Black Cat Weekly #10

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

THE CAT’S MEOW

ONE CORPSE, GUARANTEED! by Murray Leinster

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

THIEVES’ BLUEPRINT, by Dale Clark

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

ONLY TIME WILL TELL, by Hal Charles

THE DUELIST, by David Dean

BULL-DOG DRUMMOND’S THIRD ROUND by Sapper

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

THE BROKEN MARCONIGRAM, by Frank Lovell Nelson

TAP DANCING, by John Gregory Betancourt

THE DANGEROUS SCARECROW by Carl Jacobi

REVOLT OF THE OUTWORLDS, by Stephen Marlowe (writing as Milton Lesser)

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

SECRET OF THE RED SPOT, by Eando Binder

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2021 by Wildside Press LLC.

Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

*

Broken Marconigram, by Frank Lovell Nelson, was originally published in newspaper syndication in 1908.

Only Time Will Tell is copyright © 2021 by Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

The Duelist is copyright © 2019 by David Dean. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, May/June 2019. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Sympathy for Mad Scientists is copyright © 1998 by John Gregory Betancourt. Originally published in Horrors! 365 Scary Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Thieves’ Blueprint was originally published in G-Men Detective, June 1943. Copyright © 1943, 1971 by Ronal Keyser. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

One Corpse, Guaranteed!by Murray Leinster, originally published in Famous Detective, August 1950.

Bull-Dog Drummond’s Third Round, by Sapper, was originally published in 1924.

Tap Dancing is copyright © 1991 by John Gregory Betancourt. It originally appeared in Weird Tales #300 (Spring 1991). Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Dangerous Scarecrow by Carl Jacobi, originally appeared in Imagination, August 1954. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

Revolt of the Outworlds, by Stephen Marlowe (writing as Milton Lesser), was originally published in Imagination, December 1954.

Secret of the Red Spot is copyright © 1971 by Otto O. Binder. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

THE CAT’S MEOW

Welcome to Black Cat Weekly #10. Carlton Clarke, the famed Chicago telepathic detective, returns to our pages with The Broken Marconigram. First published in 1915, this tale takes Clarke and Sexton, his Watson, to New Orleans in search of a friend who’s been kidnapped by a Satanic cult. These chronicles of the first telepathic detective originally appeared in newspaper syndication across the United States in 1908, and I continue to be impressed by them. There is much here for Sherlock Holmes fans to appreciate.

Our roving mystery editor, Barb Goffman, has tracked down by gem by David Dean, The Duelist. Plus Hal Charles—the byline of writing team Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet—contributes another solve-it-yourself mystery.

Prolific pulp author Dale Clark—whose copyrights I purchased some years ago—makes his Weekly debut with a terrific World War II-era tale about an undercover F.B.I agent. I don’t think it’s ever been reprinted. And science fiction writer Murray Leinster (real name Will Jenkins) contributes one of his rare mysteries, One Corpse, Guaranteed! They don’t make titles like that any more!

This issue’s mystery novel is a Bull-Dog Drummond tale by Sapper. See my introduction for more info on this series and author.

And that’s just the mysteries!

For science fiction fans, we have The Dangerous Scarecrow, by Carl Jacobi—he was a member of the Lovecraft Circle, whose talents extended far beyond weird fantasy into science fiction. Plus I’ve snuck in another of my own tales, Tap Dancing, a gentle ghost story. I never truly understood it when other writers said some stories were gifts that just came to them—until this story came to me. George Scithers placed it in the 300th issue of Weird Tales. It was the best thing I had written at that point in my career, and I wrote it almost word for word in its final form in one sitting. Truly it was a gift.

We have not one, but two science fiction novels—Eando Binder’s 1971 classic, The Secret of the Red Spot, and Stephen Marlowe’s Revolt of the Outworlders. Good stuff.

