got from the girl. Not a bad haul—if a fair share of it happened to be true.
V
In the First National Bank I got hold of an assistant cashier named Albury, a nice-looking blond youngster of twenty-five or so.
"I certified the check for Willsson," he said after I had unloaded my story. "It was drawn to the order of Dinah Brand—$5,000."
"Dinah Brand—know who she is?"
"Oh yes, I know her."
"Mind telling me what you know about her?"
"Not at all. I'd be glad to, but I'm already eight minutes overdue at a meeting with—"
"Suppose you had dinner with me this evening?"
"Glad to," he said.
"Seven, at the Great Western?"
"Righto."
"I'll run along then," I said, "but tell me, has she an account here?"
"Yes, and she deposited the check this morning. The police have it now."
"And where does she live?"
"1232 Hurricane Street."
I said, "Well, well!" and, "See you tonight," and went away.
My next stop was in the office of the chief of police in the City Hall. Noonan, the chief, was a fat man with twinkling greenish eyes set in a round, red, jovial face. When I told him what I was doing in his city he seemed glad of it, and gave me a hand-shake, a cigar and a comfortable chair.
"Now," he said when we were settled, "tell me who killed the man."
"His secret's safe with me."
"You and me both," the chief said cheerfully through smoke. "But what do you guess?"
"You know more about it than I do. Tell me what you know and I'll tell you what I guess."
"Fair enough. 'T won't take long to tell. Willsson got a $5,000 check in Dinah Brand's nae certified yesterday afternoon. Last night he was shot and killed by bullets from a .32 pistol less than a block from her house. People that heard the shooting saw a man and a woman bending over the remains. Bright and early this morning the said Dinah Brand deposits the said check in the bank. Well?"
"Who is this Dinah Brand?"
The chief dumped the ash off his cigar in the center of his desk, flourished the cigar in his at hand, and said:
"A soiled dove, as the fellow says, a de luxe hustler, a big-league golddigger."
"Gone up against her yet?"
"Nope. There's a couple of angles to be gathered in. So we're just keeping an eye on this baby and waiting. This I've told you is under the hat."
"Yeah. Now listen to this." And I told him what I had seen and heard while waiting in Donald Willsson's house the previous night.
When I had finished the chief bunched his fat mouth, whistled softly, and exclaimed:
"Man, that's an interesting thing you've been telling me. So it was blood on her slipper, was it? And she said her husband wouldn't be home, did she?"
"That's what I took it for," I replied to the first question, and, "Yeah," to the second.
"And have you talked to her since then?" he asked.
"No. I was up that way this morning, but a young fellow named Thaler went into the house ahead of me, so I put off my visit."
"Grease us twice! Are you telling me the Whisper was there?" His greenish eyes glittered happily.
"Yeah."
He threw his cigar on the floor, stood up, planted his fat hands on the desk top and leaned over them toward me, oozing delight from every pore.
"Man, man, you've done something!" he purred. "Dinah Brand is this Whis-
