“Sure.” The youth let the plate case slip from his shoulder, and as he spoke his hand went into his coat pocket and came out with the familiar yellow police card issued
Nason instinctively put out a hand to bar the youth's progress. His eyes were still on the photographer's card, and he stiffened and felt an instantaneous tingling at his nerve ends at what he saw.
What happened after that could not have taken more than two or three seconds. Yet it was as though time stood still, so detailed was the action in his brain.
HE was dimly conscious of another bulkier figure slipping into the doorway as he spun towards the pimply- faced youth. Then the fellow dropped the camera, and his hand, a blur of motion, held a heavy automatic against Nason's side.
“Steady, punk! This'll rip a big hole in you.” Nason's brain stuck on his first thought: The other men in the diamond robbery—come back to make sure there was no witness. He went cold, then hot again as despair, then rage, gripped him. After that he moved instinctively, without conscious thought.
His hand whipped to the automatic in his side and his hot fingers gripped the cold steel. He twisted with catlike quickness and the youth cursed. Then the movement behind him, from that bulkier shape at the door, flashed a warning which came too late.
Something hard smashed down on his head. He felt his knees buckle and his pain-ridden brain gripped one thought—where was Carrigan?
Nason hit the floor on his hands and knees. He was still partly conscious; he heard voices that sounded thin and far away, voices that were choked off in a roar that pounded at his ears and seemed to jar the very floor of the room. A door slammed; then Nason was fighting his way to his feet.
His eyes would not focus properly as he straightened up. His head was splitting and spinning dizzily, his stomach quivering with nausea. Yet his right hand went to his holster, and he lurched drunkenly in the direction of the door, stumbled over the plate case and fell heavily.
This time the shock of the fall helped clear his brain. When he got to his feet again, his thoughts were once more logical and lucid, so that a grim bitterness gripped him.
His sweeping glance checked an instant on the form on the bed as he flung open the door. Steig's motionless position was unchanged. But in the center of the forehead was a red-rimmed hole that had not been there before.
Nason saw Carrigan as he leaped into the hall, saw him jack-knifed on the floor, his back against the near wall, his felt hat caught on one humped knee. Opposite, a door to a sun porch was open, and Nason dashed through it, his stride unchecked.
His eyes, unaccustomed to the darkness, betrayed him for a moment and he brought up sharply against the railing. At the same instant an automobile engine roared to life far down across the gently sloping lawn, roared to life and accelerated to a pulsing, rhythmic beat.
For seconds Nason stood there, his thighs pressed tightly against the iron railing. The chilled breeze, slanting in from the East, steadied him, left his body as cold as his thoughts. Overhead a drab, sullen night sky frowned down on him as he holstered his gun and turned wearily away.
Three white-faced and excited nurses were helping Carrigan to his feet. Nason grabbed the fellow's arm and jerked him through the doorway into Steig's room. The nurses pressed in behind him but he turned angrily, rapped: “Get out!”
There was a jumbled protest and he steadied his voice.
“The house doctor—get him here! Quick!” He shut the door and leaned back against it. Carrigan was rubbing his head and staring wide- eyed at Steig; and he kept saying: “Oh!” over and over.
Nason bent down and picked up the camera. As he did so he saw the yellow card the pimply-faced youth had dropped. It was a
“It's my fault,” Carrigan said hoarsely. “I fell for it. There was two of 'em. One had a camera and a big case. They acted all right until after I called you. Then the skinny guy opened the door, and the other mug sorta pulled me to one side. He did it gentle-like—until I reached for the guy at the door.
Then I guess he cracked down on me. I don't remember.”
Carrigan shook his head sadly and his thin face was lined with worry. “They'll break me for this.”
“Nuts!” rapped Nason through stiff lips. “They'll break me,” chanted Carrigan.
“If they break you, they break me,” raged Nason. “They were smart, that's all. They had the camera and case to front for them; they had a police card. They got you to call me—to get me off guard. Then the skinny guy came in with the sales talk to build me up for the fall. And the other guy took care of you.”
Nason spat out a bitter curse, looked down at the police card. “I'll want to have a talk with Tommy Walcott and—” He broke off as a sudden flash of inspiration came to him.
Stepping over to Steig's coat, he took out the watch, opened the back and removed the picture. Carrigan was still staring at the hole in the man's forehead, but Nason said:
“She might be a lead—this dame. If I can find her. And if those hoods got Walcott's camera, maybe he can help. It's about all we got.”
CHAPTER III. CRIME CALLS LATE
LIEUTENANT FITZPATRICK'S mouth was shut so tightly he appeared to be without lips. His voice was thin, cutting.
“We either find those two torpedoes, or the force takes it on the chin. When the papers get through, the public'll think every damn one of us is a lousy crook.”
“And if we do find them”—Captain Bacorn, a thick-set veteran with walrus mustache and a heavy red nose, pushed back in his chair behind his desk, his small deep-set eyes alternating between the raging Fitzpatrick and the grim, set face of Nason—“and they talk, and the story is what you think it is, Fitz, it'll be swell, huh? About Donigan.”
“It doesn't have to be Fitzpatrick's way,” Nason argued.
“He had the diamonds on him—tucked in his shirt pocket,” Bacorn said levelly.
“They could've been planted.”
“But why? And how about the gun—still in the holster? Hell”—Bacorn spread his hands—“I don't want to believe it, but I know how it'll look.”
Fitzpatrick glared at a round-faced, bespectacled youth who stood beside the closed door of the office. “And you, Walcott, what a spot you put us in,” he said to the photographer.
“What a spot I put myself in.” Walcott blinked his blue eyes and pushed back a battered felt hat that looked ten years old, a perfect companion piece to his baggy suit. “But what the hell.”
He rubbed a pudgy hand over his freckled face. “I was having a drink in the Greek's about 12:30 on my way back to the office. I noticed these two guys—they were only a couple tables away. One of 'em went out for a minute, and when he came back they went into a huddle.
“They came over and began to kid me, asked me to take their pictures. They acted sorta boiled. One of 'em bought a drink. I said I had to be going, and they went out with me, still acting half-shot, and curious. I remember we passed an alley on the way back to the Avenue. Then socko. I wake up flat on my back.”
Walcott grinned ruefully, took off his hat and touched a finger to a swelling over one ear. “That's their trademark.”
Carrigan said: “It's my fault; I should—”
“Your fault, hell!” lipped Fitzpatrick. “If it's anybody's fault—“ he broke off and glanced at Nason, his eyes sardonic slits. “
Nason flushed as anger streaked through his brain. He knew what the lieutenant referred to, but before he could dwell on the subject Bacorn said:
“This isn't getting us anywhere. What do you want to do, Fitz?”
“Go down to the Greek's and see if I can get a line on those two hoods,” grated Fitzpatrick. “There were no
