of gas pipe. It sounded as though he had a tin larynx. His breath made a whistling noise, too, when he spoke.
'Get over with them others,' he said to Peter March.
Crane said, 'This house is about as private as the Grand Central Station.'
'Don t get wise,' the man whispered. 'I don t want to sap anybody, see?' A button was missing off the left sleeve of his overcoat.
Waving Peter March aside with the pistol, he advanced on the table. Ann Fortune watched him through cucumber-green eyes. He put a handful of papers in his overcoat pocket.
'No,' said Peter March. 'You can t do that.'
He started for the man, and for an instant Crane was certain he was about to be shot. The man looked frightened, undecided. Crane held his breath. Then the man hit March on the temple with the barrel of his pistol.
Crane saw his wrist was small. The bone was a blue-white, like the wristbone of a man who has been begging in winter. March fell down, but he wasn t badly hurt. Ann started to scream.
'Now, sister…' the man whispered.
Ann was silent. The man put the rest of the papers in his overcoat pocket. He saw the revolver, put that in his pocket. He pointed his pistol at Crane.
'That all?'
'That s all I know about,' Crane said. 'What about you, March?'
March sat on the Aubusson, both hands pressed to his temple. 'I don t know anything about them,' he said sullenly.
'Like hell!' The man s voice, with that metallic quality, sounded Chinese. 'I heard you tell our friends why you was here.'
'All right,' March said.
'Yeah, but it ain t.' The man stood over March, but his eyes, the pistol were on Crane. 'A certain party don t want anybody nosin around.'
'All right,' March said.
The man took two quick steps, reached a hand in March s inside coat pocket, pulled out three letters, all the time keeping the pistol pointed at Crane.
He jeered, 'So you don t know nothin, Mister March?'
'Listen,' March began. 'I ll give…'
'Stow it.' The man raised the pistol as though he was going to backhand March s face. 'They ll be safe where they re going.' He bent his body so that his face was near March s. 'Safe, see?'
'Where are they going?' Crane asked.
'Keep your nickel outa this, wise guy,' the man said, going to the door.
Ann asked, 'Isn t he going to take our money?'
'Don t give him ideas,' Crane said.
The man paused at the hall entrance. 'Lady, you got me all wrong.' It was hard to hear what he was saying 'I m here on business.'
'Oh,' Ann said.
'I ain t a heister, see?'
'I see,' Ann said. She didn t.
'O.K., lady.'
The man went out into the hall, and presently they heard the front door slam. Peter March got to his feet An automobile engine roared about half a block away the automobile went off very fast in second gear.
'Are you all right?' Ann asked Peter March.
He took his hands from his temple. There was no blood, only the swollen place where he had been hit.
'Damn him,' he said. 'Who could have sent him?'
Ann asked, 'Were the letters very important?'
'To the March family. Maybe to some of Richard March s women, too.'
'Richard must be fascinating,' Ann said.
Peter March s face was grim. 'A lot of women thought so.'
Crane found his glass, was pleasantly surprised to find whisky in it. 'You told me you were destroying the incriminating items,' he said. He drank the whisky.
March nodded.
'But the letters in your pocket…?'
'Oh, those?' March took his time answering. 'I was… going to destroy those at home.'
Ann said, 'I think I hear the doorbell.'
They listened. A bell was tinkling persistently somewhere in the house.
Crane said, 'I hope it s not the postman-with more letters.'
CHAPTER II
Under the white porch light was a woman in a magnificently marked mink coat. She was a slender woman and her hair glistened darkly. Back of her, obscured by shadow, stood a man.
'Is this Mr Crane?' she inquired.
'Carmel!' Peter March moved past Crane, held the door open. 'And Dad! What are you doing here?'
Simeon March followed the woman into the house walking with hard, abrupt steps. He was the richest man in his state; owner of March amp; Company, the nation s second largest manufacturer of electric washing machines and refrigerators; founder of Marchton, and chairman of the March Foundation for Medical Research.
For Crane, he had another distinction. He was, for the moment, his employer.
In the blue-and-white living room Peter March made the proper introductions. The dark woman s name was Carmel March. Looking at Simeon March, Crane wondered who Carmel March was. Not Richard March s wife; her name was Alice. He put this problem away to answer Simeon March s questions.
'At the last minute we came by airplane,' he said. 'That s why we re early.'
Simeon March had perfectly white hair, heavy pepper-and-salt eyebrows, a drooping mustache, and brown eyes the color of maple sugar. The skin on his face and hands was discolored; it was mostly tan, but there were dark brown patches. He was very wrinkled, almost like an old Indian. He made Crane think of Theodore Roosevelt without in the least looking like him.
He started to say something else to Crane, but an exclamation from Carmel halted him.
'Peter! What s the matter?' She came across the room to him, her dark eyes on the bruise over his temple. 'How did you hurt yourself?'
'It isn t anything,' Peter said.
'But it is.' Her voice was anxious; she turned to Crane. 'How did it happen?'
Crane told her, thinking as he talked she was very beautiful. There was a masklike quality about her oval face, but her anxiety over Peter March gave it, for the moment, a lovely mobility. She was one of the most vividly colored women he had ever seen-India-inkk hair, raspberry lips, milk-of-magnesia skin, and eyes.. eyes so dark, so luminous, so liquid they made hit think of very strong coffee.
' But why the devil did you try to stop him?' Simeon March gruffly asked his son when Crane finished.
'He could use the letters for blackmail,' Peter said.
Simeon March grunted. 'Let him try.'
'He got all of them, Peter?' Carmel asked. 'All of them?'
'Yes.'
She had forgotten about his bruise. She sat on the sofa, let the mink fall away from her, revealing exquisite shoulders. 'That s strange,' she said softly. She wore black evening gown of tulle, cut so low in front it exposed a blue-shadowed hollow between her breasts.
Crane caught Ann s eyes, green and narrow, on him and he grinned. Let her admire Peter March; he had something to admire, too. He wondered again who Carmel was; she seemed pretty exotic to be a March except by
