On the threshold, between hall and room, lay the pajama-clad figure of Michael Collins. By his right hand was a dull-black revolver, still smoking.

  Thumm scrambled forward, heavy shoes scraping the parquet. He landed on his knees beside Collins with a thud, placed his head to the man’s chest. “He’s still alive!” he shouted. “Get him into that room!”

  They lifted the inert figure and carried it into the lighted room, a living- room, dumping it on a divan. Collins’s face was ghastly: his eyes were closed, his lips drawn back in a wolfish snarl, and he was breathing in huge gulping pants. Along the right side of his head nothing but matted hair and dripping blood was visible; the whole side of his face was dyed red, and the blood had splattered down to his right shoulder, soaking and spreading into the pajama- cloth. Thumm’s fingers touched the wound and were instantly crimson. “Didn’t even penetrate his thick skull,” he growled. “Just plowed alongside his head. Fainted from the shock, I guess. Lousy aim. Get a doctor, somebody… Well, Bruno, it looks like the end.”

  A man ran out. Thumm crossed the room in three strides and picked up the weapon. “It’s a .38, all right,” he said with satisfaction. Then his face fell. “Only one shot fired, though. The one he tried to kill himself with. Wonder where the bullet went?”

  “Right in this wall,” volunteered a detective. He pointed to a spot on one wall at which the plaster had spattered.

  As Thumm probed for the bullet, Bruno said: “He ran toward the living- room from the hall and fired as he ran. Bullet went clean across the room. He fell on the threshold when he missed.” Thumm scowled at the flattened leaden pellet in his fingers. He put it into his pocket, wrapped the revolver carefully in his handkerchief and handed it to a detective. There was a hubbub from the eighth floor corridor; and they turned to find a small mob of scantily clad people staring fearfully into the apartment.

  Two men went out. In the mêlée that ensued, the detective who had been commissioned to summon a physician shoved his way through the crowd, followed by a distinguished-looking man dressed in pajamas and robe, carrying a black bag.

  “You a doctor?” demanded Thumm.

  “Yes. I live in this house. What seems to be the trouble?”

  He did not catch sight of the still figure on the divan until the detectives stood aside. Without another word the physician dropped to his knees. “Water,” he said after a moment, his fingers flying. “Warm.” A man went into a bathroom and returned with a panful of steaming water.

  Five minutes of deft ministration, and the physician rose. “Just a bad scratch,” he said. “He’ll come to in a moment.” He had swabbed the wound, sterilized it, and shaved the entire right side of the head. With perfect unconcern, after a second cleansing, he sewed the lips of the wound together and bandaged the head. “He’ll need further attention soon, but this will do temporarily. He’ll have an ugly headache and a good deal of pain. He’s coming to now.”

  A hoarse, hollow groan and Collins shuddered; his eyes rolled open, filled incredibly with tears as intelligence slowly crept into them. “He’ll be all right,” said the physician indifferently, closing his bag.

  The physician left. A detective grasped Collin’s armpits and hauled him to a semi-sitting position, stuffing a pillow under his neck. Collins groaned again and one bloodless hand strayed to his head, felt the bandage, dropped helplessly to the divan.

  “Collins,” began the Inspector, sitting down beside the wounded man, “why did you try to commit suicide?”

  Collins moistened his lips with a dry tongue; he was a fearful, grotesque object, the right of his face a smear of dried blood. “Water,” he mumbled.

  Thumm glanced up, and a detective brought a glass of water, holding Collins’s head gingerly while the Irishman gulped and sniveled over the cool liquid. “Well, Collins?”

  Collins panted: “You’ve got me, haven’t you? You’ve got me, haven’t you? I’m ruined anyway…

  “Then you admit it?”

  Collins began to say something, stopped, nodded, looked startled, and raised his eyes suddenly with something of his old ferocity. “Admit what?”

  Thumm laughed shortly. “None of that now, Collins. Don’t play the innocent victim stuff. You know damned well what. You killed John DeWitt, that’s what!”

  “I - killed-” Collins began blankly; then his body writhed as he strove to sit up; he sank back under the pressure of Thumm’s hand on his chest, crying wildly: “What the hell are you talking about? I killed DeWitt? Who killed him? I didn’t even know he was dead! Are you crazy? Or is this a frame-up?”

