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CARD 18


。


CARD 13
BY
MARK LEE LUTHER
AND
LILLIAN C. FORD
__
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS


COPYRIGHT, 1929, 1930
By MARK LEE LUTHER AND LILIAN C. FORD
Printed in the United States of America
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO., ING,
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK


To
KENTON





CONTENTS-Concluded
PAGE
CHAPTER
XXV IDA HUNTER'S ALIBI
XXVI What HOLKAR Saw
XXVII THE WAGES OF SIN
XXVIII Kent Says AU REVOIR
274
287
297
308


CARD 13


All the characters in this book are
imaginary


CARD 13
CHAPTER ONE
Hollywood's montmartre
To the casual eye there was that day no hint of
tragedy in the atmosphere of Hollywood's famous
Caf6 Montmartre. Gaiety was the obvious note. One
of the special luncheons, where motion-picture stars
bloom as thickly as orchids at the coming-out party of
an oil baron's daughter, had attracted such a throng
that only the forehanded with reservations found seats.
Toiling waiters made inroads on the vast platters of
meat and colorful bowls of salad that heaped the cen-
tral serving tables. China clattered, the orchestra
blared jazz, and a confusion of tongues swelled in a
discordant overtone above the din of the musicians.
Herded on the far side of the long room were the
tourists. The screen folk, conscious of their audience,
clustered to the left of the roped entrance and along
the tall windows that fronted on the boulevard. All
was as carefully arranged as a studio set. The play
was meant for light comedy. Yet tragedy was latent.
For Arthur Raneleigh, novelist, luncheon at the
Montmartre was merely one more of many hectic
affairs into which he had been drawn by Tony Gil-
more. As a brilliantly successful scenario writer Gil-
more had his public, just as the cinema celebrities had
[9]


Cabd 13
theirs, and it behooved him to show himself early and
often. It was good business. That he had to-day, at
least, no taste for the limelight he did not trouble him-
self to conceal. But the scene on which these friends
of years looked with indifference was full of novelty
for Gilmore's sister, and as Raneleigh watched the
girl, so happily excited over it all, he realized anew
how rarely beautiful she was, how ethereal, how—for
younger men—altogether irresistible. He could view
calmly, so he felt, the havoc she wrought on more callow
males. He had reached the venerable age of thirty
and was still a bachelor.
On Aileen's eager demand, Gilmore with his ha-
bitually half-bored air pointed out the notables.
"There's Tom Mix in the group near the door.
Some character actors there, also, whose faces you'll
recognize. One of the Beery brothers is at the far
end of that wall table. Greta Garbo is near the first
window. I don't know who's with her."
Aileen caught his arm.
"Tony! Isn't that Clara Bow?"
"As large as life! And here comes Charlie Chaplin.
As the chairmen say, he needs no introduction. But
what about food, Aileen? Is it to be k la carte or
table d'h6te?"
"Oh, you order for me!" she exclaimed. "I don't
want to lose a minute. I can't keep my eyes off these
fascinating people. I think they're wonderful."
"Listen to our country mouse! Everybody's
wonderful."
"Oh, I know I'm terribly unsophisticated," she
pouted. "But if you'd let me go round more I'd do you
credit. I'm not so stupid."
[10]


HOLLYWOOD's MONTMARTRE
“Indeed you're not, honey.” Gilmore idolized her
too much to hurt her. “While you're star-gazing Ran
and I will wrestle with the menu.”
As they made their selections from the elaborate
card a bus boy brought a note folded into a triangle.
Gilmore read it with a frown and, turning, nodded to
a faded beauty seated at a table near the orchestra.
“Will you take care of the order, Ran? I must
speak to one of the ghosts of the past that will not
down."
Many eyes followed him, and Raneleigh fully under-
stood what the scene held for the curious. It was well
known that Dolly Brownrigg, former movie star, had
befriended Gilmore at a time when he sadly needed
help. That she had been something nearer and dearer
was the common belief. On this point she was reticent,
but she had spared few the tale of her first meeting with
Tony when, as she put it, he nosed into Hollywood
with one suit, no suitcase and no better job than writing
copy on an afternoon newspaper at fifteen dollars a
week. Raneleigh knew how relieved Tony had been a
year ago when she went to Europe with the wealthy
stock-broker whom she had cannily married as her
pictures began to lose favor. He could imagine how
little Tony welcomed her return. Her demands on him
had been incessant. She clung to him as she clung
to her faded laurels. Why was he for ever entangling
himself with some woman!
Dolly Brownrigg's greeting was effusive, but there
was no warmth in Gilmore's response, and cutting her
short, he came back to his own table with an expres-
sion far from urbane. He had hardly seated himself
when a dark young woman, trimly dressed, left her
[11]


Card 13
obscure corner on the right of the entrance and made
her way to him. She spoke to him in a low tone. He
gave her an ugly look and got instantly to his feet.
Neither Raneleigh nor Aileen heard the curt words
he addressed to her, but his voice was tense. Again
followed by the gaze of the curious, he laid his hand
on her arm and piloted her from the room. It was
plain that he resented her intrusion, that he had
hurried her away. Yet when he reappeared at the
top of the steps leading down into the restaurant—
that mimic stage where the more eminent patrons of
the Montmartre are wont to pause for their entrances
and exits—his cynical mask bore no sign of discom-
fiture. The man was something of an actor himself.
There was nothing of the actor, however, in Arthur
Raneleigh. He felt far less at ease than his friend. He
had long since accepted the fact that Gilmore's life
was not beyond criticism. He knew that the dark
woman had the best of reasons for accosting him: for
months he had maintained her, a tarnished movie extra,
in an apartment. He knew also that it was because
of Gilmore's sudden interest in the exotic star, Selma
Saranoff, that he had cast off his mistress. Raneleigh
did not assume to sit in judgment. He liked the man,
as he had liked the boy who had been his playfellow, in
spite of glaring faults. Their bond was wholly mascu-
line. Yet as he watched him now—so flushed with suc-
cess, so sure of his future, so lost in certain aspects to
his better self—he thought that, in the old phrase, he
tempted Providence.
Gilmore resumed his seat without comment on the
incident and settled down to his belated luncheon.
Whereupon, for the third time, his attention was
[12]


Hollywood's Montmartbe
drawn from food. A figure sufficiently striking stood
posed on the raised threshold of the restaurant.
"And now here's Saranoff with her satellite, Gerald
Hartley!" he exclaimed. "That's one of forty reasons,
Ran, why I hate to come to this place. I meet every
living soul I want to avoid."
"But Saranoff," reminded the writer dryly, '4s like
the Hebraic Satan—everywhere."
"I think she's wonderful," said Aileen. "No one
on the screen can compare with her. I'm mad about
her."
"Don't be so susceptible," rebuked her brother.
"These sirens aren't in your class."
"I wish I were in theirs," said the girl, gazing at
the newcomer. "How that costume sets off her pallor!
What a magnificent leopard-skin coat! And isn't her
hat a marvel? The velvet matches the leopard's
spots."
Saranoff was enjoying her customary triumph.
All eyes focused on her wherever she went. Even with-
out her fame or the studied theatricality of her dress,
she would have attracted attention. Tall, lithe, sinu-
ous, she moved with a rhythm peculiarly her own.
This feline grace, along with her dazzling red hair,
her emaciation and her emotional intensity, inspired
her publicity directors to liken her to Bernhardt whom
they never failed to term the Divine Sarah. But Selma's
deviltry was more apparent than her divinity. Her
face was dead white. On either cheek she had painted
a brilliant carmine patch. She had converted her thin,
rather cruel lips into a crimson gash. It was her eyes,
however, that truly revealed her nature. Long and
narrow, they were usually half veiled by heavy lids,
[13]


Card 13
but when her passions were aroused they kindled with
a suggestion of green flames burning in their strange
depths. To Raneleigh these hypnotic eyes, fixed on
Aileen as she advanced, seemed evil incarnate. He
saw in them no hint of kindness, of unselfishness, of
love for any being save herself. Surely an egotism as
corrosive as acid fed their fires.
The two men rose automatically as she stopped at
their table. Her nod to Raneleigh had more the air
of a dismissal than a greeting, but she became animated
as she turned to his friend.
"Hello, Tony!" she purred. "What brought you
here?"
"God knows!" He gazed at her insolently. "It's
the last place to come if one wants a moment's privacy."
"Who wants privacy?" she laughed. "Certainly
nobody in the movies." Drawing no response from Gil-
more, she added: "Don't you agree, Mr. Raneleigh?"
"That's been my impression, Miss Saranoff."
She paid no heed to his reply. Her eyes were on
Aileen.
"You're Tony's sister, of course. If no one will
introduce us, I'll do it myself. I'm Selma Saranoff and
I want to know you."
The girl stood up and shyly offered her hand. She
was bereft of words. The honor overwhelmed her.
Saranoff's gaze shifted to Gilmore.
"You needn't look so furious, Tony. I shan't
kidnap little sister."
He scowled and jerked his head toward her escort
hovering with heightened color in the background.
"Hartley's waiting," he said bruskly.
Aileen went pink at his rudeness. Raneleigh, the
[14]


Card 13
the end of his annoyances. As they came out into the
anteroom—that somewhat stuffy repository of signed
photographs and theatrical souvenirs—he found Dolly
Brownrigg posted like a sleek cat confident of its mouse.
There was no avoiding her. Gilmore presented his
sister.
"Oh, I know who you are!" cried Aileen with such
a smile as careless youth rarely bestows on fat-and-
forty. "Tony has told me that you are one of his
oldest Hollywood friends." She clapped her hand over
her mouth. "Of course I mean earliest, not oldest. I
used to adore your pictures. It nearly broke my
heart when you left the screen."
"You're a darling," gushed Mrs. Brownrigg, com-
pletely won. "I know we're going to be the best of
friends." She turned to Gilmore. "You never let
on to me that the little sister you used to talk about
was grown up and a beauty."
"She was just a gangling kid when I left Iowa,"
he replied. "She's been getting on in years like the
rest of us."
A more potent attraction than Mrs. Brownrigg
now came out of the dining-room, and Aileen, with a
little gesture of delight, went to the head of the stair-
case and watched the great Mr. Chaplin descend. Gil-
more and Raneleigh exchanged indulgent smiles.
"Isn't she adorable!" cried Dolly. "Why, Tony,
she has everything in Hollywood backed off the map!
I'm crazy about her. Now I'll tell you what I want
you to do. We're throwing a little party to-night at
the old stand, and you must bring her. Don't say no.
At least drop in as you're a-coming or a-going. You,
too, Mr. Raneleigh."
[16]


Cabs 13
Dolly, but don't count on my sister. How about you,
Ran? Will you meet me at my house at nine? Don't
bother with your car. I'll be chauffeur to-night."
"Fine," said Raneleigh, seeing that he had no choice
in the matter. "I'll be over in good time. Thanks for
the lunch."
Gilmore had taken his sister's arm and turned to
the coat-room when Mrs. Brownrigg called him back
and murmured something inaudible to the others.
"Sure," he assented. "You can depend on me."
Raneleigh started to retrieve his own hat, but
paused to watch one of the little comedies that often
spiced life in this droll community. Due to a face-
lifting operation, Mrs. Brownrigg's expression was
always strained, but at this moment it took on a
hauteur which would have done credit to a stage
duchess. He turned quickly. Dolly confronted Selma
Saranoff. He knew, as did every one, of the long-stand-
ing feud between these women, which went back to the
days of Dolly's stardom when Selma, a mere extra, had
undermined her with a director. Their meeting now
was, he felt, an event that no student of Hollywood
amenities should miss.
Saranoff bore down on the enemy with her usual
dash.
"Why, Dolly!" she exclaimed. "I had to look
twice to be sure it was you. What in the world have
you done to yourself? If you must bant, be careful.
Some of those foreign methods are positively danger-
ous. You shouldn't take reckless chances with your
health even if you are overweight. I'm really worried
about you, darling."
"Never felt better," snapped Mrs. Brownrigg and
[18]


Hollywood's Montmartre
pu£ out her hand to young Hartley. "Hello, Gerald!
I see you're still the answer to a maiden's prayer."
"Hello, Dolly!" he returned cordially. "I'm glad
you're back. We've missed you a lot."
"Thanks. You always were a friendly kid. I'm
throwing a party to-night. Drop in. You'll find
'Welcome' on the doormat."
He hesitated, visibly embarrassed.
"I'd like to come, but I'm afraid I can't make it.
The fact is"
"Of course you can," interrupted Selma. "We'll
both crash in if there's no objection."
, Mrs. Brownrigg swallowed hard, but recalled that
she was a lady.
"Do," she urged, mustering a smile by main force.
Saranoff made an effective exit, and Dolly turned
a stricken face on Raneleigh.
"Did you hear what that hellcat said to me?" she
demanded. "After all the dirt she's done me, Selma
Saranoff has the boiler-plate nerve to ask herself to
my house."
"Perhaps," suggested Raneleigh diplomatically,
"she wants to bury the hatchet."
Dolly's two chins quivered.
"B-bury the hatchet," she sputtered. "I'd like to
sink it to the handle in her hateful wooden head!"
-
[19]


Tony Packs His Gat
"Why should you? Get a secretary."
"That's not my notion of a home. I'm so hemmed
in by clerks and stenographers at the studio that I
simply must have privacy here."
The novelist, whose method was different, watched
with amusement. Like most men trained in newspaper
offices, Gilmore wrote with the first finger only. Yet,
when the thoughts flowed, he had almost the speed of
a professional typist. To-night, however, his nimble
brain seemed sluggish, and after staring absently at
the keys, he got to his feet with a sigh.
"I'll tackle this later," he said. "Why do any-
thing to-day that can be put off till to-morrow? Re-
verse those tiresome old maxims and you enjoy life."
"I shouldn't," said his friend laconically.
"No; you're like the virtuous chatelaine of this
household—hamstrung by puritan inhibitions."
Raneleigh laughed.
"I had never thought I resembled your Aunt Har-
riet. But I know this: if I followed your advice I'd
starve."
"For God's sake," flared Gilmore irritably, "don't
call her my aunt! Sometimes I can't believe that we
share the same blood." Then, as suddenly contrite:
"Sorry, old man. The truth is, Mrs. Barnett has been
getting my goat again, and my nerves are raw."
Raneleigh, discreetly silent, watched him take a
restless turn about the room. Dinner clothes became
him, their sober black and white giving slenderness to his
slightly heavy build. With his strong face, his bold
eye, his air of mastery, he was a distinguished figure
and looked his success. What a pity that success
could not have brought him contentment!
[21]


Card 13
"And of course," he added, "I rasp her nerves, too.
To her—after Iowa—Hollywood is Sodom and Gomor-
rah rolled in one. Back there among the Hawkeyes
she was president of the temperance union, treasurer
of the foreign missions fund and active in heaven
knows what other societies for meddling with other
peoples' business. To her strong drink is an inven-
tion of a Devil who is as real—perhaps more real—.
than her God. She looks on dancing as a cardinal sin.
She thinks that motion-pictures are destroying the
moral fiber of the nation and the sanctity of the home.
You can't shake her convictions. She's too set in her
way, too stubborn, too old."
He took a small bronze Buddha from the mantel-
piece, gazed at it fixedly and replaced it with a shrug.
"Godlike omniscience! She has it. And compla-
cence. The eternal verities are hers. She's always been
like that. But you know it, Ran. And you know
there's no reasoning with the smug. These good
women!" He again circled the room. "I want to be
fair to her. I've tried. I realize that she's a fish out
of water here, that it was a wrench for her to come.
But I had to ask her. She stood on her rights as my
sister's legal guardian. She wouldn't hear to a
separation. I had to ask her, you see. I wanted
Aileen."
"I understand. So should I in your place."
"But even Aileen—I haven't made her happy.
She's movie mad. Ever since I got my foothold she's
dreamed of startling the world. And she can, I be-
lieve. She has the beauty, the talent. It's merely a
question, I feel, of the right part in the right play.
And the right director, of course. With my connec-
[22]


Tony Packs His Gat
tions, I could put her over like a shot. Her health,
though—that's the handicap. I don't mean that she's
sickly. She just isn't strong. Never has been, in
fact. Yet she's wild to see everything, go everywhere.
She thinks I'm a tyrant because I won't let her. To-
day, after we left the Montmartre, we had a spat. It
was over Dolly Brownrigg's party, as you'll guess.
You saw how her heart was set on it. She begged me
to take her along to-night. She asked if I thought she
came to Hollywood to learn how to throw a trance."
"Do what?"
"She's been reading Oriental philosophy. Holkar—
you've met my Hindu friend next door—lends her
books. Anyhow, it struck me as funny and I laughed.
That made her angry. She told me that she was
sick of being mewed up at home. She said if I fancied
our aunt was lively company I ought to try sitting
alone with her night after night. There was no answer
to that. Poor kid! I felt sorry for her. But I
couldn't give in about Dolly's party. I won't have
her drawn into that rowdy set."
A knock came. Gilmore opened the door on Aileen,
a radiant Aileen, in a billowing chiffon evening dress
of blended shades of orchid. In her dark hair was a
bandeau of pearls. Other pearls clasped her exquisite
throat. She was arrayed for conquest.
Her brother frowned.
"Why the play-acting, Aileen?"
"Aren't I rather nice to look at, Tony? Don't
you like me in this frock? It's one you bought me in
Paris. Remember? I've had it made over." Getting
no response, she faced Raneleigh. "How about it,
Ran? I know you have good taste. Isn't it lovely?"
[23]


Card 13
"It seems the last word. But turn round before I
give my expert opinion. The back is most important
these days."
His tone was bantering, but she was too self-
absorbed to heed it, and happy to display herself,
pirouetted for his inspection.
"Flawless. But don't you think you ought to save
it for the Wampus ball?"
"That's what I say," put in Gilmore with cold
decision.
She sidled up to him like a wheedling child.
"You will let me go to-night, Tony?"
"No, Aileen."'
"But I'm all dressed for it."
"That makes no difference. You should be above
such tricks."
"Do take me," she pleaded. "I like Dolly. I'm
sure she likes me. And I do so want to be liked.
Please!"
"I said no. And I meant exactly what I said."
"But that was before you knew how I'd look,"
she argued naively. "Don't you truly and honestly
want to take me now? Say you will, Tony. Don't be
so hard."
"Hard! I'm not. No one knows it better than you.
How many times must I explain that I won't have you
cheapen yourself by running everywhere? Dolly
Brownrigg lets any one in who pushes the bell."
"Then I can't go, though I'm all ready! You don't
want me?"
Gilmore threw up his hands.
"Have women no sense!" Then, controlling him-
self: "I am thinking solelv of your good. You under-
[24]


Tony Packs His Gat
stand that clearly enough. It's unfair of you to tease
like this."
Tears blurred her brown eyes.
"I'm through teasing," she retorted bitterly. "Some
day you'll find that I have a mind of my own."
"Aileen!" he protested. "Do be reasonable."
The girl was not for the moment a reasoning being.
She flung up her head and turned in injured dignity to
leave the room. But at the door her stately progress
met a check. Mrs. Barnett blocked the threshold.
Sharp-nosed, firm-chinned, her iron gray hair waved,
parted and screwed in a knot at the back of her head,
her matronly figure clad in gray woolen that fell to the
tops of her high-buttoned shoes, she personified austere
respectability. And she was also, thought Raneleigh,
not untypical of the women who once signed testi-
monials for patent medicines. She fixed her eyes on
her nephew.
"Anthony," she said, in a tone of a school-teacher
accustomed to laying down the law, "I shall not allow
Aileen to go to this party. From what I've heard of
that Mrs. Brownrigg she is not a fit person to enter-
tain a niece of mine."
Gilmore's face mottled with rage.
"Mrs. Brownrigg is all right. She helped me when
no one else would lift a finger. That's the breed of
friend she is. Half the people who criticize her aren't
worthy to breathe the same air. As for her party to-
night, I've already told Aileen that she can't go."
"In that case," returned his aunt, "I have no more
to say."
"But I have," he countered, yielding to his fury.
"It's time for a show-down. I've stood all a man can
[25]


Cabd 13
stand. Henceforth, I'll thank you not to interfere
between Aileen and me."
"I'll be guided by ray conscience," she said quietly.
"As always."
"Your conscience!" he flung back. "Your precious
conscience! That's merely a name you give your will
to dominate. You've always tried to dictate. It's
your passion."
"But my poor boy"
"There you go! I'm still a boy in your eyes. You
can't realize that either of us is grown up. You want
to keep us still under your thumb. I had enough of
that in Iowa. I've been a fool to tolerate such an at-
titude here. I shan't from now on. I'm through."
"Is that all?"
"No. It's not all. While we're on the subject of
interference, get this straight: you're to quit tamper-
ing with Ling. I've told him not to give the key of
these rooms—my personal quarters—to any one. Yet
last week you tried your best to get it from him."
"The rooms need cleaning."
"That's part of his job. When I want it done I'll
tell him. This is my house. I'm entitled to some
privacy in it, and I'm going to have it."
Mrs. Barnett's poise was unshaken.
"If I am to live here," she said evenly, "I must
direct the servants. If I am not to live here I shall
take Aileen with me and make a Christian home for
her, which yours is not."
Raneleigh, who above everything abhorred a scene,
had gone to the hearth where the embers of a dying
fire threw off a cheerful glow. He wished with all his
heart that he could become invisible. But he respected
[26]


Tony Packs His Gat
the courage of that iron woman, standing there with
folded arms, and because he knew that she had a temper
of her own, he admired her restraint. He even felt
for her a certain sympathy. To him the issue between
these twain was clear. Two warring conceptions of
life drove them to act as they acted and be what they
were. Puritan against Pagan—the ancient strife. The
only point of novelty was that the battle-field should
be Hollywood.
Mrs. Barnett was self-possessed to the last.
"We'll talk this over at your leisure," she said,
turning to go. "And there are other matters, Anthony,
which must be frankly discussed."
"You'll find me frank enough," he retorted de-
fiantly. "But you'll not get Aileen away from me."
The girl, who had hovered wide-eyed near the door,
now vanished in a bright swirl of chiffon. Her aunt,
quaint but dauntless champion of the old order, fol-
lowed her with backbone rigid and head erect. Gilmore
met his friend's eyes. He obviously smarted with
shame.
"A sweet mess, Ran!"
"Sorry, old fellow. It's a difficult situation. But
Aileen will soon be of age and things will change."
"You're damned right they will." His hand shook
as he lighted a cigarette. "It was hard—even without
that fracas—to refuse the kid. It got me when she
burst in with all her pretty war-paint. But I had to
keep a frozen face. I couldn't take her, Ran."
"Of course not."
"There are so many places I can't take her." He
stared a moment at vacancy. "The Montmartre—that
was a mistake. Yet she was crazy to go. I thought,
[27]


Card 13
with you along—but it didn't work. I never dreamed
that Ida would brace up to me. She must be off her
head. I couldn't see how Aileen took it. I want her
to think well of me—as well as she can. Not much gets
by you, Ran. Did she suspect anything?"
"I can't answer that, Tony."
"No. It was a fool question. For God's sake, let's
get out of here! Ling? Where are you? Bring my
hat and gloves."
The valet, who had effaced himself, reappeared from
the bedroom with hat, gloves and an overcoat.
"I shan't need the coat. The night is too warm.
You'll find yours a nuisance, Ran."
"Perhaps. But it's? winter by the calendar and I
run no risks with colds. It will be late before we
return. You'd better play safe."
Gilmore was in no humor to follow any one's advice.
"I don't want it. That coat's a sight for evening
wear. I've meant to be measured for another. No
time. Get the car out, Ling." He strode to his desk
and from a drawer took a pistol and a silver hip-
flask. "Have a tot of brandy, Ran. It's Three Stars."
"No, thanks."
"You may find something you like better in the
cellarette."
"I won't drink now. We have a wet evening ahead."
"No doubt of that. I must have the lock of that
cellarette fixed when I get time. It's loose. Time
again! I'm so driven I don't know whether I'm going
or coming." He pocketed the flask, but balanced the
weapon, a small pearl-handled revolver, in his palm.
"Why should I burden myself with this gat? Did you
bring yours?"
i
[28]


Tony Packs His Gat
"Not to-night."
Gilmore laughed harshly.
"Consistency is not your middle name. You shy
at a cold and ignore bandits!"
"Hold-ups aren't as frequent as they were. Besides,
I hate to carry a gun. It doesn't seem civilized."
This was enough to goad the distraught man to a
contrary course.
"Since you, who are so civilized, gave me this toy
I'll tote it along. In any case, I dare say it wouldn't
kill a flea."
"It wasn't meant for insecticide, Tony. But it's
nine-thirty, and Dolly will be in a fine stew if you are
late. You're probably the main event."
"Let her stew! Nobody can dictate my schedule.
I come when I please and go when I please. Anyhow,
it's only a five-minute run."
Nevertheless, he was impatient to be off". Raneleigh
glanced into the living-room as Gilmore closed his
study door. It was shrouded in gloom. From the
high-powered limousine, parked in the driveway, he
looked for Aileen's light, but her bedroom, too, was
dark. He pictured her drooping disconsolate in her
finery. Poor Cinderella! No pumpkin coach for her.
[29]


CHAPTER THREE
dolly's party gets rough
For Dolly Brownrigg a party was not a party
without a flood of alcoholic drinks. She was bolstered
in this faith by the fate of certain Hollywood hosts
and hostesses, who, braving custom and serving no
liquor, had seen their guests walk out on them to
assuage their thirst in establishments more lax in their
interpretation of the Eighteenth Amendment. No such
humiliation for her.
On his arrival Raneleigh was seized by Dolly's florid
and obese husband and propelled firmly to the dining-
room. The long refectory table looked like a deli-
catessen counter. Salads, meats, cheeses, sandwiches,
covered every available inch of the lace-edged cloth.
Two grave footmen stood ready to serve this gargan-
tuan feast to all and sundry, but few troubled them.
The popular resort was the buffet, and the crowning
glory of the buffet was a silver punch-bowl of heroic
size. It was before the punch-bowl that Brownrigg,
still clutching him by the arm, brought up.
"Have a depth-bomb," he urged.
"A what?"
"A depth-bomb."
"My error, Charlie. I thought you said a death-
bomb. If you don't mind I'll take a mild high-ball
instead."
"You're a wise bimbo, Ran. Here's Scotch that's
[30]


Card 13
"That's it. I'm not casting any—any—whatever
you said—on Dolly. She's the finest woman in the
world, bar none. Do you follow me?"
"Oh, yes."
Brownrigg guffawed.
"Then you're smarter than I am. I don't know
where in hell I'm at."
He spied fresh arrivals in need of depth-bombs,
and Raneleigh sought other company. He saw many
acquaintances, but few with whom he cared to linger.
The ukase, recently promulgated in Hollywood's upper
circles, that one should carry one's liquor like a gentle-
man—and by inference, like a lady—found no favor
here. Some guests, who had come from dinner parties,
were in the mellow state of well-being that their host
enjoyed. Others were pugnacious and on their
shoulders bore the proverbial chip. One man had
attained complete oblivion and slumbered on a polar-
bear rug beneath the gilded grand piano. The instru-
ment had no other use, Raneleigh judged, than to serve
as a receptacle for empty cocktail glasses. A couple
would snap on the radio, dance briefly and snap it off.
A demon of restlessness seemed to possess all these
pleasure-seekers. They wandered through the vast
drawing-room, the billiard-room, and yet other rooms
below- and above-stairs. No one questioned their go-
ings or comings. It was Liberty Hall.
The novelist in time discovered that he was wrong
about the grand piano. To its accompaniment, an
apelike pair of dwarfs, male and female, exhibited
their version of the Black Bottom with variations that
added to its obscenity. They drew a storm of applause,
gave the encore their contract specified, and swallowing
[32]


Dolly's Party Gets Rough
all the punch and caviar sandwiches they could hold,
left for their next engagement. It behooved them to
make hay while their sun shone. In another month
they would be shelved for some new sensation. Ran-
eleigh watched them with disgust. That kind of
thing was as little to his taste as the wholesale guzzling.
What swine some humans were! No wonder Tony re-
fused to bring Aileen.
He tried the library. The Brownriggs had a library
because the architect had included it in his plan. The
same arbiter of elegance had obligingly selected books
whose bindings harmonized with the color scheme. Their
function was purely decorative. But, even here amid
the unread volumes, there was no peace. A noisy
poker game was in progress. So he returned to the
maudlin hilarity of the drawing-room and looked about
for Tony in the hope of inducing him to start the
movement to Gantley's. Pat's place was no haven of
tranquillity, but his swimming-pool had its attractions.
He came upon Gilmore listening with a sardonic smile
to the wisdom of his host. The broker was charging
him never to marry an actress. In a chair, just around
the jamb of the doorway leading to the dining-room
and impromptu bar, Raneleigh spied Saranoff. She
was speaking to young Hartley, but her eyes were on
Tony. She patently meant him to overhear.
"Now why," she argued, "can't I have another
cocktail?"
"Because you're soused, my pet. You've had
enough."
"But who are you, Gerald, old dear," she drawled,
"to say when I've had enough?"
"Fm the man who's going to marry you, Selma.
[33]


Dolly's Pabty Gets Rough
woul't fight? woul't fast? woul't tear thyself? woul't
drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?'"
Brownrigg, with no notion what it was all about,
gave a raucous cheer. A group gathered.
"Don't be an ass," said Hartley, crimson with em-
barrassment.
"Do you mean me, you cub?" bridled his host.
"Keep out of this, Charlie," ordered Gilmore. "An
ass, eh?" He thrust his face insolently close. "Well,
then, there's a pair of us. But here's the difference.
I don't jump when she cracks the whip. On the other
hand, when she asks a favor nicely, I don't turn her
down." He beckoned a servant, passing with a tray.
"Selma, here's your drink."
The woman's strange eyes had smoldered through-
out the foolish dispute. Did she enjoy it? Or was she
incensed? Raneleigh was uncertain. But she took the
glass, held it high in a shaking hand for an instant,
and then put it to her painted lips. At the first swal-
low she choked, and the amber liquid spilled to her
frock and spread darkly over its vivid green. Hartley
pulled her to her feet and thumped her nude back so
briskly that the red came. As soon as she got her
breath she lurched away and, still clutching the glass,
braced herself against the chair and faced them. The
younger man shrank from her blazing eyes. He was
no match for such a temperament as hers. But Gil-
more, unmoved by her fury, gave her stare for stare.
"Take that leer off your face, Tony Gilmore!" she
screamed. "You damned superior hypocrite! Take
it off, I say!"
His eyes changed. Their pupils contracted. His
taunting look turned to contempt.
[35]


Card 13
"You won't, eh? Well, I'll do it for you!" She
flung her glass.
It struck him between the eyes and shattered at
his feet. The curious, as if marshaled by some in-
visible movie director, crowded round. Gilmore him-
self behaved as if mindful of a camera and the myriad
patrons of the films. With a mauve-bordered silk
handkerchief he staunched the blood from a cut on
his nose and ignored the rising welt above.
"Come!" he said debonairly. "Let's close this
pretty little scene and go on with the party."
Brownrigg could not repress his admiration.
"Good scout!" he exclaimed thickly. "You're all
right, Tony. And Selma's all right. You gotta over-
look lil' things like that. Women"—he gesticulated
vaguely—"women will be women. Not that I'll have
guests inshulted in my house. I'll not stand for it.
Dammit, this is my house. Mine and Dolly's. I told
her when I deeded it over—sweetheart, I says"
"Shut up, Charlie!" His wife appeared suddenly
at his elbow. "There's no need for you to act like a
fool because that she-devil went on a rampage."
The broker was aggrieved.
"D'you hear that?" he appealed to the company.
"It's jus' a sample of what she hands me right along."
"You bet I do," said Dolly. "Every time he
deserves it. And I always tell him if he doesn't like
it he can give me a settlement and I'll quit. Cut out
the sob stuff, Charlie. Nobody cares a hoot about it."
Saranoff had collapsed in her chair. She looked
deathly sick. No one else offering to lend a hand,
Raneleigh helped Hartley take her to the women's
dressing-room. Here, to his disgust, he found two
[36]


Dolly's Paett Gets Rough
male guests on their hands and knees, engaged in a
boisterous game of craps. A colored maid guided
Selma's tottering steps to the bathroom. The men on
the floor paid no heed to them. The game went on.
Descending to the drawing-room, Raneleigh was greeted
by more hubbub. Dolly thought it time to set out for
Gantley's. Discussion raged. Some had other en-
gagements for the small hours. Some preferred to
stay where they were. And some, incapable of voicing
their desires, merely goggled with glazed eyes.
"This is worse than a Democratic convention,
Ran," Dolly complained. "They won't agree on any-
thing. I gave my word to Pat I'd bring my crowd.
How am I going to do it?"
"You might first of all," he suggested, "weed out
those who can't navigate under their own steam."
"Good idea, Ran. Here's where we lose Saranoff.
She's passed out. I'd like to ditch her permanently.
Just look at poor Tony's forehead!" She turned to
Tony. "Come up-stairs with me and I'll dress it."
"No, thanks," he said, avoiding her tender gaze.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he ejaculated, staring beyond
her. "The little devil has staged a come-back!"
Saranoff, with faithful Hartley at heel, stood in
the hall doorway. She had restored her make-up. She
looked her usual self. After a quick glance round she
walked directly to Gilmore.
"Sorry I went wild, Tony. I can't help my temper.
You know that. Not sore, are you?"
"No, Tigress," he said indifferently, and turned to
Dolly Brownrigg. "I think I'll be off."
"But you aren't leaving me flat!" she cried. "You
told me you'd go on with us to Pat's."
[37]


Cakd 13
The caress in her baby-blue eyes again irked him.
"I'm not welching," he said shortly. "Round up
your crowd."
She managed it at last, and/as they trooped forth
Raneleigh, from the steps, saw Selma link arms with
Tony. When he next glimpsed her she was beside him
in his car. Hartley, an irresolute and pathetic figure,
loitered at the curb. Then, as the engine started,
Gerald, with sudden decision, opened the rear door
and scrambled in. The trio sped off into the night.
Raneleigh glanced at his watch. It was nearly
twelve. He felt tired and bored. Since Tony had
left him to his own devices, he thought he might as
well steal away and go home to bed.
But Mrs. Brownrigg outflanked his retreat.
"Did you see what I saw?" she demanded. "The
poor fish! But some people will put up with murder.
Well, let's get action. Ran, you come along with me."
"How are you going?" he asked.
"With any one but Charlie. He's hogged my new
French limousine, of course. We'll pile in somewhere.
Isn't that Myrtle Murillo's car? Coo-hoo! Hey,
Myrtle! You're about to jitney a famous author to
Santa Monica. And me! I guess I'm somebody. Time
was, I had my name in electric lights from coast to
coast."
Raneleigh found himself sandwiched between heavy-
weights. It was a snug fit. Much of the way Dolly
regaled him with tales of her palmy days of stardom.
He listened so courteously that by and by she nestled
her blonde head on his shoulder. Her nature was af-
fectionate. He thought longingly of the Gantley pool.
Beverly Hills left behind, they faced a salty breeze and
[38]


Dolly's Party Gets Rough
a few miles beyond reached a Spanish-Colonial struc-
ture overlooking canon and sea. Other survivors of
the Brownrigg festivities were noisily alighting in the
walled forecourt. The Gantley establishment absorbed
them like a hotel.
And Pat Gantley himself suggested a hotel mana-
ger. Whatever his night-time guests wore—and they
came as whim seized them—he was always clad in
formal dress. A born mixer, he could blend the most
ill-assorted social ingredients. Financially, his status
was vague. He was one of those men who prosper
without visible means of support. Raneleigh had
caught hints of chartered ships and bootlegging, but
he suspected that gambling was nearer the mark. There
was always bridge for high stakes in the brilliantly
lighted sun-room. Poker and other games went on in
quiet corners. Nor, to the initiate, was a roulette-
wheel hard to find. It was less a home than a casino.
For Dolly's guests, however, the main attraction
was the huge enclosed swimming-pool. This, too, with
its warmed sea water of varying temperature, its
dressing-rooms and attendants, had the air of a public
resort. But no drab uniformity of costume prevailed.
The opulent Pat furnished one-piece bathing-suits of
every hue. This freedom of choice added much to the
gaiety of the scene. Dolly Brownrigg unhappily chose
scarlet in which she looked like a bloated firecracker.
Unable to find Gilmore, she still clung to Raneleigh and
his plunge proved less bracing than he had hoped. She
had the overwhelming playfulness of a porpoise. At
last he passed the buxom nymph to an unwary stranger
and fled.
Dressed once more and ready to go, he hunted
[39]


