“About eight o’clock that night, it happened. He’d been drinking pretty heavy, and, all of a sudden, he straightened up and threw the whiskey bottle to one side. I read murder in his eyes. I think he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t talk. He twisted his lips, and that was all. I was headed for the door by the time he’d raised the gun. Remember, I’d been waiting for just that play.

  “Bill was fast. He shot twice, and missed both times. I ran around the cabin, and he after me. I had enough of a head start to keep the cabin between me and him. I grabbed the rifle, and shot.

  “There I was, with a dead partner, out in the middle of the north country, a claim that was lousy with gold, and winter coming on. I knew it was a pocket. I knew it might play out tomorrow or next day or the next week, or, maybe, next season. But it was a pocket. If I left the claim to go and report to the authorities, and some prospector came along, he’d clean out the gold.

  “I did the only thing that seemed logical at the time. I dragged Bill out a ways from the cabin, dug a hole, and buried him. It was exactly what he’d have done with me. I went back and stayed with that pocket. It petered out in about ten days. I had a fortune in gold. It took me five trips, lugging all I could carry, to get it down to the boat.

  “Well, there I was. The river was due to start freezing almost any time. I had a big load of gold, and quite a few people knew my partner was Bill Hogarty. I couldn’t explain Bill’s absence without getting into a lot of trouble. I didn’t dare to lie about it, and I didn’t dare to tell the truth.

  “I started back up the river. It was slow going. The river finally froze on me. I got Indians and dog sleds. I was traveling hard and fast, and I went under the name of Bill Hogarty. I told people we’d struck it rich, and that Leeds, my partner, was staying in to watch the claim, that I was going out to get supplies, and bank the gold. I stayed away from people we knew. I did but little talking, and I traveled fast.

  “You see, the way I figured it, by traveling as Bill Hogarty, I could leave a record that Bill had left the country and got as far as Seattle. Then in Seattle, I’d take my own name, and talk with people I knew. Then if the law found the body, they wouldn’t identify it as Hogarty because the records would show Hogarty had gone out and reached Seattle, where he’d disappeared. They couldn’t identify it as Leeds because Leeds would be alive and well. It was the best I could do. I figured that, with any sort of luck, it would be a year or two before they found the body. I got out to Seattle, still going under the name of Hogarty. I found Emily. She’d felt the same way about me I’d felt about her. We were married.

  “We lived here in Seattle that winter. We were both of us high-strung and temperamental. We had one hell of a fight in the spring. Emily walked out on me. I know now, she intended to come back, but Emily was as high-strung as a good trotting horse. I left Seattle and went back to my real identity of Alden Leeds.”

  Leeds stopped talking for a moment, and held a match to his pipe. “Remember,” he went on, slowly, “things were different in those days. The country was young, and the men in it were young. Even the old men were younger than most of the young men are now.

  “Nowadays, we’re suffering from hardening of the economic arteries. The country is old. Our outlook is old. People have quit trying. You could comb through this whole damn city today and not get a half a dozen men with the guts to take what the Yukon dished out in those days. I don’t mind getting old and dying. I hate to see the whole damned country dying along with me. There ain’t any youth to take our place. Just a bunch of whining little snivelers who want the government to support ’em.”

  In the silence which followed, knuckles pounded on the door of the room. Mason said, “What is it?”

  A bellboy’s voice answered, “A telegram for Mr. Mason. He isn’t in his room. I thought he might be here. He told the clerk he’d call on Mr. Smith.”

  “Shove it under the door,” Mason said, “and I’ll push a dollar bill back. I’m Mason.”

  A moment later, a blue envelope slid under the door. Mason slid a dollar bill through the crack.

  “Okay,” Mason said. “I’ll let you know if there’s an answer.”

