“Personally,” he said, ” I’m staying here simply because you folks feel we should all be together. I’d prefer to take my chances in the open.”

  Taber Boxman nodded slowly.

  “I know exactly how you feel, Delamy. I’d be inclined to take my own chances in the open, only I realize that it’s a question of playing the thing safe.”

  Harrison Gale rubbed his hands together.

  ” If the cost isn’t prohibitive," he said, ” it’s remarkably efficient.”

  ” Well," Millers remarked.” let’s go to Our various rooms. We can try out our telephone system, and we can see who this first visitor is.”

  Delamy swung open the door to a mite of rooms.

  ”Why not all come in here with me,” he said, “since I seem to have drawn the lower floor? We’ll look this thing over together and see how it works.”

  Millers hesitated, but Pitley Simms nodded his head vehemently.

  "Now,” he said, “you’re talking sense. Whenever anything happens which seems to affect us, wc can all be together and see what’s going on.” They sat around a big desk in the room which bad been fitted up as C Wright Delamy’s private office.

  ” If you wish,” Menloe said,” you can see what’s taking place on a screen. The illumination isn’t as brilliant as I would tike to have it. That’s due to the presence of prismatic mirrors which reduce the image in size and then enlarge it through a series of lenses. However, here it is.”

  He pressed a button. In a dark corner of the room light sprang into brilliance on a silver screen. Spread out before the members of the Betterbilt Investment Company was a view of the room into which the elevator opened. A messenger, in uniform, was delivering a telegram to Ashley Crail,

  ” Let’s make a pool,” Boxman said. “We’ll put in a hundred dollars apiece. The man who gets the first telegram delivered here wins the pod.”

  They nodded their heads. Menloe pressed a switch. A vague humming sound filled the room, and then the voice of Ashley Crail, sounding greatly amplified, but, nevertheless, speaking clearly, and without distortion, said, ” Who’s it for?”

  The image of the messenger boy on the screen moved slightly. The head came up. The men, watching the screen, could see his features dearly, could see his lips move as he spoke. Then his voice hummed in over the loudspeaking system.

  “It’s for the Betterbilt Investment Company,” he said.

  Delamy turned to Elizabeth Crail.

  ” Skip out there and see what it is,” he said.

  She nodded, left the room; a moment later they saw her image come on the screen. They could even hear the rustle of paper as her fingers ripped the envelope open. She stared at the message for a moment, and her face showed on the screen as a picture of consternation.

  Delamy gave an explanation.

  ” Two to one,” he said, ” that it’s a telegram from this man who signs himself I. B. Letterman.”

  There were no takers.

  Ten seconds later the men stood in a circle staring moodily down at the telegram, which read, simply:

  ELABORATE PRECAUTIONS, GENTLEMEN. THEY ARE NOT ELABORATE ENOUGH. WITHIN THE NEXT TEN HOURS I WILL DEMONSTRATE TO YOU THE FUTILITY OF ATTEMPTING ESCAPE TOMORROW I WILL DEAL WITH BUT POUR. BY THE TIME I HAVE NARROWED THE FIELD TO THREE I WILL GET WHAT I WANT. IN THE MEANTIME YOU MIGHT DRAW STRAWS TO SEE WHO WILL BE NUMBER TWO ON THE LIST.

  I. B. LETTERMAN.

  CHAPTER III

  The Man Who Screamed

  The bell winch announced (lie arrival of a visitor clanged through tlie steel-walled reception room. A few moments later a rather shabbily-dressed man, about thirty, with penetrating, steady eyes, stepped from the elevator into the reception room. A young woman glanced at him.

  “Mr. Millers,” he said.

  “Your name?”

  “Cart Draper.”

  “What did you wish to see Mr. Millers about, Mr. Draper?”

  “It’s rather personal,” Draper said.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to give me an outline of what it is.”

  “It has to do,” he said slowly, “with Mr. Millers’ safety. It has to do with the safety of all of the five men who are here.”

  She stared at him steadily, and he met her gaze without flinching.

  “Can you be more specific than that?”

  “You might tell him,” he said,” that it is a matter of importance to him. If he wishes to know anything about me he can find out from Mr. Ashley Crail, who is, ( believe, in his employ.”

  She nodded and pressed a button. “Just a moment,” site said.

  Nell McLane, George Millers’ secretary. picked up the telephone, listened for a moment, then turned to Millers.

  “A man,” she said, “to see you who says his business has something to do with your immediate safety.”

  “What’s his name?” Millers demanded.

  ” Carl Draper.”

  ” Never heard of him before.”

  “Would you like to take a look at him?”

  “I think I will,” Millers said, lie strode into the room which was set aside for his private use, snapped over a key. observed the image which appeared on the screen.

  Slowly he shook his head.

  ”I not only don’t know him,” he stud, “but I don’t want to know hint He looks suspicious to me. I’m going to stretch out and smoke a cigar. You can talk with him. Get him to tell you exactly what he has in mind. I’ll listen in on the amplifier.”

  Nell McLane nodded, picked up notebook and pencil, and took the interoffice elevator to the forty-sixth floor. The electric doors opened at her signal- She advanced to Carl Draper.

  “I’m Mr. Millers’ secretary,” she said. n You can tell me exactly what you have in mind.”

  “I’ve been an officer,” he told her.” I’ve been a prize fighter; I’ve smuggled arms; I’ve been a revolutionist; I’ve been a bootlegger and I’ve been a hijacker. 1 happen to know that Mr. Millers is in need of a personal bodyguard. I want the job.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “In the first place,” she said, “you’ve been misinformed. In the second place, Mr. Millers wouldn’t hire a bodyguard who applied for the position. If he wanted a bodyguard he’d select one carefully from men who would have no idea that they were bring considered for the position.”

  Draper’s face showed disappointment.

  ”I'm friendly with Ashley Crail;” he said. “I’ve been friendly with him for a long time. He can give me plenty of character references. Crail works for Mr. Millers, doesn’t he?”

  ” He’s in the employ of the Better* bilt Investment Company, of -which Mr. Millers’ is a member.”

  ” Listen,” Draper said. ” I want to talk with Mr. Millers. If he listens to me for five minutes he’ll give me the job. I know he will.”

  "But,” Well McLane pointed out."Mr. Millers has no need for a bodyguard, none whatever.”

  “The -other fellows have body* -guards,” Draper said defiantly. “Harrison Gale has two bodyguards for his son and one for himself.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  "I’m afraid, Mr. Draper, that the Interview is ended. After all. I’m very busy, and there is absolutely nothing Which we have to offer.”

  She turned toward the door.

  Draper hesitated for a moment, made a quick step after her.

  "Look here,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something. I’ve had an-opportunity to get into a racket which was against Mr. Millers. I could give him some information about…

  Miss McLane turned.

  ” You can give me some specific information?” she asked.

  “Not to you,” he said. “Only to Mr. Millers.”

  She hesitated a moment and said, ” I’d have to ask Mr. Millers personally before I could consent to an interview.”

  She waited expectantly, then said,” Would you mind being seated for -a few minutes? I’ll see if Mr. Millers would care to talk with you.”

  She paused for a moment at the desk where the young lady who sat behind the sign marked” Information” controlled the switchboard.

  This young woman knew nothing whatever of the steel walls, of the machine guns which were in a position to spray the room with lead. The members of the Betterbilt Investment Company had felt it would be better to secure some stranger who would accept the work as routine employment. In that way, prying newspaper reporters would be unable to get any information from her, for the simple reason that she wouldn’t have any information to give.

  When no call was received from Millers, Nell McLane moved toward the electrically controlled doors. They swung open, one-at a time, clanged shut behind her. She got to the inter-office elevator which ran only between the forty-sixth and the fiftieth floor, nodded to the uniformed attendant, entered the cage, and was just leaving the elevator at the fiftieth floor when it happened.

  There could be no mistaking the sound.

  It was Millers who had screamed. The booming, vibrant quality of his utterances was sufficiently distinctive to stamp even a scream with his individuality.

  Above the scream was a roaring sound—a peculiar harsh, snarling undertone of vicious noise.

  Something crashed to the floor. Millers screamed again, gave a shouted cry which was inarticulate. The cry terminated in a second jarring thud. A half second later glass crashed outward.

  Silence seemed even more sinister than the noise which had preceded it

  Nell McLane stared at the uniformed elevator man.

  “Get help,” she said.

  She ran toward the door, flung her weight against it, twisting the knob. The uniformed elevator man shoved with his own shoulder against the door.

  ” No, no,” she gasped, “get help!”

  ” Not until we find out what’s happening,” he said. "I won’t leave you here alone.”

  “The door’s locked. We couldn’t smash it down in a hundred years. Get the others. Get Mr. Menloe; he’ll know bow to git in.”

  She pounded on the door with futile knuckles, shouting, ” Are you all right, Mr. Millers? Tell roe if you’re all right!”

  There was a faint noise from inside—a noise which was audible through the ventilating cracks in the door, but it was not a definite sound—nothing upon which the ears could focus, merely a vague rustling of motion.

  The elevator man ran for his cage. Nell Me Lane continued to stand at the door, rattling the knob, twisting H in her fingers, pushing her slender shoulder against the massive door.

  Menloe up the steps on the run. Da—9

  “What happened?” he asked ” We don’t know.”

  ” Millers’ police dog,” he said, ” was thrown out of the window. He fell fifty stories to the sidewalk.”

  “Good God!” she said Menloe ran to a closet.

  ” It’s going to take a crowbar,” he said, “to get that door open; even then we’re going to lose about five minutes.” He found a bar, started work on the door, wrenching, twisting and hammering.

  There was no sound from the room now, nothing but silence.

  Taber Boxman came up the stairs, his face white, his eyes wide. A short distance behind him Harrison Gale appeared, puffing from his unaccustomed exercise.

  ” What is it?” he asked ” We don’t know yet,” Menloe told them, straining his shoulder against the crowbar. “I’m afraid we’ve got to get a torch and burn through this steel door. There’s only one chance in a hundred that I can…”

  He gave one final lunge against the bar. The door lifted, remained stall for a moment; then, with a sound of metal pulling from metal, the lock let loose and the door shivered inward.

  Millers was lying on his face in the center of a great, welling, red pool. He was motionless.

  Menloe ran to him, turned the figure on its back, then gave a startled exclamation.

  ” Get back!” he shouted to Nell Me-Lane. ” His throat’s gone!”

  “Cut?” asked Taber Boxman.

  ”I said it’s gone!” Menloe cried in a voice which was high-pitched with hysterical excitement Harrison Gale walked across the room, carefully skirting the pool of sinister red. He regarded the shattered glass of the window.

  ” Someone,” he said, ” threw the dog out of the window.”

  He leaned forward and looked down, then shuddered.

  ” Fifty stories,” he said.

  Menloe wiped his face with a handkerchief.

  ” I saw it,” he said, ” after it hit the sidewalk…the dog…that is, all that was left. It was like a big red pancake smeared all over the sidewalk.”

  Nell McLane indicated the door and the windows.

  ” No one,” she said, “could possibly have got in here. No one could possibly have left.”

  Menloe grunted, stared at the sprawled figure.

  “Are you,” he asked, ” telling me? I designed the damn place.”

  “We’ll have to telephone to the police, Miss McLane,” Boxman said.

  Menloe stood with his hands clenched, staring down at the corpse.

  “But, he said that no matter what happened we were to keep it out of the newspapers,” Nell McLane remarked.

  Boxman’s hand rested lightly, and in a kindly manner, on her shoulder.

  “Poor kid,” he said, “I’m afraid you don’t understand. Alt that’s been changed now.”

  It was Harrison Gale who, with watery-eyed cynicism, crashed the idea home to her consciousness.

  ” He’d want it that way,” he said. ” He’d want a big obituary.”

  CHAPTER IV

  The Man Who Couldn’t Forget

  Four millionaires sat in the conference room. Four millionaires who talked in low voices, and who kept their heads dose together, as though by huddling they could, in some way, shut out the menace of that which had happened, and that which threatened.

  “You can’t tell me,” Boxman said, with quiet finality,” that the fellow who came in to see Millers didn’t have something to do with it.”

  “But he couldn’t have gone into the room,” Gale protested. “He was sitting right there in the reception room all the time.”

  Boxman shrugged his shoulders, a gesture of suave finality.

  “No one,” he said, “could have entered that room. At any rate, that’s what Menloe says.”

  ” I’m not so sure about Menloe,” Pitley Simms remarked.

  ” Nonsense,” Boxman said. “If there’s anyone who’s under suspicion, it’s that man Draper.”

  ” What happened? How long did he wail?” Delamy inquired.

  “He didn’t wait,” Boxman said. “Nell McLane went to ask Millers whether he wanted to pump this chap personally. The chap seemed to have some information, or else he was running a pretty good bluff. Nell thought that Millers might want to talk with him personally, and then, perhaps, turn him over to the police.”

  “We’ve got to keep the police out of this just as much as we can,” Box-man announced.

  “The cat’s out of the bag now,” Delamy said.

  “Then, we’ve got to work fast and get this straightened out before the insurance company changes the classification of us as business risks.”

  Delamy said slowly, “I wonder if you fellows have seen ’The Man Who Couldn’t Forget’?”

  “I have,” Harrison Gale said.

  Boxman raised bis eyebrows.

  “It was a revelation to me," Delamy told them quietly. “I went to the show because I felt like vaudeville. I didn’t know what was on the bill at the time.

  ” Most men try to remember. This man tries to forget and can’t do it. Anything that he sees once lie remembers indefinitely. He can go through the audience, pick out faces, and tell where he last saw them—in different cities, riding on trains, whizzing by in automobiles, pounding the sidewalks.” ” Incredible,” Pitley Simms said.

  ” It may be incredible,” Delamy told him, ” but the man does it. He sees everything and forgets nothing.” Harrison (kite said slowly,” I can tell you fellows something. It’s not supposed (O be known, but I got it through Edward Brent, the lawyer. It was this Man Who Couldn’t Forget that cleared up the Skyscraper Murder cases last month.”

  Boxman turned inquiring eyes to Delamy.

  ” You were contemplating consulting tills vaudeville actor?” he asked, in a voice which showed polite incredulity."

  ” Yes,” said Delamy shortly.

  Pitley Simms lowered his voice. ” Look here,” he said. ” Here’s an angle that wc haven’t gone into. Miss McLane tells me that Carl Draper said he was friendly to Ashley Crail. Now, Ashley Crail is a brother of your secretary, Delamy. In fact, it was through Elizabeth Crail that you gave him a position with us.”

  “What about it?” Delamy asked.

  ” Just this,” Simms said. ‘* I think Draper had something to do with that murder, and I think that Crail is mixed up m it somehow.”

  “How?” Delamy inquired in an un* cordial tone.

  “I don’t know,” Simms said irritably. “If I knew how the murder had been committed I’d know enough to make my suspicions sound convincing.”

  “They certainly don’t carry conviction now,” Delamy told him shortly.

  Taber Boxman met C. Wright Delamy’s eye*.

  “They do to me, Delamy,” he said. “You’re prejudiced. You think anything Elisabeth Crail does is all right.”

  Delamy flushed.

  ” I think,” Simms said, glancing at Boxman, ” we understand each other perfectly. I think we owe it to ourselves to have a complete investigation made.”

  Delamy pushed back his chair.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, ” let’s not have any misunderstanding about this thing. As far as I am concerned, you can all go to hell.”

  Ben Harper, peering through the windshield of his automobile, saw his name blazoned in electric lights over the Palace Theater, yet he received no thrill of satisfaction from the sight. The truth of the matter was, Harper was getting fed up with his vaudeville career.