Cabd 13
vainly for Gilmore. His friend's heedlessness incensed
him. It was unpardonable in Tony to leave him in the
lurch after insisting that he come to-night in his car.
But it was Saranoff's doing, of course. She had forced
herself upon him. He got his coat and hat and paused
at the door, uncertain whether to call a taxicab or
wait for a lift from some acquaintance. A taxi seemed
safer. Then he heard himself paged.
"Mr. Ran-e-leigh—Mr. Ran-e-leigh!" intoned a
Japanese voice.
"Yes," he said. "What's wanted?"
"Telephone, sir. This way, please."
He was shown to a closet off the central hall and
took up the receiver. "Raneleigh speaking. . . .
Who? . . . Oh, it's you, Gerald! Where in thunder
have you people been all this while? . . . What did
you say? Repeat that. . . . Good God! Yes, I'll
come." The servant had not left the hall. "Get a taxi,"
he called. "Don't lose a minute. I must have it at
once."
Dolly Brownrigg, still in her bathing-suit and
dripping from every surplus ounce, waylaid him at
the door.
"You're not ditching me at this hour," she
protested. "Have a heart! I don't want to poke
home with Charlie. You don't know what he's like
after a bat." Then, noting his pallor, the haggard
lines into which his usually tranquil face had set, she
forgot her grievance. "Ran! You look sick. What's
happened to you?"
"It's Tony." He spoke in a flat voice from which
all emotion was erased. "He's been shot. He's dead."
[40]


CHAPTER FOUR
THE SHOT FEOM THE HEDGE
"Dead!" parroted Dolly. "Tony Gilmore shot
dead!" Her befuddled wits, keyed for hours to frivol-
ity, could not at once grasp this grim reality. "How
can that be when only a little while ago "She
clutched his sleeve. "Why, Ran, that devil Selma left
my house with him! She must have killed him!"
"I don't know. Hartley phoned me. He was at
Tony's. The police are there. But Tony's dead."
She missed the tragic note in his voice. It was her
own loss, the sudden rending of an old bond, the drama
of the moment, her part in the play, that absorbed her.
Raneleigh jerked away. She roused herself and ran
wildly after him.
"Are you holding something back?" she panted.
"I want to hear it all. I want to tell the others."
"That's all I know," he said, and sprang into his
cab.
Jolting toward the city, her grotesque image re-
curred to him. So she'd wanted to tell the others! Fac-
ing this horror, she was still the actress. She saw
herself spreading the news. Yet, if rumor were true,
she and Tony had been more than friends. Love! What
did these moths of the limelight know of love? None
of them had cared for Tony as he had cared. Incidents
of their early years together floated to the troubled
surface of his mind. That handsome boy, best of
[41]


Card 13
playfellows—he was the real Tony Gilmore. This
final phase, his life in Hollywood, was but a specious
gloss. None of that shallow crew had known him. But
they had sealed his fate. The luncheon at the Mont-
martre to-day—no, yesterday it was; it had become a
mere date, a segment of the irrevocable past—at that
luncheon the dragon's teeth were sown. The sinister
forces which had done him to death were gathering
then. A look here, a word there, a lightly given
promise, trifles all, yet their sum was oblivion.
They swung into the familiar street at last. There
was the house. Its lights picked it out from the dark-
ness. Bystanders, late as was the hour, were clustered
on the sidewalk. A policeman in uniform guarded the
entrance.
"I am a friend of the family," said Raneleigh.
"May I go in?"
The officer opened the door behind him and called
to a plain-clothes man.
"Sergeant, this guy says he's a friend of the
family."
The detective, burly, dark and, by now, much in
need of a shave, looked him over sharply.
"Were you with Gilmore to-night?"
"Yes, early in the evening."
"What's your name?"
"Arthur Raneleigh. I want to help."
"All right. Come in. We may want to talk to
you by and by."
He stepped into the hall.
"Did he die at once—without a word?"
"Plugged through the heart," said the plain-clothes
man tersely. "He's in there if you want to see him."
[42]


The Shot from the Hedge
Raneleigh entered the living-room. Tony lay on
the davenport. His still face wore a look of startled
incredulity as if, to the very last, he was unconvinced
that such a fate could be his. The welt on his fore-
head raised by the impact of the glass Saranoff had
thrown, showed purple against ash-gray. A clot of
blood had oozed from the cut at the base of his nose.
Selma's mark! Had her rage outlasted that moment
of pique? Had her hand sped the bullet that found
Tony's heart? As Raneleigh bent over the lifeless
clay that was once his friend, he believed her guilty.
Then he became aware of some one behind him. Mrs.
Barnett, in a gray lounging-robe, her stockinged feet
in felt slippers, stood in the doorway. Her drawn face
wore a mottled flush, and for once, her hair did not
ripple in smooth waves from its parting, but clung to
her head in tight rings. Back of one ear he noticed
the ends of a kid curler which she had neglected to
remove.
"I don't see why they insist on all this light," she
said. "It isn't seemly."
Neither, he thought, was murder. Even were she
confronting her own death, Mrs. Barnett would no
doubt keep an eye on the proprieties. Yet her self-
possession helped to steady him.
"I want to do all I can," he told her. "Please call
upon me for any service."
"Thank you, Arthur," she replied. "For the
present, apparently, we can only stir at the beck and
call of the police."
"Is Aileen all right?"
"Yes. She was hysterical at first, but I reasoned
with her and she became quiet."
[43]


Card 13
"May I see her?"
"I'd rather you wouldn't disturb her. She's ly-
ing down in the library."
There seemed to be nothing he could do. Even the
Law marked time. The detective, braced against the
newel, was cleaning his finger-nails.
"What is he waiting for?" asked Raneleigh in an
undertone.
"More police, I infer," said Mrs. Barnett.
He turned at a shuffling step. Gerald Hartley had
risen from a bench beyond the staircase. He was
ghastly white and so near collapse that when Raneleigh
reached his side his knees gave way and he clung to
him for support.
"My God," he whimpered, "this is awful! It came
like a bolt of lightning, Ran. I didn't realize what
was happening till I went to help Tony and found him
dead."
Raneleigh gripped his arm.
"Better say nothing now," he cautioned. "You
can tell me all about it later."
"He can't incriminate himself any more than he
has," barked the plain-clothes man with sudden ferocity.
"He's spilled his story three or four times already. If
he wants to tell it again let him do it."
"In that case, perhaps you won't mind if I talk
with him in private?"
"Go ahead. But make it snappy. Take him into
the dining-room." And unseen by Hartley, he signed
to Raneleigh to leave the door ajar.
The unhappy youth slumped into a chair.
"This is awful," he repeated. "Simply awful!"
"I know, old man. A tough break. But try to
[44]


The Shot fbom the Hedge
pull yourself together. I want to hear exactly what
happened."
"I don't know, Ran. Honest, I don't."
"Where is Selma?"
"In the rear hall telephoning. There's a cop
watching her. They're all over the place."
"Give it to me straight, Gerald. Did she shoot
Tony?"
"No, no. I swear it. That detective would like
to pin it on her. Or on me. He thinks I'm lying.
But I'm not, Ran."
"Haven't you any idea who did the shooting?"
"Wouldn't I tell if I had! We drove back here
because Tony wanted his overcoat."
"You drove straight here from the Brownriggs'?"
"Yes. That is, we'd gone only a block or two
toward Santa Monica when he said his throat was sore
and that he was afraid he might catch cold after a
swim unless he had his coat. Selma sat in front with
him."
"Were they quarreling?"
Hartley's mouth twitched.
"No," he replied. "Petting. At least Selma was.
She was trying to get him in good humor again. She
was sorry for her flare-up at the Brownriggs'. That's
her way, Ran. After she's done something mean she's
so sweet you'd hardly believe she was the same girl.
You don't like her. I've seen it. But you don't know
her as I do. I'd do anything for her."
Raneleigh's breath shortened at his repetition of
the phrase which Gilmore had so cruelly ridiculed.
Was Hartley, with some boyish notion of chivalry,
making good his word? Was he shielding his idol?
[45]


Card 13
"Go on," he said. "What happened after you ar-
rived here?"
"Tony stopped in the drive. Right where his
car stands now. It hasn't been moved. He didn't
get out at once—Selma still had her hands on him.
I—I guess he rather wanted to show me the power
he had over her." Hartley gulped, and tears welled
to his eyes. "Senna's hard to understand. She does
lots of things I don't like. Yet, in other ways"
He broke off with a baffled gesture, as if mere words
could not convey her fascination.
"Then Tony got out?"
"Yes."
"Did Selma stay in the machine?"
"Yes. She knew she'd made me a little huffy with
her petting and so she turned—I was on the far side
of the back seat—and began kidding me. And at that
moment—as God's my witness, Ran, I'm telling you the
truth—a shot was fired and I jerked my head just in
time to see Tony fall. I don't think he gave a cry."
"From what direction did the shot come?"
"From the shrubbery at the left side of the house."
"Didn't you see any one? It was bright moonlight."
"No. And neither did Selma. I jumped out of
the car and found Tony unconscious. Selma threw
herself on the ground and pressed her ear to his
breast. She screamed that he was dead. I couldn't
believe it and tried to pour some whisky down his
throat from my flask. But she was right. He was
dead."
"What about the people in the house? Had they
heard nothing?"
"I don't know. I rang the bell and pounded on
[46]


The Shot fbom the Hedge
the door, and pretty soon Mrs. Barnett came down.
Then Tony's sister ran out. She went into hysterics—
worse than Selma. Then the Hindu next door and other
neighbors came, and a doctor and the police, and I
phoned you. I guess the police will hold me. But
I didn't do it, Ran. Don't you believe me?"
"I don't think you did it, Gerald."
"But you think it was Selma—that I'm lying to
protect her. She didn't. She's innocent."
The plain-clothes man poked his head into the
room.
"That'll be enough, bo. The Chief's here and
wants to see you."
"The Chief?" Hartley blenched and started to his
feet. His eyes had the look of a hunted animal.
"Captain Logan of the homicide squad. No big case
gets by John B."
Raneleigh went quickly to the door.
"I'd like to be present," he said, fingering a bank-
note. "Can you see any reason why I shouldn't?"
The plain-clothes man could not.
"Stick round," he said from the corner of his mouth,
and then, Logan looming behind him: "Chief, meet Mr.
Raneleigh, friend of the family. He's been assisting
me. And over there is the fellow who happened to be
on the spot when the shooting occurred."
"Happened, eh?"
The thin, long-faced, sharp-eyed Logan examined
Hartley from head to foot. Like the terrier he re-
sembled, he had his tricks. This cool silent appraisal
of a suspect was number one. Raneleigh, who had
heard something of the man and his methods, expected
to see a canine twitch of nostrils. He was not disap-
[47]


Card 13
pointed. Trick number two followed with melodramatic
suddenness. Hurling himself at Hartley he gripped
either shoulder in a bony claw.
"So it was you who fired that shot?" he snarled.
"No, no!" Hartley cringed, terrified, before him.
"I didn't shoot Tony."
"Look me in the eyes!"
The investigator had advanced to his third trick,
the glassy stare. The school in which he was trained
put great faith in this stare, and Logan had perfected
it to a point where it seemed to probe the darkest
secrets of the soul. Culprits had been known to break
under it. Even the innocent found it terrible to endure.
Hartley, innocent or guilty, could not support it. He
turned his eyes to Raneleigh in mute appeal. His chin
quivered. His body swayed as if, released from that
steel clutch, he would pitch to the floor.
"Can't stand the gaff, eh? What's the matter with
you? If you're not guilty, why don't you face me like
a man? Look at me, I say!"
The youth raised his harassed eyes and strove to
hold them steady. But he could not meet that malevo-
lent glare. His lips trembled. He tried to speak.
Words would not come. Then, as Logan abruptly
loosed his grip, he crumpled into a chair, dumb with
fright. Raneleigh winced at the spectacle. He had
long thought Hartley a weakling, but such cowardice
passed his comprehension. Or was it a form of heroism?
His humane impulse was to go to him now, bid him to
refuse to talk, to demand a lawyer to safeguard his
rights. But he remembered Tony lying beyond the
closed doors to the next room—Tony, with that in-
credulous look in his dead eyes—and his heart hard-
[48]


The Shot from the Hedge
ened. If this jealous fool had killed him he should
be made to pay. If he was shielding a worthless woman
he must be brought to see the folly of such misplaced
devotion.
Logan bent and, thrusting a hand under his vic-
tim's chin, lifted his pitiful face.
"You talked to Black here. Why aren't you gabby
now? Can't you remember your story? Why don't
you tell it to me? Have you lost your nerve? Can't
you speak up like a man?"
Hartley again shrank from his tormentor, but he
found his voice.
"I—I want to speak. But you—you treat me as
if Oh, I didn't shoot him! I didn't, I tell you!
I didn't!"
"Go on," prodded Logan. "Spit it out."
He babbled his story once more. It was without
sequence, less coherent than before. He repeated him-
self, wandered distractedly to the Brownrigg party,
harked back to the tragedy, defended Selma, and over
and over protested his innocence and hers.
Logan's satisfaction increased.
"So you and Gilmore went to the mat at the
party?"
"No, no."
"You've admitted that there was a fight."
"Not a real fight. We didn't come to blows."
"Naw! Just a word-slinging bout, eh?"
"Yes. That's all."
"You're a liar. Wasn't socking him in the head
with a glass a blow?"
"But I've explained"
"Oh, yes!" Logan bore him down. "You've ex-
[49]


Caud 13
plained and it's as clear as a blue-print. You picked
a quarrel with him "and the dame mixed in. Gilmore
was trying to get your skirt away from you."
"No. You've twisted things. Won't you listen?
I meant"
"I got you the first time. You went loco when he
walked off with your girl. You followed them outside.
You jumped into the car with them. And, when you
saw your chance, you shot him."
"No, no!"
"You shot him," persisted Logan. "You shot him,
you white-livered skunk! You shot him!"
Hartley's jaw sagged. Terror again overcame
him. With a groan of despair, he covered his face
and broke into wild sobs.
Logan, who seemed about to pounce, wheeled at a
step in the hall. A well-dressed, keen-faced man, with
a confident bearing, entered the room.
"Hello, Chief! Made any progress?"
"I'll say I have, Kent. He'll come through when
we give him the works." Then, his glance falling on
Raneleigh, he jerked his head toward the door. "Out !'*
he ordered tersely. "And we shan't need you,
Sergeant."
Raneleigh followed the plain-clothes man into the
hall. As the door closed behind them, the newcomer's
voice—deep, slow, relentless—took up the inquisition.
[50]


CHAPTER FIVE
ENTER INVESTIGATOR KENT
Raneleigh paused before the library. He was
anxious for Aileen. Could she overhear that merci-
less grilling in the room beyond? The door was ajar.
He looked in and, in the obscurity, relieved only by
the light from the hall, made out her form prone on a
couch and Mrs. Barnett, sitting bolt upright, in a
chair beside her. The girl staggered to her feet.
"Don't get up," he protested. "I did not mean to
startle you. Lie down, my dear. It's best for you."
She swayed as he reached her. He took her arm.
"Don't touch me!" she cried shrilly. "I don't want
any one to touch me!"
"Of course you don't," he humored her. "I
understand."
She peered at him.
"Oh, it's Ran!" And she, who would not be
touched, clung to him excitedly. "Did you know that
Tony's dead? He's dead, Ran! And aunt and I are
all alone. He was going to make me a star. Yes, he
promised. He said he could. And now he's dead."
He had thought himself prepared for any vagary of
the human mind under stress, but that this distraught
child should think of herself and her thwarted am-
bition now shocked him profoundly.
"It's a crushing blow for us all," he said gently.
"Won't you lie down again, my dear?"
[51]


CARD 13
She continued to peer at him.
“Did you see him lying there in the moonlight-
the moonlight that he loved? I saw him. My Tony!
And I saw her!” Her voice rose strident and vindic-
tive. “I saw that Saranoff woman? She was bending
over him!” Her head dropped to his shoulder and
her frail body shook with violent sobs.
"It's the first time she's wept,” said her aunt. "I'm
thankful.”
The girl sank back on the couch. Her sobs grew
less frequent. Raneleigh saw her relax. As he tip-
toed out he noted that nothing said in the dining-room
could be distinguished here. The old house was soundly
built. The plain-clothes man had vanished, but the
uniformed officer who had stood outside the front
door was now on guard in the hall.
"If Sergeant Black wants me, tell him I'm on the
veranda. I need a whiff of fresh air.”
“You can report to him yourself," said the officer.
“He just went out.”
Whereupon Raneleigh beheld one more illustration
of Saranoff's ruling passion. Although the veranda
light illuminated much of the lawn, she had turned on
the ceiling light in Gilmore's limousine and sat there
haughtily indifferent to the policeman posted by the
running-board. But she could not ignore Dolly Brown-
rigg who now pushed through the bystanders on the
sidewalk and ran to the car.
“You brazen hussy! How can you face us?”
Selma coolly eyed her dethroned rival.
“If I looked like you at this moment,” she drawled,
“I couldn't face anybody.”
“You never saw the day you looked like me.”
[52]


Enter Investigator Kent
"Thank heaven for that! If I ever do I hope
they chloroform me."
"Chloroform's too good for you. It's the rope
you'll get. You're a murderess!"
"You're a fool. Toddle along, Fatty. Bed's the
place for old folks."
Mrs. Brownrigg was stung to fury.
"You shot Tony. I know you did. You wanted
to kill him when you threw that glass at him in my
house. Now you have killed him. You're going to
jail. You're going to be tried for murder. You're
going to be hanged."
"And you, old hippo," countered Selma, "are going
to have apoplexy."
Sergeant Black halted Dolly's seething rejoinder.
"Who are you?" he asked, producing a note-book.
"Mrs. Brownrigg. I was known on the screen as
Dorothy Vere."
"Her real name was Higgins," contributed Selma.
"Put that down, Sherlock. If she hadn't married a
rich broker she'd be hoofing it. You'd better get her
finger-prints, too."
The detective led Mrs. Brownrigg to a spot less
exposed. Raneleigh, turning away, saw Tony's
neighbor, Holkar. Always cloudily aloof, the Hindu
now seemed in spirit yet more remote from this Occi-
dental world in which he chose to dwell. Then, as
their eyes met, he recalled himself from far spaces and
gravely bowed.
"One feels so helpless at such a time," said Ran-
eleigh. "So stunned and bewildered."
"Bear life's pain gloriously," replied the Hindu
in his soft voice. "Let it be a symbol."
[53]


Card 13
"Ah, yes!" The novelist strove to look intelligent.
"I'm sure you're right. By the way, did you hear the
shot?"
"The shot?" He stroked his silky beard. "No,
I did not."
"What attracted your attention?"
"A woman's screams. I came over and found my
friend dead."
"The woman was Miss Saranoff?"
"Yes. It was she who screamed first."
The front door opened. Logan came briskly out,
but halted as his sharp glance fell on the dark-skinned
Oriental.
"This is Mr. Holkar who lives next door," said
Raneleigh. "He tells me that he did not hear the
shot."
Logan scowled.
"Anything wrong with your hearing, Holkar? Nit
deaf, are you?"
"No."
"Were you asleep?"
"I had not gone to bed."
"Wide awake and yet you didn't hear a gun fired
just outside your windows?"
"No. It was the commotion here that drew me out
of my house."
"What time was it?"
"A little after twelve, I believe."
Logan leveled his intimidating stare.
"And you were still up, eh! Waiting, maybe for
this to happen?"
Holkar met his gaze with untroubled eyes. His
full lips curled slightly, but he deigned no reply.
[54]


Enter Investigator Kent
"We'll talk to you later," rapped out Logan.
"Don't leave your house. Black? Where are you?"
Black answered from the driveway.
"Look here, Chief!" he called. "We've found the
gat."
Logan strode down the steps. Raneleigh followed.
The officer held the weapon by the very tip of the
barrel.
"Where was it?"
"On the lawn next door, just beyond the hedge.
I marked the spot. One bullet's missing."
Then, as Logan turned a pocket flash-light on the
pistol, Raneleigh was startled out of his poise.
"My God!" he exclaimed. "That's Tony's
revolver!"
Saranoff leaned from the car.
"It's not Tony's," she declared. "His gun was no
more like that plaything than a dagger's like a pen-
knife. He owned an automatic."
Logan swung round.
"How do you know?"
"Haven't I seen it many a time? I've even used it
in a picture."
"What picture?"
"Oh, a silly flop of Benzinger's called Sunday's
Duds. The title queered it, I guess. Not refined enough,
if you get me. Anyhow, I could round up a dozen
witnesses who'd tell you this gun wasn't Tony's."
Raneleigh was staggered by her bravado. She
could not possibly prove such a statement. But he
now thought he saw how the tragedy occurred. The
pair, despite Hartley's story, had resumed their
quarrel in the car. She had slipped her hand into
[55]


Card 13
Tony's pocket, secured the revolver, threatened him
with it in her melodramatic way and, probably at some
taunt from him, fired the deadly shot, and then, like
the fool she was, had thrown the pistol, not into the
hedge, but over it. And at this very minute, the in-
fatuated Gerald was going through hell to shield her!
Logan rounded on Raneleigh.
"What about it? Do you still say this gun was
Gilmore's?"
"Yes. Miss Saranoff is mistaken."
"Why are you so sure?"
"Because I gave it to him a year ago. There were
many hold-ups then, as you may recall."
Logan plainly did not care to be reminded of a
period when the entire police force had seemed power-
less to stem a wave of highway robbery.
"Stick to the present," he snapped. "When did
you last see this revolver you claim you gave Gilmore?"
"As he was leaving for the Brownrigg party
to-night."
"Did he take it with him?"
"Yes."
"Have you any proof that this is the same gun?"
"If it was the pistol I gave him, you'll find his
initials engraved on the handle."
"Hold it to the light, Joe. Careful! Don't
smudge the finger-prints." Logan again examined the
revolver. "They're there! Well, Miss Saranoff, your
dozen witnesses don't seem to be worth a hurrah in
hell. We'll have to jog your memory. Come into
the house. You, too, Randal."
Raneleigh would have responded to any name, but
Selma voiced a bored protest.
[56]


Cabd 13
alertness, prowled restlessly behind. The rest of the
oak-paneled room, with its mulberry hangings, was
Rembrandtesque in its obscurity.
But Selma's story added nothing to the known facts,
if facts they were. It coincided with Hartley's testi-
mony to the last detail, while, to Raneleigh's amaze-
ment, she still stoutly maintained that the revolver
found on the neighboring lawn was not Tony's.
"But Gilmore's friend here," broke in Logan, "has
identified it. You can't get around the evidence of
those initials."
"Couldn't Tony have had more than one?" she
parried. "I tell you the gun he lent me for the picture
was an automatic. I've never laid eyes on that pearl-
handled thing before."
"Not before we showed it to you to-night?"
"No. How many times must I say it? Do you
think I'm lying?"
"Yes," he retorted harshly. "And I think you
sneaked the gun out of his pocket and shot him." ,
Selma did not quail.
"The doctor said the shot must have been fired from
a distance of twelve or fifteen feet. That lets me out."
"You fired after he left the car."
"He wasn't shot in the back."
"No. He turned and you got him in the heart.
You took as good an aim as you did to-night when
you threw the glass in his face."
"So you know about that! Well, what of it?
Gerald Hartley will tell you that Tony and I made
up. He had nothing against me. Nor I against him,
even if we did scrap now and then. You're in big
business trying to bulldoze me! But I'm not afraid of
you."
[58]


Enter Investigator Kent
Kent quietly resumed control of the investigation.
"It's as well to clear up such little discrepancies,
Miss Saranoff. Often, till they're explained, they seem
more important than they are. Now, there is one
point about which I confess that I am curious. I
should like to know just why you changed from the
front seat to the back?"
"I didn't change." For the first time she was
caught off her guard. "I didn't." Her green eyes
blazed. "Whoever said I did is a dirty liar!"
Kent glanced over his shoulder.
"You'll find Mr. Hartley in the kitchen, Sergeant
Black. Fetch him here."
The wretched youth shambled, manacled, into the
room. At sight of the handcuffs Selma leaped to her
feet, but instantly regained command of herself and
sauntered coolly away from the light.
"Will you be good enough to come back to the
table?" requested Kent.
She warily complied.
"And now, Mr. Hartley, will you assure Miss Sara-
noff that you told us she changed from the front seat
of the car to the rear?"
"Yes, sir. I did." He cast an agonized look at
Selma. "I had to tell them, dear. They'd found your
finger-prints on the door."
"You idiot!" she cried. "They've never taken my
finger-prints. How could you let them trick you with
such bunk?"
"You can't keep up this bluff, Miss Saranoff,"
interposed Kent. "You're stupid to try."
"I was stupid to have anything to do with such a
coward!" Her eyes again darted her contempt. "I
don't know why I ever noticed him."
[59]


CARD 13
"Hold Hartley here,” said Kent. “Come, Miss
Saranoff. We'll go out to Gilmore's machine. I
want you to demonstrate, on the spot, exactly what
occurred.”
“My God, man,” she exploded, “how much time
do you intend to waste on this tomfoolery! While
you're stalling along Tony's murderer will make his
get-away. Is that what you detectives want? Is this
to be another Desmond Taylor case? More mysterious
influence?"
Logan scowled. No honest policeman was proud
of the department's record in Hollywood's most fa-
mous unsolved crime.
But Kent merely smiled.
“That was before my time. I can assure you,
however, that no mysterious influence will prevail with
me. Not even yours, Miss Saranoff. Don't keep me
waiting.”
She went quietly out, and at his bidding seated
herself in the rear of Gilmore's car and once more,
with no essential variance, rehearsed her story. Kent
listened with one foot on the running-board.
“And when did you change from the front to the
rear seat?”
“Still harping on that!"
“Still harping. What about it?”
“I didn't change.”
“Don't be childish. We have the proof."
"Finger-prints! All bunko. You've never taken
go with me. Besides, they'd prove nothing, for I did
get in here after they carried Tony into the house.
Some one helped me. I was faint."
[60]


ENTEE INVESTIGATOR KENT
“Are you sure it was after the shooting that you
changed?”
“Yes."
“Very sure? You'll be taking your oath to this
by and by. Better get it all straight now.”
She threw back her furs as if they stifled her.
“Can't you damned fools realize that I was fond
of Tony? Can't you see I'm all broken up over his
death? You don't seem to think us stars human."
“Too human. But if you were so fond of Tony
Gilmore, you ought to be eager to help us find his
murderer.”
“You're cruel !" she cried. "I won't be hounded
so. I'm worn out. I'm all in, I tell you !" Her voice
rose to a shriek. “I can't stand any more! I won't-
I won't-I won't! And, forthwith, she took refuge
in hysterics.
“Faked, I guess," barked Logan. “But faked or
real, the treatment is the same.” He beckoned to an
officer. “Chuck water in her face. Plenty of it. And
cold—the colder the better.” .
Kent did not linger to watch the effect of this
restorative, but walked over to Raneleigh.
"I've a notion,” he said, “that you're the man I
want."
[61]


CHAPTER SIX
EANELEIGH TAKES A HAND
Raneleigh could not repress a start.
"The man you want!"
Kent smiled at his tone.
"I should have said 'need.' I'm not so careful in
my use of words as you writers." He drew him aside.
"I want to talk to you. I gather that you were a close
friend of Gilmore."
"Yes. I've known him since we were boys in a
small town in Iowa."
"Tell me something of his life. Just hit the high
spots now. When did he come to Los Angeles?"
"Five years ago. He'd been a reporter on a Chi-
cago daily. Before that he went for a while to the
State University, but he hadn't money enough to finish
the course. He was ambitious to write something
besides newspaper copy, and when he came out here
he tried his hand at short stories. They were rather
good, but they didn't sell. It's slow work, as a rule,
for a writer to get a start. Yet he had to make a
decent income somehow. His sister was almost wholly
dependent on him, you see. He was nearly at the end
of his resources when he found a job with an afternoon
paper."
"In Los Angeles?"
"Yes. They didn't pay him enough to live on. I
could have helped him, but I was in Europe at the
[62]


Raneleigh Takes a Hand
time and he didn't let me know how bad things were
with him. At all events, he finally landed a job with
a Hollywood producing company. At first he was in
the publicity department. Then he began to write
titles and made a hit. When I came back from abroad
he was a full-fledged scenario writer with half a dozen
successful photoplays to his credit. They all proved
big money-makers. He was, as you are doubtless
aware, very well known."
"What was his income?"
"He never told me." Raneleigh was reluctant to
disclose details that bore no relation to the crime.
"You must have some idea. What's your guess?"
"Possibly thirty thousand a year."
"A tidy sum," said Kent. "Was he a free spender?"
"Yes. But rather a shrewd business man, too."
"Now, about women? He wasn't married?"
"No."
"Had Saranoff been his mistress?"
Raneleigh hesitated.
"People said so."
Kent shrugged at his reticence.
"I can easily find out. What other sweeties had
he?"
"He rented an apartment for another woman.
Not recently, however."
"Do you know her name?"
"I don't see why she should be dragged in, Mr.
Kent. She's merely a movie extra."
"We'll have to check up on her. She may be more
important than you think. Give me her name, please.
It will save time."
"Mrs. Ida Hunter."
[63]


Card 13
"Address?"
"You can hardly expect me to know that."
"Asking questions is my job. Were there other
frails on his telephone list?"
"Perhaps. He wasn't the sort to boast of his con-
quests and I didn't inquire."
"Well, no matter. It will all come out in the wash."
Raneleigh sighed.
"With a spouting geyser of scandal, I presume!"
"I reckon," said Kent. "Fond of Gilmore, weren't
you?"
"Yes."
"Then you must want to see justice done. You
must want to help?"
"If I did not I shouldn't have come back here
to-night."
"That's evident. And my hat's off to you, Mr.
Raneleigh. A good many men would have ducked.
Was that affair at the Brownriggs' what you'd call a
wild party?"
"I've known wilder parties."
"Did you see Saranoff throw the cocktail glass
at Gilmore?"
"Yes. I stood near him."
"And that's how he came by the cut on his nose and
the bruise on his forehead?"
"Yes. Selma had been drinking. But, apparently,
they patched up their quarrel, just as she stated."
"You saw them leave the house together?"
"Yes. Arm in arm. I supposed they were going
on to Gantley's as agreed."
"Did you see Hartley climb into Gilmore's car?"
"Yes."
[64]


Raneleigh Takes a Hand
"Do you think Hartley shot him?"
"I can't believe it. They were friends."
"Friendship is no alibi," said Kent dryly. "Friends1
kill friends, brothers kill brothers, and wives kill hus-
bands in season and out. There is no doubt in your
mind that Gilmore had his revolver with him?"
"How can there be when I saw him slip it in his
pocket? He took it from a drawer in his desk—with
a flask—and hesitated whether or not to carry it. He
ended by taking both flask and pistol. I know he had
it when he left the house. I did not lose sight of him.
I was with him till we reached the Brownriggs'."
"And he did not leave the Brownrigg house until
he drove away with Saranoff and Hartley?"
"No."
"That clinches it," said Kent. "One of that pair
turned the trick. Give me a line on young Hartley. He
looks like a cake-eater."
"That label fits him as well as any. He came here
less than a year ago. He's also an Iowan."
"Still another? What would Los Angeles do with-
out the Hawkeyes! Did Gilmore know him back in
the corn belt?"
"Yes. But Gerald was five or six years the younger.
His parents are dead, and he came into money. Too
much money! He's reputed to be worth half a million."
"A juicy melon for the lawyers to cut," commented
Kent. "Is he dippy over Saranoff?"
"They're said to be engaged."
"How did Gilmore like that?"
"I don't think he cared. In fact, I never believed
that he had any real fondess for her."
"Just fancied having a celebrity on his string, eh?"
[65]


Cabd 13
"Perhaps. Anyhow, I saw no sign of deep feeling
on his part or that he objected to Gerald's attentions."
"He might have felt too sure of his own hold on
her," suggested Kent.
"It's possible."
"Was he, should you judge, about through with
her?"
"I thought so. But, as I've told you, we did not
discuss such matters."
"Have you any idea who edged her out?"
"No one, to my knowledge."
"Well, that, too, will come out in the wash. I
know how you feel, Mr. Raneleigh. But there's no
use in your trying to protect Gilmore's reputation.
He should have looked after that when he was alive.
Murder is news and there are reporters outside already.
All the skeletons will rattle from their closets before
we're through."
"I hope not. It would blight his sister's life."
"A tough break," said Kent. "But perhaps you
can ease the strain for the family. If you want to
sit in on this investigation it's all right with me. I'll
be glad of your help when I go through the house. I
take it you're familiar with the premises?"
"There's seldom been a day I haven't dropped in."
"Very well, then. We'll do it now." He sum-
moned Black from the side of the drenched and subdued
Selma. "Where's the key to Gilmore's private
quarters?"
"Here are two of them," said the plain-clothes man.
"One was in the door. The other I took away from
the servant. Mrs. Barnett told me he carried a dupli-
cate. I had to strong-arm the Chink to get it. Gil-
[66]


Raneleigh Takes a Hand
more had ordered him not to give it to any one. Some
wrestler, that boy! His name ought to be Cling in-
stead of Ling."
"What's his story?"
"He was sound asleep in his own room, which
opens from a passage back of the kitchen, when Mrs.
Barnett woke him up. She told him Gilmore had been
shot and sent him hot-footing for a doctor two blocks
up the street."
"Valet, I suppose?"
"Yes. And general handy-man, according to Mrs.
Barnett. He brought Gilmore his breakfast and waited
on table at night when he was at home. If the ladies
were alone the cook, a woman who sleeps out, looked
after them. Ling also kept the car and yard in order."
"Did you ask him about his employer's habits?"
"You bet. He said he stayed out late nights and
usually slept till ten in the morning."
"When you arrived did you give the house the
once-over?"
"All but Gilmore's rooms. I was waiting for the
Chief."
"Then you'd better make the rounds with me. Speak
up if you notice anything's been changed."
Raneleigh followed them into Tony's study at the
right of the hall. Though he knew it as well as his
own workroom, the tragedy invested it with a new sig-
nificance, and he examined it as attentively as if he
now saw it for the first time. It was furnished un-
imaginatively in the brown walnut of the current mode.
Two bookcases, a large writing-desk and a smaller one
for the typewriter, left scant space for the heavy,
leather-covered easy chairs. A man's room, it was
[67]


Cabd 13
neither library nor office, yet suggested both. Kent
threw a cursory glance round and remarked the loca-
tion of the windows. They were three in number, two
on the front and the third opening from the side wall
broken by the fireplace. On the other side of the
hearth, instead of a balancing window, was a door
which the investigator at once tried. The key was in
the lock and the lock was turned.
"What's beyond this?" he asked.
"A narrow porch," said Raneleigh. "And of course,
the driveway."
"Was there a window here originally?"
"Yes. Tony had the door cut through."
"Why?"
"He said that all sorts of people tried to see him—
sometimes watched the front door to waylay him. Any
one conspicuous in the movies is apt to be besieged.
This door gave him a chance to slip in and out un-
observed."
"So! And did it give certain favored callers a
chance to slip in and out unobserved?"
"Perhaps."
They passed into the more spacious bedroom, and
Kent raised and lowered the shade of each of the two
windows.
"Heavy shrubbery on this side, I see. Who lives
in the next house?"
"Mr. Holkar."
"The Hindu bird I was telling you about," put in
Black. "He was the first to beat it over here."
Kent surveyed the fantastic room. The walls were
gold, the rug was black, the Chinese hangings red. The
ornate furniture was finished in Chinese red lacquer,
[68]


Raneleigh Takes a Hand
and facing the door to the study, a panel painting,
also Chinese, extended from the floor to the picture-
molding.
"Some boudoir!" exclaimed Kent. "It looks as if
the valet had done the decorating." He brought up
before the painting. "Who's this slant-eyed dame—a
lady god?"
"Possibly," said Raneleigh, with a shrug. "I'm
not up on Chinese art."
Kent smiled.
"This isn't your idea of a bedroom, I infer?"
"No. I've never liked it."
Kent briefly inspected the bath, walled in poly-
chromatic tiles, and then, turning to the bedroom
closet, ordered Black to search the pockets of the
dead man's wardrobe. Exploring a cabinet, he found
that its doors concealed a chest of drawers.
"These drawers aren't locked, Sergeant. See that
Hines gets them fitted with keys."
Black jotted a note in his memorandum book and
went methodically on with his task. Kent himself,
Raneleigh observed, refrained from rummaging. He
wondered if he held himself above this hateful detail of
his profession. Was there such a thing as caste among
detectives? Once Kent softly whistled a bar or two
from a popular air and awoke an echo in the writer's
memory. What did that incongruous whistle recall?
The Moonstone, of course, and Sergeant Cuff with his
eternal Last Rose of Summer! Well, this was like a
novel, too, and he was one of its puppets bewildered by
an appalling crime! He could hardly credit its reality.
Were these his best friend's effects which were being
ransacked? Was Tony actually dead?
[69]


