the stuff without hurting the old man. It was only a joke—that's all it was."
"That's good. You can go to the gallows with a clear conscience. Just what was this stuff you sold him?"
But she had gone stubborn on me.
"I've told you enough," she said. "I've told you too much."
"Haven't you seen Thaler since the murder?"
"No. But Max didn't kill him, even if he was around."
"Why?"
"Lots of reasons. First place, Max wouldn't have done it himself. He'd have had somebody else do it, and he'd have been off some place else with an alibi nobody could shake. Second place, Max packs a .38, and anybody he sent on the job would have had that much gun or more. What kind of a gunman would use a .32?"
"Then who did kill him?"
"I've told you all I know. And remember, it's going to cost you something before you're through. I'm going to cash in somewhere."
"I hope you do," I said as I stood up. "You deserve it. You've practically cleaned up the job for me."
"You mean that you know who killed him?"
"Yes, thanks, though there are a couple of things I"ll have to cover before I make the pinch."
"Who? Who?" She stood up, suddenly almost sober, tugging at my lapels. "Who did it? Tell me!"
"No, I won't do that."
She let go my lapels, put her hands behind her, and laughed in my face.
"All right. Try to figure out which part of what I've told you is true."
I thought Albury had been right when he said that after you had been with this girl a while you forgot to be disappointed in her. I said:
"Thanks for the part that is, anyway. Don't let Noonan job you, and if Max means anything to you you ought to pass him the tip. And thanks for the gin."
X
It must have been close to two o'oclock
of a crips morning when I said,
"Goodnight," to Dinah Brand at her
door and started to foot it down-town
to my hotel. The first half a block of
the distance went very nicely. Then
somebody shot at me—twice.
I dived into a dark doorway.
I wasn't exactly sober, but my head was clear enough for me to know that it was close to my present location that Donald Willsson had died the previous night, and that the present shooter had a heavier gun than a .32.
I wasn't exactly drunk, but I had too much gin in me for effective gun-fighting in the dark with somebody I couldn't see.
I crowded myself back into a corner of my dark vestibule and wondered what I ought to do about it. My foot upset a milk-bottle. A window was lifted squeakily down the street. The two things clicked together in my mind.
I picked up the milk-bottle, swung it underhand, let it go at the front of the house across the street. It smashed through the glass of a second-story window. That was capital!
I put a hand around the front of my crouching-place, found a bell-button, pushed it. Behind me the bell made a jangling clamor in the house.
I made a megaphone of my hands pointed it at the street, and bellowed:
"Help! Help! Police! Help! Help!"
Windows began to go up along the street. In the house whose doorway I occupied a man's voice, shrill with fright, whined: "Go away from there! Go away, or I'll call the police!"
I thought that a swell idea.
"Do that," I encouraged him, "and the fire department and the public health service."
The whining voice made no reply. On hands and knees I peeped out into the street. The occupants of most of the houses seemed to be looking out, up and down the street, hunting for a repetition
