“And of telling her of the brother who was taken for a ride?” he asked.

  “I shan’t tell her!” snapped the figure on the couch.

  “I see,” he muttered, noncommittally.

  “You would,” she flared.

  Paul Pry shot her a swifter glance. The face was as fierce as that of a tigress, and it softened instantly into a smile of invitation.

  “But I want to thank you—properly, when I have the opportunity, for saving my life. When can I see you?”

  “Any time.”

  “Well. I’ve had a minute of relaxation, and that’s enough. I’ll pack my suitcase, and get started. Tell you what—you got any friends in the city?”

  The tone was anxious.

  “Not a friend,” said Paul Pry.

  Paul Pry hesitated for an appreciable fraction of a second.

  A swift smile darted about her lips.

  “Oh, I know,” she said. “You don’t need to explain. Listen, maybe you can do something else for me. Go to the Billington Hotel and register under the name of George Inman, will you. You don’t need to stay there, just take a room so you’ll be registered, and so you can get mail there. If you’ll do that, I’ll drop you a note as soon as the child gets well.”

  “O.K.,” said Paul Pry, his face lightening. “That’ll be a swell idea. George Inman, eh?”

  “George Inman,” she said.

  The woman kicked off the folds of the negligee, and the result was rather startling.

  “And get out of here, so I can get into some street clothes. I’ll drop you a note.”

  Paul Pry finished his drink, reached for the door knob.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” she said.

  “Toodle-loo,” remarked Paul Pry after the manner of a male who has been utterly hypnotized.

  “Cheerio,” she cooed as the door closed.

  Paul Pry, in the corridor, became swiftly cautious. He didn’t go down the back stairs, the way he had come, but went to the front of the building, found an automatic elevator, entered the cage and pressed the button which took him to the lobby. He walked out, past a desk where a colored lad in a brilliant uniform sat at a telephone switchboard, and out onto the lighted street.

  He walked a few steps, retraced his steps and looked at the index over the mail boxes.

  The woman’s name was the same as that on the letter. Lola Beeker.

  Paul Pry called a cab.

  The address that he gave was within half a block from the place he had been standing when the woman had debouched from the car, a vision in white.

  He discharged the cab, paid the meter, and stubbed his toe as he turned back to the sidewalk. He tried to get up, but sank back with a groan. The cab driver, suddenly solicitous, jumped from the cab, came toward him.

  “What is it, boss?”

  “I don’t know,” said Paul Pry. “Something happened in my leg, a nerve or something. I can’t move it.”

  The taxi driver straightened, peered up and down the side street.

  “There’s a doctor over there, about seventy-five feet or so. Think you can make it?”

  Paul Pry groaned, nodded.

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  A passerby, attracted by the sprawled figure, came cautiously over. The cab driver explained. Between them, they got Paul Pry to his feet and took him along the pavement to the flat where a sign announced that Philip G. Manwright, M.D., held office hours from two to five in the afternoon on every day except Sunday.

  The cab driver pressed the bell.

  After some two or three tries, there sounded motion from within the house, and feet thudded along the corridor which led to the door. A light clicked on, and a man in bathrobe with hair that was mussed up and eyes that were slightly swollen with sleep, regarded them in dour appraisal.

  “Doctor?” asked the cab driver.

  The man nodded.

  “This guy did a Brode an’ busted a leg or somethin’ right out in front of the joint,” said the driver.

  “Come in,” invited Doctor Manwright.

  They shuffled along the corridor, into a surgical room where an operating table occupied the center of the floor under a drop-light.

  “Put him down there,” said the doctor.

  They stretched Paul Pry out on the table.

  “Which leg?” asked the doctor.

  “Right.”

  He passed exploring fingers over it.

  “Something seemed to happen and all the strength went out of it. It’s pricking like pins and needles now,” said Paul Pry.

  The doctor frowned, flexed the leg.

  “Humph.”

  The cab driver grinned cheerfully at Paul Pry.

  “Well,” he said, “I’ll run along.”