Cabd 13
Black reported that he had found nothing but a
few handkerchiefs and began to search the drawers of
a chiffonier. Here he presently made a less prosaic
find.
"Look!" He gingerly held aloft a suit of orchid-
tinted silk pajamas edged with lace.
Kent viewed the exhibit without surprise.
"Any monogram, Sergeant?"
"No. And no laundry mark, either. I wonder if
they belong to Saranoff?"
"What is your expert opinion, Mr. Raneleigh?"
asked Kent, with mock gravity. "Do you think she'd
be apt to wear that shade?"
"I can't say."
"And you're making no guesses, eh! Lay the
pretties back where you found them, Sergeant."
They returned to the study, and under Kent's direc-
tion, Black searched the large writing-desk. The
lowest drawer on the right contained a file of typed
correspondence, but from other drawers came to light
neat bundles of letters in their envelopes, each bundle
secured by an elastic band.
"Those look more promising," said Kent. "We'll
have them all examined. When you get a free moment,
Sergeant, phone and ask to have Emery assigned to
the job. He may not be able to do it at once, but
meanwhile we'll seal the rooms."
Black looked embarrassed.
"Shan't I speak to the Chief first?"
"Of course," replied Kent shortly. 'Tut it as
my request. Logan and I understand each other. I
intend asking him to assign you to the case to work
with my office. Is that all right with you?"
[70]


Cabd 13
and you'd have ample proof of that. Saranoff claims
that Gilmore must have owned more than one gun.
Isn't it just as probable that he had more than one
flask?"
"But this is the flask he always carried. I know
its design. Turn it over. You'll find a camel in black
enamel on the other side."
Kent carefully reversed the flask by its neck. The
little emblem of thirst was there.
"Odd," he said. "Sergeant, who searched the
body?"
"I did. There was no flask."
Raneleigh perceived that Black, too, doubted his
memory.
"Tony had the flask," he repeated. "It was filled
with brandy."
"Empty now," said the sergeant.
"It was full when he left. He offered me a drink."
"Did you take it?" asked Kent.
"No."
"Did Gilmore take a drink?"
"No. And it isn't likely that he had any of it
at the Brownrigg house."
"No need, I reckon. From all I hear that was as
wet a party as Hollywood could reasonably expect."
Raneleigh was impatient with this detour.
"But since the flask is here now," he said, "Tony
must have come into the house before he was shot."
"The point is worth considering." It was obvious
that Kent attached no weight to it and still thought his
memory at fault.
"What stumps me," said Black, sniffing ecstatically
at the stopper, "is where the good liquor went."
[72]


RANELEIGH TAKES A HAND
Baffled by it all, Raneleigh walked wearily over to
the fireplace and leaned against the old-fashioned
mantelpiece.
"I suppose we'd better examine the ashes for Mr.
Raneleigh's benefit," said Kent jocosely. “It's usually
done in detective novels, I believe.”
Black, grinning, knelt by the hearth where his grin
vanished.
“There's a whisky smell, sure enough!”
“Mightn't it be brandy?” asked Raneleigh.
"It's one or the other. And here's the spot where
it was spilled.”
Kent stooped with a pocket magnifying-glass.
When he straightened he looked bored.
"I can't see that this is of great importance,” he
said. “We'll go up-stairs.”
“But doesn't it prove," pressed Raneleigh, “that
Tony came in here before he was killed ?"
“Not conclusively." Kent threw the insistent
amateur a tolerant smile. "If he did come in, wouldn't
he have taken his overcoat? In any case, it leaves us
just where we were. Either Hartley or Saranoff is
guilty.”
[73]


CHAPTER SEVEN
AILEEN TELLS HEE STOEY
They passed the policeman at the newel and
ascended a staircase that turned, half-way, at a land-
ing and ended above in a square hall furnished in
wicker and bright chintz. The second floor of the
chalet was known in real-estate parlance as the upper
deck, and its structure did indeed resemble a deck-house,
being set back on all sides from the story below. This
arrangement left space for only a bath at the rear and
a large bedroom on either side.
"Miss Gilmore's room?" asked Kent, as they entered
the one on the left.
"Yes," said Raneleigh. "Tony let her have her
own way with it."
"No Chinese nightmare for her, eh? I call this
pretty."
Raneleigh remembered with what eagerness the
girl had once displayed it when all was fresh and new.
How she had gloried in the gray woodwork, the mauve
and gray hangings, the rugs in dull rose, the painted
furniture, gray again with bands of mauve and rose,
and the miraculous chaise longue—her very first! The
day-bed was as she had sprung out of it, but the silken
coverlet over the foot-rail was neatly folded as were
the garments she had removed the night before and
laid upon a chair. Orderly, too, were the trinkets on
the dresser, the frocks in the closet, the little regiment
[74]


Aileen Tells Her Stout
of shoes. But such an intrusion woke his resentment,
and when Black laid hands on a drawer, he voiced it.
"You can't suspect Aileen," he said. "Is it neces-
sary to ransack her belongings?"
"No," Kent replied. "Your identification of the
gun convinces me that it wasn't an inside job. We'll
have a look at the other bedroom, Sergeant."
As they came to Mrs. Barnett's bedroom across the
hall Raneleigh glanced about with less compunction.
Here reigned solidity instead of subtlety, Iowa rather
than Versailles. No fripfraps for Aunt Harriet!
Her taste ran to solid mahogany, chenille rugs and
stiff hangings in green and taupe. Conspicuous among
the pictures were two faded engravings, The Rock of
Ages and Breaking Home Ties. On a night-stand, by
the bed, was her worn Bible. The dressing-table, like
the room in general, was immaculate, but Raneleigh
noted with surprise an open box of powder of a pinkish
hue. Face powder! He had not thought her so cor-
rupted by modernity. In the partly open top drawer
was a heap of brown kid curlers. Who, back in the
days of his youth, had worn these quaint contrivances?
From the dim past he evoked the figure of the family
housekeeper.
"We won't waste time here," said Kent. "Let's
interview the ladies themselves."
Raneleigh hoped to soften this ordeal.
"Aileen feels her brother's death very deeply. I
had a few words with her just after you came."
Kent nodded.
"It's always tough on the survivors. I'll make
it as easy for her as I can. How is the aunt taking
it?"
[75]


Aileen Tells Heb Story
dropped into a chair near her and closed his eyes. How
long had he been on his feet? It seemed a month. He
tried to relax his muscles, to make his harassed mind
a blank. To-morrow would teem with problems. To-
morrow? No; to-day. Through a rift beneath a win-
dow shade the tardy winter dawn came stealing. He
got no rest. Mrs. Barnett and the tireless investigator
from the District Attorney's office soon returned.
"And now, Miss Gilmore," said Kent, "do you feel
able to tell me what aroused you last night?"
The girl sat up, white as death itself, and groped
for Raneleigh's hand.
"I did not sleep well," she said. "I—I was so dis-
appointed."
"Disappointed?"
"Yes. You see, I wanted to go to the party. Mrs.
Brownrigg invited me. But they wouldn't hear to it.
I kept thinking about it. I'd have loved to talk it
over with Tony when he came. But he never let me
sit up for him. The only time I tried it he was cross.
So I lay there a long while wondering what I'd missed."
She began to weep softly.
"But you finally fell asleep?" Kent prompted.
"Yes." She dabbed at her swollen eyes.
"What wakened you?"
"Aunty called me. She said that something was
wrong—that some one was ringing the bell and pound-
ing on the door. I wasn't frightened. I thought that
Tony had forgotten his keys. Then I heard voices—.
several voices—and I put on my dressing-gown and
came down-stairs."
"Whom did you see first?"
"Mr. Hartley and Mr. Holkar. They were at the
[77]


Card 13
door. And then—then I went out and saw Tony lying
there in the moonlight—so still—so still. Oh, I shall
never forget it!"
"What did you do next?"
"I think I ran to him. Yes, I know I did. But
it was all so confusing—Miss Saranoff's screams, the
neighbors crowding about. Doctor Chirpman came—
I remember that, for he felt my pulse. And I saw
police. Everything began to spin round me. I was
so faint they brought me in here. I've been here ever
since."
"Did you come down-stairs with Mrs. Barnett?"
Raneleigh, still holding her hand, felt her tremble.
"Yes. We came down together."
"That's all," said Kent. "You may go to your
room now. We must seal your brother's suite for the
present, but the rest of the house is at your disposal."
She cast a piteous look at Raneleigh.
"Don't let them take Tony away!"
"It may be necessary, my dear."
"Not from his home—his own home!"
"Come, Aileen," said her aunt. "You must rest."
"Yes," urged Raneleigh. "You'll need all your
strength."
"I don't want you to leave," said the girl, as he
rose. "Why do you?"
"I'm trying to help the police, Aileen."
"But don't they know who killed Tony?"
"Not yet."
"It seems perfectly clear to me," said Mrs. Barnett,
"that the Saranoff woman was the cause of his death.
These play-actresses ruined Anthony."
Raneleigh kept his thoughts to himself. As he
[78]


Aileen Tells Her Story
rejoined Kent in the hall an officer opened the front
door.
"The Chief sent me in for you, Mr. Kent," he an-
nounced, breathing heavily. "We've had a little ex-
citement out here. Saranoff put up a fight when we
started to shove her into the police car. It took all
hands to do it. She kicked and hit and scratched like
a wildcat."
"Why bring your troubles to me?" asked Kent
wearily. "I'm no animal trainer."
"Because the Chief's got her going at last. He
told her it was the hoosegow for her and all that goes
with it. She's scared. She says she'll come clean."
"Good work!" Kent was infused with new life.
"We ought to clear this up now in short order."
The gray dawn revealed a haggard Saranoff
perched in the police car that had backed into the
driveway behind Gilmore's limousine. Her make-up
was blurred, her hair disheveled, her clothing awry.
On either side of her sat a still more battle-scarred
officer. One had a long scratch across his indignant
face. The other eyed ruefully a rent in his sleeve and
a cap damaged beyond repair. Only Logan, watching
the captive from the ground with the air of a dog that
had treed a beast of unknown and puzzling species, ap-
peared to have escaped unscathed from the fray.
Raneleigh, whom Selma had seldom noticed, now
found himself in urgent demand.
"Ran!" she appealed shrilly. "See what they've
done to me!"
"My God, what crust!" sputtered one of her vic-
tims. "See what she did to me!"
"I wish I'd bitten your ear off," she retorted. "Ran,
[79]


Card 13
I'm talking to you. Can't you get me out of here?
These boneheads say they'll put me in the jug. I keep
telling them I'll talk. They won't listen to reason.
Are you going to stand by and see an old friend treated
like this? Do something! It will ruin me in pictures
if I'm jailed."
Kent, who had had a word with Logan, nodded to
her sweating guards.
"Step down if you wish, Miss Saranoff," he said.
"If you're ready to talk, we're ready to listen."
She drew her fur coat about her, not with her old
arrogance, but shrinkingly as if chilled to the marrow.
Her half-veiled eyes were lusterless.
"Do I have to go in there again?" she asked with
a furtive glance toward the house.
"No. Tell your story here and, this time, tell it
straight. You can't fool us. We know more about
this case than you think. No lies now. Give us the
truth."
"Oh, I will!" she declared. "It—it must have
been Gerald who did it. I wanted to shield him. But
I can't—can I? What do you want me to say?
Where must I begin? Do you want to hear about the
party?"
"We know what you did at the party. You as-
saulted Gilmore, as a mob of witnesses will testify.
It's what happened after you left that you've got to
explain."
"I will. All of it. After we drove off I had a
drink of whisky from Gerald's flask. It was awful stuff.
I thought it would brace me. But it didn't. It made
me sick. I was horribly sick. And Tony wasn't nice
about it. He taunted me, and when I swore at him he
[80]


Aileen Tells Her Story
called me a drunken broad. Yes; that's what he called
me! I was wild and, at the first crossing where there
was a stop sign, I got into the back seat."
"Without leaving the car?"
"Yes. I just climbed over. Gerald helped me.
Then I passed out."
"Totally paralyzed, eh?"
"I guess so. Gerald's liquor was rotten. He would
keep buying it from the Dago bootlegger! The man
told him hard-luck stories about his sick family. Any-
how, he bought his poison. Gerald's soft."
"When did you come to?"
"I don't know just when it was."
"Or where?"
"Oh, yes. It was right here. Gerald was slapping
me. In the face. And he shook me. Then I saw Tony
stretched out on the ground. It's true, as I said, that
I got down and listened to his heart. But I couldn't
hear a single beat. And then," she continued, her
strange eyes beginning to flame, "I got in Dutch. You
see, Gerald said that the shot came from behind the
shrubbery. He told me not to breathe that Tony and
I quarreled on the way over and that I changed to the
back seat. He told me to say that Tony and I were
necking and that, when he got out, some one let him
have it from the shrubbery. He said no one would
believe I was asleep, but that if we both stuck to his
story, everything would be jake. I was a fool to
listen to him, but I was all in and couldn't think
straight, and people began pouring in from all sides
before I could pull myself together. So, when the
cops asked questions, I gave them the story Gerald had
fixed up. It was a big mistake, but I'm doing what
[81]


Card 13
I can to set things right. I've got my own reputation
to consider, haven't I?"
"Yes. And your own neck. If you saw Hartley
fire that shot now's the time for you to say so."
"I didn't see him fire it. I was asleep."
"But you think he did it. You stated so a moment
ago."
Selma hesitated.
"It's terrible to suspect him, but if Tony was killed
with his own gun "She left the inference
incomplete.
"Couldn't it have been the shot that wakened you?"
"No. It was Gerald slapping me, just as I said
before."
"I want to ask one more question. Did Gilmore,
after he arrived here, go into the house?"
"Go into the house?" she repeated, peering at him
through half-closed lids. "How should I know? I
tell you I was asleep."
"I see," said Kent. "Well, Miss Saranoff, we'll
permit you to enjoy more of the sleep your system
seems so much to require."
"You'll let me go home?"
"Yes. There will, of course, be a police guard in
plain clothes at your house."
"Why must I have a guard?"
"It will spare you annoyance by the curious."
"I'm used to publicity," said Selma.
"No doubt. The guard will also see that you don't
absent-mindedly leave the state on location or some-
thing of that sort. Shall we find you a taxi? I dare
say one of these officers will be delighted to speed you
on your homeward way."
[82]


CHAPTER EIGHT
THE HINDU TALKS
RANELEIGH turned away.
Hartley was always civil to me. In a way, I liked him.
He's not vicious-merely weak.”
"I was about to ask you to come next door with
me," said the investigator. “Captain Logan feels that
I am the man to interview Holkar. I gather that he
was rather baffled by our Hindu friend.”
“So I noticed.”
"You were present when he questioned him?":
“Yes. If you don't mind my frankness, Logan took
the wrong attitude and all but jumped down his
throat.”
Kent smiled.
“No, I don't mind. The Captain is a zealous officer,
but he shares the common failing of policemen the
country over. They all get the idea that they're
"I fancy no one knows Argon Holkar well. I've
met him a few times.”
“Is he another Swami?”
“Hardly that, I'd say. He's a scholar undoubtedly.
And an artist though I must admit I can make very
little of his art. He paints in the modern manner-
weird figures that might be desert trees, landscapes
that look as if they'd been wrecked by a Florida
[84]


The Hindu Talks
tornado. Tony thought him a genius. The man's
a mystic."
"I see. No wonder Logan was puzzled V
He summoned Sergeant Black, and going round by
the walk, they mounted the steps of a modest bungalow.
Holkar answered their ring. Though his thin
shoulders were a trifle stooped, he overtopped them all
as with great dignity he showed them into a study
crammed with books. Dark curtains shut out the
rising sun. A desk lamp shed the only light. With
a fluent gesture he waved them to chairs and himself
sat down at the desk and, linking his tapering fingers,
waited impassively for them to begin.
"A sad affair, Mr. Holkar."
The Hindu's eyes, deep and inscrutable, met Kent's.
"Death," he replied, "is progression."
"Let's hope," said the investigator. "But it's also
a stiff jolt to those left behind. Particularly in a case
of murder. Were you and the late Mr. Gilmore
friends?"
"It was my privilege."
"You found him congenial—a lively companion?"
"He had an active brain."
"Did you meet his other friends?"
"No."
"Just the members of his family—his sister and
Mrs. Barnett?"
"Yes."
"They were quiet neighbors? You saw nothing
unusual?"
"They were quiet neighbors."
"What got you out of bed last night?"
"I had not retired."
[85]


Card 13
"No? Kindly give me your account of everything
which you personally witnessed."
Holkar pondered a moment.
"I was here in my study—reading. I was inter-
rupted by a flash of light. This had often happened.
Mr. Gilmore's driveway is not ten feet from my side
windows, and as he turned in from the street his
headlights would shine into the room."
Kent rose and parted the heavy folds of the
curtains. "These were not drawn as they are now?"
"No. I rarely draw them."
"What happened then?"
"I resumed my reading."
"Did you hear anything when the car stopped?"
"Yes. Voices."
"Could you catch what was said?"
"No. The windows were closed, and as I have
stated, I went on reading."
"What dragged you from your absorbing book,
Mr. Holkar?"
"A woman's scream."
"Not a pistol-shot?"
"No."
"You heard no shot whatever?"
"If I did," said Holkar, "I did not apprehend it."
"I don't quite follow you."
"The distinction, I think, is clear. My conscious
intelligence did not note the sound. Our minds shut
out many sounds of modern civilization. Perhaps I
am better organized to repel such invasions of my
peace than you."
"You must be. Possibly you thought the motor
had back-fired?"
[86]


The Hindu Talks
"I did not think—consciously, that is—about the
matter."
"Well, let that pass." Kent plainly had begun to
appreciate Logan's difficulties. "Please tell us what
you did when you heard the scream."
As Holkar gently described the confusion and his
own efforts to aid, Raneleigh saw in him a character of
the drama as bizarre as Saranoff herself. His hair,
worn long yet not freakishly extreme, was blue-black
and as glossy as patent leather. His beard of a
lighter shade was trimmed short and did not conceal
the aquiline modeling of his features. His forehead, if
narrow, was high, and the prominent nose had sensitive
nostrils which gave some signs that, beneath his calm,
he shared the emotions of common men. The full lips,
too, hinted at a sensual alloy in his spirituality. But
the eyes revealed nothing. They were brown pools of
mystery. Such a man, master of his passions, ought,
Raneleigh felt, to be an invaluable witness. Yet the
Hindu's measured narrative threw no new light on the
tragedy.
Kent went back to the first part of his story.
"Miss Saranoff's cry followed the shot. That we
know. Now, how much time, Mr. Holkar, should you
say elapsed between the moment you heard Gilmore
drive in and the moment you heard her scream?"
"Three or four minutes."
"Not more? Are you sure that five minutes did
not elapse? Or even ten?"
"Quite sure."
"Did you go out at once?"
"I may have listened. It would be a natural
impulse."
[87]


Cabs 13
"You don't do things in a hurry?"
"No. I am never hurried."
"Miss Saranoff claims that she was asleep in the
rear of the car and that Hartley roused her and told
her that Gilmore had been shot. Would he have had
time to do that before you reached the scene?"
"It is possible," he said, after reflection.
"You will pardon me if I put one or two personal
questions? We have to know something about our
witnesses. How long have you known Gilmore?"
"In this incarnation?"
Kent's eyes batted.
"Yes. I think we'd better confine ourselves to
California and the present century."
"I met him two years ago when he moved next
door."
"You were already settled here?"
"Yes."
"Do you batch it?"
"'Batch it'? Oh, I see! I am not married. My
servant looks after me. His name, if it is of interest,
is Gwan."
"Does he speak English?"
"A little. His native tongue is Hindustani."
"I understand that you're a painter."
"Painting and writing are my avocations."
"But not, so to speak, your job?"
"I am not in business, if that is your meaning."
"How, then, do you make a Uving?"
Holkar's nostrils quivered.
"I have investments which yield enough for my
simple needs."
"That's all," said Kent, with more deference.
[88]


Card 13
As he entered the lobby a young man rose from a
bench and accosted him.
"Mr. Raneleigh?"
"Yes."
"I'm a reporter." He tendered a card with the
name of an afternoon paper in a lower corner. "I'd
like to talk to you about the Gilmore case."
"You'll have to excuse me."
"How can I?" returned the young man with an
ingenuous smile. "You were seen at the Gilmore house,
and I've been assigned to interview you. If you were
ever in the newspaper game you'll understand my
position."
"I do, of course," said Raneleigh. "But I expect
to be called as a witness, and it would be improper for
me to make a public statement. And even if it were
proper, I couldn't talk now. I feel Tony's death too
deeply."
The reporter looked sympathetic.
"You were intimate friends?"
"Yes. I knew him long before he came to Holly-
wood. We grew up in the same town in Iowa."
"From all I hear he must have been a whale of a
good fellow."
"He was."
"You never dreamed he'd end this way?"
"No. It came like a thunderbolt."
"And of course, you didn't suspect that any one
at the Brownrigg party was a potential murderer?"
"No, no." He sighed wearily. "I simply must
turn in. It's twenty-four hours since I left my bed.
Sorry to disappoint you. I trust your editor will
make allowances."
[90]


The Hindu Talks
"You don't know him," said the reporter. "But
it's all right."
Raneleigh despaired of sleep, yet sleep overtook
him almost at once. When he awoke it was from a
vague dream that, though he had an urgent appoint-
ment, he could not find his clothes. Then, with a sink-
ing of the heart, he returned to reality. His watch
had stopped, but the sun in a western window told him
that it was late in the day. He shaved, bathed and
dressed, and descending to the restaurant, induced a
waitress to find him something besides afternoon tea.
As she served him she asked if he had heard of the Gil-
more murder. He made an evasive reply and presently
she brought him an extra with staring black head-lines
on a field of unnatural green. There it was! His ap-
petite waned as he read and vanished altogether as he
encountered a paragraph on an inner page.
AUTHOR MOURNS MURDERED PAL
The distinguished novelist, Arthur Leigh Raneleigh,
one of the guests last night at the gay party which
preceded Tony Gilmore's death at the hand of an as-
sassin, was too overcome, when interviewed at his home
to-day, to make an extended statement. He said, how-
ever, that he had been intimate with Gilmore since
their happy boyhood days in Iowa and paid a feeling
tribute to his charm as man and friend. Gilmore's
sudden end, he said, was like a bolt from the blue. Mr.
Raneleigh, who is well known as a writer and prominent
in the social life of the film colony, could offer no solu-
tion of the crime. He was visibly shaken by the tragic
events of the night and, on the ground that he would
undoubtedly be summoned as a witness, declined to
comment on the case.
[91]


Card 13
Raneleigh wondered if he could possibly have said
anything so banal as "bolt from the blue." He would,
he felt, as soon have perpetrated a split infinitive. And
he was regarded as prominent in the social life of the
film colony! He had thought himself a mere observer
on the side-lines. But for the hour at least, he shared
the fierce white light and was an object of some interest
to thousands who had probably never heard of him or
his books. He hoped, grimly, that the reporter had
failed to appease his city editor. Yet it was only
when, on foot, he approached the Gilmore house that
he fully grasped what a stir the crime had caused.
The block was congested with automobiles. The side-
walks were thronged with a curious mob eager to spice
a dull holiday with a morbid thrill. He had to ex-
plain his way through a line of police to reach the en-
trance.
Ling admitted him with a faint shadow of his
habitual smile, and showed him into the living-room
which wore its usual aspect. Tony was gone. From
where he waited Raneleigh could see the door of his
study. Narrow strips of paper had been pasted from
door to jamb and across the keyhole. After a long
interval Mrs. Barnett came down. Her hair and dress
were again meticulously neat, but her eyes looked
drawn, and her face was colorless.
"I'm afraid you've had little rest," he said.
"No, Arthur. I've had my hands full with Aileen."
"She still takes it hard?"
"Yes. I think she's near a nervous breakdown. She
carried on in a way that frightened me when she found
that Anthony's remains had been removed to an under-
taking establishment."
[92]


The Hindu Talks
"Couldn't you make her see that, under the cir-
cumstances, you had no choice?"
"No. I might as well have talked to the wind. She
repeated over and over that this was his home, that
here he should have been left."
"Poor girl! It's only natural that she should feel
that way. I understand her point of view."
"So do I understand her point of view," said Mrs.
Barnett with a look which seemed meant to put him
in his place. "It would be mine if things were other
than they are. All my people were buried from their
homes."
She cited instances with details that left no ground
for doubt that in her family funerals had always been
conducted with marked success.
Raneleigh seized an opening to inquire how he
could serve her.
"What can anybody do?" she demanded. "We're
not allowed to have minds of our own. The police
think for us. All day they've been running in and
out and tracking dirt over the rugs. They have refused
to let me enter Anthony's rooms. And look at that
door—plastered with seals!"
"It's most unpleasant," he sympathized. "But
they're simply doing their duty, trying to find some clue
to Tony's murderer."
"Unpleasant! It's abominable. Why should I,
his own kith and kin, be shut out while strangers take
possession? Yet they let you go in last night, Arthur.
I saw them."
"Mr. Kent thought I might be of some help."
"Doesn't he think I can help? Doesn't he think I
want to see justice done?"
1931


Card 13
"Surely. But I feel that he wishes to spare you
all he can. These annoyances will soon end, and you
and Aileen will get back to normal life."
"Not in this atmosphere. I want to take her out
of it."
"Why not go to a hotel for a few days?" he sug-
gested. "You'd escape those prying fools there in
the street."
"No hotel for me. It would be a waste of money."
Raneleigh came to the real reason for his call.
"I'd like to see Aileen," he said.
"I'm keeping her in bed."
"May I go up? She seemed to want me near her
last night. Perhaps I can be of some comfort."
Mrs. Barnett stiffened.
"You surprise me, Arthur. You surely don't ex-
pect me to permit you to see my niece in bed!"


CHAPTER NINE
HELD TO ANSWER
Afteb this rebuff he felt that Mrs. Barnett might
deem even telephoning indelicate. Nevertheless, he
offered over the phone on the morrow to take her to
the inquest. She replied that she had already arranged
to go with Doctor Chirpman who had also been sum-
moned to appear.
Raneleigh nursed no hope that this dreary business
would prove other than a free entertainment for the
populace. It had been, he reflected grimly, too well
advertised. Poor Tony, spectacular in death as in
life, was a tremendous drawing-card. Saranoff, who,
rumor hinted, might be held to answer, would herself
have packed the house. And was there not the added
attraction of Knowlton Boggs? The great criminal
lawyer, whom Hartley had retained, could always be
depended upon to stage a good show. Even Hollywood,
where celebrities were as common as peddlers, could
scarcely resist such an all-star cast as this case
promised. Yet the reality exceeded his worst fore-
bodings. It required a cordon of police to keep the
tnob before the undertaker's in check.
As he battled his way toward the inquest room
.Kent pulled his sleeve.
"Meet my side-kick, Mr. Darlton," he said jovially.
"He's the Deputy District Attorney in charge. This
is Mr. Arthur Raneleigh. Of course you know who he
is, Bill."
[96]


Card 13
The Deputy District Attorney at least looked as
if he knew and shook hands warmly. His manner, like
Kent's, implied that a coroner's inquest was all in
the day's work. Under their authoritative escort
Raneleigh found a seat beside Holkar who bowed in his
exotic way, which suggested an incomplete salaam, and
withdrew into his thoughts. Raneleigh searched the
room for Aileen and drew a breath of relief when Mrs.
Barnett entered without her. Aunt Harriet cut a
strange figure in that assembly. With her long-skirted
black dress, her high satin shoes, her antique bonnet
swathed in crepe that surely had done service at many
of those decorous family obsequies of which she had
boasted, she looked costumed for a part taking off
an elder generation. Her face, though composed, was
haggard, and the sight of it made him forget her
clothes. The woman had suffered.
No ceremonious ritual lifted the hearing above the
commonplace. The Coroner sat at one end of a long
table, the witness of the moment at the other. Mid-
way between, a stenographer scrawled his dashes and
pothooks. Save for the presence of the jury it might
have been a board meeting. The first to be interrogated
was Doctor Chirpman. After answering routine ques-
tions which defined his status as a witness and the
time when he had been called to the scene of the
crime, he testified that he found Gilmore dead from
a bullet wound in the breast. He described the point
of penetration in technical terms, stated that the course
of the bullet was slightly downward and gave it as
his opinion that it had been fired from a distance of
ten or fifteen feet. The Deputy District Attorney now
rose alertly, but the Coroner, who had his judicial
moments, raised his hand.
[96]


Held to Answer
"Excuse me, Mr. Darlton. I have a question to
put to the witness. Doctor, would your findings in-
dicate that the shot was fired by some one who stood,
not on a level with the murdered man, but on a higher
elevation?"
"That is a logical inference, Mr. Coroner."
At this Knowlton Boggs, weighted by the burden of
his great fame as a criminal lawyer, got majestically to
his feet. He had an imposing presence. His head, bald
except for a yellow fringe that fell in tangled strands
over his ears, was massive and leonine. Jaw and cheek-
bones were prominent; the nose was large, broad and
belligerent. Everything about him was on a huge scale
but his hazel eyes which were too small for his face
and set close together. Yet they were a striking fea-
ture and could be shrewd and calculating or warm and
persuasive. They were friendly now as he bent them
on the physician.
"Very good, Doctor, very good," he began in a
voice as mellow as old wine. "We are all indebted to
you for your accurate and expert testimony. It will
be of the greatest assistance in getting at the prime
cause and ultimate truth of this deplorable affair.
But, Doctor"—he paused and, turning his gaze first on
the Coroner and then most impressively on the jury,
commanded their earnest attention—"but, Doctor, may
we not go a little further into this question of the
slant of the bullet? Could you, for our benefit, be
quite specific? Could you tell the jury just how much
of a slant there was?"
The physician expanded in this bath of benevolence.
"Yes, indeed. The downward slant of the bullet
was at an angle of perhaps ten degrees."
"Thank you, Doctor. Just the information we
[97]


Card 13
wanted. It is always satisfactory to deal with a
scientific mind. And now, will you explain for the
enlightenment of those not so familiar with such
matters as you, precisely what that means? Could
you, by pointing this pencil toward your own breast,
demonstrate the angle at which the bullet entered the
body of the deceased?"
The Doctor could and would. Standing straight
and firm, with chest thrown out, he dramatized the
bullet's fatal course to the heart. The audience craned
with eager interest to watch, and the jury, its collective
eyes on the pencil, strove to grasp the no doubt pro-
found significance of this detail.
"Very good," intoned Mr. Boggs. "Thank you,
Doctor. You have been most obliging. I take it, sir,
that the slight downward angle traversed by the bullet
might indicate that it was fired by a person somewhat
taller than the deceased. Am I correct?"
Doctor Chirpman pondered.
"I hardly think so. Unless, of course, that person
stood on the same level."
"No?" The lawyer could not conceal his surprise.
"Now, let's reason this out." He beamed at the Coro-
ner, the jury and the witness. "Or, I should say, Doc-
tor, permit us to follow the steps of your reasoning.
By what process of thought do you arrive at your
conclusion?"
The witness shifted uneasily in his chair.
"I don't understand the question."
"No? Then perhaps I am at fault. Possibly we
can get at the root of the matter by another approach.
May I ask, Doctor, if you happen to know the height
of Mr. Gilmore?"
[98]


Held to Answeb
"Not exactly."
"You were his regular medical adviser?"
"Yes. If I were to venture a guess I'd say he was
about five feet ten."
"Very good. Very good. Now, Mr. Coroner, as
far as I am concerned, the witness may be excused. He
has been most lucid, most lucid."
Doctor Chirpman revived under this final tribute
and withdrew looking as if he felt that, after all, he had
sustained his prestige in the community.
The autopsy surgeon was called. He testified that
he had examined the body before it was removed from
the house and found the bullet which was of 32-caliber.
He concurred with the prior witness as to the angle
and path of the bullet, but unlike Doctor Chirpman,
he was prepared to give the dead man's exact height.
Gilmore was not five feet ten, but five feet, eight inches
and a half. Questioned by the Coroner, he admitted
that the shot might have been fired, at a distance of
ten or twelve feet, by a person four or five inches taller
than the victim. Yet, on the other hand, he said, the
murderer might have stood on a greater elevation.
"From what you say," Darlton interrupted at this
point, "I conclude that the shot may have been fired
by a person sitting or standing in Gilmore's automobile.
Isn't that a fair inference?"
Mr. Boggs, with a pained expression, was instantly
on his feet. He must, he declared, object to hypotheti-
cal questions which were plainly intended to throw
suspicion on his client. After a wrangle with his legal
opponent, during which he never lost his air of injury
at this breach of ethics, the Coroner scratched his head
and decided that the witness need not answer.
[99]


Cabd 13
"Argon Holkar?" he called, manifestly astonished
by 6uch an outlandish name.
In his precise English the Hindu quietly repeated
the story he had told Kent. The flash of automobile
headlights had momentarily distracted him from his
book; he had continued to read and, within less than
five minutes, heard screams and confusion next door;
he had found Gerald Hartley and Miss Saranoff bend-
ing over the dead body of Gilmore, given the alarm to
the household, and remained till the arrival of the
police.
As Mr. Boggs watched this brown-skinned, bearded
and unmistakably foreign witness, his friendly visage
clouded, and when he stood up there was sorrow in his
eyes and sorrow in his voice.
"Mr. Holkar," he began, "are you prepared to
swear that not more than five minutes elapsed between
the time the automobile headlights flashed into your
windows and when you came upon the body of the
deceased?"
"I am not."
"No!"
"I said," explained Holkar, "that I heard screams
within five minutes after the car entered the driveway."
"And a shot?"
"No, sir."
"You heard no shot?"
"No."
Mr. Boggs' gloom thickened.
"I am obliged," he said, "to put an embarrassing
question—a question that I would prefer to leave un-
asked. But duty compels me." He made one of his
strategic pauses while the room grew still and every
[100]


Held to Answeb
eye focused upon him. "Mr. Holkar, do you know
the nature of an oath?"
"I do," he replied calmly. "You see, Mr. Attorney,
I am not quite the alien I seem. I was educated in
Harvard University."
"Ah!" sighed Mr. Boggs, in still deeper discour-
agement. "And are you an American citizen?"
"No."
"Ah! Of course not. As a matter of fact, I think
you are ineligible for American citizenship. Am I cor-
rect, Mr. Holkar?"
"I believe you are, Mr. Attorney." Holkar's voice
was edged with contempt, but Mr. Boggs was at once
too benevolent and too entrenched in his Nordic
superiority to feel heathen scorn.
"And are you, by any chance, a Christian?"
Darlton started from his seat, but Holkar averted
controversy by speaking first.
"Neither by chance nor by choice," he answered,
with a lift of the head. "I am a Hindu."
"Then it would seem that you can hardly grasp the
nature of an oath as we Americans understand it. Am
I right, Mr. Holkar?"
"I think not, Mr. Attorney."
"Well, well!" The great man heaved another sigh.
"That will have to be gone into later."
The Coroner treated Mrs. Barnett, who came next,
with such profound courtesy as he might have ad-
dressed to Queen Victoria had she been available as a
witness, and at the end of her brief testimony, asked
but two questions.
"Did you notice the flash of the automobile head-
lights mentioned by Mr. Holkar?"
[101]


