm a heel. You don't need to draw diagrams to make me believe it; but where Clara Cullen is concerned, I'd peel off my hide and run around in my bones if it would do her any good.”

“Cut the dramatics,” Lennox told him, and swung the boat in a little arc so that he could bring it in sideways against the landing, moored it, and climbed out.

“Go on up to Pepper's office and tell him that I'll be along in a few minutes. I've got an errand.”

Ashley moved up the street without question and Lennox turned and walked westward toward the post office. The door of the single-room building was locked, but there was a green mail box beside it.

He drew the girl's letter from his pocket and was about to thrust it into the slot when curiosity made him pause. There was a little light here, reflected from the window of the barroom next door, and he turned the white envelope over in his square-fingered hand. The address was:

Carey Cullen

Highmount Towers

Hollywood, Calif.

He stared at the slanting script for a long moment. He had never heard of a Carey Cullen in all the years that he had been coming to Skull Lake. He wondered, as he consigned the letter to the mail box, who Carey Cullen was.

3

There was a small crowd of men around the marshal's office when Lennox walked in. He saw the sheriff and Pepper on the far side of the room, talking to Morgan and a tall man in dungarees. He glanced at the tall man and thought that he looked familiar, but couldn't be sure.

The crowd, sullen and noncommittal, parted to let Lennox pass and Hampton turned to smile faintly. “Come over here, Bill.”

Lennox joined them and looked at Morgan, but the district attorney was ruffling through some papers on the desk. “It still doesn't prove anything.” His voice was darkly argumentative. “So John says that he sent Lennox up to Jake's office. Does that prove that Lennox couldn't have fired the shot?”

Hampton said: 'This is John Sibert, Bill. Remember seeing him?”

Lennox nodded slowly. “I think so. He spoke to me on the sidewalk. He said that Sloane wanted to see me.”

“There's something wrong,” Morgan objected. “I had a date to meet Jake at the mill at seven-thirty. Why would he be in his office then?”

“Maybe he forgot.” Pepper had acquired a new toothpick, and it jutted almost belligerently out of the gap in his mustache.

“Jake Sloane never forgot anything in his life,” Morgan's tone was final.

Hampton said: “It seems to me, Vance, that you've been picking on Lennox ever since he found Cullen's body. You were making remarks this morning about the trouble General Consolidated Studios had with Dick Cullen. You don't really believe that an executive of a big studio would go around shooting down a business rival, do you? They aren't gangsters, you know.”

“Some people think they're worse.” Morgan was sullen.

“And it still doesn't add up to Lennox killing Jake Sloane. There are plenty of people in the world that wouldn't shed tears over his death, or the death of Dick Cullen, for that matter. Personally, I'd forget that warrant you were talking about.” He turned back to the man in dungarees.

“What was it that Jake said to you, John?”

The man had a long, freckled face. He looked nervous, as if he tried to remember each little detail of what happened.

“We was standing at his window,” the man said, “talking about that number two pump. She needs repacking.

“Anyhow,” Jake suddenly said: “There's Bill Lennox, just coming out of the Chink's. Run down and tell him that I want to see him; then go out and check that pump again. I'll be at the mill later.'

“I didn't know Lennox, but I took a look and saw this guy just leaving the restaurant. So I go down and ask him if he's Lennox, and I tell him Jake Sloane wants to see him. Then I go over to the shaft house.”

“And you've no idea what Jake had in mind, why he wanted to talk to Bill”?”

The man shook his head. “You know Jake. He never told you what he was thinking about. He just gave orders and you followed them, or you quit working at the mine.”

Hampton nodded. “Okay, John. I guess that's all for now.” He watched the man go and then said, “We figure that Jake was shot from the fire escape and that the killer pitched the gun in through the window. There weren't any prints save yours and they could have been made when you picked the gun up.”

Lennox nodded. “I was a damn fool to touch it,” he admitted, “but I was so surprised.”

Hampton scratched his head. “I wish to hell I knew what Jake wanted to see you about. I don't know whether he was killed to silence him, or for the same reason that Dick Cullen got his.”

“What was that?”

“Damned if I know,” said Hampton. “They've all been tied up together for years. You never knew for certain who owned which and why. As close-mouthed a bunch of bastards as I've ever seen.

“Now look, Bill,” he lowered his voice a little. “I don't agree with Morgan. He's never been right that I know of. We play on different sides of the fence, but if I find I've made a mistake and you are mixed up in this...”

“I'm not,” Lennox assured him.

“I hope not,” Hampton jerked his hat into place viciously, “but I'm going to look like a damn fool if Morgan turns out to be right, so I'm keeping an eye on you. I just wanted you to know.”

The room cleared gradually and Lennox saw Peter Ashley sitting quietly on a bench against the far wall. He crossed to the actor's side, thinking that perhaps Ashley was asleep, but the actor opened his eyes and grinned.

“Anticlimax,” he said. “Here I came over to see you arrested and to attempt to save you from the law with my very life blood, and what the hell happens? The law decides that you are a harmless character. They don't know you as well as I do.”

“Did you get Rany out?”

“Hell!” said Ashley. “I knew I'd forgotten something. Which pirate gets the twenty bucks?”

Lennox called Pepper over and introduced the actor. “We'd like to spring his valet,” Lennox explained, “that is, unless you've taken a liking to him and want to keep him around.”

“God forbid.” The little marshal accepted the twenty. “Here's the key. Just leave it inside the cell.”

Lennox took the key and led the way around the frame building to the single-celled stone jail at the rear. Rany was sitting disconsolately on the iron bunk in the far corner. His eyes were blood-shot, his shirt dirty, and a stubble of black beard covered his narrow jaws.

Ashley looked at him and started to laugh. “I never thought I'd live to see this day,” he said, unlocking the door. “I've seen everything now. What happened to you?”

The valet shook his head unhappily. “I don't rightly know, sir. After Mister Lennox left last night, I got worried and finally walked over to the Cullen place. You weren't there, and the young lady who spoke to me hadn't seen you. I decided to go on into town since I had come so far. I walked out to the road and started along it. About a mile down the road I came upon a man who was fixing a tire on an old Ford. I stopped and asked how far it was to town and he said that if I'd help, he'd give me a lift.

“He had a bottle in the car and insisted that I drink with him. I hadn't had a drink in fifteen years. I had to stop because when I drink I can't control myself.”

“Rany!” Ashley was regarding his valet with the air of an explorer. “And I never even guessed.”

“It's something which I'm not proud of,” Rany admitted. “But this man was offensive, and took a belligerent attitude when I refused. In fact, I was a little afraid of him. So I drank, and after the second one I no longer cared.

“We drove into town and he said that he wanted to see a friend of his. We went along an alley, I can't recall which one, and in through the rear door of a place. It seemed to be a dance hall.

“A woman came to meet us and my friend said: 'Don't you remember me, Mary? It's Ben Scribbs.'”

Lennox, who had been paying little attention to what the valet was saying, suddenly stiffened with interest. “What happened then?”

Rany ran a thin hand through his tousled hair. “I don't exactly remember. There were more drinks, and this man kept saying that I was a good guy and his pal, and they should put me to bed, and then I woke up in that horrible place and that cop was shaking me. I didn't mean to fight him, but I am always mean when I've been drinking. He hit me with his gun, and when I woke up, I was in here.”

Ashley was almost bursting with laughter. “My poor Rany! Wait until the gang back in New York hears about this. They never quite believed in you anyhow. You were too good to be true. Let's get out of this. You'll feel better with a bath and a shave, and one of your famous pick-me-ups. Come on, Bill.”

“You take the boat,” said Lennox. “I've got a couple of calls to make. I'll get over home somehow.”

Ashley raised an eyebrow. “Don't tell me you're going off the wagon again? Maybe Spurck will ask me to keep you sober. The studio needs you, mine boy.” He was mimicking Spurck's accent.

“No,” said Lennox. “Nothing like that. I've just got a call to make. I want to see a woman about a man.”

4

He turned into the Miners' Club and walked the full length of the gambling room to the door marked office. This was set in one corner of the rear wall and had no knob on the outside. You had to have a key to open it.

Lennox knocked. He knew that an eye was examining him through a peep-hole. He'd been in the office before. Then the door swung inward to show Alf Jones.

“Hello, Bill! Come in.”

Lennox stepped in and closed the door. The room was bare, save for an old-fashioned roll-topped desk and an ancient safe. The door of the safe stood open and the interior was empty and dust-filled. Why the office door was kept locked and the peep-hole used was one of life's minor mysteries. The money stayed on the gambling tables twenty-four hours each day, and there was never any effort to lock it up.

Alf Jones sat down on the edge of his desk. He was a square-cut man with the face of a disillusioned farmer. His clothes hung from his shoulders in almost a straight line and looked as if they had come from a fire sale, and the round, hard hat which he always wore was green from age.

“What gives? Is that jackass Morgan still braying on your trail?”

“No, I wanted to ask you about Mary Crewe.”

A film like a masking curtain seemed to settle across Jones's eyes, making them dull and uninteresting. “What about her?” His tone was expressionless.

“What's her place like?”

“What do you think?”

Lennox said, sharply: “Look, Alf. I'm not asking you to spill anything. She walked into Jake Sloane's office tonight and accused me of killing him. I'm no reformer, and I'm over twelve.”

“So it's a cat house,” said Jones. “It takes every kind of place to make a world, and I don't know anything.”

Lennox was puzzled by the man's attitude. He'd known Alf Jones for six years. He'd never found the man unwilling to talk before.

“Thanks,” he said. “Think she'll be there now?”

“Easy to find out,” Jones told him, and sliding off the desk, crossed to open the door. “It's only a block down and half a block to your left.”

Lennox went out. He had the distinct sense that Jones was watching him through the peep-hole in the office door. He left the building and moved along the semi-dark street. It was not as crowded as it had been earlier, and he kept telling himself that he was being a fool, that none of this was his business, and that the sooner he realized it, the better.

Mary Crewe's place had a deceptively quiet front. It was a single door, and the windows which flanked the door on either side had been layered heavily with black paint, so that no light came through.

But the quiet ceased as soon as the door was pushed open, for inside a juke box blared forth its music and the long, bare room was well filled with dancing miners and girls.

There was a bar along the north side, tables at the rear.

The waiters were men who looked capable of controlling any disturbance.

He caught looks from several of the girls, and a pretty brunette in a tarnished silver dress came swaying forward.

“Hello, honey! Want a drink, a dance, or some fun?”

Lennox looked at her. Under the heavy makeup the lines of her face showed sharply, and her eyes had a tired, hopeless look, despite the bright smile which she had forced to her rouged lips.

He found a five and slid it into her startled palm. “Relax. I'm looking for Mary.”

Her face got a stunned expression as she saw the figure on the bill; then her eyes glowed a little with the ready mistrust of her kind. “What is this?”

Lennox was very conscious of the waiters. “What's your name?”

“Judy.” She sounded suspicious.

“Let's dance, Judy. I don't like to attract attention.” He took her into his arms and they stepped out on the waxed floor. She danced with the effortless inattention of an animated doll. Her body under the thin fabric of her dress felt firm and muscular. There wasn't anything else except the dress.

“What's the game?”

He said, his lips a couple of inches from the hair which covered her ear: “I want to see Mary. It's important, for her, and I don't want to attract attention. Where is she, Judy?”

The girl leaned away, resting her weight on the circle of his arm, and studied his face. “I like you,” she said. “What in hell are you? A dick?”

“A dick, in this part of the country?”

“I wouldn't know. I'm from L.A.”

“The name is Lennox. I'm with General Consolidated Studios.”

She whistled softly. “I thought I'd seen you somewhere. I used to work extra. Look! Will you do something for me? No reason why you should.” Her mouth was a bitter line.

“No reason why anyone ever does anything for people. I haven't much to offer. You could buy it for two bucks, but I've a hunch you wouldn't care to play.”

He said, “Sorry, no.”

“You're honest,” she said. “My God! You're honest. Okay, Lennox. I'll get you to Mary. It isn't the easiest thing in the world and I'm liable to get my throat cut. I'll get you there, if you'll get me out of this hell-hole.”

Lennox was startled by the intense feeling in her voice. “What's the matter, kid?”

She said: “It would take too long to write the words and music. I was certainly the world's prize sucker when I fell for this set-up. Even the Reno stock-yard would be better than this. I can't get out. Believe it or not, they keep us naked as a jay-bird all day.

“That's to keep us from running out. And don't think we wouldn't run if we could.”

“The hell!” said Lennox. He wasn't easily moved by human suffering. He'd seen a lot of sordid things in his police reporter days, but there was something in this girl's voice that rang true.

A voice behind him said: “You're supposed to buy drinks, mister,” and he turned to see one of the waiters behind him. The man was built like a log, straight up and down and thick. A spotted white apron covered his middle, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, exposing thick, hairy forearms.

Lennox fished in his pocket, found a second five and gave it to the man. “Tell the bartender to keep his pants on until that's used up.”

The man blinked at him. He was slow-witted and nothing quite like this had happened to him before. He went away, muttering to himself. The girl said: “You'd be better off if you drank a couple.”

“And get knocked on my tail with a micky? No, thanks.”

She was getting worried. “I don't like this. They're talking about you.”

Lennox swung her around on the dance floor so that he could see the bar. The waiter that had been given the five was talking to two of his fellows.

“Where's Mary?”

“She's back in her room,” said the girl. “But they'll stop you if you try to go there directly. Better pretend to go to my place. Come on.” She took his hand and led him toward a side door. Through a short hall they came to another door, which opened into the rear street.

“I'm in number seven,” she said, and he knew that she referred to one of the row of cribs which faced the dusty roadway. “I'll go on down there and turn on the light, just in case they trail us out.”

“Thanks,” he pressed a second bill into her hand. “Which is Mary's?”

“The door's around the corner. I don't think it will be locked. Good night.”

He watched her move away into the shadows; then he turned quickly around the corner of the building. The door wasn't locked. He pushed it open and stepped in a little foyer that was hardly big enough to turn around in.

There was a door across the hall and he grasped the knob without knocking. Before he could pull it open, a voice from within called, “All right, Mister Lennox. Come in.”

Very few things in life ever surprised William Lennox. When in his cups, he was apt to remark that he had seen everything. But he was definitely surprised now. He opened the door and stepped in. Mary Crewe stood in the center of the well-furnished room and there was a small, pearl-handled gun pointed directly at his stomach.

5

SHE smiled, faintly, her face looking startlingly young beneath the crown of her carefully groomed grey hair. “You'll pardon the gun,” she said, “but I saw you under rather startling circumstances earlier this evening.”

He hadn't quite recovered from his surprise. He took a moment to light a cigarette which he picked up from an open box on an end table. He didn't want the smoke, he wanted a chance to think.

“So you were expecting me?”

“Very little goes on without my knowing it,” she told him. “You have to be careful when you operate a place like this, even in Skull Valley.”

“And more careful, now that Jake Sloane is dead.”

The faint smile went away from her lips, and her eyes, which had been smilingly grey, took on a greenish tinge. “You do know things, don't you? But this isn't Hollywood, Mister Lennox, and you're a long way from the protective arm of the great General Consolidated. I'd advise you as a friend to tread a little carefully up here.”

“So now, we're friends. Not so long ago, you were accusing me of murder.”

“Put that down to hysteria,” she told him. “A woman should be permitted a certain amount of hysteria in her life, and God knows I've had little enough in mine. I'll grant I made a mistake. I can even understand your wishing to come to see me about it; but you should have come openly, you shouldn't have tried bribing Judy. The dear child is something of a rebel. We haven't as yet taught her her place.”

Lennox had a funny, sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. He'd faced many people in his thirty-odd years, but never in his varied experience had he met anyone who struck him as being so utterly ruthless as this woman.

“The girl,” he said. “She didn't have any part of it. I gave her five dollars to point out your door. She thought that I was a friend of yours.”

“Very gallant, Mister Lennox.” The woman was smiling again, but her eyes still glittered greenly. “No doubt what you say is true, but Judy must be taught her lesson.”

She pressed a button with her free hand and said into an invisible microphone. “Go over to number seven, and see that Judy stays there until I'm ready for her.” She clicked off the switch and nodded. “Shall we sit down? It may be a long session if we start talking about Jake Sloane.”

“As a matter of fact,” Lennox told her, “I didn't come over here to talk about Sloane. I came over to talk about Ben Scribbs.”

The hand which held her little gun jerked and he was afraid that the gun was going to explode. Her face whitened, and for an instant lost its smooth, childlike look, and was pinched and drawn.

He realized that she was too good an actress to be long affected by surprise, and in a moment she smiled again.

“So! And what do you wish to know about Ben Scribbs?”

That was something which Lennox could not answer. He wished to know many things, but it was hard to frame them into direct questions.

“Where is he now?”

She shook her head. “Really, I don't know.”

“But he was here last night, just about this time.”

She regarded him with thoughtful concentration. “You know, Lennox, I hardly credited the things that I've heard about you, but you're forcing me to believe them; or that you have second sight.”

“I have that too,” he said. “Come around some Tuesday and I'll put on the act. Right at the moment, however, I'd like to know what Scribbs wanted with you, and why he came to Skull Lake at all.”

“What would you do if you'd just got out of prison?”

“That depends on how I got out.”

She smiled. “Nothing so romantic as escape. He was released from Carson City day before yesterday. He came here to see some old friends.”

“Bert Cullen?” he suggested. “And why did Scribbs hate Cullen, Mary? Why did he shoot him twenty years ago?”

She was thoughtful. “Cullen interfered with something which was none of his business,” she said, finally. “Ben hated him, but he didn't come here to make trouble. He came be—because he had nowhere to go.”

“Then he didn't knife Richard, or kill Jake Sloane?”

“Certainly not.”

“Who did kill Sloane?”

“I thought at first that you did. They've got you by the short hairs on that color thing.”

He grinned faintly. “Not me, darling. I don't own the studio, I just work there. Who did kill Sloane?”

“I wouldn't tell you if I knew.”

He let his grin widen. “Am I a prisoner or is that gun for show?”

“You're no prisoner. You can leave whenever you choose. In fact, I'll be damn glad to see you go.”

“In that case, I'll stay for a drink, if you'll press your little bell and send for some whiskey.”

“You are impertinent. I think you'd drink with anyone, even the devil.”

“If his liquor was good, why not?”

She laughed and turned toward the switch, careless for the first time, and Lennox moved like an uncoiling spring. He closed the distance between them in one leap, caught her gun wrist with one hand and slid the other arm about her neck.

“Easy, Mary, it would be a shame to muss your hair.”

She stood quietly within his grasp, making no effort to free herself. Nor did she object when he took the little gun from her fingers. “You're being dramatic.”

“No,” he said, “only careful. I'm going to take that girl Judy with me, and I don't want trouble.” He stepped back, the little gun steady in his hands. “Don't make any mistake, Mary Crewe, I can shoot a woman if necessary.”

“I doubt it.” But her eyes were uncertain.

He grinned. “You don't want to find out, do you? This gun isn't very big, but a slug would play hell with that pretty face, even if it didn't kill you. So don't take a chance. You and I are going to walk down to number seven, and we're going to get that girl. If there's any trouble, you'll be the one that gets it, not me.”

She was silent, her eyes glowing at him greenly. “Some time you might be very sorry for this little deal.”

“Only a fool wastes time on threats.” He was still grinning. “And you're no fool, darling; so walk out that door and don't play me any tricks.”

She gave him a long, slow look, then without a word she turned and opened the door, crossed the little reception room and stepped into the dark, deserted alley.

There were lights in number seven and the waiter to whom he'd given the five came out of the shadows. “She's inside, Mary, alone.”

Lennox was directly behind the woman. He prodded the small of her back with the little gun. “Tell him to go back to the dance hall, sweet. We shan't need him.”

The waiter recognized Lennox with a start. “Say...”

Lennox used the little gun as a lever to pry into the grey-haired woman's back. “Tell him that it's all right.”

“We'll handle it ourselves,” she said. “Get going.”

The waiter went, looking back a couple of times uncertainly. Lennox watched him from the corner of his eye, but as soon as the man vanished he pushed Mary Crewe toward the door.

Judy uttered a little gasp when she saw the woman, and fright made her eyes dark and very large. Then she saw Lennox behind Mary Crewe's shoulders, and her eyes grew puzzled and cautious.

“What gives?”

“You're getting out of here,” he said, pushing his captive into the single chair. The room was long and narrow, more like a cell than a room. There was the single chair, an iron bed with a thin mattress, and a single bulb dangling from the end of a two-foot length of black electric cord.

Sin, he thought, could be curiously unattractive. “Get ready, Judy.”

Her eyes went to Mary Crewe. They held hope, and uncertainty, and appeal, mingled. The grey-haired woman told her, tonelessly: “You'd better not listen to him. You'll only buy yourself trouble, honey.”

Lennox ignored her. “Snap it up. You're getting out if I have to carry you. I got you in a jam and I'm not leaving you here.”

“I'll go,” said the girl. “To hell with her!”

“Get ready.”

“I'm ready,” her voice was bitter. “I haven't got anything else but this,” she indicated the tarnished dress. “That's all that bitch left me.”

Lennox hesitated. A woman couldn't travel far in such a dress, and he knew of no place where he could get another at that hour. Then his eyes settled speculatively on the dark, tailored suit that Mary Crewe was wearing.

She saw the look, and guessed what was in his mind.

Lennox grinned. “On your feet, my dear, and peel it off. Stockings and shoes, too. You're about the same size. You may keep the underthings. I don't suppose Judy would wear them, anyhow.”

“Go to hell!” said Mary Crewe. “If you want them, take them yourself.”

“I might,” said Lennox, “but I rather think that I'll turn the job over to Judy. I suspect she has a couple of past favors to return, and that she wouldn't be as gentle as I.”

The green eyes settled on his face with a look of pure hate. Then she rose and began to peel off her clothes.

“Careful of the stockings,” he warned. “We don't Want Judy to start out in the world with a couple of runs.”

She sat down on the chair, clad only in her girdle and bra, and peeled off the stockings from her white legs.

Lennox told the girl, “Get them on, kid, and let's move. Someone might start wondering and come to have a look.”

Without a word, the girl lifted the evening dress over her head. She caught up Mary Crewe's clothes and dressed rapidly. The clothes fitted surprisingly well, and the shoes slipped onto her feet as if they had been made for her.

Luck, thought Lennox, was being too kind. He said to the grey-haired woman, sitting silent and stiff-backed on the edge of the hard bed:

“Don't send your boys after us. If you do, I'll give them a bellyful and then come back and beat hell out of that lovely face of yours.”

He meant it, and the woman sensed that he meant it.

“Okay, kid. Let's go.” He turned out the light with a quick sweep of his hand, before he opened the crib door; then they were out in the dark alley, running.

The girl was ahead of him, and she ran effortlessly, more like a man than a woman. Lennox looked back. The crib door was open and he could see the dim outline of Mary Crewe, standing in the dark oblong. She made no effort to leave the building, no effort to call for help.

They rounded the corner and drew to a panting stop. The girl was laughing a little, “I feel like a kid, running from school.”

Lennox took a look at the street which they had just quitted, then told her, grimly: “You may feel worse if we don't get you out of town in a hurry. Come on.” He led the way down the block to the garage where his convertible was stored.

Most of the lodge owners left their cars in town. There was a road along the ridge on the far side of the lake, but it was narrow, rough, and unpaved. It was far easier to use a boat.

The sleepy attendant was surprised, and stared at Lennox's dark-haired companion. They ignored him, but Lennox swore under his breath. He knew small towns, and the garage man would talk. But there was nothing else to do. Five minutes later, he turned at the junction, taking the Placerville road.

“Where are we going?”

“Where do you want to go?” The road was a series of sweeping curves, following the sharp drop of the deepening canyon, and he dared not glance away from it, even for a moment.

“I don't know.” She breathed deeply, taking in the sharp fragrance of the pine-scented air. “Any place but LA.”

“Why not L.A.?”

“Not there,” she said. “Some friends of Mary's will be looking for me there. They stick together, you know. They have to.”

Lennox was not thinking of Mary Crewe. He wasn't even thinking of the girl, nor of her troubles. He said: “You were at the place last night?”

“Where else? You don't think I went for a walk?” Her sarcasm was a thin, tight surface which failed to hide her deep fear.

“A man came there,” said Lennox. “A man came to see Mary Crewe. Maybe you didn't hear his name, but it was Scribbs. I want to know about him. I want to know anything you can tell.”

She was silent, considering, and he thought for a long moment that she would not answer. “There were two men,” she finally said. “Two men, and one was very drunk. They put him in my room and told me to take care of him. But he was drunk and didn't care. I left him, sleeping. I took that walk I was kidding about. I went and stood outside the door to Mary's room. I was curious. Not many men rated special privileges in our place.”

“And you heard them talking?” From the tone of voice, Lennox had guessed that she was leading up to something.

“Yes,” she said. “They were quarreling inside. I heard Mary call him a damn fool for stopping at Cullen's. I heard him answer. He was angry, too. He asked her how he was supposed to have known that it was framed. 'I was sent for,' he said. 'Sent for in your name. A fine damn thing if a sister can't protect her brother, after all I've done for you.'

