'What the hell did you do before we woke up?' he demanded. 'A wise guy, huh?'
'I don't know what you mean. I did nothing except to throw the sulphur candle out the window.'
'You lie! You took the gloves off our hands, you rat!'
'There weren't any gloves on your hands, when I came in,' Clyde said, steadily. 'You're mistaken. And, anyway, what difference does it make?'
'It makes a hell of a lot of difference! What's that thing in your coat pocket? Stand still or I'll blow your belly apart!'
To his dismay, Clyde saw the camera emerge in the beefy paw of Bert Hooley.
'I thought so! A wise guy! Trying to take pictures of our hands, eh? A finger-print camera, huh?'
He ground the camera to a flat ruin under his foot.
'Kill the louse!' Snaper whispered, his teeth flashing in a murderous grimace.
'Nix! We gotta get outta here. Too much trouble already. A shot would cook
our goose.'
'Who said anything about shootin' him?' Snaper whispered. He leaped with a
tigerish motion to the flat-topped desk near the wall. He scooped up a paper knife and moved back toward the trapped agent of The Shadow. The weapon was poised like a dagger in his hairy fist. The point was sharp and it pricked the skin at the back of Clyde's neck like the touch of a needle.
'Open his coat,' Snaper snarled. 'One jab of this in his heart and he'll go out like a light - and no noise to bring the bulls snoopin' around!'
Hooley nodded. He caught at the front of Clyde's vest and ripped it open with a jerk that sent buttons flying.
'Hold him tight!' Snaper breathed. 'Keep your hand over his mouth, in case
he yells.'
CLYDE didn't yell. With a sudden twist he tore himself loose from the shifting grip of Bert Hooley. The twist not only freed him, it sent him staggering backward toward the open window. He whirled and went out over the sill like a flash.
Snaper and Hooley darted after him.
But Clyde was too agile to be caught. With one wild leap, he cleared the end of the stone balcony and caught hold of the next He saw Snaper's gun aim at
him and the crook's finger begin to tighten.
Then Hooley struck the weapon upward. He shouted an order to his pal.
Both
crooks disappeared inside the room.
Clyde made his way as swiftly as he could to the fire escape. He did not try to reenter through the stained- grass window. He knew that Snaper would be waiting inside to grab him. Clyde had heard Hooley's grim order and it gave wings to the scared reporter's feet.
He raced down the fire escape. He had reached the courtyard below and was streaking toward a high board fence when he heard a faint yell above. Snaper's head was peering out the stained-glass corridor window. This time, Snaper fired.
The bullet missed Clyde's head by a scant inch and tunneled a round hole through the board fence. But Clyde was already atop the barrier and dropping to
the other side.
He crossed a narrow back yard, opened a gate in a grilled railing and reached the street. He was a block away from the hotel. He began to run toward the corner, oblivious of the stares of pedestrians.
He still had a chance to reach the hotel side exit before Snaper and Hooley came rushing out to make their getaway. He didn't want to intercept them; what he wanted was to watch the cab they grabbed and make a note of the license number.
Clyde figured that the noise of Snapper's gunfire had already alarmed the hotel. The crooks would be afraid to take a chance on a get-away through the main lobby. They'd rush down the stairs and dash away through the short corridor that led to the side street.
Clyde's guess was correct.
Screened by the bulk of a parked delivery truck, he saw the two crooks emerge from the side portal of the Brentwood. A taxi was standing at the curb.
They piled into it and it shot away from the curb.
Clyde got the license number. That, and the fact that neither Snaper or Hooley had seen him, filled him with grim content. He had again established the
fact that the two blackmailers and the man in the brown beard were deadly enemies, bent on rubbing each other out for the privilege of preying on Arnold Dixon.
By trailing Snaper and Hooley, the identity and the motives of the man in the brown beard would be made clearer.
Clyde was still very much on the case.
CHAPTER VI
MR. TIMOTHY IS PUZZLED
WILLIAM TIMOTHY sat comfortably propped in a wide-armed chair with a soft pillow behind his back. Sunlight streamed through the curtained windows of his expensive Pelham Bay home. The house itself and the grounds surrounding it were
nowhere near as pretentious as were Arnold Dixon's five miles to the south along
the curving shore of the bay. Nevertheless, William Timothy had done moderately
well in his years of practice at law.
Clad in a silken dressing gown, with a bandaged foot propped on a stool in
front of him, Timothy smiled as he saw that the upward trend in the stock market
seemed to be firm and sustained. Suddenly, he gave a petulant groan and threw the newspaper aside. He reached out and felt his bandaged foot and ankle with wincing care. The foot seemed to be badly swollen.
Timothy shifted his position in the chair. He was taking a cigar from a beautiful copper humidor, when he heard a light step in the hall outside. A knock sounded at the door.
'Who is it?'
'It's Edith Allen, uncle! May I come in?'
The voice was eager. A moment later, a strikingly pretty girl entered the sunlit room.
Timothy beamed, held out his hand.
'Edith! Well, this is a surprise and a welcome one! What brings you all the way out here to see an old codger of a lawyer with a bad case of arthritis in his foot?'
Edith Allen didn't answer for a moment. Tall, slim, blue eyed, with hair almost the shade of the copper humidor on the sunlit table, Edith was the sort of girl to make even an old man's eyes crinkle appreciatively. She was the daughter of Timothy's dead sister. She had an excellent secretarial job in New York City.
Timothy was an excellent judge of expression. He saw instantly that the corners of Edith's red lips were tremulous. There was shadow in the depths of the lovely blue eyes.
'Is there anything wrong?' he asked, gently.
Her voice quivered. 'Uncle, I had to see you. I'm - I'm frightened.
Dreadfully so!'
'Frightened?' He twisted sharply in his chair, unmindful of his bandaged foot. He gave her a steady, searching look. 'Are you in danger of some kind, my
dear?'
'It's not danger,' she said, slowly. 'And it's not myself.'
'Well, what is it?'
He could barely hear the name she named. 'Bruce Dixon.'
Her whole manner puzzled the lawyer. She fiddled with one of her gloves, avoided the searching scrutiny of her uncle.
'You love Bruce, don't you?' he said.
