"You mean you've found her fingerprints in that apartment?"

  "Sure. The one she rented under an assumed name. What's more, the manager and one of the clerks identify her photograph absolutely."

  "Gosh !"I said.

  "Don't let it get you, lover," Bertha said cheerfully. "She never was anything but a little gold-digger with pretty legs.”

  “How did you get wise?" I asked Sellers.

  "Shucks, there was nothing to it. You went out to see this man Cullingdon. She went out to see Cullingdon. Your cars

  were parked side by each, or end to end—whichever you want to call it. She knew where your car was. She knew whose car it was. You let her drive you away. After you left her, she had ample time to drive out and ditch the murder weapon in your car. She thought she was being smart as hell when she did it. It was one of those things that looked good at the time, but it stuck her head in the noose."

  Bertha said suddenly, "Listen, Frank, I don't want to go back with you after you've made the pinch and have Donald in the car with that little tart. Suppose Donald and I take the agency car and follow right along behind you. I'll see that he doesn't telephone."

  Sellers thought that over for a moment and said, "Okay." He walked over to the agency car with me.

  I reached in my pocket for the keys. A sinking feeling developed in the pit of my stomach. I'd left the car keys and my driving gloves on the table in Billy Prue's apartment.

  "Well?" Bertha said.

  I know now how people feel when they get stage fright. There probably wasn't anything I could have said then that would have stalled the thing off, but if there had been, I couldn't have said it. I was absolutely tongue-tied. I just stood there fumbling through my pockets.

  "Where are they?" Bertha said.

  "I must have dropped them there on the carpet when I took these other keys out of my pocket."

  Bertha looked at Frank Sellers.

  Frank Sellers said softly under his breath, "Why, you dirty double-crosser!"

  The next second I felt his left hand grab my wrist. I saw the flash of steel and heard the ratchet of handcuffs. Steel bit into my wrists.

  "All right, wise guy," Sellers said. "I gave you a chance and you couldn't take it the easy way. You have to do it the hard way. All right, that's the way we're going to play from now on. Come on, Buddy, you're going back upstairs."

  I said indignantly, "What the hell's eating you? Those keys are somewhere there on the carpet in front of that door and..."

  "And I've just noticed," Sellers said, "that you aren't wearing your driving gloves. A hell of a detective I am. Come on, Buddy, we're going back."

  We went back. There was nothing else to do.

  Sellers got down on his knees in front of the door to Billy Prue's apartment. He felt along the carpet. It was only a perfunctory gesture. Then he took my own skeleton keys and fitted one into the lock.

  I made one last desperate attempt.

  "Are you going in there without a search warrant?" I asked. Frank Sellers isn't a guy you can bluff that easy. "You're

  damn right I'm going in there without a warrant," he said. The key clicked the lock back.

  Billy Prue was sitting just as I had left her in the chair, her face might have been moulded in pastry dough and daubed with make-up.

  Sellers took in the situation with a practised eye, walked over to the table and said, "Those your gloves, Lam?" I said, "I'm not answering any questions."

  Sellers picked up the car keys, said, "The gloves and the keys will be evidence. Get your things on, Billy. You're going places. Let me see your hand a minute."

  He picked up her hand.

  There was nothing I could do about it even if I had warned her.

  A half second later she jerked back and screamed as the cold steel touched her wrists, then the ratchet bit into pressure and Billy Prue and I were handcuffed one to the other.

  "All right, Little Miss Murderess and Mr. Accessory-Afterthe-Fact," Frank Sellers said grimly. "We're going to teach you little lovebirds something."

  Bertha looked from me to Frank Sellers. "Listen, Frank," she said, "suppose ..."

  "Nothing doing," Sellers said roughly.

  "But Frank ..."

  "Shut up," he said. "And this time, we all ride in my car."

  Chapter Eighteen

  SELLERS only stopped long enough to fit my keys to the lock on the agency car to make sure they worked. Then he loaded us into the police automobile, turned on the motor, and kicked in the siren.

  It was a hell of a place in which to have to think, but I knew

  that I had to think, and think fast. By the time we reached Headquarters, it would be too late to do any good.

  The siren was screaming for the right of way and the car was building into speed. We flashed past a street intersection. My eyes noticed the name of the street we were on. It was Mantica Street.

  Ahead of us and on the left was a rather swanky apartment hotel. A couple of taxicabs were parked in front. One of the drivers looked up curiously as the siren went screaming by. I had a glimpse of a twisted, broken nose.

  The next street was Garden Vista Boulevard and Frank Sellers was bracing his car for a screaming turn.

  "Frank ! " I yelled at him.

  He didn't even turn his head.

  The tyres screamed the car around the turn.

  "Frank, for God's sake stop ! "

  Something in my voice caught his ears, made him ease his foot on the throttle. "What is it this time, a stall?"

  "The murderer of Rufus Stanberry," I said.

  "I've got her right here."