“And then Mary sounded really angry. I've never heard her like that before. She cursed him, using words that I've never heard, and I thought I had heard them all.

“She told him that the only thing he had ever done for her was to marry her to a man she didn't want, and to keep her from the one she loved. God, she raved like a maniac. She said that she'd get even with the Cullens if it was the last thing she did, but finally she quieted down.

“Then I heard her telling Scribbs to keep out of sight until she could see Jake Sloane. I didn't dare wait to hear any more, because he was getting ready to leave. If she'd caught me listening, she'd have killed me.”

“And you don't know where Scribbs is now?”

“No,” she said. “I don't know anything more, but I'd hate to have Mary Crewe after me, feeling the way she does about the Cullens.”

2

“You'll go,” said Lennox, “to a hotel in San Francisco. The Colbert. You'll register as Martha South, and you'll wait until you hear from me. Will you do that, Judy?”

The girl looked at him. Her dark eyes were still shadowed with sleep. For the last fifty miles fatigue had overcome fear and she had slept with her head on his shoulder.

Now they were in a Placerville restaurant and the bus was due in half an hour.

“What is it you want?” she said.

“I don't know.” He honestly didn't know, but his hunch told him that the girl gave him a hold On Mary Crewe. “I don't know,” he repeated the words. “Maybe I won't need you, but I want you around, to tell your story when the time comes.”

“To the police?” The fear was back in her eyes.

“Perhaps, but if so, you'll be protected. Trust me a little, Judy.”

“What in hell else can I do? Sure, I'll do it. What have I got to lose?”

Lennox shoved his empty plate out of the way and drew his coffee cup toward him. “You won't lose,” he promised. “You won't...” and then he stopped, for the restaurant door had opened and Morgan had stepped into the long, narrow room.

“Little Johnny-Jump-Up,” he said. “Where in hell did you come from?”

Morgan's lips twisted, but there was no amusement in the dark, heavy handsomeness of his face.

“I drove down last night on other business,” he said. “They phoned me to be on the watch for you.”

The girl was rigid on her stool, her eyes locked in the mirror behind the counter. Lennox glanced at her and then gave Morgan his full attention.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked the D.A.

“Her,” said Morgan. “She stole some things from the dance hall. I'm taking her back.”

Lennox got mad. “Let's get this straight. Just who are you running errands for?”

The man flushed. “Don't use that tone to me.”

“I'll use any damn tone I please.” Lennox blew out his breath gustily. “You're out of your territory, my juvenile friend, and I don't think you want the local law to know that you're down here, pimping for a madam.”

Morgan swung at Lennox's jaw. It might have landed, since Lennox was trapped, with the counter at his back, but Judy flipped the remaining contents of her coffee cup directly into the district attorney's face.

It blinded him for an instant, and in that instant, Lennox was off the stool and had the man's arm locked up behind his shoulder blades. “I see,” he said, harshly, “that someone is going to have to pound sense into your hard head, and it might as well be me.

“Don't start me, pal. If you do, I'll take that stinking hole you call Skull Lake apart, and purify it until it smells like Attar of Roses.”

Morgan tried to snarl. “If a girl stole something...”

“Nuts,” said Lennox. “Try and take this girl back and I'll bring in the federal authorities.” He released Morgan and shoved him away.

Morgan's anger matched Lennox'. “Are you trying to suggest I have anything to do with Mary Crewe? I don't. I have a complaint that she stole some clothes, a dress, shoes....”

“I stole them,” said Lennox. “Take me back, pal. At least you can't force me into a life of shame.”

Morgan didn't like it. Obviously he hadn't expected Lennox to oppose him. “I, well, if there is a complaint filed...”

“Who called you, Pepper?”

“No, Alf Jones.” Morgan replied.

Lennox was startled. So the owner of the Miners' Club was mixing in.

“I don't know anything about it.” Morgan was losing what little assurance he'd had. “I got orders and...”

“Sure,” said Lennox. “I know. Jake Sloane elected you D.A. and as long as he lived, you took his orders without question. Jake's dead. Bert Cullen is paralyzed. Is Alf Jones trying to move into their spot?”

“I don't know, but...”

“And none of you want the girl to get away,” Lennox went on. “You don't want an investigation of conditions at Skull until you find out where you all stand. So you thought maybe you could bluff me. Well, I don't bluff.”

The restaurant man called from the kitchen. “Hey mister, the bus just pulled in.”

Lennox helped the girl to her feet. “So long, Morgan, Take care of the check, will you?” He pushed Judy ahead of him through the door and hurried her along the sidewalk.

“Take care of yourself, kid.” He pressed money into her hand. “Wait at the hotel like I told you. Morgan won't bother you, I think. They're all getting scared at Skull. They're trying to sit on the lid, but there's too much boiling inside.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for everything. I hope you don't get into trouble.”

“I live on it,” he said.

For an instant she looked at him, then she came up on tiptoe, wrapped both arms about his neck and put her mouth against his cheek, hard.

“You're swell,” she said, and her voice had none of the brittle hardness it had held. “I thought guys like you only came in story books.”

She swung away then, to climb blindly into the bus and with a shock he realized that she was crying.

The door swung shut, the driver gunned the big motor, and it pulled away from the curb. Then Lennox heard a voice at his elbow saying: “Well, well! William Lennox does himself proud.”

Bill knew the voice. There was only one person in the world who could get that mocking note into her tone.

“Nancy!” he said. “Nancy Hobbs,” and swung to see her standing on the sidewalk with a slender little man at her side.

Her smile was bittersweet. “Crusading again, I presume.”

He knew that his ears were slowly reddening. She was the only person in the world who could continually embarrass him. “You won't believe it, but I am.”

“I won't believe it.” Nancy Hobbs appealed to her companion. “He thinks I won't believe it, and after what I've just seen. Who's the girl? Not Dick Cullen's murderess by chance?”

Memory made Lennox grin. “You won't believe this either, but I found her in a cat house.”

“What, another?” Nancy sat down in the high curb and started to laugh. “William, William, you aren't even original any more.”

The girl's companion blinked owlishly through thick-lensed, horn-rimmed spectacles. “Is this a private argument, or may I join you?”

“You wouldn't understand.” The girl was laughing. “The last time Bill mixed it with murder, he found his chief clue in a cat house.* It seems he's trying to repeat...oh, I forgot, you two don't know each other. This is Marcus Allen Doolittle. The Associated Press kept him in Europe for three years, then brought him home to cover important things like murder. Meet the only foreign correspondent who hasn't written a book. You've heard all about Bill Lennox, Marcus. Shake hands.”

Doolittle bowed, and Lennox looked him over as if not quite believing what he saw. Doolittle's suit had cost better than a hundred. His hat was a hard Homburg, and his glasses were anchored by a broad, black ribbon which looped about the white hardness of his starched collar.

“I heard the newspaper business wasn't what it used to be,” said Lennox, “but I didn't realize how bad things are. Shades of Richard Harding Davis!”

“Don't let it throw you,” Nancy warned. “Marcus was the last American to interview Hitler.”

“So what's he doing in Placerville?”

The girl said, “We're on a story. A man named Lennox found Richard Cullen of Pinnacle Pictures, dead. You wouldn't know where Mister Lennox could be located?”

“Probably in jail, if you wait a few hours,” Bill promised. “But I still don't understand what you're doing here. I'm supposed to be at Skull Lake.”

“That's where we're headed.” Nancy was sad. “But our car hasn't any bearings left. Marcus lived in the Ersatz countries for so long, he forgot why they use motor oil. At least he didn't put any in. We left the jalopy with a garage man down the street and are ready to hang our thumbs up on the highway.”

Doolittle had paid no attention to the conversation. Instead he had walked slowly around Lennox, a considering look on his face as if he had discovered an interesting specimen of unknown breed. “So you're Lennox.” He blinked intently. He might have been a horse buyer, considering a purchase. At least that was how he impressed Lennox.

“Would you like to look at my teeth?” The studio man was trying to be helpful.

“Are they new?” Doolittle was not insulted.

“Break it up,” said Nancy. “If I've got to ride to Skull Lake with you, I don't care for the idea of letting a quarrel start. But first, give me the dope on the Cullen murder. I am a newspaper woman, you might remember, and all Hollywood is waiting for the news. They've even cast a medal for the killer. It's being exhibited in the Gotham window along with the cheese.”

Lennox hung his head. “I didn't mean for the news to get out so soon, but I never could refuse you anything, darling, even a story. Also, I hate to hog the spotlight, but the half-baked district attorney will tell you if I don't. Little Willie killed Cullen. I killed him because the naughty man was suing my boss for five million, and Spurck ain't got that much. It's all cut and dried.”

“Swell,” said Nancy. “I guessed that before I came up. I had them set the story and hold it for my okay. I'll buzz them now.” She sounded excited.

Doolittle had stopped his circling and was blinking at them in bewilderment. “Are you two serious?”

“Certainly,” Lennox acted offended. “For years I've grieved because no one thought it important to write the story of my life. Now it's a cinch. Every true detective magazine will be clamoring for the saga. 'How to steal a color process with a knife, or burying your victim between the sheets'...wait,” he broke off, looking over Doolittle's head. “Come on, children, I see my enemy.”

Vance Morgan had just emerged from the restaurant and was watching them from the shelter of the doorway. Lennox grinned. “This is fun,” he said. “It isn't often you can catch the law with its panties down around its ankles, but this young squirt stuck his neck out too far, and I'm busy sawing it off.” He took their arms and led them forward to perform elaborate introductions.

“This,” he told Morgan, “is Miss Nancy Hobbs. If you ever read her column or any of the fan magazines, you'd know who she is. She knows more of the personal habits of the picture stars than any other living person.”

“What an unkind thing to say!”

Lennox ignored the girl's interruption. “And on your right is Marcus Allen Doolittle. I'm afraid that he'll find the trouble at Skull Lake a little tame after what he's seen in the last few years.”

Morgan eyed the two reporters without any sign of friendliness. Lennox said, “Vance isn't his usual charming self this morning. Politics seemed to have landed him in a rather large mess, and he isn't exactly certain how to get out. I wouldn't wire Sacramento, Vance. Let the kid go.”

“I wasn't going to,” Morgan sounded surly.

“Don't,” said Lennox, and turned toward the car.

When they were winding up the twisting macadam road Nancy said: “Okay, Willie. Come clean. What's been going on in the mountains?”

He told her what had happened, starting with his spree and ending with his fight with Morgan. “I'd just as soon you had stayed in Hollywood,” he ended. “Unless I miss my guess, hell is due to boil over. A lot of people around the lake are getting nervous.”

“Swell,” said Doolittle. “I can't wait to get into action.”

“You can start now,” Lennox told him, pulling to a stop. “Drive awhile, I need some sleep.”

But he did not sleep at once for the girl said: “I forgot. Sam Marx called me. He had a hunch that I'd be sent up here on the story. Hollywood is boiling. I haven't seen the place so excited since Congress investigated block-booking. They're all wondering what will happen to Pinnacle Pictures. Lew Scranton is trying to grab control. Don't be surprised if you see him up here.”

“What did Sam say?”

“That he's wired New York. He told me to tell you he couldn't dig up much in Hollywood that you didn't already know about Dick Cullen.”

“And Spurck?” asked Lennox. “How's Sol taking it?”

She shrugged. “I couldn't locate him. One of his grandchildren has the mumps, but if you want the dope on Dick Cullen, why don't you ask Marcus?”

“Marcus?” For an instant Lennox did not know whom she was talking about, then he glanced toward Doolittle, who was gripping the wheel of the big car as if he feared it would run away from him.

“What's he know about Cullen?”

“Everything,” said Nancy. “That's why they sent him up here on this story. He helped dig up the dope on Cullen's mining firms six years ago. They didn't manage to convict Richard then, but they scared him so badly that he decided to take a shot at pictures instead.”

Lennox looked again at the small reporter, “So you knew Cullen.”

Doolittle bobbed his head without taking his eyes from the twisting road. “A crook,” he said. “A smart crook, smart enough to quit one racket and hop into another as soon as things got tough.”

“What puzzles me,” said Lennox, “is how he ever got started in the first place. He wasn't such a big shot in Tonopah, just a kid, getting by on nerve. He hops to New York and jumps right into the big dough.”

“He went into the Chase syndicate,” said Doolittle. “They had a mine somewhere that paid off, plenty. I think Cullen had a piece of the property.”

“You don't know what the name was?”

The little reporter shook his head. “But I heard some place that he stole it from a pal.”

Lennox was interested. “You wouldn't remember the name? Was it Sloane?”

“Don't think so...I...”

“Newcomb?”

“Say,” said Doolittle. “Might have been. I heard the name in connection with Cullen. Who's Newcomb?”

“One of Hollywood's leading doctors. At the moment he's attending Bert Cullen.”

Doolittle whistled. “Boy, that would be something. Could he have done it? I mean, has he an alibi?”

Lennox was remembering the warm motor of Newcomb's car. The doctor had claimed to have been with Jake Sloane, but a dead man was not a good alibi.

6

NOT SINCE Jake Sloane and Bert Cullen had come out of Nevada to reopen the old mines in 1928, had Skull Lake seen such a mass of people.

Drama was in the picture as the crowd tried to force its way into the old courthouse. This inquest was being held “to determine the cause of death” which had taken two of the town's owners, while the third lay paralyzed. Only Doctor Newcomb was on hand to testify at the hearing.

Peter Ashley sensed the tension as he followed Tom Shea through the crowded street. He was worried about Lennox, not having heard from him since the night before, but he could not keep his mind on Bill's absence.

The events at Skull Lake had a far reaching effect. Pinnacle Pictures' stock had crashed twenty-one points on the news of Cullen's death. From the Reno papers, which had reached the town about noon, Ashley gathered that the panic was on; that there was a general feeling both in Hollywood and New York, that, without Cullen's guiding hand, Pinnacle's suit against General Consolidated was as good as lost.

They also printed rumors of an undercover fight for control in the small studio, with each faction hoping for support from the Cullen heirs.

Therefore, Ashley was not surprised on entering the marshal's office to find Lew Scranton talking to Morgan. He knew Scranton casually, having met him in New York, but he knew little about the man's background, save that he had spent his life with small, independent studios, striving vainly to break into the select circle of the Big Six.

He said hello, and stood talking to the men for a few moments before the sheriff announced that it was time for the inquest.

The first persons Ashley saw on entering the room were Lennox and Nancy Hobbs, and he pushed forward to join them.

The girl smiled as Ashley crowded into the seat at her side. “You look well, Peter. Meet Marcus Allen Doolittle.”

Ashley shook hands with the small reporter, reaching across Lennox to do so. “Lew Scranton's here.”

“I saw him on the street,” said Lennox.

Ashley nodded. “Here to pick up the pieces.” He waved his hand toward where Scranton had found a seat. “What a vulture.”

“A very small one,” said Lennox, “trying to fit into shoes that are too big for him. What's new?”

Ashley said, “You missed some excitement by not coming home. We had a visitor around the lodge.”

Lennox's interest quickened. “Who was it?”

Ashley shrugged. “Don't know. Someone came out along the back road in a car. Shea heard the motor and chased them over the pass, but he didn't get close enough to see, and he didn't get back until morning.”

Lennox did not answer because he was called to the stand. He told his story without emotion or much interest. The room was hot and several large flies were attacking the audience steadily.

It struck him that the inquest could serve no useful purpose; there was no new evidence, and the coroner's jury brought in the expected verdict in both cases, death at the hands of person or persons unknown.

When it was over, Ashley hurried away to intercept Clara Cullen, who was leaving with Doctor Newcomb. Nancy and Doolittle headed for the telegraph office to file their stories, and Lennox turned toward the Miners' Club. What he needed was a Tom Collins, tall and cool, with plenty of ice. The bartender thought him crazy.

“If you want lemonade, go to the drugstore,” he said.

Lennox objected that the drugstore didn't put gin in their lemonade, and finally went around the bar to mix his own drink. He tasted it thirstily before he asked, “Alf in the office?”

“He was, and I ain't seen him come out.”

Lennox walked the length of the room, carrying his drink with him. The door opened just as he was about to knock and Alf Jones said, “You wanted to see me?” He made no effort to step out of the way, no effort to invite Lennox into the office.

Bill kept walking. The man either had to give ground or be run down. He gave ground, and Lennox stepped into the room and closed the door. His voice sounded sad as he said, “I thought you were a friend of mine, Alf.”

“I never said so.” The gambler's voice was colorless.

“No,” said Lennox. “You never told me so. That's one of the reasons why I believed it. Did you shoot Jake, Alf?”

The question caught the gambler by surprise. “Shoot Jake? Hell, no. I was talking to Caleb Pepper when it happened.”

“Do you think I did?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why in hell did you telephone Morgan and tell him I was running off with one of Mary Crewe's girls, and that he'd better stop me and bring the girl back?”

The gambler's eyes under the rim of his hard hat were as unreadable as if they had been black discs without depth. He considered Lennox carefully before he said: “Look, Bill! We had a nice town here, and we minded our own business and didn't ask odds of anyone. We killed our own snakes and the news never broke in the papers. Everything was nice and quiet and friendly until Dick Cullen turned the lake into a summer resort for picture people.”

“So that's why he was killed?”

“I don't know why he was killed.” Alf Jones sounded impatient. “I don't even care. It's none of my business and I learned a long time ago that the way to keep my hair was to mind my own business.”

“So you were minding your own business when you called Morgan and told him to stop me at Placerville?”

“You twist a man's words,” Jones complained. “You're worse than a damn lawyer. No, I wasn't minding my business then. I was just trying to avoid trouble. There's a reason why Mary hangs onto her girls the way she does. She doesn't want them on the outside, talking their heads off.”

“I should think that she wouldn't.”

Jones said, “Now, look! I don't make book on people's morals. The world's the world, and you don't change it by passing laws. We didn't want an investigation up here, especially with this murder thing on our hands. Mary knew how I felt, so she came to me.

“I knew that Vance was in Placerville so I phoned him. We talked it over and decided it was best to bring the girl back and hold her until this thing blew over. With Jake dead, it's hard to tell who will run things now.”

“So Jake ran things?”

“You know damn well he did,” the gambler was getting impatient. “I'm trying to play it on the level with you, Bill. You butted into something last night that was none of your business, and in this country we don't like people to be nosy. As it is, we're going to have to shut up the town until all these newspaper guys leave.”

“Maybe it was my business,” Lennox told him. “You haven't asked why I went over to that Crewe woman's place.”

“I don't want to know,” said Alf Jones, “and I'd be as glad if you did your drinking somewhere else. I'll have to do business in this town a long time after you've forgotten it's here. Good night, Bill, and if you're smart, you'll take that actor friend of yours back to Hollywood. You've overstayed your welcome.”

2

Nancy Hobbs said, “My, my, such a quaint place! And the flies. Did you ever see such friendly flies, Marcus?” The three of them were eating in the restaurant.

“Don't chatter,” said Lennox.

“I'm not chattering,” she sounded insulted. “Was your soiled moth a strong silent woman?”

Doolittle blinked. “You know, I think that a little gambling might be pleasant, much more pleasant than that awful hotel.”

“We're not staying at the hotel,” Nancy told him. “Bill is taking us over to the lodge.”

“That,” Lennox said, “is what you think. The lodge is strictly masculine at the moment. There isn't even a chaperone.”

Nancy's eyes were incredulous. “William T. Lennox, have you gone insane? What's this about chaperones?”

“It's the Doolittle influence,” Bill informed her. “Marcus has been abroad so long that I'm picking up European ideas from him. Besides, you and he are taking my car and heading back to Placerville as soon as we've finished dinner.”

“Oh, no, we're not. I know you of old, my pet. You're expecting something to break, and if you think that I drove up here behind Marcus' hot cylinders, just to leave before the real story breaks, you don't know me as well as I was afraid you did. If you won't put me up, Clara Cullen will. Now that her old turtle of an uncle has had his stroke, she'll have some say about what goes on at the camp.”

“Scranton's over there talking to her now,” Lennox said. “I'll bet the old vulture is trying to pry her loose from Dick's studio stock already. And Dick not even buried yet.”

“You sound like an expurgated scene from East Lynne,” she told him. “Pay for the dinners and we'll go over there and pull the wolf's teeth. I always liked that kid.”

“You'll have to pay here. I gave all my dough to Judy.”

Her look was long and pitying. “Boy! Always sucker bait, and the heck of it is, you like it.”

He said, defensively, “Well, hell! I couldn't just turn her out in the cold. A gal has to eat.”

“And wear sables,” said Nancy Hobbs. “It's lucky that Spurck keeps you underpaid. At least you can't buy them Beverly Hills homes.”

“I wish,” Doolittle sounded plaintive, “that one of you would finish a sentence. I need an interpreter to find out what the conversation is about.”

She reached across and patted the back of his small hand. “That's all right, darling. We'll just let you pay the check for being such a good boy. Come, Bill. Let's see if we can steal a boat.”

3

The porch of the Cullen lodge was well crowded when they moored the boat and moved up the shadowy path. Scranton was there, looking rather displeased. Peter Ashley sat on the top step his back against a post, and there was a blur in the background, which was Tom Shea.

Lennox did not realize that the doctor was present, too, until Newcomb spoke from the porch swing. “Good evening, Miss Hobbs. If this keeps up, I'll expect to find a Brown Derby restaurant on the corner.”

She nodded to him and turned to take both of Clara Cullen's hands. “I saw you at the inquest this afternoon, but there were so many people that I simply couldn't get through. How's your uncle?”

“Better,” said the girl. “At least he seems better, and Doctor Jay thinks there are decided signs of recovery. I'm terribly glad to see you. Can't you stay with me?”

“I was going to ask,” Nancy admitted. “Bill's gone suddenly pure, the rake. He doesn't realize that a girl is safer with four or five men than she is with one. That's what he gets for associating with prostitutes.”

“Skip it,” said Lennox, and he wasn't kidding.

“But?”

“Skip it or I'll kick three teeth down your throat.”

Clara Cullen regarded them in surprise. “I've never seen you two fight before. I always thought of you as Hollywood's perfect couple.”

“We are,” said Nancy. “We claw each other's eyes out every fortnight, but don't let it worry you, honey. No one ever gets hurt.”

Clara lowered her voice. “I'm glad you came, Bill. Mister Scranton has been trying to get me alone all evening. I know that he wants to talk about the studio, but I haven't an idea of what to say to him. I thought about getting Vance Morgan over. He is a lawyer, you know, but I'd much rather have you.”

“Scranton wouldn't,” Bill said, without humor.

“That's still better. I don't like him very much.” She raised her voice. “Oh, Mister Scranton. Would you come into the den for a few minutes.”

The picture-maker started into the house, paused and frowned deeply as Lennox followed. “I'm sorry, Lennox, but I wanted to talk to Miss Cullen alone.”

“I asked him to come in,” the girl said, quickly. “I need advice, and he's an old friend. Besides, he knows much more about the studio than I do.” Scranton made no effort to hide his anger. His cold eyes glinted viciously as they raked Lennox and then swung back to the girl.

Bill kept a straight face. He found the situation amusing. An employee of a rival firm, he was sitting in on a conference which might decide who was to control the Pinnacle studio. Not only that, but he was the representative of the firm which Pinnacle was suing.

Lew Scranton was controlling his temper with the greatest difficulty. “I hope,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “that Mister Lennox will remember that anything said in this room is said in confidence.”

The girl made a small, impatient gesture and Scranton went on. “I'm trying to find out who is or are Dick Cullen's heirs. I don't know whether his estate comes to you, your brother, to Bert, or to all three of you. I've talked with Dick's Hollywood attorneys. If he left a will, they know nothing about it.”

Clara Cullen shook her head. “I'm afraid I can't help you. I know nothing of any will.”

Scranton showed his disappointment. “There was a partnership agreement, signed by Dick, Bert, and Jake Sloane. It states that if any of the three should die without legal heirs, the surviving partners inherit automatically. Under that agreement, Bert will probably receive Jake Sloane's interest, both in the studio and in the mines. But frankly, both Bert's and Sloane's interests are relatively small. Dick controlled the largest holdings and it is his holdings which will swing control one way or another.

“If Bert weren't paralyzed, I would deal with him, of course, but since he is, and since the time is short, I'm asking you and your brother to go into court, have yourselves appointed executors of Dick's estate and trustee for Bert.”

“I don't like to rush...” the girl sounded uncertain.

“We have to hurry,” Scranton assured her. “The hearings on our suit against General Consolidated Studio begin next week. There are minority stockholders who have become frightened and who are attempting to force me to settle the suit for a ridiculously small amount.

“I've got to have the support of the Cullen block. Otherwise they will out-vote me.”

Still the girl hesitated. “I'll have to talk with my brother.”

“I didn't know you had a brother.” Lennox was remembering the letter which she had given him to mail.

She flushed a little. “Few movie people know it. He runs a small finance company which Uncle Dick owned, but he and my uncles never got along well together.”

Scranton showed small interest in the brother. “All I'm asking is for you to get yourself appointed Bert's trustee, and Dick's executor. As such you can give me a power of attorney to vote the Cullen and Sloane stock.”

“Don't do it,” said Lennox.

