I, The Jury

we start?” I asked him.

“Well, I’ll give you as much as I know. See what you can add to it. You and Jack were great buddies. It might be that you can add something that will make some sense.”

Inwardly I wondered. Jack was such a straight guy that he never made an enemy. Even while on the force. Since he’d gotten back, his work with the insurance company was pretty routine. But maybe an angle there, though.

“Jack threw a party last night,” Pat went on. “Not much of an affair.”

“I know,” I cut in, “he called me and asked me over, but I was pretty well knocked out. I hit the sack early. Just a group of old friends he knew before the army.”

“Yeah. We got their names from Myrna. The boys are checking on them now.”

“Who found the body?” I asked.

“Myrna did. She and Jack were driving out to the country today to pick a building site for their cottage. She got here at eight A.M. or a little after. When Jack didn’t answer, she got worried. His arm had been giving him trouble lately and she thought it might have been that. She called the super. He knew her and let her in. When she screamed the super came running back and called us. Right after I got the story about the party from her, she broke down completely. Then I called you.”

“What time did the shooting occur?”

“The coroner places it about five hours before I got here. That would make it about three fifteen. When I get an autopsy report we may be able to narrow it down even further.”

“Anyone hear a shot?”

“Nope. It probably was a silenced gun.”

“Even with a muffler, a .45 makes a good-sized noise.”

“I know, but there was a party going on down the hall. Not loud enough to cause complaints, but enough to cover up any racket that might have been made here.”

“What about those that were here?” Pat reached in his pocket and pulled out a pad. He ripped a leaf loose and handed it to me.

“Here’s a list Myrna gave me. She was the first to arrive. Got here at eight thirty last night She acted as hostess, meeting the others at the door. The last one came about eleven. They spent the evening doing some light drinking and dancing, then left as a group about one.”

I looked at the names Pat gave me. A few of them I knew well enough, while a couple of the others were people of whom Jack had spoken, but I had never met.

“Where did they go after the party, Pat?”

“They took two cars. The one Myrna went in belonged to Hal Kines. They drove straight up to Westchester, dropping Myrna off on the way. I haven’t heard from any of the others yet.”

Both of us were silent for a moment, then Pat asked, “What about a motive, Mike?”

I shook my head. “I don’t see any yet. But I will. He wasn’t killed for nothing. I’ll bet this much, whatever it was, was big. There’s a lot here that’s screwy. You got anything?”

“Nothing more than I gave you, Mike. I was hoping you could supply some answers.”

I grinned at him, but I wasn’t trying to be funny. “Not yet. Not yet. They’ll come though. And I’ll relay them on to you, but by that time I’ll be working on the next step.”

“The cops aren’t exactly dumb, you know. We can get our own answers.”

“Not like I can. That’s why you buzzed me so fast. You can figure things out as quickly as I can, but you haven’t got the ways and means of doing the dirty work. That’s where I come in. You’ll be right behind me every inch of the way, but when the pinch comes I’ll get shoved aside and you slap the cuffs on. That is, if you can shove me aside. I don’t think you can.”

“Okay, Mike, call it your own way. I want you in all right. But I want the killer, too. Don’t forget that. I’ll be trying to beat you to him. We have every scientific facility at our disposal and a lot of men to do the leg work. We’re not short in brains, either,” he reminded me.

“Don’t worry, I don’t underrate the cops. But cops can’t break a guy’s arm to make him talk, and they can’t shove his teeth in with the muzzle of a .45 to remind him that you aren’t fooling. I do my own leg work, and there are a lot of guys who will tell me what I want to know because they know what I’ll do to them if they don’t. My staff is strictly ex officio, but very practical.”

That ended the conversation. We walked out into the hall where Pat put a patrolman on the door to make sure things stayed as they were. We took the self-operated elevator down four flights to the lobby and I waited while Pat gave a brief report to some reporters.

My car stood at the curb behind the squad car. I shook hands with Pat and climbed into my jalopy and headed for the Hackard Building, where I held down a two-room suite to use for operation.

Chapter Two

The office was locked when I got there. I kicked on the door a few times and Velda clicked the lock back. When she saw who it was she said, “Oh, it’s you.”

“What do you mean—‘Oh, it’s you’! Surely you remember me, Mike Hammer, your boss.”

“Poo! You haven’t been here in so long I can’t tell you from another bill collector.” I closed the door and followed her into my sanctum sanctorum. She had million-dollar legs, that girl, and she didn’t mind showing them off. For a secretary she was an awful distraction. She kept her coal-black hair long in a page-boy cut and wore tight-fitting dresses that made me think of the curves in the Pennsylvania Highway every time I looked at her. Don’t get the idea that she was easy, though. I’ve seen her give a few punks the brush off the hard way. When it came to quick action she could whip off a shoe and crack a skull before you could bat an eye.

Not only that, but she had a private op’s ticket and on occasions when she went out with me on a case, packed a flat .32 automatic—and she wasn’t afraid to use it. In the three years she worked for me I never made a pass at her.

Not that I didn’t want to, but it would be striking too close to home.

Velda picked up her pad and sat down. I plunked myself in the old swivel chair, then swung around facing the window. Velda threw a thick packet on my desk.

“Here’s all the information I could get on those that were at the party last night.” I looked at her sharply.

“How did you know about Jack? Pat only called my home.” Velda wrinkled that pretty face of hers up into a cute grin.

“You forget that I have an in with a few reporters. Tom Dugan from the Chronicle remembered that you and Jack had been good friends. He called here to see what he could get and wound up by giving me all the info he had—and I didn’t have to sex him, either.” She put that in as an afterthought. “Most of the gang at the party were listed in your files. Nothing sensational. I got a little data from Tom who had more personal dealings with a few of them. Mostly character studies and some society reports. Evidently they were people whom Jack had met in the past and liked. You’ve even spoken about several yourself.”

I tore open the package and glanced at a sheaf of photos. “Who are these?” Velda looked over my shoulder and pointed them out.

“Top one is Hal Kines, a med student from a university upstate. He’s about twenty-three, tall, and looks like a crew man. At least that’s the way he cuts his hair.” She flipped the page over. “These two are the Bellemy twins. Age, twenty-nine, unmarried. In the market for husbands. Live off the fatta the land with dough their father left them. A half interest in some textile mills someplace down South.”

“Yeah,” I cut in, “I know them. Good lookers, but not very bright. I met them at Jack’s place once and again at a dinner party.”

She pointed to the next one. A newspaper shot of a middle-aged guy with a broken nose. George Kalecki. I knew him pretty well. In the roaring twenties he was a bootlegger. He came out of the crash with a million dollars, paid up his income tax, and went society. He fooled a lot of people but he didn’t fool me. He still had his finger in a lot of games just to keep in practice. Nothing you could pin on him though. He kept a staff of lawyers on their toes to keep him clean and they were doing a good job. “What about him?” I asked her.

“You know more than I do. Hal Kines is staying with him. They live about a mile above Myrna in Westchester.” I nodded. I remembered Jack talking about him. He had met George through Hal. The kid had been a