Mugs Magoo tilted the bottle of whiskey over the tumbler, drained the last drop from the tumbler, smacked his lips, then turned his glassy eyes toward Paul Pry.

  Those were remarkable eyes. They protruded slightly and seemed dead and expressionless, as though covered with some thin, white film. But they were eyes that saw much and forgot nothing.

  Mugs Magoo could give the name, antecedents, connection and criminal record of almost every known crook in the United States. Moreover, he had but to look at a face once in order to remember that man indefinitely. All gossip, all information which ever reached his ears; all occurrences which took place within the range of his vision, remained indelibly impressed upon his memory.

  At one time he had been camera-eye man for the metropolitan police. A political shake-up had thrown him out of work, and an unfortunate accident had taken off his right arm at the shoulder. Feeling that he could never return to the police force he had indulged his desire for liquor, until, when Paul Pry found the man, he had been but a sodden wreck, begging a mere pittance as a cripple, by selling pencils on a street corner. Paul Pry had cultivated the man, gradually learned something of his history and the remarkable gift which had made him so valuable to the police. He had given him food, clothes, money, and an allowance of whiskey, which served to satisfy the keen craving of the man’s insatiable appetite.

  From time to time, he used such information as Mugs Magoo could impart by drawing upon his encyclopedic knowledge of the underworld.

  “Mugs,” said Paul Pry, “what do you know about Charles Darwin?”

  Mugs Magoo shook his head. “Keep out of it, chief,” he said. “Please keep out of it. You’re mixing with dynamite. This isn’t the sort of a case where you’re up against some cheap crook; you’re dealing with a homicidal maniac here.”

  Paul Pry waited for a moment, then said again with slow emphasis: “Mugs, what do you know about Charles Darwin?”

  Mugs Magoo sighed. “To begin with, he’s a millionaire who made his money out of the stock market when the stock market was going up, and didn’t lose his money when the stock market went down. That means that he’s got brains or is lucky.” “He married one of those cold-blooded society-type women, and the marriage didn’t take. He got to playing around. Mrs. Darwin never played in her life; she didn’t know what play was. Life was a serious proposition with her, a question of just who she should invite to the next tea, and what sort of a bid she should make when she picked up her bridge hand.

  “Darwin wanted a divorce. She wouldn’t give him one. She hired detectives to trail him around, so that she could get enough on him so that he couldn’t get one. He could never get anything on her, because there was never anything to get.”

  “How do you know all this, Mugs?” asked Paul Pry curiously.

  Mugs Magoo regarded the empty whiskey glass with a speculative eye. “Those glasses,” he said, “don’t hold as much as the others; they—”

  “Never mind the glasses, Mugs. How did you find out all this about a millionaire’s matrimonial mix-up?”

  “Oh,” said Mugs wearily, “the detective that Mrs. Darwin got hold of was an ex-con. I spotted him, and he was afraid I was going to turn him in, so he spilled the beans to me about what he was doing.”

  “Well,” said Paul Pry, “you’re still not telling me what happened.”

  “Well,” Mugs Magoo said, “he was a clever bird. He wasn’t like the ordinary private detective. Naturally he wasn’t, because he’d been a high-class crook in his time, and he knew a lot of angles that only a crook would know. As a result, he got quite a bit of stuff on Darwin. He found out where Darwin was keeping a love nest.”

  “A love nest?” asked Paul Pry.

  “Well, that’s what the tabloids call it,” Mugs Magoo said. “It was just an apartment he kept without letting his wife know about it.”

  “But his wife found out about it?” asked Pry.

  “Not this one,” Mugs said. “The detective found out about it, but he was too wise to report the information to the agency. He realized that all he’d draw from the agency would be eight dollars a day, perhaps a bonus of a suit of clothes, or something. So he went to Darwin, put the cards on the table, told Darwin what he had, and offered to sell out for five thousand dollars. Naturally, he got the five grand.”

  “And what did he tell the agency?” asked Paul Pry.

  “Oh, he told the agency enough to let them make a pretty good report to Mrs. Darwin. As a matter of fact, I think he fixed it up with Charles Darwin so that the report was sufficiently complete to give Mrs. Darwin most of the evidence she wanted.”

  Paul Pry squinted his forehead thoughtfully. “Where was this love nest, Mugs?” he asked.

  Mugs was pouring whiskey into the glass. Abruptly, he stopped and straightened. His eyes blinked thoughtfully. “Hell!” he said. “I’ve got the address of the place somewhere in my mind, but—by gosh!—it was out in the west end somewhere. Ain’t that a break?”

  Paul Pry reached for his hat and coat. “All right, Mugs,” he said, “pull the address out of the back of your mind, because I want it.”

  2

  Paul Pry Turns Peeping Tom

  The apartment house had that subtle air of quiet exclusiveness which is associated with high prices, but not necessarily with respectability.

  Paul Pry moved down the deeply carpeted corridor like some silent shadow. He paused in front of the door and inspected the lock. Then he selected a key from a well-filled key ring, inserted the key and exerted a slow, steady pressure. A moment later there was a click as the lock slipped back.

  Paul Pry moved on through the door, into the apartment, and closed the door behind him.