Scranton was furious. “Of course Lennox doesn't want you to do it. If the minority stockholders vote me down, General Consolidated...”

The girl cut him short. “I've already written to my brother, asking him to come up. He should have received the letter this morning. I'd rather not make a decision until he arrives.”

Scranton shrugged, still trying to control his anger. “Then all I can do is wait. The hotel doesn't look promising, I...” He looked hopefully at the girl but received no invitation to stay.

Lennox was watching him. “Have you talked with Doctor Newcomb?”

Scranton was surprised. “Why yes.”

“What does he think of Pinnacle's suit?”

“I didn't discuss it,” Scranton was still not friendly. “He's a very small stockholder. I talked to him about Bert Cullen's condition. He informs me that it will be months before Bert recovers his speech, if ever. That is the reason I sought this interview.”

4

When Lew Scranton had left, Clara and Bill returned to the dark porch to find Newcomb waiting for them. “What did Scranton want?” Lennox answered for the girl. “Wanted her to apply as Bert's trustee and then to grant him a power of attorney to vote the picture stock.”

“And you told him...” There was a nervous urgency behind the doctor's words which Lennox had never heard there before, and he glanced at the man sharply.

But Newcomb had his full attention centered on the girl.

“I told him I'd wait until Carey came before I decided.”

“Before Carey...you've sent for Carey?”

“Why not?” Her tone was brittle, challenging.

“Why, I...”

“What have you got against her brother?” Lennox asked, watching the man's face in the semi-darkness.

“Why nothing, I...well, Carey and Bert never got along very well. I thought that Carey's presence at this time might upset Bert further.”

Lennox found a cigarette and lit it. His face in the reflected glow of the match looked as if it had been carved from brown marble.

“Look, doctor. There's a lot that goes on around here which I don't understand, and I've got a hunch you may be holding the key that will unlock the whole works. You sent the telegram which brought Dick Cullen up here to his death. Your car's motor was hot when I went after you, and you claimed to have waited in Jake Sloane's office for Dick Cullen, and still claim that he didn't show up.

“Just why did you send for Cullen? What was so damned important that he left Hollywood, just when the color suit was going to be heard?”

“What right have you to question me?”

Lennox lost his temper. “Look! If you don't want to answer me, I'll get Hampton to ask the questions. You know more about the Cullens than any living man, and you walk around like a sphinx, keeping your mouth tight shut. Okay, brother, but watch out, I'll pin this little deal on you if I can.” He swung flatly on his heel and went into the house to put in a call for Sam Marx in Hollywood.

When the little attorney answered, he said: “Did you get any of the dope I wanted?”

Marx said: “Not too much. Cullen was in New York about six years. He got into trouble with the postal authorities twice on his mining-stock sales. Somewhere he met Lew Scranton who was trying to refinance Pinnacle Pictures and Cullen took a big bite. He came out to the coast to look after his interests in '33 and spent the next four or five years trying to force his way into the Big Six.

“He didn't get very far, so he looked around for a club, and found some lame-brain inventor named Chandler who had a color process. He put up some dough, backed the guy, and finally froze Chandler out, buying him off for twelve grand. Then he started putting the hooks into Spurck.”

“Okay,” Lennox's mind was working. “Find this Chandler. The chances are, he's sore at being frozen out. Get him to file a suit against Pinnacle Pictures, any kind of suit.”

“We thought of that months ago. The only trouble is that the guy's dead. He hung himself in Detroit.”

“All right. Did you get any dope on Ben Scribbs?”

“Easy. Sent to Carson City October 12, 1923, attempted murder. Drew twenty to forty, released August first, time off for good behavior. Paroled to Richard Cullen.”

“Who?” Lennox couldn't believe his ears.

“That's right,” said Marx. “Unless the warden was lying to me. I talked with him on the phone. Anything else new?”

“Yes,” said Lennox. “Check on a Carey Cullen, Highmount Towers, Hollywood. He runs some kind of a finance agency. Then call me.” He hung up and turned around. Nancy Hobbs was standing behind him.

“Eavesdropper!” he said, accusingly.

She gave him her sweetest smile. “I thought you'd rather have me listening than the Chinaman. He was on the stairs, listening, when I came through the front door. I suspect that he's telling the doctor everything he heard. At least, they vanished upstairs together.”

7

VANCE MORGAN was in a bad humor. “Politics,” he decided, as he sat in the barroom of the hotel, “are hell.”

He stared moodily at his untouched drink. The barroom was empty. The bartender was giving him no attention, his full thought centered on the Reno paper. Neither he nor Morgan looked up when the man came through the swinging door from the lobby.

Not until the newcomer paused beside his table did Vance look up, and it was the man's voice which captured his attention.

“You Morgan?”

The district attorney was startled. He had seen far better looking tramps. The man needed a shave and his clothes had been slept in.

“I'm Morgan!”

The newcomer sank wearily into a chair as if he had come to the end of a long and difficult quest. “I've got something to tell,” he said. “Maybe you're my man.” His eyes were small and bright and malice-filled. “I don't want any part of the sheriff. I don't know him, but I knew his deputy a long time ago, and I don't trust the big bastard.”

“Who are you?” said Morgan. His momentary interest was failing.

“I'm Scribbs!”

Morgan jerked erect. This was different. This was the missing convict for whom Hampton had been combing the woods. Then his natural caution made him relax a little. “And what do you want?”

“Protection!” Scribbs wiped the stubble-beard which rimmed his lips. “I'm on parole, and God knows that I earned it. Twenty years for shooting a man in the hind end. If it had been anyone but Bert Cullen they'd have laughed the case out of court.”

“Did you kill Dick Cullen or Jake Sloane?”

“Christ, no! Do you think I'm stir-crazy?”

“Then why the devil do you need protection?”

“Look,” said Scribbs. “The guy that I was paroled to, the guy that promised me a job, has been killed. That's why I need protection.”

Morgan was surprised. “The man you were paroled to?”

“Yeah, Dick Cullen,” said Scribbs. “It's no secret. You could check up with the warden.”

“You were paroled to Dick Cullen? But I thought the Cullens hated you. I don't get it.”

“Neither do I,” said Scribbs. “That's why I'm here, that's why I want to talk to you.” There was an odor of stale whiskey about the man, but he seemed perfectly sober. Morgan considered him for a full minute in silence.

“All right,” he said. “Go on. Talk.”

The ex-convict shrugged. “What I've got to say sounds screwy. I was as surprised as you are when the warden told me that Cullen had offered me a job, but a man who's done twenty years doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. I was too damn glad to get free.

“I bought a jalopy and drove over here. I went directly to the Cullen lodge. I had a letter telling me to come to Skull Valley and meet Dick Cullen. What else was I supposed to do?

“I didn't find Dick. He wasn't there, but Bert was, and the son-of-a-bitch ran me off the place with a rifle. Damn him! If I'd had a gun, I'd have blown his heart out.”

Morgan was getting impatient. “So what?”

“So I started to run for my car. As I ran, I heard voices. I thought it might be Dick, so I circled back through the brush. It wasn't Dick, but it was a Cullen, a younger one. I'd know the breed anywhere. He was talking to the girl, Clara, and from their conversation, I guessed he was her brother.”

Morgan didn't say anything. At the mention of Clara's name, his hands which were resting in his lap tightened. “Go on.”

“They were arguing,” said Scribbs. “I doped out that the young fellow had been in trouble before, and that he was in trouble now. He'd grabbed five grand that belonged to a finance company that Dick Cullen owned, and Dick was putting on the pressure and threatening to send him over the road.

“He'd come up to Bert for help, and the girl was discouraging him. 'Bert won't help,' she said. We can try to get it from Doctor Newcomb.'

“'I've seen him,' her brother said. 'He won't do a thing.'

“The girl was worried, but she didn't want him in the house. She told him to go back to Hollywood, but he kept refusing.

“'If I can't get help anywhere else, I'll talk to Dick,' he told her. 'Dick's at Skull Lake some place. I heard that he was coming up.'

“"You're crazy,' she said. 'He hasn't been here.'

“They went on arguing, back and forth, and I heard the boy say, 'I've got to have five thousand. I'll get it if I have to choke it out of Dick with my bare hands.'

“'No,' she said. 'Please, Carey, listen. Maybe I could borrow it from Bill Lennox. Please, go back to Hollywood. Promise me that you won't even see Uncle Dick until you hear from me. Promise...'

“I didn't hear any more, Mister Morgan, for just then my foot slipped and I made a noise. The girl was carrying a rifle, and she raised it and let fly. I'll bet that bullet didn't miss my head two inches.

“I didn't waste any more time, I'm telling you. I hightailed back to my car and lit out for town, but I only made maybe a mile when I had a puncture. Some jerk came along and helped me fix the tire and then I rode him into town and got him plastered at Mary Crewe's.”

“Well?” said Morgan.

Scribbs was impatient. “What's the matter with you? Don't you see? This kid hunted up Dick Cullen, had an argument with his uncle and killed him. What more do you want?”

“I might like to know where he is now.”

Scribbs laughed. “That's why I'm here,” he said. “I saw this boy come driving into town not an hour ago. He's registered at this hotel right now. Why do you think I'm in here talking?”

Morgan's eyes glowed, and then darkened with thought. “Clara Cullen isn't going to like this.”

Scribbs spat. “What the hell has that got to do with it?. Come on, sonny. Get the lead out of your pants, unless you want that jerk sheriff to beat you to the punch.”

Morgan definitely did not want that. He shoved his chair back from the table and rose. “Come on,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” Scribbs was in no hurry. “I'm not in on this, brother.”

“Oh, yes, you are.” Vance Morgan might have difficulty in making up his mind, but once it was made up, he could be a bulldog at following things through. “You're going up there, Scribbs, and you're going to tell the same story that you've just told to me.”

Their eyes locked for a moment, and it was the ex-convict who surrendered. “You're calling them,” he told Morgan, “but if you cross me, I'll see that you're taken care of, and I'm not kidding.” He rose and followed Morgan reluctantly from the barroom.

The desk clerk admitted that Carey Cullen was registered. Certainly the boy seemed to have his nerve about him, or was he so utterly sure that he had not been detected that he was being careless?

Morgan climbed the stairs, his feet making scuffing sounds on the rubber treads. He sensed rather than heard Scribbs following him, and moved along the bare upper hall toward a door at the far end.

Light showed in the wide crack at the bottom of the door and there was the faint murmur of voices from within. Two men were arguing. Morgan could tell by the sound, but their voices were pitched so low that he could not make out anything in the way of words.

He looked around to see that Scribbs was at his elbow, and then grasped the knob, half expecting to find the door locked. The knob turned in his grasp and the door swung inward.

Both men swung around to stare at Morgan, and the district attorney smiled faintly. “Good evening, Doctor. This, I assume, is Mister Cullen?”

They both started to speak, and then stopped. Morgan waited for no invitation, but stepped forward with Scribbs following. Jay Newcomb's eyes moved from the district attorney to Scribbs and his thin-lipped mouth grew bitter. “Oh, it's you.”

There was a strained, false gaiety in Scribbs's manner, as if he were attempting to appear at ease and was not quite succeeding. “Hello, Doc! I told you a long time ago that we would meet again. Thanks for keeping me in prison all these years.”

Newcomb said: “You're crazy.”

“Stir-crazy,” Scribbs told him. “You ought to know all about it, Doc. They tell me that you specialize in treating cracked brains.”

Newcomb looked toward Morgan. “Well, perhaps you can explain this intrusion?”

“I didn't know you were here.” The district attorney was not impressed by the doctor's manner. “I came up here to talk to Mister Cullen. I wanted to ask him just why he killed his uncle.”

Carey Cullen was big and blond, but as Scribbs had said, there was no doubt as to his relationship to the Cullens. He looked enough like the dead Richard to be a younger brother. He started at Morgan's words, then checked himself and looked toward Newcomb. “Who is tins'?”

“His name is Morgan,” said the doctor, “and he's the county district attorney.”

“Stop stalling.” Morgan's heavy face was a little flushed. “I know that you were at the Cullen camp on the night Dick was murdered and that you threatened to kill him. I know that you needed five thousand dollars very badly. I'll find out why. In the meantime, you might save us all a lot of trouble if you talked.”

Carey Cullen looked helplessly toward Newcomb. “I don't understand this at all. I was at the camp on the night Uncle Dick was killed. I've never denied being there and had no intention of denying it. The only reason I didn't stay was because of Clara. She was afraid that if Uncle Bert saw me, it would be bad for his condition.”

“Where'd you go after you left the camp?”

“Why, back to the main road where I'd parked my car. The road along the ridge is so rough that I was afraid I'd break a spring if I drove it in the darkness.”

Morgan looked toward Scribbs. “Did you see him on the road?”

The ex-convict shook his head. “I did not.”

“But I saw you,” Carey Cullen told him. “While Clara and I were talking, we heard someone in the brush. She had Uncle Bert's rifle and she shot, high. Then we searched the brush but found no one. While we were searching, we heard a boat and went back to the house. Bill Lennox came and Clara sent him for Doctor Jay. I was hiding behind the window drapes. I'd come up on a private matter and I didn't want anyone to know I was there. Lennox had hardly gone when a little man came, looking for a missing actor. He left and I followed him up the road. I saw him stop beside a car where you were fixing a tire. I circled out through the brush, reached the main highway where my car was parked, and drove back to L.A.”

“Then what are you doing back up here?”

“My sister sent for me,” Carey Cullen told him.

“You see,” Newcomb cut in. “Richard Cullen died without leaving a will. The studio wants someone to go into court and be appointed the executor. Since Carey, his sister, and Bert are the only heirs, and Bert is unfit physically to take over the job, it's up to Carey.”

“Why is it?” None of them had noticed the grey-haired woman who had stepped into the half-open doorway. None of them knew that Mary Crewe was there until she spoke.

They swung around and it was Newcomb who was the first to recover. “Mary, you keep out of this.”

“No.” She gave him a smile which was bright and sharp with repressed bitterness. “No, Jay, I've kept out of things too long. Richard Cullen died without a will. He shouldn't have done that, but then, Dick wouldn't have expected to die. He wasn't the kind. He thought that he would live forever.

“Mary, you are a fool!”

“Am I, Jay?” Her voice was low-pitched, but there was something in its intensity which held the attention of everyone in the room. “I guess I am. I guess I've been a fool for twenty years, but I'm not going to be one any longer. I'm going to reach out and take what belongs to me. If anyone is appointed the executor of Dick's estate, I think that it should be his wife.”

“His wife?” Morgan's mouth dropped open and she gave him an amused glance.

“Yes, Vance. I'm Mrs. Richard Cullen. I've been Mrs. Richard Cullen for better than twenty years. Good night, gentlemen, and tell the movie studio that if they want to do business, they'll find me at the same old stand.” She turned and was gone, leaving them to stare at the empty doorway.

2

They were still staring when Clara Cullen came down the hall followed by William Lennox. She stopped in the opening, looking around at the men inside with surprise. Then she saw her brother and went toward him, catching both his hands.

“Carey, what's happened? We started as soon as we got your message. Why is Vance here, and Doctor Jay, and Scribbs?”

Vance Morgan was embarrassed. “Now, Clara,” he said. “I'm an officer. I have to do many things that I don't like...”

Lennox had paused just inside the doorway and put his shoulder blades against the wall. “You didn't lose any time in getting here, Doctor.”

Newcomb flushed. “It was the sheerest accident,” he said, precisely. “The sheerest accident that I saw Carey's name on the register downstairs. I'd come over to talk to Mister Scranton.”

“What were you going to do? Sell out?'”

Newcomb swore and came to his feet. “No one can talk to me that way,” he said, sharply. “I was trying to do my duty by the Cullen family. I thought that by talking to Mister Scranton alone, I might be able to determine exactly what shape the studio holdings were in.

“When I looked at the register for Mister Scranton's name, I found Carey was registered, so I came up here at once. I wanted to apprise him of the facts.”

“And it seems to have been useless,” Carey Cullen's voice was bitter. “It seems that we aren't Dick's heirs after all. His wife just left here.”

“His wife?” Lennox and the girl said it in concert, but it was Lennox who added, “Not Mary Crewe by any chance?'

Morgan stared at him viciously. “And just how did you manage to guess that?”

“It wasn't hard,” Lennox told him. “Stop looking for deep, dark motives, Morgan. It just happened that Mary Crewe came down the stairs as we were coming up.”

“The grey-haired lady...but she...” Clara Cullen was staring at him. “She can't be Uncle Richard's wife. Why she runs the...”

Lennox was looking at Newcomb. “It seems to me, Doctor, that it's about time for you to open up and start talking. You're the only one here who's known the Cullens long enough to shed any light on this business.”

It was obvious that Newcomb did not relish the job.

“There's someone else who could tell us,” Morgan had turned to Scribbs.

“Hey,” the ex-convict said, hurriedly. “I'm not in on this. I don't want any part of it.” He started to back away, but Morgan seized his arm. “No you don't, Scribbs.”

“Scribbs?” It was Lennox. He walked forward until he blocked Scribbs's retreat. “This is getting interesting. Now that we've got Newcomb and Scribbs together, we might dig up some history.”

The man twisted his head as this attack came from an unexpected direction. “Hey! I got mixed up with the Cullens once, and it cost me years in prison. I don't want anything more to do with any of the tribe.”

Clara had turned to Newcomb. “Surely, Doctor Jay, you can't refuse to talk now. You've got to help us out. Can't you see the position we're in?”

He put out a long-fingered hand and laid it on her arm. “There are many things that would have better stayed buried,” he told her, “but it looks as if we can't keep them underground. There is an element of truth in what that woman said a few minutes ago. She was, at one time, Richard Cullen's wife.”

“At one time?” The girl sounded genuinely puzzled.

“He divorced her years ago,” Newcomb explained.

“Then where does she get any claim?”

The doctor's face was grave. “She may have, at that. The Nevada town in which they were divorced, burned and all the records were burned at the same time. I know that the judge who granted the divorce is dead, and I suspect that the lawyers involved are also gone.”

“That would make it nice,” said Lennox.

Newcomb nodded. “I'm not an attorney,” he said, “but I rather suspect that the woman is in a perfect position to make trouble.”

“But how...” Clara Cullen seemed a little dazed. “I don't understand how Uncle Richard happened to marry a woman like that.”

“You'd better,” Newcomb suggested, “ask Scribbs. He probably knows much more about it than I do. You see, Scribbs is Mary Crewe's brother.”

“Her brother?” The full attention of the room shifted to the ex-convict. “Her brother! Now, that's interesting.”

Scribbs wet his lips, and his little eyes shifted under the shaggy brows, looking one way and the other as if seeking a means of escape.

“Look,” he said. “Don't drag me into this. I didn't have a thing to do with it. See? I didn't kill Dick Cullen and I don't know who did. I'm not going back. You can't send me back. I couldn't stand it again. I couldn't... I couldn't...” He was almost crying.

“No one's going to send you anywhere if you just tell the truth,” Lennox assured him.

“That's what you think,” Scribbs's voice lost its tearful note and became a whining snarl. “An ex-con hasn't got a chance in hell. He's got two strikes against him from the start. I shouldn't have come over this way, but the Cullens owed me a lift. They owed me plenty.”

“You're not doing yourself any good,” Lennox told him, “and you certainly aren't helping us. No one's accusing you of anything. We simply want information.”

Scribbs licked his lips. “I can't tell you much,” he said. “Mary was Dick's wife. They were married in '19, right after he came out of the army. He was crazy about her, and...”

“Tell the truth,” said Newcomb's tired voice. “You planned the whole damn thing. You got them both drunk and when they woke up, they were married.”

Scribbs snarled. “That's a lie. That's the lie that Bert Cullen told when he tried to separate them. That's why I shot the bastard.”

“It's no lie,” said Newcomb. “Anyone that was in Tonopah at the time will remember. The Cullens had some money. They'd made plenty as kids, buying hot gold during the strike at Goldfield, and you saw a chance to lift your sister out of the dance hall and marry her to Cullen.”

Scribbs was muttering to himself. “Anyhow,” he said, savagely, “Bert Cullen didn't treat Mary right, so I shot him, and they sent me up for twenty years with a packed jury. I served my time, and I don't want to go back.”

“Of course not,” said Lennox. “Not unless you killed Dick Cullen.”

“I'm not nuts,” Scribbs said. “Would I kill the guy who had gotten my parole?”

“That brings up another point,” said Lennox. “If all you've said is true, why the devil should Dick Cullen sign your parole?”

“I can explain that,” Newcomb said. “Ever since that fire which destroyed the divorce records, Mary has been bothering Dick, but she had sense enough to keep her demands small. All she asked at first was the chance of coming to Skull Valley with her girls. Dick arranged it with Jake Sloane. Then, when there was talk of Ben's parole, she threatened Dick until he signed it.”

“Threatened him, how?” asked Morgan.

Newcomb gave him a pitying glance. “Don't you think it would have been lovely publicity for Cullen if it were known in Hollywood that his wife, or former wife, was running a whore house? Use your head, son.”

Morgan flushed. Newcomb went on. “There was a telegram found in Dick's pocket, a telegram sent by me. I sent it because Mary Crewe told me to. She wanted Dick up here. She was going to insist that he buy Ben a ranch.”

Lennox said: “So Dick went to Mary's place on the night of his death; but how did he get across the lake and into my bed?”

Newcomb shrugged. “I don't know. I don't even know that he went to Mary's place. He was supposed to come directly to Jake Sloane's office. I was telling you the truth when I said that I waited for him there; but he never showed up, although he left his car in the garage less than a block away.”

Lennox turned his attention back to Scribbs. “This divorce business seems to be causing trouble. You can straighten that out, Ben, and it will make things a lot easier for you.”

The man was sullen. “You can't prove it by me,” he said. “I never heard of any divorce. As far as I know, they're still married.”

3

Sheriff Hampton and Tom Shea were playing rummy with Pepper in the marshal's office when Morgan shoved the reluctant Scribbs through the door.

Shea was seated with his back to the far wall so that he was the first to see the newcomers. He looked up and a grin suddenly split his big face. “Well, hell! Look who's here.”

Scribbs was standing just inside the entrance, trying to straighten his coat. “You ain't got a right in the world to drag me down here,” he was telling Morgan, angrily. “Not a right in the world. I haven't done a thing.”

Lennox had followed them down the hall, leaving Clara at the hotel with her brother and Newcomb. He paused as Shea rose and said, “Hello, Ben! Remember me?”

Scribbs's little eyes centered on the big deputy. “You're Tom Shea,” he said, after some hesitation. “I...” He seemed to shrink a little. The deputy sounded playful.

“Don't you remember me? Tonopah Rose Mine?” he laughed.

Scribbs nodded, “Yeah,” his voice was a little shaky. “I remember.”

Hampton had turned to look at Morgan. “Where'd you pick him up, Vance?”

Morgan said, “At the hotel. I thought maybe you would like to ask some questions.” He went on to tell them what had happened at the hotel room.

Hampton scratched his head. “Well, well! Think of that. Never suspected that Mary was Dick's wife. Didn't even know they knew each other. I always wondered why Jake Sloane let her operate here.”

Pepper removed his ever-present toothpick. “We always had orders not to bother her or her girls,” he admitted, in his sad voice. “Always thought myself that she was paying off to Jake, but I liked my job too well to ask questions.”

Lennox looked around the room. For years he'd seen graft and the way vice operated hand in hand with city administrations, but this was his first experience with such conditions in a small town.

Hampton and Pepper were on opposite sides of the fence politically. The city marshal, like Morgan, had taken his orders more or less directly from Sloane, while Shea, as Hampton's deputy, must have been in the other group.

But they were all practical men who realized that if they hoped to maintain any semblance of order, they must of necessity work together.

Morgan pushed the unwilling Scribbs into a chair and shoved his light hat far back on his dark head. “Hell of a thing,” he said, “for a nice girl like Clara Cullen to find out that her uncle was married to a madam.”

Hampton seemed to be amused. He spat with unerring accuracy, making the tin spittoon ring. “Mary Crewe wouldn't be a madam, Vance, not unless you and Pepper let her operate. She's inside the town limits and none of my business.”

Morgan flushed and his dark eyes got an angry, heated look. “You always did pick on me, Fred,” he told the older man. “What would you do if you were in my shoes?”

“I'm not,” Hampton's voice was lazy. “When a man runs for office, he's gotta decide who he's going to take orders from, himself, or someone else. You've got to decide, Vance. Now that Jake Sloane is dead, you've got to decide.”

Lennox thought he detected a veiled threat in the sheriff's even voice, but he couldn't be sure. If it was there, Vance Morgan chose to ignore it.

“Let's quit arguing and find out who killed Cullen and Sloane.”

The sheriff sounded surprised. “Right now?”

“Right now,” Morgan was dogged. “At least we can make this jailbird talk more than he has. He must have found out something from that sister of his.”

“Hey!” Scribbs was mad and scared. “You promised that if I helped you, you'd give me a break, you double-crosser!”

“Shut up,” Morgan said, harshly. “You weren't any help. All you did was to tell me a cock-and-bull story to pin the murder on Clara's brother.”

Scribbs stared at him, his little eyes getting dangerous. “So that's it? You're going to give me the works to cover up for that Cullen pup. You're in love with his sister, and I never tumbled. God, how dumb I can be!”

