"What the hell are you talking about?" Grail asked. "Your wife," I said, and stopped talking.

  There was a long ten seconds of silence.

  "By God ! " Crail said in a choking voice, and got to his feet.

  I didn't say anything.

  "I should hit you," he said.

  "Don't do it," I told him. "Go look in the bathroom instead."

  Grail gave me one tortured, anguished look. Then he got to the bathroom door in three steps and jerked it open.

  Georgia Rushe was lying in the bathtub, fully clothed. Her eyes were closed. Her face was slightly pallid and her jaw was dropped.

  I crossed over to the telephone, dialled Police Headquarte and said, "Connect me with Frank Sellers of Homicide quick ! "

  It was only a couple of seconds before I had Sellers on th line.

  "Frank," I said, "this is Donald Lam. Send an ambulance to two-o-seven West Orleans Avenue. The party you want i in apartment two-forty-three. She's tried to commit suicide by taking luminal. It hasn't been over forty-five minutes since she took the dose and a stomach pump and stimulant should fix her up."

  "What's her name?" Sellers asked.

  "Georgia Rushe."

  "Why do I bother with it?"

  I said, "Ellery Crail is here, and he'll have a story to tell you if you talk to him about it."

  "I get you."

  I said, "And have one of your men get hold of Frank L. Glimson of Cosgate & Glimson. They're lawyers. Tell Glimson that Irma Begley, who was the plaintiff in a case against Philip E. Cullingdon has confessed to fraud and has made statements that implicate Cosgate & Glimson. Ask them if they care to make any statements. And keep them away from the telephone."

  "This Georgia Rushe," Sellers said, "will she talk?”

  “No. The party you want is Ellery Crail."

  Crail, just emerging from the bathroom, said, "What's that? Who's mentioning my name?"

  I said, "I was trying to get some hot coffee sent up. We'd better get her out of the bathtub and see if we can put some cold water on her."

  I hung up.

  Crail and I lifted her out of the bathtub.

  "She's drugged!" Crail said. "We've got to do something!"

  I said, "Put some cold towels on her forehead and on he chest. I tried to get some hot coffee sent up, but they won' send it. I'm going down and bring up some black coffee."

  Crail looked desperately at the kitchen and said, "Perhaps we can make some coffee here."

  "We haven't time. There's a restaurant down the street," said, and bolted out of the door, leaving Crail behind with Georgia Rushe.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I DROVE the agency car fast, taking chances on a speeding ticket. It would have been a good plan to have parked it a block or two away from Billy Prue's apartment, but I didn't have the time. I drove right up to the apartment house, parked the car in front of the door, ran up the steps, and rang Billy Prue's bell.

  It was one chance in ten—one chance in a hundred. If she was there at all, she would be packing, but ... I rang the bell again.

  Nothing happened.

  The lock on the outer door was pretty well worn. Any key that would fit the grooves would work the lock. I didn't even have to bother with my skeleton keys. The key to my own apartment worked the lock on the outer door.

  I went up to Billy Prue's apartment. I knocked on the door twice. There was no sound from the interior. The place was thick with silence.

  I took out my skeleton keys and tried one in the lock. It didn't work.

  Before I could take it out, the door was jerked open from the inside.

  Billy Prue said sarcastically, "Make yourself right at home ! Walk right in ... Oh, it's you!"

  "Why didn't you answer a knock on your door?" I asked her.

  Her hand went up to her throat. She said, "You scared the living daylights out of me."

  "You didn't act like it."

  "I didn't dare to. Why didn't you say who it was?”

  “How could I?"

  "You could have called through the door."

  I carefully closed the door behind me and made sure that the spring lock clicked into place. I said, "That would have been nice—stand out in the hall and yell, 'Yoo-hoo, Billy, this is Donald Lam, the private detective. I want to see you on business. Open up !' "

  "Oh," she said, "on business, is it?"

  I looked around the room. The door to the bedroom was open. The bed was pretty well covered with folded clothes. There were two big suitcases and a steamer trunk on the floor, also a couple of hat-boxes.

  "Going somewhere?" I asked.

  "You wouldn't expect me to stay here, would you?”

  “Not if you could find some other place."

  "I've found another place."

  "Where?"

  "With a friend."

  I said, "Sit down for a minute. We've got to talk."

  "I want to get out of here, Donald. It's terribly depressing and—and I'm afraid ! "

  "What are you afraid of?"

  She hastily averted her eyes. "Nothing."

  "Delightfully logical," I said.