  "No, no, Frank. For God's sake—at least pull in to the kerb and let me talk to you before he gets away."

  He hesitated.

  Bertha said, "Please, Frank."

  "The hell with him," Frank said. "It's just a stall and you know it as well as I do. He's quick-witted enough to have thought up some lie and ..."

  "Goddammit ! " Bertha screamed at him. "Pull this car in to the kerb ! "

  Sellers looked at her in surprise.

  Bertha leaned forward, twisted the ignition key in the lock, jerked it out, and held her hand out of the window.

  The motor went dead. The momentum carried us in to the kerb as Sellers turned the steering wheel.

  Sellers sat perfectly still. His face was white with rage. After a half second, he said in a choked voice, "It's all right with me. I take in the three of you."

  Bertha looked back at me and said, "And don't kid yourself he isn't man enough to do it. If you've got anything to say, say it—and I hope to hell you've got something."

  I leaned forward to put my left hand on Frank Sellers' shoulders. The right was handcuffed to Billy Prue.

  "Listen, Frank," I said. "I'm coming clean. I've wonderedhow the hell that murder weapon got in my car. I've thought back over every step of the way. It couldn't, simply couldn't have been put in my car by someone who knew whose car it was and was framing things on me unless Billy Prue double-crossed me, and I don't think she double-crossed me. There's only one other way it could have got in my car."

  Sellers was listening now.

  I said, "Listen, Frank, I'm doing this for you as much as for anybody. For the love of Mike, don't pull us in and get a splash in the newspapers and then have to hide your face."

  "Don't worry about my face," Sellers said. "Tell me about that murder weapon."

  I said, "The only way it could have been put in the car was by someone who didn't know what car it was—who it belonged to."

  "Nuts!" Sellers said.

  "And," I went on, "there was only one way that could have happened and that was that my car happened to be the most convenient and the most accessible place for the murderer to have put it, and there's only one way that could have happened, and that was when my car was parked at the Rimley Rendezvous and I tried to be a smart Aleck and squeeze in in front of the car behind me on the hope that it wouldn't go out before I did. But the guy in the car behind me wasn't that sort of an egg. He simply stuck his car in low gear and pushed mine out into the taxi zone and went on his way. And a taxi driver damn near beat me up over it when I came out—and that taxi driver was sitting in a cab at that hotel a couple of blocks back on Mantica Street. That's probably his regular stand. And the handle of that hand axe had been sawed off so it would fit in a woman's handbag."

  "And what the hell's all that got to do with this pinch?" Sellers asked.

  "Don't you see?" I said. "Don't you get the sketch? Remember that accident at Mantica Street and Garden Vista Boulevard? Figure out the time element. Now then, if you want to be a smart dick—be smart, and if you want to be dumb—be dumb. I've said everything I'm going to say. Put the keys back in the ignition, Bertha."

  Bertha said, "But I don't get it, lover. 'What the hell has the taxicab got to do with ..."

  "Put the keys back in the lock," I said. "Sellers has a

  chance now to either cover himself with glory, or make himself the prize damn fool of the force."

  Sellers said, "I'm not making myself a prize damn fool of anything—not with the stuff I've got on this Billy Prue."

  "You haven't got a damn thing on her except coincidence," I went on. "Billy and I were having an affair before I left. She knew I was coming back. I couldn't be with her in the apartment where she was living without having Pittman Rimley blow my guts out. She got this apartment in the Fulrose Apartments so we could be together. It was a love nest. That's where I was last night, and why Bertha couldn't find me."

  "You son-of-a-gun," Bertha said half under her breath, and put the keys back in the ignition.

  Frank Sellers sat there for as much as thirty seconds without saying a word. Then he pressed his foot on the starter button, slammed the car into gear, and made a U turn in the middle of the block. The siren started wailing again and the red spotlight blinked on and off.

  We swung round the turn from Garden Vista Boulevard into Mantica Street and the broken-nosed cab driver was still at the wheel of his car.

  Sellers braked the car to a stop alongside the taxi driver. Shifty little eyes glittered out from either side of the broken nose.

  "What's eating yuh?" the cab driver asked.

  Sellers said, "Yesterday afternoon there was a smash-up on Mantica Street and Garden Vista Boulevard. Know anything about it?"

  "I heard it."

  "Pick up a fare right afterwards?"

  Broken-nose frowned, then said, "Yes. What's it to you?”

  “Man or woman?"

  "Woman."

  "What did she want?"

  The glittering little eyes met Sellers' for a moment, then shifted.

  Sellers suddenly threw open the door of the car, walked round and stood with his broad shoulders hulking against the side of the taxicab. He whipped open the door of the cab. "Come out of that," he said to the driver.

  Broken-nose sized him up, hesitated.

  Sellers' hand shot forward, took a good . grip on the neck-tie

  Se

  and shirt of the cab driver. He gave a jerk. come out!"

  The cab driver came out and was suddenly respectful. "What is it you want?" he asked.

