matter of conjecture. Only—unless he had a chance to follow through, Donigan would be branded a crook forever.
LEO glanced at his strap watch uneasily, shifted his automatic slightly. Nason took a step forward, towards the center of the room and put his fists on his hips.
Leo's brows lifted. “You wouldn't want to start something, would you?”
“Me?” Nason jabbed a thumb at his chest and looked surprised. “Don't be foolish.”
“Then go back and sit down.” Nason grinned with that tight, weird smile at his lips and remained motionless. Leo's pimply face flushed and he moved forward with a threatening set to his shoulders. He started to step over Walcott's body, seemed to think better of it. He detoured and walked around in front of the photographer.
Then it happened. Leo had nearly passed out of Walcott's reach when that hand shot up. It was the first movement Walcott had made since he fell, and he was lying on his face, his eyes apparently closed, so that the element of surprise was all in his favor. He could not hold Leo, but this hand caught one ankle long enough to trip him off balance.
Leo cursed shrilly and went to one knee. Before he could swing the automatic around, Nason hit him; hit him with a lunging dive that brought his shoulder into the gunman's neck.
They went down together, arms and legs thrashing. The automatic flew from Leo's grasp, smacked against the wall and bounced back towards him. Nason, rolling clear, concentrated on that gun. His forward momentum, as he bowled Leo over, carried him on a few feet, and he snatched up the automatic as he twisted to his knees.
Walcott was struggling to his feet. Leo, swinging a wild right as Nason turned to face him, made one more last, desperate lunge. Then the detective whipped the gun down on the unprotected head.
Leo, on one knee, started to sag and his breath whistled through his teeth. Nason cocked his arms once more. The gun came down in a short, vicious arc. There was a quick, crunching sound. Leo went over on his back, his arm outflung. One leg drew up, straightened. The other twitched once. He did not move again. He did not look as if he would ever move.
Nason watched the gunman for a moment, then turned to Walcott. The photographer had a handkerchief in his hand now, was dabbing at the bloody spot on his head. He said: “You hit that guy like you was mad,” thickly.
Nason grunted. “Nice work. How long you been around?”
“When Hymie took the girl out, I guess. I didn't figure we had much chance against that gun unless—”
“You newspaper guys,” Nason said grimly, “don't do so bad.”
He slipped the automatic in his coat pocket, crossed quickly to the telephone, snapped up the receiver and dialed the operator.
“City Hospital. Sure. I know they got a number. Get it. Police business.”
After a moment he got his number. Then it took him some minutes before he could reach the party he wanted. When he did, he spoke crisply, a bit profanely for a few seconds, hung up.
He picked up his hat and started for the door, and Walcott said: “What're you gonna do with this guy?”
“Leave him,” lipped Nason. “He won't be goin' places alone. We'll send for him.”
THE taxi driver was asleep when they got downstairs. He started to protest Nason's rude method of wakening him, but something in the detective's manner stopped him.
Nason gave an address off Commonwealth Avenue and as soon as the cab started, Walcott said:
“What's out there?” His voice got eager,
excited. “I can tell you've got something by the look on your pan. Is that where Hymie and the girl went?” Then, without waiting for an answer: “How do you know?”
“I don't”
“You're a hell of a dick.”
“You heard me call the hospital.”
“What about it?”
“How did those two torpedoes know where Steig was?”
“They coulda followed the ambulance. I heard you say that yourself, when I was playin' 'possum.”
“Yeah. And boy was I dumb to think that.” Nason's voice got sarcastic, mocking. “They could've followed the ambulance. Then they could've gone to the Greek's, decided to go back and rub him out, got the idea of getting your camera to front for 'em.”
“Sure,” grunted Walcott. “Why not?”
“Then how did they know which room to go to? How'd they know just what room Steig had?”
“Hell, they could've asked.”
“Yeh,” rapped Nason. “They could've asked.
“They didn't?” echoed Walcott hollowly. “Then—”
“I got the reception room girl on the telephone. She remembers those guys coming in. But they breezed right past her. She's sure of it.”
“Hell!” wheezed Walcott, jerking erect on the seat. “Then somebody tipped 'em off.”
“Sure.” Nason cursed softly. “Carrigan, Alpert, Fitzpatrick and me in the room with Steig.”
“It coulda been somebody in the hospital.”
“It could, but it wasn't. I had the girl check with the operator. Nobody called in about Steig until after the shooting.”
“
The taxi slowed down and Nason rapped on the glass partition and said: “Pull on up to the corner.”
THE two men walked back to the marquee of a modern brick apartment house in the middle of the block. There was no name on the wide, chromium-trimmed doors, but in the rubber mat which crossed the sidewalk were white letters which spelled:
At that hour there was no doorman, and Nason crossed the spacious entryway to the sunken lobby. A sleepy-eyed clerk blinked at them from his desk on the left wall, but Nason paid him no attention, continuing on to the elevators with Walcott, still lugging his camera and plate case, at his heels.
The elevator boy furnished the information that Alpert had apartment 4-F, and they went up. It was the last apartment on the left side of a thickly- carpeted hall, and as Nason stopped in front of the pastel-gray door, he sobered slightly as he analyzed his hunch.
In his own mind he was certain that Alpert had been connected with Steig's death. But even so, there was no proof; and the only chance was to bluff his way through—or find Alpert and Hymie and Rita Jordan. He turned to Walcott, spoke in quick, low tones.
“If Alpert is here alone, it may be a bust. I may have to get rough, and it'll be a mess if I don't produce.”
“Yeah,” whispered Walcott. “But suppose Hymie is in there?”
“That'll be swell.”
“But the heat might go on. You oughta have some help. Why don't you call headquarters and—”
“And get 'em down here on a false alarm?” grunted Nason. “I'm in bad enough as it is.”
He hesitated, glanced up and down the hall. There was a window at the rear end, and he stepped to it, opened it and looked out. Faintly outlined against the rear of the building was a network of fire escape, a branch of which apparently scaled the side of Alpert's living room—some room, at least, where the light was on.
He made his plan then, because he knew the truth of what Walcott had said. He might need help. He pulled the youth close.
“I'll give you a couple of minutes to get down in the alley here. Watch this window. If I move the shade, beat it for a telephone and get Fitz down here—I'll need him. If you don't see anything you'll know I've drawn a blank.”
“And then what?”
“Then”—a wry grin twisted Nason's somber face—“we'll leave town together.”
He gave Walcott a push, watched him until the elevator door closed behind his back. He waited a full two minutes longer; then he pressed the mother-of-pearl button at the side of the door, and slid his right hand into his pocket, fitted it around the cool metal of Leo's automatic.
A moment later he heard the soft tread of footsteps, realized that if Alpert asked who he was, and he gave