  “Better drive the cab up and wait,” said Paul Pry.

  “O.K., boss.”

  The two men ambled awkwardly out of the room. The doctor drew the bathrobe about him and regarded Paul Pry speculatively.

  “Any peculiar feeling about the heart?” he asked.

  “None,” said Paul Pry.

  “Notice any sudden pain just above the leg when it gave out?”

  “None.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Very. I can’t sleep. I got all sorts of strange symptoms.”

  The doctor felt the leg again.

  “I’ll go get some clothes on,” he announced, “and we’ll give you a once-over.” “Sorry to bother you,” said Paul Pry. “I’m feeling better now. The circulation seems to be coming back.”

  “In any pain?” asked the doctor.

  “Just the pins and needles.”

  The doctor crossed to a cabinet, took out a bottle, poured a few drops into a glass of water.

  “Drink this,” he said. “I’ll dress and come in again. I won’t be three minutes.” “O.K.,” said Paul Pry and sipped at the glass.

  The doctor left the room.

  Paul Pry got up and dumped the mixture down the sink, crossed on swift, silent feet into the office which was next to the surgical room, and stared at the flat-topped desk, the bookcase, the card index of files.

  He opened the files. The light which came from the surgical room enabled him to pick out the letters of the index. He consulted the “B’s” and pulled out a card marked “Beeker, Laura.”

  Then Paul Pry noticed a day book on the desk. He opened it and consulted the current date. It appeared that, between eleven and twelve, Doctor Manwright had treated a gentleman who gave the name of Frank Jamison.

  Paul Pry went to the card index, and pocketed the card of Frank Jamison. Then he went back to the surgical room and stretched out on the operating table, closing his eyes and breathing regularly.

  The doctor came into the room within a few minutes, looking gravely professional. The depression had undoubtedly hit the medical business, and Paul Pry felt certain that the doctor would at least lay a foundation for a stiff charge for a night visit.

  Nor was he wrong. For twenty minutes the doctor examined him. At the end of that time, there was doubt and a certain suspicion in the doctor’s eyes.

  “You’d better come back tomorrow afternoon. What’s the name?”

  “George Inman.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Billington Hotel.”

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Ever had any heart trouble, dizzy spells, rheumatism?”

  Paul Pry nodded gloomily.

  “I feel dizzy every once in a while,” he said, “and I used to have rheumatism in my right shoulder.”

  The doctor sucked in a yawn.

  He pulled a card from a drawer, filled it out, yawned again.

  “Come tomorrow afternoon at any time between two and four. The charge for this visit is—twenty dollars.”

  Paul Pry produced his wallet, took out the bills, peeled off a twenty. The doctor glimpsed a couple of the hundreds and one that seemed even larger in denomination. He ceased to yawn.

  “I may want to put you in a hospital for observation,” he said. “It’s a baffling case.”

  “Nothing serious?” asked Paul Pry.

  “I can’t tell—yet.”

  Paul Pry tested the leg.

  “Feel all right?”

  “Yes, sorta numb, but all right. I can walk.”

  “Go to your hotel and go to bed,” said Doctor Manwright.

  Paul Pry hobbled to the door. The cab driver was waiting to assist him to the cab.

  “Billington Hotel,” said Paul Pry.

  “O.K.,” said the driver.

  The doctor bowed, said good morning, and closed the door. Paul Pry hobbled into the cab.

  4

  At the Billington Hotel Paul Pry registered as George Inman and was given a room.

  “There’s a telephone call for you,” said the clerk. “The party seemed very anxious to have you call as soon as you came in.”

  He handed Paul Pry a number.

  “O.K.,” said Paul Pry.

  He went to his room, tipped the bell boy, pocketed the key and went out.

  “Did you call the number?” asked the clerk.

  “I called it,” said Paul Pry.

  The clerk nodded, snapped the lock on the safe, yawned.

  Paul Pry boarded a cruising cab. The address which he gave was within a block of the place where the girl had driven him into the private driveway which terminated in the mysterious garage at the rear of the apartment house of such unconventional design.