  He ripped open the telegram envelope and read a message sent by Della Street:

  OUR OFFICE TELEPHONE LINE AND MY APARTMENT LINE HAVE BEEN TAPPED STOP YOUR CONVERSATION WITH MILTON STIVE OVERHEARD DISTRICT ATTORNEY SERVED SUBPOENA DUCES TECUM DEMANDING ALL PAPERS STOP MY CONVERSATION WITH YOU ABOUT GOING SEATTLE PLANE RESERVATIONS AND LOCATION OF ALDEN LEEDS ALSO APPARENTLY OVERHEARD

  DELLA STREET

  Mason folded the message, and pushed it down into his coat pocket. He turned back to face the two in the room. “All right,” he said quietly, “we’re going to have company. You two do exactly as I say. Miss Milicant, here’s a key to a room in the hotel. You’re registered in that room as Mrs. George L. Manchester. Go to that room. Lock yourself in. Stay there until after the police think you’ve slipped through their fingers, and have quit watching the place. Then get out, keep under cover, and write me at my office where you are and what name you’re using.

  “Leeds, I could help you escape. I don’t think it’s wise. When you’re arrested, waive extradition, but don’t be in a hurry to do it. Tell the police that you’re in love with Emily Milicant, that you hope she does you the honor of marrying you, that you had no idea the man you knew as John Milicant was going under the name of Louie Conway until yesterday afternoon. Admit that you called on him, claim that you don’t know what time it was; that you had a business matter to discuss; that you left him alive and well; that you won’t discuss anything else until after you’ve talked with Emily. Don’t tell the police what you were talking about, what the check was for, or how you found out Conway and Milicant were one and the same.

  “Now then, after you left the sanitarium, you wrote out another twenty thousand dollar check also payable to Conway, but endorsed so as to make it payable to bearer. The description of the woman who cashed that check makes me think it was Emily. Milicant. How about it?”

  They exchanged glances. “It was I,” Emily admitted.

  “What’s the idea?”

  “Alden wanted to have plenty of cash to do what he wanted to do. He knew he couldn’t draw twenty thousand in cash without making it look as though he were running away. He figured that if he made that second check to Conway and had me cash it, he could get the twenty thousand, and no one would figure he was checking out. It sounded like a good idea at the time.”

  “It looks like hell now,” Mason said. “Twenty grand is too much cash for a pleasure trip. It looks as though you were running away and didn’t intend to come back.”

  “I know it,” she admitted.

  Leeds said, “Look here, Mason, I can’t be arrested. I’ve got to get back to the Tanana country.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you see? To square up that old killing.”

  “You mean John Milicant was blackmailing you over that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just what did you expect to do?” Mason asked.

  “I expected to go back and clear the thing up.”

  “How did you expect to square it?” Mason asked.

  “I thought I could tell the truth. I thought Emily could back me up.”

  Mason said, “Don’t be foolish. Emily can’t back you up. Her story would furnish motivation—that’s all. After all this time, the facts are obscured. John had the evidence against you. He gave it to Marcia Whittaker to keep. She gave it to me. I told her you’d stand back of her as long as she kept her mouth shut.”

  “You have that evidence?” Leeds asked eagerly.

  “How about Marcia Whittaker?” Mason asked, avoiding the subject. “Did I do right?”

  “Good Heavens, yes! I’d do anything in the world to get that evidence.”

  Mason turned to Emily Milicant. “How about you?” he asked. “Would you do anything in the world to get Alden out of that old charge?”

  She nodded.

  Mason frowned thoughtfully. “All right,” he said. “Do exactly as I told you, no more and no less. If the police should catch you, refuse to make any statement, refuse to identify the body as that of your brother, refuse to admit you ever had a brother, and refuse to talk about anything until you’ve seen me. Can you do that?”

  “How,” she asked, “would that help matters any?”

  Mason said, “I haven’t time to make explanations. Will you do what I say?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you do exactly that,” Mason said, “both of you, I can help you. If you don’t follow my instructions, one or both of you is quite apt to get a first degree murder rap pinned on you.”

  “Your instructions,” Leeds said dubiously, “are simple enough, but I don’t see how they can help matters. Even if you have all of those papers, there’s going to be an investigation. The police will want to know what Conway had on me, why I paid the twenty thousand.”

  “Don’t tell them,” Mason said.

  “And if I don’t tell them, they’ll claim I murdered him in order to free myself of a blackmailer.”

  “Not if I say that he telephoned me after you left,” Emily Milicant said.

  Leeds stared steadily at her. “You know damn well he didn’t telephone you,” he said.