Here’s the complete lineup:

Mysteries

One Corpse, Guaranteed! by Murray Leinster [short story]

Thieves’ Blueprint, by Dale Clark [short story]

Only Time Will Tell, by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself short-short]

The Duelist, by David Dean [Barb Goffman Presents short story]

Bull-Dog Drummond’s Third Round, by Sapper [novel, Bulldog Drummond series]

The Broken Marconigram, by Frank Lovell Nelson [short story, Carlton Clarke #9]

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Tap Dancing, by John Gregory Betancourt[short story]

The Dangerous Scarecrow, by Carl Jacobi [short story]

Revolt of the Outworlds, by Stephen Marlowe [novel]

The Secret of the Red Spot, by Eando Binder [novel]

Enjoy!

—John Betancourt

Editor, Black Cat Weekly

ONE CORPSE, GUARANTEED!

by Murray Leinster

CHAPTER 1

WE HAD just reached the salad course when Adele—she sat next to me at dinner—looked again at Tom Cantrell and made a small sound of satisfaction. Then she nodded to me.

That’s it, she said confidentially. I’ve got it now!

Got what? I asked.

An explanation of our host, she told me. He rather alarmed me at first. He’s so—overpowering. But now I know what he is; he’s an extrovert.

He’s what they named it for, I said, —or should have.

She took no risk in saying that of Cantrell. He sat at the head of the table, big and white-maned and beaming, in love with himself and the world and filled with beaming triumph. I regarded him with detached foreboding. When Cantrell was triumphant, other people were apt to be uncomfortable.

He’s an extrovert, repeated Adele, about to—to—what is the word? Swimmers swim; Burglars burgle. What do extroverts do?

They show off, I said.

Jermyn, the butler, changed my plate. Adele waited until he moved away, then smiled frankly at me. Will he, tonight? she asked. Show off, I mean.

He will also breathe, I told her. He looks like he has something special in mind, though, and his schemes usually make other people uncomfortable. Not intentionally, perhaps, but they do.

Cantrell boomed at me. Morden! Sam Morden! If you can tear your eyes away from the young lady—

I flushed. I didn’t hear you before.

I’ve been talking to Purcell here, boomed Cantrell zestfully. He’s a photographer, Sam. An artist photographer. He’s going to take pictures of my collection for some stupid picture magazine... Have you met him?

He waved a ham of a hand. I had seen Purcell before dinner, and I’d been introduced to him by Cantrell’s nephew Terry. We nodded to each other again.

’Telling him about my Fouche traveling-desk, said Cantrell. You tell him about it, Sam.

I looked at Purcell and said carefully; It’s a very nice piece. A traveling-desk, Empire, in rosewood and apple, with sand-box and inkbottles complete. There’s not much doubt that it belonged to Fouche, Napoleon’s Minister of Police, you remember. In Bourrine’s memoirs he mentions Fouche writing at that desk, giving orders for sabotage or that ghastly spy-school of his.

Cantrell chuckled. Adele looked at me interestedly. Am I sitting next to a monster of erudition, or what? she asked. How do you know such details?

Business, I admitted. By profession I deal in fine furniture and objects of art. You might say antiques if you want to be unpleasant; I’ve sold Cantrell some stuff.

Cantrell raised his voice. He boomed out a detailed account of the spy-school Fouche created for Napoleon, relishing every word of it. That school took abandoned or kidnapped children of every nationality and trained them to be ruthless and dependable secret agents. It also supplied Fouche with a series of youthful mistresses, who were later his spies as well.

Adele listened for a moment or two, and shivered. I don’t like that, she admitted to me. He—

He collects pieces associated with the most disreputable characters of history, I explained. I don’t think he’d harm a fly out of malice, but he isn’t remarkably tactful and—as you said—he’s an extrovert. That’s all.

Cantrell went on. The story about the spy-school is quite authentic; his face got redder and he beamed more widely as he saw faces turned to him. To Cantrell, happiness seemed to consist of having people look at him with strong emotion. Of any sort.

Adele turned her head away from him. Let’s talk about something else, she urged. Don’t you know any nice, homey scandal about somebody here tonight?

No-o-o-o, I said. I’m afraid not. Being in the family, you’d know any scandal I did.

Oh, but I’m not really in the family, she told me, I think our host is my second cousin once removed, or something like that. Nothing that really counts. I was visiting Aunt Cassie —her eyes went to Mrs. Winthrop, across the table —when she packed up to come here. I’m close enough kin to be brought along, but that’s all. We just got here this morning.