  Paul Pry told the cab to wait, walked the block, climbed a fence, and found himself in the cemented courtyard in the rear of the apartment house. He opened the back door, climbed the carpeted stairs.

  He paused at the door of the girl’s apartment long enough to go through the formality of pressing the button of the door signal. As he had expected, there was no answer, no sign of life from within.

  Paul Pry produced a flat leather receptacle which contained some two dozen keys, chosen for general efficiency. He opened the door with the third key, boldly switched on the light and walked in.

  He closed and bolted the door, lit a cigarette, hummed a little tune, and walked into the bedroom.

  The young woman had left her evening clothes, crumpled into a careless wad, and thrown on the bed. She had evidently donned a plain street suit which would be inconspicuous. The white fur coat was hanging in the closet.

  Paul Pry looked on the top of the dresser, frowned, prowled about the drawers, paused to consider, and then went to the closet and put his hand in the pocket of the fur coat. His face lit with a smile of satisfaction as his questing fingers closed on a folded sheet of paper. He pulled it out.

  It was the typewritten note that the woman had taken from the messenger boy.

  Paul Pry read it.

  All right, Lola, we’ve got Bill Sacanoni. He goes for a ride unless we get what we want and get it in a hurry. First, we want ten grand stuck in a bag and delivered at the place we told you. Second, we want George Inman put on the spot. You’ve stuck up for him and shielded him long enough. We know all about him. You’ve got until daylight to do your stuff. Then Bill gets his. We know you can get the coin, but we want to be sure about Inman.

  The note was unsigned.

  Paul Pry thrust it in his pocket, paused, halfway to the door, then returned and put it back in the pocket of the fur coat. He clicked off the lights, opened the door and slipped out into the corridor.

  He walked to the cab, and told the driver to take him to a certain street corner near the wholesale district. That corner was near the spot where Paul Pry maintained a secret apartment, a place where he could live and be reasonably safe from danger while he formulated his plans, rested between coups.

  He discharged the cab, made certain that he was not followed, and entered the apartment. Mugs Magoo blinked glassy eyes at him.

  “You still here?”

  “Sure. Where’d you think I was going?”

  “To keep an appointment with the undertaker.”

  “Not yet.”

  Mugs Magoo grunted, reached for the bottle of whiskey that was at his elbow.

  “Not yet, but soon.”

  Paul Pry ignored the comment, took off his hat and light coat, sat down in a chair, and lit a cigarette.

  “Why the danger signal, Mugs?”

  Mugs Magoo snorted.

  “Because the place was lousy with guns. I spotted ’em from across the street. They were in the shadows behind you. They weren’t waiting for you, or you’d have been dead long before you got the signal. But I figured there was going to be some guns popping, and the innocent bystander usually makes the biggest target. Then again, being a witness to a gang killing ain’t so nice from the standpoint of life insurance risks.”

  Paul Pry nodded. His voice, when he spoke, was almost dreamy.

  “The girl, Mugs?”

  “That was Lola Beeker. She’s in with a big bottle, name of Bill Sacanoni. I think that was him that crawled outa the car an’ got beat up.”

  Paul Pry nodded.

  “Why didn’t they use guns, Mugs?”

  “Wanted to avoid the bulls for one thing, and wanted to muscle Bill away. They’ll hold him for something. The guns had the street cleared. They started turning pedestrians away right after you slipped through. There’s a gangster’s doctor in the block, and I guess they was spottin’ his office.”

  Paul Pry reached in his inside pocket and took out the cards he had purloined from the files of the gangsters’ physician.

  He looked at the card of Lola Beeker.

  It gave her name, age, address, list of symptoms that had to do with a minor nervous complaint. The card bore a notation that Bill Sacanoni would pay the bill. The card also gave the address of Bill Sacanoni.

  Paul Pry turned it under, and looked at the card of the man who had been treated that evening, between the hours of eleven and twelve.