  "Shut up. You don't have to be logical when you're afraid.”

  “Perhaps not."

  I stretched out in a comfortable chair, lit a cigarette, and said, "Let's talk some sense."

  "What about?"

  "About the murder."

  "Do we have to talk about it?"

  "Yes."

  "What about it?"

  "You're absolutely certain his watch was an hour fast when you left?"

  "Yes."

  "And you set it back an hour when you returned?”

  “Yes."

  "You're sure you didn't set it back an hour before?"

  "No, and I should have. That bothered me because I was supposed to have done so."

  I said, "All right. Let's use our heads. Two people tampered with that watch. You were one of them. Now then, how many people knew about the plan to set the watch ahead?"

  "Just Pittman Rimley and I."

  "And the boy in the wash-room."

  "Yes, I forgot about him."

  I got out of the chair and paced the floor for a minute or so. She sat perfectly still watching me, not saying a word.

  I walked over to the windows and stood looking down at the street below.

  "What are you looking at?"

  "The agency car parked down there in front of the place." She came to stand by my side. "What about it?"

  I said. "Somebody put the murder weapon in there yesterday. I don't know when it was put in, so I've got to start figuring why it was put in, because that may give me a clue to when.

  She said, "What do you mean by why? You mean someone was trying to frame you?"

  I said, "Either someone wanted to frame me, or someone didn't."

  "That's elemental."

  I said, "We have to begin with elemental facts. There's one explanation that's so damn simple that I've overlooked it.”

  “What?"

  I said, "Either someone put that weapon in my car because he wanted to frame me, or he didn't. Naturally, I've acted on the assumption that whoever put it in there wanted to frame me. I'm beginning to think about the simple explanation now."

  "What?"

  I said, "Let's make another division. Whoever put that weapon in the car either knew it was my car, or didn't."

  "Good Heavens, Donald, you don't think there's the slightest possibility anyone put it in your car simply by accident?"

  "Not by accident. That's taxing credulity altogether too much."

  She said, "I don't get you. You seem to be contradicting yourself."

  "No, there's one other explanation."

  "What?"

  I said, "The weapon was put in my car because my car happened to be the most convenient place to hide the thing.”

  “Oh, oh ! " she said as the full implication of that dawned on her.

  "So," I said, "I keep thinking back where my car was. Where would it have been parked sufficiently soon after the murder so that someone would find it the most convenient place to dispose of the murder weapon?"

  She said eagerly, "Donald, you may have something there." I said, "How about Pittman Rimley, can you trust him?”

  “So far he's always been on the square—with me."

  "There were two persons who knew about the watch business—Rimley and the man in the wash-room. Then there was a third person who could have known."

  "Who?"

  "Mrs. Crail. Stanberry might have commented on the time to her. That's logical, isn't it?"

  "It is when you put it that way."

  I said, "And I'm wondering why the handle of the hand axe had been sawed off. You've used a meat saw?"

  "Yes—of course."

  "One here in the apartment?"

  "I guess so, yes."

  "Let's get it out and take a look at it"

  She regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, then went to the kitchenette. I followed her. The meat saw was under the sink. She handed it to me.

  There was some grease on the blade and embedded between the handle and the blade a few grains of sawdust.

  "That does it," I said.

  "Does what?"

  "Clinches the case."

  "I don't see why."

  I looked at her steadily. "You had a hand axe here, didn't you?"

  Her eyes shifted.

  I said, "Whoever did the job didn't expect to find Stan-berry unconscious. When she did, and found a hand axe—well, that was it."

  "She?"

  "Yes. It was a woman."

  I kept looking at her. "She didn't want to leave the murder weapon here. She had only one way of taking it out—in her handbag. She had to saw a piece off the handle to make it fit."

  "Donald!"

  I turned to look down the street. For several seconds the apartment was silent. Then I said, "I'm still toying with the explanation that the murder weapon was ditched in my car simply because my car happened to be the most convenient place for the murderer to put the weapon. Now then, if we're going to work on that hypothesis, we suddenly find ourselves up against ..."

  I broke off.

  "What's the matter?" she asked.

  "See that car?" I said.

  She looked where I was pointing. "It's a police car," I said. "See the red spotlight ...?"

  Sergeant Frank Sellers got out of the car, gallantly walked round the car to the right side, opened the door, and held out his hand.

  Bertha Cool put her hand on Frank Sellers' and got out of the car about as gracefully as a sack of sugar tumbling down off the top shelf in the pantry.

  I said, "Quick ! Get out of here and ... ! No, it's too late."