She added with amiable malice. It’s hoped to have something promised for Joe’s education, but I’m the poor relation of a poor relation.

Cantrell’s story came to an end. Mrs. Winthrop said, You have such fascinating possessions, Tom! You must have an extraordinary talent for finding them!

Wait till after dinner! he said gleefully. I’m going to put on a show that’ll make Sam Morden want to cut his throat! You haven’t seen anything yet!

Sitting at the head of the table, shaking with amusement, Cantrell wore the expression of a cat that has swallowed an unprecedented number of canaries. He cocked an eye at me. Remember that South American stuff, Sam?

I nodded.

Did you hear about my new rococo desk?

I nodded again. I hadn’t seen it. I’d heard of it and its association with a fine scoundrel named Poisson, and that it had been sent to Cantrell on approval. He’d evidently bought it.

Just wait till after dinner! repeated Cantrell. You’re going to be hit harder than you were by that South American stuff!

Adele touched my arm, as I stared at my plate. Talk scandal to me, she whispered. If you don’t say something soon, he’ll know he has you disturbed.

I managed a smile of sorts. There’s not much gossip about, I said without enthusiasm. You know Terry and Sally.

She looked at the other two members of the dinner-party who were near our own age. Terry Cantrell was Tom Cantrell’s nephew and supposedly his heir. Sally Morris was his second cousin and a nice kid. But they looked horribly uncomfortable; in fact, I thought Sally was trying not to cry.

Terry’s a pretty good guy, except for a slight penchent for going off an getting quietly stewed occasionally. Living with Cantrell should excuse that.

Adele said meditatively, It might.

It does! I assured her. Terry says he hates his cousin Sally, and she patently adores him. Nothing dramatic in that. I don’t know this Purcell person at all. Just met him.

He’s a photographer, said Adele, "he had three pictures in Life, once. He is an Artist. He is a Great Man. He’s staying here to photograph the collection, and he made tentative passes at me within one hour of our first introduction."

I found myself bristling. Adele nodded, smiling at me. Thanks. But I handled it. Permanently. I doubt that he knew he’d been squelched. Please don’t scowl at him!

Cantrell raised his voice again. Check my facts on this, Sam!

He beamed, red-faced and waited until he saw my eyes on him. I was telling Purcell about the desk. The rococo one. It belonged to Poisson. I’m going to have Sam expertize it for me, he explained to Purcell, "because he’s the only honest dealer in America. —Eh, Sam?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

Now, Poisson was a scoundrel for you! said Cantrell happily. "I’ve always wanted a piece he’d owned. He was Secretary for Police Affairs to the Directory. He arranged denunciations and it’s said he sold orders of execution to people who wanted their enemies out of the way. It’s not on record that he ever sold a pardon, though! He was in charge of the royal possessions in the Louvre for a while. Half the crown jewels disappeared, but he caught most of the thieves with their loot and collected a fine bonus and the thanks of the nation. The thieves said he’d helped them steal the stuff in the first place, but nobody believed them because every major stone in the crown jewels was recovered—all but the Regent diamond. That’s never been seen from that day to this. Oh, Poisson was a thoroughpaced scoundrel! He was a prosperous rentier under the Consulate until somebody who disliked him caught him and quite literally cut his heart out. Charming!"

He turned to me.

The essential facts are there, I said drily, and quite correct.

And Sam knows! crowed Cantrell triumphantly. He knows all about furniture and history and such stuff. Everything! And he’s honest!

Adele looked at me curiously. Now why does he harp upon your honesty? Why does he say that you are the only honest dealer in the country? Are you a sort of freak of nature?

Not at all, I told her. But, speaking generally, an honest dealer is one who takes a loss on what you buy from him; a crook is one who breaks even or makes a fair profit.

As a matter of fact, Cantrell did have a special reason for considering me honest, but it wasn’t anything for me to brag about. I looked at my plate again and Adele said in a mildly hopeful tone, Would I rate as a crook? My father brought some pewter back from the Argentine years ago, and I sold some of it for a ridiculous price.