“I told you to shut up.” Morgan took a step toward him, then stopped. For an instant he stood above the cowering Scribbs, his big hands working; then he swung around and his face was set in hard anger.

“The way I see it now,” he said in a carefully controlled voice, “is that Mary Crewe managed to get her brother paroled to Dick Cullen. Scribbs comes here, meets Cullen at Mary's, kills him, takes him across the lake to Spurck's lodge and leaves him in Lennox's bed.

“Then he has to kill Sloane because Sloane knew that Dick was at Mary's on the night of the murder. You see, with Dick dead, and the divorce records lost, Mary will inherit the studio and can cash in on this color process.”

“What about Rany?” Lennox objected. “Rany helped Scribbs fix his tire and came on into town with him. Rany gives Scribbs a tailored alibi if I ever heard of one.”

“Who's Rany?” Morgan demanded.'

“Ashley's valet. Have you forgotten?” The district attorney had evidently forgotten.

“To hell with it,” said Morgan. “The more you talk, the more involved it gets. I've still got the original idea at the back of my head. General Consolidated stood to gain more by Cullen's death than anyone else and you work for General. You could have done both killings, although I'll admit that you didn't have much time for Dick's murder. If it isn't you, Mary Crewe's mixed up in it somewhere.”

Shea said, lazily: “That's in keeping with the rest of your thoughts, Morgan. Mary Crewe is your pal, not mine, but the way I see it, there isn't a shred of evidence that she had a damn thing to do with it.”

Scribbs was staring at the big deputy. “Thanks, pal. I didn't think...”

“You didn't think anyone would say a good word for your sister,” Shea continued. “Well, I will, I haven't forgotten that I knew you all in Tonopah, even if it was a long time ago.”

Hampton spat thoughtfully. “Look, Caleb. You might as well lock Scribbs up for now. Come on, Lennox, I'll buy a drink.” He took Bill's arm and led him through the door. But outside the old courthouse he stopped and filled his cheek with fine-cut, seeming to forget all about the promised drink.

“Sometimes,” he said, “this business gets under your hide. Sometimes you have to move against a friend, if you think he's out of line.” There was a warning in the tone and Lennox looked at him, hard. “Meaning what?”

Hampton sighed as if he were finding the world a difficult place in which to live. “Where's that girl you took out of Mary Crewe's, Bill?”

Lennox stared at him. “Now what? You aren't playing Mary's game along with the rest, are you, Hampton?”

“I'm not playing anyone's game,” said Hampton, his voice more studied than Lennox had ever heard it. “Maybe I haven't been so smart as I thought. Where is she, Bill?”

Lennox told him. He hadn't meant to tell, he was astounded when he heard his own voice, but Hampton had a way with him that did not brook flat denial.

“If any harm comes to her...” said Lennox.

“Nothing will,” said Hampton. “I've got to go across and phone San Francisco.” He turned and walked toward the telephone building as Shea came out of the courthouse. The big deputy paused, surprised.

Lennox was cursing under his breath. “Which side of the fence is Fred on?” he demanded. “He's after that girl I stole from Mary.”

Shea rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully. “Never can tell about Fred. Deep one, Fred is. Come on, I'll buy the drink. Gotta uphold the honor of the sheriff's office.”

4

After the drink, Lennox found Clara Cullen in her brother's room at the hotel. Both were curious, but it was the girl who asked, “Did you find out anything more?”

“Nothing,” he admitted.

“Then, then maybe this Crewe woman was Uncle Dick's wife, and if so, she'll get his money.”

Lennox shrugged, looking at the boy. He was handsome, but the mouth was weak, uncertain. He thought, it's strange how you find all types in one family. Clara was as good as they came.

“Look,” he said. “I hate to keep driving into your affairs, but there were some serious charges made against you in this room tonight, and I didn't hear them denied.”

“Nor will you,” said young Cullen. His mouth was bitter now. “Sure, I took the money. It was mine. Uncle Dick paid me a hundred a month, and kept the rest of my salary to put back into the company. I've got a lot more than five thousand in the firm, but what good does it do me? I took it, and he could have sent me to prison, but I didn't kill him and I don't know who did.”

“Please,” said Clara, “please, can't we talk about something else?”

“Of course,” Lennox admitted. “It's none of my business.”

“That isn't the point,” young Cullen cut him short. “The point is that there's something going on around this lake that I don't understand, and it scares me. I want Clara to come back to Hollywood. I don't like her being here. I don't like this tie-up with this fancy woman. I keep telling her I don't want her to stay here.”

“But someone has to stay with Uncle Bert.”

“Why?” her brother faced her. “You don't owe him a thing. Besides, what good are you doing? You admit that Chang won't let you near his room. If you ask me, it's a good thing. Let Chang take care of the old devil. Personally I don't care whether he gets over the stroke or not.”

“Carey!”

“Well, I don't. I'm no hypocrite, no matter what else I may be. Both of my dear uncles delighted in making my life miserable. They liked to make everyone they could miserable. Sometimes I think they hated the whole world including themselves.”

“Carey, please.”

“Okay,” his tone changed, “but every time I remember what those two old devils have done to you and me, my blood boils. Every friend that you've ever had Bert has run off the place with his shotgun...”

The girl ignored him, turning to Lennox. “We're going back to the lodge. Do you want to come?”

He shook his head. “Not now. Later. You run along, I've still got a call to make.” He went down with them to the street, and watched them go toward the lake shore, then turned and went the other way, not realizing that he was headed for a party.

8

APPARENTLY Mary Crewe's declaration that she was Mrs. Richard Cullen and, as such, the heir to the picture producer's estate, had made no difference. If anything, the noise emanating from her establishment seemed to have increased.

Lennox ignored the front entrance and went around to the little door which he had used on the preceding evening. It was still unlocked and he let himself into the tiny foyer almost without sound.

There was a murmur of voices from the inner room and he hesitated for a moment before he knocked.

The murmur ceased. Then Mary Crewe called, “Who is it?”

“Lennox,” he said, concealing his grin. This was one time he seemed to have sneaked up on the lady's blind side.

“Come in.”

He twisted the knob and entered. He had been prepared to find someone with the dance-hall owner, but he was not quite prepared to find the room so crowded. Alf Jones was there, staring at him glumly. So were Caleb Pepper, Fred Hampton, and Tom Shea.

Pepper and Jones were a picture of unhappiness, Hampton looked grim, Tom Shea amused. The only person in the room who seemed entirely unaffected was Mary Crewe.

She greeted Lennox with a faint smile and a little wave of her hand. “I believe that you know all of these gentlemen.”

Lennox admitted that he did. “I didn't mean to butt in on a conference.”

Alf Jones grunted. “You might as well stay. In fact, I'm of the opinion that it might simplify things if we just elected you mayor and let you run the damn town. Of all the pigheaded people that I've...”

Hampton said: “Look, Alf. You aren't helping things any by your attitude.”

“Nor you,” said Jones. “For Christ's sake, Fred. At times I think you're five years old and still believe in Santa Claus. Damn it! Skull Lake is no summer resort. If we had to live on the take those Hollywood bastards bring up here, we'd starve. It's a mining town. There's eighteen hundred men working underground and when they come off duty, they don't want to play ping-pong. God! How I hate a reformer!”

“I'm no reformer,” said Hampton. “You know it as well as I do, Alf. I've winked at things for years, not because I believed in them, but because Jake Sloane and Bert Cullen held a checkrein all the time. They knew how far you could go without stirring up a stink; but now that they aren't around...”

“You think we can't hold things down?”

“I know you can't,” said Hampton. “Come, Tom. Let's get out of here.”

Shea unfolded his huge frame and winked at Lennox. “Enjoy yourself, pal.” He moved toward the door and, despite his bulk and age, he moved with the gracefulness of a cat. When they had gone, Alf Jones blew out his cheeks.

“You see, I told you that you couldn't deal with Fred. He's too cross-grained to deal with anyone.”

“No harm trying.” Mary Crewe drew a cigarette from an enameled box, and Lennox moved forward to light it. She thanked him with a tiny, indolent smile, then said to Jones: “You can catch more flies with sugar than you can with sand. We'll keep trying. Hampton isn't any too sure of his own position, and you know it. If he doesn't clear up these murders, we might well have a new sheriff at the next election.” Her eyes switched speculatively toward Pepper.

The marshal stirred uneasily, and the frayed toothpick jiggled up and down under the ragged edge of the stained mustache.

“Not me, Mary. I'm too old. I've had about enough.”

“A man never has enough,” said Mary Crewe. “If they did, I'd have to go out of business. What about Lennox? He strikes me as the strong silent type.”

“Makes too much money now,” said Jones. “Besides, he's got ideals.”

“Have your fun,” Bill told them. “I guess I've walked into the middle of a political boiling pot, but I own that I was a little surprised to see Hampton here.”

“Shea made him come,” Alf Jones explained. “Bright guy, Tom. If he wasn't so damn loyal to Fred he might be a good man.” He glanced at a thick, old-fashioned hunting case watch and rose. “Well, I got to be going. Midnight shift will be off in a few minutes. I wish to God I knew what was going to happen to the mines.”

“Jake Sloane have any heirs?”

“Had a partnership agreement with Bert Cullen. Whichever outlived the other, got the whole shebang. I guess Bert is still breathing, although they say that's about all. Coming, Caleb?”,

The marshal sighed as he rose. “I'd like to get my fingers on the man that killed Dick Cullen,” he muttered. “Everything was so nice and peaceful.”

Lennox waited until he heard the outer door close, then he sank into a seat and grinned at the woman. “Happy, Mary?”

Her face was almost mask-like in its perfection. “Why...” She seemed a little startled by the question, but her expression did not alter.

“You should be,” he told her. “You're right in the middle of things, palo. You're helping formulate the political future of this neck of the woods, and you're dipping into the Cullen millions. It must be nice to know that you've got a good chance for all that dough.”

“It's more mine than anyone else's.”

“Am I arguing? What will you do? Go to New York and turn respectable?”

“For Christ's sake, no! Why should I? Who in hell wants to be respectable?”

“I've sometimes wondered,” William Lennox admitted. “It must be rather dull, at that. What will you do with the money, Mary? Build a better dance hall?”

“I haven't got it as yet.”

He pretended to be startled. “You rather amaze me. I thought you were about set. With all records of the divorce destroyed...”

“There wasn't any divorce.”

“Look,” he told her. “You've got me all mixed up with a court of law. You can take your mask off and talk. Even if I repeat what you say it wouldn't be admissible as evidence.”

“Then why are you here?” She got a shrewd look. “You're with General Consolidated, and Dick was suing your studio. You wouldn't be here to make a deal with me?”

He grinned. “Not until we're certain that you're the owner of Pinnacle Pictures. There's many a slip between a murder and an inheritance.”

“I had nothing to do with Dick's death.”

“But he was here, in this house on the night that he was killed.”

“Judy told you that,” she accused.

Lennox grinned. So Dick Cullen had been at his wife's house on the night of his death. “Never mind what Judy told me,” he countered. “I'm only interested in what you might tell me. Has Lew Scranton been to see you as yet?”

“You mean the president of the studio? No, not yet.”

“He will be,” Lennox said. “Lew Scranton would like to be a big shot in the Richard Cullen pattern. The trouble is, he hasn't quite the guts or brains. That husband of yours was quite a guy, Mary, quite a guy.”

“He was the world's star heel.” She put a lot of feeling into her voice. “I could have had any man in Tonopah, and my smart brother had to get me drunk and marry me to that bastard.”

Lennox looked at her, trying to imagine what she had looked like twenty years before. It was not hard to do, because, aside from the grey hair, she didn't look much over thirty now, and a very beautiful thirty at that. Sin was supposed to mark its followers, but it had certainly put no imprint on Mary Crewe. He wondered where that name came from, but names were of no importance; people could call themselves anything they chose.

The woman was smiling at him. “You're in the picture business, Bill. You know quite a lot about it.”

“I know everything,” he admitted modestly.

“And I don't,” she said. “Still, I can learn. It can't be too difficult, judging by the people in it.”

“It would be a cinch for you. It has a lot in common with the business you've been in for years. You're peddling talent in either game.”

She laughed. “You know, I should be sore as hell at you. You're the first man in years that's crossed me and got away with it. Last night, I thought that I had you all figured out. I was certain that you were a lousy reformer.”

“Who, me?” He sounded shocked.

“Why not? Didn't you steal that Judy girl from under my nose. What in the devil did you want with her? Certainly not for your own use.”

He laughed and she said, “I thought not. I'm beginning to think this whole thing is just a game with you. All you wanted was to prove to yourself that you could steal her and get away with it.

“You've been reading my mail.”

“No,” she told him, “but I've known people like you before. You're smart, and wise, and bored, and you're cocky. Not like a kid that's cocky, but certain of yourself. It was fun, taking the girl, stripping the duds from my back and dressing her in them. I should be sore, but I'm not because I know something else about you. You're loyal to the people you work for. You'd be loyal if you were working for me, loyal as all hell.”

“I wouldn't make a good pimp.”

“I was thinking of the picture business.” Her voice had a dreamy sound. “It might be fun, but I'd be lost, trying to handle things myself. The vultures would close in. Tell me, Bill. Is that color suit worth anything?”

He shrugged. “I'm a poor one to ask. Dick Cullen thought it was a swell chance for a holdup. Maybe he was right. You'll have to let the courts decide.”

She considered this in silence for a full minute. “How,” she asked him, “would you like to be president of Pinnacle Pictures? How would that sound to you?”

In spite of himself, it sounded good. It sounded very good indeed. Lennox was human and there had been times when he had watched the industry's great with unmixed jealously. Fun, he thought, and grinned widely.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Not you, darling. I wasn't exactly laughing.” His lips still remained twisted. “I was seeing Sol Spurck's expression when he read the news in the Reporter. Imagine my suing him for five million.”

“Then you are interested; you would take the job?”

He held up a hand. “Wait a minute. We go too fast. First, the studio isn't yours yet; and second, I'd like to take a look at the strings.”

Her smile was faint. “You aren't as much of a gambler as I thought.”

“I'm a gambler, all right,” he assured her. “But I never kid myself. I like roulette. I am, in fact, a sucker for a wheel; but believe it or not, I know that I'm licked before I start. I play for the fun of playing. But when I gamble on other things, I'm cold-blooded. I want to know what cards each of the other players is holding. So I'd like to know the reason for this offer. It wasn't made because I know so much about the business. You've got another reason, sweetheart. Turn over your hole card and let's take a look.”

“All right,” she said. “Do I look scared?”

“Scared!” He was genuinely amazed. “Are you kidding?”

“I wish I were.” There was a note in her voice which held the ring of truth. “I've never been so scared in my life. I've got myself into something and I don't know how to get out. You're the only guy I know who might be tough enough to handle things. That's why I want you batting on my side. That's why you can have the studio or any other damn thing you want.”

He stared at her. “Who are you afraid of? Bert Cullen?”

She shrugged.

“Doctor Newcomb?”

“Look,” she said. “I'm no damn fool to open my mouth too soon and put myself into it. When I'm certain that you're with me, I'll talk and we'll work it out together. Not before, because if you don't play, I'll have to go on as I am, and make the best of it.”

“And how am I going to prove to you that I'm on your side?”

She thought this over. “Get Hampton off my neck,” she told him. “Make that damn fool sheriff leave me alone.”

“And just how can I do that?” Lennox inquired.

“Hell!” she said, slowly. “If you aren't smart enough to figure that out, you're not the man I'm looking for. There are plenty of ways to handle a stubborn man.”

2

Lennox met Pepper at the corner beside the Miners' Club as he walked toward the lake shore.

“See Hampton?” he asked.

The old marshal shrugged. “I saw him talking to Tom; then he got into his car and drove out of town somewhere. Want Tom? I think that he's down at the office.”

Lennox shook his head.

“I got the idea that Hampton was going over to your place to talk to that valet. Maybe I'm wrong.”

Lennox said, “Thanks,” and moved on toward the boat landing. He rented a craft and started out across the dark water.

The moon was a low crescent in the distant sky and the stars looked like so many holes in a dark blue blanket. Everything was peaceful, quiet, as if in hushed waiting for something to happen.

It gave him a feeling of oppression and he was glad as the lights of the Cullen place grew larger. But as he neared the landing, he was surprised to see that all the boats were missing.

Puzzled, he moored his rented craft and went rapidly up the path to the house. He got no response to his knock, pushed open the front door and entered. Still there was no one in sight, and no sound reached his ears. He called, then, after an instant's hesitation, moved across to the stairs.

He knew that Bert Cullen's room was on the right and he knocked at the closed door. As no one answered, he pushed the door gently open.

Nothing happened. There was no sign of Chang, and he slid into the room. On the far side was a big bed, with a small lamp burning on the night stand beside it, but the surface of the bed was even and unbroken.

For an instant, Lennox thought that perhaps the servant had assisted the patient into the bathroom, but the door was open and the room inside dark and deserted.

Puzzled, and a little worried, he stepped back into the hall and called sharply. Certainly there must be someone in the big house, if no one else, the nurse. He waited, receiving no response, and then moved down the corridor, opening one door after another. The rooms were all empty.

As he progressed, his worry grew. What had happened at the lodge? Where had everyone gone, and where was Bert Cullen? It didn't make sense. The paralyzed man should have been in bed. He wasn't, and he had not been dragged hastily from his resting place, for the bed was carefully made.

Lennox gave up and went downstairs. He fortified himself with a drink from the small bar at the end of the living room, then he moved to the phone. He hesitated for a long minute before turning the crank, then rang Spurck's lodge.

There was an interval of waiting, then Rany's sleepy voice answered and Lennox said: “Who's at the house?”

The valet sounded surprised. “Why, Mister Ashley and that reporter, Mister Doolittle.”

“Have they gone to bed?”

“Why, no, sir. They're in the library.”

“Let me talk to Ashley.” He waited, drumming on the wall beside the phone box with his long fingers.

Ashley answered and Lennox said: 'You sound happy.”

T am,” said Ashley.

“It's wonderful what a little murder can do. Maybe we should have them more often.”

“Did you call up to tell me that?”

“No,” said Lennox. “I called up to find out where everyone is. I am at the Cullens'.”

“Oh,” said Ashley. “Clara and Nancy took the nurse back to town. Clara's brother went with them and we came over here.”

“Nurse back to town?”

“She's leaving,” said Ashley. “That Chinese scared the devil out of her. She tried to get into Bert Cullen's room and Chang went after her with a knife. It took all Nancy, Doolittle and I could do to keep him from cutting her heart out. As soon as Clara came back, the nurse demanded that she be taken to a hotel. She wouldn't even spend the rest of the night at the lodge.”

“And Chang?”

“Locked in Bert Cullen's room as far as I know. Clara bawled the devil out of him, but he sneaked upstairs and locked the door. They couldn't make him open up. If you want any advice, you'll get in the boat and come home. That fellow is dynamite, even if he is older than my grandfather.”

Lennox said: “I'll be along in a little while. Keep the light burning in the window.”

He hung up and stood there, staring at the silent phone for a long minute. Then he turned and walked down to the wooden dock.

He stopped there, not believing his eyes. His boat was gone. He stood on the logs, gazing out across the dark water. He was certain that he had not heard the motor.

That, of course, was easily explained. There were oars in the boat. Someone could have rowed away, but who, and why? The lapping of the water made the only sound. He glanced at his watch, wondering if the girls and young Cullen were going to spend the night in town. They must have taken the nurse across sometime before, for he had not passed them when he crossed the lake.

He yawned, wondering what to do. He could, of course, call Ashley and ask the actor to come for him, or he could wait on the veranda for the girls' return.

His decision was made by the shot. It came from the direction of the ridge behind the lodge. He couldn't be certain how far off it was. Sound carried better in the stillness of the night, but it could not be too far away.

With a muttered oath, he swung about and started to run up the path. Some light came from the house and the moon helped, but as he rounded the building the big trees with their heavy branches took away all light. He had no flash, and the rutted tracks that served as a drive made him slow down to a walk. But he kept going, puffing as he climbed the steeply rising ridge until he reached the narrow roadway that wound along its crest.

He was certain that the shot had come from the west, and he turned that way, comforting himself that if he found nothing, he was still headed in the direction of Spurck's camp.

He traveled perhaps half a mile, stumbling along the uneven surface, before he made out the dim outline of a car ahead. It was pulled onto a small grassy spot in a little opening of the trees, and the faint light of the distant moon threw it into vague relief.

He stopped just at the edge of the clearing, his native caution coming up to sound a tiny bell of warning. For several minutes he stood still, his eyes sweeping the clearing with the care of a watchful Indian.

But there was no movement, no sign of life. Satisfied at last, he moved forward, circling a little to remain in the shadow of the trees for as long as possible.

Still nothing moved, and he left the trees and stepped quickly toward the car. It was not empty; a figure was hunched above the steering wheel as if asleep.

Lennox said, “Hello, there,” and wondered whether his voice was really jumpy or whether his ears were playing tricks. The figure did not move, and Lennox was not surprised. He fumbled for a match, found one and drew his fingernail across the blue head. It flared into light. The man hunched over the wheel was the sheriff, Fred Hampton, and he was dead.

3

Nancy Hobbs said, “Why, Bill. You've been running. What's the matter?”

Lennox breathed heavily. “When did you get back?”

“Five minutes ago. But what's the matter?”

“Tell you in a minute. I've got to use the phone first. Where's Clara?”

“Upstairs getting our beds ready.”

He stepped past her, through the wide front door. Carey Cullen was just filling glasses at the small bar. He saw Lennox and reached for another. “Drink?”

“In a minute.” Lennox moved on to the phone. He turned the crank and asked the operator to locate the marshal or Shea. He had to wait for three or four minutes and Cullen brought the filled glass to him.

He was conscious that both Nancy and young Cullen were watching him with interest, but he did nothing to relieve their curiosity until he had his connection.

Pepper's tired voice came over the wire with a troubled “Yes?”

“It's Lennox,” Bill told him, “and I've got bad news, Caleb. I just found Fred Hampton up on the ridge road. He's in his car, yes, and someone put a bullet through the side of his head.”

He heard a little gasp from behind him, and knew it was Nancy, but he was giving his full attention to Pepper. The old man was muttering over and over, “Fred dead? He can't be. You're fooling me.”

“I

He rang off, finished his drink at a single pull and, turning, handed the glass to Cullen. “Do you mind?”

The boy went to fill it. Nancy said: “Isn't there any end?”

Lennox sat down on the bottom step. He was very tired. He said, 'There doesn't seem to be any, brat. I wish I knew what he was after.”

“Who?” she said.

“The killer.”

She hesitated. “You think one man is doing all of it? There, there couldn't be at least two?”

He shrugged. “There might be a dozen,” he said, “or a hundred.”

She gave him a long steady look, then she turned and went to the phone. He heard her calling Los Angeles, heard her relay the news of Hampton's death.

“Sometimes I wish I was back on the paper,” he said, when she turned away from the phone. “It would be swell, just to write about trouble without having any part in it.”

“Why should you have any? This isn't your affair.”

He had to admit the truth of her statement. “I suppose you're right, but I liked Fred Hampton.”

“You're looking for an excuse.”

“Perhaps.” He shrugged and carried his glass over to the small bar. He was trying to decide what he should do when Clara Cullen came down the stairs.

Her brother told her about Hampton's death and her quick eyes went to Lennox. “No...not Fred?”

He nodded and she asked, as Nancy had, “When is this going to end?”

He shook his head. “I'd like to talk to Bert. I've a hunch that if your uncle could speak it would straighten this thing up.”

“But that's impossible.”

William Lennox hesitated, wondering whether he should tell them about the empty bedroom. He decided not to. He chose a different method. “Chang, then. You won't object if I talk to Chang?”

“Object? Of course not. But I'm not certain he'll talk to you or anyone else. I suppose Nancy told you the trouble we had about the nurse. I bawled Chang out pretty thoroughly and he retreated to Uncle Bert's room and locked the door. I'm not certain that he'll open it.”

“I'll have a try.” Lennox's voice was grim. He went past her and up the stairs.

Carey Cullen called: 'Wait. I'll come with you. The beggar has a rather nasty knife.”

Lennox paid no attention. He climbed the stairs two at a time and rapped on the door. He meant to knock again, then thrust it open and be surprised to find it empty.

But he had no chance for, as he raised his hand, the door was pulled open and he found himself staring into Chang's black eyes.

It seemed to Lennox that there was a hint of sardonic mirth in their depths, but he could not be certain. He was so surprised that he stood there for a full moment, fumbling for words.

Then he said, “I want to see Mister Cullen.”

“Doctor say no.” Chang's expression did not alter.

“I don't care what the doctor say,” Lennox's voice tightened. “The police are on their way over here now, Chang. There was a man murdered in his car, not half a mile from this house. I warn you, if you don't let me see Mister Cullen, I'll tell the police that I looked into this room twenty minutes ago and that neither you nor your boss was here. You don't want that, do you, Chang?”

The Chinese butler's inscrutable face remained unchanged. He stood there, looking as if his features had been carved from old ivory. For a full minute neither moved, then surprisingly Chang swung the door open to its full width, stepping back as he did so.