  Bertha had spotted the agency car. I saw her tap Sellers on the shoulder and point. Sellers went over and looked at the licence number. They talked together earnestly for a minute, then moved towards the door of the apartment house.

  A moment later Billy Prue's bell made noise.

  'What do I do?" she asked.

  She was looking at me with eyes that were wells of dismay. "Sit down in that chair," I said. "Don't move! Don't make a sound no matter what happens. Do you promise?"

  "If you want me to."

  "No matter what happens ! Understand?"

  "Yes. Anything you say, Donald."

  The bell didn't make any more noise.

  I opened the door to the corridor, made certain the spring lock was working. "No matter what happens, don't make a sound. Understand?"

  She nodded.

  I pulled the door closed, dropped down on my hands and knees and put my ear to the crack along the floor.

  I was in that position when I heard faint steps down the

  corridor. I moved slightly, and the steps suddenly stopped.

  I got to one knee, felt in my pocket for my collection of

  skeleton keys, took them out, and tried out one on the lock. The steps sounded again.

  I whirled with the guilty start of someone who has been detected in an unlawful activity.

  Sergeant Sellers was right on top of me.

  "So," he said, "got a key to the joint, have you?"

  I tried to whip the keys back into my pocket.

  Sergeant Sellers' fingers clamped my wrist.

  "Well, well, well," Sellers said as his other hand snapped the key container out of my nerveless grasp. "So your agency plays around with skeleton keys, does it, Bertha?"

  Bertha said, "Damn you, Donald, I told you a long while ago to get rid of those. They'll get you in trouble." I didn't say anything.

  "What," Sellers asked, "is the big idea?"

  I said, "I wanted to get in for a look around."

  "I gathered you did. How long have you been here?”

  “I don't know—four or five minutes, maybe."

  "That long?"

  I said, "I rang the bell three or four times to make sure there was no answer, then I—well, I got in through the outer door."

  "Then what?"

  "Then I came up here and knocked. Then I listened for quite a while. I didn't want to take chances on going in until I was sure the place was empty."

  "It's empty?" Sellers asked.

  "Yes. I think she moved out."

  "Then why did you want in?"

  "I wanted to check something about the position of the bathtub."

  "Why?"

  "I wanted to see where two people would have to stand if they lifted the body into the bathtub. It would take two men to..."

  "Don't kid yourself," Sellers interrupted. "I've busted the case wide open."

  "You have!"

  "Yes. I want that jane.”

  “Why?"

  "We've indentified the hand axe. She bought it at a hardware store three blocks down the street."

  I tried to make my voice sound unconcerned. "She's probably at the Rendezvous now. You didn't go out on that ambulance case?"

  He grinned. "I thought that could have been a red herring, Donald. I wanted this Prue girl."

  "But someone went out to that Orleans address?"

  "Sure."

  "And they won't let Crail get away?"

  "No, sweetheart, and you won't get away, either. Come on. We're going places."

  "Do I get my keys back?"

  "Naughty, naughty."

  "Take the damn things and throw them away," Bertha said angrily. "I've warned the little devil about that."

  Sellers said, "Come on, quit stalling."

  I followed them down to the street. I said, "I'll take the agency car ..."

  "The hell you will !" Sellers said. "You'll stay right here, my lad, until I've put the bracelets on that little girl's wrists. You won't pull any slick little job of getting in to a telephone and tipping her off ..."

  "The bracelets on her wrists!"

  "Sure. What do you think?"

  "Don't let him stall you," Bertha said. "He knows. He's a smart little bastard. He was going to tip her off. My God, how he falls for women! That's the trouble with him."

  Sellers said, "Listen, Donald, she's the one who did the killing. Don't get tangled up in it."

  I looked at him and laughed. Anyone could have picked up the hand axe," I said.

  Sellers rose to the bait. "I've got the deadwood on her. Under an assumed name she rented an apartment in the Fulrose Apartments. She's had it for a month, always being careful never to go in except when Rufus Stanberry was out. She's been searching his apartment. The day of the murder, just after Stanberry had been bumped off, she showed up and made a good job of it. She went through the safe that time."

  "How do you know?"

  "Archie Stanberry tells me some things are missing from the safe."

  "But how do you know she did it?"

  He laughed and said, "She was smart when it came to going through Stanberry's apartment. She didn't leave any fingerprints. But she wasn't smart when she lived in that apartment under an assumed name. Hell, it wouldn't have done her any good anyway. She couldn't have lived there for a month without leaving fingerprints."