  Thumm looked puzzled. Bruno stirred and Collins’s eyes rolled toward him. Bruno said soothingly: “Now look here. Evasion won’t do you a bit of good, Collins. When you heard it was the police coming after you, you yelled: ‘You’ll never get me alive,’ and attempted to kill yourself. Is that the last speech of an innocent man? A moment ago you said: ‘You’ve got me, haven’t you?’ Isn’t that an admission of guilt? It won’t help you to lie. You’ve acted like a guilty man.”

  “But I didn’t kill DeWitt, I tell you!”

  “Then why did you seem to expect the arrival of police? Why did you try to commit suicide?” Thumm demanded harshly.

  “Because… Collins caught his underlip between his strong teeth and peered at Bruno. “That’s my business,” he said in a sullen voice. “I don’t know anything about a killing. The last time I saw DeWitt he was very much alive.” He groaned as a spasm of pain flicked across his heavy features; he put his head between his hands.

  “Then you admit seeing DeWitt tonight?”

  “Sure I saw him. Plenty of witnesses to that. I saw him on the train tonight. Is that where he was killed?”

  “Stop stalling,” said Thumm. “How’d you happen to be on the Newburgh local?”

  “I followed DeWitt. I admit it. Followed him all evening. When he and the rest of his bunch left the Ritz I trailed ’em to the station. I’ve been trying to see him for a long time, even when he was behind bars. I bought a ticket and got on the train. As soon as it started I went up to DeWitt - he was sitting with his lawyer Brooks and two other men, Ahearn was one of them - and I pleaded with him.”

  “Sure, sure, we know all that,” said the Inspector. “What happened after you left the car and went out on the platform?”

  Collins’s bloodshot eyes were staring. “I asked him to make good Longstreet’s bum tip on the market. Longstreet had put the skids under me. It was DeWitt’s firm, and he was responsible. I - I needed that dough. DeWitt wouldn’t listen. He just said no, that he was… Oh, hell, he was hard as nails.” Choked rage crept into his voice. “I almost got down on my knees to him. But it was no go.”

  “Where were you standing at this time?”

  “We’d crossed over to the other platform, the platform of the dark car… So then I decided to get off the train; I was through. We were pulling into a place called Ridgefield Park. The train stopped, I opened the door on the tracks side and jumped down. Then I reached up and closed the door again, and crossed the tracks. I found out there was no train for the rest of the night going back to the City. So I hunted up a cab and came right back here, so help me God.”

  He sank back on the pillow, breathing heavily. “Was DeWitt still on that back platform when you jumped out?” demanded Thumm.

  “Yes. He watched me, damn his soul… Collins bit his lip. “I was - I was sore at him,” he faltered. “But not sore enough to commit murder - my God, no…

  “You expect us to swallow that?”

  “I’m telling you I didn’t kill him!” Collins’s voice rose to a scream. “When I was on the tracks and pulling the door to, I saw him wipe his forehead with a handkerchief, put the handkerchief back into his pocket and open the door of the dark car. He went inside. Why, God only knows. I saw him, I tell you!”

  “Did you see him sit down?”

  “No. I was off the train then, I told you.”

  “Why didn’t you go through the lighted car and get off by the door opened by the conductor, ahead?”

  “I didn’t have time. The train had already stopped at the station.”

  “So you were sore at him, hey?” said the Inspector. “Quarreled?”

  Collins cried: “Are you trying to pin this on me? I’m being on the up and up, Thumm. I told you we had words of a sort. Sure I was in a huff. Who wouldn’t be? So was DeWitt. He stepped into that dim car to cool off, likely. He was excited enough.”

  “Did you have your revolver with you, Collins?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t go into that dim car, did you, mug?” asked Thumm.

  “Christ, no!” shouted the Irishman.

  “You said you bought a ticket in the terminal. Let’s see it.”

  “It’s in my overcoat in the hall closet.” Sergeant Duffy went to the clothes- closet in the hall, fumbled about, and returned in a moment with a small bit of pasteboard.

