it and the hole was stained with blood.”
“That wasn’t nice,” I said. “I wouldn’t even call it characteristic.”
“You did not know him very well.”
“True. Go on.”
“Little Orfamay took the billfold and stared at it and then stared at him and her white little face was very still. Then she thanked him and opened her bag to put the billfold in it, as I thought—it was all very curious—”
“A scream,” I said. “It would have had me gasping on the floor.”
“—but instead she took a gun out of her bag. It was a gun he had given Mavis, I think. It was like the one —”
“I know exactly what it was like,” I said. “I played with it some.”
“She turned around and shot him dead with one shot. It was very dramatic.”
She put the brown cigarette back in her mouth and smiled at me. A curious, rather distant smile, as if she was thinking of something far away.
“You made her confess to Mavis Weld,” I said. She nodded.
“Mavis wouldn’t have believed
“I did not care to risk it.”
“It wasn’t you gave Orfamay the thousand bucks, was it, darling? To make her tell? She’s a little girl who would go a long way for a thousand bucks.”
“I do not care to answer that,” she said with dignity.
“No. So last night when you rushed me out there, you already knew he was dead and there wasn’t anything to be afraid of and all that act with the gun was just an act.”
“I do not like to play God,” she said softly. “There was a situation and I knew that somehow or other you would get Mavis out of it. There was no one else who would. Mavis was determined to take the blame.”
“I better have a drink,” I said. “I’m sunk.”
She jumped up and went to the little cellarette. She came back with a couple of huge glasses of Scotch and water. She handed me one and watched me over her glass as I tried it out. It was wonderful. I drank some more. She sank down into her chair again, and reached for the golden tweezers.
“I chased her out,” I said, finally. “Mavis, I’m talking about. She told me she had shot him. She had the gun. The twin of the one you gave me. You didn’t probably notice that yours had been fired.”
“I know very little about guns,” she said softly.
“Sure. I counted the shells in it, and assuming it had been full to start with, two had been fired. Quest was killed with two shots from a .32 automatic. Same caliber. I picked up the empty shells in the den down there.”
“Down where, amigo?”
It was beginning to grate. Too much amigo, far too much.
“Of course I couldn’t know it was the same gun, but it seemed worth trying out. Only confuse things up a little anyhow, and give Mavis that much break. So I switched guns on him, and put his behind the bar. His was a black .38. More like what he would carry, if he carried one at all. Even with a checked grip you can leave prints, but with an ivory grip you’re apt to leave a fair set of finger marks on the left side. Steelgrave wouldn’t carry that kind of gun.”
Her eyes were round and empty and puzzled. “I am afraid I am not following you too well.”
“And if he killed a man he would kill him dead, and be sure of it. This guy got up and walked a bit.”
A flash of something showed in her eyes and was gone.
“I’d like to say he talked a bit,” I went on. “But he didn’t. His lungs were full of blood. He died at my feet. Down there.”
“But down where? You have not told me where it was that this—”
“Do I have to?”
She sipped from her glass. She smiled. She put the glass down. I said: “You were present when little Orfamay told him where to go.”
“Oh yes, of course.” Nice recovery. Fast and clean. But her smile looked a little more tired.
“Only he didn’t go,” I said.
Her cigarette stopped in midair. That was all. Nothing else. It went on slowly to her lips. She puffed elegantly.
“That’s what’s been the matter all along,” I said. “I just wouldn’t buy what was staring me in the face. Steelgrave is Weepy Moyer. That’s solid, isn’t it?”
“Most certainly. And it can be proved.”
“Steelgrave is a reformed character and doing fine. Then this Stein comes out bothering him, wanting to cut in. I’m guessing, but that’s about how it would happen. Okay, Stein has to go. Steelgrave doesn’t want to kill anybody—and he has never been accused of killing anybody. The Cleveland cops wouldn’t come out and get him. No charges pending. No mystery—except that he had been connected with a mob in some capacity. But he has to get rid of Stein. So he gets himself pinched. And then he gets out of jail by bribing the jail doctor, and he kills Stein and goes back into jail at once. When the killing shows up whoever let him out of jail is going to run like hell and destroy any records there might be of his going out. Because the cops will come over and ask questions.”