Held to Answer
Defiantly she met his steady gaze. "I did. I ad-
mitted that when questioned after the murder."
"After first denying it. And the reason you
changed was that you and Gilmore had renewed a
quarrel that started earlier in the evening at the
Brownrigg party? Isn't that a fact?"
A hush fell on the room. This was the sort of
thing the audience wanted.
"We had not," she answered. "We'd made up our
little tiff and were the best of friends."
"I think," said Darlton, "that the jury ought to
hear about the quarrel. Kindly tell us what hap-
pened?"
"Don't call it a quarrel," she retorted. "There
was nothing to it. I was drinking a lemonade"
"Drinking what?"
"A lemonade, I said. I choked over it and spilled
some on my dress. Tony laughed at me and I threw
the glass at him. I never hit anything before in my
life and I had no idea of hitting him. But I did. I
was sorry."
"Were you angry at the time?"
"No. Just a little rattled. The frock was brand-
new. I went to the dressing-room to clean up and
then came down and apologized to Tony. He laughed
it off, and we started out together, friendly as ever,
with Gerald Hartley in the back of the car."
"You then drove to Gilmore's?"
"Yes. For his overcoat. How many times must I
tell it?"
"As many times as you're asked by those in au-
thority, Miss Saranoff. What occurred after you
reached the house?"
[103]


Cajid 13
"We drove in and Tony got out and started to go
in for his coat. We'd been joshing and laughing, and
he turned part way, to say something to me, when the
shot came from the bushes. He fell and never spoke
again."
"You heard the shot and saw him fall?"
"Yes."
"Didn't you state to the police that you had had
so much to drink you went to sleep before you reached
the house and knew nothing of the shooting till Hartley
slapped you awake?"
"I can't remember what I told the police. You
ought to know what that bunch is like. They bullied
and threatened me so I haven't any idea what they
made me say."
"And since then you have, perhaps, borne your
reputation with the motion-picture public in mind?"
She shrugged.
"Believe it or not, I'm telling you what I saw."
"You will not admit that you and Gilmore quarreled
on the way to his house, and that is why you, in anger,
changed to the rear seat?"
"No, I won't. There was no quarrel."
The Deputy District Attorney, prompted by Kent,
took another tack.
"Did Gilmore have a silver flask with him that
night?"
"I don't know."
"Search your memory, please. Are you certain
that, at no time during the evening, you saw such a
flask in his possession?"
"Yes, I am."
"One more question, Miss Saranoff. When the
body was carried into the house did you follow?"
[104]


Held to Answer
"No," answered Selma. "As I've said before, I
felt sick and faint. I got into the back seat of Tony's
car and stayed there till a fresh guy from police head-
quarters ordered me out."
Mr. Boggs, without trying to dissemble his ad-
miration and sympathy, took the witness.
"Miss Saranoff, I must put a question which may
prove repugnant to your deepest feelings as a woman.
But I am sure you will pardon me for asking it. I
would not do so if I did not consider it important."
"Probably not," she said, dryly skeptical.
"You are right, Miss Saranoff. I would not. The
question is: were you and the deceased"
"Don't call Tony the deceased," she burst forth in
sudden abandon. "I can't stand it."
"I understand, Miss Saranoff. I understand per-
fectly. But when one refers to the deceased"
"Don't call him that, I tell you! For God's sake,
act human!"
A fleeting grin passed over the Coroner's face, but
he reproved the witness and frowned at the tittering
spectators. Mrs. Barnett, as if pained by such levity,
left the room attended by Doctor Chirpman. All
watched her exit except Selma who sat restlessly tap-
ping a gold cigarette case on the arm of her chair.
Mr. Boggs looked less exuberant as he again faced her.
"To continue, Miss Saranoff, were you and the—
your friend who was later shot—were you and he, on
the way to get the overcoat, exchanging what might
be called caresses?"
"Do you mean," she queried impatiently, "were we
petting?"
"Ah, yes. That is, to be sure, the term you young
people use to-day. Were you, then, petting?"
[105]


Cabd 13
"Yes. What's it to you?"
"It is, I realize, a delicate matter, an infringement
on your privacy, but if you were—ah—petting, then
the ladies and gentlemen of the jury can not fail to
see that you were friendly."
Selma got the point.
"Of course we were friendly. Everybody knew it."
"Will you, Miss Saranoff, tell the jury why you
changed to the back seat?"
"I was ill. There was more room for me to stretch
out in the back."
"Quite clear. Quite."
Raneleigh, with a subpena in his pocket, was on
tenter-hooks. Would he be asked what really trans-
pired at the Brownrigg party? But Gerald Hartley
came next. He looked a wreck of his former self—
wan, nervous, hollow-eyed—and made a poor showing.
His voice was audible only to those near him, and the
spectators in the background, hearing nothing, began
whispering among themselves and were rebuked by the
Coroner. His testimony followed the general lines of
the story he had told Raneleigh.
"But why," asked the Coroner, "did you first tell
the investigator from the District Attorney's office that
Miss Saranoff was in the front seat?"
"I don't know. I was confused."
"Just what do you mean by that?"
He hung his head.
"Come, Mr. Hartley. Answer my question. Does
your silence mean that you lied?"
"I was confused."
Darlton took him in hand.
"Have you quite recovered from that mental fog,
Mr. Hartley?"
[106]


Card 13
yourself? Were you trying to create a case against
Miss Saranoff?"
"No!" He pulled himself together surprisingly and
snapped out his denial. "I was not. I said Miss Sara-
noff was asleep when the shot was fired."
"You stated that you are engaged to Miss
Saranoff. Is it true?"
"I think so."
"Is that in doubt, too?"
"I thought we were engaged. At least, I did
before—I don't know now."
"Were you jealous of the man who had been fon-
dling your supposed fiancee?"
Mr. Boggs again objected, but Darlton had scored.
The jury was of one mind about this spineless youth
who dodged and squirmed and drooped his head. He
had been mad with jealousy.
Raneleigh burned with indignation that so grave
a business could be thus conducted. Had they no
thought of Tony, stark under his pall in the adjoining
room!
"Arthur Raneleigh?"
So he must play his part in the farce! Happily, it
was brief. His testimony that he had accompanied
Gilmore to the Brownrigg house, that he had seen him
take his revolver, that he had had no opportunity to
return to his home before the murder, was received
without question. In five minutes it was over, and the
Coroner cleared the room for the jury's deliberations.
He waited in the hall for the verdict and, when it
came, wondered why he had waited. Held to answer!
Of course those twelve men and women believed Gerald
Hartley guilty. Why, otherwise, was he under arrest?
[108]


CHAPTER TEN
A WOMAN SCORNED
Raneleigh turned into the office of the undertaking
establishment where a young woman, undepressed by
her environment, looked up from a noiseless typewriter
with a professionally sympathetic smile.
"May I speak to the proprietor?" he inquired.
"He's out conducting the funeral of a big Elk," she
said. "Won't I do?"
"Perhaps. Do you know what arrangements, if
any, have been made for Mr. Gilmore?"
Her smile chilled.
"Are you a reporter?"
"No, a friend. I don't wish to disturb the family.
My name is Raneleigh."
"That's different. Excuse me for taking you for
a reporter. You see, Mrs. Barnett wants everything
kept as private as possible. It isn't definite, but if the
authorities don't object, the services will be held here
to-morrow at twelve o'clock."
"And the burial?"
"The body is to remain in a vault at Hollywood
until Mrs. Barnett takes it East."
"It will be all right, then, to send flowers?"
"Oh, yes. We have some in cold storage already.
They're lovely."
From his club where he lunched, he telephoned his
usual florist. Then, after a moment's reflection, he
[109]


Cabd 13
called the Gilmore number. Mrs. Barnett herself
responded.
"This is Arthur. I've learned that the funeral
service has been set for to-morrow."
"Who told you?"
"I inquired at the undertaker's."
"I would have notified you in due time," she said.
"They had no business to tell any one. They know how
I feel about all this publicity."
"I'm afraid you can't keep it as private as you
wish," he replied. "But I rang up to ask if there is
anything I can do for you to-day. If there is IH come
out at once."
"There is nothing you can do to-day."
"Nor to-morrow?"
"No, Arthur."
"Will Aileen be able to go to the service?"
"I think it would be most unwise for her to try. In
her condition "She broke off for a moment. "I
find I'm needed. Good-by."
Raneleigh could overlook her bruskness. The ordeal
through which she had passed would have frayed any
one's nerves. But he felt hurt that she had neither
consulted him in her arrangements nor asked him—
Tony's best friend—to take his place beside her to-
morrow. Yet that, too, was in character. Since his
earliest recollection, Harriet Barnett had leaned on no
one. She was one of those rare spirits who can stand
alone.
Flaring head-lines, the shouts of newsboys, met
him as he again came out into the street. He had
tried to ignore the papers. It was futile. Read them
he must. But he would have none of them now. He
[110]


A Woman Scorned
longed, for a time at least, to purge his mind of thu
horror. Perhaps golf would help. He drove to a
course once on the outskirts, now hemmed in by the
city, and strove to think only of a game in which he
had seldom found anything save boredom. He had
not plodded far before his caddy brought up the Gil-
more murder, and the caddy was no sooner silenced
than, down the fairway, came a foursome of girls who
chattered excitedly of Saranoff as he let them pass.
Echoes of the case even reached him as he stood under
a shower, as he dressed in the locker room, and again
in the club restaurant while he ate a dinner for which
he had no appetite. In the end, he drove home and,
seated before his desk, grappled with the topic he could
not avoid.
For him, he now realized, the Coroner's inquest had
not clarified the mystery. Had he sat on the jury he
could not have voted for such a verdict as they reached.
The testimony had not convinced him that Hartley
fired the death-dealing shot. Nor, on the other hand,
had anything been brought out that justified his sus-
picion of Selma. Yet, if they were alike innocent, who
was guilty? He tried to work into an orderly pattern
the diverse and puzzling elements of the story. What,
in this confusing maze, were the certainties? He
reached for pad and pencil.
1. Tony was shot with his own revolver.
2. He took the revolver with him when he left for
the Brownrigg party.
3. The shot that killed him was fired within five
minutes of the time when he turned his car into the
drive, as Hartley, Selma, Holkar and Mrs. Barnett
were all agreed.
[Ill]


Card 13
Such were the facts. He scrutinized them carefully.
Of the first there could be no possible doubt. The sec-
ond was, to him at least, as unassailable. He had seen
Tony place the revolver in his pocket. That Ling had
not observed this was odd, but his failure to do so did
not weaken Raneleigh's faith in the evidence of his own
eyes. But the silver flask? That, too, with his own
eyes, he had seen disappear in Tony's pocket and
startlingly reappear on the s^udy desk after the
murder. The one mental picture tyas as sharply etched
as the other. Tony must have returned to his rooms
and laid the flask on the desk. And if this were true—
the thought brought him to his feet like an electric
shock—if this were true, as it surely was, could he
not have left the revolver there as well?
He paced the floor as the implication of this came
home to him. Was it, after all, an inside job? Had
some one taken the revolver from the desk, crept out
of the side door and fired from the shrubbery? Such
a supposition would dovetail with Hartley's story.
But where did it lead? Who, within the house, would
wish Tony harm? Neither Aileen, who adored him,
nor his aunt who had reared him from childhood. And
surely not Ling, well treated always and faithful as
a dog. His common sense eliminated all three. Was
it then Hartley? No doubt the police, who believed
him guilty, would argue that he might have followed
Tony into the house, secured the weapon and shot
him as they came out. But that was unlike the Gerald
he had known; Gerald of the soft eyes, the sensitive
mouth, the weak chin; sweet-tempered, patient, doting
Gerald who saw a god in Tony and a radiant goddess
in Saranoff. Unless there was no reading human
[112]


A Woman Scorned
character, unless psychology was an empty delusion,
that youth was the blameless victim of circumstances.
No such considerations, however, could be urged
in Senna's behalf. She had been taunted, flouted,
maddened by the dead man. If ever there was a woman
scorned it was she. It was no secret that she had a
black vindictive temper, a tigress strain. She may
have had it in her to kill the man she loved. She may
have had the cunning1to replace both revolver and flask.
But the law required evidence. Assuming her guilt,
how could it be proved? Only by Hartley's confession.
And if he knew her to be guilty, would she have dared
to turn on him as she did? She might. Selma had
nerve enough for anything.
He took up a framed photograph of the man whom
he had loved, despite all his glaring faults and incon-
sistencies. Now, as when he lived, Raneleigh looked
behind the mad welter of his days as Hollywood had
known him. There had been something sweet and loyal
about him, something dear and appealing. Surely such
devotion as he had lavished on Aileen atoned for
his sins of the flesh. Nor in themselves did those
frailties lack excuse. Women had run after this witty,
daring, handsome fellow who passed glamourously from
triumph to triumph. Could one of these discarded
favorites have taken revenge? He thought over the
women with whom, to his knowledge, Gilmore's relations
had been close. In point of time Dolly Brownrigg
stood first. To her he owed most. She had taken him
up when he was desperate, talked of him to this and
that potentate of the cinema world, by her own per-
suasions induced one of the most powerful to give him
his chance. She had a prior lien on his devotion, and
[113]


Card 13
Hollywood took it for granted that the tie had not heen
strictly Platonic. Yet, though she may have resented
his infidelities, it was not in her nature to employ a
hireling to kill him. And she had been at Gantley's
when the shot was fired. The news of his death had
stunned her. Dolly, beyond dispute, was in the clear.
But who had taken Dolly's place during her year
abroad? Well, for one, the dark girl who had accosted
him the other day at the Montmartre. Raneleigh had
never met Ida Hunter. Indeed, having no taste for
fancy ladies, he had avoided a meeting. He had, how-
ever, seen her in public places with Tony, and once, as
he entered his study from the hall, he caught a nearer
glimpse as she whisked out of the convenient side door.
Tony had ignored the encounter. She was too obscure
for him to take the pride in her conquest that he later
showed with Saranoff. Yet the extra girl may have
had her own pride, and her behavior at the restaurant
seemed to indicate that she was far from reconciled to
her fate. Had that public snub roused a homicidal
rage? Had she lain in wait in the bushes and shot him
as he stepped from his car? But Tony was killed with
his own gun. How could she have managed it?
Suppose that she had come to have it out with
Tony, had used a key that he had given her when their
affair was at its climacteric, had found his revolver
lying beside the flask—it was not impossible—and with
the weapon fairly put into her hand, had gone out on
the porch with the idea of frightening him. Suppose,
then, that she had seen him with another woman and,
crazed by jealousy, had fired. Was this too fantastic
a theory? Would it collapse under police analysis?
What were its flaws? Of course the whole fabric was
[114]


A Woman Scorned
based on the premise that Ida Hunter had retained a
pass-key given her when the liaison was still rose-
colored. It could not be a key to the front door. That
was too public, and furthermore, she would have needed
a second key for the study. It was by the side door
that she must enter. Here Raneleigh paused and re-
called Herbert Spencer whose notion of tragedy was
said to have been a theory slain by a fact. He was
in the same boat. The Ida Hunter hypothesis had
blown up. Her key, real or fancied, was useless. Kent
had found the private door locked on the inside.
It dawned upon him that the detection of crime was
a science worthy of respect, and coming to his three
certainties, he weighed the third. The time element
must have its significance if he could only unearth it.
The shot had been fired within five minutes after Tony
had entered the driveway. If this fact rested solely
on Hartley's testimony it might be questioned. But it
did not. Holkar, whom nothing flurried, had corrob-
orated him. Argon Holkar! There was another pos-
sibility. Ready now to suspect any one, Raneleigh
considered this strange figure in the case. His rela-
tions with Gilmore had always been puzzling. A
bizarre friendship—mystic and man of the world. Yet
they had been intimate. He had often found them
chatting together on terms which altered subtly at
his coming. Toward him the Hindu was ever formal.
He could not break through the barrier which this
Oriental raised between himself and the Western World.
But Tony knew the password, the open-sesame, which
unbarred the secret door. Holkar lent him esoteric
books, even gave him a key to his house that he might
explore his library at will.
[115]


Card 13
A key to Holkar's house! Raneleigh suddenly
went tense. Why, in return, might not the Hindu have
had a key to that private door of Tony's? If he did
possess a key to that door, scarcely a dozen feet from
his windows, he might be the murderer! Had they
quarreled? What could they quarrel about? God
only knew! Who, save another Oriental, could fathom
that man's mind? Raneleigh again sat down at his
desk and cudgeled his wits as intently as if he, too, had
been born under Indian skies. Temperamentally, he
thought Holkar capable of sinister deeds. He mis-
trusted the hints of soul affinities, trances and occult
practises that had filtered to him through Gilmore.
Conceding a motive for putting Tony out of the way,
would he have stuck at the act itself? Suppose that
he, not the Hunter woman, was in his friend's rooms
when he returned? Suppose that he had stood con-
cealed when Tony laid the flask and revolver on the
desk? If he had wished to kill him the chance was his.
He could have followed him unseen, fired from the
shrubbery and, screened by the hedge, escaped into his
own house.
But this theory, also, collided with the stubborn
fact that the private door was found locked on the in-
side after Tony's death. Did not this let Holkar out
of the same loophole through which Ida Hunter slipped
scot-free? Then, wrestling with the old dilemma, Ran-
eleigh abruptly thought aloud.
"No!" he exclaimed. "It doesn't let him out!"
The sound of his voice startled him. No hasty
jumping at conclusions. This must be reasoned calmly.
But he was far from calm as he followed where the
dark trail led. Holkar had been the first to arrive on
[116]


A Woman Scorned
the scene. He undoubtedly entered the house when
Tony's body was borne into the living-room. His
eyes would note Tony's forgotten key in the lock of
the study door. He could easily, amid the confusion,
have slipped into the study and with his own key have
locked the side door. He would take little risk. If
observed, why should any one question his movements?
He was known to all then present as a neighbor and
friend. Yes, Holkar could have committed the crime!
All that lacked was a motive.
"And of course," he added, peering at his other
self, the novelist who had hatched this prodigious plot,
"and of course, a little evidence!"
His sense of humor told him that, if theories were
all, he could build up a plausible case against Aileen
or Mrs. Barnett. It behooved him to go to bed. No
sense of humor checked the extravagance of his dreams,
however, and for an eternity he fled through strange
marts and temples before a bearded assassin who at
moments quaintly disguised himself as Selma Saranoff.
It was almost a relief to wake and realize that he had
nothing more terrible to confront than the funeral of
his best friend.
Early as he set out, he found the street before the
undertaker's packed with the curious and the entrance
commanded by a battery of news-reel cameras. If it
had not been for Kent he could not have entered. Not
a seat in the chapel was vacant. He stood, pressed
against the rear wall, among no better-favored men
and women whose faces were familiar to every moving-
picture audience in the land. Toward the front, in
half mourning, he sighted Dolly Brownrigg. Yet nearer
the flower-banked coffin sat Saranoff in still deeper
[117]


Card 13
weeds. In a far corner, brooding and aloof, was Hol-
kar. Whether Aileen was with her aunt in the alcove
reserved for the family he could only conjecture. No
wild sob that might be hers burst from that curtained
recess as the music of an unseen harp ceased and the
harrowing service for the dead began. Nor from any-
where did sounds of poignant grief reach his ear.
Above the voice of the officiating minister swelled now
and then the gabble of the crowd massed in the street.
The ceremony had one signal merit: it was brief.
Then Raneleigh was swept out on the tide and, tossed
like flotsam against a railing, witnessed Saranoff's exit.
This settled a debated question as to whether she could
act without a director. Perhaps she felt at ease before
the clicking cameras. Whatever the inspiration, she
bore herself like the widow of a czar.
Before Raneleigh could struggle round to the side
entrance the hearse was in motion. By the time he
had edged his car out of a neighboring auto park the
procession was lost in the traffic and he only overtook
it as it wound into the cemetery. Here, from a dis-
tance, he at last glimpsed Aileen when, supported by
Mrs. Barnett and a woman strange to him, she followed
the casket to the receiving vault. Since he had not
been bidden to share any of these rites, he felt that he
could not intrude now. But he saw no reason why he
should not call later at the house.
It was early in the afternoon when Mrs. Barnett,
after his third ring, opened the door a few grudging
inches.
"Oh, it's you!"
"May I come in?" he asked.
"Of course." Her tone took on a hollow cordiality.
[118]


A Woman Scorned
"I thought it might be another reporter or those
meddlesome police. Between the newspapers and the
detectives I've been pestered half to death."
He had not hoped to see Aileen, taking it for
granted that, after such an ordeal, her aunt would have
sent her back to bed. To his amazement he found her
in the living-room, and her cheeks seemed to glow with
health.
[119]


CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SILVER FLASK
He crossed the room and took her hand.
"You're better, my dear?"
"Yes, Ran."
Her tone belied her words, and now, at close range,
he saw that her bloom was rouge. She had even
touched her lashes with mascara and accentuated the
lovely curves of her mouth. Her dark hair, her eye-
brows clipped to little crescents, showed the same
solicitude. Was vanity her ruling passion? But he felt
only pity as he searched her eyes. Their animation,
their gay questioning of life, was gone. They burned
with a feverish fire, and no art could hide their shadows.
Beyond doubt she had suffered. Yet she was trying to
carry on. This, surely, was the meaning of her pathetic
camouflage. It was her challenge to fate. He wanted
to fold her in his arms and comfort her.
But one did not indulge such impulses before Mrs.
Barnett. Instead, he voiced commonplaces and,
getting no response from either, at last resorted
desperately to the weather.
"This crisp air will brace you. There's even snow
on the range. Perhaps to-morrow you'll let me drive
you out along the foot-hills?"
"Aileen," her aunt answered for her, "is under the
care of a nurse. Doctor Chirpman thought it best."
"He might approve of the drive. There will be
[120]


The Silver Flask
room for the nurse. And of course," he added, "for
you."
"I have no time for scenery, Arthur."
"I'm sorry. But don't you think Aileen needs a
change?"
"She will soon have a change. I'm taking hef
home."
"Home?" he repeated blankly. "Do you mean
Iowa?"
"Certainly I mean Iowa. I know no better place
for her to recover."
"But how can you leave before Tony's estate is
settled?"
"My lawyer sees no reason why we should delay
for that. The will has been found. Its terms are ex-
plicit. Aileen gets everything."
Raneleigh turned to the girl.
"I don't wish to be intrusive, Aileen, but are you
willing to leave matters in this lawyer's hands?"
"No," she replied. "It's you who"
"I was about to come to that," cut in Mrs. Barnett.
"It seems, Arthur, that you were named sole executor."
"Tony made me his executor!"
"Yes. Without bond."
He was touched to the depths.
"I knew nothing of this. I hope that I shall prove
equal to the trust."
"So do I," said Mrs. Barnett, without conviction.
"Anthony accumulated more property than I sus-
pected. He also carried a large amount of insurance.
It is no light responsibility that you will assume. I
feel that you should seek the best advice."
The situation plainly called for tact.
[121]


Cajld 13
"I shall need to consult with too often," he re-
turned promptly. "For that reason, if no other, I
wish you would not hurry away."
"Anthony showed what he thought of my judgment.
As for Aileen, she will give you power of attorney."
He again glanced at the girl.
"Is that what you plan to do?"
"I haven't any plans," she replied listlessly.
"And she shouldn't be bothered," said Mrs. Bar-
nett. "Her health is the first consideration. Doctor
Chirpman agrees with me entirely. It is by his orders
that I am taking her away."
"Wouldn't some California resort benefit her as
much as Iowa?"
"Not in my opinion."
"But you might have to return soon. If Gerald
Hartley is brought to trial you both may be needed
as witnesses."
"Aileen will not be needed. What does she know
that is of any importance? As for me, my deposition
will be all that is required."
"Are you sure of that?"
"My legal adviser is sure of it. I'd rather you
wouldn't argue the matter, Arthur. It's all arranged.
Onr train reservations are for Monday."
Raneleigh had no arguments left.
"I haven't meant to annoy you," he assured her
earnestly. "I'm thinking only of your best interests.
Frankly, I hate to see you go."
To this she made no reply.
"Where is the will?" he asked.
"The lawyer who drew it has the original. His
name is John Willis. Do vou know him?"
[122]


The Silver Flask
"Slightly. We belong to the same club." He per-
ceived that she was eager to be rid of him, but he had
his own perplexities. "There's this house," he said.
"What am I to do with it? And the furnishings? Will
you think it over, Aileen, before you go? I shall be
guided by your wishes."
The girl started up wildly.
"I don't want to go!" she cried. "I don't want to
go back home! I'll die there! Don't let her make
me go, Ran!"
"Aileen!" Mrs. Barnett launched the one word in
a tone of such imperious authority as he had never
heard from her lips. It rang like the trump of doom,
and her niece wilted before it.
Raneleigh, bewildered by both the frantic outburst
and its swift repression, gazed from one to the other.
He concluded that his knowledge of women was not
profound.
"But, Mrs. Barnett," he protested, "if you're think-*
ing of her health and she doesn't want to go"
"She does. Before you came she hadn't a word to
say against it. Can't you see the state she's in? I
know what's best for her." All decision, she went
quickly to the hall. "Nurse! Isn't that woman done
stuffing herself? Nurse! Your patient needs you."
The woman he had seen at the cemetery, now in
white uniform, came rustling from the kitchen, and
her look, no less than Mrs. Barnett's, said unmistakably
that this was no place for a man. He left at once, but
the girl's haunted eyes followed him, and her hysterical
outcry continued to echo in his ears. Poor Aileen!
Iowa, after Hollywood, would of course seem exile,
and exile anywhere with Aunt Harriet was a dismal
[123]


Card 13
prospect. Yet she was, he told himself, the only mother
Aileen had known and, if there was any love in her
cold, angular make-up, it surely centered on her niece.
But was love, which must dominate, worthy of the
name? Tony had not thought so. His boyish mutinies
against her rule crowded Raneleigh's memories of
those early days. He could not recall that Aileen,
seven years the younger, ever shared these rebellions.
Her nature was more pliant. She had, as a child, ap-
peared even happy under the yoke. Well, she was far
from happy now. From a city which boasted itself a
metropolis she was bound for small-town stagnation,
to dragging days and nights, to futile brooding over
Tony's tragic end and her blasted hopes. His heart
ached for her. It ached for himself. He'd miss her
blithe spirit, her joyous zest in life. Why must she
go? Why, as the custodian of her fortune, hadn't he
the power to bid her stay?
His thoughts drifted to the will. Mrs. Barnett, it
was clear, had no stomach for the provision that made
him executor. Yet how could she have expected that
Tony, whose ideas had clashed at all points with hers,
would hand over his estate to her control? No light
responsibility this, as she had austerely said. It would
enmesh him in coils of red tape, involve him in business
details for which he had little taste. It had its brighter
side, though. He could keep in touch with Aileen and,
perhaps, in time see his way to free her from bondage.
But the will: ought he to call at once on the lawyer
who had it in his keeping? Assuredly not on the very
day of Tony's funeral. The man would notify him
to-morrow. Or they might meet casually at the club.
He headed his car toward down-town Los Angeles, but
[124]


The Silveb Flask
the nearer he came to his club the less was he inclined
for the gossip of the lounge and coffee-room, and as
he issued from the Third Street tunnel, he turned
toward the Civic Center. He had decided to drop in
on Kent.
The special investigator appeared, smiling, from
some inner lair of the District Attorney's office, led him
into a vacant consulting-room, pulled up chairs and
sociably offered a cigar.
"Thanks," said Raneleigh. "I prefer a pipe."
"Like Sherlock Holmes? Wasn't that one of his
trade-marks?"
"I believe so. However, I'm not a pipe smoker for
that reason. This is a good time to explain, also, that
I don't consider myself a brilliant amateur detective."
"Not your brand of fiction, eh?"
"No. I say this because you may have felt the other
night that I was a bit presumptuous."
"You're wrong. I appreciated your suggestions,
and I'm glad you've called. I hope it means that you're
going to stick around until the case is cleaned up."
"I certainly want to see it cleaned up. Tony Gil-
more was my best friend. And of course I want to
help if I can. I had thought of going to a private
agency, but if you're willing, I'd rather work with you.
I have some acquaintance with the District Attorney
and will talk to him if you like, but I dare say you
have the authority to decide whether I'll be in the
way."
Kent threw him a keen look.
"You won't be in my way, Mr. Raneleigh. But
just why did you think of going to a private agency?"
"Because I'm not convinced that Hartlev is guilty.
[125]


Cakd 13
I had my doubts the night of the shooting, and as for
the inquest—well, what did it prove?"
"That Saranoff is an actress, that Knowlton Boggs
is an actor.0
"Yes," agreed Raneleigh. "And nothing else."
"I wouldn't go that far," said the investigator.
"But Fll admit that we aren't quite ready to face
the court. In a case of this sort we have to dig into
the records of all concerned. Where there's a crime
there's a motive, and the motive is usually hidden in
the past. It's also a safe bet that youH find a woman
mixed up in it somewhere. The Frenchies have the
right idea. At any rate, Fve been getting a line on
the Hunter dame, whose rent Gilmore paid for half
a year."
"That was over long ago."
"I know. She got the gate when he fell for Sar-
anoff."
"But the Saranoff affair was merely a flash in the
pan. Tony has been indifferent to her for weeks."
"I know that, too. But the point is, be dropped the
extra girl when he took on the star. In fact," Kent
added with a grin, "he seemed to be strictly mo-
nogamous."
Raneleigh smiled with him.
"Old-fashioned, very."
"Quite so. Influences of Iowa, no doubt. Well,
we traced Ida Hunter to a cheap hotel in Hollywood.
She admitted that she'd been GDmore's mistress, but
insisted that they split by mutual consent last August
and that he did the generous thing by her. She said
that, on the night of the murder, she went to a movie
with another girl and was back in her hotel at eleven
[126]


The Silver Flask
O'clock. She and the girl friend gassed with the
switchboard operator before she went to her room. A
little after twelve she phoned the office and asked the
night clerk to get her some aspirin from the drug store
next door. We've checked up her story and her alibi
looks water-tight."
"Then can't her name be left out of the case? For
the sake of the family, I hope that no more scandal
will be raked up than is necessary. The papers have
gone the limit. I can't read them."
"No? You're missing some swell reporting. They
gave us a good play this morning—a fine lay-out with
photographs of all the principals and new diagrams
showing the position of Gilmore's car and the shrub-
bery and hedge. Great stuff!"
"I suppose they'll exploit it for weeks."
"Till after the trial," said Kent, with frank satis-
faction. "That is, unless another nifty murder should
break. But it would have to be a pippin to throw the
Gilmore case in the shade. Yes; you'll see plenty of
head-lines till after the trial."
"I can't believe that Gerald will be brought to
trial. I can't believe he is guilty."
"You're still from Missouri, eh? I'm afraid you're
letting friendship blind your judgment, Mr. Raneleigh.
If ever a man looked guilty, your Gerald did at the
inquest. Even Boggs couldn't prop him up. We have
a good case now, and we'll soon have a better one. It
will all come out in the wash. We're following up
every lead."
"Including mine?"
"Oh, that silver flask, you mean? I hadn't for-
gotten it. You may have noticed at the inquest that I
[127]


Cakd 13
had Darlton ask Saranoff if she had seen it. She said
no."
"But you hare my word for it that Tony took it
with him as well as the revolver."
Kent pulled at his cigar.
"You insist on coupling the two?"
"I know what I saw. And yet, when you searched
his rooms after he was shot, the flask was on his desk.
How did it get there? I feel that a serious attempt
should be made to find out."
"Why?"
"Because, if the flask got back, the revolver could."
The investigator eyed him a moment.
"You've done quite a job of thinking about that
booze-container, haven't you? Well, I'll give you my
theory. Let's assume that you're not mistaken as to
Gilmore's having it with him. That word 'assume'
won't get your goat, I trust? Frankness is essential
if we're to work together. All right. As I figure it
out, there was nothing to prevent Hartley or Saranoff,
acting singly or together, from planting the flask in
the study after the shooting. One or the other may
have taken it from Gilmore's pocket for that purpose.
One or the other may have had a drink from it on the
drive from the Brownrigg house. That's not im-
possible. You want to remember Hartley stated that,
after Gilmore fell to the ground, he tried to give him
whisky. He said it was from his own flask, but that
might not be true."
"Gerald had a flask."
"Yes. But it was empty when I got a look at it.
Put yourself in the place of that pair. After they saw
that they had done for Gilmore they'd naturally fall
[128]


The Silveb Flask
into a panic. It's no joke in this state to shoot a man
in cold blood. Hartley would lose his head. That's
self-evident. It's also plain he'd never have had the
wits to fix up a story for Saranoff to telL But 6he
doesn't lack nerve. As I size her up, she's as cunning
as they make 'em. Couldn't she have hidden the flask
and slipped it to Gilmore's desk? I wouldn't put it
beyond that jane."
"It would seem more to the point to plant the re-
volver there."
"So it would. But the gun went into the hedge.
Then the Hindu pops out and is Johnny-on-the-spot
by the body, at the door, and all over the place.
Saranoff could have acted on her idea as to the flask,
but it wasn't possible for her to plant the gun."
"Yes. That's clear."
"And as it happens," continued Kent, "there is
some evidence to sustain this theory of mine."
"Evidence?" Raneleigh was on the alert.
"Do you recall that we found the key to Gilmore's
study in the outside of the door?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's where it was when Black, the first
officer on the scene, entered the house. Didn't you say
that Gilmore locked his door when he left with you that
night?"
"That's my recollection."
"Then who put it back? I leave it to you."
"Of course you imply that it was either Saranoff or
Hartley."
"Sure. Now does that get the silver flask out of
your craw?"
"Then you think that one of them could have taken
[129]


The Silver Flask
nave a more startling glimpse into the chilly mechanism
of his mind.
"So you are Gilmore's executor," he said.
"Yes. I was taken off my feet when I heard the
news. How did you know?"
"I was with Lieutenant Emery when he found a
copy of the will in Gilmore's safe-deposit box at the
bank. Pretty soft for little sister, eh?"
"It makes her independent."
"She'll like that, I suppose."
"Any one would." Raneleigh hated to discuss
Aileen with him.
"Was she on good terms with her brother?"
"Of course. Why do you ask?"
"I showed that copy of the will to Miss Gilmore
and her aunt," said Kent slowly. "I wanted to get
their reaction. Mrs. Barnett remarked that it was
just what she would have expected. What the girl
expected I don't know. She went into hysterics."
Raneleigh's face burned.
"Is that so strange? She's under the doctor's care.
Her aunt even called in a nurse."
"Yes, I know. Nervous prostration or something
of that sort. Did you see her when you called to-day?"
"Who told you I called?"
"We keep ourselves informed. Part of our routine,
you understand. How did you find Miss Gilmore?"
"She seemed "Raneleigh broke off with an
incredulous stare. "Good God, man, surely you don't
suspect Aileen!"
Kent dropped a fatherly hand on his shoulder.
"Don't you go in for nerves, Mr. Raneleigh," he
said suavely. "Down here we look at things from a
nail


CHAPTER TWELVE
THE SECRET PASSAGE
Raneleigh told himself that Kent's advice was
sound. By no means must he go in for nerves. He
would have to accept the cold-blooded point of view of
a bureau for criminal investigation. But he found
that he could not share this detachment. It was im-
possible for him to regard Aileen simply as a "factor"
in a sinister puzzle, and the assumption that she was
such a factor plagued him like a thorn in his flesh. It
was futile to try to shrug it off. The thorn stuck. It
hurt. And when, the following afternoon, Wednesday,
he hurried to the Gilmore house at Kent's request, his
heart was in his throat.
The investigator was pacing the veranda.
"Well, Mr. Raneleigh," he said, "things begin to
look damned queer."
"Here at the house, you mean?"
"Yes. You seem winded. Did you come on the
run?"
"I walked fast."
"And thought fast, too?"
"I did not know what to make of your phone call.
What's happened?"
"Plenty. In the first place, the Chink has disap-
peared. No one has seen hide or hair of him since the
morning of the inquest."
"But I can't believe Ling is crooked. Perhaps the
inquest summons frightened him."
[133]


Card 13
"Maybe. At any rate, he's pulled a vanishing act.
We've scoured the usual haunts, but it's like hunting
a pea in a bin of wheat when one of those yellow boys
gets back to Chinatown. They all look alike."
"I think I'd know him in a thousand."
"Yes? Well, Mrs. Barnett, who's lived under the
same roof with him, says she could never pick him out
from a bunch. The old lady is terribly upset. It
seems that another Chink showed up in his place yes-
terday afternoon with the story that he'd been sent
by an agency. She refused to keep him. None of that
tribe looks good to her. Not even Ling. She thinks
he had a hand in the murder."
"I can't believe it."
Kent smiled.
"You're too charitable for this work. If we rule
out all the people you don't suspect we'll have to lay
Gilmore's death to Providence. By the way, did I tell
you that Ling said he could not remember that Gilmore
took his revolver and flask that night? But let that
pass. There's more doing here than the Chinaman's
fade-out. The letters are gone."
"Gone!" exclaimed Raneleigh. "With the rooms
locked?"
"And sealed. What's more—and worse—the door
seals weren't broken."
"Were the windows sealed?"
"No. But they were all locked. They're still
locked."
"But how, in the name of destiny, do you account
for it?"
"I don't. I'm just telling you. The letters are
gone. Some of them were from the Hunter girl, some
from Saranoff. You saw the collection. It may haV^
[134]