“You make very big mistake,” he said, gravely. “You look, please.”

Lennox was looking. Despite himself his jaw dropped a little and he was seized with a feeling of unreality as if he were walking through a dream.

There was a man on the bed. The table lamp no longer burned, nor did the man move. With a muttered exclamation, Lennox pushed the servant out of his way and crossed the room quickly. The man in the bed was Bert Cullen and he was awake. At least his eyes were open.

But they showed no change as Lennox bent above the bed. They made Lennox uncomfortable, looking nowhere as if they were frozen in their sockets.

But despite his feeling of discomfort, he reached out deliberately to where one of Cullen's hands formed a brown, square patch against the whiteness of the sheet.

The skin on the back of the hand was loose and wrinkled. Lennox pinched it, watching the eyes. There was no change. They kept staring at the ceiling.

He heard a slight sound behind him and swung about. Chang was standing a few feet behind him, and to Lennox it seemed that there was a glint of amused malice in the black eyes.

He started to speak to the servant, changed his mind and moved to the door. Here he paused, but did not turn. “Better have the story letter-perfect,” he said. “The police will be here in half an hour.”

4

He was wrong. The first contingent arrived in twenty minutes; Caleb Pepper and Morgan, coming across the lake in a boat with Alf Jones at the helm.

Shea, they reported, was driving around by road with the coroner. Morgan was subdued as he came up the path toward the house. Caleb Pepper looked sadder than usual, and the tip of the toothpick on which he was chewing sagged disconsolately.

Jones was nervous. He took off his hard hat when introduced to Nancy and twisted it round and round in his long-fingered hands.

“I don't like it,” he told Lennox, when they found themselves in the little alcove made by the stairs. “Fred Hampton and I didn't always see eye to eye, and we'd had our little troubles, but he was the steadiest one of the bunch. Tom Shea's wild. If he ever finds out who shot Fred, I think he'll take him apart with his hands.” He broke off as Morgan walked over.

“Where were you when you heard the shot?”

“On the dock,” Lennox told him.

“Let's start from there,” Morgan said. “I want to time it. I want to know just how long it would have taken you to reach the car after you heard the shot.”

Lennox followed the three men down the path to the dock. Morgan said, “Show us just where you were standing.”

Lennox did not answer at once. His eyes were on the boats anchored against the dock.

Morgan got impatient. “Well?”

Lennox turned slowly. “How many boats did you use, coming from town?”

“How many boats?” the district attorney sounded as if he thought Lennox had suddenly gone crazy. “Why, one, of course. What do you think? That we used one on each foot like skis?”

Lennox was looking at the boats moored against the logs. An hour ago there had been none, now there were four. One of them had carried Morgan and his two companions, one the girls and Carey Cullen, but the others...He stepped down into the nearest and examined it. Yes, there could be no mistake; it was the boat he had rented, the boat that had been missing. Lennox told them what had happened.

Morgan was impatient. “What are you trying to get at?”

Lennox returned to the log dock. “Come on then,” he was angry. “If we don't hurry, Shea will beat us to the car.”

They struck off in single file, the district attorney glancing at his watch. To Lennox he looked like a small boy, playing.

Alf Jones swore before they had covered a thousand yards. “Hold the light over this way more, Morgan. I don't see how you ever made this trip in the dark, Bill.”

“I eat carrots,” said Lennox. He was puffing a little from the climb.

“Carrots'?” Jones exploded. “What has carrots got to do with it?”

“Vitamins,” said Caleb Pepper. “All yellow food makes you see in the dark. I eat them too.”

Morgan ignored them. He pushed along the rutted track at a pace that kept them humping, and Jones expressed his disapproval of the speed. “You'd think we were going to a fire. What's the hurry? If Fred's dead, he's not going to run away.”

Grudgingly Morgan slowed a little, but he still moved faster than Lennox. Bill had to force himself to the limit to keep up.

At his side, Pepper seemed tireless. These mountain men never showed age, and, they were accustomed to the altitude.

But it was a poor excuse, Lennox thought. The truth was that he had spent too much time behind a desk. If he ever got through this nightmare and returned to a normal routine, he'd have to consider exercise seriously.

His thoughts were interrupted by a warning from Morgan, and he realized that the district attorney bad stopped.

“There's someone at the car.” The strained note in Morgan's voice told his surprise.

“Maybe it's Shea.”

“No, I don't see the truck. Besides, they haven't had time to get here. It's someone else. Got a gun, Alf?”

“Think I'm undressed?”

“Okay. You and Lennox swing around to the left and come up behind the car. Caleb and I will go the other way. When I yell at them, be ready.”

“You should teach a dog to suck an egg,” Jones muttered. He sounded disgusted, as if he did not relish taking orders from Morgan. But he turned obediently from the track and started to circle through the dark timber with Lennox at his heels.

Through the fence of tree trunks they could see the intermittent play of flashlights around the parked car, and the shadows of two men. They worked closer and suddenly from beyond the car, Morgan's bull-like voice cut through the stillness of the night.

“Hey there! We've got you covered. Get your hands in the air and stand still. Watch them, Alf.”

“I'm watching,” Jones called.

“What the devil?” One of the figures at the car had straightened.

“Peter!” The name escaped Lennox. “Don't shoot, Alf. It's my pal.”

“Bill?” Ashley turned his head. “What in hell goes on around here?”

There was sound as Morgan and Caleb Pepper forced their way through the brush. “I said, don't move.”

“Forget it, Morgan. It's Ashley,” Lennox called sharply.

The district attorney stepped warily into the little clearing, holding his gun ready.

Ashley had his hands up, the flashlight pointed directly toward the sky so that its white beam outlined the heavy green foliage of the pines.

“For Christ's sake!” He was staring at Morgan. “Point that thing the other way, will you? It might go off.”

“Yes,” said Doolittle. “They do, you know. It would be a hell of a thing if I escaped the wars only to get cut down by some dumb backwoodsman.”

Morgan growled as he recognized the small reporter. “What do you think you're doing here?”

“Look in the car,” Doolittle told him. “Your sheriff is very dead.”

“We know that,” Morgan lowered his gun, but made no effort to return it to his pocket. “What I want to know is, what you're doing here.”

Doolittle blinked at him as the others came forward. “Look, my friend. We are seated comfortably in the den of Mister Spurck's lodge, drinking Spurck's liquor when we hear a shot. My friend Peter,” he indicated the silent Ashley, “tries to call Lennox at the Cullens'. There is no answer, so he decides that William is without doubt a victim of foul play. We argue. We finally decide to get the boat and come up and see. Only, someone has the idea before us. We arrive at the dock in time to hear the boat disappearing across the lake, so, we walk up here and find this car.”

“Someone stole your boat too?” It was Lennox, and he sounded incredulous.

Doolittle bridled. He was as feisty as a bull pup. “Do you doubt my word?”

“Look,” Lennox told him. “I'm not doubting anyone's word, but there seems to be an uncommon lot of boat thieves around this lake at the moment.”

Morgan cut in. “What's all this talk of stealing boats? Does that explain who killed Fred Hampton and why?”

“It might help,” Lennox told him. “How long after you heard the shot before you went down to the dock, Pete?”

The actor hesitated. “I don't know. Ten minutes, maybe. I tried the phone several times, then Doolittle and I argued for a while. It might have been all of fifteen minutes, come to think of it.”

Lennox turned to Morgan. “You see. There's a little wash that leads down the ridge and comes out a hundred yards above Spurck's house. It starts somewhere around here and it's pretty steep, but an active man who knew the country could have reached our dock from here in less than fifteen minutes.”

“Meaning that the killer stole the boat?” Morgan tried to sneer, but it wasn't much of a success.

“Meaning he could,” Lennox was unruffled.

“Then who stole the boats at the Cullen dock?”

“I don't know yet.”

“When you find out, send me a telegram,” said Morgan, and turned toward the car.

He scarcely had the door open when the sound of a laboring motor caught their attention and a few seconds later the lights of the truck came up over the crest of the little hill.

Shea swung down before the truck had reached a full stop and came swinging forward, his long legs eating up the distance. He gave a jerky nod and without too much ceremony elbowed Morgan aside. Then he flashed his light into the car so that its white beam played directly in the dead man's face.

He stood there for a long minute without sound, then he said, “I'll get him, Fred. I'll get the damn bastard that killed you. That's a promise, and Tom Shea keeps his promises!

The words could have had a melodramatic sound. They didn't. They were a simple statement.

9

“YOU'D better all come over to town,” said Shea, as he finished his investigation of the ground surrounding the clearing. With the help of his light he had found indentations in the thick carpet of needles which seemed to bear out Lennox's theory that the killer had gone down toward the lake, using the steep wash as a kind of ladder.

“But why?” It was Lennox who protested. “The girls are waiting at Cullens' for word of us, and they'll probably be worried.”

“Morgan can tell them,” Shea's voice had taken on a new note of authority. It was as if the responsibility which had suddenly been thrust upon his wide shoulders crowded out the easy-going manner which had been the man's chief characteristic.

Despite Morgan's objections, the district attorney had been detailed to return to the Cullen lodge for the rented boat, and he rode as far as the driveway with the coroner.

The rest of them piled into Hampton's car and, with Shea under the wheel, headed back for the distant town. Lennox was in front at the big deputy's elbow, and they traveled a couple of miles before he asked:

“Any idea what Hampton was doing on this side of the lake?”

Shea spoke without taking his eyes from the twisting ruts which were the road. “He said he had an idea he wanted to work out. I suspected that he planned to meet someone over here.”

“You wouldn't know who?”

Shea took his time to answer. “He wanted to talk to Doc Newcomb,” the big man said, finally, “but I don't think the doc shot him.”

“No?”

“No,” said Shea. “I've known the doc a long time. He's a shrewd devil, and deep as hell, but he's smart enough so that if he were going to kill, he'd cover his tracks, plenty. I've always had the hunch that Doctor Newcomb was the real brains behind the Cullen crowd. I never could prove it, but twenty-five years ago, it was the doc that thought things up; Bert, Dick, or Jake Sloane who did the actual work.”

Lennox said: “But what could he gain by killing Cullen, and Sloane? I don't understand.”

“Neither do I,” said the big deputy. “I never understood half that Doc Newcomb was up to in the old days. He and Dick almost split up when Dick married Mary Crewe.”

“Why?”

Shea shrugged. “She was a pretty gal. All the boys around town liked her.”

“Even you?”

Shea grinned grimly in the darkness. “Sure, but I knew that I didn't have a chance. Not with Dick back, looking like a million in his soldier suit. Some guys have a way with women. I never did, much.”

He broke off, then said: “Just what was it that Hampton said to you outside the courthouse.”

Lennox was surprised. “Why, I told you. He was asking about that dance-hall girl that I took away from Mary.”

“That all?”

“Look,” said Lennox. “What are you getting at, Tom?”

Shea moved his big shoulders. “Maybe nothing.” He was silent as he brought the car down the steep grade and the town opened out below like the ribs of a spreading fan.

There weren't many lights on, and the east looked grey behind the jagged mountain. Lennox yawned in spite of himself and looked at the three men in the back seat.

Doolittle was asleep in one corner, Caleb Pepper in the other. Ashley sat upright between them. Alf Jones was riding in on the truck. “I don't,” said Lennox, “see the need of having dragged us over here tonight.”

“Don't you?” Tom Shea was rolling a cigarette with one hand, driving with the other. “Maybe there's a lot of things about this country that you don't understand, Lennox.”

Perhaps, thought Bill, it was because he lacked sleep, and his nerves were decidedly on edge, but there seemed a continuing undercurrent in the deputy's voice which he could not understand. The deputy had always seemed friendly. He'd known the man casually for three or four years, and he could think of no reason why Shea's manner toward him should change.

“At least,” he said, “this is one crime they can't hang on that poor devil Scribbs. Being in jail gives him a perfect alibi.”

Shea scratched a kitchen match across his broad thumbnail and held the resulting flame to the twisted-paper tip of his cigarette. He took a deep drag and let the smoke out through his high-bridged nose in little puffs. “Think so?” His voice was toneless. “Well, you're wrong. Caleb let Scribbs break jail at least three hours ago. I was out looking for him when I got the news that Fred was dead.”

“Hey,” said a voice from the back seat. “That's a lie, Tom. I didn't let him break jail. I locked him in, and when I come back, he was gone.”

“If you'd locked the door properly, he'd still be there.” Shea was unaffected. “The Nevada penitentiary managed to hold him for twenty years.”

“Someone might have let him out,” said Lennox. He was thinking about Mary Crewe.

“Yes,” Shea admitted. “Someone might have let him out. In fact, someone did. That's just what I'm trying to say.”

Pepper's quiet voice took on a dangerous note. “Look, Tom. Let's get one thing straight before we go any farther. Your name is not Fred Hampton. You may be taking Fred's place temporarily, but you're not going to shove us around and make us like it the way Fred did.”

“You may not like it,” said Shea, bringing the car to a halt before the garage and stepping on the horn for the sleepy attendant to open the door.

The door slid back and Shea drove in. They piled out, five tired men, whose tempers were short and at the point of rawness.

Pepper looked more tired and beaten than the rest, but he shifted his toothpick to the corner of his mouth and stepped forward to face Shea.

“No,” he said. “I won't like it, Tom. You may be acting sheriff, but don't try and do anything in town. This is my province and you'd better understand it right now.”

Shea stood there for an instant, and anger came up into his light blue eyes, making them almost black. Then he turned and walked stiffly from the garage as if his knees were rebelling at the constant exercise.

Lennox hesitated, looking at Ashley, and then Doolittle. Afterwards he followed Shea, reaching the sidewalk in time to see a tall, spare figure emerge from the door of the building at the corner, the building which housed Mary Crewe's dance hall.

He stopped, his narrowed eyes following the man as he turned in the opposite direction and headed toward the lake shore, never looking back. The man was Doctor Jay Newcomb.

2

Shea had seen the doctor also. He started a little as if in surprise, then his long legs went into motion and the stiffness which had been so noticeable before was gone.

“Hey, Doc!”

Newcomb stopped as if someone had reached out with a long wire hook and caught him around the throat. He turned slowly, and there was no pleasure in his voice when he said, “Oh, it's you, Shea.”

“Me,” said Shea. He had slowed his steps until he was but barely moving and his movements reminded Lennox of a Western picture he had once seen with the hero walking slowly down the main street to meet his mortal enemy.

If Newcomb was conscious of this he gave no sign. He stood perfectly quiet, the sharp morning breeze from the lake flapping the tails of his coat around his spare figure in the greyish half light of the approaching dawn.

Shea cut the distance which separated them in half before he spoke. “Where have you been?”

Newcomb started to say something, thought better of it, and took time to answer. “I've been at Mary Crewe's.”

“Why?”

“That,” said the doctor, and his words were so clear and chipped that there could be no mistake, “is none of your business.”

“I think it is,” said Shea. “I think you'll tell me, Jay. Fred Hampton's dead, you see, and I'm in charge.”

The faint note of surprise in the doctor's tone was the only sign that the news shocked him. “Fred Hampton dead? How?”

“Murdered,” said Shea. “This killing has to stop, Doc. There's been too much of it. There isn't going to be any more.”

“We hope not.” Newcomb sounded shaken. “Fred Hampton dead? It's hard to believe.”

“Now,” said Shea, “perhaps you'll tell us what you were doing at Mary Crewe's.”

“It hasn't got anything to do with this,” Newcomb assured him. “It has nothing at all to do with this.”

Shea was unmoved. “You'd better let us be the judge of that. How long have you been there?”

“Not long. Perhaps an hour.”

“And where were you before?”

“Look,” said Newcomb, and his voice was suddenly tight. “What are you trying to do, Shea? Are you trying to accuse me of killing Fred Hampton?”

“Did you?” said Shea.

“Why, no,” Newcomb told him. “Of course I wouldn't kill the sheriff, Shea. What would I stand to gain?”

“He might have found out something about you,” said the deputy. “He might have discovered that Bert Cullen isn't paralyzed, and be getting ready to expose him.”

Newcomb looked startled. “You're talking through your hat, Shea.”

“No,” said the deputy. “Fred and I both knew about Bert. We saw him in the woods; a paralyzed man doesn't go for a walk in the woods.”

“I tell you that you're crazy.” Newcomb was striving hard for his control.

“No, he isn't,” said Lennox. “I can bear witness that Bert Cullen was neither in his bed nor at the lodge during the time that the sheriff was murdered.”

Newcomb wet his lips. “All right,” he said, “all right. That doesn't prove anything except that he isn't paralyzed.”

“It proves that you were helping him,” said Shea. “It proves that you, as a recognized physician, lent your professional services to a move designed to defeat justice.”

“Nuts!” said Newcomb crudely. “You've been reading a law book, Tom. Come down to earth. Try to remember the position that Bert was in. He did have a slight attack the night Scribbs showed up. He got so mad that he passed out. When he calmed down, I ordered him to remain in bed, and then when we learned of Dick's murder...”

“Oh, so you knew of Dick's murder that night?”

“Yes,” Newcomb told him. “I'd gone down to phone. The Cullen phone is on the same party line with the one in Spurck's camp, and when I lifted the receiver I heard Lennox reporting the body. I went back upstairs and told Bert. We couldn't decide what had happened. We thought at first that it was Scribbs. We both had warned Dick not to go on his parole.

“At any rate, we decided that whoever had killed Dick might well move against Bert, so we decided that it was best for him to play sick, to stay in his room and to have Chang guard the door. Clara made things tougher by sending for a nurse.”

“A fine story!” Lennox sounded contemptuous. “And just what were you doing at Mary Crewe's? Were you there for the same reason that you wanted to talk to Lew Scranton earlier in the evening?”

The doctor surprised him by nodding. “For exactly the same reason,” he said. “I was trying to straighten out the Cullen picture holding. I went to Scranton as Bert Cullen's representative. I went to Mary Crewe in the same role. I wanted to appeal to her not to be a fool. The Cullens can beat her in the courts on that divorce business, but it might take a long time, and in the interval, the color suit will be tried.

“I pointed out to Mary that Dick had played fair, that he'd made Jake Sloane let her operate in Skull Lake, that he'd helped get her brother out of prison...”

“You used to be in love with her,” Shea said, sharply.

Newcomb shrugged. “So were you for that matter. That's all water under the bridge, and you know it, but I did learn one thing. Mary thinks that she can hold the picture studio, and she's picked out the man to run it for her.”

“Run the picture studio?” Shea sounded surprised. “All right. Who has she picked?”

“Lennox,” said the doctor, looking squarely at Bill. “I've thought all along that Lennox was mixing pretty far into this deal. I thought it was funny when he came for me in the first place. He was no friend of the Cullens. Then I thought that he was up here as a spy for Spurck because of that color suit, and now, I find he's even smarter than I thought. If Mary wins, he'll turn up as president of a picture studio. A nice jump, huh, and a nice, smart boy.”

Ashley whistled. “Boy, that's something! Need a leading man, William?”

Lennox shrugged. He knew they were all staring at him, but there was nothing that he could say.

“There's one other thing,” Newcomb added, “which Mary told me, and which I'd almost forgotten. The condition which she set Lennox to fill before she'd promise him the picture job was that he had to get Fred Hampton off her neck. Think that over, Shea. Think that over before you start calling Bert Cullen and me murderers.”

Shea turned his head. Then he looked back at Lennox and without warning drove his big fist into Lennox's face.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” he said, striking a second time before Lennox could get up his guard. “You lousy, murdering son-of-a-bitch!”

3

Ashley and Doolittle between them lifted Lennox to his feet. He put up one hand to where his cheek bone felt warm and found that the ring on Shea's hand had gouged out a small trough.

The deputy was a good fifty feet down the street, walking hurriedly toward the courthouse. Lennox's impulse was to go after him. Almost blinding anger had him in its grasp and his big body was shaking all over. “Let me go. Let me go.” He was trying to pull free from Ashley's restraining grasp.

But the actor clung to his shoulder and Doolittle got in his way. “Cool off,” the little reporter advised. “Cool off. If you want to sock him later, okay, but get a grip on yourself first.”

They turned him about and steered him into the Chinese restaurant where they ordered coffee and put him on a stool between them.

“Where'd the doctor go?” Lennox was examining his image in the mirror against the wall.

“To hell with the doctor!” said Ashley. He made his handkerchief into a pad, poured water on it from his glass, and held the pad against Lennox's cut cheek.

“I didn't want him for medical attention.” Lennox sounded sour. “I wanted to ask him some questions. His story about Bert Cullen was too damn pat.”

Doolittle nodded. “It was. I remember a story once where a murderer was confined to a wheel chair, apparently paralyzed. He got out of the chair only to commit his crimes. The rest of the time, he sat peacefully with a blanket over his knees.”

“Nuts!” said Lennox.

“What I want to know,” said Ashley, “is whether this story about your being the next president of Pinnacle Pictures is true, and if so, how'd you work it? Seduce the dame?”

“Are you kidding?”

Ashley shrugged. “I've seen men go for worse. Come on, William, loosen up. Are you or ain't you the new big shot?”

“I ain't,” said Lennox. He removed the pad and examined the growing mouse under his eye with the aid of the mirror. “The lady did offer me the job, but not in the way you think.”

“I'll bet it was worse,” said Ashley. “I've heard stories of the way you use your charm on cuties.”

“Let's get the conversation on a higher plane,” suggested Doolittle. “If Shea actually thinks that you killed his boss, why in the devil didn't he arrest you then instead of waiting?

Lennox shrugged. Ashley answered. “Because he couldn't trust himself at the moment. I think that if he hadn't got away, he'd probably have beaten Lennox to death.”

“I might have had something to say about that,” Bill put in, darkly. “He's big, but I've seen them bigger.”

Doolittle shuddered. “There speaks the he-man. Because I'm small, I've had to curb my predatory instincts. If you want my advice, you'll grab your car and get out of this county while you can. I wouldn't want that big lug serving as my jailer. I'd be afraid that an accident might happen to me in jail.”

Lennox finished his coffee and rose. Doolittle rose also. “Where do you think you're going?”

“To see what Newcomb actually wanted at Mary Crewe's. Don't try to stop me.”

“Stop you,” said the little reporter. “I'm not going to stop you. I'm going along.”

“So am I,” said Ashley. “Believe it or not, I've never been in a place like that.”

Doolittle blinked at him through his thick lenses. “I thought you looked like a virgin. Me, I'm going for an entirely different reason. I might even marry the woman. Pinnacle Pictures would make a very nice dowry.”

“You'd both better keep out of this,” Lennox told them. “I seem to be in enough trouble for all three of us. Say, you'll have to pay the check, Ashley. I haven't any money.”

“Neither have I,” Ashley said. “When I started out to see who had fired that shot, I didn't know it would develop into a weekend party.”

Doolittle sighed. “Wait until my boss sees the swindle sheet on this trip. It costs more to travel in these hills than it did in Berlin.” He paid the check and they followed him onto the sidewalk.

4

The streets of the town were coming to life. Here and there an early rising merchant was opening his business, and already some of the loafers had taken up their stations for the day.

Lennox paid no attention. He did not notice the car which drew up before Mary Crewe's dance hall until he saw the two men force the girl out.

It was his subconscious that noticed her first, and realized who she was. He had to think twice before he went into sudden action, darting down the block away from his astonished companions.

But he had not moved soon enough, for the car was already pulling away. The dance hall door had opened and closed, and by the time his hand reached the knob, it was locked on the inside.

Ashley and Doolittle came puffing up, but he wasted no time explaining, leading the way around the corner to Mary's private entrance.

This door was not locked, and he burst into the inner room like a hurried cyclone, only to find her in her accustomed chair, regarding him with amusement. “Who are these?” she indicated Ashley and Doolittle. “Your bodyguard?”

Lennox was short of breath and she turned her attention to Doolittle, indicating his glasses. “Do you have to wear those or are they a disguise?”

“It's a disguise,” he said. “But enough of this love-making, I've come to marry you.”

Surprise was not a normal emotion with Mary Crewe, but the little reporter was something in the way of a novelty and she turned to Lennox. “Where did you get him? From a nuthouse?”

“It's a serious offer,” Doolittle insisted. “I've always wanted to own a picture studio.”

She decided to be amused, and let a mechanical smile part her colored lips. “But what about me, Shorty? You're hardly my size.”

“I hate to brag,” said Doolittle, “but I can give references.”

“Cut it,” said Lennox. “I didn't come here to listen to your jabber. I came here to talk to Mary.”

“I've nothing to say to you.”

He stepped forward and laid a hand on her white wrist, lifting her out of the chair. “Oh, yes you have, sweetheart. I just saw a couple of men bringing a girl in through the front door of this joint. The girl was Judy. I don't know how she got here. The last I knew about her, Hampton called the San Francisco police and ordered her picked up.”

“And had her sent up here.” Mary Crewe's face was very close to his own. “I've got friends in the telephone exchange.”

“Everyone seems to have hut me.” His voice was bitter. “That still doesn't explain...”

“So I sent a couple of men over to the courthouse to wait until the girl was delivered. They brought her here.”

“I'm going to take her out,” said Lennox.

“No, Bill, you aren't.”