I had no suspicions. I said, There’s not much Spanish pewter, and almost no South American. But it’s good stuff, what there is. It does fetch very good prices.

You probably know the pieces I sold, she told me. Our host—my second cousin once removed—is the proud owner now. He paid me a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a dozen platters.

Crash! If the plaster of the ceiling had suddenly detached itself and fallen down upon the dinner-table, knocking us all out of our chairs, it might have been more of a shock. But I doubt it.

I wish you’d say that again, I said with a quite incredible calmness. What did he buy from you? And what did he pay?

A dozen pewter platters, said Adele. It was last year. They came from South America a long time ago —Buenos Aires, I think. They were about a foot across, with decorations in relief around the rim. That hundred and twenty-five dollars bought my last year’s Spring outfit.

She smiled at me, and I was stunned—because I did know those platters. They were why Cantrell considered me an honest man. He’d showed them to me before he’d bought them, and I’d told him what they were. They were plainly Spanish ware, and as plainly South American. But they hadn’t the dark, almost purplish patina of ordinary pewter; they had an ever-so-faintly greasy feel, and they rang when they were struck. Pewter doesn’t ring that way. So I told Tom Cantrell what the platters were. I could even tell him who’d made them; they’d been made by a gentleman who was hanged in Buenos Aires in the year 1803. His offense was counterfeiting Spanish coins. These platters—like the two or three other known examples of his work—were beautifully done. They were practise-pieces, I’d say, for coining. But the odd part was that they were counterfeit, too.

Tom Cantrell had showed me counterfeit pewter, made by that storied Spanish-American scoundrel who’d counterfeited sound silver eight-real pieces—in platinum! He wasn’t the only man ever to do so. More than one man essayed dishonesty in that fashion a hundred and fifty years ago, when platinum had no value whatever and gold and silver had. A dozen times over, right here in the United States, a quaint old pewter piece has turned out to be worth several times its weight in gold as platinum bullion. But Tom Cantrell had found a dozen foot-broad platters!

Pressure began to build up inside me. I might have exploded at that instant, but there came a stirring. Cantrell heaved out of his chair and led the way to the living-room. Tall French windows opened out-of-doors from there. It was a big room, full of showy pieces, of which each one had once belonged to a notorious scoundrel. But Cantrell had never looked quite so suitable an inheritor of their possessions as he did to me now!

He chuckled to himself, and I looked away from him, abruptly raging. I’d helped cheat Adele without knowing it. He’d bought the platters after I told him what they were. He hadn’t bragged about that particular coup—I’d thought because he couldn’t claim his own cleverness as the source of it. Now, though, I saw why; he’d victimized a girl, and kin at that.

He did keep the platters on a special hutch cabinet in his study, and sometimes he gloated to me privately, but that was all. Now he had some other idea of what seemed to me devilment in mind. He grinned exuberantly at Terry and Sally. Terry looked rather sick. Sally was white, but I couldn’t read her expression.

Are you two ready? Cantrell asked them, beaming. I’m going to make a show of it! Then he boomed at me. Remember that South American business, Sam! You’re going to see something, now! I’ll need a few minutes to get everything set, and then I’ll call you in. Get ready to cut your throat!

Shaking with anticipatory chuckles, he went into his study and closed the door. I found my hands clenched; I was seeing red. I heard Purcell hail the butler.

Er—Jermyn, he said. Did you say someone would be going downtown presently who could mail a parcel for me?

Yes, sir, said Jermyn unbendingly. One of the servants goes off-duty and will mail it in the post-office, sir. Mr. Cantrell usually sends mail in by someone going off-duty like that, sir.

I’ve a roll of colored film to be mailed, said Purcell. I’ll pack and stamp it.

He nodded to me as he passed on the way to the stairs leading up.

We’ll talk presently, Morden, he said condescendingly. You might do the captions on the pieces I’ve photographed, eh?

I didn’t answer; I was simply too sore to think of but one thing. What Cantrell had done was legal enough. Buying and selling on the open market in fine furniture and objects of art is strictly a caveat emptor affair; you may get a bargain, or you may not. But to cheat a girl who is related to you, in cold blood and with my help—

Adele said in my ear, How long will the performance be? If it’ll take time, I’ll get my cigarettes.