The Secret Passage
contained evidence that would blast the reputation of
a woman we haven't even suspected. Perhaps a rich
society dame had fallen for him."
"I doubt it. Tony was bored by people who were
merely rich."
"But you don't really know. You told me he was
close-mouthed about his love-affairs. However, the
letters are gone and the fact opens up a new line that
may lead somewhere. It may give us the very clue that
will solve the case."
"Have you questioned Mrs. Barnett as to the
people who have been in or about the house?"
"Yes. I did not mention the theft of the letters,
however."
"That was considerate of you. She has worries
enough."
"I thought so," rejoined Kent blandly. "Well, Mrs.
Barnett informed me that, on the morning of the in-
quest, a Jap came to wash windows. She first noticed
him after he had finished with the kitchen and begun
in the dining-room. He told her that he had been sent
by a window-cleaning concern, in answer to a phone
call, and that Ling put him to work before he left, as
he said, for the inquest. She didn't like the look of
it—washing windows with Gilmore not yet buried and
all that—so she dismissed him with pay for half a day.
Quite a stickler for the proprieties, isn't she?"
"Always. But if you've had the house under con-
stant surveillance, as you intimated yesterday, Mr.
Kent, you must have known about this man."
"Oh, yes. But through some slip, his story was not
verified at once. We know now that no regular win-
dow-cleaning company sent him."
"Could it have been Saranoff?"
[135]


Caud 13
"Your guess is as good as mine. Call her Madame
X. At any rate, it was probably some one who wanted
those letters. Black will get action on the Jap clue as
soon as he's at liberty. Come inside."
Raneleigh glanced toward the living-room as they
entered.
"Nobody home," said Kent laconically.
"They're all out?"
"Yes. The nurse, too. Darlton summoned the
ladies to his office this afternoon."
"Why did he do that?" Raneleigh was taken
aback.
"Because I asked him to do it," said the investi-
gator. "I wanted the house cleared for a thorough
search. The Sergeant's been at work for an hour.
Good man, Black."
The good man at that moment popped his head
out of a door at the rear of the hall.
"Look here, Chief! I've got something to show
you that will make your hair curl."
"The hell you have," said Kent.
Black ushered them into a large kitchen, its white
enamel bearing gleaming witness to Aunt Harriet's
high standards as a housekeeper, and brought up
before a door.
"Here," he announced, with a flourish, "is where
the party that pinched the letters went through."
Kent followed the Sergeant, and Raneleigh, trail-
ing after, lost sight of both. He groped his way into
a closet, quite windowless, that ran half the length of
the kitchen.
"Oh, Raneleigh!" came Kent's muffled voice. "This
is worth the price of admission."
[136]


The Seceet Passage
A narrow door, two feet wide at most, swung before
him, and he emerged in Gilmore's bedroom. He
wheeled, bewildered, but Black had shut the door be-
hind him, and he saw only the panel painting of the
Chinese woman which he had always disliked.
"Pretty good, eh!" exulted the Sergeant, as pleased
as a child over a conjurer's trick. "The picture was
put there to hide the door and I'll say they made a
neat job of it. The frame overlaps all round and goes
to the floor. If I hadn't nosed to the end of that musty
den I'd have missed it."
"Let me have your flash-light." Kent stepped into
the closet. "The door was nailed on this side, eh?
And the nails were recently drawn and then replaced.
You can see it with half an eye. Notice this one." He
turned the powerful light on the wall. "It splintered
the wood. And look at the paper. That shows."
"It didn't get by me," said Black, with pardonable
pride.
The walls were lined with large sheets of wrapping-
paper, but the sheet which had covered the door had
been carefully caught back.
"Good work, Sergeant," said Kent, returning to
the bedroom. "Let's hear what you did."
Black complied with gusto.
"I was going through the premises, according to
your order, Chief, and when I struck that kitchen
closet and found how deep it was, I realized that I was
next to this room where Gilmore slept. I ran my
hands along the wall this a-way, hardly expecting to
find anything. I guess I must have had a hunch with-
out knowing it. Anyhow, I felt the panels of the door."
"Through the wrapping-paper?"
[137]


Casd 13
"Yet. Those big sheets, youH notice, cover the
whole wall on the bedroom side. The wall toward the
kitchen is lined with old-fashioned wall-paper." He
turned his light into the closet. "The sheets were
tacked at the edges, you see. Well, I pulled the tacks
of the center sheet and there was the door. It was
fastened with six ten-penny nails." He fished in his
pocket and produced an envelope. "Here they are."
They examined the nails.
"Look innocent enough, don't they?" said Kent.
"When I examined the center sheet of paper, Chief,
I discovered that it had been lately taken off and put
back. There's a faded mark at each edge of the paper
that it overlapped. Let me show you." The three
huddled in the closet while he proudly demonstrated
his acuteness. "You can see that it doesn't extend by
an eighth of an inch as far over as it did when it was
first tacked. I haven't touched this end of the sheet.
It's just as I found it."
"Good work," said Kent again, retreating to the
less stuffy atmosphere of the bedroom. "Beyond a
doubt the door was opened recently and the person who
opened it stole the letters."
Raneleigh was clutched by a vague yet terrifying
apprehension. These revelations, the disappearance
of the letters, Aileen and her aunt decoyed elsewhere,
the intensive search of the house the discovery of the
hidden door—what did they all mean?
Sergeant Black suggested one interpretation.
"An inside job," he pronounced with finality and
satisfaction. "And if you ask me, it was the Chink
who pulled it off. It stands to reason. He was Gil-
nore's valet and took care of his rooms. That Chinese
[138]


The Secret Passage
picture probably meant a lot more to him than it
does to us. He'd look it over as he dusted it, and he'd
find the door behind. Then, when somebody made it
worth his while, he sneaked in from the kitchen, copped
the letters, passed them over, got his money and hit
the trail for God knows where."
"That's plausible," said Kent. "Yet, on the other
hand, the person who wanted those letters might have
been afraid to trust a Chink. It isn't beyond the
bounds of possibility that some one on the outside did
the trick."
Raneleigh saw a knowing glance pass between them,
and it flashed over him that these hard-boiled realists
suspected that one of their own guard might have
taken a bribe to look the other way. But Kent was
instantly off on a fresh lead.
"Mr. Raneleigh," he said, with an eager glint in
his eye, "could Saranoff have known of this door?"
"I doubt it."
"She came here, didn't she?"
"Only a few times. Tony put his foot down and
made her stop it. I can speak positively because he
told her in my presence to cut it out."
"Where did this occur?"
"On Hollywood Boulevard. We ran across her
suddenly and he snapped it out."
"He was sore?"
"Yes. Tony's sister, you see, had caught a glimpse
of Saranoff, as she left here the day before, and was
excited over it."
"Why did Saranoff's call excite Miss Gilmore?"
"She wanted to get acquainted with her. Like most
girls, she's keen on movie stars."
[139]


Card 13
"Isn't she a little keener than most girls?"
"Very likely. She's played a few minor parts and
hoped to make a name for herself in the films."
"She's a good-looker. Why didn't Gilmore push
her? He must have had a pull."
"Oh, yes; he had the pull. But he wanted her to
avoid certain associations. He hoped to launch her
with the right people."
"Who wouldn't expect her to play the game, as the
saying goes in Hollywood?"
"That was, no doubt, one of his reasons for
caution."
"And so the launching never came off! How did
she feel about it?"
"Disappointed, naturally." Raneleigh was again
made aware that, in this man's eyes, Aileen was a fac-
tor to be studied. "But she thoroughly understood
Tony's point of view. She knew that he'd do all he
could for her when the chance came. They were de-
voted to each other."
Kent abandoned this digression.
"The fact remains that Saranoff did come here.
And now, how about Hartley? He was in and out of
the house like yourself?"
"Yes. He came often."
"Slept here now and then, perhaps, after a big
night?"
"Probably. He and Tony were intimate."
"Then he may have known of that door," said Kent.
"And he may have told Saranoff about it."
"Since the murder! How could he?"
"Easily enough. She hasn't called at the jail, but
she's seen Boggs, and Boggs sees Hartley. Guard or
[140]


The Secret Passage
no guard, he could slip that information to the learned
counsel for the defense, and believe me, the oily old
shyster wouldn't stick at passing it along. I wouldn't
put anything by him. Some time I'll take a day off
and give you my unexpurgated opinion of criminal
lawyers. Yes, she could have heard about this door,
either before or since the killing. If there was any-
thing incriminating in her letters she'd be desperate.
She'd us« any means, bleed any amount, to get hold of
them."
"Sure," chimed in Black. "And I'll bet my wad she
hired the Chink to do it."
Kent, with a dry smile of self-criticism, dropped
from the clouds of theory to the solid ground of fact.
"I'm not so reckless, Sergeant," he drawled. "But
I want the Chink, and you're the man to find him."
Black nodded.
"I'll head for Chinatown as soon as I fix things as
they were. Hadn't we all better vamose? It might
make the ladies nervous to find us here."
"They won't even start for home until I phone,"
said Kent in his competent way. "I left word to have
them detained until I gave the cue. I'll call the office
after I date up the charming Saranoff. Better go
with me, Raneleigh, and see that I don't lose my heart
and head."
* "I'll be outside."
Waiting on the veranda, he filled his lungs with
fresh air. He had felt stifled in that house so charged
with memories, so ominous of ill to come. Then Kent
appeared with his lips pursed and his eyes thoughtful.
"Well, Raneleigh," he exclaimed, for once showing
excitement, "they had a juicy piece of news for me at
[141]


CARD 13
the office! Saranoff's been trying to get me on the
phone. They wouldn't tell her where I was, of course,
and finally she spilled her story to Darlton. It seems
she had a surprise in her fan mail to-day. Her letters
to Gilmore were returned.”
(1421


CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE SARANOFF LETTERS
Raneleigh's jaw dropped.
"Saranoff's own letters—the ones she wrote
Tony—were returned to her?"
"Yes, by mail. Can you beat it!"
"But what the devil does it mean?"
"I'm no clairvoyant," said Kent. "Anyhow, she's
at home and pining to see me. Let's go."
They drove the greater part of the way in silence,
but as they neared the actress's estate, which topped a
hill for all the world to see, the investigator came out
of his brown study with a snort.
"It's a crazy universe, Raneleigh. Think of a little
gutter-snipe piling up all that kale!"
"Was Saranoff a gutter-snipe?"
"Did you think she's a Russian princess!"
"No," he smiled. "I lost faith in press-agents at
my first circus which didn't come up to the posters. I
know that Selma's a New York East-Sider, but I
never heard she climbed from the gutter."
"Neither have I," said Kent. "As a matter of
fact, she was a child of the tenements and pigged it in
a couple of rooms with half a dozen other brats and
the old folks, who were garment workers. Her last
name is really Saranoff, but she was christened Anna.
The director who put her across in pictures changed
it to Selma. But she traveled a rough road before she
[143]


OARD 13
had escaped Selma's devastating touch. Chairs, tables,
consoles, piano, glittered with gilt. The lampshades
dripped silks and laces. The floor was littered with
cushions of every hue known to nature and the dye-pot.
Jars in which the tallest of the Forty Thieves might
have hidden stood in all four corners. The walls sug-
gested an auction-room, so crowded were they with
paintings and tapestries. The latter were unmistakably
machine-made. And so, Raneleigh saw at a glance,
were the pictures. He told himself that if she had
bought out an entire exhibition of the British Royal
Academy she could have done no worse.
Kent was agape before a full-length portrait of
Saranoff herself, posed beside a Russian wolfhound.
“I want a dog to look like a dog," he declared.
“Now that beast, which is a cross between a sheep and
a kangaroo "
He abruptly desisted from criticism. Saranoff,
with the wolfhound at heel, stood in the doorway. She
was dressed in deepest black, and as she advanced,
Raneleigh noted that she wore no make-up. The effect
was as startling as if she had left off some essential
part of her clothes. He concluded that in her anxiety
she had forgotten her vanity. She looked twice her
age, haggard, ghastly, and against the dead white of
her skin, her red hair fairly burned. She went straight
to Kent and thrust an untied parcel in his hands.
“There they are!” she exclaimed, her voice vibrant.
“Just as they came. And the wrapping. Drug-store
paper, isn't it? No writing. Whoever sent it cut
my name from a newspaper and patched together the
address in the same way. Weren't they sly, Mr.
Kent? Did you ever see anything like it?”
[146]


Card 13
"No answer to that, eh?" taunted the investigator.
"Yes," she replied. "Tony meant more to me than
any one knows."
"More than Hartley?"
"It was different."
"Hartley wanted to marry you and Gilmore
wouldn't—was that the difference?"
Her eyes filled.
"Why do you try to hurt me, Mr. Kent? I've never
done you any harm." She faced Raneleigh. "You
haven't been here before."
"Was I asked?" he rejoined.
"You must have known, as Tony's friend, that you
were welcome. I'm glad you came. Friends are scarce
these days. They're afraid to come, I guess. Won't
you sit down? Both of you? We'll have some tea."
"Tea!" Kent again jerked out a derisive laugh.
"When did you take to that drink?"
"I always have it when I'm home."
Saranoff pushed a button before they could decline,
and the footman, as if he had waited her summons,
trundled in a gilded tea-wagon, stood at attention while
she poured and, with his sacerdotal air, handed round
the cups and sandwiches and little cakes. The wolf-
hound, which had hitherto superciliously ignored the
callers, now posted himself at Kent's knee and watched
his every move with melancholy eyes.
"Here, Boris!" said his mistress, extending a cake.
"Don't tease the gentleman. Can't you see he doesn't
like dogs?"
"Oh, I like dogs," Kent assured her, with heavy
emphasis. "What did you call him?"
"Boris."
[148]


The Saranoff Letters
"I thought you said Borax. I suppose you had a
herd of these animals on your Russian estate?"
Selma dismissed the footman with a nod.
"I hadn't any Russian estate, Mr. Kent. I guess
you know that."
"You bet I do. And I know you never saw Russia.
How's Hester Street these days?"
Her green eyes began to smolder.
"I haven't seen it lately."
"Nor your family?"
"I see them when I go to New York. They live on
Morningside Heights."
"First peak of the Jewish Alps, eh? Some rise in
the world! But you have room enough here for all
the brood. Why don't you bring them out?"
"They wouldn't be happy."
"You mean you wouldn't, don't you?"
"I meant just what I said."
"But you didn't say all you meant. You think the
old folks might not approve of some of your doings?
You think you'll leave them a few illusions?"
Saranoff's gaze took fire.
"Have you ever lived in a slum, Mr. Kent?"
"Not me! I was born in Yonkers."
"Did you ever work in a sweat-shop? No, you
wouldn't ask such questions if you had. Well, I have,"
she went on, her words coming in a rush. "As soon as
I could thread a needle I did my share. Shirts—
thousands of shirts—I've handled. They were all over
the place we called home. God only knows what you'd
call it! A stinking hole, I guess. And you wouldn't
have cared for the street—full of push-carts and dirt.
And noise! Why, the racket would have driven you
[149]


Card 13
mad! Sleeping three or four in a bed—that's another
treat you missed in Yonkers. Or on a fire-escape or
the roof when nights were hot."
"What's the big idea?" put in Kent. "We don't
care where you slept in those days. It's Holly-
wood"
"Wait a minute! You brought this up. I suppose
you've had some shoofly in New York prying into my
life there. Well, IH save you further trouble. I wish
you had to stay one week in those rooms where we
lived for years. We kept them as clean as we could.
Maybe you think it's play to scrub and cook when
you're so tired you want to die! I had to do it when
I worked at home. I came back to it nights from
every job I held outside. Artificial flowers! They
came next. I've made them by the ton and I wouldn't
wear one of 'em now on a bet. I got so sick of the
damned things that I quit the factory to sling hash.
It was a cheap joint down near Brooklyn Bridge.
Truckmen and bozos like that would come in and stoke.
Nobody ever tipped. It seemed like heaven when they
took me on in a Child's restaurant up-town where some
white-collar spendthrift would slip me a nickel or a
dime. I wonder if those big-souled Astorbilts blow
their money on my pictures? Yes, hustling trays is a
swell job. You feel some days as if you could never
swallow another mouthful. Maybe that's why I'm still
thin. And your feet—how I escaped fallen arches is
a miracle! Then I went to clerking in a Grand Street
five-and-ten. That was a little better. The manager
was human and let us roost on a stool once in a while.
Not in the holiday rush, though. Merry Christmas!
That's a hot line. I was so merry one day that ]
[150]


The Saraxoff Letters
dropped in my tracks and got a free ride in an am-
bulance. Yet the next day I was up and at it. I
didn't take things lying down. If that was my way I
wouldn't be where I am. But don't you think for a
minute, Mr. Kent, that I'm ashamed of those times
or my people. I've been back to every place where I
worked. I've climbed the four nights to those rooms
where I used to live. Ma went with me and—honest
to God—she was homesick. If that's how she feels
about Morningside Heights1, do you suppose she'd get
a kick out of this? She'd be miserable. And so would
papa. I've given them everything they want. The
kids, too. They're getting a better education than I
had. But as for bringing them out here—you're
crazy."
Her headlong story touched Raneleigh. She
seemed so passionately in earnest. For once he thought
her absolutely sincere. But Kent remained through-
out coolly watchful.
"Too bad you're separated from the dear ones," he
drawled ironically. "You must be awful lonesome in
your palace."
"I am—sometimes."
"Then why did you build it?"
"Why does a bank stick up granite columns in
front and slather marble about inside?" countered
Selma. "I have to live up to my position. My public
expects it."
"Good publicity, eh? What do you think of the
other sort you're getting?"
"I hate it," she cried vehemently. "The papers are
full of lies about me. Why aren't you doing something
to stop it? They'll ban my pictures if it keeps up.
[151]


CARD 13
My career will be ruined.” She checked herself and
ended on a note of poignant grief. “Oh, it's Tony that
matters! I adored him.”
As they drove away Kent vented his skeptical
disgust.
“Black dress-tea-domestic stuff! That doesn't
fool me. Boggs has been coaching her.”
11521


CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GERALD HARTLEY'S PAST
But even if Kent were right, Raneleigh could not
see that they were the wiser. What if Knowlton Boggs
had advised his client to subdue her flamboyance? Any
shrewd criminal lawyer would have given her such
counsel. And why, if he had connived with Saranoff for
the return of her letters, should she call up the Dis-
trict Attorney's office? If she had been frantic to
lay hands on them, wouldn't she have burned them
at once? Possibly she had burned the two or three
that mattered. Damned clever, if that was the ex-
planation. He wrestled with the whole baffling riddle
till the small hours and again turned in with brain
awhirl. What a day!
Yet Thursday was still more hectic. With break-
fast came newspapers. He had sworn that he would
not read the published accounts of the case, but he
devoured them in spite of himself. Could Aileen re-
frain? Had her aunt kept them from her? He was
haunted by her desolate image, as he had last glimpsed
her, and cudgeled his wits for a plausible excuse, some
business relating to her inheritance, which would serve
as a pretext for seeing her. None that would pass
muster with Mrs. Barnett occurred to him. She had
made it clear that he was in the way. Then the clock
on the mantelpiece gave him an inspiration. It was
Aunt Harriet's custom, he knew, to do her own market-
[153]


Card 13
ing and she had been wont, in her methodical fashion,
to go about it always at the same hour. This was the
hour. Hoping that the girl herself might answer, he
took up the telephone. It was the nurse's unemotional
voice, however, that greeted him. He asked to speak
with Aileen. She calmly bade him hold the wire. He
heard her retreating steps and then other steps less
deliberate.
"What is it?" came tersely from Mrs. Barnett.
"It's Arthur," he said, swallowing his disap-
pointment.
"I know it's you. What do you want with Aileen?"
Candor seemed best. "I thought she might be well
enough to talk with me herself."
"She isn't. I'll take the message."
"Give her my love."
"Is that all you had to say?"
"No. Wouldn't a drive in the country"
"I told you the other day that we've no time for
gadding about. Haven't you anything else to do?"
He clapped the receiver violently on its hook. How
was one to deal with such a woman! But indignation
gave way to anxiety. What was the truth about
Aileen's condition? He considered a call on Doctor
Chirpman, but decided against it. The fellow would
fob him off with generalities, hide like a cuttlefish
behind an inky barrage of professional etiquette. More-
over, it would put himself in a queer light. The phy-
sician would wonder why he, Tony's executor, had no
first-hand knowledge of the state of affairs. What a
situation! Could it be possible that Mrs. Barnett
meant to leave town without permitting him to see
Aileen again? Then Kent was announced.
[154]


Gerald Haetijet's Past
"Don't take your troubles to bed with you," he
advised with his first glance. "Tell yourself that,
bad as things look, to-morrow they'll be worse."
"Are they worse?"
"It's too early to judge. But I've some news. Ling
is back."
"Black ran him to earth?"
"In Chinatown! No such luck. You can't get
anything out of those yellow faces. They've seen
nothing, heard nothing, know nothing. Ling simply
oozed home of his own accord. Mrs. Barnett phoned
me and I've been out to have a talk with him. He claims
he was sick."
"Opium?"
"Maybe he's been hitting the pipe. I don't know.
He smiled and bowed and said he'd had a very bad
pain. He stayed in a dump near the Plaza and kept
to his room all the time. The proprietor confirms his
statement. And there you are!"
"Any connection between Ling and the window
cleaner?"
"Not that I-can find. We located him and he seems
a perfectly innocent Jap who works hard and minds his
own business. He was sent by an employment agency
in response to a phone call which we traced to a booth
on Hollywood Boulevard. Another blind lead, I guess."
"Yet he may have taken the letters."
"Yes. But now that we have them, they look like
so much waste paper."
"They're not incriminating?"
"They're not even interesting. Just slush. How-
ever, she may have copped those that looked bad for
her."
[155]


CARD 13
“That idea occurred to me."
"So? It's a loophole we must consider. But it's
Hartley I have on my chest this morning. I'm on my
way to have a talk with him. Nobody has really got
at him yet. I'm sure he's holding out on us. Perhaps
he'll talk if he's handled right. If he won't now, he
will when he's put on trial.”
“On the case as it stands? It strikes me that the
evidence is pretty flimsy.”
"It wouldn't seem flimsy if you were up against it,"
rejoined Kent grimly. “Wasn't Hartley with Gilmore
when he was killed? Hadn't Gilmore walked off with
his girl? Hadn't they quarreled at the Brownrigg
party? Didn't Gilmore have his gun along? Wasn't
he shot with it? There's a hot bunch of questions.”
“I dare say Mr. Boggs will produce the answers.”
The investigator grinned.
“And I'll be there to see! Meanwhile, I'm going to
have a try at Hartley. Will you come along? Maybe
you can tip me off to some facts that will be of help."
“Yes, I'll come.” It was Gerald whom he wished
to help. He had been haunted by his white, brow-
beaten face ever since the inquest. If a visit to the jail
would give him a single grain of courage he would
gladly go.
"I want to ask you one or two things first,” said
Kent. “How did Hartley's old man make his pile?”
“In a patent-medicine concoction. I don't know
whether he discovered the formula or bought it, but it
proved a bonanza. It was a hair tonic.”
“Young Hartley inherited everything?"
“So I understood.”
“This was while he was at college?”
[156]


Gerald Hartley's Past
"Yes. He left the State University after two years
and got himself transferred to an eastern college. He
wasn't much of a student. Yet every one liked him.
You would yourself if you had met him under different
circumstances. He has many lovable traits."
"I'll take your word for it. Did he quit work when
he came into the money?"
"Yes."
"That breed would. You told me, I believe, that
you knew both Hartley and Gilmore in Iowa. Some-
how, I just can't picture you in the corn belt."
"I was born in Boston, but lived with an uncle in
Iowa for several years. I knew both boys intimately.
When I came to Los Angeles the first person I met
was Tony and the second was Gerald. Naturally I've
seen a great deal of them since."
"Naturally!" repeated Kent, with one of his pene-
trating looks. "I'd say it was anything but that.
You're not their sort. However, your information
tallies with what I've learned elsewhere. The trouble
is, you're so bent on whitewashing your friends that
you don't tell enough. Now I've dug into the Hartley
family's gravej'ard and I've struck things that aren't
usually mentioned in obituaries. That cub comes of
poor stock. His father sowed a thick crop of wild
oats when he was young and was even mixed up in a
shooting scrape. After his lucky strike with the hair
tonic he was accused of infringement and fraud, and
fought law-suits to the end of his days."
"Many a patent-medicine magnate has been sued
on such grounds. Cranks are for ever trying to claim
the credit and profits of a big success. After all, it
was advertising that piled up the Hartley fortune."
[157]


Gerald Habtlet's Past
"But Gilmore's ragging of his girl at the party got
under his skin. We've established that. And we know
Hartley had words with him when he walked off with
her."
"I heard none," said Raneleigh. "Gerald was
chagrined, of course. He hesitated before he followed
them. But he was in an embarrassing position. For
that matter, so was I."
"How was that?"
"Tony brought me to the party, and I expected to
leave with him. He went off without a word."
"He knew you'd have plenty of offers to ride. By
the way, what did Hartley do with his own car?"
"He and Saranoff came in a taxi."
"Wasn't that unusual?"
"No. He often prefers to use a taxi at night. I
do myself."
"You rich fellows have it pretty soft."
"I'm not rich, Mr. Kent."
"No? People think you are."
"Have you made inquiries?"
"Surest thing you know," chuckled the investigator.
"I have the history of every person who went to the
Brownriggs' card-indexed and filed in my office. If
your memory fails you about any point in your lurid
past come to me."
"What a convenience!" Raneleigh returned in the
same tone.
He did not feel jocular, however. It was increas-
ingly apparent that Kent's geniality cloaked a cold
determination. Their relation was an alliance and
allies ever have their reserves. His spirits were low
during the drive down-town. They dropped to depths
[159]


Card 13
more dismal in the bleak room at the jail where they
awaited Hartley.
"Poor Gerald!" he exclaimed. "That he, pampered
all his life, should come to this!"
"What's the matter with this hoosegow?" demanded
Kent. "It's brand-new and as clean as a whistle. You
should have seen the old one. We think this is some
swell joint. Ah, here's our man!"
Hartley came in with a guard. He threw Raneleigh
a questioning look and ignored his outstretched hand.
"Aren't you going to shake hands, Gerald?"
"No, Ran. Not until my name is cleared."
Kent gave a maddening laugh.
"Good publicity, Hartley, but it gets you nowhere
with me."
"I was not addressing you. My friend appreciates
how I feel if you don't."
The investigator thrust his thumbs in the armholes
of his waistcoat.
"Well, Hartley," he rasped out, "we are not here
to discuss the etiquette of handshaking, on which I have
no doubt you are an authority, but to ask you a few
pointed questions about the shooting of Tony Gilmore."
"Is that so!" he retorted, his tone &s surly as
Kent's. "I told you all I knew and you had me put in
here. You won't get anything more out of me. Mr.
Boggs is my lawyer. From now on he'll do the
talking."
"He will, eh? If I were in your shoes I wouldn't
bank all my hopes on his gift of gab. He may talk you
into the death cell at San Quentin."
A shudder convulsed Hartley's face, and he turned
bitterly reproachful eyes on Raneleigh.
[160]


Gebald Hartley's Past
"Did you come here to see me insulted?"
"No, old man. I came because I want to help you.
Mr. Kent knows that I don't think you're guilty. Are
there no facts about this horrible business—Httle things
which seemed insignificant at the moment—that we've
overlooked? Have you thought of nothing that slipped
your mind that night?"
"Not a thing, Ran." His expression softened.
"It's mighty decent of you to look me up. But I'm all
at sea. I've thought and thought till my brain spins.
I can't imagine who'd want to kill Tony. It's awful to
realize that anybody can believe I did it."
"I understand."
"No, you don't. You'd have to be in just such a
jam to understand what I'm going through."
"You're coming out of it," declared Raneleigh, with
an optimism he did not feel. "Try to get a grip on
yourself and use the old bean even if it does spin. Every
crime, as Mr. Kent was saying to me, has a motive. We
must find the motive here. Can you think of any one
who was angry with Tony—any one who had been in-
sulted by him?"
"Or any one who was jealous of him?" added Kent.
"Nobody was jealous," snapped Hartley with a
scowl. "You've invented that cock-and-bull story to
get me."
Raneleigh wished that the investigator would re-
move himself to some far corner of this jail he so much
admired.
"Can you think of any one," he went on, -"that he
had treated badly?"
Hartley reflected.
"There's one woman who might have felt she had
[161]


Card 13
a raw deal. I can't see that she had. She knew at the
start he wasn't the marrying kind, and that, even if
he were, he wouldn't pick a movie extra."
"You mean Ida Hunter?"
"Of course."
"What do you know about her?"
"Not much. She's a rather luscious-looking piece.
She made a dead set for him the first day they met. It
was at the beach. Caught him, too. She had a cottage
at Laguna, and he went home with her and stayed that
night."
"Fast worker," drawled Kent. "How soon did he
rent the Hollywood love-nest?"
"The next week. He didn't want you to know, Ran.
Anyhow, he went on paying the rent quite a while after
he was sick of her. He said she reeked of perfume and
was soaked with cosmetics."
"These flossy dames all have the same smell," re-
marked the investigator, as man to man. "The final
break came, didn't it, when he fell for Saranoff?"
Hartley reddened and made no reply.
"You know damned well it did," pressed Kent.
"That's the crux of the affair, and you and your smart
lawyer can't get away from it. You can't deny that
you were shining around this red-haired vamp and that
Gilmore cut in on you."
"I refuse to discuss the subject."
"You're afraid to discuss it. You can't deny that
you and he quarreled over Saranoff not an hour before
he was shot. We've a score of witnesses to prove it."
"I say I won't discuss it. But I didn't shoot Tony
and neither did Selma."
"Who did then?" demanded Kent truculently.
[162]


CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SARANOFF STKUTS HER STUFF
They descended to the floor where Kent's activities
centered.
"Get off here a moment," he said. "I can see you
have something on your mind."
"It's nothing new. I think you're on the wrong
track."
"I've got to be shown. In this game, Raneleigh, you
have to hold fast to the main issue, and from my point
of view, Hartley and Saranoff are the main issue. But
we're willing to chase clues up any alley. The Chink
will bear watching. I mistrust Orientals on principle.
They're a slippery lot. And it may be that the Hunter
girl hasn't told all she knows. Perhaps her alibi isn't
water-tight. We found five stubs in Gilmore's last
check-books marked with her initials. Two were for
fifty dollars and three for a hundred."
"Were they recent?"
"All of them. One was put through only two days
before he was killed. It looks as if he'd tried to keep
her quiet by putting her on the dole. Four hundred
in nine weeks—just enough to make her ugly if I know
the species. But Gilmore had one consolation: so
far as I can discover, he wasn't shelling out to
Saranoff."
"It wasn't necessary. In his case, money didn't
count with her. She was daft over him."
[165]


Card 13
"Then why did »he engage herself to the other
fellow?"
"Just the old feminine dodge, I fancy."
"You mean she thought she could warm up Gil-
more's torpid affections by vamping Hartley?"
"That's my impression. I couldn't feel that she
took her engagement seriously. It wasn't a week old
the night of the party."
"These amorous dames play the devil with a man,'*
said Kent, with the detachment of a being above and
apart from human frailty. "Not to mention the work
they cut out for us detectives." He whistled tunelessly
for a moment. "Well, would you like to stick round
my office? You never can tell what will turn up."
Raneleigh replied that he had an appointment. He
omitted to state that it was with the attorney who drew
up Tony's will. The investigator already knew more
of his personal affairs than he relished and it crossed
his mind that, were he to specify his errand, Kent might
take it into his head to trail along.
A short walk brought him to an office building which
was apparently one vast nest of lawyers. John Willis,
though his name stood at the foot of the directory in
the lobby, had his perch near the roof, and his profes-
sional manner seemed to be influenced by the altitude.
He explained probate procedure with ill-concealed
wonder that Gilmore had chosen a novelist as his
executor. But this attitude yielded before questions
which revealed normal intelligence, and evaporated al-
together when Raneleigh said that he wished to retain
him for the court formalities and would no doubt often
have occasion to seek his advice in the settling of the
estate.
[166]


Saranoff Struts Hkr Stuff
"Above all, Mr. Willis," he added, "I want to deal
tactfully with Tony's aunt. Mrs. Barnett, as you
probably know, is Miss Gilmore's guardian, and she
may feel that the duty which has fallen to me should
rightfully be hers."
"We'll handle her with velvet gloves," said the
attorney. "But I didn't get the idea that she was
disgruntled when she rang me up the other day. She
wished to find out whether Miss Gilmore would have
to appear in the probate court. Her chief concern
was her niece's health. She plans to take her East."
"Yes, I know."
"You've been seeing them, of course. Does the girl
seem seriously ill?"
"She's plainly suffering from the shock."
"It must have been a terrific jolt," said Willis.
"The shooting was bad enough, but the scandal—why,
some of the rumors aren't fit to print! A friend of the
wife of a man close to the Chief of Police was telling
me"
Raneleigh escaped as soon as he could. Wherever
he went these hideous fables flew from mouth to mouth
and gathered venom in their flight. Even Tony's boon
companions battened on the shreds of his reputation.
As he issued from the building he was hailed by a young
man wearing the heaviest horn-rimmed spectacles that
he had ever beheld outside of a comic film.
"Howdy, Mr. Raneleigh. I've been waiting to way-
lay you. My name's Kenton."
"Did you say Kent?"
The breezy youth grinned.
"Fear not. I'm no relative of that well-known terror
of evil-doers. I'm Kenton of the Times. Been out to
[167]


Card 13
your place again and again. Never could catch you
home. But Lady Luck smiled this morning. I hap-
pened to see you turn in here and stood pat."
"Very clever of you, I'm sure."
"No. Just luck and persistence. That's what
brings home the bacon, I find. Cleverness merely en-
tertains its possessor. And now that that chunk of
philosophy is off my chest, will you answer a few
straight questions?"
Raneleigh frowned. "I have nothing to say for
publication. You must know that I've been dodging
reporters for nearly a week."
"And you're still dodging! Don't you see that
you're only stimulating our interest? Most people
like to be interviewed. The few that don't put us on
our mettle. We land them eventually. They get
tired. They let themselves be cornered."
"I'm not in that class. You're wasting your time."
"Not mine," said the reporter. "The old office
time-clock goes on ticking just the same. We won't
worry over that, Mr. Raneleigh. Let me give you a
friendly tip. If you honestly don't want publicity
you're taking the wrong way to avoid it. As long as
you sidestep us news-scavengers we'll think you have
a story and stick to the scent. Now, if you'll give in
and talk about the Gilmore case, we'll be through.
Possibly drop you cold. But maybe that's not what
you want." His humorous eyes danced behind the
fantastic spectacles. "Maybe you enjoy hare and
hounds."
"I do not."
"Then get the game over with. Spill the story and
live happy ever after."
[168]


Card 13
Once again there seemed to be no argument. Ran-
eleigh gave him a nod of dismissal and turned on his
heel. Would he never learn to keep his mouth shut
before a reporter? Half-way down the block he stopped
short. Not a rod distant he saw Aileen alight from a
taxicab and, guided by a solicitous and dapper
stranger, enter another office building. Aileen—who
could not be seen, who could not telephone, who was
supposedly at home in charge of a nurse—what, in
the name of destiny, did it mean!
He dashed in pursuit only to see her vanish in an
elevator. The bronze door closed in his face. The
starter, whose uniform blended the sartorial elegance
of the navy and a volunteer fire department, gazed at
him in mild wonder. Should he ask him where the
girl in the^tan coat was bound? Absurd? His in-
tensive training as a sleuth seemed to have gone for
naught. He turned irresolutely into the next elevator.
Where was he going? Adults of sound mind didn't get
in for the ride. A printed directory, hung on the wall
of the cage, met his eye. He must choose some destina-
tion. The legend "Boggs & Boggs" stood out near
the head of the list. That would serve.
"Seventh floor," he called briskly, relieved to have
any goal.
Then, down the long corridor, he sighted the tan
coat as it disappeared in an office, and as he brought up
before the door, he again read the legend "Boggs &
Boggs." Under it, in bold capitals, was the name,
Knowlton Boggs. Below came Knowlton Boggs, Jr.
Still lower, separated by a dash from these dignitaries,
followed the names of the less eminent members of the
firm. Raneleigh halted transfixed. What was Aileen
[170]