They stood thus, their shoulders touching, staring at each other in labored silence. Across that silence came a woman's scream, and a sound which could only be made with a whip-lash.

“God!” said Ashley, in a strangled voice. “What in hell was that?”

“Our school,” Mary Crewe was barely whispering. “We have to teach some of our employees manners.”

Lennox's fingers tightened on her wrist. “Let the girl go.”

“No!”

“I'll break your arm.”

“I don't think you will.” With her free hand she had produced a little gun from somewhere in her dress. This she shoved against the flat tenseness of his stomach. “I don't make the same mistake twice, Bill. Better get out before I call Louie and the boys to take you apart.”

Lennox wasn't thinking of himself. It was the thought of Ashley and Doolittle that made him hesitate. The scream came a second time, searing through him like a red hot knife.

“Get out,” she said, and pushed on the gun, backing him toward the door. “Get out.”

They went. On the sidewalk outside Ashley drew a long, whistling breath. “I don't believe it,” he said. “I don't believe my own ears. I believe she would have shot you.”

“I withdraw my offer of marriage.” Doolittle was visibly shaken. “What a dame! And what in hell is it all about?”

“That girl I took to Placerville,” Lennox explained. “Hampton sent for her, and Mary had the tip. Her men got her at the courthouse where she was delivered by the Frisco police. It's my fault. I've got to get her out of there before that sadistic bitch cuts her to pieces with a whip.” He went around the corner and tried the door of the dance hall. It was still locked, and he hammered on the painted glass panel with his fist.

After a couple of minutes he heard the lock being turned. Then the door opened a couple of inches, and the broad, scarred features of the waiter appeared.

“What in hell are you trying to do? Wreck the joint?”

“I might do that,” said Lennox, “if you don't get out of the way. I'm coming in.”

“No,” said the broad-faced one. “You aren't.” He took a step backwards so that he was clear of the swinging door and swung a concealed shotgun up so that its shortened barrels were only a foot from Lennox's chest.

“Take a step and I'll turn you into a sieve.”

Lennox did not take the step., The black eyes beneath the heavy, overhanging brows were small and stupid as an animal's. The man did not have the sense not to shoot. In fact, he had very little sense at all.

“I'll be back,” Bill promised, retreating so that he stepped on Doolittle's toes. The small reporter's eyes were shining a little behind his glasses.

“If I didn't know better, I'd say that you'd staged this. I haven't had so much fun in years.”

Lennox was too angry to answer. He swung on his heel and started along the sidewalk, a laugh following him from the still open door of the dance hall.

He did not look around, but continued on down the sidewalk in the direction of Pepper's office. He was going to demand a showdown. Either Pepper or Morgan would rescue the girl, or he'd blow the lid clear off this town. It had become a personal matter, a feud between himself and Skull Lake.

But neither Pepper nor Morgan was in the courthouse when Lennox, still trailed by his companions, burst into the dusty hall. The marshal's office was occupied, but it was Shea's bulk which filled the office chair.

He looked up as Lennox came in and his grey-green eyes narrowed to agate hardness as he saw who it was.

Shea's presence caught Lennox off guard, and his cheek, which still ached dully, reminded him that he had a personal matter to settle with the man. But at the moment, personal matters were of minor importance, and he chose to ignore what had happened in the street.

“Look, Tom. I'm putting it up to you. That girl I took to Placerville, the one Fred Hampton sent for, was delivered by the Frisco police this morning.”

“You're crazy.” Shea had not moved. His heavy shoulders were hunched up so that his head seemed to rest directly upon them without the support of any neck. “I haven't seen her, nor any Frisco coppers either.”

“You wouldn't,” said Lennox. “Mary Crewe's men met them. I don't know how they worked it, but Mary's got the girl. She's whipping hell out of the kid, and I want it stopped.”

“I've got no time for girls,” said Shea. “But I'm glad you came in. It saves me the trouble of hunting you up.”

“Look,” said Lennox, “any time you want to carry on the business you started in the street, I'm ready, but first, this girl”

“No,” said Shea. “First this.” He flipped a paper across the desk. Lennox picked it up slowly. It was a warrant for his arrest, the charge, murder.

10

PETER ASHLEY was so angry that his lips had difficulty in forming words. “Did you ever hear of such stupidity? The man is unbelievable. He can't be serious about this murder charge.”

“Nothing,” said Doolittle, “ever surprises me about the police.” He was blinking rapidly behind the shelter of his thick glasses.

“But hell!” The actor was still gasping. “I don't get it. Even if Bill was a killer, why in hell should he kill Hampton? Certainly they can't believe that silly story about him wanting to be president of Pinnacle.”

Lennox was asking a similar question at the moment. He sat with his back against the wall of the inner office, facing Shea and Morgan.

“What the hell's got into you, Shea? I didn't expect any brains from Morgan, but you always acted as if you had half sense. Ever since Fred was killed, you've run around like a hay-wire termite.”

Shea's big face did not relax. “Fred Hampton was my best friend.'

Lennox's patience had reached the breaking point. His nerves were frayed and his eyes were hot and a little glassy, as if he were suffering from fever. “You've said that before, Shea. No one's arguing with you. He was a friend of mine, too, and I'd like to see his killer caught, the one that actually shot him. I'd think you'd want the real murderer, too.”

“I've got him,” said Shea.

Lennox turned his tired head to stare at Morgan's petulant features. “What about you, shyster? You've been trying to hang this job on me ever since the first morning. I suppose you're happy now?”

Morgan shifted uneasily. There was an uncertainty in his manner which had not been present a few days before. He was beginning to grow up, and he'd been doing it the hard way.

“It looks as if you'd made a deal with Mary Crewe.”

“Christ!” said Lennox. “Are you going to keep singing that song, too? Isn't there anyone in this village with a sense of humor? Sure, Mary offered me something which she doesn't own and never will, so, like the bright guy I am, I rushed out and put a bullet in Hampton's head.” He blew out his breath like a collapsing balloon. “When I get through filing false arrest suits, this county will be paying me off for the rest of my life. Wait until I get my lawyer up here.”

Shea, who had been standing beside the window and paying little attention to Lennox, turned and said to Morgan: “Here comes Pepper now. He's got Mary with him.”

Lennox tried for a last time. “Did you actually think I took that talk of Mary's seriously? She doesn't own a dime's worth in that studio, and she never will. She may be able to pull strings in this part of the country but in Hollywood she couldn't elect me president of a peanut stand. And I'm supposed to have killed a man for...”

“Shut up, you bastard!” It was Shea. “It's all I can do to keep my hands off of you now.”

Lennox shut up as the door opened and Mary Crewe came in, followed by Pepper. The little marshal threw a glance which was almost an apology toward Lennox, brushed back his trailing mustache ends, and spat carefully toward the tin receptacle.

Mary Crewe looked very young. She looked as if she had slept well and soundly all of the preceding night The woman was amazing, there was no other word for it.

“Sorry about Hampton,” she said. “He was chuckle-headed and he gave me a lot of trouble, but I didn't mean to get him murdered. That fool misunderstood.”

Lennox's face was a grim mask. He'd seen people get the needle before, and he knew he was getting it at the moment, but good. The scene couldn't have been more carefully played if the actors had rehearsed their lines for hours.

Morgan was still uneasy; Pepper took no part, but Shea and Mary Crewe went into the routine as if they were a sister act. The woman admitted that she'd offered Lennox a deal, putting as a stipulation that he keep Hampton off her neck.

All she'd expected, she went on, was for Lennox to talk some sense into the sheriff's hard head, and she hadn't meant him to use a gun either. She felt terrible. There'd been so damn much killing. She was perfectly willing to tell her part in the story anywhere, any place.

“Nice work,” Lennox said, bitterly. “Nice work, loving pal.”

2

Nancy Hobbs was angry. To one who did not know her well, she looked cool and sweet and carefully groomed, but Lennox's discerning eye caught the gleam of her brown eyes as she stepped into the cell.

“Take it easy, brat.”

“Sure,” she said. “That's fine. Take it easy, sit around and wait while that dumb piece of horse flesh sends you to the gas chamber. Has Shea gone nuts or something? He wouldn't even talk to me.”

“It's authority.” Lennox's long legs were stretched out on the iron bunk. “You never can tell about people, Nancy, until you give them a taste of being boss. Some very good guys turn into heels as soon as they give their first order.”

She stared at him coldly. “What are you going to do? Sit here and take it? I've wired for Sam Marx to get up here as fast as he can. I've wired Spurck, and the Governor, and the attorney general.”

“I think,” he told her, “that I'll buy some Western Union stock. With all your activity, they ought to declare an extra dividend.”

She started to tap the stone floor with the toe of her snakeskin slipper. “Just about one more smart remark and I'll walk out of these hills and leave you to rot.”

He squeezed out the coal of his cigarette against the rough stone of the wall, and came up onto his feet. “What do you want me to do? Gnash my teeth and cry into my beard? Shea hasn't got a case, and you and I know it. Besides, I can't do anything in this stone hencoop, but my friends are laboring from sunrise to sunset in my behalf.”

“What friends?”

“Peter,” he said. “Also, your little pal, Doolittle. They're going to build a fire under Bert Cullen and make him talk.”

“They haven't caught him yet,” said Nancy.

“Caught him?” Lennox swung around. “What do you mean, caught him? Has Bert lammed?”

She nodded. “He moved out like a light,” she said. “The doctor came rushing over just as I was getting up. The next I knew, Bert and Chang were running down the stairs and out of the lodge as if the place were on fire. It was quite a shock to almost get trampled under by a man you think is bedridden.”

“And the doctor?”

“He went with them, as far as I can find out. Shea's ordered a posse to comb the brush, but at last report they hadn't turned up a thing. Have you had any dinner?”

He nodded. “Caleb's a good jailer. He even played rummy with me all afternoon, but I'm sick of this stone box.”

“You'll be sicker of it before you get out,” she promised him, “unless Shea and his boys catch up with Bert Cullen. For my money, there's your murderer. They're hunting for that convict Scribbs, too, but if you ask me, he headed right out of the county.”

Lennox glanced at his watch. It was after nine. “You know,” he told her, “I think I've been in this place long enough.”

“That's too bad. You're in on a little murder charge, pal of my childhood days, and you're apt to be here some time.”

“Scribbs managed to break out of here,” Lennox was thoughtful, “and he isn't any smarter than I am.”

“Bill, you fool,” Nancy Hobbs was scared. “Don't even talk such nonsense.' As things stand now, Shea hasn't got a case against you. Sam Marx will kick it full of holes and he should be here in two or three hours. But if you crash out, you're a gone goose. Shea has sworn in a bunch of miners as special deputies. One of them will surely blow your head off. What can you do if you get out, anyhow?”

He grinned at her. “With all these suspects missing, it sounds like a paper chase, and I always liked paper chases. I think I'll join it.”

“No,” she said. “If you expect me to help you, the answer is no.”

He paid no attention, turning to the barred door and shouting Pepper's name.

She caught his arm. “Please, Bill, no. They'll think I helped you. They'll lock me up.”

“And a good thing. It will keep you out of trouble.” He sounded heartless when he said it. “Hey! Are you all dead out there? The lady wants to leave.”

Shuffling steps came down the corridor and Caleb Pepper appeared beyond the bars. “We aren't dead,” he said, mildly, “but death sure seems to have moved into this valley.”

“Death,” Lennox looked at him hard. “Don't tell me that Shea's dead. I couldn't stand the shock.”

“No,” said Pepper. “It isn't Shea. Leastwise if he is, I ain't heard. It's that convict Scribbs, the one who busted out of this very cell. He's dead. Alf Jones just phoned in from the ranger station at the head of the lake. His posse found the body on the old tote road back of South Peak.

“There was a couple of blankets with the body, and some grub. Looked like he was headed out, but where did he get the blankets and grub? He didn't have them when he left here. Oh, yeah, and Fred Hampton's watch was in his pocket.”

“The hell?” Lennox was genuinely startled. “Fred Hampton's watch? I don't get it.”

Pepper was getting a morbid pleasure out of the story. He unlocked the door and came in to sit down on the narrow hardness of the bunk.

“Alf thinks maybe that will clear you. He thinks that Fred was driving through the brush last night, maybe saw Scribbs, yelled at him, and Scribbs came over to the car. When Fred tried to take him back to town, Scribbs put a bullet through his head, then he took the watch, maybe to see what time it was. Anyhow, he probably walked along until he got plumb tuckered, sat down to think it over and decided it was no use. So he pulls his gun, and let's himself have it through the mouth.”

Lennox stared. “Are you trying to say that Scribbs killed himself?”

“Seems like.”

“Hell!” said Lennox, and in that one word he managed to put all the contempt which he felt. “Hell, a man doesn't go to the trouble of crashing out of jail, getting grub and blankets, just to stop on the trail and blow a hole in his head. How long had he been dead?”

The marshal removed his toothpick, examined it with faded, thoughtful eyes, then stuffed it back into the corner of his mouth where it was hidden by his sagging mustache.

“Not so long. Alf couldn't be certain. They're packing him to the ranger station; from there, they'll bring him to town by truck. If he didn't kill himself, who did? Bert Cullen and Doc Newcomb?”

“Why them?” Lennox was interested.

Caleb Pepper shrugged tiredly. He was an old man. He'd seen a lot of life, too much of life. “Who else could kill him? They both hated him, and they're both running around loose in the hills.”

Lennox had to admit that they were. He stood in the center of the cell, thinking about it carefully. “Look, Caleb, you say Hampton's watch was in Scribbs's pocket. That clears me, so you'll let me out?”

The marshal's white head moved in a negative direction. “Can't do that, Bill, not yet. You was arrested on a regular warrant. Gotta go through the forms.”

“But I've got to get out, too. I've things to do.” He took a quick step forward and caught the marshal by the collar band of his worn blue shirt. He lifted the surprised man to his feet, and with his free hand got the old gun which swung at Pepper's hip; then almost gently he replaced Pepper on the edge of the bunk.

“Sorry, Caleb.”

The marshal blinked. “Now, Bill, don't do nothing foolish, son. All you gotta do is to sit quiet until you're cleared and you'll be okay. Go crashing out of jail, and you'll wind up with a bullet in your head.”

“He's right,” said Nancy. “You're just putting yourself into an unnecessary jam.”

Lennox paid no attention. He reached down, got the marshal's keys, and was backing toward the door.

Nancy Hobbs followed him. “I'm not going to let you do it, Bill. If you lock Caleb in here, I'll let him out as soon as you are gone.”

He stopped to consider her. “You will, huh?”

“Of course. That's my duty. I...”

He looked baffled. “Okay. You win. Help Caleb off the couch and...”

She turned without thinking. That was all the time Lennox needed. He jumped through the door, slammed the grille behind him, and locked it.

“All right, Miss Hobbs. Stay there and remain law-abiding, but don't play rummy with Caleb. He's too smart for you.”

“Bill!” She had run across the cell and was shaking the bars angrily. “William Lennox! Come back here and open this door, at once. Do you hear me? At once!”

Lennox had retreated out of her reach. “You know,” he said, “it wouldn't have occurred to me, but having you in jail makes things easier. It keeps you out from under my feet.” He turned and moved swiftly along the passage, the sound of her anger following him like a pursuing ghost.

He grinned as he entered the jail office cautiously and found it empty. The clock on the far wall told him that it was a quarter of ten. Pepper's gun was too big for his pocket. He fiddled with it for a moment, then solved the problem by stuffing it into the waistband of his trousers. The telephone rang and he looked at it thoughtfully. It rang again as he moved toward the door. A moment later he was in the darkness outside. A fugitive from justice, he thought, should not go around answering phones.

3

From his position in the shadowed doorway, Lennox watched the girl appear. He frowned deeply, muttering to himself. What in the world was Clara Cullen doing in Mary Crewe's place? It didn't make sense and he was tired of mysteries. He left his concealment and angled across the dark street so that he would intercept the girl before she reached the lake shore.

Either she was too deeply engaged in her own thoughts or she was deaf, for she seemed unconscious of his approach until he spoke. Then she started violently and turned as if about to run.

“Clara,” he said. “It's Bill, Bill Lennox.”

She stopped, and her “Oh,” was filled with quick relief. “I thought you were in jail. Did Nancy get you out?”

The darkness hid his quick grin. “Not exactly,” he told her, “but she helped.”

“But how...”

“Never mind me,” he said. “I want to talk about you. Where were you, Clara? If you went to see Mary Crewe, why?”

She looked at him. “How did you know that I had been to see Mary Crewe?”

He shrugged. “I just saw you come out of there; it wasn't hard to guess, but it is hard to understand why you were there.”

“She sent for me,” said the girl. “She told me that if I ever wanted to see Uncle Bert alive again, I'd better come to see her and that I wasn't to tell anyone, not even my brother.”

“Fine,” said Lennox. “So now Mary is going in for kidnaping. What did she want, kid?”

The girl shrugged. “She offered us a trade. She wanted me to sign a paper, giving her any rights I might inherit in the Skull Lake Mining Company. In return she offered to relinquish to me any rights she might have in the picture studio. She said that she hated scandal, that she didn't want to have to go into court and prove that she was Uncle Dick's wife.”

“Sure,” said Lennox. “That woman hates scandal like a duck hates water. She's not certain of her deal, honey, and she was trying to grab something. You didn't sign, did you?

The girl shook her head. “I told her that as far as I knew, I didn't have any interest in the Skull Lake Mining Company. That as long as Uncle Bert lived, it belonged to him.”

“And what did Mary think of that?”

“She was willing to take a chance. What's it mean, Bill? Does it mean that Uncle Bert is dead?”

Lennox shook his head. “I don't know, sweet, but I know one thing. Go back to the lodge and don't put your name on any kind of a paper.”

“But I have to wait for Nancy. She came over in the boat with me.”

“She won't be going back for a while,” said Lennox. “I don't think you should wait for her; in fact, I'm certain of it, but I hate to have you cross the lake alone.”

“Oh, I won't be alone. Peter is waiting in the boat.”

“You mean a bar, don't you?”

She flashed, “Why do you go out of your way to ride him, Bill? He's worked like a dog all day to get you out. He and Doolittle both.”

“A miracle,” said Lennox. “Well, run along, and don't believe anything Pete tells you. He's an actor, and the truth isn't in them.”

“You're just prejudiced.”

“I've reason to be; run along.” He watched her go until her slender form blended with the shadows of the lake shore; then he turned back and walked quickly toward the door of Mary Crewe's private apartment.

4

“Come in,” she said. “Come in, Lennox, and tell me how you managed to get out of jail.”

William Lennox was no longer surprised by anything which happened in this house. He had paused in the little waiting room to knock, and the woman couldn't possibly know that he was there unless there was a peephole of some kind.

Maybe, he thought, as he shoved the door open, she did it with mirrors. He looked around the inner room, but there were no mirrors in sight. The room was just as it had been when he had last seen it, and Mary Crewe was sitting in the same chair.

Her smile was faint and tinkly with ice. It was much worse than any scowl, and Lennox shuddered. This woman never ceased to startle him. She was like a machine, perfectly constructed, well cared for, and entirely without any of the attributes that go into the makeup of a human being.

“Well,” she said, as he closed the door, “which did you do; bribe or scare Caleb Pepper into letting you go?”

“You underestimate me,” he told her,” and you do Caleb an injustice. He is, at the moment, sitting on the iron bunk, gnawing at his toothpick and worrying on how to get out of the cell.”

She laughed, and again he was reminded of tinkling ice. “And just what do you hope to accomplish by this jail break?”

“I wanted to see you,” he said. “I wanted to find out why you sent for Clara Cullen. I want to see your trump, Mary, if you have one. I suspect that you haven't. I suspect you're afraid that your little fiction of still being Richard Cullen's legal wife is folding under you, and you're trying for an out.”

“You always were amusing, Bill.”

“I'm more than that,” he said. “I'm a damn nuisance, and you know it. I'm always around, poking my oar in where other people don't want it. Come, Mary, this thing is beginning to close in on you. Bert Cullen is missing, so is Doc Newcomb. I want to know why. In short, I want to know who killed Dick, and Sloane, Hampton, and Scribbs.”

The curving line of mirth went away from her lips as if it had been wiped off with a damp wash rag. With it went the round contour of her face. For suddenly she was haggard; suddenly she looked every year of her age. Her eyes got dark and unreadable.

“Say that again, slowly.”

“Say what?” He looked at her in pretended surprise.

“That Scribbs is dead. How'd he die, Bill, and when?”

She had risen and was standing facing him. Her grey head came only to his shoulder, and for the first time he felt a little sorry for her.

“He's dead, Mary.”

“You're lying. You're trying to trick me into something.”

“No,” he shook his head. “It's the truth. Alf Jones and his gang of special deputies found him up on the old tote road behind the ranger station. They say that he killed himself.”

“Damn it!” The woman caught Lennox's arm and her knuckles showed white through her skin as she dug her fingers into his sleeve. “He didn't kill himself, Bill, Newcomb got him. Newcomb said that he'd get him and he did, the murdering leech.”

“Maybe,” said Lennox. “I don't know who got him, Mary, but I was pretty certain that he hadn't killed himself. He had blankets and grub with him. It looked as if he were getting out.”

“Of course he was. He got those blankets and grub from me. I wanted him to take a car, but he said that he'd be safer on foot. He knew his way and he was headed for an old friend's up in the Honey Lake basin. If Newcomb hadn't caught up with him, he'd have been in the clear, After what he's been through, he had a few years of peace coming to him.”

Lennox nodded. “He also had Fred Hampton's watch in his pocket, Mary.”

The woman's mind had been miles away and it was evident that his words had only partly reached her. “What, what did you say?”

“Scribbs had Fred Hampton's watch in his pocket. His gun had been fired twice.”

“Fred Hampton's watch?” She let go her hold on his arm and stepped back quickly. “What are you trying to say? What kind of trap are you leading me into?”

“Trap? Why, no trap, Mary. I was just telling you the news.”

“No you aren't.” She crouched a little and he was suddenly reminded of a crafty animal attempting to keep itself from being jockeyed into a corner. “Of course, you aren't. You're clever, Lennox, too goddamn clever, but I'm not falling for it.”

He shrugged. “Look, Mary. Scribbs was your brother. I don't pretend to think that after his having spent those years in prison he would mean very much to you. I'm not asking you to think of Scribbs; I'm asking you to think of yourself. Scribbs didn't kill Fred Hampton, because Scribbs couldn't have killed Dick Cullen, and the same man is doing all this killing.”

She made no response and after a moment he went on. “I think the killer intended that Scribbs be blamed for Cullen's death. It was a natural set-up. Scribbs was out of prison, hating the Cullens with all the hate that his prison years had engendered. If Scribbs could be brought here at the right time, and Richard Cullen was at Skull, Cullen could be murdered and, in the natural course of events, Scribbs would be blamed.”

Her face was dead white and her fingers plucked nervously at the fringe of the table cover. “Go on.”

Lennox shrugged. “Cullen was killed according to schedule, but Scribbs had an unexpected alibi. Rany had found him fixing a tire. Rany was with him at the time of the murder, a very fortunate accident.”

“Yes,” her voice was dull. “Yes, I'm beginning to believe you're right.”

“That upset the killer's schedule,” Lennox went on. “I don't know whether he had planned to kill Jake Sloane from the first, or whether Sloane knew or guessed something that made his death necessary. At any rate, he was shot, in his office, with me almost at his side.”

He stopped, waiting for her to speak. When she didn't, he went on. “Then Fred Hampton was killed. Fred knew something. He didn't tell me what it was, but I realize now that he was trying to tell me something the other night, and yet not put it into direct words. He knew something, and the killer suspected that he knew, so he died. Why did he die, Mary? What had he discovered, or guessed?”

“You're doing the talking.” The words were toneless.

“Damnit,” he told her. “I'm doing the guessing. I'm putting the odd pieces together in the same way that I'd put a picture puzzle into place. But when you put a jig-saw puzzle together, you start with the outside, with the pieces that are easy to place. You build your outer square and then you try to fill in the middle. That's what I'm trying to do now, to fill in the middle, and I need your help. You are the middle, Mary. I've suspected it for a long time. You're in the middle, and yet, I don't think that you did the killings.”

“No—No—I didn't.”

“Who did? Was it Newcomb? You accused him a while ago. Was it Bert Cullen, pretending to be paralyzed to give himself an alibi? It was Newcomb's wire that brought Richard Cullen to his death, but did the doctor know that?”

“I—I don't—” The woman's voice was tense.

“And why was Scribbs killed? He was leaving. Did he know something that he hadn't told, or was he killed because of an old hatred?”

“Keep guessing. It's only guesses—”

“No!” he told her. “You're going to tell me. You're going to tell me because you're afraid. You were afraid the other night when you offered me that picture deal. You admitted it then; afterward, you changed your mind. You decided to go on playing whatever game you've been playing. You helped charge me with Hampton's death. You wanted me in jail, so that you could do what you pleased with that girl Judy.”

“Stop it—let me alone— Shut up—”

“But you're not certain of yourself, Mary Crewe. If you were, you wouldn't have sent for Clara Cullen and offered to make a deal with her. And now, Scribbs is dead. It scares you silly, because you know that you're next, that things have got out of hand, that the killer has to strike again and there's only one place left for him to strike.

