smoking rats and pig-pens doesn't mean anything."
"All right. I want Personville emptied of crooks and grafters. Is that plain enough language for you?"
"You didn't want that last week," I said. "Why do you want it this week?"
"Nobody that ever lived can tell Elihu Willsson where he's got to get on and where he's got to get off," he blustered at the top of his voice. "That's why!" He turned loose a cloud of profanity. "While they keep their places I let 'em alone. But when they begin to think Personville belongs to them, and that they can tell me what I've got to do, then it's time to show them, the -----, who Personville does belong to. I built this city with my own hands, and I'll keep it or I'll wipe it off the side of the mountain." More cursing. "I'll show them what they'll get out of their threats!" He pointed at the dead body on the floor. "I'll show 'em there's still a sting in the old man!"
I wished I was sober. The old man's clowning puzzled me. I couldn't put my finger on the something under it.
"Was he from your friends?" I asked, nodding at the corpse.
"I only talked to him with this," he boasted, patting the gun on the bed, "but I reckon he was."
"How did it happen?"
"It happened simple enough. I heard the door opening, and I switched on the light, and there he was, and I shot him, and there he is."
"What time?"
"It was about one o'clock."
"And you've let him lie there all this time?"
"Yes, that I have!" The old man laughed savagely and began blustering again: "Does the sight of a dead man turn your stomach? Or is it his ghost you're afraid of?"
I looked at him and laughed. I had it. The old boy was scarred—scarred stiff. That's why he blustered. That's why he hadn't let them take the corpse away. He wanted it there to look at, to keep panic away—visible proof of his ability to defend himself. Now I knew where I stood.
"You really want the burg cleaned up?" I asked.
"I said I did and I do."
"I'll have to have an absolutely free hand—no favors to anybody—handle the job as I please. And I'll have to have a ten-thousand-dollar retainer to cover expenses and service charges."
"Ten-thousand-dollar retainer! Why in hell should I pay that much money to a man I don't know from Adam, a man who's done nothing I know of but talk?"
"Be serious. When I say, "Me,' I mean the Continental Detective Agency."
"You do, do you? Well, if I know your Continental Detective Agency, then they ought to know me, and they ought to know I'm good for—"
"That's not the idea! These people you want taken to the cleaners were your friends last week. Maybe they will be again next week. I don't care about that. But we're not going to play politics for you. We're not starting a job and having it blow up on us. If you really want the burg ventilated you'll plank down enough cash to pay for a complete job. Any that's left over will be returned. That's the way it'll have to be. Take it or leave it."
"I'll damned well leave it," he bawled.
He let me get half-way down the stairs before he yelled for me. I went back.
"I'm an old man," he grumbled. "If I was ten years younger, I'd—" He glared at me and worked his lips together. "I'll give you your damned check."
"And a free hand?"
"And a free hand."
"We'll get it done now. Where's your secretary?"
Willsson pushed a button on his bedside table and the secretary silently appeared from wherever he had been hiding. I told him:
