The chief gulped his surprise. The belligerency melted away from him, leaving him rather awed.

  He advanced, read the lettering on the sergeant’s badge. “Any credentials?” he asked, suspiciously.

  Sergeant Ackley took a billfold from his pocket, showed him commissions, photographs, signatures, letters.

  “Sorry, sergeant,” said the chief, “but you sure got a hell of a way of working on a case with me. You come to town and don’t tell me anything about it, and then one of your men gives me a ring and tips me off Colby was discharged from San Quentin, and—”

  “Mr. Beaver,” said Sergeant Ackley, speaking hurriedly, “has no connection with the police department. He is the valet of Mr. Lester Leith, the gentleman who is fingering the dog collar.”

  And Sergeant Ackley closed one eye in a portentous wink, jerked his hand in a gesture, shrugged his shoulders, pursed his lips, and gave other evidences of stealth, caution, secrecy and warning.

  All of which various gestures, being perfectly visible to Lester Leith in a wall mirror, caused that individual to become seized with a fit of coughing.

  “Well, what I want to know,” continued the chief, “is how in heck you fellows got all that information about Colby.”

  His voice was cautious now, too cautious to fail to alarm a wary quarry, and Sergeant Ackley made haste to inject himself into the conversation.

  “That tip came from Mr. Lester Leith without my knowledge. Leith takes a great interest in crime news. He’s always working on some crime or other.”

  (Here Sergeant Ackley took advantage of Leith’s modestly lowered eyes to inject some more pantomime.)

  “And he took an interest in the Striker murder, apparently. He sent his valet on ahead to get certain information. And then Leith came on. It happened that I was accidentally on the same train, and Leith has kindly invited us to be his guests for a few days.”

  “Oh,” remarked Lambertson, “I see.”

  And his lips pressed together so tightly that the mustache bristles scraped against his nostrils. The big hand swept to the broad-brimmed hat and jerked it off. “I see,” he said again, and dropped into a chair.

  “Was there—er—anything to the tip—about Colby?” asked Sergeant Ackley, anxiously.

  “Was there! Say, d’yuh want to hear?”

  “Yes, but—er—well, tell me the main facts. You can let the details wait.”

  “This Colby was convicted from Los Angeles under the name of Tillotson. He’s one of the slickest confidence men that ever got into jail, and he swindled his way out. He got some of the witnesses against him to withdraw their statements and got the parole board to let him out. It turned out later on that the witnesses had been bribed to make those retractions with some mining stock that they thought was worth a million, and then the stock deal turned out to be a bigger swindle than any of ‘em.

  “They’re indicting the witnesses for perjury, but they didn’t dare prosecute ‘em without Tillotson because it looked like the poor victims were being sent to jail while the crook was at liberty.

  “It’s a hell of a mess, and California would give a good deal to get this same Tillotson, alias Colby, back where they wanted him. And now I’ve got a good murder rap on him. And to think I let the damned crook slip through my fingers!”

  Sergeant Ackley’s eyes glittered.

  “Of course,” he said, “while Leith had the tip telephoned to you. I—well, er—that is, I had a pretty good idea about this chap, Colby. Apparently Leith got the same idea very shortly after I did.”

  “But how did you know?” asked the perplexed chief.

  Ackley waved a hand toward Leith. “Tell him, Leith. I dare say your reasoning processes followed the same general lines mine did.”

  Leith bowed.

  “Tut, tut, my dear sergeant. I really didn’t have any reasons. I simply wanted to keep Scuttle out of mischief. The devil finds mischief for idle hands, and this apartment doesn’t give Scuttle very much work to do. It was just a coincidence as far as I was concerned.

  “But apparently you reasoned it out. It was a devilishly clever thing to do, if you just reasoned it out. Do tell the chief how you reasoned. I’m most interested.”

  And Beaver, he who had worked with Sergeant Ackley for years, and knew only too well how that individual was always a hog for grabbing any credit that he thought he could get, how he always appropriated the ideas of others as his own, became suddenly seized with a spasm which necessitated his abrupt departure from the room.

  Sergeant Ackley’s face turned a brick red.

  “I’ll talk with you later about that, chief. The important point is that we know. I don’t want to divulge too many details, as yet.”

  And Sergeant Ackley jerked his head significantly toward Lester Leith.

  “Oh, by the way chief,” said Lester Leith, apparently failing to appreciate the significance of that jerk of the head, “we were signing a document before you came in, and I’d like to have have your signature on it as well.”

  And Lester Leith pulled the folded paper from his pocket. Chief Lambertson glanced at Sergeant Ackley.

  Sergeant Ackley nodded.

  Chief Lambertson grasped the proffered fountain pen in his thick fingers. He read the document, his thick lips forming the words as his eyes slowly went from line to line.

  “Well, of all the damn foolish—”

  But Sergeant Ackley’s fist prodded him in the fat back with an insistence that was not to be denied.

  Slowly, laboriously, he drew the letters that formed his name.

  “And now,” said Lester Leith, “I wonder if we can’t call in a notary public to have these various signatures acknowledged.”

  “Why, hell, everybody knows—”

  But Sergeant Ackley interrupted Chief Lambertson’s remarks.

  “Certainly, surely. We can acknowledge that’s it’s our free and voluntary statement,” he said, and winked once more at the country officer.

  A notary public was summoned, a rather hatchet-faced girl with nose glasses, a hopeless droop to the mouth, pop eyes which were filmed with perpetual moisture, and hands which were long and tapering, terminating in slim, sentient fingers which seemed independent entities, each capable of individual motion. They were hands which were unique, utterly fascinating.

  Lester Leith watched them with skilled appraisal as she affixed a notarial acknowledgment, signature and seal.

  “You play the piano, don’t you, Miss Garver?”

  The girl’s face lit up with an expression of enthusiasm. “Oh, I love it. I’ve always wanted to study in the city, but I’ve never been able. I’ve only had the advantage of country music teachers. You see mother’s crippled with rheumatism.”

  Lester Leith nodded gravely.

  Sergeant Ackley cleared his throat after the manner of one who embarks upon a carefully rehearsed speech. “If you folks are going to talk music,” he said, “I’ll take Chief Lambertson and Fawkes into the other room for a minute. I want to talk over some stuff with ‘em, about catching a N’Yawk crook. It ain’t anything that you’re interested in, Leith; just a matter of police routine, an’ I won’t bore you.”

  “Certainly,” said Lester Leith. “Walk right into the bedroom and make yourself at home. I’ll have Scuttle wait on you with tea, Scuttle, make the gentlemen some tea.

  “And I’m going to play for Miss Garver. Probably this piano, which is furnished with the apartment, may be a bit out of tune, but it’ll serve the purpose.”

  And Lester Leith approached the instrument, swung a piano stool into proper adjustment.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Miss Garver, “it’s in perfect tune. I know the folks who had the apartment before. They just lived for music—”

  CHAPTER VII

  The Music Lesson

  Lester Leith’s trained fingers crashed down upon the keys, and a volume of harmony emerged from the instrument which would have been ample had Leith been giving a concert performance. His foot jammed down the loud pedal. His hands went up in the air once more, crashed down.

  Ackley led the way into bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar so that he could peer into the sitting room. The valet, under guise of getting an order for tea and cakes, finding out who liked tea, who coffee, who toast, who cake, managed to hover over the group, finding occasion to put in a word here and there.

  And Lester Leith, seated at the piano stool, paid them absolutely no attention, but sent his fingers flying over the board while Miss Garver’s moist eyes became more misty than ever. Her mouth sagged and an expression of rapture was on her features.

  “Get this,” hissed Sergeant Ackley. “That guy’s the slickest crook the country ever turned out. He can pull jobs right under the noses of the police, and they can’t get him.”

  Chief Lambertson indicated the valet. “Better get rid of this guy-”

  “He’s all right, chief. He’s one of our men. That’s why I tell you how dangerous this fellow is. Why Beaver’s been undercover as his valet for a year. We’ve had him shadowed day and night, and we’ve had a dictograph in his apartment and taken down every word he’s said, and he still manages to pull his crimes. He can slip shadows as easy as a duck slips water, he—”

  Chief Lambertson lurched to his feet, felt the holstered weapon at his waist.

  “Well, he can’t slip me, and he can’t pull stuff here. I sometimes have trouble finding a crook, but when I get him tagged, it’s curtains, that’s all.”

  Sergeant Ackley did not trouble to suppress the smile which wreathed his features.

  “Well, this one’s rather different. He even uses the police to help him pull his stunts.”

  “Say,” demanded the country chief, “are you guys crazy?”

  In the silence which ensued there came to their ears the music of the piano, a tinkling, roguish tune of soul-stirring propensities.

  “Listen to him,” said Ackley. “He plays like a fiend.”

  They listened for several minutes, so fascinating was the music. Then they fell into a whispered discussion of plans. After some ten minutes the pseudo-valet backed from the room.

  “Very well, gentlemen,” he said. “Two coffees and one tea, with lemon. Cream with the coffee. Two toasts, one tea wafers. Yes, sirs.”

  He turned, and then fell back in sheer amazement.

  Miss Garver sat at the piano, playing as though her very soul’s salvation depended upon the correct rendition of the music. She was alone in the room.

  The valet gained the bedroom with a single stride.

  “Gone!” he said.

  “He’s playing the piano, you sap,” said Sergeant Ackley.

  The undercover man snorted.

  “Look.”

  They looked, Sergeant Ackley, his mind suddenly grasping the situation, rushing for the player. Fawkes standing open-mouthed in the doorway, Chief Lambertson laboriously and slowly tugged the weapon away from its hip holster, his face very red as he strained to get his hand back to the hip, the gun from its holster.

  Miss Garver screamed as Sergeant Ackley’s rough hands grasped her shoulders. Then she turned and the color drained from her face.

  “Why! Where…what?”

  Her amazement was so utterly genuine that it immediately exonerated her, even in the eyes of Sergeant Ackley.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Why!” exclaimed the girl. “Why, I never in my life! Why!”

  “Quick!” rasped Ackley.

  “Why, he played for me a bit and then asked me to finish the piece. He bet me that I couldn’t sit on the stool beside him and take up the playing where he left off without interruption and without missing a note.”

  And then the pop eyes swam in tears.

  “And he told me that if my technique seemed good enough, he’d send me to New York to study, and, later on, to Paris!”

  But no one was paying any attention to the girl.

  The open door to the kitchenette, the open back door, the streaming sunlight from the back yard told their own story. Sergeant Ackley found time to grin at Chief Lambertson. “So they don’t ever get away from you?” he asked, and the sarcasm of his tone was far greater than the situation called for, acute as it was.

  “Well, by cripes, he can’t make it stick,” bellowed Chief Lambertson. “Gimme the telephone, and I’ll close up this town on him like a clamshell in ice water!”

  And he proceeded to telephone various and sundry people, using much force and profanity. Bit by bit, after the single-handed fashion of a limited police force, he closed various avenues of escape.

  He telephoned railroad men, inter-urban ticket offices, bus stations, cab drivers, drive-yourself stations.

  “Now, gents,” he announced ponderously, “this town’s sealed up as far as that crook’s getting out. This ain’t like a city the size of N’York. We got him so he can’t get out, an’ now all we gotta do is stroll down on the street. If he’s on the streets we can find him inside of ten minutes.”

  Which last statement was readily apparent.

  His broad-brimmed hat tilted back at an angle, the stubby mustache bristling over one of Sergeant Ackley’s cigars, the pompous official waddled with belligerent assurance to the street, and began a search which lasted not ten minutes, but half an hour.

  At the end of which time sheer accident aided them in picking up the trail of Lester Leith.

  Casual conversation with an automobile dealer developed the fact that a well-dressed stranger had called at the display room, purchased the demonstrator, paid for it with cash, waived all formalities of transferring title, and had driven out of town at a rate that indicated the foot throttle was pressed well against the floor boards.

  “Where could he be going?” demanded Ackley.

  “He got a road map to Valparaiso,” said the dealer.

  “Come with me. I got a car with a siren an’ a red light,” said Chief Lambertson, and ran with the waddling pace of the very fat whose joints are also very unlimber.

  The party hurried out, attracting attention as their feet pounded the cement sidewalks.

  Lambertson slowed to a puffing walk, placed a hand over his heart, gasped for breath, pointed melodramatically at the opposite curb.

  Sergeant Ackley followed his glance, and then exploded into a single epithet.

  The red car which was parked at the opposite side of the street, equipped with red spotlight and siren, the car which the municipality of Pickets placed at the official disposal of its corpulent chief of police for the running down of criminals, was a model “T” of the vintage of around 1925.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Lester Works Fast

  Lester Leith confronted the lean man with the catfish mouth. “You’re Sidney Striker?”

  “Yes, yes, you’re Leith then. Your wire was rather peculiar, asking me to remain in my office all the afternoon of this day.”

  “Couldn’t help it,” said Lester Leith. “Couldn’t tell just what time I could get away. Where can we talk?”

  “In here, Mr. Leith. You wanted to see me about purchasing the Wiker block, your telegram said?”

  “That’s what my telegram said.”

  The lean man whirled, gave a suspicious glance at his visitor, then led the way into a private office.

  “And what the telegram said was correct, I hope.” Lester Leith shrugged his shoulders, settled in a chair, took a cigarette from its case, tapped it on his thumb nail and reached for a lighter.

  “I wished to discuss the matter of a ten-thousand-dollar reward I understood had been offered for the arrest of your wife’s murderer.”

  The man started as though an electric current had contacted him.

  “That’s been four years ago. I fancy the reward has outlawed.”

  “Possibly,” agreed Leith, blowing a smoke cloud toward the ceiling, “but the murder has not outlawed. Murder never outlaws.”

  Sidney Striker clamped his catfish mouth into a thin line of alarm.

  “Exactly what do you mean?” he asked.

  “When you murdered Margy Marigold there was no apparent motive. That’s why the police missed the significant clew.”

  Sidney Striker gave a gasp, a hissing expellation of breath. His thin lips blued. The eyes blinked. He gasped, choked, inhaled, and then regained some semblance of composure.

  “That’s slander. I’ll make you prove that statement.”

  “With pleasure. In the course of a criminal career covering many years, I’ve encountered lots of skunks, Striker, but you’re the worst. You lived under the name of Marigold and won the love of Bradbury’s wife. She divorced Bradbury to marry you, and even then you were tired of her. You slipped away, both of you, came to Pickets and took the names of Mr. and Mrs. Striker. You lived happily, outwardly. But, all the time, you were planning black murder.

  “You mentioned your great property interests, and you secured a joint insurance policy of fifty thousand dollars on your life and that of your wife. Then you persuaded her it would be fitting to have it appear she had vanished. So you made frequent trips to California to engage detectives to hunt for the woman whom you had concealed in Pickets. And all this was part of a most diabolical scheme of murder. You wanted to collect that insurance policy in such a manner there could never be any comeback on you.

  “When the year was up and Margy Bradbury was entitled to her final decree in California, you were careful to be there on the job. In accordance with your prearranged plan, the woman who had been Margy Bradbury, who had masqueraded with you as Martha Striker, met you in the east and became Margy Marigold.

  “Then you secured the services of a swindler, an ex-convict whom you helped swindle out of jail. You had him in your power. You persuaded him to live in an adjoining apartment in Pickets under the name of Colby. Then he was to disappear and take your ‘wife’ with him. That would account for the disappearance of Martha Striker, and pave the way for a reappearance of Margy Bradbury.

  “That’s what you told Colby. And you told him, also, to follow you east, to come to your little bungalow and rob you, tie you up, and leave you. You planned on luring Bradbury to the vicinity of that cottage. And you told Colby you would identify Bradbury as the assailant. You told him that would put Bradbury in enough hot water to keep him out of mischief.