Saranoff Struts Her Stuff
doing in that office? And what was he going to do
about it? Boggs, if he had returned from his confer-
ence with Hartley, would surely bend a fishy eye on so
recent an associate of Investigator Kent. He decided
to emulate the breezy reporter and wait down-stairs in
the lobby.
A bootblaclring stand, in an alcove facing the
elevators, struck him as the best point of vantage. A
colored youth flashed his white molars in friendly
greeting and with a flourish proffered a green sheet
reeking of divorce, accidents and crime. Raneleigh saw
the name Gilmore and dropped the paper. By com-
parison with such muck-raking, the blacking of boots
seemed a clean and fastidious job. With one eye on the
elevators he watched the shine-expert smear paste over
his oxfords, give a flick to the heels and, with what
appeared to be a remnant of Brussels carpet, work up
a high gloss. Raneleigh felt completely satisfied. But
he perceived that he had fallen into the hands of an
artist. This boy blacked boots as painters made pic-
tures and sculptors fingered their plastic clay. He
obliterated the gloss with a still oilier paste and again
brought the leather to a brilliant polish.
"Fine!" approved Raneleigh. "What do I owe
you?"
"Wait," said the artist plaintively. "You ain't seen
nothin' yet."
He shook a broad-mouthed bottle, wetted a bit of
sponge, and the shoes turned a melancholy gray. But
this leaden hue, like night before the dawn, was the
prelude to greater glory. Under the strokes of two
brushes the right shoe took on splendor. Yet, perfect
as it seemed, the artist strove for an effulgence more
[171]


Cabd 13
dazzling. He attacked it with a cloth, he breathed on
it lovingly, rubbed again, and finally, straightening
with a happy sigh, looked upon his handiwork and
found it good.
At this moment Raneleigh became aware of a flurry
of excitement at the entrance. The raucous voices of
the newsboys calling a frantic extra ceased. The in-
cessant stream of people, from street to elevators and
from elevators to street, was suddenly checked. Every
one stopped. Every one craned. Some event that
stifled all commonplace activity dominated the scene.
The crowd, dammed up at the doorway, pressed back
into the lobby. Then, buzzing from lip to lip, came
the great tidings. The three bootblacks, who had sus-
pended work with brush and swab in air, passed the
word like a chorus.
"Saranoff! It's Saranoff!"
Raneleigh's boy forgot his art in the presence of
this exponent of an art more striking.
"It's Saranoff! Selma Saranoff herself!"
And there, indeed, she was in her resplendent
leopard-skin coat and tight-fitting hat of orange red
that glowed amid the more sober headgear round about
like a parrot in a hen-yard. Beside her was a man, as
impressive as Kaiser Wilhelm in his heyday, whom
Raneleigh recognized as Herbert Brent Johnstone, her
publicity director. This august personage was fend-
ing off the curious. He was assisted by the porter,
happy menial, who had been cleaning the grill-work of
the elevator shaft and now, duster in hand like a mace,
labored prodigiously to save the movie queen from be-
ing smothered by her doting subjects.
Raneleigh, on sudden impulse, snatched the bands
[172]


Card 13
sible. Her voice even took on softness with siren notes
that lured and caressed. Here, he told himself, was
emotional dynamite. It should be labeled "Danger—
Beware:" Not that he was apprehensive of his own
safety. It was clear enough, as they paced to and fro
in the corridor, that she was trying to fill his mind
with her interpretation of the triangle—Gilmore,
Hartley, herself—which had come to such a disastrous
end. She and Gerald, she insisted, were only friends.
Their engagement was merely another Hollywood ru-
mor that she had not troubled herself to deny. Tony
had laughed over it. Hartley had realized that it was
a joke. Nor was there anything in the quarrel of
which the stupid police had made so much. She had
thrown the glass for the fun of it. The party was
getting dull. Gerald was not jealous. They had all
three left the Brownriggs' on the best of terms. What
motive would Hartley have for killing his friend?
"It comes down to that, doesn't it? They can't
convict him unless they show a motive. You know there
wasn't any, Ran. It's on you that Gerald's fate de-
pends. And mine, too. I'll be ruined if the case goes
against him." They had stopped by a window at the
end of the corridor, and still clinging to his arm, she
faced him cajolingly. "Will you help me, Ran? Will
you be very careful what you say to Mr. Boggs—very
careful what you say later? Will you?"
As he sounded the depths of those green eyes he
thought of an Italian psychiatrist he had met in Rome.
So that man had gazed at him. But Selma's eyes re-
vealed more than hypnotic will. They smoldered with
other fires, and before their challenge he recoiled dis-
comfited and embarrassed. Such intensity of feeling,
[174]


"Better humor them," advised Johnstone. "Hand
'em the usual spiel."
Saranoff graciously obliged.
"It always givts me sincere pleasure," she said, "to
meet my dear public face to face. We artists of the
■creen do most of our work behind barriers. It is only
at such precious moments as this that we know what
yon really feel. It inspires us to higher efforts. It
touches us to the heart. I thank you."
Cheers, not without a note of irony, greeted this
modest revelation of the artist soul. The progress con-
tinued. Raneleigh, red of face, felt as if he had joined
a circus parade. But one thought sustained him. He
was on his way to Afleen. The crowd closed in behind
them. They were swept down the corridor and, on
a final surge of the tide, shot into the reception-room
of Boggs & Boggs.
[176]


CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MR. BOGGS IS PERPLEXED
Even this haven was startled out of its musty calm.
As the great star burst upon them the clerks abandoned
all work. A prim and spectacled young woman greeted
her with a catch in her throat, and another desiccated
virgin, quite as dazed, threw wide the door leading to
Knowlton Boggs's private office. Through an ante-
room Raneleigh glimpsed Aileen in a spacious room
beyond.
"Keep out, Johnstone," ordered Selma. "Come on,
Ran. I don't intend to lose you."
Nor had he, as yet, any intention of being lost.
Before an untidy desk Boggs was conferring, head to
head, with the dapper man Raneleigh had seen in the
street.
"Ah, it's you, Miss Saranoff." The lawyer rose
with ponderous civility. "If you will permit me to say
so, you look radiant."
"Stow the blarney," she said. "I know how I look.
Are you doing anything to get Gerald Hartley out of
jail? Or are you just running up fees?"
Mr. Boggs made mirthful sounds in his larynx.
"You have such a delightful sense of humor, Miss
Saranoff, that I wonder your directors don't give
it greater scope in your pictures. However, I can
assure you that we are not marking time. In fact,
I hope to make notable progress in our case to-day. I
[177]


Cabs 13
have deviated from my usual procedure, which is to
entrust details to my co-workers, and taken things into
my own hands."
"That's what I expect. I'm not in the habit of
dealing with understrappers."
"Quite so. That is why I have made this very
special exception. But I want you to meet my colleague
who has charge of the able corps of attorneys and in-
vestigators whose duty it is to work up evidence. Miss
Saranoff, this is my son, Knowlton Boggs, Jr."
Raneleigh thought the younger Boggs would be
more fitly named Togs. He was as neat as his father
was slovenly and must have been his tailor's joy. His
suit of gray English tweed was flawless in every curve.
His lavender shirt was of a pattern which any haber-
dasher would have termed exclusive, and every dot in
his polka-dot cravat seemed to belong precisely where it
had been placed by its creator. Mouse-colored spats
led the enchanted eye to shoes so resplendent that Ran-
eleigh felt only his own could vie with them. Yet ri-
valry, even in this humble detail, was hopeless. He re-
called his precipitate flight below-stairs and glanced
furtively at his feet. The right shoe triumphed glo-
riously, but the left !He withdrew his eyes from
its streaked and lusterless desolation.
But despite his clothes, his drawing-room bow, his
ingratiating smile, Saranoff ignored the younger Boggs.
She would have none of him. Boggs, Sr., was her
lawyer. With him and no other would she talk. As
the actress laid down the law Aileen rose hesitatingly
from her seat on the far side of the room and threw
Raneleigh a supplicating look. He started toward her,
but Selma whirled and rushed before him.
[178]


Me. Boggs Is Perplexed
"Why, it's Tony's sister!" She seized both of the
girl's hands. "How much you remind me of your dear
brother! I've wanted to see you. I've wanted to tell
you—oh, what is there to say? Words don't mean
anything. They—choke me. My heart is too full."
Then, as Aileen, embarrassed by this tempestuous greet-
ing, freed her hands, she cried dramatically: "You
shrink from me! I thought you had come here to
help." Her breaking voice seemed full of tears. "Why
do you shrink from me? I ask you why?"
Raneleigh put a sudden stop to these heroics.
"Leave this to me." He gave Saranoff a look whose
meaning she could not mistake and led the girl back
to the anteroom. "I don't know why you are here,
Aileen," he said. "The question now is, do you wish to
remain?"
"I suppose I must. But you'll stay, won't you?
Do, Ran! I'm terribly nervous. I—I'm really afraid."
"Why should you be afraid?"
Her brown eyes were troubled.
""So much has happened. I've tried to think things
out—to be brave and sensible. But—well, I'm not so
old, Ran. I don't feel as grown-up as I did a week
ago."
Her reply dismayed him. It seemed uncandid.
"Don't you trust me?"
"Oh, yes. Of course, I trust you." She avoided
his gaze. "Will you find out if Mr. Boggs has any
more questions to ask me?"
"Yes. Wait here."
The lawyer was engrossed with the actress.
"We have probed the activities of this Ida
Hunter "He checked himself and looked up
[179]


Card 13
coldly. "I am not aware, Mr. Raneleigh, that you were
requested to come to my office to-day."
"I'm here at Miss Saranoff's request," he said.
"She's your client, isn't she?"
"Yes, sir. But that fact does not"
"Listen, Boggs!" Saranoff whipped in impatiently.
"There are some things I want you to get straight.
Mr. Raneleigh was Tony's best friend. He knows the
truth about Tony and Gerald and me. I told you that
I wanted you to consult with him. If you haven't sent
for him I'd like to know why not? What am I paying
you for?"
"My dear lady," he burbled, "let's not be hasty. I
intended to confer with Mr. Raneleigh in due time. But
not to-day."
"Why not?" she flared, working herself into a pas-
sion. "You told me to come. You said you had to
get all the details at once. Well, get them, man!
Here's our best witness right under your nose. What
are you stalling about?"
"But, my dear lady"
"I'm not your dear anything. I've hired you to
look out for my interests, and if you don't get action
soon I'll give you the air."
"But you don't grasp the exigencies of my calen-
dar," he protested, laying hold on his dignity. "You
insisted that we see Mrs. Hunter. She is waiting in
another room. I have no time for other matters. And
I must again impress on you that I am deviating from
my usual procedure. I rarely question witnesses ex-
cept in court. My co-workers prepare the case. If
Mr. Raneleigh wishes to make a statement to my
son"
[180]


Ma. Boggs Is Perplexed
"You and your clothes-horse son!" she bore him
down. "Who do you think you are? I'd have you
know Arthur Raneleigh is a famous man. An old faker
like you telling him where to get off! And my friend,
too! I take it as a personal insult."
"That's all right," put in Raneleigh. "I'm not try-
ing to thrust myself on Mr. Boggs. What I want, sir,
is to ask if you are through questioning Miss Gilmore.
It appears that you have made another deviation."
The attorney looked relieved to deal with a man.
"I have," he said blandly. "My associates have met
obstacles at every turn in their efforts to elicit informa-
tion about the murder from the victim's family. It
was only by the exercise of strategy that we got in
touch with Miss Gilmore to-day."
"Are you proud of it?" asked Raneleigh con-
temptuously.
Mr. Boggs smiled.
"You are an idealist no doubt. Writers are, I
believe, prone to live in a world of their own making.
If you were a man of affairs you would understand
these things."
"If you got Miss Gilmore down here by a trick,"
said Selma, "I call it a dirty job. What do you think
that nice kid knows about the case? Tony kept her
away from our bunch. He wouldn't let even me near
her."
"There are some things, Miss Saranoff," retorted
Mr. Boggs, his voice taking on edge, "that you would
do well to permit your counsel to decide."
"I'll back you to badger the wrong person," she
countered, with a shrug. "Where are you hiding that
Hunter snip?"
[181]


Mr. Boggs Is Perplexed
fountain, but the topic of topics absorbed the patrons
perched on adjoining stools. He walked the streets.
How did the tourists amuse themselves? He experi-
mented with a rug auction but, lacking the tourist
spirit, was not amused. The chance remark of a by-
stander, however, sent him to a matinee performance of
a play heralded as a New York success, and for three
banal acts he wondered at the mentality of New York
playgoers. After dining in a so-called Spanish restau-
rant he drifted into a moving-picture show without
glancing at the posters. The film proved to be one of
Saranoff's, and with mixed feelings, he watched her
practise on the leading man the very wiles which, with
less fervent results, she had tried on himself. As he
came out he saw a clock. Still so early! He turned,
somewhat despairingly, to a "talkie," and it proved so
good that for two hours tragedy merely lurked, like a
dull ache, in the background of his thoughts.
But it came again to the fore as he left the theater.
A week ago, at this very time, the Brownrigg party
was in full swing. Only a week ago! By and by, on
his homeward way, he reached his dead friend's house
and, moved by the same emotion that had stirred him
yesterday as he parted with Aileen, halted his car under
the acacias across the street. The place loomed dark
and bleak against a starlit sky. Was it his brooding
fancy that made it seem aware of its dreadful memories?
Could events, as mystics believed, leave their imprint on
the very air? Would those timbers, while they stood,
imprison faint shades of things unutterably sad?
Then his gaze riveted on one of the study windows.
Was that pencil of light merely a reflection from the
street lamp beyond?
[185]


Card 13
Apparently it came from within. He peered at
his watch. A quarter after eleven. Who could be in
that room now? His first impulse was to cros* and
ring the bell, but he reflected that, unwelcome by day,
he would meet a still more chilling reception at night.
In all likelihood there was no mystery whatsoever. The
police guard had obviously been withdrawn. If the
door seals had been removed Mrs. Barnett might have
quartered the nurse in Tony's rooms. He recalled
Aileen's words: she was company at night. There was
no other bedroom at her sole disposal. Content with
this explanation, he drove home.
As he thought it over in his own apartment, how-
ever, the incident took on an aspect more sinister.
What if the door were still sealed? In that case who-
ever was in the study must have entered through the
bedroom and the passage which Sergeant Black had
uncovered. Raneleigh faced this possibility a moment
and then caught up his hat and coat. He might have
been in error as to the light. The sensible course was
to go back and find out. He could not rest with the
matter in doubt. If it were a mare's nest so much the
better. It would settle his overwrought nerves. But
approaching the house on the near side, he saw at once
that his eyes had not tricked him. The light was there.
It came from behind the shades.
What now? He would gladly have taken counsel
with Kent. He, at any rate, could have resolved his
doubt about the seals. Was some one in the study who
had no right to be there? Yet, if they had the right,
what a fool he would look if he roused the house!
Didn't it behoove him to go home and mind his own
business? He decided that it did not. Since he was
[186]


Mr. Boggs Is PERPLEXED
here he would investigate. Like a policeman. Or like
the amateur sleuth he had for a week so ineffectually
tried to be. He went cautiously to the edge of the
veranda, but neither window offered chink or cranny
through which he could see. There remained the one
window at the side, and mounting the narrow porch
on tiptoe, he discovered a bare inch of space below
the shade. Feeling slightly absurd yet agreeably
thrilled, he stooped. There was indeed some one in the
room. With his first glance he caught the sweep
of a woman's kimono from thigh to knee. Then, crouch-
ing lower, he beheld her face and all but toppled back
into the shrubbery. It was Aileen.
She sat beside her brother's writing-desk poring
over a book. A candle was her only light, but it shone
full on her face which was wan and troubled. What
absorbed her? Why was she in the lonely study at this
hour? The chimes of a distant hospital sounded mid-
night. At the same moment he saw her glance toward
a grandfather's clock that Tony had cherished, sigh
and lie back in her chair. From the day Raneleigh
first met her—then an elfin child, intense, sensitive,
eager-eyed—she had had power to stir him. Now he
was impelled almost beyond resistance to make his
presence known. To whom else could she turn for
comfort? But his common sense warned him against
such folly. She would take fright, the household would
be aroused, her aunt scandalized. Yet, if he tapped
softly on the pane, she might divine that it was he
who had come to help. As he debated with himself, she
rose and faced toward Tony's bedroom. Slowly she
took the candlestick, raised it above her head with
one of the theatrical gestures so natural to her, and
[187]


Card 13
with a rapt expression walked to the connecting door.
She paused an instant, as if gathering courage, and
crossed the threshold. After a breathless wait he left
the porch and looked at the bedroom windows. There
was no sign of light.
Raneleigh wavered in the driveway. His pity
clamored for outlet in deed. But what could he do?
How could he help her to-night. To-morrow would
tell another story. He'd see her then. Nothing Mrs.
Barnett might say would stop him. He would defy
her were she twenty times an aunt. Home now. Sleep.
Yet how could he sleep while Aileen, without consola-
tion, without sympathy, kept vigil with her grief! He
found himself hurrying, not homeward, but up a long
slope toward the hills. No matter. He would walk off
this intolerable tension. But his thoughts outran his
steps. Why had the girl conquered her fear and entered
that bedroom? Why had she put out the candle? He
swung about abruptly. He must go back. He must
see if she had returned to the study.
Just short of the house he spied a dark figure.
Holkar! Why was he astir? He stopped in the shelter
of the dividing hedge, but realized at once that such
precaution was needless. The Hindu was courting, not
shunning, attention. He went straight to the door
and rang the bell. Raneleigh followed to the veranda.
"What's up?"
"Is it you, Mr. Raneleigh?" His voice was level,
almost toneless. "I am glad that you are here."
"But what's up?"
Before he could reply the door opened and Mrs.
Barnett in gray dressing-gown and kid curlers stood
silhouetted against the hall light.
[188]


Cabd 13
"What is it?" he asked.
"Only a dead Chink."
He gave a gasp of horror and shouldered into the
group. With face contorted, eyes glazed, a knife-blade
in his heart, lay the once smiling Ling.
[190]


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE MURDER IN THE GARDEN
As Raneleigh would have stooped the Sergeant
caught him by the arm.
"Keep away from those tracks," he warned sharply.
"Do you know this man?"
"Yes. It's Ling. He was Tony's servant."
"Tony Gilmore's servant?"
"Yes."
The officer stared.
"I'll say this neighborhood is getting unhealthy.
I wonder who got him?" He directed his light on the
protruding knife. "Fancy sticker! Silver handle.
Maybe this will help clear up the Gilmore case." The
thought stirred him to action. He began briskly issu-
ing commands. "Get out of this dirt path, everybody.
The footprints between here and the house won't be
worth a damn, but we'll see that the rest of the garden
stays as is till daylight." He posted guards and came
to Raneleigh and Holkar who had retreated to the con-
crete driveway. "Name and address?"
"I have told you that I live next door," said the
Hindu.
"I know who you are, all right," retorted the
Sergeant with unflattering emphasis. "I'm talking to
this fellow. Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Raneleigh answered him concisely.
"Huh!" grunted the Sergeant. "Another Gilmore
[191]


THE MURDER IN THE GARDEN
police. It was patent that departmental jealousies
existed. He must let things take their routine course.
Yet he could not go home. What would he do there?
Sleep was unthinkable. He continued to watch and
presently beheld Doctor Chirpman, medical bag in
hand, hurry fussily into the house. When he came out
Raneleigh recrossed the street and overtook him.
“One moment, Doctor!”
The physician seemed winded.
“I thought you were a hold-up man,” he confessed.
“After what's happened—two murders-naturally
good hand Shocking affair! But thuss with a nervous
“Aileen?” Raneleigh cut short his twitterings.
“How is she?”
Doctor Chirpman again became professional.
“As well as one could hope. She'll rest now. Yes,
she's doing nicely.”
“Does she know about Ling?”
"I assume that she does, Mr. Raneleigh. It was
not, of course, a subject I would discuss with a nervous
patient. A shocking affair! But the young lady is in
good hands. Mrs. Barnett has great self-control.
The nurse, too. She's most competent. Will you ex-
cuse me, please? I have an early hospital appoint-
ment.”
Empty phrases! Raneleigh took no comfort in
them. Unless the man had given her an anodyne Aileen
must be terror-stricken. In her extremely nervous
state she might even feel that she herself was in
jeopardy. Evil forces were at work. Would they
stop with Ling? Who was safe? But this wouldn't do.
He was becoming hag-ridden by his imagination. He
began to walk rapidly and found himself before his
[193]


Card 13
own door. What now? At least he could give his
body rest. He sat smoking for a time and then lay
down. Telling himself that sleep was out of the ques-
tion, he dozed into a heavy slumber. He had youth.
It was the middle of the forenoon when he returned
to the Gilmore house. The dire news had spread. Sun-
day idlers loitered in the street and gaped at a stolid
officer posted before the door. He saw Kent in the
driveway and went to him.
"So you were in on the second thrill," said the
investigator.
"Yes. You've heard, I presume, how I chanced to
be in the neighborhood?"
"I heard." Kent eyed him thoughtfully. "Don't
you wish you'd taken your midnight stroll in another
direction?"
"It was an experience I'd rather have escaped. I
shall never forget that poor boy's face as he lay among
the flowers which he had grown. la he—is he still
there?"
"No. The garden looks about as usual. That's
one of our difficulties. If the party who killed him had
made his get-away by the rear we might have had
footprints at least to help us. However, the knife may
prove a useful clue. It will all come out in the wash."
"But what do you make of it?"
"I figure it out that the Chink saw something the
night of the murder and that whoever shot Gilmore
must have known it. They spirited him away before
the inquest. His explanation of his failure to appear
looked phony to me. Then they released him. He was
scared stiff. Probably he agreed to leave the city.
He was going to San Francisco to-morrow, Mrs. Bar-
[194]


The Mttrdeb in the Gabden
nett says. Well, they got scared themselves. See?
They were afraid he'd be brought back and tell all
he knew. So they croaked him."
"You're convinced that there is a connection be-
tween the two murders?"
"Yes. One crime often leads to another."
"Then that lets Gerald Hartley out?"
"Your headpiece functions fairly well considering
the late hours you keep," drawled Kent. "But you're
a bit hasty. It's easy to hire some one to do your
dirty work. And, what's more, Saranoff is loose. She
might have engineered it."
"Perhaps," he conceded. "Or the Hunter woman."
"She might. But her alibi for the night of Gil-
more's murder still looks pretty good." He glanced
toward the neighboring bungalow. "What interests
me," he continued in a lower tone, "is the way our
Hindu friend always turns up so promptly. When
does he sleep?"
"In the daytime, apparently."
"I think," said Kent, "we haven't paid quite enough
attention to this night-owl. His fine Oriental mind
may be at the bottom of all these mysterious doings."
"If that's how the wind blows why don't you release
Hartley on bail?"
"Have you been retained as assistant counsel to
Knowlton Boggs! Hartley will stay put till we know
far more than we do now. Both he and Saranoff have
a lot to clear up. This second killing may have been
pulled off to throw suspicion on some one else. In in-
vestigating crime you have to dig under surface ap-
pearancesj which may be faked, and get at the facts
below."
[195]


Card 13
Raneleigh nodded.
"Reality lies hidden by the appearance of reality?
It sounds like Hegel."
"Don't know him," said Kent. "That's a highbrow
way of putting it. Anyhow, we have to watch out for
hokum. Camouflage is the instinctive device of the
crook. Well, there will be one inquest that Ling can't
dodge. You'll be subpenaed, of course. See you later."
Raneleigh gathered that to-day Kent was not eager
for his company.
"May I go inside?" he asked. "Last night I could
not get near the family after the police arrived."
"Did you get near them before?"
"I was at the door with Holkar."
"When he gave the alarm?"
"Yes."
"How did Mrs. Barnett take it?"
"She did not know then that Ling had been killed.
She seemed annoyed at being wakened."
Kent grinned.
"I'll bet she did. She's a handful."
He led the way to the veranda and stood aside while
Raneleigh rang the bell. The nurse, looking freshly
starched, responded.
"Could I see Mrs. Barnett?"
"Mrs. Barnett is lying down in her room. She
told me not to disturb her unless the police wanted
to speak to her."
"Don't, of course. I'll talk to Miss Gilmore."
"She's sound asleep. The Doctor gave her a seda-
tive. Shall I say you called?"
"Yes. Tell her that I'll be at home if she needs
me. Please give the message to Miss Gilmore herself."
[196]


The Murder in the Garden
As he faced about Kent's expression struck him
as amused. But at the same instant another thought
flashed to mind.
"Mrs. Barnett had train reservations for to-
morrow. She can hardly leave now."
"I made that clear to her," said the investigator,
with a knowing smirk. "You'll have another chance
to see the girl."
What the devil did he mean? Probably the tire-
some inference usually drawn when a bachelor looked
twice at a pretty woman. Couldn't Kent see—couldn't
every one see—that his solicitude was merely that of
an old friend? Why didn't the fellow keep his thoughts
on crime where they belonged! Sentiment in a detective
was absurd. But presently it occurred to him that
what he had taken for sentiment might be cynicism.
Wasn't Kent more likely to suspect that he had an
eye on Aileen's fortune? And wasn't that precisely
what Mrs. Barnett would think? Didn't it explain her
growing coldness, her fixed determination to keep them
apart? How preposterous! And how annoying! It
stuck like a burr in his consciousness and at moments
quite obscured Ling's murder.
But all that Sunday, yelling boys made it impos-
sible to forget the murder for long. It was front-page
news for the extras, and the amateur sleuths of the city
room, promptly linking the two crimes, rehashed with
embellishments the still mystifying Gilmore case. The
coincidence that Holkar had again been first on the
scene was noted, and Raneleigh, to his deep disgust,
found that his own presence had not gone unremarked
by the press. To avoid another garbled interview he
went for a long drive by the shore.
[197]


Card 13
Yet, despite the hullabaloo, Monday's inquest
proved a tame affair. Like the other, it was held in
an undertaking establishment, but the undertaker did
not style himself a mortician and his place of business
was modest. There were no screen celebrities to at-
tract a crowd, and Knowlton Boggs contented himself
with the role of a mere spectator. The autopsy sur'
geon bore witness that the corpse was thoroughly dead,
and after police testimony to the same effect, the
Coroner began to delve into Ling's final hours of life.
The proprietor of the Chinese lodging-house near the
Plaza said in good English that, on the preceding
Tuesday, Ling had engaged a room from him and oc-
cupied it all that day and the day following, refusing
to admit even the bed-maker. Whether he had gone
out at night the witness had no knowledge. Ling had
paid a week's rent in advance. Thursday morning the
porter had found the room vacated and the key in
the door. Shown the knife with which the victim was
slain, the witness said that he had never seen it, or
one like it, and would express no opinion as to whether
it was Oriental in design.
Mrs. Barnett's testimony brought out that it was
on Thursday that Ling had reappeared with the ex-
planation that he had been ill.
"Did he say what ailed him?" asked the Coroner.
She hesitated. "Not exactly."
"Do you recall his words?"
"Yes."
"Please give them."
"He held his hands over his abdomen and said, 'I
have bad pain in gut,'" replied Mrs. Barnett with
great dignity.
[198]


The Mtjbdeb in the Garden
The Coroner blinked and shifted in his chair.
"At what hour did he return?"
"He was there when I came down about seve»
o'clock."
"Did you notify the police?"
"I did. That is, I telephoned Mr. Kent who seems
to be in charge of the investigation of my nephew's
death."
"Did you notice any sounds out of the ordinary
Saturday night?"
"None. The door-bell wakened me. I went down
and my neighbor, Mr. Holkar, informed me that he
had heard suspicious sounds in the garden and tele-
phoned the police. Mr. Raneleigh was with him. I
returned to my room to dress."
"You learned of the murder later?"
"Yes. From a policeman."
"Did you go out to see the body?"
"No. I looked after my niece who was prostrated
by this second murder."
"Who told her about it?"
"She overheard the officer tell me."
"That's all," said the Coroner. "Mr. Holkar."
The Hindu showed his wonted imperturbability. He
testified that he was a native of India, that he was edu-
cated at an English college in Bombay and at Harvard,
that he had been in America for eight years, and that
for two years he had lived in Hollywood next door to
the Gilmore house.
"Where were you last Saturday about midnight?"
"In my study, reading."
"Just as you were when Gilmore was shot?"
"Yes, Mr. Coroner."
[199]


Card 13
"Do you usually read that late?"
"Often."
"What disturbed you this time, Mr. Holkar?"
"A scuffle in my neighbor's garden and a cry."
"A scream?"
"I should describe it as a groan."
"Were you frightened?"
"I am seldom frightened."
"What did you do?"
"I listened and, hearing nothing more, went to my
bedroom for a search-light."
"You thought you'd better look into the matter?"
"Yes. I then switched on my porch light and went
out. I walked a few steps along the driveway and
decided not to investigate alone. I therefore returned
to my own house and telephoned to the police."
"You did all this before you notified Mrs. Barnett?"
"Yes."
"Have you any idea who might have killed this
man?"
"None whatever."
Raneleigh expected to be called next, but the
Coroner ordered the room cleared and the jury took
the case. As the writer anticipated, they reached a
verdict speedily. The deceased, they found, had come
to his death by a knife-wound in the heart at the hands
of a person or persons unknown.
But where was Kent? Had he thought this dreary
business would end in futility? Raneleigh had his
answer from the investigator himself shortly after he
reached his apartment.
"At last," Kent greeted him, "I'm going to hand
you an eye-opener."
[200]


The Murdeb in the Garden
"My eyes need it. That inquest was a farce."
"But useful, Raneleigh. Most useful, as you'll
see. Did you notice Holkar's servant there?"
"Gwan? Yes. He sat near Holkar. He was not
called as a witness."
"That wasn't why I had him summoned. I had
him g'wan to the inquest"—Kent paused to savor his
pun—"because I wanted to get both of those coffee-
colored birds out of their nest."
A thrill coursed down Raneleigh's spine.
"You've been searching Holkar's bungalow!"
"Right the first time. Black and I have had a
busy morning. I had a warrant, but preferred not to
serve it. And this," he added, impressively, taking
a small package from his pocket, "is what we found."
"More letters?"
"More letters. We've struck a hot clue this time,
Raneleigh. They're part of the batch stolen from
Gilmore's rooms."
[201]


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE UNFINISHED LETTER
Though he had suspected the Hindu of telling less
than he knew, Raneleigh was staggered by this
development.
“You're certain that these were part of the stolen
letters?”
“There isn't a doubt of it. I saw these identical
letters on Gilmore's desk the morning after he was
shot. They're the Hunter girl's.”
“And they were found in Holkar's house. Good
God!”
"He wasn't so good to Tony. Probably these
scraps of paper caused his death."
“Then Hartley is innocent! And Saranoff! She
told the truth, after all.”
“How you do jump at conclusions !” said Kent.
“You must have gone in for pole-vaulting in your
college days.”
“But that's what this means," insisted Raneleigh.
"I don't want poor Gerald to spend one more unneces-
sary hour in jail. Can't something be done about it
at once? What's your next move?"
“The one that will solve the case." Kent looked as
satisfied as a cockerel after its first crow. "I'm going
to have Holkar taken into custody.”
“On suspicion of murder?”
“Still jumping, eh? For withholding vital informa-
[202]


The Unfinished Letter
tion. I've a hunch his Oriental calm will blow up once
he's snug behind the bars. I've a hunch he'll confess
where he got those letters and anything else he's had
under his hat. Now, if he does come clean, we may have
to ask Mrs. Barnett and Miss Gilmore some questions
and that's just why I'm here. I want you to keep them
from leaving for the East."
"They were going only to Iowa."
"Well, Iowa's east. Haven't you lived here long
enough to think like a native? I'm a better Californian
than you if I was born in Yonkers. Let that pass. The
point is, I want them where they are. The old lady
changed her reservations to to-morrow. It's up to you
to break it to her that she'd better cancel them in-
definitely."
"Why is it up to me?"
"I thought you'd be tickled to death at the assign-
ment."
"It's true that I want them to stay somewhere in
the vicinity. It would simplify the settling of the
estate. Will it be all right to mention Holkar and the
letters?"
"Sure. There's no reason why they should be kept
in the dark. When they hear what he's been up to
they may recall things they've overlooked. Suspicion
is a wonderful incubator for hatching ideas. On second
thought, I believe I'll go with you."
Raneleigh was relieved.
"That's better. Mrs. Barnett is not easily per-
suaded to change her mind. What if she gives us a
flat refusal?"
"I've an ace up my sleeve for such an emergency.
Do you think she'll take that stand?"
[203]


The Unfinished Letter
"Nonsense," rebuked her aunt with prim decision.
"You must learn to control yourself." She drew her-
self up and, ignoring Raneleigh, confronted the in-
vestigator. "I most emphatically object to this de-
tention, Mr. Kent. I told the little I knew about
Ling's movements at the inquest to-day. As for the
other case, I am advised by my lawyer that our deposi-
tions can be taken in Iowa."
"Nevertheless," he rejoined blandly, "you'll have
to stay. I'm sure when you've heard the situation, you
won't put us to the trouble of obtaining a court order."
"A court order?" she bristled.
"Yes." He got to his feet and stood over her.
"You see, Mrs. Barnett, we have found some of the
letters that were stolen from Mr. Gilmore's sealed
rooms."
"I should think it high time you found something,"
she retorted tartly.
"I agree with you," said Kent, still urbane. "Aren't
you at all curious to know where we found these
letters?"
"No. It can't concern me or my plans." She rose
with Victorian dignity and paused as if she were about
to address a public meeting. "My nephew is dead.
Nothing that I or his sister can do will bring his mur-
derer to justice. That is your business. And since
there are properly constituted authorities whose duty
it is to ferret out criminals, I consider it a violation of
our rights as free citizens of this republic for you to
hold us here against our wishes and our best interests."
Kent smilingly declined to shoulder the entire
majesty of the law of the County of Los Angeles.
"It isn't I who will detain you, madam. I am act-
[205]


Card 13
ing for the District Attorney's office. But these letters,
which you feel are no concern of yours, were found in
Holkar's house."
Aunt Harriet's sallow skin turned red.
"In Holkar's house!" she repeated.
"Yes, in his desk. We searched his study this
morning during the inquest. You will now understand
why it is important for you to be at hand. We may
need your help to discover how these letters came into
his possession."
"Yes, yes." Her interest was roused at last.
"What led you to suspect him?"
"He was the first on the spot after both murders.
His manner, when questioned, was evasive. We felt
that he was keeping something back."
"I felt that, too," she said. "Were all the missing
letters there?"
"Not all. But I could identify some of them. I
had seen them when we examined your nephew's papers.
And still others, you will be glad to hear, have been
recovered. They were mailed in a surreptitious way to
Miss Saranoff and were her own."
"Her own letters!" Mrs. Barnett pondered this
revelation. "How strange! And yet—why, Mr. Kent,
could that creature have mailed them to herself?"
"Now we're beginning to get team-work," said the
investigator. "You have the makings of a detective
yourself. The same question occurred to us, but we
had no evidence to substantiate it, and finding these
other letters seems to confirm her story."
Aunt Harriet looked disappointed.
"I still think the hussy had something to do with
my poor nephew's death," she declared. "She's a good-
for-nothing baggage and ought to be punished."
[206]


The Unfinished Letter
"Take it from me," said Kent, "she isn't enjoying
herself. But Holkar is due for the spotlight now."
"What explanation has he to offer?"
"We'll know pronto."
"You are going over to question him?"
"Yes. He's at home."
"Will you permit me to be present?" she asked
eagerly.
"Of course." The investigator caught at the
chance. "We want your cooperation, Mrs. Barnett.
A woman often notes things that get by a man."
Raneleigh had glanced frequently at Aileen. After
her one protest she sat motionless with her eyes closed.
She did not stir now.
"I'll wait here with Miss Gilmore," he said.
"No," promptly objected Aunt Harriet. "She is
in no fit state for company."
"Better trail along with us," said Kent dryly.
"This ought to be good."
Sergeant Black strolled from the driveway as they
came out and joined them without a word. They filed
over to the bungalow in silence. Holkar himself an-
swered their ring. He showed no surprise at this influx
of callers and bowed them gravely into his study. The
heavy curtains, as usual, were partly drawn and the
room was gloomy. Raneleigh wondered if he actually
read in this twilight. Or did he merely sit and think
his inscrutable thoughts?
Kent leaped straight to the point.
"Mr. Holkar," he began, "can you tell me how
Gilmore's letters got in your desk?"
The Hindu did not turn a hair.
"Yes, Mr. Kent," he said, in his even voice which
was neither high nor low. "I put them there."
[207]