“You're next on the list, Mary. He'll get you if you don't stop him first. Are you going to tell me, or are you going to wait, wait until your time comes?”

She drew a long tortured breath, and her voice was no longer sure and smooth and confident. “You're right,” she said. “You're right, God help me. I'll make a deal, Bill. I'll tell you everything I can if you'll arrange with the Cullen girl that I'm to have the Skull Lake Mining Company.”

Lennox looked at her with contempt. “You never learn, do you, Mary Crewe? Your kind never learns. They always reach out, snatching for something, even when death is a shadow across their shoulder. The mining company isn't Clara's, and if it were, she wouldn't sign it to you. But it isn't hers, and as long as Bert Cullen lives...”

“He doesn't live,” the woman's voice was hysterical. “You fool! Bert Cullen's dead by now. He knew where Bert was hiding. He went out to finish him.”

“Who knew?”

Mary Crewe never had a chance to answer, for there was a spatting sound behind Lennox and a little hole appeared with magic suddenness in the white column of the woman's throat. For an instant it was black, and round, like a period from a perfect typewriter. Then the blood came out to break the symmetry of the outline.

Lennox turned, his hand coming up to seek the worn grip of Caleb Pepper's old gun; but as he turned, the lights in the room went out.

He tried to sidestep, away from the door which he knew that the murderer must have pushed open unnoticed, but a hand came out of the darkness to grasp his shoulder.

He tried to pull away, to bring up the old gun, but something hit the side of his skull. He went down, and out.

11

IN SOME dim way, he realized that he had been out for seconds only. He couldn't tell how he knew. The blow had torn along the side of his head rather than striking squarely on the top. He brought up his hand and found the hair above his left ear sticky, wet.

Lennox had been knocked out before. That blow, had it lit squarely, would have killed. Only the darkness and the poor aim had saved his life.

He dragged himself to his feet, every muscle in his body protesting against the effort, and staggered toward the wall, groping along it until his fingers found the switch.

Light showed him Mary Crewe. She lay only a few feet away, so close that he could have bent forward and touched her. But he had no impulse to touch her. His one thought was to get away from the room, from the house, from Skull Valley.

Nausea made a sticky ball in the pit of his stomach, and the sight of the blood on his fingers, even though it was his own blood, made him feel no better. He turned and blindly sought the door; but as he reached it, he found the waiter, Louie, just entering the anteroom.

Lennox stopped, and they stood facing each other. Louie's face was broad, and flat, and angry looking. He raised his voice to call, “Mary! Mary!”

Nothing happened. Time moved by with leaden steps, slow innumerable ticks that seemed to have no end. Then Lennox saw resolve crystallize in the man's pig-like eyes. He saw the big hand form into a reddened fist, saw the blow coming, and knew that he must duck.

But he was powerless to move, powerless to even shift his head. The fist crashed against his chin, and he went down with a hundred little balls of red fire circling and exploding in a darkened sky behind his eyes.

A bucket of water splashed over him, and he was conscious of angry voices. He wanted to open his eyes, but the lids were weighted along the lower edge and resisted his efforts.

It was too much trouble. It didn't seem to be worth the tremendous exertion involved. Then a voice he knew cut across his struggling consciousness and he opened his eyes to find Nancy Hobbs bending over him.

“Bill! Bill! Snap out of it, palo. Are you all right?” She had a hand under his shoulder blades and helped him to sit up.

“What gives?” The words sounded thick and poorly enunciated, even in his own ears.

A couple of tears had squeezed themselves out of her eyes and were running unnoticed down her cheek. “Hey, wait.” He was concerned. “Why the water-works?”

She was smiling. “It's you,” she said. “What happened in here, Bill? I was worried, I...”

“He doesn't need to tell what happened,” a heavy voice said. “We got eyes, ain't we?”

Lennox turned his head, trying to locate the voice, and his eyes centered on the red-faced waiter. “Help me up,” he said to the girl, and struggled to rise, increasing the tongues of sharp pain which were lancing against the back of his eyeballs.

He made it to his feet, but the effort left him dizzy, and he could feel the sweat stand out beneath his clothes. It was like being covered with a thin coating of oil.

“God, I feel terrible.” He hadn't meant to say that.

“How do you think Mary feels?” It was the waiter, trying to push forward. “Let me at the bastard.”

Caleb Pepper stepped in the way. “Hold it, Louie. We haven't heard Lennox's story.”

“I don't need any story. I'll string him up by myself.”

“No!” said Pepper. His old body straightened and he seemed to grow at least two inches in height. “There'll be no trouble here.” Apparently he had found his gun on the floor, for it was in his hand.

The waiter stared at him with bloodshot eyes, then backed a step away from the old gun. Pepper never took his eyes from the man's face as he said to Lennox. “See? You shouldn't have broke out of jail.”

Lennox did not answer, and Pepper said: “I'll take you back to the courthouse. You'll be safer there until Morgan and Shea come in.”

“Aren't you going to question any of Mary's girls? One of them might have seen the killer, and there's one that they've been whipping....”

“That will have to Wait,” said Pepper. “No argument. We'll have trouble on our hands if we aren't careful.”

Lennox knew what he meant. He'd seen mobs in these mountain towns. He followed Pepper through to the street and along it toward the courthouse. “How'd you get out?”

“They found us when they came to report Mary's death.” Pepper locked him in the cell once more. “Anything you want?”

Lennox lay down on the hard bunk. “This is swell.” He closed his eyes, hoping, but the pain still remained.

Pepper gave him a long look, then turned and went back to the office. Nancy Hobbs was sitting on one corner of the desk. “What did Bill mean about questioning the girls, about one being whipped?”

Pepper shrugged. “It's just one of the girls, one that Lennox rescued and sent away. Fred Hampton had her brought back, and Mary got her somehow. Hell! I've got more things to worry about than a little whipping of a line gal. I'm liable to have a mob on my hands.”

2

Vance Morgan was tired and very discouraged. For hours, he and his party of special deputies had beaten the brush on the south slope of Skull Mountain, looking for Bert Cullen, Doctor Newcomb and the Chinese servant. The whole idea of the search was Tom Shea's, and Morgan had had slight interest from the first. He wished, as he turned his car into Main Street and found a parking place, that none of these killings had taken place. And now that they had, he'd lost any real interest in bringing the killer to justice.

He was surprised to see the crowd gathered before the Miners' Club and was more surprised when he learned what had happened. He turned and went directly toward the courthouse, finding Pepper carefully laying out guns across the desk.

“What in hell do you think you're doing?”

Pepper turned faded eyes on the younger man. “That crowd's beginning to get liquored up,” he said, “and Fm just getting set in case of trouble. Louie Judson is stirring up the boys, buying free drinks and such. I wonder where his dough come from.”

Morgan didn't answer. He took the key to Mary's door from the marshal, turned on his heel and went back to the street. He'd almost reached the dance hall when the sound of a car made him look around and he saw Shea driving into town.

He stopped and waited until the V-8 pulled abreast, then signaled the deputy and walked to the side of the car. Shea was alone, and he gave the district attorney a long, thoughtful glance, then turned to look at the crowd.

“What goes on?”

“Trouble,” said Morgan, and for a fleeting instant wished again that Jake Sloane were here to steer their course. “Bad trouble. Mary Crewe's dead.”

Not a muscle of the deputy's face moved. “When? How?”

Morgan told him, and after a minute Shea pulled over to the curb and left the car. Together they walked down to the dance hall, around the corner and went in through the private entrance.

Tom Shea paused in the doorway of the inner room, his big body almost filling the aperture so that Morgan had to crane his neck to see around Shea's shoulder.

“So, he finally got you, Mary?” Something in the deputy's tone caught Morgan's attention.

“Who did it, Tom? What are you talking about?”

Shea turned and for a moment Vance Morgan felt that Shea did not recognize him, that the man's mind was far away; then Shea seemed to come to with a start.

“What? Oh! I'm talking about Bert Cullen,” he said. “We've got to find him, Vance. We'll send out for dogs and track him down. Bert knows these hills too well to find him otherwise.”

“You mean that Bert is the murderer? But I thought Lennox...”

“I lost my head this morning,” Shea said. “Fred Hampton's death knocked the props out from under me. I'd taken his orders so long that I didn't know how to think for myself.”

Vance Morgan knew what he meant. Morgan had felt exactly this same way ever since Jake Sloane had been killed. “But Bert...”

“It goes back a long way,” Tom Shea told him. “Back to the time when Mary and Dick Cullen were married. It was Bert that made him divorce her, it was Bert that sent Ben Scribbs to prison.”

“But to kill his own brother?”

“You don't know the Cullens,” Shea told him. “They weren't men; they were jackals.”

“Then Mary Crewe was divorced?”

Shea nodded. “She was. I didn't butt in. I was sitting back, waiting to see how things broke. Now, it doesn't matter. Everything points to Bert. He gained more by Dick's and Jake's death than anyone else in the world. He pretended to be paralyzed to give himself an alibi, and he had Doc Newcomb's help.”

“But why pick this particular time to kill them?” Morgan sounded puzzled.

“Because,” said Shea, “Ben Scribbs was getting out of prison, Ben Scribbs, who hated the Cullens and Sloane, Ben Scribbs, the most natural fall guy in the world.

“Remember, it was Newcomb that got Dick Cullen to come up here, and Bert and Doc have always been close. They're together now, and I hope they'll be together when we catch up with them. All I want is to line those two up under the sights of my rifle. That's the one thing I ask. Well, we may as well look around.” He crossed to the desk on the far side of the room and started to pull out the drawers.

As he opened the second one, his big face flushed with I dull anger. Hastily he opened the others, then swung around, his eyes glittering. “Someone's been here since Mary was killed,” he told Morgan, savagely. “You can tell by looking. This desk has been searched.”

3

Nancy Hobbs had been on some strange assignments during her newspaper years, but she had never attempted anything of this order before.

The rear street which flanked the back of Mary Crewe's dance hall was dark and deserted. Most of the town's population which was not working was out as special deputies, combing the hills for the missing Cullen and his companions. The rest were gathered before the Miners' Club, turning themselves rapidly into a mob.

But Nancy was not deterred by the darkness. She moved along past the row of cribs, wondering what to do and how to start.

A light burned in the third one from the far end and she paused, then advanced toward the door, hoping that the inmate had no guest. She knocked, waited, then knocked again.

After the second knock a voice demanded shrilly to know what she wanted.

“I want to talk to you,” Nancy explained.

There was a long, whispered conference on the other side of the door, then a little slide went back exposing a small, square hole in the upper panel, and an extremely sharp nose appeared in the opening.

“Scram, sister. You're in the wrong end of town.”

“That's what you think,” Nancy was trying to see around the nose. “I'm looking for a girl named Judy, and it's important.”

“Never heard of her.” The nose withdrew and the panel started to close.

Nancy used one corner of her leather purse to keep it partly open. “Look!” she said. “This is important. I've got to find Judy. I'm a friend of Bill Lennox and he sent me.”

There was another whispered conference, then a new voice demanded, “What about Bill Lennox?”

Nancy said, “He's in jail. I've got to talk to you.”

“Say, aren't you Miss Hobbs? I've seen you in Hollywood.” There was the sound of a bolt being withdrawn and the door came partly open. “In here, quick.”

Nancy went in. The door was shut and the bolt shoved back into place. She hadn't known what to expect. Imagination had pictured the place with flowery drapes and lacy bed. The bare room with its starved ugliness shocked her. But she wasted only a moment on the room; then she turned her attention to the two girls.

One of them was stripped to the waist, her dark eyes deep holes in her strained white face. The second girl, the sharp nosed one, had a bottle of milky lotion in one hand, a dab of cotton in the other. She had been applying the lotion to the white-faced girl's back. Nancy took a step forward and then uttered an involuntary cry. The back was a series of red, angry looking welts, and here and there the skin had broken, where the whip had bitten too deep.

“My God!”

“Nice, huh?” There was murder in the sharp-nosed girl's tone. “The bastards. I wish I had a gun. You haven't got a gun, have you?” She regarded Nancy with new interest.

Nancy shook her head. “Sorry. If I had one, I think I'd want to use it myself, after seeing that. Who did it?”

“Louie swung the whip, the son-of-a-bitch,” Sharpnose told her, “but it was Mary's orders. We all had to stand around and watch. The poor kid.” This last was said to the girl she was treating.

Judy cringed away from the touch of the damp cotton. “I'm okay. I'm okay. Lay off the doctoring, Sarah. What's this about Bill Lennox?”

Nancy said: “He tried to help you this morning and they threw him in jail. I suppose you know Mary's dead?”

The two girls stared at each other in startled surprise. “Dead?” It was the sharp-nosed Sarah. “Dead? By God, I don't believe it. Nothing could kill that witch.”

“A bullet did,” Nancy said, soberly. “Someone shot her, while Lennox was talking to her.”

“But I thought you said he was in jail?” Sarah was suspicious.

“He got out.”

“Jeeze!” Judy laughed despite her back. “Whatta guy! Did he get the killer?”

“He got a bump on the head,” said Nancy, “and a mob's collecting out in the street, led by your friend Louie.”

“Gimme a gun, and I'll fix Louie,” Sarah promised. “And sister, I'll fix him, but good. With Mary dead I'm not afraid of nothing.”

“I didn't come here to get Louie killed,” Nancy told her. “I came here because I thought Judy might know something.”

“About what?” Sarah seemed determined to protect her friend.

Nancy shook her head. “I don't know,” she admitted. “But last night, Sheriff Hampton sent down to San Francisco to bring her back. He wasn't playing Mary Crewe's game, so the only reason he could have wanted her back was because he thought she knew something about the murders. At that, he must have known something because he was killed himself a couple of hours later.”

“Who told you all this?”

“No one told me,” said Nancy. “But it isn't very hard to figure out.”

Both of the girls considered her in silence. Judy said, finally, “Maybe you're right. Maybe the sheriff figured just like you say, but the sheriff was nuts. I don't know a thing. I tried to find out. I thought that if I could get something on Mary, it might ease things off for me and the rest of the girls. But I didn't find much. I used to hang around outside Mary's door when I could sneak away for a few minutes. Her friend would be in there, but...”

“Her friend?” Nancy caught up the girl's words. “You mean she had a friend who came regularly?”

“I'll say she did,” both of the girls answered in concert. “But he wasn't a regular pimp. I've seen pimps,” Sarah went on. “Had a couple myself, but this guy was different. I got the idea he was some respectable guy around town who didn't want it known that he spent his nights with Mary. I used to think it was Jake Sloane until one night Jake came into the dance hall while I knew this guy was in Mary's rooms.”

Nancy pinched her lower lip thoughtfully. “Who could it be?”

“It could have been the devil himself,” said Sarah. “None of us ever got a look at him. No one in the joint ever knew who it was but Louie.”

“Then we'll make Louie talk.”

Both girls laughed shrilly. “Fat chance you've got of making that louse open his face. You just don't make a guy like Louie talk.”

Nancy Hobbs was thinking. “But surely, someone besides this Louie must have known about this mysterious visitor. Maybe there's something in Mary's rooms that would give us a clue. I wish Caleb Pepper hadn't locked that door.”

The sharp-nosed Sarah hesitated. “Personally, I don't want any part of this,” she said. “But I know how you can get into that room without going through the side door.”

“How?” Nancy demanded eagerly.

“Easy. There's an entrance from behind the bar. You'd never guess it from inside the room. I was only there once, but Mary kept a curtain hung over the door.”

“Show me.”

“Oh no,” Sarah was adamant. “I'm not stepping out of this place tonight. I've seen trouble in these jerk towns before, and it always winds up with girls like us getting it in the neck.”

“I'll go,” said Judy. “I owe Bill Lennox that much.”

“Oh no, you don't,” Sarah swung to face her friend. “You're going to stay right here. With that back, you aren't in any shape to go anywhere.” She pushed the girl back into a sitting position on the bed. “You stay right where you are.”

Nancy said, “But of course. One person is better at a thing like this than two are. Just tell me where to find this door.”

“You can't miss it,” Sarah told her. “There are two behind the bar. One leads into a kind of office, the other into Mary's room.”

“And they'll be unlocked?”

The girl shrugged. “I never knew either one of them to be locked,” she said. “There wasn't any need to lock them. We all knew better than to go through either one.”

4

The street was still dark and still deserted when Nancy emerged from the cell-like building. She heard the door close behind her, heard the lock thrown in place. Sarah was taking no chances.

With the single-purposeness which had made her a good reporter, Nancy looked across the dusty stretch of road to where the square brick bulk of the old dance hall building made a boxlike shadow against the lighter sky.

From here, the building looked deserted and empty. The waiters and bartender were probably in the crowd which had gathered before Alf Jones's bar; the girls had followed Sarah's example and sought security in their cubby holes.

She crossed the street and pulled open the sagging screen door which served as a portal to the dark hall beyond. Inside was the musty, dusty smell of age which she had noticed in all the older buildings of this town.

She paused in the darkness, listening for sound of movement in the main dance hall beyond. There was no sound of any kind.

Reassured, she pushed open the door which led to the big room and peeked in. The ceiling lights burned brightly and a layer of bluish tobacco smoke still hovered under the roof, but the room itself was empty.

Unfinished drinks remained on the tables. A towel, where the bartender had left it, lay across one end of the bar, a lone whiskey bottle standing beside it like a silent sentinel.

There was something ghostly about the place and she had to remind herself that the noisy crowd which had occupied it only a short time before was merely up the street and had not vanished through some supernatural agency.

She closed the door by which she had entered, crossed the room swiftly and went around the end of the bar, peeking first into the office and then trying the door which led into the dead woman's apartment.

It was unlocked and despite her will, her pulse quickened as she moved along the short cross-corridor and tried the entrance to Mary's room.

The door yielded at once to her touch and she pulled it open to face the masking curtain beyond. She used an arm to sweep this aside and a moment later was staring down at Mary Crewe.

But she wasted little time on the dead woman. She had seen other bodies and death in itself held no horror. Instead she turned her attention to the desk, going through the pigeonholes and the drawers, rapidly, yet with a system.

Not until she had reached the bottom drawer did she find anything of interest. It was a sheet of paper, yellow with age, folded and slipped under the neat blue blotter which had been used as a drawer lining.

From the desk, she gathered that Mary Crewe had been a person of meticulous habits, but the habits of the dead woman held very little interest for Nancy Hobbs at the moment. She unfolded the paper, read the sprawling type, the faded ink, and an incredulous look replaced the expectant one which had filled her eyes since entering the room.

“I don't believe it,” she said, turning to look at the dead woman. “I honestly don't believe it.”

But it was there to read. There was no doubt about the printed words. She folded the paper quickly and was in the act of stuffing it into her bag when she heard the rattle of the key in the lock of the outer door.

Quickly she shoved in the drawers of the desk, turned and scurried back into the passage, letting the curtain fall behind her, but not entirely closing the door.

She waited in the darkness, the pounding of her heart sounding dangerously loud in her own ears. Then she heard Vance Morgan's voice, followed by a rumble from Tom Shea. She strained her ears to hear what they were saying, heard them move around the room, then heard Shea cross to the desk.

“Someone's been here since Mary was killed, he told Morgan sharply.

“You're crazy,” Vance Morgan was impatient. “No one could have gotten through that locked door, and if they had, what good would it do them? Mary didn't keep any money in that desk, did she?”

“How the hell would I know? But I tell you this desk has been searched.”

“Maybe one of the girls searched it then, hoping to find some dough. If I was in their spot, with Mary dead, I'd be around, hunting an out too. Come on.”

“There must be another entrance,” said Shea. “There should be a way in here from the dance hall.”

Nancy Hobbs waited to hear no more. She didn't want to be caught, lurking in that passage, and she did not mean to show them what she had found, not before she had a chance to show it to Lennox.

She faded back through the darkness quickly and slid through into the dance hall, getting the door closed before Shea pushed back the curtain and came forward along the passage.

Quickly she looked around, trying to find a place of concealment. There wasn't time to cross the big room, and there was no place to hide. Then she thought of the office and ducked into it, crowding down between the desk and the big, square, old-fashioned safe.

The safe was unlocked. No one in Skull Valley seemed ever to use their safes, but all the older merchants had them. Nancy was debating the possibility of crawling inside the big iron box when she heard Shea in the outside room.

“Don't see anyone.”

“I tell you you're crazy,” said Morgan. “Come on, I want to get back and stop that fool Louie before he starts real trouble. We've had everything else around here in the last couple of days, and I certainly don't want a lynching.”

Nancy could not make out Shea's grudging answer, but she eased her cramped position and waited in the darkness until she thought that it was safe to stir. Then she came stiffly to her feet and moved to the office door.

She opened it a crack and peered out into the big room. Everything was calm, peaceful. Nothing moved and there was no sound. She pulled the door wide and came out into the narrow passage behind the bar, meaning to round the dark counter and leave the building by the same door that she had used on entering.

But she had taken only a step when she suddenly froze for a voice she knew said, “Going some place, Miss Hobbs?”

She should have screamed then. There might have been a possibility of attracting someone from the street had she done so, but instead she started to turn.

A hand came from behind her to fasten about her mouth, cutting off the yell which had begun too late; a second hand seized her shoulder and swung her around.

Nancy Hobbs tried to kick his shins, she tried to pull free, but both efforts were useless, the man was too strong.

12

WILLIAM LENNOX was very tired of the cell, and of the hard cot on which he lay, When he'd first been returned to the jail, he'd welcomed the opportunity to rest, and Caleb Pepper, after a look at Lennox's condition, had concluded that his prisoner would be little or no trouble until morning, at least. The real trouble which Pepper feared was not inside the jail. He'd seen a number of mobs in his time and he did not like them.

Caleb Pepper was tired, and his berth at Skull Lake had led him into an easy routine. As long as Jake Sloane had lived the mine manager had been a law unto himself. More than once Sloane had walked unarmed into a saloon full of fighting men and quelled the trouble single-handed.

Pepper wished now, as he got out the few guns which were available, that Jake Sloane were there. He was somewhat relieved when Morgan and Shea appeared, but after they had departed with the key to Mary Crewe's apartment, he was again seized with the feeling of uselessness.

Morgan was not to be depended upon, and Shea, who lacked neither courage nor ability, might well decide to let the mob have Lennox and make an end to it.

With this in mind, Pepper did something which was definitely against his better judgment. He went down the corridor and peered through the bars at his prisoner.

Lennox seemed to be asleep. His face, which had been battered by the bartender's fists, looked red and swollen, and worse than it actually was.

But it stirred Pepper. Basically he was kind-hearted, and he recalled the many hot afternoons that he and Lennox had passed pleasantly, holding up Alf Jones's bar. He went back, got a basin of water, a cloth and some soap. Returning he unlocked the door and, crossing the cell, applied the folded cloth to the swelling on Lennox's cheek.

At the first touch, Bill's eyes opened and he managed a twisted grin. “That's okay, pal. I'll be all right in the next round. The slug hit me when I wasn't looking.”

Pepper thought that he was out of his head. “Take it easy,” he counseled. “You've got nothing to worry about. Morgan and Shea are back, and Alf Jones should be along any time now. They'll stop that mob, and put Big Louie in his place.”

“Mob?” The word caught Lennox's attention. “What mob, Caleb?”

The old marshal stirred uneasily, wishing that he hadn't mentioned the subject. “Doesn't mean much,” he said. “Louie's buying the boys some drinks, and a lot of them are worked up. They figured that Mary was a friend of theirs.”

“And they think I killed her?”

“Well, yes, that's about the idea.”

“You say that Shea and Morgan are back?”

Pepper nodded. “Yeah. Here, let me put this on your face.”

“Never mind the towel.” Lennox pushed it away, swung about and put his feet on the floor. He was surprised that, despite the motion, his head stayed in one piece. He wasn't as badly hurt as he had supposed.

Pepper retreated a step. “You'd better lie doggo,” he advised. “You ain't going anywhere, so there's no use stirring yourself up.”

“That's what you think,” Lennox told him. “Get some sense, Caleb. What do you expect me to do? Sit quiet in this cell while those dumb clucks are measuring my neck for a rope?”

“But they won't get in, Bill. I never gave up a prisoner yet.”

Lennox looked at the old man. With his bandy legs and skinny body, Pepper couldn't weigh a hundred pounds, dripping wet. The heart was there, but there just wasn't enough body left.

“You don't want to be a martyr,” he told the marshal. “Only a fool bucks a game he can't beat, and you're no fool, Caleb. That mob will come in here as if the walls were made of paper, and all you'll get is trampled in the rush.”

Pepper was stubborn. “'Tain't no use arguing, Bill. A man's got a job to do or he ain't. My job is to stay here and take care of my prisoner.”

Lennox opened his mouth to answer, but before the words could form, he heard voices from the office. “Mister Lennox! Hey! Bill Lennox!”

He swung around shouting, “Here,” before he thought. Pepper moaned and straightened on the bunk, reaching for his old gun. The clatter of heels was not made by an advancing mob, but by two girls.

They paused outside the cell and Lennox uttered an exclamation of surprise. “Judy!”