I automatically offered mine, but she shook her head. My one eccentricity, a special brand. What will the show be like?

I’ve no idea what he intends, I said evenly, but I’m getting an idea of what it may turn out!

I was getting an idea, seething as I was.

Such as—? said Adele, curiously.

He could intend anything, I said savagely. Anything on earth that would make him the center of a big scene! If sending a man to his death or ruining a woman’s reputation would put him in the limelight for one second, he’d do it without malice and think of it as a gigantic joke!

Adele didn’t smile. But there wasn’t anything in particular to say. After a moment she observed, I’ll run up then. I hope it’s not what you seem to think.

Now, I said grimly, it’s what I intend!

I’d made up my mind in the past five seconds. Adele went upstairs. I fumed to myself. Joe Winthrop eased out of a side door. We adults were pretty dull company for a sixteen-year old boy. His mother blinked, and said with determined enthusiasm, Cousin Tom seems quite thrilled over what he’s to show us! I shan’t want to miss anything. I’ll get my glasses.

She went upstairs after Adele. That left only Terry Cantrell and Sally Morris and myself in the room, which was big enough to leave us practically alone, separately. I lighted a cigarette, my hands shaking, and Terry said with bitter courtesy, There’s a moon outside, Sally. Shouldn’t we pay it a visit? I think Uncle Tom would approve!

She flushed. You didn’t have to say that, Terry! Go look at it yourself!

Oh, come! come! said Terry, we should be romantic! Especially tonight!

Tears glinted in Sally’s eyes. She got up and went out of the room. Not toward the moonlight.

Terry looked at me and I ignored him. I went over to the library door. There were some good pieces even in there. One, especially, would be my explanation later on, if one were needed. It was an early Regency side-chair, with X-stretchers in the form of swan-necks, and a typical Louis XIV shell. I could make a pretense of examining it again. I thought it an extremely early Meissonier, but Cantrell liked it because it had belonged to the Compte de Massine, who is usually credited with the poisoning of Marguerite, daughter of the Duc d’Orleans.

Just as I turned into the room, I heard the clatter of a French window. Terry’d taken Sally’s advice and gone out-doors alone. It would be rather beautiful out there. Cantrell’s house was at the extreme end of some very optimistic city limits and he had four acres on a hilltop with a stone wall all about and some excellent landscaping within. With a suitable companion, plus the moon, it wouldn’t be bad at all. But he went out alone as I entered the library. I moved the chair, took down a couple of books. Then I left.

And then the whole thing, rococo and baroque and macabre, too, began.

It was one of those things that shouldn’t have happened, and by the ordinary laws of probability couldn’t have happened. But it did. And twenty minutes later I was back in the library with an awfully sickish sensation in my stomach, desperately pretending to be absorbed in that side-chair, when I heard a noise in the doorway. I looked up. People stared in the door at me. Somebody said sharply, There he is!

I straightened up and put my hands in my pockets. They were shaking badly. There was a curious look on the faces that regarded me. Adele stared at me with a startled, almost frightened expression. I came out into the living-room and the party was all together again, but Purcell was the only one who looked normal. Terry Cantrell was dead-white and his eyes burned; Sally Morris looked like a marble status, her lipstick lurid against a completely colorless skin. Mrs. Winthrop had sunk into a chair and somebody—a very pretty housemaid —was holding smelling-salts to her nose. The maid’s hands shook horribly. Joe Winthrop looked enormously excited and gawkily loutish. And Jermyn, the butler, was literally gray; I’ve never seen a living man look more like a corpse in my life.

Sorry to have held up the party, I said severely. I’ve been right here all the time. I—got absorbed. Everything’s ready? We go to see the show now?

There was a shocked pause. Terry Cantrell made an irresolute movement. Purcell said languidly, Why —yes! Let’s go in to see it! In our host’s study. Lead on, Morden!

But Adele said swiftly and angrily, That’s not fair! To me she added, as if the words hurt; Mr. Cantrell’s been murdered!