  Thumm and Bruno fingered it. It was a West Shore Railroad single-trip ticket, unpunched. It designated a local trip from Weehawken to West Englewood.

  “How is it it wasn’t collected by the conductor, mug?” demanded Thumm.

  “He hadn’t got to us by the time I left the train.”

  “Oke.” Thumm rose and stretched his arms, yawning prodigiously. Collins sat up; some of his strength had returned; he fumbled in the jacket of his pajamas for a cigarette. “Well, Collins, I guess that’s about all now. How do you feel?”

  Collins mumbled: “A little better. Head aches like fury.”

  “Well, I sure am glad you feel better,” said Thumm heartily. “That means we won’t have to call an ambulance.”

  “Ambulance?”

  “Sure. Get up and get dressed now. You’re coming back to headquarters with us.”

  Collins let the cigarette fall out of his mouth. “You - you tagging me for that murder? I didn’t do it, I tell you! I’ve told you the truth, Inspector- honest to God…”

  “Rats. Nobody’s arresting you for DeWitt’s bump.” Thumm winked at Bruno. “We’re just holding you as a material witness.”

  Scene 8

  CONSULATE OF URUGUAY

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 10:45 A.M.

  Mr. Drury Lane strolled through Battery Park, cape fluttering like a black cloud behind him, striking his stick vigorously against the walk and sniffing the sharp salt air. There was a smell and tang of sea about, and the morning sun warmed his face pleasantly. He paused along the Battery wall to watch a corps of gulls dash to the surface of the oily swell, pecking at floating orange- peels. Out to sea a low-slung slanting liner crept through the water. A Hudson River excursion-boat uttered a startling cry. The wind freshened, and Drury Lane sniffed again, and drew his cape snugly about him.

  Sighing, he looked at his watch and turned away. He crossed the park, walking toward Battery Place.

  Ten minutes later he was seated in a severe room, smiling across a desk at a small dark Latinical man dressed in a morning coat. A fresh flower gleamed in his lapel. Juan Ajos was a twinkling sort of person with brilliant teeth in his brown face, lively black eyes and a delicate mustache.

  “Such an honor, Mr. Lane,” he was saying in perfect English, “as our poor Consulate scarcely merits. When I was a young attaché I remember you…”

  “Kind of you indeed, Senor Ajos,” replied Lane. “But you have just returned from your sabbatical and no doubt can spare only a moment. I am here in a peculiar capacity. Perhaps you heard of a series of murders in this city and its environs while you were in Uruguay?”

  “Murders, Mr. Lane?”

  “Yes. There have been three recently of, I might say, an interesting nature. I have unofficially been aiding the District Attorney’s investigation. My private researches have turned up a provocative clue which may or may not be pertinent. I have reason to believe that you may be able to assist me.”

  Ajos smiled. “Anything in my power, Mr. Lane.”

  “Have you ever heard the name Felipe Maquinchao? A Uruguayan?”

  A remarkably lucid light came into the dapper little consul’s eyes. “Our sins come home to us,” he said lightly. “So, Mr. Lane, you inquire about Maquinchao. St. I have met and talked with the good señor. What is it concerning him that you would like to know?”

  “How you came to meet him and anything about him that you consider interesting.”

  Ajos spread his hands. “I shall tell you the whole story, Mr. Lane, and you shall judge for yourself whether it is pertinent to your investigations… Felipe Maquinchao is a representative of the Uruguayan department of justice, a very valued and trusted man.”

  Lane’s eyebrows went up.

  “Maquinchao came several months ago from our country to New York, sent by the Uruguayan police on the trail of an escaped convict from the great Montevideo prison. The convict was a man named Martin Stopes.”

  Mr. Drury Lane sat very quietly. “Martin Stopes… You interest me more and more, Senor Ajos. And how is it that a man with the Anglican name of Stopes was incarcerated in a Uruguayan prison?”

  “I myself,” replied Ajos, tenderly sniffing at the flower in his lapel, “am familiar with the case only as it was transmitted to me by Maquinchao, the agent. He brought with him complete transcriptions of the case-history and an intimate personal knowledge.”

  “Go on, sir.”

