Longstreet swooped Cherry Browne, demure and suddenly shy, into the curve of one great arm and yelled for attention. “Friends! You all know why you’re here. Gala occasion for old Harley Longstreet. ’Fact, for the whole firm of DeWitt & Longstreet an’ all their friends and well-wishers!” His voice was a little thick now; his face more brickish than before, his eyes pinpoints. “Have the honor to present to you - future Mrs. Longstreet!”

  There was a conventional murmur. DeWitt rose and bowed, stiffly, to the actress, shook Longstreet’s hand perfunctorily. Louis Imperiale strode forward and, gallantly, bent over the actress’s manicured fingers, touching them with his lips as his heels clicked in military fashion. Mrs. DeWitt, seated beside her husband, gripped her handkerchief and made a ghastly attempt to smile. Pollux staggered from the sideboard and put his arm clumsily about Cherry’s waist. Longstreet shoved him away without ceremony, and he returned to the sideboard, muttering drunkenly to himself.

  The women admired an enormous flashing diamond on the actress’s left hand. More waiters invaded the room, armed with tables and crockery…

  They ate lightly. Pollux fumbled with the dials of a radio. There was music, and spiritless dancing. Only Longstreet and Cherry Browne were gay; the big man romped like a child, caught Jeanne DeWitt in a playful embrace. Blond Christopher stepped between them coolly and the young couple danced away. Longstreet chuckled; Cherry was at his elbow, sweet, perilous…

  At 5:45 Longstreet silenced the radio and excitedly shouted: “Arranged a little dinner party at my place in West Englewood. F’got to tell you about it. Surprise, hey? Surprise!” he roared. “All invited. Mus’ come. You too, Mike. An’ you, there, Pollux, or what’s-your-name - you can come ’long an’ read our minds or something.” He consulted his watch owlishly. “C’n make reg’lar train if we start now. C’mon, everybody!”

  DeWitt protested in a strangled voice that he had made other arrangements for the evening, that his own guests… Longstreet glared. “I said everybody!” Imperiale shrugged and smiled; Lord regarded Longstreet with contempt - a faint puzzled light glowed in his eyes as he turned to look at DeWitt…

  At 5:50 exactly, the entire party left Cherry Browne’s suite, strewn with debris, bottles, napkins, glasses. They crowded into an elevator, emerged downstairs in the hotel lobby. Longstreet bellowed for a boy, ordered a late newspaper and taxicabs.

  Then they were on the sidewalk - outside the Forty-Second Street exit of the hotel. A doorman whistled desperately for taxicabs. The thoroughfare was jammed with crawling vehicles; overhead thunderclouds raced in a blackening sky. Weeks of dry hot weather gave way suddenly to a vicious downpour of rain.

  When the deluge came, it came with such unexpectedness and force that the welter of pedestrian and vehicular traffic became a scrambled, jumpy, wriggling panorama of frenzied motion.

  The doorman signaled wildly, looked back over his shoulder at Longstreet with comical despair. The party scurried for the shelter of a jewelry-shop awning nearer the corner of Eighth Avenue.

  DeWitt edged close to Longstreet. “Before I forget. About Weber’s complaint. Don’t you think we ought to do what I suggested?” He poked an envelope at his partner.

  Longstreet, right arm about Cherry Browne’s waist, took a silver spectacle- case from the left pocket of his coat, jammed the case back into the pocket as he disengaged himself from the woman, and adjusted the eyeglasses to his nose. He took a typewritten letter from the envelope, skimmed through it negligently while DeWitt waited with half-closed eyes.

  Longstreet sniffed. “Nothing doing.” He flipped the letter back toward DeWitt; it eluded the little man’s clutch and fluttered to the wet sidewalk. Pale as death, DeWitt stooped and picked up the letter. “Weber can like it or lump it. I won’t change my mind. That’s final, and don’t bother me about it any more.”

  Pollux whooped: “Here comes a Crosstown. Let’s grab it!”

  In the snarl of traffic before them a red-faced, snub-nosed street-car was nudging its way. Longstreet snatched off his glasses, returned them to the case, and the case to his left pocket, leaving his hand there. Cherry Browne was crushed against his great body; he waved his right hand. “Hell with cabs!” he shouted. “Let’s take the car!”

