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the second party always thinks there is someone else?”

Her voice hardened. “Cut it out. I know you, my fine-feathered friend. It’s my job to know men, and you’re absolutely gone on someone. When I find out who…” She left the sentence unfinished, but the inference was clear.

4.

Jake was groaning in the corner of the seat: “I feel terrible! I feel as if someone had hit me in the middle of the head with an ax and forgotten to pull it out.”

Lennox was busy turning into Nancy’s drive. “Out,” he said, and opened the door on his side.

There was a light burning in the small den, and the girl answered his ring almost at once. He looked at her in surprise.

“You’re up late.” She stood aside. “I knew that you’d be around. You’ve got a visitor waiting to see you. Say”—she was staring at Lennox’ battered face and torn clothes showing under the open topcoat—“what happened to you?”

“I fall down,” said Lennox, steadying Jake. “Who’s the visitor?”

“You’re both drunk.”

“Only Jake,” Lennox corrected. “There wasn’t enough in the bottle for both of us. Who’s the visitor?”

“Eddie Strong.”

Lennox released his grip on Jake in surprise, and the ex-cabman swayed dangerously. He grabbed the man’s arm again, pushed past the girl, and steered Jake toward the couch. Not until he had dumped him onto it did he turn.

“Where’s Strong? How long has he been here?”

“Only a few minutes.” The girl had caught some of the excitement from his voice. “He’s in my den. He didn’t want to wait, but I assured him that you’d be here.”

Lennox did not trouble to answer. He turned and headed for the den with the girl close on his heels. She heard him say, “I’ve been looking for you, Eddie, ever since last night.”

Strong had a patch of tape across one end of his forehead. He hadn’t shaved that day and his sunken cheeks were covered by a grayish stubble. “I hit my head,” he said in a defensive tone. “When I jumped out of that cab I ran across the sidewalk and into the corner of a building. When I came to, you and the cab were gone.”

Lennox did not know where to begin. There were a thousand questions he wanted to ask. Strong must have read his thoughts. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said. “I need your help now and there ain’t much time.”

“Hey, wait,” Lennox caught his arm as the man started toward the door. “What happened to that doped girl? We had her here and…”

Strong said: “I know. I took her out the back way while the nurse was downstairs, but they got her away from me tonight. They were watching my place when we tried to go in. I had to run for it. That’s why I need you. We’ve got to get her back.”

Lennox said: “Not until you give me more details.”

The piano-player was getting angry. “What is it you want to know?”

Lennox said, “Who killed Mary Morris, for a starter?”

“Jean Jeffries—oh, you don’t believe me. Well, ask the old lady’s maid. Come on, we’ll ask her, but we’ll have to hurry.”

Lennox started out after him with Nancy at his heels. Halfway to the door he swung around. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She said, “With you.”

“Oh, no, you’re not.”

“Oh, yes, I am. You don’t leave this house without me, Bill Lennox.”

He didn’t answer. Instead he picked her up and carried her, kicking wildly, toward the service closet. “You’ll be safer there,” he said, and, shutting the door, shot the outer bolt. Then he hurried after the departing piano-player.

“Women,” said Strong, “always cause a lot of trouble. You take this maid for instance. Just because she didn’t think that Mary would want the girl in trouble, she never opened her mouth to the cops today.”

Lennox was not entirely convinced. “How do you know all this?”

Strong said: “Because I saw the Jeffries gal leaving Mary’s house, and the maid never told the cops that she had been there at all. Add it up for yourself.”

Lennox was adding it up, and the sum didn’t make much sense as he turned Jake’s coupe toward Beverly Hills.

CHAPTER XI

The house which Mary Morris had built so lovingly was dark and still. There was a sense of emptiness about it as if the house realized that the lady who had built it was forever gone.

Lennox parked the coupe in the driveway and said to Strong, “No use in waking the neighborhood. I’ll go around to the maid’s window. You wait here. She’s more apt to talk if I’m alone.”

He left the car and hurried around the drive to the window, pressing close to the copper netting of the screen and calling her name softly so as not to rouse the neighbors.

“Rita, Rita, wake up.”

There was motion in the dark bedroom. Lennox thought it was the maid. The scream shocked him, followed as it was by the sound of the quick struck blow.

He tore the copper mesh apart with his hands. Never afterwards could he remember exactly how he had managed to crash his way through, the window, but he went diving head foremost, calling Strong’s name as he flung himself forward.

The room was filled with confused sound. A woman was being hysterical in a quiet sort of way. Lennox dragged himself up from the floor where his dive had carried him as a shadowy figure charged through the darkness.

His groping fingers closed on the rough fabric of the man’s coat and they went down together, rolling over. Hot breath came in sharp gasps against the side of Lennox’ face like the staccato explosions from a steam engine. The man had a gun, which he was trying to press against Lennox’ side.

