The voice was not overly loud, but it had penetrated through the din, and it was cracked and shaken with fear, made outstanding by its own quality of sheer stark terror. Somewhere in that milling mob a weakling was facing death—and knew it. It might strike at any moment, and Stan blanched at the thought of the panic which might follow.
He shoved a surprised man to one side, and dashed by him without apology. Eight rows up he had caught a glimpse of a familiar face—Patterson, of the Homicide Squad. He was beside him an instant later.
“Who’s in charge of the detail at this track?”
Patterson felt the urgency. “Sergeant White, sir.”
“Find him!” Stan snapped. “Have him post twenty men in the inclosure at the bottom of the grandstand. Right away. Tell them to keep their eyes peeled and their guns loose.”
“Turner’s here with me to guard you, Mr. Rice. Do you need him?”
“We may need everybody. Have Turner phone headquarters to send ten radio cars here at double time—but no sirens, mind you! And get Captain LeRoy to have every member of the department stand by—”
The loudspeakers were blaring another march. Shoving and pushing through the crowd, Stan finally readied the bottom of the grandstand. The inclosure was jammed—a writhing mass of humanity stretching from the grandstand down to the railing bordering the track—laughing—joking—pressing forward to watch the dogs parade.
Stan stood for a moment at the edge of the grandstand, where he knew he could be seen. Then he vaulted lightly down into the crowd and frantically began to wriggle his way toward the railing at the edge of the track. He knew before he had gone ten feet that it was almost a hopeless task.
The white floodlights glittered blindingly from the red uniforms of the grooms. Stan pushed on. Then the dogs were in the starting box, and he felt rather than saw the blackness behind him when the grandstand lights snapped off.
He could go no further. The crowd had pressed to the rail forming an impassable mass. Then all around him the roar broke out again—the rabbit was out of the pit—the dogs were loose. Fists and programs were waved in the air—men and women were jumping up and down like children.
He tore a woman out of his way, ripping her dress half off. A man snarled angrily at him and received an elbow in the stomach. From his left, close to the track, had come the wild scream of a frightened woman—as different from the screams, of excitement as a friendly oath from the mouthed obscenity.
The crowd milled wildly about him—eyes growing wide and questioning. He nearly cried with relief at the sight of two of Sergeant White’s plain-clothes men who appeared in front of him to clear the way.
Suddenly he was through—standing in the ever widening circle—staring with chilled blue eyes at a slim girl in a white dress who had fainted close to the track. Hanging over her across the rail—turning her white dress red as the coat of a groom with dripping blood, was the body of Ben Eckhardt with the hilt of another broad anlace sticking out from between his drooping shoulders.
Chapter XVI
“Everybody in Miami was at the dog track last night,” LeRoy declared disgustedly.
“By that you mean everybody who might be interested it seeing Eckhardt on a slab.” Stan walked to the window or LeRoy’s office and looked out. Across the street the Dade County Court House loomed gray through the drizzling rain whipped up Flagler Street by a stiff southwest wind, winter’s farewell gesture to the southland. The office was gloomy and depressing, relieved only by the pool of light from LeRoy’s desk lamp.
Stan let his gaze wander up the twenty-six stories of the Court House and rest on the jail windows above the eighteenth floor. If the murderer of Fowler and Eckhardt was lodged in there Miles Standish Rice could go fishing without worry. Even a killer with nerve enough to knife a man at a crowded race track would find escape difficult from a jail built twenty-six stories in the air.
He turned back impatiently to the office and sat down. The Captain was making check marks against a list of names. “This crowd follows each other around like a bunch of sheep,” he told Stan, jabbing at the paper with his pencil, “Let anything happen and they’re all present and accounted for.”
“Why not, Vince? Everyone at Dawson’s knew I was going to the track. Curiosity would take them there if nothing else—”
“Curiosity and murder.” LeRoy shoved the list away and pushed a button on his desk. “Has Dave Button come?” he asked the officer who answered his ring.
“He’s outside with the LaFrance woman.”
The Captain shot a glance at Stan. “One at a time,” Stan suggested. “We’ll get them together later—I hope.”
“Send him in when I ring.”
The officer went out, closing the door behind him. LeRoy opened the right hand bottom drawer of his desk and took out a crowded folder. He placed it on the desk under the lamp, but left it unopened. He leaned back in his swivel chair and half closed his eyes. There was something elusive, almost subtle about his manner which made Stan ill at ease.
“I’m at a loss whether or not to question these people in your presence,” he said after a while.
Stan remained silent, hands thrust in coat pockets, staring at the gloomy square of window. The Captain always came to the point if not interrupted.
“You’re carrying around too much information for your own safety,” the Captain continued, a hint of savagery creeping out to reveal his thoughts. “Your life’s in danger, Stan. Are you going on playing a lone hand against us—or are you going to tell me what you were doing on that roof?”
Stan knew that his friend was very much concerned when he made such a direct request for information. He drew his brows together in a troubled frown, and rumpled his yellow hair. “You’ll