  The street-car squealed to a stop. A swarm of people, drenched and fighting mad, made for the opening back door. Tire Longstreet party dashed into the throng, struggling for entrance, Cherry Browne still clinging to Longstreet’s left arm, Longstreet’s left hand still in his pocket.

  They reached the steps. The conductor’s hoarse voice cried: “Lively! ’Board!”

  The rain soaked their clothes.

  DeWitt was squeezed between the ample bodies of Ahearn and Imperiale. They fought their way up, Imperiale cavalierly attempting to guide Mrs. DeWitt. He craned back now to Ahearn, crinkling his eyes with something of humor… saying sotto voce that this was the queerest party he had ever had the honor - diable! - to attend.

  Scene 3

  THE FORTY-SECOND STREET CROSSTOWN

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 6 P.M.

  They were on the rear platform now, stifled in the hot wet crush, having managed by vigorous use of elbows and knees to push past the conductor’s station. Longstreet towered near the inside step leading into the interior of the car, Cherry Browne releasing his left arm at this moment to follow as best she could the rest of the party.

  The conductor had finally been able, while exercising his lungs and shoving passengers forward into the car, to swing shut the double yellow doors. The car, the back platform were freighted to capacity. People waved their fares, but the conductor did not accept money until the doors were tightly shut and he had signaled the motorman to proceed. A disappointed horde was left outside, huddled miserably in the rain.

  Longstreet swayed with the rocking motion of the car, a dollar bill clutched in his right fist above the heads of his fellow-passengers on the rear platform. The interior was choking; the humidity, the windows closed throughout, induced an uncomfortable feeling of suffocation.

  The conductor wriggled about, shouting commands still, and grabbed the bill from Longstreet’s hand. The crowd was pushing and struggling, and Longstreet growled like an infuriated bear; but he finally received his change and began to shoulder his way after his party. He found Cherry Browne ahead of the others halfway through the car; she grasped his right arm and snuggled closer. Longstreet reached for a strap.

  The car edged on toward Ninth Avenue in a downpour that roared more deafeningly with every foot of the tangled way.

  Longstreet thrust his hand into his pocket and felt about for his spectacle- case. A moment of this, and with a sudden curse he snatched his hand from the pocket, bringing out the silver case. Cherry said: “What’s the matter, Harl?” Longstreet uncertainly examined his left hand: the palm and underskin of the fingers were bleeding in a number of places. His eyes wavered, his heavy face twitched, and he breathed in a little nasal gust. “Must’ve scratched myself. What in the world could’ve… ?” he began thickly. The car lurched, staggered, and stopped; people fell irresistibly forward. Instinctively Longstreet groped for a strap with his left hand, and Cherry held on to his right arm for support. The car jerked forward again a few feet. Longstreet dabbed heavily at his bleeding hand with a handkerchief, returned the cloth to his trousers, extracted his glasses from the case, dropped the case into his pocket, and made as if to open the folded newspaper he held tucked under his right arm - all in a sort of growing fog.

  The car had stopped at Ninth Avenue. A clamoring crowd had pounded on the closed doors, but the conductor shook his head. The rain was falling in increasing torrents and the car had crawled on again.

  Longstreet suddenly released the strap, dropping the unread newspaper, and felt his forehead. He was panting and groaning like a man in great pain. Cherry Browne hugged his right arm in alarm, turned as if to call for help…

  The car was between Ninth and Tenth Avenues now, stopping, starting, stopping, starting in the maze of traffic before it.

  Longstreet gasped, stiffened convulsively, widened his eyes like a frightened child, and collapsed - a pricked balloon-across the lap of a young woman sitting directly before him.

  A heavy-set man of middle age standing on Longstreet’s left, who had been leaning over and talking with the young woman - rather pretty brunette heavily rouged - angrily yanked at Longstreet’s trailing arm. “Get up out of there, you! Where the hell do you think you are?’’ he shouted.

  But Longstreet merely slid from the lap of the young woman and slumped across their feet to the floor.

  Cherry screamed, once.

  Dead silence for an instant, then a growing hubbub as necks craned and the Longstreet party pushed their way toward the spot. “What’s the matter?”

  “Longstreet!”

  “He’s under!”

  “Drunk?”