Bill’s fingers closed about the other’s wrist and twisted it away. The effort took all his strength, and exhaustion turned the darkness into a reddish hue. He knew that he could not last long, that his grip was already slipping, but the assailant gave up first. He dropped the gun from fingers made nerveless by Bill’s grasp and released the hold he had on Lennox. The sudden change broke Lennox’ grip.

The man wrenched his wrist free, rolled over, and struggled to his feet. Lennox made a grab for him in the darkness and missed. He heard the hard heels pound across the bare floor, heard the bedroom door slam and the running steps as his late opponent charged along the hall.

He struggled painfully up to his knees. His lungs felt as if they were being slowly squeezed by a heavy iron band. His groping hand felt along the floor until his fingertips touched the cool metal of the gun. He picked it up, and suddenly he felt better.

The lights stopped jumping before his eyes, and it was easier to breathe. He came to his feet, felt across the room to the hall door, and opened it. When he did, a motor sounded and a car ground down the block in screaming second. He knew the man had escaped. Then he felt along the wall until his fingers found the toggle switch, and he kicked it up, flooding the room with light.

The maid stared up at him from the tousled bed. Her round eyes were fright-ridden, and a thin stream of blood oozed from a cut on her forehead.

“Rita,” he said. “Rita, don’t you know me? It’s Bill Lennox.” He started toward her and stopped when she cowered away. “It’s Lennox from the studio,” he said softly.

She was so near hysteria that her mind wasn’t functioning properly. She clutched the covers up around her frail shoulders as if they were to serve as a bulwark against the danger that had been threatening her.

“It’s all right.”

“Oh! Mr. Lennox!” she managed to say before the convulsive sobs wracked her small body again.

Her bony fingers closed on his arm and bit deep in his flesh with strength intensified by terror. “I…” she began. “He…. he would have killed me.”

“Who?”

She was having difficulty controlling her voice. “I don’t know. I waked and he was bending over the bed. I thought for a moment that I must be dreaming, then when I felt his fingers at my throat… then I knew I wasn’t.” She shuddered.

“And then,” she managed to whisper, “you called my name at the window. I screamed and he struck me. The blow would have killed me, I think, but I managed to twist sideways. It didn’t hit square.”

He gave her time to fill her lungs with two convulsive breaths before he said: “And why, Rita? Why did he attack you? You know, don’t you, Rita? You know something you didn’t tell us this afternoon.”

She nodded unwillingly. “Yes, I know.”

“What do you know?” Impatience had crept into his voice. “Is it that Jean Jeffries gave that sleeping medicine to her grandmother?”

The maid gasped at him: “You know, too!”

He nodded slowly. “I was certain of it, but I had no proof.”

“I saw her,” Rita said, and sounded like a hypnotized parrot. “I came in and saw her beside the bed. It was while the nurse was out. And she knew I saw her, and she also knew I wouldn’t speak.”

“Why didn’t you?”

The maid recovered enough to show surprise. “Because Mary wouldn’t have wanted me to. Mary would rather have died than have anything happen to the girl. Don’t you see? I couldn’t break faith with Mary, even though I knew Jean had murdered her.”

Lennox couldn’t understand, but he realized that Rita was not normal. Her twisted sense of loyalty was such that she would have felt she was betraying the old actress’ trust if she had accused the girl.

“I’m glad you know now,” she told him. “I didn’t tell—I didn’t break faith. And yet, Jean will be punished. You’ll see that she gets punished?”

“Yes,” Lennox told her gravely. “I’ll do that, but I’ll have to hurry, Rita. I can’t stay here, and I hate to leave you by yourself.”

“I’m all right now.” The color had come back to her wrinkled cheeks.

She nodded weakly. He found a gun and gave it to her, more for the confidence it might inspire than because he thought that she might use it effectively. Then he turned and moved toward the door, wondering where Strong was, why he had not charged into the house to help.

The old piano-player was beside the coupe. He said, “That guy sure tore out of the house. His car was around the corner.”

Lennox looked at him sharply. “Did you get a good look at him?”

Strong nodded. “Yeah, one of Kreach’s men. Is the maid all right?” Lennox said that she was.

“And she told you about the girl?” Strong’s voice was eager.

Lennox nodded.

“Then let’s hurry.” Strong turned and climbed into the coupe. After a moment, Lennox followed him.

2.

Dawn made a gray streak in the east as the coupe turned into the street beside the apartment and Lennox found a place to park.

Strong was on the sidewalk before he could get the car locked, and already moving toward the alley at the rear. Lennox followed, catching up with the man at the corner of the building.

“You’re sure that she’s here?”

Strong nodded. “I told you, didn’t I. Come on, hurry.” He led the way down the three steps to the basement entrance and pushed open the heavy fire door.

A single bulb burned faintly in the concrete passage making the place unreal and ghostlike. Strong seemed to know where he was going. He paused before a closed door and knocked. He was forced to knock

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