Cass 13
Raneleigh saw Mrs. Barnett start. She had plainly
expected that the Hindu would deny all knowledge of
the letters. Kent, too, was surprised.
"You put them there! Where did you get them?"
"From my friend's desk."
"Gilmore's desk? When did you have access to it?"
"The night of his death."
"Before he was shot?"
"No. Shortly after."
"Did you kill him?" Kent fired the question as if it
were a bullet.
"No, Mr. Kent. He was my friend."
"Are you in the habit of taking such liberties with
a friend's papers?"
"No, sir."
"Don't stop there. Why did you want those
particular letters?"
"I hoped to shield Mr. Gilmore's name from the
scandal they would cause if made public. He had told
me that they were from a woman who had been his
mistress, that they were "He hesitated.
"Were what?"
"Not nice."
"Do you mean off-color or obscene?"
"Yes."
"And so you thought you'd shield him! That sounds
very chivalrous. But it won't do, Holkar. You're
lying. I myself saw those very letters when we searched
Gilmore's rooms after he was shot. Furthermore, we
checked the outside letter, as you may have noticed,
with a blue pencil."
"Notwithstanding," replied the Hindu calmly, "I
took them precisely as I have stated."
[208]


The Unfinished Letter
"A lie well stuck to," remarked Aunt Harriet, in
the tone of an avenging angel, "is said to be as good
as the truth."
"You can say that to me, Mrs. Barnett? You!"
For the first time Holkar betrayed feeling.
"Yes, I can." She was not the person to be touched
by heathen emotion unless it accompanied conversion
to the true faith. "Though I've always thought your
beliefs outrageous, I am astounded at your total lack
of principle."
Kent brought the discussion back to the secular
plane.
"You'd better tell us all you know, Holkar. Those
letters put you in a very bad light. If you persist in
concealing the truth the District Attorney's office
may have you committed to jail."
"That is for you to decide. I have nothing to say."
"In that case I must ask you to come down to the
office with me."
"Certainly, Mr. Kent." His voice was again care-
fully modulated. "The power is yours."
Raneleigh squired Mrs. Barnett to her door, but
his gallantry was wasted. She did not invite him to
reenter the house. Nor did Kent, who now came out
with Holkar, suggest that he accompany them down^
town.
"I'm leaving Black in charge," he said briefly.
"See you later."
He seemed to be in the plight of an unprepossessing
orphan wanted by nobody, but Sergeant Black beck-
oned hospitably from Holkar's bungalow and, taking
his arm, propelled him inside.
"We'll have another look, Mr. Raneleigh. I had
[209]


The Unfinished Letter
was bad enough—he could not throw off a sense of con-
tributory guilt—but to be spied upon in turn heaped
the measure. Yet, if he left the house before the guard
came, that prowling coolie might plunge a dagger in
his ribs. Black's poise was reassuring. Though he
had admitted gooseflesh, he went busily on with his
search. Raneleigh told himself that he was becoming
altogether too fanciful and resumed his casual in-
spection of Holkar's library. Tony, he reflected, must
often have stood where he stood. Had this room been
for him a refuge? Had his dual nature sought here
a flight from the flesh? What, that met his need, had
he found in his strange friend's philosophy? He pulled
out a heavy volume at random, turned a few pages and
replacing it, found that it would not slide back to the
full depth of the shelf. Seeking the obstruction, his
hand came in contact with another book. He drew it
out mechanically, as he might one of his own books
that had fallen behind its orderly mates, and idly
opened it. Whereupon an envelope dropped to the
floor.
"What's that?" Slack was instantly alert, tense
as a cat about to spring upon its prey.
"A sealed envelope." The blood drained from Ran-
eleigh's face as he picked it up. "It's addressed to
Miss Gilmore."
"I'll have a look at it," said the Sergeant peremp-
torily.
"So will I, if you don't mind."
Whatever it portended, he was resolved that it
should not pass out of his keeping till he knew the
truth. He ran a paper knife under the flap and shook
a woman's handkerchief and a folded letter to the
rani


CARD 13
desk. His hand and the detective's went out simul-
taneously, but Raneleigh pounced on the letter and
unfolded it with cold fingers. Typed on a sheet of
plain paper, it was as startling as it was brief.
“Dear Tony—I have felt wretched all day and
quite discouraged. I have come to beleive you want
to keep me out of the movies. I won't bother you
any more, but I am determined ".
And there, without signaturean enigma of sinis-
ter possibilities-it stopped.
[212]


CHAPTER NINETEEN
KENT MAKES A PKOPOSAL
"I'm in charge here, Mr. Raneleigh," reminded the
plain-clothes man sharply.
"Pardon me, Sergeant." He extended the letter
and tried to cover his dismay. "I was absorbed in my
find. Very thoughtless of me."
"That's all right," said Black, mollified at once.
"But as for telling us anything," he added, after a
quick glance, "it's just about as gabby as this crumpled
handkerchief."
Raneleigh looked at the bit of linen. It was merely
a small, white, hemstitched square devoid of initials
or laundry mark.
"It has evidently been crushed in some one's hand."
"Which means nothing," rejoined Black. "What's
your guess as to this letter?"
"I haven't any." The truth was, he shrank from
conjecture.
"And what is Miss Gilmore's name doing on the
envelope? How did it get in this fellow's room?"
Raneleigh bestirred his wits.
"Both Miss Gilmore and her brother borrowed
Holkar's books."
"If that's the case, probably this is no clue at all.
Women tuck all sorts of things into books to mark a
page. If you ask me, that's what happened here. She
stuck it in there and forgot about it."
[213]


Kent Makes a Proposal
him. The writer's face blazed. Gwan, of course,
would report the search.
"Cold feet?" queried Kent from the car.
"I feel like a cur," said Raneleigh. "You see, I'm
a rank amateur after all."
"You're better than most professionals. Buck up!
I want you "His eye lighted on the man in uni-
form. "Sergeant, what is that flat-foot doing here?"
"I phoned for him," explained Black. "I didn't
want anybody to crash in while I was at work."
"Call him off," ordered Kent curtly. "I was going
to say, Raneleigh, that I've made a three o'clock ap-
pointment with Mrs. Barnett. Can you be back here at
that time?"
"If you wish. But I'd like very much to have a talk
with you before then. Won't you lunch with me?"
"I must go down-town first."
"Down-town will suit me. Shall we say the Uni-
versity Club at one o'clock?"
"Fine! I've wanted to give that place the once-
over."
Black returned, looking slightly chastened, and
opened his brief-case.
"Here's something Mr. Raneleigh stumbled on
among the books," he said, with a hint of jealousy. "I
can't see that it amounts to much."
Kent's face was non-committal as he examined the
envelope and handkerchief and read the note. Nor did
he betray any inkling of his thoughts as he listened to
Raneleigh's account of his discovery.
"I'll question Holkar right now," he said. "Do you
care to come along?"
"No. I'm fed up with that sort of thing."
[215]


Kent Makes a Proposal
"Make it a pair," said the investigator, still ex-
quisitely polite.
Raneleigh saw his glance stray wistfully toward the
next table where a rubicund member was lunching with
more gusto than discretion.
"One moment, Henry!" he called. "What's your
best to-day in pie a la mode?"
"Mr. Raneleigh," said the waiter, with a fervor
almost religious, "we've got some of the finest blue-
berry you ever set your teeth in. I'm sure surprised at
your wanting pie, but you can't go wrong with that
blueberry. Two orders, sir?"
"Two orders."
Though he foresaw indigestion, he felt as virtuous
as a boy scout who had done his daily good deed. For
Kent, plainly, lunch without pie was an anomaly. At
heart—or at stomach—this thinking machine seemed
to retain something of the simplicity of a child. But
this artless manner vanished with the last blueberry,
and over the coffee and cigars Raneleigh again faced
an adult criminologist with piercing eyes.
"And now," he said briskly, "what's on your mind?"
"The letter I found in Holkar's study."
"It's been worrying you?"
"It puzzled me. I thought at first that Miss GUI-
more might have written it."
"Which wasn't a pleasant thought?"
"Under the circumstances, no. She has been
through so much that I dreaded to have her cross-
examined."
"In my opinion," said Kent, "that girl can stand
more than you'd guess at first sight. She's the wiry
type. But go on."
[217]


Card 13
"With Black's permission, I copied the letter, and
after I left you, I went home and compared it with
another letter, written on Tony's machine, which Miss
Gilmore sent me two months ago when I was in San
Francisco. Look first at the letter I found, please. I
typed it off, word for word and exactly as it ran, from
my note-book."
Kent scanned the copy.
"Dear Tony—I have felt wretched all day and
quite discouraged. I have come to beleive you want
to keep me out of the movies. I won't bother you
any more, but I am determined"
"I could recite it backward now," said the investi-
gator. "Let me see the one you received in Frisco."
"Dear Ran:
"You ask if I got the part I so wanted in Spring
Flight. No, I did not and I feel just wretched about
it. I don't believe Tony wants me in the movies. He's
so sure I am not strong enough and it makes me most
unhappy. It's dear of you, Ran, to take such an in-
terest, but nobody really understands what it means to
me."
"All right," said Kent, placing the letters side by
side. "What's your deduction?"
"That the first letter was not written by Miss Gil-
more. It's true that certain expressions are similar,
but you'll notice that, in the former, two of the capitals
are out of alignment as if the writer were uncertain how
to shift the key. Furthermore, the word believe is mis-
spelled, with V following T as often happens."
"Yes, I saw that. It's a common mistake."
[218]


Card 13
you? Now, wait a minute! I want you to hand it to
me straight. I wouldn't queer a friend's game if I
could help it. I'll treat her more carefully if you say
the word."
Had he succumbed to the influence of appetizing
food? Or was this one more of his cynical tests of
weak human nature? Whatever the motive, Raneleigh
decided to meet his amazing offer with a smile.
"It's awfully good of you," he replied, "but my
interest in Miss Saranoff is not even Platonic."
"You're in luck," said Kent. "When a man like
you falls he falls hard. It isn't a question of brains
at all. The thing is just—what's the scientific
jargon—it's just biological. Gilmore's dead. Hartley's
in the jug. The red-haired gal's lonesome. So watch
your step."
Raneleigh's bewilderment waxed.
"May I ask why you give me this fatherly advice?"
"Sure. And I'll answer. The day we were out at
Saranoff's I caught something you missed. It was a
look."
"What kind of a look?"
"Vampish. And believe me, boy, you were in the
line of fire. Well, thanks for the feed. It was great."
He pushed back from the table. "Now for business.
Steer me to a telephone."
[222]


Locate Ida Hunteb!
Storage charge? How ridiculous! Why, in my town,
they never dream Oh, leave them, of course!"
There ensued an interval of silence before she re-
turned slowly to the living-room. "That thieving
expressman," she explained, "wanted to haul our trunks
back so that he could rob us again another day."
"Won't it be inconvenient to do without them so
long?" asked the investigator blandly.
"So long!" she repeated. "Surely, Mr. Kent, you
don't expect to dawdle all winter over this case?"
"No. That's too generous an estimate. In fact, I
believe we'll clear it up very shortly."
"So I've been reading in the papers. The police
have discovered important evidence—more arrests are
impending! Yet another crime is committed in our
very back yard. We shan't be able to get rid of
this house for love or money. Who would want to live
in it now?"
"Nevertheless, Mrs. Barnett, things are beginning
to move. I thought you'd like to hear the latest
developments."
"Whatever they are," she said, "I blame the
Saranoff girl for my nephew's death. Not that I want
to accuse her outright of murder. It's no light matter.
Besides, Mr. Holkar's actions are peculiar, to say the
least. And there's his servant! One is as outlandish as
the other. I think this country ought to exclude all
foreigners who aren't Christians."
Kent avoided this digression.
"I was about to speak of Holkar. He refuses to
change his story and insists that he took the letters
from Gilmore's desk while the officer, who had been
posted in the hall, stepped outside to help cope with
[225]


Card 13
Miss Saranoff and her hysterics. That's false on the
face of it, but we can't budge him."
"Then all that ado this morning went for naught!"
"No. It produced another clue. Among Holkar's
books Mr. Raneleigh came upon this typed letter. It
was left incomplete and unsigned. Will you glance it
over?"
"My reading-glasses are up-stairs."
"Then I'll read it to you."
Mrs. Barnett listened closely.
"I can make nothing of it," she said.
"It doesn't occur to you that your niece may have
written it?"
"Aileen? Impossible! Why should she?"
"It seems improbable, I admit. Yet such was Hol-
kar's inference. He found it in Gilmore's typewriter
after the shooting, and took it along as he did the
letters from the woman he knew had been his friend's
mistress."
"For the same reason—to keep it from the news-
papers?"
"So he asserts."
"The meddling idiot!" exclaimed Aunt Harriet.
"Would Aileen, living under the same roof with her
brother, have sat down and written him a letter? Of
course she wouldn't. If she'd had anything to say she
would have said it to his face, exactly as I would."
"Mr. Raneleigh agrees with you."
"Anybody with a grain of sense would agree with
me. That poor child up-stairs has had enough to
stand without being dragged into such foolishness. I
hope, Mr. Kent, you haven't come here with the idea
of questioning her about it?"
[226]


Card 13
Mrs. Barnett's thin hands, the knuckles swollen
with arthritis, gripped the arms of her chair. The
theory, it was clear, had won her grudging respect.
"Oh, it's all too much for me," she sighed. "What
with Ling's death and Aileen's state of nerves, I'm
worn out. I need a rest. I want to get away."
"I sympathize with you," Kent assured her. "But
the deeper we probe the blacker things look. There
were strange doings in this house the night Gilmore was
shot. When we've dug out all that happened we'll
know who killed him. You can't leave at this stage,
Mrs. Barnett. We need your help."
She cupped her chin in her hand with a gesture of
despondency.
"It's very trying," she said. "And very perplexing.
I thought there was no doubt in your mind that either
Mise Saranoff or Gerald Hartley killed my nephew.
Why did the Coroner's jury find Mr. Hartley guilty if
there is not sufficient evidence to convict him?"
"We'll convict him, all right. But we want to go
into court with a case so clear that even Knowlton
Boggs can't cloud it. You saw that gas-bag at the
first inquest. Well, he hadn't even begun to limber up.
I've watched him so muddle a witness that he could
scarcely tell his right hand from his left. That's his
job. And our job is to block him. We can't leave any
stone unturned."
"No matter who is made uncomfortable!" she cried
bitterly.
"No one concerned in a murder mystery ought to
expect to be comfortable. It's a messy business that
has to be cleaned up. You hate all this airing of
dirty linen, of course. Anybody would. But the sooner
[228]


Card 13
"And locked it when he went out?"
"As a rule. Ling had a key. I'd asked him for it,
you see. That's why Anthony was cross."
"Very well," said Kent. "Now let's reconstruct the
rest of the evening. What did you do next?"
"Aileen had flounced up-stairs, and after I turned
out the living-room lights, I went to her room for a
moment. She was moping in the dark, and I made her
go to bed."
"She minds what you say?"
"Naturally. I've had the care of ber since she
was a child."
"Did you then go to bed yourself?"
"I read my daily chapter first."
"Your daily chapter—oh, in the Bible, you mean?"
"Yes, Mr. Kent."
"And then you turned in and fell asleep."
"Yes."
"Your room is above the driveway, I believe?"
"You ought to know," she rejoined acidly. "You
searched it."
"Yet you were not aroused when Gilmore came
home?"
"I was not." Her stock of patience seemed ex-
hausted. "Why should I go over this again and again
like a parrot because you can't see your way? You
run to me with every notion that comes into your head.
First it's Hartley and Miss Saranoff you suspect.
Then it's Holkar. Now it's this Hunter minx. What
do I know of her vulgar intrigues?"
The investigator straightened.
"That's precisely the point. What do you know,
Mrs. Barnett? Did you neither see nor hear Ida
[232]


LOCATE IDA HUNTER!
Hunter in your nephew's rooms the night he was
murdered?"
She rose imperiously.
“How often must I repeat,” she demanded, “that
I retired early, that I went to sleep, that I heard noth-
ing till the door-bell rang? Oh, this is intolerable!"
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Barnett. Asking questions is a
necessary part of my work.”
"But why don't you confine yourself to people
whose lives aren't what they should be? Why don't
you question Ida Hunter?”
"I shall,” said Kent, with grim emphasis. “She's
next.”
[2331


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JUST A FRIENDLY CALL
The investigator mopped his brow as they went
down the walk and swore at his gear-shift as they drove
away.
"Grilling a woman old enough to be my mother
makes me feel cheap," he owned. "And a lady at that.'
Well, I admire her spunk. She called my bluff good
and hard. At first I thought we had her going, but
it was only those trunks. Two murders don't faze her,
yet a grafting baggage-smasher gets her goat! Don't
women beat hell?" He sank deep in meditation, on the
other sex it would appear, for by and by he remarked:
"Anyhow, the Hunter dame will be a change."
The movie extra, who sat with Sergeant Black and
a pasty youth in Kent's waiting-room, indeed provided
a contrast. Her Spanish-Mexican origin was written
in her redundant curves, in her large eyes fringed with
heavy lashes that gave them depth and mystery, and
in her skin so richly olive that under its lavish coat of
powder it seemed almost blue. She rose nervously, but
forced a smile to her painted lips, as the investigator
explained that he would soon be at leisure, and sank
back with a languid grace. Signing Raneleigh and the
Sergeant to follow, Kent passed into his private office
and closed the door.
"Well, Black?"
"Her alibi is iron-clad and triple riveted. The
[234]


Just a Friendly Call
"She phoned down and asked for it, that's all. It
was shortly after midnight. I'd just come on duty."
"Are you certain it was her voice?"
"Yes, sir. She has a nice voice. She said she had
a splitting headache and wanted aspirin. So I got it
for her and took it up."
"To her room?"
"Yes, sir. Third floor."
"Was the door wide open?"
"No. Six inches, perhaps. I handed the bottle in
to her."
"You saw her?"
"Oh, yes. Distinctly."
"Was there a bright light in her room?"
"No. It was dim. I think it came from the bath."
"You only think so. You don't know. Perhaps
you're as hazy on the main issue. If the light was
dim and the door was just ajar, how can you be sure
that it was Mrs. Hunter?"
"There was a hall light overhead. It was Mrs.
Hunter, all right. I can swear to it. I took special
notice."
Kent pounced on his last phrase.
"Why did you take special notice?"
The youth grinned feebly.
"She has pretty shoulders."
"So that's why you were so observant! Now, be-
tween you and me, Peebles, aren't you a rather gay
dog with the women?"
"I'm not unpopular," he admitted.
"A handsome fellow like you couldn't be. Do you
like 'em dark."
His man-of-the-world air wilted.
[237]


Caxd 13
"I don't get yon."
"Yes, you do. Come across. You're pretty soft
on this brunette, aren't you? You're tickled to death
to fetch and carry for her. You wouldn't refuse her
anything. You wouldn't even stick at helping her
frame an alibi."
"That," shouted Mr. Peebles, with sudden passion,
"is a damned lie!"
"All right, son," said the investigator serenely.
"Go home and keep your mouth shut. Sergeant, well
talk with the woman herself."
Ida Hunter's eyes- rolled as she entered. The delay
had manifestly increased her nervousness.
"Sit there." Kent indicated a chair which caught
the glare from a tilted desk-lamp. He himself re-
mained on his feet.
She obeyed and bit her lip as she faced him.
"Mrs. Hunter," he rapped out, "we have positive
proof that you were in Tony Gilmore's rooms the night
he was shot."
'Troduce it."
"Not so fast. You left a letter there. You left
something else. You were seen."
The woman's dark skin changed to a terrible pallor
under its layers of make-up. She hesitated a moment.
Then, with studied boldness, she said:
"Not at the time Tony was shot."
"That's for you to prove." He came close, holding
her shifting eyes with his. "It's up to you, if you want
to keep out of jail, to tell the whole truth about that
night. What time was it when you went to his house?"
She again hesitated and looked down. Her bosom
rose and fell as she drew her breath in short gasps.
[238]


Just a Friendly Call
all of a sudden, in walked the old battle-ax and gave
me fits."
"Did she walk in and give you fits this other time—
the night of the murder?"
"No. I didn't see her at all. And I didn't hear
any more sounds, and I made up my mind it was just
the woodwork stretching itself. So I sat down at
Tony's typewriter—it's a noiseless machine—and
started to write him a note. Pretty soon some one
peeked in at the side window—I'm sure they did—and
I was scared stiff. I switched off the desk-light and
lay low for a few minutes. Nothing happened and I
left. I walked to the boulevard and took another taxi
home."
"What was the color of this second taxi?"
"Yellow."
"Did you ride to your door?"
"No. I got out at the corner of Western. I was
back in my room at a quarter past twelve. I know I
was for I looked at my watch."
"Did you go in the way you came out?"
'•Yes. Why not?"
"I'm asking you, Mrs. Hunter."
"I told you before that it's a short-cut. The women
in the house often take it when they go marketing."
"And when they come home at a very late hour?"
She shrugged.
"I mind my own business. A girl doesn't want
people spying on every move she makes."
"And, of course, you're very jealous of your
reputation!"
She bridled at his sarcasm. "I'd have you know I
don't play around with everybody."
[241]


Card 13
"Is the night clerk an ardent admirer of yours?"
Her white teeth gleamed.
"Now you're kidding me. He's just a tame cat.
Nobody minds Elmer."
"An important link in your alibi, however."
"Yes." She dismissed Mr. Peebles with another
shrug.
"You like to have your sweeties well heeled, don't
you?"
"I think," said she, "that, if a man wants a girl
for his steady, he ought to be able to give her a good
time."
Kent studied her a moment. "Mexican, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not. I'm an American and was born
right here in Los Angeles."
"Near the Plaza?"
"Yes. My mother was Spanish."
"Can you speak Spanish?"
"Castilian," she corrected him.
"I see. What became of your husband?"
"My husband is dead. He was in the oil business,
and a derrick fell on him."
"That doesn't go down with me," snapped the in-
vestigator. "We've looked you up. You never had
a husband. You call yourself Mrs. Hunter because
you found it was easier to get by as a widow. I'll
admit, though, that you picked a name that suits you.
You're a hunter, all right. Now don't let me catch
you lying again. You're courting trouble if you try
it. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she replied meekly.
"Very well. Now what was on Gilmore's desk
besides the Saranoff photographs?"
[242]


Just a Friendly Call
"I didn't notice anything in particular."
"No? Think hard. We know that there was
something else of interest there—either on or in the
desk."
"Do you mean Tony's flask? I saw that."
"What kind of flask was it?"
"Silver—with a little camel on one side."
"Was it empty?"
"No. I took a drink. Just a taste."
"What else do you remember seeing?"
"Nothing." She once more resorted to her ready
shrug.
"Be careful! We know there was something that
you must have noticed. Come clean, Mrs. Hunter. It
will be best for you in the long run."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Then I'll jog your memory." He stooped and,
with his face close to hers, held her restive eyes.
"Wasn't there," he asked, speaking very slowly,
"wasn't there a revolver?"
"A revolver?" She shrank from him.
"Yes. The one you shot Tony with!"
"I didn't shoot Tony. I was in my room when he
was shot. That's the truth and I can prove it. The
night clerk knows it. So does Mr. Jones. And I
can produce another witness, too. You haven't any-
thing on me, and you needn't try to make me own up
to anything I didn't do. I'm wise to you dicks."
"All right, all right." Kent had stepped back
before the explosion. "Keep your hair on! If you
can corroborate our evidence that the gun was there
just say so without fireworks. It won't prove that you
shot him."
[243]


Card 18
if I may see her alone, I will speak. No one else is to
be present."
"That's damned queer."
"Mr. Raneleigh, does it seem so queer to you?"
Holkar's inflection implied that he looked for a nega-
tive answer.
"Not absurdly so," he replied. "Kent, shall I get
Miss Gilmore?"
"I don't like it," he said, making no secret of his
distrust. "He may be putting something over on
us. These Orientals are the very devil for"
Raneleigh tactfully averted a full exposure of their
deviltry.
"Mr. Holkar can't hatch a conspiracy under our
noses," he put in. "Why not, if he intends to be frank
later, let him see Miss Gilmore as he requests?"
"All right. If there are any tricks tried I'll know
what to do. And I'll delegate you," he added with
a cheerless smile, "to make the situation clear to Mrs.
Barnett."
Raneleigh found his way beset with thorns. Aunt
Harriet's face clouded at sight of him and she kept
him standing in the hall while he explained his mission.
"This is preposterous," she cried. "You ought to
have more sense, Arthur, than to come here on such an
errand. Haven't I had enough to endure to-day with-
out being hounded at night?"
"It's not you Holkar wants to see. It's Aileen."
"Well, he can't see her. I won't call her down-
stairs for such nonsense. If he has anything to tell
let him tell it to me."
"That won't do. We feel that we're on the trail
of something vital and that Holkar"
[248]


Was It Aileen?
"You and your trailing!" she broke in. "Haven't
you anything to do these days but play detective?"
"I assure you," he said, "I haven't taken it up for
amusement. I want justice done."
"Justice is God's business. Don't meddle."
He tried other arguments which failed to move her.
Never had she been so resolute to impose her will.
Then, beyond her on the staircase landing, he saw
Aileen. A mauve kimono, caught round her waist with
a broad sash, accentuated her virginal slenderness.
Her cheeks were pink with excitement.
"What is it, Ran?" she asked.
He blurted out his message before her aunt could
interfere.
"Of course I'll do it," she said, coming down. "Why
shouldn't I? I'm not afraid of Mr. Holkar."
Mrs. Barnett seemed dazed at her rebellion.
"Very well," she yielded. "But I shall be present.
Put on a wrap. You can't go over in that rig."
But at that moment the bell rang sharply. Kent
stood, fuming, on the veranda.
"What's all this delay?" he demanded. "My time
is valuable. Come along, Holkar. Take Miss Gilmore
in the living-room. I'll give you just five minutes."
Aunt Harriet started toward the living-room, but
the investigator blocked her at the threshold.
"No, Mrs. Barnett. You can't go in. I've agreed
to let Holkar talk with her alone."
"I object"
"Objection overruled."
"But I insist, Mr. Kent."
"It won't do you a bit of good. You're going to
stay right here if I have to use force to make you."
[249]


Card 13
"Force!"
"That's what I said, madam." There was no re-
lenting in his voice, and closing the double doors, he
stationed himself before them.
Beaten for once, Mrs. Barnett subsided into a
chair. Raneleigh, in a state of nervous tension, paced
the hall. What was the meaning of this precaution?
What was the Hindu saying to Aileen? The wait
seemed endless, yet five minutes had not elapsed when
the girl opened the doors. She looked pale, but calm.
"Will you come in here, Mr. Kent? You, too, Ran.
Mr. Holkar has something to tell us."
"I suppose I may be allowed to come?" Aunt Har-
riet was the outraged householder.
"Certainly, Mrs. Barnett." Kent with ironic gal-
lantry stepped aside for her to precede him.
Holkar stood at a window, and as he turned, Ran-
eleigh saw that his expression had changed. All the
controlled anxiety, the grimness, the fixed determina-
tion were gone.
"Mr. Kent," he said, "will you ask Miss Gilmore
to repeat our conversation?"
The investigator faced the girl.
"How about it, Miss Gilmore?"
"Mr. Holkar asked if I was in Tony's study the
night he was shot. I told him that I was there early
in the evening before he left the house. He asked if
I was not sitting at Tony's typewriter at half past
eleven. I told him that I was not. He said 'Thank
God!' And that was all." She gave Raneleigh a puz-
zled look. "I don't know why he asked me those ques-
tions. I wish some one would tell me."
"It's easily explained," said Kent. "There was a
[250]


Was It Aileen?
"Just a moment!" Kent wagged a long finger. "Mr.
Raneleigh has done everything in his power to clear up
this case and I appreciate his assistance. Answer
his questions."
"Very well." Mrs. Barnett was the Roman matron,
summoning all her fortitude. "If you will subject us
to needless annoyance, I have nothing to say."
"Thank you. I'll try not to be too annoying.
First, Aileen, will you tell me if you were in the habit
of going to Tony's rooms in his absence?"
"No, Ran. You know that. He had told me not
to do it."
"Did he keep his rooms locked?"
"Yes. You know that, too." Her eyes widened.
"Who had keys?" Without waiting for a reply, he
wheeled on Mrs. Barnett. "Did you have one?"
"I did not. Anthony was determined to have his
secrets. Ling, however, had a key."
"No one else?" pressed Raneleigh.
"Not to my knowledge. You can't expect me to
have a complete inventory of everything in the house.
But Mr. Holkar," she added meaningly, "had, I believe,
a key to the side door."
He glanced at Holkar.
"That is correct?"
"Yes."
"Did you, Mrs. Barnett, hear any one enter the
study after Tony left?"
"I did not," she snapped. "And I refuse to answer
that question again."
"Thank you." He turned away.
Kent stepped forward.
"And yet, Mrs. Barnett, this Hunter woman was in
his rooms."
[253]


Caxd 13
"So Mr. Holkar says."
"Do you doubt him?"
"I don't think much of any evidence obtained by
eavesdropping."
"Perhaps yonH think better of Ida Hunter's testi-
mony. She has admitted that she was there. If my
word, too, is doubtful, I refer you to Mr. Raneleigh. He
was present at her examination as was Sergeant
Black."
Aunt Harriet's skepticism gave way.
"What else did she admit 7"
"Nothing of any consequence—that she wrote the
letter, left hurriedly and was back in her own room
at a little after midnight. She has witnesses as to the
time and, inasmuch as Gilmore did not drive in until
twenty minutes past twelve, that seems to let her out."
"Perhaps it does. And I hope that it also makes
unnecessary any further questioning of my niece and
myself."
"I'm not so certain about that," said Kent. "But
if this house is getting on your nerves, Mrs. Barnett,
I shan't oppose a change of scene. Go ahead."
"You mean," she asked eagerly, "that we're free
to go to Iowa?"
"No. You can't leave the state. Don't misun-
derstand me. You can't leave the state."
[254]


Cabd 13
Tony's death remained unsolved. He went to his desk
and took out the slips of paper on which he had jotted
his suppositions a week ago. How wide of the mark they
had proved!
Then Kent telephoned.
"The Mexican's out," he announced laconically.
"The driver's record clears her?"
"Yes. She was his last fare that night. He left
her at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western
at twelve-fifteen and reported in at twelve-thirty. It
looks as if you'd have to come around to my point of
view. Chuck that flask, Raneleigh, and give your brain
a rest. So long."
But Raneleigh could not reconcile himself to Kent's
point of view. He could not believe either Hartley or
Saranoff guilty. Nor was he ready to consign the
silver flask to the limbo of futile clues. He had, beyond
any sane doubt, seen Tony take it with him to the
Brownrigg party. It was, in his mind, as indisputable
as the fact that he had also seen it on the study desk
when the rooms were searched after the murder. And
Ida Hunter had seen it there just before the murder.
How had it got there? Behind that question surely lay
the solution of the crime. Tony must have returned.
Yet, how could it be proved? Always he ended in this
cul-de-sac. Was there no way of getting out of it?
For the hundredth time he reviewed the events of
that ill-starred night from the hour he called for Gil-
more till the moment he saw him drive away with Sara-
noff and Hartley from the Brownrigg house. And
because he had a novelist's mind, it now occurred to
him to cast these events in scenario form and study the
result. By this device, which he used habitually in
[256]


Card 13
his work, light would often fall on problems that had
baffled him. He took a package of cards on which he was
wont to jot notes for the stories that Dolly Brownrigg
and other of his movie acquaintances found so esoteric,
and still guided by his story-telling instinct, began with
the luncheon at the Montmartre. One after another,
devoting a single numbered card to each, he set down
the chain of incidents that seemed to him significant.
They came to twenty in all, and when he had finished,
he laid down his pen and spread the cards in series
on the blotting-pad for a bird's-eye view.
1. Tony lunches at the Montmartre.
2. He goes to Dolly Brownrigg's table and accepts
her invitation for the evening.
3. He is accosted by Ida Hunter.
4. He rebuffs Saranoff.
5. He meets Dolly on the way out and declines her
invitation for Aileen.
6. At home, that evening, he writes a letter which
he leaves unfinished in the typewriter.
7. He is unusually nervous in manner and speech.
8. Aileen attempts to take him by storm, and he
again refuses to allow her to go to Mrs. Brownrigg's.
9. Mrs. Barnett, unaware of his refusal, adds
her protest.
10. Tony puts the revolver and the flask in his
pockets.
11. He drives to the Brownrigg house.
12. Charlie Brownrigg confides that his wife ex-
pects Tony to mix a punch that will knock 'em out.
13. Tony and Dolly go to the butler's pantry to
mix the punch.
14. The party grows warm.
[257]


Card 13
phone directory. His voice sounded strange to him as
he gave the number to the operator.
Mrs. Brownrigg herself answered.
"Is that you, Myrtle?"
"It's Raneleigh—Arthur Raneleigh."
He heard her titter.
"Excuse me for calling you Myrtle. I thought it
was one of my girl friends. We went to a show to-
gether, and she promised that as soon as she got home
she'd phone me the address of a perfectly marvelous
masseuse. How nice of you to ring up, Ran! I've tried
a dozen times to get you, but you were always out.
When are you coming to see me?"
"Now, if you don't mind."
"Mind! I'll say I don't. Charlie," she added, with
an arch intonation, "is away on a business trip."
He decided that he would have to do without the
broker's chaperonage and within a quarter of an hour
faced her amid the glitter of her astonishing drawing-
room. She declared herself overjoyed to see him and at
once offered him a drink. It took two refusals to con-
vince her that he was not thirsty.
"Something to eat, then?" she pressed hospitably.
"Nothing, thanks. I've come to ask you an im-
portant question."
"Ask me anything, old dear. There's nothing I
wouldn't tell you. I can't read your books, Ran, but
you stand ace-high in every other way. Don't take
that chair. Sit here by me."
He sank among the billowing cushions of a Louis
Quinze sofa. "Now," he said, "what I want to know is
this: On the night of your party, was Tony with you
all of the time you were mixing the punch?"
[260]


Cabd 13
"Sure," she replied, with decision. "It must have
taken us half an hour. Everything went wrong that
night. I wanted grated onion with the caviar sand-
wiches, but Charlie's mulish cook left it out and I made
him do them over."
"He was at work in the kitchen all this time?"
"The cook? No. In the butler's pantry. Tony
mixed the punch in the kitchen. You see, the first
batch was no good. What I mixed myself, I mean,
because he was late. I hadn't enough gin. Tony had
promised to bring some of his stock. I asked him at
the Montmartre if he wouldn't."
"Did Tony leave the kitchen at any time?"
Dolly hesitated.
"Come to think of it, Ran," she said, with a change
of tone, "he did leave. He went to his car to get the
gin. You see, when he came, he told me he'd forgotten
to bring it. But he was just ragging me. He had it
in the car all the while."
"You did not mention this to the detectives."
"No. It slipped my mind."
"How long was he gone?"
"I hardly know. I was in and out of the butler's
pantry, keeping an eye on that stupid cook. And I
went to the basement to get some Scotch. I simply
won't let the butler have the keys to the supply. Any-
how, when I came back Tony was busy with the punch."
"Think carefully. Could Tony have been gone ten
minutes?"
"Easily."
"Or fifteen?"
"Yes, I think so. But what's the difference, Ran?
It wasn't then that he was shot. If you want my
[261]


Card 13
opinion, I'll tell you who killed him. It was that low-
lived slut, Saranoff. But you're not going!*' Dolly
struggled from her cushions. "Don't dash off. I want
to talk about something besides murder. Let's have a
little snifter to cheer us up."
He left amid her protesting wails that the evening
had just begun.
Early the next morning he called up Kent.
"If you are to be in my neighborhood," he said,
"drop in and I'll convince you that your case against
Gerald Hartley has blown up."
"So! You've dug up some new evidence?"
"I certainly have."
"It's evidence I'm looking for. You'll see me
pronto."
He was as good as his word and arrived within
half an hour. But Raneleigh's discovery of the leak
in the sequence of events leading to the murder left
him cold.
"Your method's all right," he conceded. "I've used
something like it myself occasionally. But your result
strikes me as unimportant. I don't see anything in
it. The fact that Gilmore went out to his machine
doesn't put the revolver back in his study."
"I'm positive that it does," said Raneleigh. "I
have a conviction, which nothing can shake, that the
one act followed the other. It's not five minutes'
drive to Tony's from the Brownrigg house at moderate
speed. He had no gin in the car when we set out for
the party."
"You're sure of that?"
"Absolutely sure. The ceiling light was- on when
I got in and I looked back to see if Tony had a lap-
[262]