  Mason said, “Shut up. Now listen to me. Emily, have you any other relatives?”

  “No, just the two of us.”

  Mason said, “John’s life must have been a closed book back of a certain date. It must have been, for him to have covered up that felony conviction.”

  “It was,” she said.

  Mason said, “Get down to the room where you’re Mrs. Manchester. Don’t waste any time. After I leave, don’t sit here and talk. Don’t get sentimental. Don’t get excited. Do exactly as I have told you. Remember that the man who killed one bird with two stones had only to throw the rock. We have one bird, and we have to account for two stones.”

  He strode out of the room, took the elevator to the lobby. The drizzle had become a cold, steady rain. As Mason stood in the doorway, waiting for a taxicab, a police car rounded a corner and skidded into the curb. Four officers in uniform jumped out. Two plain-clothes men, who had been standing near the door, converged on the group of officers.

  Mason’s taxicab took him to the telegraph office where he sent Della Street a message, saying simply, “WIRE RECEIVED MAKE NO COMPLAINT ABOUT MATTER MENTIONED DO NOT BE SURPRISED AT ANY CONVERSATIONS I HAVE WITH YOU OVER TELEPHONE.”

  He signed the wire, paid for it, returned to his taxi, and said, “Take me to a newspaper office. I want to put an ad in the personal column.”

  At the newspaper office, Mason, with moisture glistening on his suit and dripping from the brim of his hat, wrote an ad for the personals. “Wanted: Information concerning the past life of William Hogarty, age fifty-four years, walks with slight limp because four toes of right foot frostbitten and amputated in Klondike in 1906. Height, five feet ten. Weight, a hundred and eighty. Heavy features, partially bald, black eyes, black hair. In 1906, Hogarty went to Tanana district in Klondike. Returned Seattle sometime in 1907. Has gone under name of L. C. Conway. Any accurate information as to past life, heirs and former associates of this man will receive liberal reward. Particularly anxious to find doctor who performed operation on frostbitten foot and learn what, if any, statements were made by Hogarty at that time. Communicate Perry M. care this paper.”

  Mason shoved the ad across the counter. “Here,” he said, “is a fifty-dollar bill. Keep this ad running until the money’s used up or until I tell you to stop. Run it in display type, or double-space it, or whatever is necessary to attract attention.”

  “Yes, sir,” the girl said, looking at his wet clothes. “It must be raining outside.”

  Mason shivered, passed one of his cards across the counter. “Any replies you receive,” he said, “are to be sent at once by air mail to this address. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good night,” Mason said, and strode out into the cold rain. “If I can’t buy an overcoat,” he told the cab driver, “perhaps I can find an airplane that will carry me far enough south to get into a different climate.”

  The cab driver looked at him in amazement.

  “In other words,” Mason said, “the airport, and make it snappy.”

  At the airport, Mason found that the next regular passenger plane left Seattle at ten-thirty-five the next morning. The taxicab took him to one of the city’s better hotels where he again registered and explained to the clerk that he had no baggage.

  In his room, Mason enjoyed the luxury of a hot bath and a night’s sleep. In the morning, he called Della Street on the long distance telephone. “Get my message?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Mason said, “Listen, Della. Here are the developments. I located Alden Leeds up here. I’ve found out quite a bit of family history. John Milicant was Leeds’ former partner. He went by the name of Bill Hogarty. He and Leeds went into the Klondike in 1906. They struck it rich. Hogarty and Leeds had a falling out over a dance hall girl. The dance hall girl was Emily Milicant. Hogarty married Emily Milicant in Seattle in 1907.”

  “Then he wasn’t Emily Milicant’s brother?”

  “Not a bit of it,” Mason said.

  “But why did she say he was?”

  “It’s a long story,” Mason said. “I think we can identify the body absolutely as that of Hogarty because of his frostbitten foot. But we want to keep the district attorney from finding out what we’re doing.”

  Della Street said, “Is there anything you want me to do at this end, Chief?”

  Mason said, “Yes. Explain to Phyllis Leeds that everything is okay, and that I’ll be back in the office Monday morning. Tell her I’ve seen her uncle; that he’s all right and wants to be remembered to her.”