  He had, he observed with satisfaction, reached the place ahead of the police. Doubtless, the police would, sooner or later, find out about this expensive apartment which was maintained by the millionaire play-boy who had figured so grimly in such a blood-curdling murder. Right at present, however, Paul Pry was on the job, and in the position of one who is one jump ahead.

  Paul Pry did not switch on the lights, but used an electric flashlight. He sent the beam darting about the apartment. He saw that the windows were covered by expensive drapes; that, in addition to the drapes, there were shades which were drawn down, making it virtually impossible for the faintest flicker of light to be seen from the street. There were expensive carpets, deep over-stuffed chairs, a well-filled bookcase which seemed, however, more to furnish background than a source of reading material. There was a bedroom with a beautiful walnut bed, a tiled bathroom with the spaciousness which indicated high rental. There was a second bedroom which opened on the other side of the bath. There was a kitchen and dining room which opened off the room which Paul Pry entered.

  Paul Pry moved through the dining room and into the kitchen.

  Then he walked back to the bedroom, turned the flashlight into the closet.

  The closet was well filled with clothes of expensive texture. They were feminine garments, and it needed no price tag to show either their quality or their high initial cost.

  Paul Pry looked in the bureau drawers and found filmy silk underthings, expensive hose, silk lounging pajamas. He left the bureau and entered the other room. Here he found a closet well crammed with masculine garments. There was a writing desk in this room, and a checkbook in a pigeon hole of the writing desk. Paul Pry took out the checkbook and looked at the stubs.

  The stubs were virtually all in a feminine handwriting. They ran to an alarming total.

  He was putting the checkbook back in its compartment, when his eye caught a letter with a special-delivery stamp on it. The letter was addressed to Gertrude Fenwick and the address was that of the apartment house. It had been very neatly typewritten and there was no return address on the envelope.

  Paul shamelessly inserted his fingers under the flap of the envelope, took out a sheet of typewritten paper and proceeded to read:

  My Dear Miss Fenwick:

  I dislike very much to involve you in this matter, but I am addressing this communication to you in order that it may reach the eyes of Mr. Charles B. Darwin.

  I feel that when Mr. Darwin realizes that even the carefully guarded secret of this apartment is known to the undersigned, he may, perhaps, be more inclined to give heed to my requests.

  My last request was turned over to the police, despite the fact that I warned him that such a course would be disastrous. I am now giving him one last chance.

  If he will make a check, payable to bearer, to an amount of twenty-five thousand dollars, address it to Fremont Burke, at General Delivery, and make certain that no attempt is made to follow the person who is to receive that letter and cash the check, and in no way seek to trace such a person by marked money or otherwise, and if he will further use his influence to notify his friend, Mr. Perry C. Hammond, that he is making such a remittance, and that he feels it would be well for Mr. Hammond to make such a remittance, then he will be unmolested. The secret of this apartment will remain a secret and he need fear no physical violence from the undersigned.

  If, on the other hand, he continues in his course of obstinate refusal to comply with my wishes, if he continues to unite with Mr. Hammond in employing private investigators to seek to learn my identity, his fate and that of Mr. Hammond will be the fate of Mr. Harry Travers.

  Very truly yours,

  XXXX

  The letter was unsigned, except for the diagram of several interlocking “x’s” which formed a rude diagram of a cross-stitch, similar to the stitch which had been placed across the lips of the dead body of Harry Travers, and, later, across those of Charles B. Darwin.

  Paul Pry whistled softly when he had read the letter, folded it and thrust it in his pocket. He had directed the beam of the flashlight once more upon the desk, when his ears caught the metallic click of a key being inserted in the lock of the door which led to the corridor.

  Paul Pry switched out the flashlight and stood motionless.

  He heard the sound of the door open, then closing, and the noise made by the spring lock as it snapped into place. Then he heard the rustle of garments, and the click of a light switch.

  Paul Pry slipped the sword cane down from the place where he had it clamped under his arm and moved on furtive feet, stepping noiselessly upon the tiled floor of the bathroom, to where he could look into the bedroom.

  There was no one in the bedroom, but a mirror showed him the reflection of the person who had entered the apartment.

  She was perhaps twenty-six years of age, slender, well-formed, gray-eyed, blonde, and exceedingly nervous. She had carried two suitcases into the apartment, and the suitcases now reposed on the carpet near her feet, one on either side.

  For a moment, Paul Pry saw her reflection in the mirror clearly. Then she moved out of his range of vision, and he suddenly realized she was coming directly toward the bathroom.

  He flattened himself in the shadows just back of the door and waited.

  The light switch clicked in the bedroom. There was the sound of swift surreptitious movement.

  Paul Pry waited for more than a minute. Then, curiosity getting the better of discretion, he peered round the edge of the door.

  The young woman had divested herself of her outer garments, and stood attired in filmy underthings, looking at herself in the mirror. As Paul Pry watched, she picked up a dress from the bed, slipped it on, and surveyed the effect.

  She nodded to herself with evident approval at what she saw in the mirror, then pulled the dress off over her head.

