anyhow.' Then I remembered that it would be Christmas day; there wouldn't
'Don't be alarmed,' I told her, then. 'I'm just letting the people in the neighborhood know what happened. We surprised a burglar at work, ma'am, and he ran down this street. We caught up with him here and had to shoot him. But it's all over now. We don't want anyone coming out, creating any more disturbance, so just go back to bed, will you please?'
Her mouth and eyes opened very wide. 'Who — who was it?' she said in a small, hollow voice.
'Nobody important,' I said. 'Some young hood.'
'Oh,' she said then and I could see the relief come over her face and I knew then that my hunch had been right and Bogen hadn't let her know he was coming; he'd wanted to surprise her. Otherwise she would have put two and two together.
I told her goodnight and turned away and heard her shut the door softly behind me.
When I went back to Mortell I said: 'Poor Bogen. He walked into the trap for nothing. His folks aren't even home. I asked one of the neighbors and she said they'd gone to Mrs. Bogen's mother's and wouldn't be back until day after Christmas.'
'Well, I'll be damned,' Mortell said, watching the men from the morgue wagon loading Bogen onto a basket.
'Yes,' I said. I wondered what Mortell would do to me when he learned what I'd done and he undoubtedly would, eventually. Right then I didn't much care. The big thing was that Mrs. Bogen and those kids were going to have their Christmas as scheduled. Even when I came back and told her what had happened, the day after tomorrow, it wouldn't take away the other.
Maybe it wasn't very much that I'd given them but it was something and I felt a little better. Not much, but a little.
The Man At The Table
by C. B. GILFORD
He who keeps his head may also keep his seat, at the poker table. Which only goes to prove that win, lose or draw, the prime requisite in the cutthroat game of poker is cool courage.
Byron Duquay sat alone at the octagonal, green-topped table. At his right side was a small stand on which were stacked poker chips, red and white and blue. At his left side was a tea cart loaded with Scotch, Bourbon, a siphon bottle, a dozen clean glasses, and a large container full of ice cubes.
As he sat there alone, Byron Duquay toyed with a deck of cards. His slim, well-manicured fingers riffled the deck, cut it, then played through a little game that seemed to be a weird combination of solitaire and fortune- telling. Duquay's handsome, lean, ascetic face did not change expression as the cards turned up. There was no other sound in the room, or for that matter in the whole vast apartment, except the flick-flick of the cards as they passed through Duquay's hands.
No sound, that is, until the small metallic one of the door's opening. The door was around the corner, out of Duquay's vision, so he called out in a friendly voice, 'Come on in, whoever it is.'
He was expecting a fellow cardplayer. But the man who came into Duquay's view in half a minute had obviously not come there to play cards. He was a small man, several inches under six feet, and extremely thin. He wore stained gray trousers, a rumpled white shirt with rolled up sleeves and open at the neck, and his hair, rather long and sand-colored, was tangled and awry. His small, narrow face was twisted, and there was desperation in his pale eyes. In his right hand was a sizeable knife.
Byron Duquay didn't try to get up from the table. But he stopped his little card game. 'What do you want?' he asked.
The stranger didn't answer the question. Instead, after glancing suspiciously about the room, he asked one of his own. 'Are we alone here?'
Perhaps unwisely, Duquay nodded.
'Okay,' the strange young man said. 'Don't give me any trouble, and you won't get hurt.'
'What do you want?' Duquay asked again. But this time his voice was slightly steadier, calmer, and the question less automatic.
But still the young man didn't answer. He looked around the room again, perhaps trying to decide if there was anything here that he did want. On this inspection of the room he saw the bottles at Duquay's elbow, and his eyes lighted.
'I could use a drink,' he said.
'Sit down,' Duquay said, 'and I'll pour you one.'
But he waited till his visitor was seated. The young man, possibly for caution's sake, chose the place exactly opposite Duquay and thus also the farthest away from him. He kept his right hand on top of the table. The blade, perhaps six inches long, gleamed against the green baize surface like a diamond against a background of black velvet.
'What do you drink, Bourbon or Scotch?'
Almost taken aback by the fact there was a choice, the young man hesitated. 'Bourbon,' he said finally. 'A big one, with ice cubes.'
There was another silence while Duquay served up the drink as requested. Then he pushed it across the table. The young man accepted it with his free left hand, took a long sip, made a slight grimace.
'I want some money,' he said afterwards, 'and your car keys, and I want to know where your car is parked. I also want some clothes.'
Duquay made no immediate movement to supply any of these. 'This doesn't sound like an ordinary stick-up,' he said.
'So it ain't an ordinary stick-up.' The young man took another long taste of the whiskey. 'Gome on, you heard what I said.'
But Duquay changed the subject. 'Who are you, by the way?'
'None of your damn…'
'You must be Rick Masden.'
The faintest of proud smiles flickered over the young man's face. 'I guess you listen to the news on radio and television,' he said.
'Occasionally,' Duquay nodded.
'Okay, I'm Rick Masden. I cut up two people in a bar last week. My girl and her new boy friend. A couple of days later they caught me, but yesterday morning I got away from 'em.' He grinned. 'Because I found me another knife.'
'Do you mind if I have a drink with you?' Duquay asked, reaching for one of the decanters.
But Masden's left hand, leaving his own unfinished drink, banged suddenly and hard on the table. 'Never mind the drink!' he almost shouted. 'I told you what I wanted, and I want 'em now.'
Duquay desisted from the preparation of his drink, but he made no other movement. 'Let's talk this over, Masden,' he began.
Masden's right hand came off the table a couple of inches, and the knife twisted restlessly in his fingers. 'Look, mister,' he said slowly, 'you either do like I say, or I'll cut you up just like I did the others.'
But Duquay didn't flinch. 'Sit still, Masden,' he said quickly, and his voice had the edge of command in it, so that for the moment at least Masden obeyed. 'Before you decide to try to cut me up, you'd better listen to what I have to say.'
Masden seemed to sense the danger, the challenge. He sat quite still. Even the knife became immobile. 'I'm listening,' he said finally.
'Good. Now let's analyze our situation, Mr. Masden. We're sitting on opposite sides of this table, about six