Mur—Cantrell’s murdered? I must have sounded rather unconvincing, now that I think of it. I stared about me. Not Tom Cantrell?

Joe Winthrop said in a voice that cracked with excitement, We mustn’t touch anything! We’ve got to leave everything for the police!

But I started for Cantrell’s study; I don’t know why. Nobody stopped me. I went to the study door and opened it, and took a step inside. Then I stopped short.

I saw Cantrell. It was so. He sat in a big, oval-backed Louis XVI piece that he used as a desk-chair. It had belonged to Talleyrand, who was scoundrel enough for anybody. I stopped short on the threshold. The whole thing was so incredible that I’d almost persuaded myself it wasn’t so—but it was. The expression on Cantrell’s face hit me like a blow. His face was empty; it had lost the look of triumphant braggadocio he had undoubtedly worn even in his sleep. For the first time in the four or five years I’d known him—and tried to sell him fine furniture and art objects—his face wasn’t a beaming brag.

I stood there staring. Then I realized the sort of silence that held in the living-room behind me. It was an accusing silence; they were waiting for me to say something that would be proof I’d killed Cantrell.

I didn’t. I was a little bit prepared. After all, I’d been in the study ten minutes before, and he’d been dead then, too.

CHAPTER 2

CANTRELL’S house was at the extreme edge of the city limits, practically in the country. But the city police were the ones to answer a notification that murder had been committed, and they arrived in a hurry. Terry Cantrell had phoned for them; it had been done before they found me bending over that chair in the library, and I had barely turned away from the door of the study when there was a trampling of feet and two uniformed men, and a man with a doctor’s bag, and then Nolan came in.

He was rather short, and not at all impressive, and he had the disillusioned look that one expects on the face of police reporters. It isn’t usual on a cop, though they have as much to do with crime as anybody else. The difference may be that police reporters don’t believe in anything, while cops still believe in politics.

This way, said Terry, politely. I’m Terry Cantrell. It’s my uncle who’s been murdered. Then he added bitterly, I’m his heir, I believe, and your logical suspect.

Sally Morris said quickly, Nonsense, Terry! I can testify—

Nolan waved his hands. Let it go, let it go! he interrupted fretfully. This is business with us; it ain’t a movie. We ain’t suspecting anybody until we got some idea about what’s happened. This way, you say?

Terry led the way into the study, closed the door. After two or three minutes—while the rest of us simply sat or stood around—he came out again. Adele wet her lips. What— what did they say?

Terry glanced at her. They say it’s murder, he said ironically; they’ll ask all of us questions in a little while, and please stick around. I think— He looked at Sally— I think we could all do with a drink. I know I could.

He rang for Jermyn. The butler came in, still ghastly to look at. We need a drink, Jermyn, said Terry. Then he added, I think you’d better take one yourself. You look like you need it. —That’s an order, Jermyn.

Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, said Jermyn.

Purcell leaned back in his chair and said meditatively, Queer that such things can happen and one has no warning of them. I was up in my room packing that film for the mail. And I was whistling a tune. I’d no idea ...

I, said Terry sardonically, was out on the lawn. By myself, by the way, and I’m chronically broke and expectant.

I saw you, Terry, said Sally Morris quickly. I—I watched you the whole time.

Then she flushed, horribly embarrassed.

I think it unlikely, said Terry, with elaborate politeness.

Purcell looked at me. I said shortly, If the conversation has turned to alibis, I haven’t any. You saw where I was and what I was doing.

* * * *

Jermyn came back with glasses and soda and bottles of Scotch and one of sherry. Mrs. Winthrop asked for sherry in a weak voice. Adele shook her head. She looked at me oddly. I took a drink; I needed it.

Then we sat around and sat around. I remember that Adele sat staring at nothing for a long time. She shivered a little. I’d liked her a lot, during dinner. I’d felt protecting and indignant and ferociously resolved to get justice for her, when I went into Cantrell’s study—and was the first person to see him dead. But not Adele or anybody else was very good company for me right now. Because I knew of a motive for Cantrell’s murder—one hell of a good motive—that would not only fit me, but practically anybody else in the house including the servants. It made me feel pretty sick.

