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it. Billings and his dad went down to the yacht club for something. They just happened to get aboard with no one seeing them because the electric signal had been jammed, and Danby, the watchman, had his back turned to them and was talking on the telephone when they came in.

“When they found Bishop’s body they knew that they were up against it. They knew that once Bishop’s body was found there the scandal that he had used as a blackmail lever would come out, and they also knew they’d be accused of murder. So they tried to get rid of the evidence. They did a clumsy, bungling, amateurish job. They first had to get rid of the body. They managed to move it over to one of the adjoining yachts. In order to do that they had to smash the lock. They were afraid the watchman would notice the smashed lock, so they bought another lock. There was blood on the carpet. They took up the old carpet and put down new carpet. Everything they did put their heads that much farther into the noose.”

Lieutenant Sheldon’s face was suddenly grim.

“Okay, Donald, who hired you?”

“John Carver Billings.”

“The old man?”

“The kid.”

He said, “You son of a bitch,” with such concentrated venom in his voice that it made Bertha Cool’s epithets sound like love pats.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Trying to sell me a bill of goods like this,” he said. “You sleuthed out the Ludlow hit-and-run case so you could build up a credit, and then, after you had me sold, you came along with this cock-and-bull story.”

I said, “Wait a minute, Lieutenant.”

“Wait, hell! You’ve shot your wad, Donald. You tried to pull a fast one and I’m going to show you just what happens to slick bastards like you that try to—”

“Now shut up,” I said, “and forget you’re a damn cop. You have the captain waiting in there, and by this time the captain has probably given the chief a buzz and told him to stand by because he thinks he’s got a solution of the Bishop murder coming up. Now do you want to use your head or lose it?”

He winced at my reference to the captain and the chief. He was in one hell of a spot and he knew it.

“Donald,” he said, with such an intensity of hatred his voice was actually so low as to be all but inaudible, “for a double cross like this I could break every bone in your body.”

I said, “You’ve got one way of checking this story. You’ve got about twenty minutes left in which to do it. That’s to get Horace B. Catlin in here and—”

Lieutenant Sheldon spun the dial on the phone. A couple of uniformed men were in the office before one would have thought it was possible to get a connection. He said, “Keep these guys where nobody can see them. I don’t give a damn who it is. Don’t let anybody see them. Don’t let them talk with anyone in the department. Don’t let them talk with any lawyers. Don’t let them talk with anyone outside the department. Don’t let them get to a telephone. Sew them up. Keep them right here.”

Lieutenant Sheldon went out of the office like a jet plane taking off on a trial run.

Billings opened his eyes and looked at me. Slowly he reached out and shook hands with me.

He didn’t say a word.

I said, “Don’t tell them what it was Bishop had on your son, and—”

“Shut up,” one of the officers said. “The lieutenant said you weren’t to talk to anyone.”

“Well, that didn’t mean we couldn’t talk with each other.”

“That ain’t the way I understood it. Shut up.”

Billings started to say something. One of the cops moved over.

“You boys can get yourselves pretty badly hurt,” he said, “by sticking your necks out.”

We sat there in silence.

It was a long thirty minutes. I guessed I looked at my watch fifty times, but Billings just sat there motionless, wooden-faced.

Then Lieutenant Sheldon came in. His face looked like the face of a ten-year-old kid on Christmas morning. I looked at it and let out a long-drawn sigh of relief.

“Donald,” he said, “run over that line again so I can get the straight of it. The captain’s waiting and the chief is in his office. You two mugs get the hell out of here.”

The uniformed men withdrew.

I ran over it once more for Lieutenant Sheldon’s benefit.

“How did you spot Catlin?”

“I knew there must be some member of the yachting- club who was completely in the power of the man who was managing The Green Door. Such a man must be a plunger who had got in so deep he had to follow instructions.

“I simply got the caretaker at the yacht club to keep a watch on The Green Door. When a member of the club went in, I figured he was my man.

“I followed him in. When I realized he wasn’t playing at any of the tables but was undoubtedly closeted with the manager, I felt certain I had the answer I wanted.”

“Have a cigar,” Lieutenant Sheldon said to me. “Have another one. Here, Billings, have a cigar. We’re awfully sorry we had to inconvenience you, sir, but you understand how it is. You fellows wait here. Don’t try to go out. There’ll be a guard in the corridor. Just sit here and don’t talk to anybody. Donald, you’re smart enough to keep your mouth shut. See that Billings keeps his shut. Don’t see any reporters. Don’t try to use the phone. We may be able to do something for you guys.”

Lieutenant Sheldon spun the dial on the telephone and when he had an answer said, “I’m coming right up, Captain. Sorry to keep you waiting. There was one other angle I had to check on. I’ll be right in.”

He dashed out of the office.

I turned to Billings. “What was it Bishop had on your son?” I asked.

He said, “Honestly, Lam, I didn’t know until a week ago. I prefer not to discuss it.”

“You’d better tell me.”

“I’ll be damned if I do.”

I said, “Your son is a tall, rangy lad.”

He nodded.

“Play any basketball in college?”

“Yes.”

“He was on the college team?”

“Yes.”

I said, “Bishop was a gambler who made book on college games.”

The banker’s face suddenly twisted. He began to cry. It was something to watch, the spectacle of a hard man whose tear ducts had all dried up twisting his face into a contortion of grief.

I got up and went to a window, turning my back. A few minutes later, when the sobbing had stopped, I went back and sat down.

For a long while neither one of us said anything.

After a while I said, “When you tell your story to Sheldon tell him your boy was mixed up in a scandal over a girl.”

“That wouldn’t be a powerful enough motive,” Billings said. “I’ve been thinking of that.”

“Tell him the girl died as the result of a criminal operation.”

Billings thought that over for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. “Donald,” he said, “if you can get the police to adopt your story as the official version of what happened, you’re going to be very handsomely rewarded, very handsomely rewarded.”

I’d been associating with Bertha long enough so I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “We would expect that, Mr. Billings. We don’t work for nothing, you know.”

“You don’t have to,” he said.

That covered all the conversation. There wasn’t anything more to be said.

We sat there and waited and waited.

After a couple of hours an officer came in with sandwiches and a pot of coffee. He said, “The lieutenant