  The dress which she had worn when she entered the apartment, a gray affair which displayed to advantage the curves of her willowy figure, lay upon the bed. Paul Pry waited for her to put it on. Instead, however, she took lingerie from the drawer of the bureau, held it against the satin smoothness of her skin and once more surveyed the reflection with critical inspection.

  At length, she picked up the gray dress, slipped it over her head, adjusted it in front of the mirror, then walked rapidly to the living room, where she picked up the suitcases and carried them into the bedroom. She laid the suitcases on the bed, opened them and started folding the garments into them.

  Paul Pry, watching from his place of concealment, saw that the suitcases had been empty when she took them into the room; that she carefully folded the gowns, packing the cases as tightly as possible; that she also put in the elaborately embroidered silk lingerie which she had taken from the bureau drawer.

  When both cases had been packed to the point of bursting with the most modish of gowns, the most expensive selection of underthings and accessories, the young woman struggled with the straps, trying to get the suitcases closed.

  It was at that moment that Paul Pry, his sword cane held under his arm, his hat in his hand, stepped into the bedroom.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said.

  She gave a sudden scream, jumped back from the bed and stared at him with wide, startled eyes.

  Paul Pry bowed courteously. “I happened,” he explained, “to be in the bathroom. I couldn’t help watching you. Perhaps it is a ‘Peeping Tom’ complex that I have. I didn’t know I possessed it until just this moment, but you were beautiful, and I was curious. Need more be said?”

  She was white to the lips. She stared at him wordlessly.

  “But,” Paul Pry went on, “having been permitted to invade the privacy of milady’s boudoir, I recognized the obligations which are incident to the benefits. Apparently you need someone to assist you in closing the suitcases. May I offer my services?”

  Words came chokingly from her lips. “Who … who … who are you, and what do you want?”

  “The name,” he said, “really doesn’t matter, I assure you. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. When people get acquainted under such charmingly informal circumstances, I think names have but little to do with it. Suppose, therefore, that I shall call you Gertrude, and you call me Paul?” “But,” she said with swift alarm, “my name is not Gertrude.”

  “No?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “my name is—”

  “Yes, yes,” he told her, “go on. Only the first name, if you please. I am not interested in last names.”

  “The name,” she said, “is Thelma.”

  “A remarkably pretty name,” he told her. “And may I ask, Thelma, what are you doing in this apartment?”

  “I was getting some clothes,” she said. “Your clothes?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Then,” he said, “you must be aware of the untimely death of the person who is maintaining this establishment.”

  “No! No!” she said. “I don’t know anything about that. In fact, I don’t know anything about the place at all.”

  “You just left your clothes here?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’d just moved in. You see, I subleased the apartment.”

  “From whom?” he inquired.

  “From an agent,” she said.

  He laughed. “Come, come,” he said, “you’ll have to do better than that. Let’s be frank with each other. This apartment was maintained by Charles B. Darwin. Darwin recently met a very violent end. You have doubtless heard of the death of Harry Travers. The circumstances surrounding the death of Darwin were almost identical. The lips, if I may be pardoned for speaking of such a gruesome matter, were sewed tightly shut with a peculiar cross-stitch. Now, it is quite apparent that a person who sews lips of a man, does so with some motive. Were the man living, that motive might well be to insure temporary silence. But there are much better and less painful methods of insuring silence. To sew the lips of a dead man had nothing whatever to do with the powers of speech. One would judge, therefore, that the sewing of the lips was either by way of warning to others, or as a gesture, to make the murder seem the more gruesome. It might also well be a warning to to others who had been approached along certain lines not to communicate the facts to the police.”

  She swayed slightly.

  “You’re faint?” he asked. “Do sit down in one of these chairs.”

  She shook her head in tense silence. “No,” she said, “I’m all right. I’m going to tell you the truth.”

  “I wish you would, Thelma,” he said. “I’m a model,” she said, “in a dressmaking establishment. I know the lady by sight who accompanied Mr. Darwin when these dresses were purchased. I happened to meet her on the street just an hour or so ago. She told me that owing to circumstances over which she had no control, she was leaving the city at once; that she had left a very fine wardrobe here, and that she knew the dresses would fit me, because we were almost identical in size. She gave me a key to the apartment, and told me to come up and take whatever I wanted.”

  “Why didn’t you bring a trunk?” asked Paul Pry.

  “Because,” she said, “I didn’t want too many clothes; I just wanted some of the pretty things that would give me a break.” “And she gave you her key to the apartment.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it at all possible,” Paul Pry inquired, “that you are, perhaps, drawing upon your imagination?”

  She shook her head.

  “And you’re not the young woman who occupied this apartment?”

  “You should be able to figure that one out for yourself,” she said. “You stood there and watched me trying on the things.” She lowered her eyes.

  “Are you, perhaps,” asked Paul Pry, “trying to blush?”

  Her eyes flashed with swift emotion. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said, “standing there and watching a woman dress that way!”

  Paul Pry bowed his head humbly. “Please accept my most profound apologies,” he said. “And would you, perhaps, let me see the key with which you entered the apartment?”

  She inserted her fingers into a small pocket in her dress, took out a key, started to hand it to him, then stopped suddenly.