  "Your fare. What about it? Who was it?"

  "A woman," he said. "She wanted me to shadow a couple of cars that she said would be coming around the corner.”

  “Keep talking," Sellers said.

  "When the car came around the corner on Mantica Street, we followed along. Then I noticed a second car was tagging after the first. I told my fare about it. She said never mind the second car, to stay with the first one. It was only about three blocks. They stopped down here at an apartment house. A man went in. The woman in the other car drove away. My fare told me to wait. We waited for about ten minutes."

  "Go ahead."

  "Then a jane came out of the apartment, jumped in a car, and drove away. My fare got excited. She got out, handed me a five-dollar note, and said, `That's for security on the fare.' She walked into the apartment house and was gone about ten minutes in all. Then she came back, got in the cab, and said, `Drive to the Rimley Rendezvous.'

  "We drove up to the Rimley Rendezvous. Some bastard had parked a car where it took up most of the cab space. I said, `Wait a minute and I'll bust this car out of here!' But she didn't wait. She got out. She had to walk clean around the parked car. She walked around it and on into the Rimley Rendezvous. A guy came out and climbed into the parked car. I tried to shake him down for a buck. He wouldn't shake. I had five bucks for a sixty-cent ride, so I let him pull the old stall about having been shoved ahead into the cab space."

  "Notice anything peculiar about this woman's handbag?" Sellers asked.

  The cabbie looked at him with a certain dawning respect in his eyes. "She had something pretty heavy in her handbag. It stuck out. I thought it might have been ..."

  "A rod?" Sellers asked as the man hesitated.

  "Uh huh. Only it wasn't a rod."

  "Perhaps a hammer or a small hand axe?"

  Sudden realisation showed in the little eyes. "Hell," the cabbie said disgustedly, "that's what it was—and me wondering if it was a rod ! "

  "What did this woman look like?" Sellers asked.

  "Not bad-looking," the driver said appreciatively. "Nice

  legs, swell hips, nice complexion. Teeth a little too big, that's all. Horse-toothed when she smiled."

  "Fry me for an oyster ! " Bertha exclaimed under her breath.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ELLERY GRAIL was pacing back and forth in front of our office when Bertha and I came up in the elevator.

  His face lit with relief when he saw us. He came running forward and gripped my hand. "I was hoping you'd be here," he said. "The elevator operator said you folks frequently came in at night, although you didn't keep the office open after five o'clock."

  Bertha said belligerently, "Well, we got you a settlement,

  and..."

  "Let's go inside where we can talk," Crail said.

  Bertha latch-keyed the door and we went into the private office.

  Bertha went on, "Just like I told you over the telephone. You owe us three hundred dollars more and ..."

  Grail looked at her as though she might have been talking a foreign language, then he looked at me.

  I shook my head and said, "I didn't tell her anything.”

  “What the hell are you two talking about?" Bertha asked. Grail took a cheque-book from his pocket, pulled out a

  fountain pen.

  "Three hundred dollars," Bertha said.

  Grail looked up at her and said, "Mrs. Cool, I want to thank you people for the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, and I think I owe every bit of my happiness to Donald Lam."

  Bertha's jaw dropped.

  Grail said, "I guess you know what happened—Lam seems to anyway. I was suspicious of my wife and Stanberry. I wondered why she was so eager to have me buy the Stanberry Building at a price that my banker said was about three times too high. When she went out yesterday afternoon I—well, I decided to follow her. It was a decision I reached all at once. My car wasn't there, but I knew that it would be all right with Georgia Rushe if I borrowed her car. I borrowed it.

  "I'm not going to tell you all that happened. Lam knows, anyway. I followed my wife. I saw the accident. I saw enough to know that she was deliberately following Stanberry. I went back to the office. Georgia didn't even know I'd borrowed her car—and then I read about Stanberry being murdered and .. . well, I put it up to my wife.

  "She admitted that Stanberry had been blackmailing her. She wouldn't tell me what it was about. Well, you know—I wanted to be a strong silent man. I wanted to be an understanding husband. I didn't ask any questions. I decided to back my wife to the limit. I knew that she'd be called as a witness in that automobile accident. I decided to have the case settled so that it could never be shown that her car was trailing Stanberry's. I came to you to get the case settled.

  "And then Lam showed me how life can't be lived that way. You can't sacrifice yourself to keep from hurting someone if by doing so you're hurting someone else a great deal more. And ... well, I had a talk with her, and this time I wasn't just a big sucker. I had in the back of my mind the knowledge of Georgia lying unconscious in a hospital, knowing that she had tried to take her life because of me, and I saw a lot of things in a slightly different light. And then Irma started talking about property settlement and was quite businesslike about the whole thing, and I realised that I'd been trapped into marriage simply as a financial investment. I was never so relieved in my life. I gave her a settlement that made her eyes bulge out and told her to get reservations for Reno and came up here to find Donald Lam."