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AILEEN DISAPPEARS
Some fourteen hours after Kent ventured into
prophecy, Los Angeles enjoyed a fresh thrill. As the
late theater crowds surged into the street that night
they were met by the hoarse shouts of the newsboys.
"Extra! Extra! New Gilmore mystery!"
"Extra! Extra! Aileen Gilmore disappears!"
The head-lines were as insistent as the cries. In
their boldest type, flung clear across the page, they
blazoned their sensational tidings.
AILEEN GILMORE DISAPPEARS
MBS. BAENETT GIVES ALARM. DISTRICT ATTORNEY ACTS
Nor were details lacking. Mrs. Barnett, aunt of
Tony Gilmore, whose death by shooting was still under
investigation, had gone that morning to her bank, leav-
ing Miss Gilmore at home with the maid. She had
returned, shortly after twelve, and found her niece
missing. The maid could offer no explanation. She
had been busy in the kitchen and supposed that the
girl was in her room. The only caller had been Selma
Saranoff. In the living-room Mrs. Barnett discovered
an order from the District Attorney, properly filled
out, directing Miss Gilmore to appear at his office at
one o'clock. She had at once telephoned the office, but
could obtain no word of her niece. Both the District
■
[264]


CARD 13
to share the astounding news with her chauffeur,
“What do you think, Oscar? Aileen Gilmore that
exquisite girl-has disappeared!”
Thinking was not Oscar's forte. He was a yes-
man.
“What do you know about that?"
Dolly's excitement grew as she read, and she issued
another bulletin.
“Selma Saranoff called at the Gilmore house just
before Aileen was missed! Do you get that, Oscar?
I tell you, when all the facts come out, the lid will
hit the sky. I heard a rumor to-night that they were
going to release Gerald Hartley. I never thought he
shot Tony. He hadn't the guts. But Saranoff did,
and I'll say so to my dying day.”
“I expect you will, Mrs. Brownrigg. There ain't
as I see it, nothing else for a sensible person, as knows
all the parties, to say."
"I agree with you.” With the same lucidity of
thought she came to a momentous decision. “I want
you to wait just long enough for me to phone," she
said, as the car swung into her driveway. "I'll be
right out and then you'll have to drive me to Saranoff's.
I'm going to take a hand in this investigation myself.”
“Yes, Mrs. Brownrigg,” replied Oscar. “It's all
right with me.”
Though she was by no means as prompt as her
promise, she found him still amiable and climbed so-
ciably into the seat beside him.
“I wish Charlie had your disposition,” she said.
“If I keep that man waiting five minutes he acts as if
I'd committed murder. Here is half a bottle of Scotch.
I don't want you to get chilled. Better have a drop."
[266]


Aileen Disappears
"After you, ma'am."
"I had a high-ball in the house. Put a good drink
under your belt."
Oscar obliged her.
"And now," she went on, "when we get to SaranofPs
I want you to go to the door with me and stick around
close. I'm actually afraid of that woman."
"From all I hear, Mrs. Brownrigg, she's a vixen.
I wish somebody would tell me how she gets away with
it."
"I can't," said Dolly self-righteously. "I just
don't understand her breed of cats. It isn't in me. If
I didn't feel it was my duty I wouldn't go near her.
I may be taking my life in my hands."
Despite the Scotch under his belt Oscar inclined
to pessimism.
"I don't rightly know why you're going, Mrs.
Brownrigg, but I sure hope it will turn out for the
best. I'd hate to see anything happen to you."
"What are you talking about, you crepe-hanger?
Nothing will happen to me."
He veered with the capricious wind.
"Of course not, Mrs. Brownrigg. I just said I'd
hate to see anything happen. And so I would, with
your husband away and all that."
"Next you'll be asking who's my favorite under-
taker!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What!"
"I mean no, Mrs. Brownrigg."
The arresting spectacle of Saranoff's house, blaz-
ing like a beacon on its hilltop, ended the discussion.
"Lighted from cellar to attic as usual!" snorted
[267]


Aileen Disappears
with the special edition of the newspaper which had
inspired this visit.
"Find it hot here?" asked Saranoff.
"Yes. It's like one of those ten-cent movies on
Main Street where your pictures go so big."
Selma lazily took a gold-tipped cigarette from a
gold case and lighted it with a gold lighter.
"My pictures," she said, puffing complacently, "go
big in every street, including Broadway, New York.
You know what that means, dear. You had a brief
look-in before you went flat like a punctured tire."
"I did not go flat. I retired because I couldn't
stand the associations."
"You preferred Charlie!"
"You bet. He, at least, is no degenerate."
"Isn't he?" Saranoff's voice became a hiss. "I
want to know what you're doing here? After all the
dirt you've done me I should think you'd be afraid to
come."
"Me! Why should I be afraid?"
"You may find out before you go."
"I guess not, Selma. You're the one who has some-
thing to fear."
Without warning Saranoff sprang at Mrs. Brown-
rigg and shook her till her teeth rattled. Then, with
another tigress leap, she crouched among her cushions,
panting, her green eyes aglare. Dolly fell back, limp
and bedraggled. Her coat lay at her feet. Her smart
hat was tilted over one ear. A wisp of bleached hair
obscured her right eye. The left looked startled and
dazed.
Whereupon, his countenance as placid as a god's,
the footman entered.
"A reporter, madam."
[269]


AlLEEN DlSAPPEABS
"You dare insult me—cheap old trouper that you
are—me, Selma Saranoff!"
"Excuse me," interposed the reporter, "hut will
you be kind enough, Miss Saranoff, to answer that
question?"
"I'll answer none of that cock-eyed slob's ques-
tions."
"Then I'll put it," he said. "What have you done
with Aileen Gilmore?"
"You're crazy. I've done nothing with her."
"But why did she disappear? Where is she?"
"My God, why ask me! Do I look like a detective?
Go to those wise guys who bulldoze innocent folks. Go
to that lousy Kent who thinks he's so clever. Go to
his side-kick, Arthur Raneleigh. There's another
smarty. He keeps an eye on the Gilmore girl. Go ask
him."
"You can't throw that bluff," said Dolly. "The
whole town knows you were the last one who saw her
alive."
"Alive! Is she dead?"
"Maybe you can tell us," challenged the reporter.
Her eyes flamed.
"This is more than I'll stand! I'll call the police.
Fll have you all arrested. I'll bring suit against you."
Whirling on Mrs. Brownrigg, she screamed: "You
framed this! I'll pay you up for it. I'll ruin you.
I'll ruin your fat-headed husband. I'll never let up on
you, so help me God!"
"God," replied Dolly smugly, "will have nothing to
do with the likes of you."
Happily for the champion of righteousness, the
lights went out and simultaneously the lackey and the
[271]


Card 13
chauffeur met the onslaught of an up-lifted chair. For
a moment the only news from the front was William's
impassioned warning to "watch out for her teeth," but
as the delighted reporter, punching button after button,
illuminated the field, it appeared that it was William
himself who was in danger. His arms girdled Sara-
nofPs middle, his head was thrust against her dia-
phragm, and she was doing her utmost to bite his ear.
Valiant Oscar, however, now launched an enveloping
movement from the rear and footed it briskly in a
primitive dance as he sought to avoid her kicks. The
enemy was surrounded and hard pressed, yet still un-
subdued. A stalemate impended. Troops, in them-
selves, could do no more. Generalship was needed.
Mrs. Brownrigg rallied and, keeping her distance
from the firing-line, as a general should, cheered on her
jaded forces.
"You've got her, boys! Don't let go! Twist her
arms, Oscar, and she'll behave. Billy, where's the
nearest phone? I'll call the police."
"Yes, call them!" shrieked Selma. "These ruffians
attacked me in the dark. Get the police and get them
quick! I'll give you a bellyful of that medicine. I'll
tell them what you've done."
"I'll find the phone," said the reporter, making a
dash for the hall.
He found it with no difficulty, but it was not the
police he called. As his voice, rapidly sketching his
story, drifted back to them, Saranoff relaxed in her
captors' embrace.
"She's passed out," gasped Oscar, alarmed at this
turn of affairs. "What'll we do?"
"Over to the davenport with her," said William,
[272]


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IDA HUNTEE'S ALIBI
While the excitement over Aileen's disappearance
flamed through Los Angeles and Hollywood, Raneleigh,
too busy to glance at a newspaper, remained unaware
of all the pother. From early morning till late at
night, he had steadily advanced in his self-appointed
task of bringing to a final solution the mystery which
shrouded the murder of his friend.
As soon as Kent left him that day, with the avowed
intention of putting the screws on Holkar, he took up
his telephone and called Ida Hunter's hotel. He heaved
a thankful sigh as he recognized her voice. No delay
here, at any rate.
"I want to see you, Mrs. Hunter," he explained.
"The matter is urgent. I'll come over any time this
morning you say."
"I don't want to see you," she replied sharply.
"You know my story. I won't be pestered again."
"I appreciate your feelings. But a little talk with
me will probably save you further annoyance."
"Do your talking now."
"Over the wire? You'd hardly care for that. Nor
should I, Mrs. Hunter. This business is too personal.
You'll understand when I see you."
She still held out, and it took all his suavity, his
persuasiveness, his polite insistence, to win her grudg-
ing consent. She would give him a few minutes if he
[274]


Card 13
"Then tell me the truth. It will help a lot, Mrs.
Hunter. Was the revolver there?"
She hesitated, her large eyes doubtfully searching
his.
"You can trust me with the truth," he said.
"Well, I'll risk it. Yes, the revolver was in the
top drawer of the desk."
Raneleigh drew a long breath.
"I knew it! And the flask—was that also in the
drawer?"
"Yes. The two were together." .
"You told Mr. Kent that you took up the flask.
Did you touch the revolver?"
"Yes." Her voice broke. She bent her head and
covered her eyes with her hand.
He waited a moment.
"Will you tell me why you touched it?"
"I was all in, Mr. Raneleigh. I loved Tony. You
alone seem to understand it. From the first I loved
him. He was different from the rest—the other men
I'd known. I tried desperately to hold him. But that
Saranoff woman got him away from me. And I saw
nothing ahead of me. Nothing. Tony wouldn't lift
a hand to help me in the movies, and you can't get
anywhere in that game unless you have a backer."
She lifted her head and her eyes flashed. "It's hard on
a decent girl who's always done her best. You men
don't know your luck. Anyhow, I was discouraged.
It seemed to me I'd reached the end of my rope. So,
when I saw that gun, I was tempted to kill myself
there in his room. I thought he'd feel sorry. And I
thought, too, that maybe it would spoil his career.
The scandal, I mean. You see, I hated him at times.
[276]


Ida Hunter's Alibi
Isn't it queer, Mr. Raneleigh, how you can love and
hate some one at the same time?"
"Very queer." He was appalled by her darkly
brooding look and swung back to the main issue. "So
you decided against such a spectacular exit? You
realized that suicide solves no problems?"
"You get me, Mr. Raneleigh."
"Did you put the revolver back in the drawer?"
"I don't think so."
"But why," he pursued, "did you not admit to Mr.
Kent that you saw the revolver?"
"I'm afraid of those detectives." Her eyes rolled,
like a negro's, with their whites to the fore. "I thought
if they knew the gun was there they'd switch from
Saranoff and frame a case against me."
"But your alibi is all right, isn't it?"
"Yes, Mr. Raneleigh. But these bulls stick at
nothing. You can't trust them at all."
"You said, in Kent's office, that you took a sip or
taste from the flask."
"So I did. What of it?"
"I'm not blaming you. Tony carried the best."
"Well, I'm not a booze-hound," she rejoined. "But
that night I certainly needed a bracer."
"No doubt." He was mindful of the ashes damp-
ened with liquor. "Can you give me an idea of how
much was left in the flask when you put it down?"
"It was probably half full."
"Did you throw away what remained?"
"Throw it away! Why should I do such a fool
thing? That's a silly question."
"Perhaps it was. Now, tell me, why did you stop
in the middle of the letter you were writing?"
[277]


Card 13
"It was just as I explained to the detective. I
heard some one in the hall and at the window. It was
spooky and I got out."
"I don't wonder." Raneleigh rose. He was ex-
cited and eager to go, but lingered to be polite.
"You've been of great help, Mrs. Hunter. I can't
thank you enough. If there is anything at any time I
can do for you, let me know, won't you?"
"I sure will. And I'll say you've treated me like
a lady. But wait a minute. Does what I've told you
about the gun let Selma off?"
"Yes. Don't you want her cleared since she's not
guilty?"
"I hate her, Mr. Raneleigh. She ran after Tony
something shameless. That's why I lost out. I always
did have dignity and a sense of decency."
"They're admirable traits," he replied with a
straight face. "Now if there is nothing I can do for
you, I'll be on my way."
Her gaze became speculative as she offered her
hand.
"It's terribly lonely now that Tony's gone. I've
no one to take his place."
"An attractive girl like you," he countered gal-
lantly, "will not be lonely long." And on that optimis-
tic note, he fled.
He went out exalted by his success. He had it at
last—the missing link, the essential clue, the key to
the enigma. The revolver, as he had steadfastly held,
was indeed in Tony's room just before the murder.
Then, abruptly, his mood changed. He had cleared
Hartley, he had cleared Saranoff, but whom did his
discovery implicate? Would Kent cling to his latest
[278]


Card 13
across the threshold. Her eyes shone. Her color was
high.
"I saw you coming. But, oh, Ran," she exclaimed,
"you're just too late! Miss Saranoff left not five
minutes ago."
"Miss Saranoff! What was she doing here?"
"She brought me flowers—the loveliest orchids and
lilies of the valley. Here they are!" She pulled him
excitedly into the living-room. "Aren't they gorgeous?
Wasn't it sweet of her?"
"Very," he replied dryly, and awaited further
tokens of Selma's sweetness.
"Luckily I was dressed," continued Aileen. "Aunt
Harriet went to the bank this morning, and I came
down-stairs for a book at the very moment Miss Sara-
noffs limousine drew up. The maid showed her in.
She looked stunning, Ran."
"She came in, you say?"
"Yes, with the flowers. I was petrified at first. The
other day at the lawyer's office, you remember, I hardly
knew what to make of her. She was so—so overpower-
ing. But she wasn't at all like that to-day. She was
simply darling, and I'm glad she called. I'm sure she
had nothing to do with Tony's death. She spoke of
him with tears in her eyes. I'm sure she adored him."
"You may be right. Now get your hat and a warm
coat. It's a wonderful morning and you should be out-
doors. I'm going to take you for a drive."
"But Aunt Harriet told me not to leave the house."
"Aileen, how old are you?"
"Twenty. You know it, Ran."
"Then you're old enough to make decisions for
yourself. Come along."
[280]


Ida Hunter's Alibi
"Aunt Harriet won't like it. I've really no excuse."
"I'll attend to that," he said, opening his card-
case. "Here is a signed order from the District At-
torney's office." He took his pen and filled in two
blank spaces. "It cites you to appear to-day at one
o'clock. Leave it on that table. Mrs. Barnett would
not expect you to disregard such a summons."
Aileen threw him the look of a puzzled child. He
found it at once dear and provoking. He was feverish
with suspense.
"If you're sure it's all right
"I'll make it all right. Let's not waste time."
She fetched a hat and coat from the hall closet, and
he whisked her out of the house and into his car. Lest
he meet Mrs. Barnett he turned off the street at the
first intersection and headed toward the hills.
"Isn't this a roundabout way to the District At-
torney's office?" she asked presently.
"We'll forget the District Attorney," he replied.
"That order was given me by Mr. Kent for use in case
of emergency. So I used it. I wanted to have you to
myself to-day, Aileen."
"But where are we going?"
"Must we have a destination? Very well, then.
Say, Calabasas. We'll take in the rodeo."
She accepted the adventure with a sigh of content
and snuggled by his side.
"It does seem good to be out with you again," she
owned.
"Does it? I'm glad. I'd begun to think I'd quite
lost my playfellow."
She was silent as they climbed Cahuenga Pass, and
the road becoming congested for a time, he did not
[281]


Card 13
glance at her till they reached the floor of the San
Fernando Valley. Then he saw that she wept.
"Isn't this to be a happy day, my dear?"
"Do you suppose, Ran, I'll ever be happy again?"
"Why not? That's what Tony would wish."
"I know. And because I know, it makes me miser-
able to think how I talked to him that last night. If
only I could tell him "She ended with a sob.
A light broke for Raneleigh.
"Have you ever tried?"
"Yes," she admitted. "One night I went down to
his study. I'd been reading a book about such things."
"Psychical research?"
"Yes. I took the book with me and, by and by, it
seemed as if he were very close. I felt that, if I were
to sit in his bedroom, in darkness, he would speak to
me. But nothing happened. Then I found that Ling
had been killed. It shattered my faith. I haven't had
the heart to try it since."
"I wouldn't if I were you. And you must not brood
over your last talk with Tony. He felt sorry for
you. He told me so. He bore no resentment."
"He never did, Ran. He was always an angel to
me. I can't believe he was as bad as—as I've heard."
"Don't believe it. It was his success, the crowd
he was thrown with, that made him do wild things."
"You mean his affairs with women?" Aileen had
the candor of her generation.
"Yes."
"I can see how Miss Saranoff would fascinate !iim^J
she said, after a pause. "But that Hunter girl, no. I
felt as Aunt Harriet did about her. She was shameless.
Once she even spent the night in his rooms."
[282]


Ida Hunter's Alibi
"What is it, Ran? The view?"
"Yes, the view." While she gazed he won hack his
composure. "Aileen," he said gravely, "I know now that
your aunt hated Tony. She cares, perhaps, for you,
but it's doing you no good to be with her. Will you
let me direct you for a time?"
"If Aunt Harriet will consent."
"You answer me with the habit of years. She never
will consent. It is your aunt I want to save you from,
Aileen."
"Save me!"
"Yes. We won't mince words. You understand.
You know there's something wrong. You must not go
back. I'm going to take you, right now, to Santa
Barbara. I want you to remain there with a friend
of mine and Tony's. I mean Mrs. Haldane. I think
you met her last summer."
"Yes, I remember. She's lovely."
"She's everything that's fine. You needn't feel that
you'll be a burden. She's living at the Samarcand this
winter and she'll gladly look after you for your own
sake no less than Tony's. You're to stay with her
there at the hotel, Aileen. You're not to write your
aunt or in any way let her know where you are till you
hear from me. Will you trust me? Will you be guided
by me, for this once, just as if I were your brother?"
"Yes," she assented. "I'll do anything you say.
I'm thankful to get away, Ran. It—it has been ter-
rible." Her tears flowed again. Then, womanlike:
"But I have no clothes. Not a change. No toilet
articles. Nothing for the night."
"Are there no shops in Santa Barbara! You and
Mrs. Haldane will have a shopping orgy this very day.
[2851


Card 13
The Hindu smiled.
"To the last limit, Mr. Raneleigh."
"May I ask if you have had an intuition regarding
Tony's death?"
He shook his head.
"I have not."
He seemed on the verge of saying more, and Ran-
eleigh, emulating the man's own patience, forbore to
press him. He divined that he was as little to be
hurried as the slow-changing East from which he came.
Several minutes passed. Then Holkar brushed his
hand across his eyes.
"An intuition, no. But I have had, for many days,
a strange, haunting obsession. It is too absurd to be
given weight. It serves no purpose. I get from it
no flash of truth."
"Yet you are psychic."
"I thought I was."
"I feel sure you are. And Tony, of course, was
convinced of it. You influenced him tremendously."
"No," said Holkar. "Interested is the word. My
friend, with all his faults, his errors of the flesh, had
the true fire. That is why, Mr. Raneleigh, you and I
loved him."
"We knew that the essential Tony was quite differ-
ent from the successful Tony."
"Yes."
Holkar lapsed into another long silence.
"I know," he said at last, "that many Americans
think all Orientals are—what is the expression?—
balmy. But you, Mr. Raneleigh, have more knowledge,
more understanding, than most. There is wisdom in
you and in your books."
[288]


Cabd 13
When the Hindu resumed his armchair before the
hearth the room became instantly so still that the flicker
of the blaze was audible and Raneleigh thought he heard
a faint rustle in the hall. Was Gwan eavesdropping in
the service of his master? He dismissed the thought
with a smile. He no longer took the coolie seriously.
Holkar's manner had disarmed him. He met trust with
trust.
"Before I tell my story," he began, "I should like
to put another question. Do you know—or have you
any cause to think—that, on the night of his death,
Tony came back alone to his house at perhaps half past
ten o'clock?"
"I think he came," Holkar replied.
"You did not see him, then?"
"No. But as later that night, I saw the flash of his
car-lamps and heard the sound of a machine in the
driveway. I also saw a light go on in his study. In a
minute or two the car drove away. I think it was he."
"It was," said Raneleigh. "I am sure of it. Tony
returned to get gin for Mrs. Brownrigg. He was gone
from her house less than a quarter of an hour. I dis-
covered this fact only last night. It is most important.
Do you see why?"
"Yes."
"Had you thought of it before?"
"Many times. It was because I realized from the
first how important it might be that I refrained from
speaking of it. It seemed best that the detectives should
believe that Tony had the revolver with him, that he
had no opportunity to return it to his rooms. I wanted
to believe it myself, but I began to doubt."
"Then you don't know? It's merely a surmise?"
[290]


What Holkae. Saw
"Yes. A surmise."
"Now," said Raneleigh, "I'll tell you what my in-
tuition to-day made clear. I think that Mrs. Barnett,
whose room is over the driveway, saw the automobile
lights, about ten-thirty, just as you did. She heard
some one enter the house. She came down-stairs, found
Tony's door ajar and saw him take the gin from the
cellarette. She was furious because, as you know, she
is an ardent prohibitionist."
"I know. The poor woman fancies that her devil
dwells in alcohol."
"Very well. She and Tony had words as had often
happened. He told her to get out. He followed at
once and in his haste left the key in the outside of the
study door."
"This, too, is surmise?"
"Yes. Then Mrs. Barnett went back to bed. She
was so wrought up over what had occurred that she
could not sleep. An hour later she got up. From her
window she saw you looking into Tony's study. There
was a dim light in his room."
"Yes. In that respect, your surmise is correct."
Holkar's expression had changed. A film was form-
ing over his eyes. Drowsiness enveloped him.
"Then," continued Raneleigh, "the indomitable
woman put on her stockings, her slippers and her
dressing-gown. She took the kid curlers from her hair,
missing only one. Her sense of propriety was such that
she would not appear in dishabille even before a bur-
glar. She went down, stealthily took the key from the
study door and peered through the keyhole. The type-
writer was in her line of vision. She saw, facing the
door, a woman. Perhaps she recognized her. Perhaps
[291]


Card 13
ishingly, began to slap his face. Hypnotists, Ran-
eleigh knew, sometimes brought their subjects back to
consciousness in this manner, but he did not relish seeing
the majestic Hindu so treated.
"Look here, Gwan!" he protested, switching on the
lights, "I don't quite like that."
Holkar sat up and blinked at the light, and the
servant at once withdrew. There was manifestly no
need for electric bells in this house.
"I'm afraid," said Raneleigh, "your little nap made
you lose the thread of my story."
"No. I heard it all and saw it as it happened."
His tone was matter-of-fact. "Now, if you wish, we
will open the sealed envelope."
"Is it perfectly agreeable to you?"
"Perfectly."
On the sheet of note-paper were two words only:
"Mrs. Barnett."
Raneleigh folded the paper and replaced it in the
envelope.
"This is very curious. May I keep it?"
"Certainly."
"It means that we are of like mind?"
"Throughout, Mr. Raneleigh."
"You said that you saw it as it happened. Did
you actually see Mrs. Barnett do any of these things?"
"I did not see her at all—at the time."
"At the time?"
"It is for the past twenty-four hours that I have
been obsessed by this picture of events. I call it a pic-
ture because it unrolled like a film. But I could not
credit its reality."
"You still suspected Aileen?"
[294]


Card 13
"I had intended going there before I went home,"
he said. "That's why I asked you to meet me here."
"Asked me to meet you? Like hell you did?"
"Didn't you get my note?"
"I did not." Kent was still boiling.
"That's strange. I sent it to your office by special
messenger at six o'clock. I had telephoned your secre-
tary. He told me you were coming back. I made it
clear that the note was most important."
"Damn that bonehead! But note or no note,
you've messed things up in fine shape." He mopped
his streaming forehead. "I tell you there's been hell
to pay."
"We needed a little hell to clarify the case," said
Raneleigh quietly. "Will you and Mr. Holkar come
with me to Mrs. Barnett?"
"With her perhaps at death's door! Has this
sleuthing turned your wits? What's the big idea now?"
"The big idea," he answered, "is that Mrs. Barnett
killed Tony. I want her confession before it's too late."
[296]


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE WAGES OF SIN
Kent, once convinced that Raneleigh knew what
he was about, became all eagerness for the interview.
"Yet it's a ticklish job," he said. "The Doctor is
likely to shove in his oar."
"Is he in the house?"
"Yes. He drove up just ahead of me. Chirpman's
a great deal of a four-flusher. We may have to take
him into our confidence."
This, however, proved unnecessary. When Doctor
Chirpman finally bustled down-stairs he was intent on
his next patient and would have gone directly out had
Raneleigh not stepped from the living-room and inter-
cepted him.
"What are Mrs. Barnett's chances of recovery,
Doctor?"
"We physicians do not venture to prophesy in such
cases," he said pompously. "Another lesion may fol-
low at any time. On the other hand, she may be almost
herself again in a few weeks. Just now she is in a
highly nervous condition which possibly you can re-
lieve. She keeps asking for you and her niece."
"I can reassure her about Aileen."
"Then do so. I will instruct the nurse." Doctor
Chirpman bounded up to the landing and conferred
with the excessively starched female Raneleigh had
seen there before. "Be brief," he charged, returning.
[297]


The Wages of Sin
"Decent! Who is decent in this place? Anthony
wasn't. That dreadful Saranoff isn't. Gerald Hartley
isn't, though the weak thing wanted to be. The Brown-
rigg woman isn't decent. Nor that Hunter trollop!
Ungodly, all of them! Do you know that Anthony re-
peatedly had that Hunter girl here, in this house?
Here, where his sister lived! And I, a respectable
church-going woman all my life!" Her voice had risen
to a hysterical pitch.
"Try not to get excited," he begged. "Don't talk
if it excites you."
"I must talk, Arthur. For this ends it." Her
voice broke, but after a moment she grew more calm.
"I shan't be here long. This world has been too much
for me. And this ungodly age! Everything I believe
in, everything I lived for, is flouted and outraged."
"It's a difficult time for all who cling to the old
standards," he said gently. "Nothing has been quite
the same since the war. Now, Mrs. Barnett, are you
willing to tell me about Tony?"
"What do you mean?" She was instantly wary.
Her defenses, so skilfully guarded, still held.
"I know how he met his death, Mrs. Barnett."
"You know!"
"Yes."
Silent, her eyes closed, she grappled with the fact
that he knew.
"I hope," he prompted, "that you are now willing
to make it all clear."
She opened her eyes with a bewildered stare.
"It isn't clear to me, Arthur. It's all so very ter-
rible. I can hardly believe it myself."
"I think I understand." •
f2991


The Wages of Sin
"Sorry for the sin or that you don't agree with
me?"
"For both, perhaps."
She smiled faintly.
"You always could get around me, Ran. I wish
Anthony had been like you."
"He was more like me than you thought. Now,
when you saw him at the cellarette, you scolded him,
didn't you?"
"Yes. He was very angry and very hurried. He
pushed me aside and locked the cupboard and told me
to get out. That's how he spoke to me who had tried
to be a mother to him!"
Raneleigh sighed. There was the root of the
trouble. Tony had hated mothering and, half in
bravado, had gone his own way.
"And then, Mrs. Barnett, did you see him take a
flask and his revolver from his pockets and leave them
in the top drawer of his desk?"
Would she have the courage to admit this? She lay
silent so long that Kent stirred. Raneleigh shook his
head. Her lips had parted.
"Yes. He left the flask and the revolver in the
drawer."
There was a movement, a stifled exclamation, in
the hall.
"Who was that?" The sick woman tried to raise
herself.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Barnett. Tell me the whole
story. It's the only thing to do."
"Yes," she said resignedly. "It's the only thing
left to do before I go to my Maker. He will judge be-
tween me and Anthony. I must put my trust in Him."
[303]


Card 13
"Yes, Ran."
"You felt that Tony had gone quite out of bounds—
that Aileen would be ruined if he continued on his mad
way—that you must do something?"
"You understand."
"I'm trying to understand, Mrs. Barnett. When
you picked up the revolver did you wrap a handkerchief
about it?"
"You know that, too?" she said wonderingly. "I
was afraid of the thing. I intended—I think—to hide
it. I've always been afraid of firearms."
"And while you stood there, with the pistol in your
hand, you heard Tony drive in again?"
"Yes. And I heard a woman's voice. She was
laughing drunkenly. It was disgusting, wicked, abom-
inable. I thought "She stopped, and for the first
time tears were in her eyes. It was Raneleigh who wiped
them away.
"You were telling me what you thought."
"I thought that the woman who had been there an
hour before was coming back with him. He had
promised me—promised me on his honor—that he would
never bring her to the house. I stepped out of the side
door. I did not know what to do. I heard more tipsy
laughter. I saw Anthony through the bushes. Some-
thing possessed me. I fired."
"And you regret it now?"
"Yes, oh, yes! Night and day, a thousand times,
I have regretted it. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'
What can a lone woman do in an age that flouts God
and decency? The burden has been too great. It has
crushed me. I want to die."
"You must rest now. Shall I call the nurse?"
[306]


The Wages op Sin
"Yes. I'm tired. Life has tired me—worn me
out."
"Do you want me to get Aileen?"
"No. She would not understand. She fears me—
hates me now, I think. It is my punishment."
He groped for words to comfort her.
"Perhaps the punishment lies in our every act. To
know all is to forgive all. Can't you believe that—even
of Tony?"
She sighed wearily.
"It's too confusing. I have tried to do right, yet
evil has come out of it. Why, Ran? Why?"
"Who can answer that? Life takes us and uses us
to its ends. Don't puzzle over it, Mrs. Barnett. Try
to sleep."
Her eyelids closed drowsily. He heard her mur-
mur "Aileen" and then, after a pause, "Tony!" Yet,
when he rose, her eyes again sought his.
"I shall sleep, Ran. A long, long sleep. Good-by."
[307]


Card 13
"No. Nor do I think that she touched the trigger
accidentally. But it was a chain of circumstances,
not her will, that put the pistol in her hand at the
moment Tony drove in. Even then, but for Selma's
tipsy laughter, the shot would not have been fired.
In that sense, you see, it was accidental."
"I don't take much stock in such hair-splitting."
"I admit that the theory of inevitability is better,"
said Raneleigh. "Imagine her feelings when she saw
the Hunter girl in Tony's rooms!"
"Furious, of course."
"She was more than furious. She was frantic.
For weeks she had burned with a high and noble resolve.
She felt it her duty—heaven-imposed perhaps—to put
a stop to Tony's misconduct. She had to do it. Two
forces impelled her. One was her belief that her own
standards laid on her shoulders the burden of turning
him from a way of life that flaunted them. The other,
as powerful, was her devotion to Aileen. She loved
her with a passion I had never realized, and this pas-
sion made it imperative for her to act as she did. She
saw no choice. If she did not bring Tony to his senses,
Aileen would be ruined."
"But the girl was leading a quiet decent life."
"Yes. But she longed to succeed in pictures. She
was avid about the stars and their doings. It was a
passing phase, as I happen to know. She's all over it
now. Yet, if Tony had lived, Mrs. Barnett would have
lost her fight and Aileen would, in her opinion, have
gone straight to perdition."
"The old lady was mighty sure of herself," said
Kent. "Didn't she ever doubt her own standards?"
"Never. She was, I think, what the psychologists
call an introvert"
[312]


Kent Says Au Revoib
"Dope that out for me, will you?"
"Her mind turned inward. What she saw there
seemed to be the world. The interest of such a person
is possessive—just as Mrs. Barnett's was as regards
Aileen. Introverts believe absolutely in the Tightness
of their own standards and are blind to any other.
They are stubborn and determined. With them to take
a position is to hold it, come what may. They have
unlimited and unswerving faith in themselves. They
have faces like masks, so well can they hide their feel-
ings. They are poised, steady, firm. The type tends
to become a crank."
"Psychology, eh? I've always felt that the theo-
retical side of it, as applied to the solution of crime,
was mostly nonsense, but I'll have to admit that you've
used it to some purpose. Not that I'm convinced it
turned the trick. At any rate, you win. Once in a
while an amateur gets a lucky break."
"That was probably the way of it, Kent. I merely
beat you to it."
"Yes," he said, "I'd have got there sooner or later.
Where I lost out was in neglecting your hunch about
the flask."
"It wasn't exactly a hunch, Kent. I knew that I
had seen Tony slip it in his pocket. When it turned
up afterward on the desk I naturally wondered how it
got there and, just as naturally, connected it with the
revolver. From that point on it was mainly guess-
work."
"Good guessing, I'll say. But there are still some
things that puzzle me. What do you make of the door,
leading from the kitchen closet, that Black uncovered?
It had been opened recently. The faded strips on the
(paper showed it."
[313]


Kent Says Au Revoir
"Your word is good enough for me," said the in-
vestigator. "As for the public, the best you can hope
is that they'll forget. To go back to the concealed
door, we were naturally misled there. With the letters
stolen, it seemed dead certain that whoever took them
got in that way. It goes to show how easily the best
of us can be fooled."
"It never occurred to you that Holkar could have
taken the letters with a police officer on guard?"
"No. Damned clever, that Hindu! I can't get it
out of my craw that he's implicated even deeper than
we know."
"Not a bit of it," protested Raneleigh. "Holkar
has a clean slate. I've come to respect him immensely."
"He did shady things."
"Only in the effort to protect Miss Gilmore."
Kent shrugged good-humoredly.
"I can't expect you to see eye to eye with me where
she is concerned. Nevertheless, that brown mystic of
yours gives me the creeps."
"Race prejudice," Raneleigh assured him. "You
saw no good in Ling, yet he was a faithful soul."
"Harmless as a dove, eh?"
His tone was sardonic.
"Wasn't he harmless?" asked Raneleigh. "What
had he to do with all this? What lay behind his
murder?"
"That's one of the things I came here to tell you,
Black and I were working on the Chink's case the day
you carried off Miss Gilmore. The boy was caught in
a Tong war. We unearthed evidence which proves that
by order of his Tong he killed Wat Su, a rich old
dealer in cheap coral and bogus jade, who was bumped
[315]


Cabd 13
off a month ago. And that's how he let himself in for
the death that came to him. Fate, I suppose, he would
have called it."
"A Tong war! You believe that such things are
going on, right here in Los Angeles, to-day?"
"Believe? It's not a matter of faith, Raneleigh. I
know it."
"But Ling appeared to be the most peaceable
creature imaginable."
"He was. It's unlikely that he had anything to do
with the flare-up between the Tongs. He was merely
the instrument of destiny." The investigator paused,
his gaze abstracted. "The instrument of destiny,"
he repeated slowly. "Why shouldn't we make use of
it?"
Raneleigh had learned, during their brief ac-
quaintance, to look for the unexpected in this man, but
he had no faintest inkling of the surprise now to come.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Kent. "If I can
bring it off, I'm going to hang Gilmore's murder on the
Chink."
"On Ling?" exclaimed Raneleigh.
"Yes. Why not? The papers must have a solu-
tion. There's nothing to be gained by dragging in
Mrs. Barnett's name. If the Chief will consent, I'll give
out that, in the light of new evidence, we're convinced
that Ling shot Gilmore by mistake. He took him for
a member of the enemy Tong sent to get him. How
does the idea strike you?"
"Rather questionable ethics, isn't it?"
"Ethics be damned. It's the decent thing to do.
Out here, in the early days, when they didn't want to
hang a white man they picked a Chink. Well, our
[316]








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