  “Where,” Della Street asked, “is her uncle now?”

  Mason said, “The last I saw of him he was at his hotel.”

  “Are you in the same hotel?”

  “No. I registered again in a second hotel because I didn’t want Leeds to be interrupting me with a lot of questions. I was tired and wanted to sleep. See you tomorrow, Della. ’By.”

  Mason hung up, went down to the lobby, paid his bill, and caught the plane south. It was still raining.

  In San Francisco, Mason bought a newspaper. He found what he wanted on the second page. While he was flying to Los Angeles, he read the newspaper account with twinkling eyes:

  KLONDIKE MILLIONAIRE WANTED FOR MURDERING SAME MAN IN TWO STATES. KNOTTY EXTRADITION PROBLEM PRESENTED TO WASHINGTON GOVERNOR.

  Seattle, Washington. Did Alden Leeds murder Bill Hogarty in the Klondike in 1906? Did Bill Hogarty murder Alden Leeds in the Klondike in 1906? Or did Alden Leeds murder William Hogarty in California last Friday night?

  These are questions which are perplexing the authorities and causing a particular headache to the Governor of the State of Washington, who is advised that he will shortly receive, in due form, demands that Alden Leeds, who is at present held a prisoner in Seattle, be returned to Alaskan authorities to answer to the charge of murdering Bill Hogarty, his mining partner, back in the later days of the Klondike gold rush. On the other hand, California authorities, who have appeared on the ground in Seattle, are equally positive that Alden Leeds murdered Bill Hogarty no later than last Friday night.

  A discrepancy of thirty-three years in the date of a man’s demise is startling, to say the least, to say nothing of the fact that it is virtually an impossibility for a man to be murdered in Alaska and then again in California. There is, in the popular mind, a supposition that murder is a final gesture. The corpse is supposed to remain in, what the lawyers term, status quo.

  Alaskan authorities claim that they have found the body of Bill Hogarty where it was left in a shallow grave by Alden Leeds following a rich strike which the partners made in a mining claim. The Alaskan authorities claim to have evidence showing that Leeds disguised his identity by taking none other than the name of the murdered man, and left the Yukon, masquerading as Bill Hogarty. So completely were the officers fooled by this clever ruse, that for years they were searching for Bill Hogarty, on the theory that he had murdered Alden Leeds.

  California authorities, however, claim that the Alaskan body was not that of Bill Hogarty because Bill Hogarty was killed by Alden Leeds no later than last Friday night, and cite a frostbitten foot on the part of the corpse to prove identity.

  The situation is rendered more puzzling in view of the fact that a well-known criminal attorney, whose dramatic exploits have attracted more than state-wide attention, has instituted a frantic search for information concerning the deceased Bill Hogarty, and, in particular, as to the manner in which he lost his toes.

  To the layman, the whole affair appears puzzling, to say the least. It is as though Alden Leeds, having murdered Bill Hogarty in the Klondike in 1906, was subsequently confronted with the body of a corpse which had refused to accept the murder as final, and who had suffered only the amputation of four toes from his right foot as the result of thirty-three years’ interment in an icy grave in the far north. Whereupon, as though to illustrate the maxim of, if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again, the dead man was murdered again—so that now all that is mortal of Bill Hogarty lies in a Southern California mortuary undoubtedly quite dead, frostbitten foot and all.

  It is to be borne in mind that the contention of the authorities that Alden Leeds is the murderer is as yet entirely unsubstantiated in any court of justice. It is quite possible that Alden Leeds could make a statement which would go far toward explaining the matter, but Alden Leeds has become afflicted with a temporary impediment of speech which prevents him from answering any questions.

  Emily Milicant, whom the authorities insist was occupying a room with Alden Leeds in Seattle, has also mysteriously vanished. Inasmuch as she seemed to evaporate into thin air during a time when the hotel was under the closest surveillance, the authorities are, to put the matter mildly, irritated. They insist that there is more than a casual coincidence in the fact that Miss Milicant’s astounding disappearance into the Seattle atmosphere coincided with the arrival on the scene of a noted criminal lawyer.