  “Watch her - she’s fainted!”

  Michael Collins caught the actress as she reeled.

  The rouged young woman and her burly escort, frightened now, were white and speechless. The girl jumped up, clutched the man’s arm, stared with horror down at Longstreet crumpled on the floor. “Well, my God,” she shrieked all at once, “why doesn’t somebody do something? Look at his eyes! He’s - he’s…” She shuddered and buried her face in her escort’s coat.

  DeWitt stood stonily by, his small hands clenched. Ahearn and Christopher Lord struggled with the heavy body of Longstreet and managed to haul him into the girl’s vacated seat. A middle-aged Italian quickly rose and helped stretch the recumbent man on the seat. Longstreet’s eyes were staring; his mouth was partly open; he was gasping weakly; light flecks of foam dribbled from his lips.

  The growing uproar penetrated well forward into the car. A shouted order, and the crowd parted sufficiently to allow a heavy-set policeman with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve to hustle his way through. He had been riding on the front platform with the motorman. The car had come to a stop by this time, and both motorman and conductor hurried to the spot.

  The sergeant roughly shoved the Longstreet party aside and leaned over Longstreet. The body stiffened again, and then became quite rigid. The sergeant straightened up, scowling. “He’s dead. Uh-huh!” He had caught sight of the dead man’s left hand. More than a dozen tiny trickles of coagulating blood laced the skin of fingers and palm from as many tiny pricks, each swollen a little. “Murdered, looks like. Keep away now, the pack of you!”

  He eyed the members of the party with suspicion. They were huddled together now, as if for mutual protection.

  The sergeant roared: “I don’t want anybody to get off this car - get me? Stay put! Here, you.” He beckoned the motorman imperiously. “Don’t move this car a foot. Get back to your station. Keep those doors and windows shut - understand?” The motorman disappeared. The sergeant yelled: “Hey, conductor! Run down to the corner of Tenth Avenue and tell the traffic cop on duty there to phone the local precinct and tell the traffic cop to make sure it gets to Inspector Thumm at headquarters. Got that straight? Here - I’ll let you out myself. I ain’t taking any chance on somebody giving me the slip through the open door.”

  He escorted the conductor to the rear platform, operated the lever which opened the double doors, and closed them the instant the conductor had stepped out into the rain. The conductor headed for Tenth Avenue on the run. The sergeant glowered at a tall hard-looking passenger on the platform. “You watch that no one touches these doors, Bud - see?” The passenger nodded happily, and the sergeant thrust his way back to Longstreet’s body.

  A bedlam of cursing, horn-tooting traffic had piled up behind the streetcar. The frightened passengers could see people endeavoring to press their faces to the streaming windows. The tall hard-looking passenger shouted: “Hey, Sarge, there’s a cop wants to get in back here!”

  “Wait a minute!” Back plodded the sergeant and opened the doors himself to admit a traffic officer, who saluted and said: “I’m on duty at Ninth. What’s the trouble, Sergeant? Need help?”

  “Looks like a bump-off here.” The sergeant closed the doors and gestured significantly to the tall passenger, who again nodded. “Guess I’ll need you, Officer. Put in a call already for Inspector Thumm and the precinct. You go forward to that front door and see that no one gets on or off. Watch those doors.”

  They pushed forward together, the newcomer hurling people aside in his effort to reach the forward platform.

  The sergeant stood, arms akimbo, over Longstreet’s body and glared about him. “Well, who’s first?” he demanded. “Who was sittin’ in these seats?” The young woman and the middle-aged Italian began to speak at the same time. “One at a time. What’s your name?”

  The girl quavered: “Emily Jewett. I - I’m a stenographer going home from work. This man - he fell into my lap a while ago. I got up and gave him my seat.”

  “How about you, Mussolini?”

  “I’m Antonio Fontana. I see-a nothing. This-a man, he fall, an I get up an give-a him my seat,” replied the Italian.

  “This dead man - he was standin’ up?”

  DeWitt thrust his way forward. He was perfectly calm. “Here, Sergeant, I can tell you exactly what happened. This man was Harley Longstreet, my business partner. We were going in a party - ’’

  “Party, huh?” The sergeant eyed them all sourly: “Some party, I’d say. Nice and friendly. You better save your breath, Mister. Inspector Thumm’11 get it out of you. Here comes the conductor with another cop.”