  The name was Frank Jamison. The address was in an apartment hotel well toward the upper end of town. The card gave lists of various treatments. Once the treatment was for alcoholism. Once the treatment was for gunshot wounds, and the last treatment was for a stabbing wound in the shoulder.

  Paul Pry nodded.

  That would be the man who had swung the blackjack at the girl, the one who had felt the bite of Paul Pry’s sword cane as it jabbed home.

  “Who is Frank Jamison, Mugs?”

  Mugs Magoo regarded the empty whiskey glass with judicial solemnity, reached for the bottle, and knitted his brows.

  “Don’t place the moniker. Maybe it’s phony. Know what he looks like?”

  “Five feet nine, one hundred and seventy or about that. Has a funny pointed jaw, like a battleship’s bow—”

  Mugs Magoo interrupted. “That places him,” he said, “and I remember now he used to use the name o’ Jamison. It’s his middle name. Frank Jamison Kling is the full name. He’s a big shot. They say he makes a specialty of musclin’ people into big ransoms.”

  “Is he,” asked Paul Pry, “likely to be the head of his gang?”

  “Sure. If he was in that scuffle about the car, he’s the man that was running the show.”

  “And likely to be the one who gets the money when it’s over?”

  “Sure to,” grunted Mugs.

  “How about George Inman?” asked Paul Pry.

  Mugs Magoo lowered the whiskey glass. Surprise showed in the glassy eyes that were usually so utterly devoid of expression.

  “Guy,” he said, “don’t tell me you’re monkeyin’ with that bird!”

  “Why?” asked Paul Pry.

  Mugs Magoo heaved a deep sigh.

  “I gotta hand it to you. It’s a gift, gettin’ into deep water every time you start wadin’. You don’t ever pick no ordinary dangers. When you start gettin’ into trouble, you wade right in over your necktie.

  “That bird Inman, now—Well, there’s talk going around about that baby. He’s one of the upper crust of gangsters, and he’s playing both ends against the middle. Of course, George Inman ain’t nothing but a name. It’s the name this big shot uses when he’s slipping over a fast one.

  “He works under cover all the time, and nobody’s ever been able to get a line on him. They know the name, and that’s all. It’s a cinch he’s one of the biggest shots in town. That much they know because they got sort of a line on what Inman knows.

  “There’s fifteen or twenty of the big guys that’d give a neat slice of jack to learn who Inman really was. When they knew, Inman wouldn’t last long. If you’re monkeying around with anybody that gives the name of Inman, just gimme the money to go get myself measured for a suit of black. I’ll need it before I get any fatter, anyway; and I may need it as soon as the tailor can get it fitted.”

  Paul Pry arose, crossed to the closet where he kept his collection of drums.

  He took down a Buddhist temple drum that resembled a huge bronze bowl. This drum was merely rubbed into sound, not struck with a stick as other drums were.

  Paul Pry took the leather-covered stick and started rubbing the lip of the drum. His hand moved slowly. At first there was no sound whatever. Then, as the speed of the rubbing stick increased, there sounded a low monotone of sound which filled the apartment, yet which seemed to emanate from no particular source.

  “It drives me nuts,” said Mugs Magoo.

  Paul Pry said nothing until after the last bit of sound had died away. Then he sighed, raised his eyes to Mugs Magoo’s face.

  “Alcohol, Mugs, has robbed your ears of their sense of rhythm.”

  “If they’d only rob ’em of a sense of sound, so far as those drums are concerned, so I couldn’t hear ’em, I’d be better satisfied.”

  Paul Pry let his eyes rest dreamily upon the drum.

  “It soothes the soul, Mugs. That’s why they use it as a preliminary to worship in those temples where the religion is a philosophical rite of inner meditation. It’s a wonderful philosophy, Buddhism, Mugs, and the drum has a tendency to fill my mind with inner quiet, a comparative poise that’s so necessary to concentration.”

  Mugs Magoo refilled his whiskey glass.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a great philosophy maybe. But the trouble with them Buddhists is that they don’t wear no pants.”