She clung there to the bars, her small body trembling with excitement as the words tumbled over themselves. “It's Miss Hobbs. I know something's happened to her. I know it. I know it.”

Lennox was beside the bars in an instant. “Open the door, Caleb.”

Pepper tried to say no, but his eyes fell before the glare which Lennox gave him and he unlocked the grille. Lennox brushed past him and was at Judy's side in a moment, slipping an arm around her quivering shoulders.

She crouched away from him with a cry of pain, and the second girl pulled him back savagely. “You ape! What are you trying to do? Kill her? Her back is as raw as beef steak.”

Lennox pulled back quickly, “Sorry, kid. Whip?”

She nodded mutely.

“I didn't want her to come,” said the other girl. “I tried to keep her from coming, but she wouldn't listen. We saw Miss Hobbs go into that dance hall, and she ain't come out, at least, she ain't unless she used the front door.”

“She wouldn't do that,” said Judy. “She didn't want them knowing she'd had a look at Mary's joint.”

“Listen!” Lennox held up his hands. “Both of you slow down and tell me what it's all about. You talk, Judy. I can't tell a damn thing when you both gabble at once.”

Judy told him. She told him about Nancy coming to her place, about Nancy going to the dance hall. “And she hasn't come out,” the girl finished. “I watched from the window the whole time, and you can see the side door, just barely. It's so close to the corner that no one can get in or out of it without us having a look. So when I see Morgan and that deputy going in, I get worried, but nothing happens. They go in and then after a while they come out and disappear around toward Main Street.

“We wait and wait. Don't let Sarah kid you; she was as worried as me. Finally we can't take it no longer, so we slip out and across to the dance hall. There ain't no one there. Something happened, I tell you.”

Pepper, who had been listening, cut in. “She probably left by the front door and...”

“With that mob on Main Street, and Big Louie talking and all) You're crazy,” Sarah told him. “You're crazy as a bedbug.”

Lennox was plainly worried. “Damn it! Why did she have to monkey into this? I've got to get out of here now, Caleb. Don't make me get tough to do it.”

The old eyes settled on his face for a long, thoughtful moment, then Caleb Pepper pulled the big gun from its open holster.

Lennox expected the man to shove the long barrel against his stomach and stiffened his muscles in expectation. But Pepper fooled him. He flipped the gun expertly into the air, caught it by the barrel and presented the worn grip to Lennox.

“Better use the rear door,” he suggested, mildly. “Some of the boys might be watching out front.”

Lennox nodded his thanks. “You girls better get out too. There may be trouble here in a few minutes. That goes for you too, Caleb.”

The little marshal had a lot of dignity. “I never run from nothing yet,” he said, “and I guess I'm a little old to start running now. Come back when you get time.”

Lennox wasted no more words. He went along the corridor swiftly with the girls at his heels, pushed open the rear door and stepped out into the night.

Across the square of summer-browned grass he could see the crowd collected in front of the Miners' Club. It looked large, but it was too far away to see the individual members.

He turned, intending to follow the alley which flanked the jail, cross Main Street and go down past the row of cribs to the rear door of the dance hall.

But as he reached the intersection with the two girls still close behind him, he heard several cars coming and paused to look toward the town outskirts.

This was the returning posse. He guessed that from the noise they made, long before they reached the spot where he waited. Unconsciously he stepped back into the row of shadows which the building line made, and then surprise drove all the danger of his own position from his mind, for on the seat of the first car which Alf Jones was driving were Bert Cullen and Doctor Newcomb.

There could be no mistake. The two fugitives had been found, and Alf Jones was bringing them in along with his posse of special deputies and Ben Scribbs's body. It made quite a caravan, three cars, with the grey-green forestry truck serving as a temporary hearse, bringing up the rear.

The parade drew to a stop before the courthouse, not ten feet from where Lennox was standing, and he was nicely trapped. Had he needed anything to add to his discomfiture it was supplied by the sight of Morgan, coming down the street, with the members of the impromptu mob trailing after him.

There was no escape. Even Shea loomed in the alley directly across the street from where Lennox stood, and Bill realized that had he continued as he intended he'd have run into the big deputy.

There was nothing else to do. He muttered to the girls to fade and stepped boldly into sight.

The deputies were piling from the cars. Four of them turned toward the truck and helped lift out the blanket-covered body. Lennox ignored them, heading directly for Alf Jones. He sensed that if there was any safety in the crowd, it would be close to the owner of the Miners' Club.

Jones was talking to Cullen and Doctor Newcomb and Lennox arrived at his side just as Morgan came up from the opposite direction. Surprise lighted the district attorney's eyes when he saw Lennox, but his greater interest was centered in the two men Tones had brought in.

“Where'd you find them, Alf?”

Jones shrugged. “I didn't. They found me. We were coming out, bringing Scribbs's body, and about two miles behind Cullen's place these two came out of the timber and bummed a ride into town.”

“And the Chinaman?”

Bert Cullen answered the question. “I sent him home when I decided that I'd had enough, that I was coming over here and straighten, out this mess.”

“And what made you decide that?” Morgan was trying to dominate the situation.

Cullen looked at him. “I heard you were getting big for your britches. I decided when Doc told me that Mary Crewe was claiming to be still married to Dick. I didn't like that, not at all.” He grinned faintly, his bold, hard eyes sweeping the crowd which was gathering in a half circle about them.

“Looks like Fourth of July. Break it up, boys; the fun's over, and the drinks are on me. Go on down to Alf's and collect.”

No one moved, and the frown grew on Cullen's solid face. “I told you that the fun's over,” he said, sharply. “If you aren't thirsty, that's your business, but get off the street.”

More than half of the men were a little drunk, and the big waiter from Mary's dance hall chose this moment to assert his leadership.

“To hell with you!” he told Cullen, elbowing his way forward. “We aim to hang the louse that killed Mary, and you and no one else is going to stop us.”

Bert Cullen moved slowly forward. His short body reminded Lennox of an animated block of concrete.

“So you're giving orders now?” He sounded faintly surprised, but he wasn't as surprised as the big waiter, for suddenly Cullen's fist leaped out, catching the man's jaw with a clean, hard blow which lifted his big feet clear of the pavement and dropped his body as if it had been a lifeless sack.

Cullen didn't bother to look down. Instead he said to Alf Tones, from the corner of his mouth, “Your men are armed, Alf. Have them clear the street.”

Tones turned to give the order, only to find himself facing Tom Shea. The big deputy had been standing just behind them. “Those are my men,” he said, tonelessly. “I swore them in, and when I want them to have orders, I'll give them.”

Cullen turned; he looked like a pigmy facing Shea, but he did not need height to have his authority recognized.

“Another guy getting important.” He considered Shea as if he had never seen him before. “I've known you a long time, Tom, and I never thought you were crazy.'

“I'm not,” said Tom Shea, and betrayed his nervousness only by a slow movement of his big fingers. “I'm not crazy, Bert, but I'm not taking orders. I'm acting sheriff, arid I'm giving them.”

Bert Cullen welcomed this with a little shrug. “All right, give them then. Clear this street before we have a riot.”

For an instant it seemed to Lennox that the big man would refuse. Then he turned and gave the necessary order, his voice carrying clearly through the night air.

For the crowd was silent. The crowd had been silent, watching, ever since Big Louie had gone down. They made no effort to pick him up, no effort to attack the man who had struck him down. Habit is a powerful thing, and the habit of obedience was in them. This was the Cullens' town. It had been the Cullens' town, and even murder could not shake that knowledge from their minds.

They faded now, as Shea's special deputies lined up. They went, slowly at first, then faster, as if each feared to be the last one on the street. There was no violence, no effort at real argument. Not until they were gone did Cullen turn; then he looked around, his eyes resting for an instant on Lennox, and moving to Morgan's face.

“So Mary's dead?”

The district attorney nodded. He, too, was feeling the pull of authority, and it gave him an unthinking relief. Jake Sloane was dead, but Jake Sloane's partner was here. Skull Lake for him was gaining a normalcy which it had lacked in the last few days. “Want to see her?”

Cullen nodded. “There are several things I want to see.” He started down the street, and they trailed after him. Lennox found himself at Morgan's side and said, in an undertone. “Have you seen Miss Hobbs?”

Morgan looked at him, then shook his head. “I haven't seen her. I didn't even know she was in town.”

2

Mary's private rooms were not large enough to hold the group, and they gathered on the dance floor, before the bar. There was tenseness in this room, and suspicion. Lennox, looking around, felt that of all the men present, Morgan was the only one whose nerves weren't on wire edge.

The district attorney had shifted all the responsibility to Bert Cullen's wide shoulders. He'd found a man to replace Sloane, to tell him what to do and when to do it.

But Shea was not ready to follow suit. His big face was twisted into a scowl as he watched the mine owner, and his heavy lips sneered a little as he said, “A nice act you put on out there, Bert. It impressed the men, but it will take more than an act to impress us.”

Alf Jones said, “Lay off, Tom.” Alf Jones was ready to follow Morgan's lead. Alf Jones wanted no more trouble at Skull Lake. All he wanted was peace, and quiet, and a chance to carry on his business. He cared nothing that four men and one woman were dead. No one in the room cared, with the possible exception of Tom Shea.

The big deputy had a haunted look, and again the nervous movement of his big fingers. “You can't come back out of the bushes, Bert, and carry this off as if nothing has happened. If you don't care who killed Dick, and Jake, I care who killed Fred, and by God, I'm going to find out.”

Bert Cullen considered him with narrow eyes. Doctor Newcomb cleared his throat, but Cullen motioned him to silence.

“You've got something to say, Tom. Well, say it. Now's the time to talk.”

“I'll talk, all right,” Shea growled. “That paralyzed gag had everyone stopped for a time, but the fact remains that you weren't paralyzed; that all the time, you were able to get out of bed, to move around, to kill.”

Bert Cullen had stiffened a little. “So you're accusing me of killing my own brother?”

“You'd kill your grandmother,” said Shea, with a hoarse laugh, “if you thought it would do you any good. Who else would gain by these murders, Bert? You inherit a movie studio from Dick. You inherit a mine from Jake Sloane...”

“And Scribbs?” asked Cullen. “What do you think I gained by killing him?”

“You hated him,” said Tom Shea. “You had a different motive for killing him. You've hated him for years, ever since he succeeded in marrying his sister to Dick. You paid off finally.”

“And Mary?” Lennox had taken no part in the conversation until this moment. “Why did he kill Mary, Tom? And why did he kill Fred Hampton?”

Shea moved his head slowly. He reminded Lennox of a bull, driven into a comer by a band of annoying picadors. “He killed her because she was trying to get Dick's studio. He killed her because she was dangerous to him. As for Fred, I haven't told this before, but Fred had decided that Bert was guilty. Fred was on his way to the lodge to see Bert on the night he was murdered. He must have gone there, found that Bert and the Chinese were not in the house, started down to Spurck's and met them on the road. They realized that the game was up, and killed him.”

Lennox shook his head. “No, Tom. I'll admit I, too, thought of that possibility, but it didn't happen that way. Bert couldn't have been on this side of the lake at the time Mary was killed. He couldn't have been here, and yet have time to cross the lake and reach the tote road in time to meet Alf Jones.”

“Then who?” Shea had an expression of complete bafflement. “Certainly she didn't kill herself.”

“No,” said Lennox. “She didn't kill herself. You killed her, Tom, and you killed these men. It should have been obvious to me before. You knew them all. You'd known them for years. But you were clever. You volunteered the information that you knew them.”

Shea laughed. “You're nuts.”

“Perhaps,” said Lennox. “I'll admit you had me fooled. I should have tumbled sooner. Fred Hampton did. Fred Hampton warned me outside the courthouse on the night he was killed. He didn't say anything directly, but he spoke of having to close in on a friend. I thought he referred to me. I thought he suspected me because of that silly color suit. I realize now that it was you he suspected, and I played right into your hand by telling you about Judy, about Fred bringing her back from San Francisco.

“I don't know what the girl knew, or why Fred wanted her brought back, but I realize now why you swore out that warrant for my arrest. You never expected to hold me long for murder, but you wanted me out of the way while Mary Crewe whipped the girl until she found out what Judy knew.”

“I say you're crazy.”

“Am I?” said Lennox. “I don't think so, Tom. You haven't got the ghost of an alibi for any of the times that the killings took place. No one has bothered to check up on you for the night Dick Cullen was knifed. On the night Jake Sloane was killed, you pretended to hear a noise at the lodge and left. You weren't seen until morning.”

“And Fred? How did I manage to kill Fred and yet be in town when you phoned about finding the body?”

“Simple,” said Lennox. “You followed him around the lake I don't know how, but you got back by going down the little wash and stealing the boat in front of Spurck's lodge.”

Shea laughed, and looked around. “I suppose I killed Scribbs and Mary too.”

Lennox nodded. “You were supposed to be out with the posse, looking for Doc Newcomb and Cullen. You were out some place but you weren't with the posse. I'll bet not one of the men has seen you tonight.” He looked around, but no one spoke.

Shea snorted. “So I haven't an alibi. What's that mean? You can't convict a man because he has no alibi, and you can't give any reason why I should have gone murder mad.”

“No,” said a voice from the side of the room, “but I can, Mister Shea.”

They turned and saw Nancy Hobbs standing in the doorway which led to the side hall. There was a smudge of dirt across one cheek, her hair was mussed, and her face was pale.

Lennox said, quickly, “Nancy...you're all right? Where have you been?”

“In the cellar, where Mister Shea put me.” She never took her eyes from the big man's face. “And a very nasty cellar it is, with rats and things.” She shivered.

“But how'd you get out?”

“Judy,” said Nancy. “That kid uses her head. She told me about your getting trapped by the returning posse. So after they moved away from the courthouse, she started thinking. I'd come to this building, and I hadn't come out. So I had to still be here.

“There weren't many places, and then she thought of the cellar. It hasn't been used for years, and she'd never been in it, but she made Sarah go down with her.”

“To hell with that!” said Bert Cullen. “What about Shea?”

“You always were rude,” she told him, showing her dislike. “I almost wish it were you I was convicting. But...it isn't. I found a marriage license, Bill. It was issued to Mary Crewe Scribbs and Thomas Aldman Shea, in 1919, and it was never used; at least the clergyman who performed the ceremony had never signed the blank space.”

They all stared at her. Cullen said, “I don't get it.”

“Don't you?” said Nancy, sweetly. “I'd hardly expect you to, Mister Cullen. I rather suspect that your I.Q. isn't the highest. Well, I get it. Tom Shea planned to marry the Crewe woman; they even took out a license. But instead, she married Dick Cullen; she married him when she was drunk, with her brother arranging everything.”

“That doesn't prove...”

“No,” said Nancy. “But it gives a good reason for Tom Shea to have hated the Cullens all these years, and for him to have hated Ben Scribbs. He hated them, but he held his hand, waiting, waiting until Ben Scribbs got out of prison. If you think about it closely, you can see what a beautiful revenge he planned. He meant to kill you Cullens, both of you, I suspect, and blame the murder on Scribbs. It was nicely timed, but unfortunately for him, Rany, Peter Ashley's valet, came along the road at the wrong time, saw Scribbs and stopped to help him with the tire, giving him a perfect alibi.”

“That still doesn't prove anything,” said Shea. “I wouldn't gain anything. I wouldn't...”

“You were Mary Crewe's lover,” said Nancy Hobbs. “Judy told me. You've apparently been her lover for years, and she helped you, but she didn't know that you meant to make her brother the fall guy. That part of the plan you kept to yourself. With Judy's testimony, and the license...”

Tom Shea had a gun in his hand. It was a big gun, but it looked small against the size of his body. “Stay where you are,” he told them. “No one move. I'm going out, and the first man that tries to follow....”

“Tom!” It was a small voice from the front door. “Turn around, Tom, and let that gun drop.”

Tom Shea turned, but he didn't obey the second injunction. He swung on his wide heel, shooting as he turned, but the explosion from his gun blended with a second explosion. Tom Shea jerked as the bullet hit him. Reaction fired his weapon a second time, but the bullet merely dug splinters from the floor. Then Shea fell, and the force of his body, striking the floor, shook the joists beneath their feet.

Caleb Pepper came forward from the door and looked down at his handiwork, then looked toward Lennox, and his voice was faintly accusing. “You had my gun,” he said, plaintively. “I'm not used to this one. I didn't mean to hit him in the heart. I meant to wing him, but I ain't used to these new-fangled automatics.”

3

It was the next morning, and Nancy Hobbs was still arguing as Lennox turned the big convertible into Skull Lake's Main Street.

He brought the car to a stop before the drab front of the Miners' Club, cut the motor, and turned to face her. “Okay,” he said, “I give you full credit. You found the marriage license, you figured things out and you talked Shea down, but if I'd had a chance to see Judy, I could have done the same thing.”

“William T. Lennox!” Nancy Hobbs threatened to explode. “What had my talking to Judy to do with it?”

“What...why she told you that Tom Shea was Mary Crewe's pimp...”

“She did not.”

“But you said...”

“Of course I said so. I knew there had been a man visiting Mary Crewe almost every night for years. I didn't know who it was, but I was certain it had to be the murderer. So I said that Judy knew, and had told me. I thought I'd scare Shea into a confession that way.”

He removed his hat and bowed his head a little. “I salute you, lady. I salute the perfect and accomplished liar.”

She was not insulted. “What did they get out of Big Louie?”

“Plenty,” he admitted. “You had it about figured out. Louie was Shea's man, and he knew the whole story. Shea was a kid in '19, and in love with the Crewe woman. They were going to be married, even had the license, and then, Dick Cullen came home from the army.

“Ben Scribbs was a little chiseler. The Cullens were big shots in Tonopah, and Tom Shea didn't have a dime. So Scribbs gave a party. He got his sister and Dick Cullen drunk, dug up a clergyman, and by the time they came to, they were married.

“Tom Shea was wild, but he was a close-mouthed devil, even in those days. He tried to talk to Mary, but her brother had already sold her on the notion that it might be a good thing to remain Mrs. Cullen. So Shea went to work on Bert, and Bert finally talked his brother into getting the divorce and going east.

“That made Ben Scribbs furious, and he tried to kill Bert Cullen, and got twenty years for the attempt.

“Tom Shea might have married the Crewe woman then, but he was already plotting his revenge, and after the town where the divorce was secured burned, he couldn't marry her without spoiling his plans.

“By the time the divorce records burned, Dick Cullen was a big shot in Wall Street, and he decided to let things slide rather than have it known publicly that he had been married to a dance-hall girl.

“Tom Shea followed Mary when she came here, struck up an acquaintance with Hampton and got appointed deputy. But all the time, he was planning to strike at the Cullens as soon as Scribbs was released and the crime could be pinned on the ex-convict.”

“For twenty years?” Nancy sounded breathless.

“Some men can hate a lot longer than that,” Lennox told her. “When Scribbs came up for parole, Mary forced Dick to sign it. Then she had Newcomb send the telegram, summoning Dick to Skull Lake. Dick came, parked his car at the garage and went directly to Mary's. Jake Sloane and Doctor Newcomb were waiting in Jake's office, but Cullen apparently meant to see them later.

“Anyhow, Shea killed Cullen in Mary's room. Then he and Big Louie took the body across the lake, and landed below the Cullen dock, intending to wait until Scribbs showed up, and frame him for the murder. While Shea was scouting around the bushes, he ran into Ashley, had a fight with him, conked Pete, carried him to the crest of the ridge and dumped him on the other side.

“Then Scribbs showed up, and Bert Cullen took a shot at him. He ran through the bushes, reached the road and started along it. They waited, hoping for a crack at Bert Cullen, but Carey was there, his sister had a rifle. I showed up, brought back Doc Newcomb.

“Things were getting too hot, so Shea ordered Big Louie to take the body down to Spurck's. He meant to say later that Scribbs and Dick had met there. Big Louie went down to the lodge, found it empty, and thought it would be a good idea to put the body into bed. He chose mine.

“In the meantime, Shea hung around the Cullen lodge, hoping for a crack at Bert. Things weren't working out. Bert hadn't had a stroke, but he had passed out from shock and fury, and Newcomb and Chang were standing guard beside his bed.

“Shea still meant to blame Scribbs. He didn't know until Rany turned up the next day that Scribbs had an alibi. Then Jake Sloane sent for him, and he got scared. He stationed Big Louie outside Jake's window and sent Mary to Sloane's office to see how much the man guessed.

“But Big Louie got nervous when he saw me enter the stairs and fired, to keep Sloane from talking to me. Everything seemed to be fairly under control. Shea couldn't implicate Scribbs, but Dick was dead, and so was Jake. Then I talked to Mary and stole the girl. That worried them. They were afraid the girl knew something. They couldn't figure why I should take the trouble otherwise. Mary got Alf Jones to phone Morgan to intercept me. That didn't work.

“Then Hampton apparently got suspicious and sent for the girl himself. Hampton drove around the lake. I don't know where he was going. Probably we'll never know. Anyhow, Shea followed him in another car, with Big Louie driving. They caught up with the sheriff and killed him, then Louie drove back while Shea crossed the lake in Spurck's boat.”

“But where were Bert Cullen and Chang?” the girl asked. “They weren't in the lodge when you got there?”

“They'd got worried and gone up to Newcomb's place. You see,” Lennox explained, “by the time Bert recovered from his fainting spell, they'd learned of Dick's death. They thought at first that Scribbs had killed him, and Bert decided to pretend to be sick until Scribbs was caught. Clara complicated that by sending for the nurse, and Chang had to keep her out of the sick-room forcibly.

“Anyhow, after Hampton's death, Mary was scared. She'd been getting scareder as the killings multiplied. That's why she wanted me to throw in with her. She figured that with my help, she might dare to defy Shea. But he no longer trusted her, and when he sneaked in after having been out to kill Scribbs on the old tote road, he knew he'd have to kill her. He did, and knocked me out, hoping to kill me at the same time. Then he ducked, leaving Big Louie to accuse me and to try and stir up the mob.

“Shea knew about the old marriage license Mary kept in her desk. When he found it missing, he was really scared. He left the building with Morgan, but slipped back and caught you. By the way, why didn't he take the license away from you at the time?”

Nancy laughed shakily. “Because I'd dropped my purse in the office and I was so excited that I left it there.”

“A damn good thing you did,” Bill told her. “If he'd had that license we might never have bluffed him. Anyhow, he'd shut Scribbs's mouth, and killed Mary. He needed only one thing more, for his posse to shoot Bert Cullen and Doctor Newcomb. That didn't happen the way he'd hoped.”

She said, “And all this because you got drunk, went to sleep, and Peter Ashley went calling. If Rany hadn't gone to look for his boss, Scribbs would probably have been blamed for Cullen's murder, and that would have been the end of it. The little things certainly make a difference. How about that color suit?”

Lennox grinned. “Bert Cullen is pretty well whittled down. I had a talk with him this morning. He offered to sell his holdings in Pinnacle to General Consolidated for a quarter of a million. I wired Spurck.”

She said, “I'd never have believed anything would cool Bert off that much.”

“You don't know the half of it. Cullen's so beaten that he didn't even bat an eye this morning when Ashley told him he wanted to marry Clara.”

“Bill, you're kidding...why I thought Pete was sunk because of the girl in New York.”

“Look, child, you've been around actors long enough to know how they dramatize themselves. I'm going to speak to Clara. She's a nice kid. I don't want to see her step on the merry-go-round.”

“But Bill, I thought you liked Ashley?”

“I love him like a brother. I'm tickled pink...but I'm fond of Clara, too. I don't think Ashley's good for her. After all, the kid has spent most of her life up here, and Hollywood is a tough place for any marriage.”

“Stop the car,” Nancy told him.

He stared at her in surprise, then braked to a stop. “Now what?”

“You're getting a big shot complex,” she told him. “It's okay when you go around ruining your own life, but just keep your fingers out of other peoples' affairs. I'll bet on Clara. I'll bet that she keeps Pete well in hand.”

“You think so?” Lennox was relieved.

“Sure,” said Nancy, “and now, drive me to a phone. It's a scoop for my column. How does this sound. 'Pete Ashley, the bobby sockers' pride and joy, to marry mountain girl.'”

“You're a ghoul,” he told her. “You don't really think the marriage will last. All you want is a scoop for yourself.”

She looked startled. “You don't mean that, Bill.”

“Sure, I mean it,” he said. “You used to be sweet and kind and believe in Santa Claus. Now look at you. All love means is an item in your column.”

“Look who's talking.”

He stared out across the blue water of the lake toward the distant green ridge of hills. “Nancy....”

“What?”

“Oh, skip it,” he said, and there was a funny break in his voice. “If I told you what I was thinking, you'd say I was kidding.” He didn't look at the girl as he started the car. If he had, he'd have seen that her eyes were soft, and a little hazy.

“You fool,” she whispered, but so low that he couldn't hear her, “you great big fool. You're almost as dumb as Ashley... no, you're dumber. Ashley got his girl.”

THE END

wish I were,” said Lennox, and meant every word of it. “You'd better see if you can locate Shea, and young Morgan probably, although he's liable to be more trouble than he's worth. Yes, I'm at the Cullens'. I'll wait until you come. The car's a little over half a mile west of here. No, I didn't move it. I left it where it was.”