It was those platters. They were a fortune. As far as I was aware, only Cantrell and myself knew of their value. But anybody else who learned of it—

Adele came over and sat down beside me. She said rather embarrassedly; It appears that none of us has an alibi. Were you—were you in the library the whole time? Didn’t you see anyone at all?

I was there the whole time, I said untruthfully.

Oh ... said Adele.

Her voice was queer. After an instant she got up and went back to the fireplace, shivered as if she were chillier than before. Then Purcell burst out suddenly, enormously pleased with himself; "By George, this is a chance!"

He looked around eagerly. I’ll see if I can wangle permission to make a picture-story of this! We’ll have to pose the discovery of the body, of course, but I can make a complete, actual, picture-record of the whole thing as it happens, up to the actual end of it all! His enthusiasm increased. Any picture-magazine in the country would jump at it! You wouldn’t mind, would you? ... Nothing like it’s ever been done before!

He grinned excitedly, like a man who has just had the bright idea of the century. But just then Nolan appeared in the study door. Okay, he said. I’m sorry, but I got to ask you people some questions, one at a time. Who’ll come in first?

Terry Cantrell stood up, went in. He was inside for probably fifteen minutes. A cop came out and went off on some errand. Terry emerged. As he came out the door, Sally Morris—very pale—got up to go in. He stopped her and said harshly, Look here! You tell the exact and literal truth! That’s what I’ve done!

She went in without making a reply. She was very white, indeed. Terry gnawed at his fingernails while she was inside. She came out, paler still. Adele looked at her somehow appealingly.

It’s not bad, said Sally unsteadily. But of course—with Uncle Tom’s body still in there ...

Adele went in. Mrs. Winthrop was next. She took her son Joe with her. I think he’d have preferred to go in alone, as more dignified. When they came out he looked crestfallen and his mother was weeping copiously.

The cop came back from his errand, whatever it had been, and went in before Nolan could call Purcell or me. Nolan came out and told us he’d be back in a minute. He hurried off somewhere and was gone for half an hour. Adele sat rather stiffly, staring at nothing.

But something had occurred to me and I wanted to get back into that room to find out if I was right.

I heard cars roll up to the wall outside the house; they stopped there. It was so deadly quiet that I even heard voices. More police, of course. Maybe reporters.

Then Nolan came back. Very quiet and businesslike. He jerked his thumb at Purcell. Purcell went in the study. He was in there for a long time. He came out beaming, Nolan beckoned to me. Let’s get it over with. It shouldn’t take long.

I followed him inside. I was shaky as the devil. I’d had the better part of an hour and a half in which to think, and I was in one ungodly mess inside. When I went in to row with Cantrell—and found him murdered—the shock had knocked everything else out of my head. But now I wanted to know if those platters were gone.

They were.

Nolan waited for me inside the study. I took one step in the door, and a sinking feeling went all over me. Cantrell had kept the platters in his study, displayed in a hutch cabinet. They were safe there because as far as I knew only he and I knew of their value. Now the cabinet had been moved to make room for the rococo desk—and its shelves were empty.

The rococo desk would normally have taken my eye immediately. It was something on the order of that rather over-famous Bureau du Roi in the Louvre, by Oeben and Reisener. But there were the empty hutch cabinet-shelves, and there was a sheet over the chair at Cantrell’s ordinary desk, and there was something under the sheet. Cantrell.

Okay, said Nolan. I know your name an’ all that. You got anything to say that might help?

I shook my head numbly.

Sit down, said Nolan. Look here! He pointed at the sheet-covered figure. He was gonna put on some kind of show. What was it?

I’ve no ideas, I said.

It was true. I didn’t know what Cantrell intended to do. Only what I’d intended to make him. But I stumbled, found I’d blundered into Purcell’s camera-tripod with the camera on top, all set up to take pictures when Cantrell’s now-never-to-take-place show was staged. I pulled up a chair and sat in it.

He specially invited you to come out here, said Nolan. You were one guy he was bound to have on hand. That so?

I nodded. Cantrell had telephoned me and had insisted feverishly that I put aside everything else to come out to dinner. He mentioned some remarkable event then.