  He hurried back to the rear platform. The conductor, water streaming from the visor of his cap, was hammering on the rear doors. A policeman stood by his side. The sergeant opened the doors himself, admitted them, and closed the doors at once.

  The policeman touched his cap. “Morrow reporting. On duty at Tenth Avenue.”

  “Oke, I’m Duffy, Sergeant, 18th Precinct,” said the sergeant gruffly. “Call headquarters?”

  “Yep, and the precinct, too. Inspector Thumm and local men will be here any minute. Inspector said for you to take the car to the Green Lines carbarn at Forty-Second and Twelfth. He’ll meet you there. Says not to touch the body. I also called for an ambulance.”

  “He doesn’t need that any more. Morrow, you stay here at this door and don’t let anybody get out.”

  Duffy turned to the tall hard-faced man on the rear platform. “Did anybody try to make a getaway, Bud? Was that door opened at all?”

  “Nope.” And a chorus of assent from other passengers.

  Duffy plowed his way to the front of the car. “Motorman! Take ’er to the end of the line. Park in the Green Lines carbarn. Snap into it!”

  The motorman, a red-faced young Irishman, mumbled: “That ain’t our tram, Sergeant. This is the Third Avenue Railways line. We ain’t-”

  “Scram, will you?” said Sergeant Duffy disgustedly. He turned to the Ninth Avenue traffic officer. “Clear the way with your whistle, you - what’s your name?”

  “Sittenfield, 8638.”

  “Well, you’re responsible for that door, too, Sittenfield. Anybody try to get away?”

  “No, Sergeant.”

  “Anybody try to get out before Sittenfield got here, motorman?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right. Shoot.”

  He returned to the body as the car lumbered forward. Cherry Browne was moaning softly; Pollux was patting her hands. DeWitt, his face set in grim lines, stood - almost as if he were on guard - over the dead body of Longstreet.

  BBB

  The car crashed into the huge shed of the New York Green Lines tram. A large group of men in plainclothes stood silently watching it come in. Outside the rainstorm splashed and roared.

  A giant of a man with gray hair, a heavy jaw, and sharp gray eyes - set in a face of almost pleasing ugliness - hammered on the back door. Officer Morrow shouted, inside the car, to Sergeant Duffy. Duffy appeared, looked out, recognized the gargantuan physique of Inspector Thumm and pounded the door-lever sideways. The double doors folded back. Inspector Thumm clambered aboard, signaled Duffy to close the doors, made a sign to his waiting men outside, and forged into the interior of the car.

  “Nice how’d ya-do,” he said. He looked down casually at the dead man. “Duffy, what’s it all about?”

  The sergeant whispered into Inspector Thumm’s ear. Thumm remained quite unconcerned. “Longstreet, hey? The broker… Well, who’s Emily Jewett?”

  The girl stepped forward under the wing of her burly escort, who glared belligerently at the Inspector.

  “You say you saw this man collapse, Miss. Did you notice anything unusual before he fell?”

  “Yes, sir!” said the girl in an excited voice. “I saw him put his hand into his pocket to get his eyeglasses. He must have scratched himself, or something, because he pulled his hand out and I saw it was bleeding.”

  “Which pocket?”

  “His left-hand coat pocket.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Well, it was just before the car stopped at Ninth Avenue.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Well,” said the girl, screwing up her hair line eyebrows, “we took about five minutes coming here since the car started again, and about five minutes from the time he fell down to the time the car started and, well, it must have been only a few minutes - two or three - between the time he scratched his hand and the time he keeled over.”

  “Less than fifteen minutes, hey? Left-hand pocket.” Thumm thudded to his knees and, taking a flashlight from his rear trouser pocket, grasped the material of the dead man’s open patch-pocket, pulled the pocket wide, and directed the pencil of light into the interior. He grunted with satisfaction. Putting down the flashlight, he produced a large penknife and with the utmost caution slit the stitching along one side of Longstreet’s pocket. Two objects gleamed in the ray of the flashlight.

  Without taking them from the slit pocket, Thumm examined them. One was a silver spectacle-case. He looked up for a moment; the dead man was wearing eyeglasses, now slightly awry on his blue-red nose.