  “It seems that in 1912 a young prospector, a man of geological training and considerable technical education, Martin Stopes, was sentenced by a Uruguayan court to life imprisonment for the murder of his young wife, a native Brazilian. He was convicted on the overwhelming evidence of three men, his prospecting partners. They had their mine inland, a rather long water-joumey from Montevideo through jungle. The partners testified at the trial that they had witnessed the murder and were forced to beat and bind Stopes in order to bring him to justice by boat from the interior. The body of the murdered woman they brought with them, in horrible condition from the heat of the atmosphere, and Stopes’s daughter, a two-year-old child. The weapon was also produced - a machete. Stopes gave no defense. He was temporarily deranged, dazed, incapable of speaking in his own behalf. He was duly convicted and sent to prison. The child was placed by the Court in a Montevideo convent.

  “Stopes proved to be an exemplary prisoner. He recovered slowly from his unbalanced mental state, seemed to accept his confinement with resignation, and gave no trouble to his keepers. Neither did he fraternize with his fellow- prisoners.”

  Lane asked quietly: “Did the motive for the crime come out during the trial?”

  “Curiously enough, no. The only conjecture as to motive the partners could make was that Stopes killed his wife during an argument; the three partners testified that they were not in the shack before the murder, that they heard screams and ran in just in time to see the man cleave the woman’s skull with the machete. He was, it seems, a man of passionate temper.”

  “Please continue.”

  Ajos sighed. “In the twelfth year of his imprisonment Stopes confounded his jailers by executing a daring escape. The escape was of such a nature that it had obviously been planned down to its last detail over a period of many years. Would you care to hear these details?”

  “Scarcely necessary, Senor.”

  “He disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. The whole of the South American continent was scoured, but there was no trace of him. It was generally thought that he had made his way into the deep interior, the terrible jungles, and perhaps perished there. So much for Martin Stopes… A cup of Brazilian coffee, Mr. Lane?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Perhaps you will permit me to brew for you our delicious Uruguayan beverage, yerba maté?”

  “No, thank you. Is there more to Maquinchao’s story?”

  “St. Meanwhile the three partners, according to official records, had sold out their mine, a rich one, during the Great War. It seems that the mine produced manganese ore of a rare quality, and manganese became very precious during the war in the manufacture of munitions. The sale of the mine made them wealthy men, and they returned to the United States.”

  “Returned, Senor Ajos?” asked Lane with a peculiar inflection. “Were they Americans?”

  “I am desolated. I have forgotten to tell you the names of the partners. They were Harley Longstreet, Jack DeWitt, and - let me see - sir William Crockett…”

  “One moment, sir.” Lane’s eyes were glittering. “Do you know that two of the men murdered here recently were the partners of the firm of DeWitt & Longstreet?”

  Ajos’s black eyes popped. “Dios!” he cried. “That is news indeed. Then their premonitions were…

  “What do you mean?” asked Lane swiftly.

  The consul spread his hands. “In July of this year the Uruguayan police received an unsigned letter, postmarked New York, and which later was admitted by DeWitt to have been sent by himself. This letter stated that the escaped convict Stopes was in New York, and suggested that Uruguay investigate. Naturally, although the government had changed hands, immediate action was taken after reference to the old files, and Maquinchao was assigned to the case. Working with me, and since he suspected that only one of the old partners would have cause to send such information to Uruguay, Maquinchao looked them up and discovered that Longstreet and DeWitt actually lived in the City, in fact in eminent positions. He had endeavored to trace William Crockett, the third partner in the old mining enterprise, but without success. Crockett had dropped out of the triumvirate when the three men returned to North America, either because of a quarrel or because he wanted freedom to spend his riches - I really do not know which. Perhaps neither is correct. Of course, this is all conjecture.”

  “So Maquinchao approached DeWitt and Longstreet,” prompted Lane gently.

  “Exactly. He approached DeWitt, disclosed his information and produced the letter, and after some hesitation DeWitt confessed that he was its author. He invited Maquinchao to live at his home while in the country, and to use it as a sort of headquarters from which to operate. Maquinchao naturally sought first of all to discover how DeWitt knew that Stopes was in New York. DeWitt showed the agent a letter, signed by Stopes, threatening DeWitt’s life-”