This guy Terry Cantrell, said Nolan, says the only show he knows of is that his an’ Sally Morris’ engagement was gonna be announced. How do you rate in on that?

I don’t, I said. I didn’t know it, but—

I shrugged.

Mmmmm. This guy Terry Cantrell don’t talk like a guy who’s crazy about the girl. What’s the matter with him?

Nothing, I said. But he’s lived with his uncle; that would make almost anybody a little bit queer.

Huh? How’s that?

I tried, but it wasn’t an easy task to explain Cantrell to anybody who hadn’t known about him. He simply smothered everybody by sheer insistence and exuberance. Terry had never been allowed to accomplish anything in his whole life. If, as a small boy, he’d started to make an aero-plane model, his uncle grandly ordered a dozen of the finest power-driven toy planes for him. And Terry naturally got no pleasure from them and was deterred by their perfection from trying to make his own. Even Sally was quite possibly the result of Cantrell’s ebullient showing off. It was quite likely that he’d seen Terry showing signs of romantic interest in Sally, and had promptly spoiled everything by shoving him forcibly toward a marriage he’d have wanted if he’d been left alone.

Nolan listened, seeming to be thinking of something else. Uh-huh, he said when I stopped. But this show, now. You must have some kinda idea what it was gonna be about!

The only guess I can make, I said, is this desk. I heard about it and its association, and heard it had been shipped to him on approval. Maybe it’s remarkable in some way, though I can’t see it at the moment. From this camera, set up as it is, it looks like Purcell was going to make some pictures as part of the exhibition, showing-off, or whatever it was that Cantrell planned. If the desk is something really outstanding, Cantrell might have intended to gloat over me for not having sold it to him. He loved to boast of a bargain. Shall I look it over?

Go ahead! said Nolan.

Again he seemed to be thinking of something else. I went over the piece. In spite of my private worries, it was absorbing. After five minutes or so I heard Nolan grunt. He was regarding me speculatively.

It’s late Louis XV, I said. "The extremest of rococo style, with everything from marquetry to espagnolettes—they’re the little bronze busts at the corners there—but with Asymmetrical shells, which dates it late. It’s a fine piece. A very fine piece. But it isn’t unparalleled, and I can’t see why anything connected with it should make me—well—want to cut my throat."

By the way Nolan grunted, I knew he’d heard that phrase quoted as Cantrell’s statement of what he expected of me.

Mmmm, said Nolan. He asked suddenly. Say, what was Cantrell killed with?

I wouldn’t know, I said. In fact, I looked in and saw him dead—the others probably told you—but I saw no wounds or anything like that.

Nolan pointed to the hearth of the study fire-place. The brass firetongs of a set from Benedict Arnold’s English home—the home he’d occupied after he was an exile from America forever—the brass fire-tongs lay on the hearth. They were discolored and scorched and oxidized as if they’d been pulled out of the fire itself.

Somebody threw the tongs in the fire, said Nolan. Like they wanted to get ridda their fingerprints after beatin’ Cantrell in the head with it. They got ridda the fingerprints, all right. Only it ain’t what Cantrell was killed with. Want to see?

I didn’t.

A funny kinda wound, said Nolan detachedly. I don’t know what made it. Something shaped like a cone or a small pear, prob’ly, only with a fancy lump stickin’ out where the point would be. About half an inch across. Like this.

He showed me a sketch in his note-book. To me it only suggested a small funnel with a cutoff spout.

You sold him a room-full of furniture once, said Nolan meditatively, an’ promise to buy it back on demand.

Yes, I said. I needed money badly at the moment. He found it out, and drove a hard bargain, then gleefully put in that proviso just for the hell of it. If you knew him, you’d know he’d do that sort of thing just so he could dangle it over you. It would amuse him enormously, though he probably never intended to make use of it.

But he did, said Nolan. He sat on the opened, elaborate desk which had replaced the hutch cabinet, the one where the platters had been. He told Purcell he was gonna turn it back an’ refurnish that room around this piece. Does that make sense?

In a way, I admitted. If he thought this piece important enough it would be reasonable to collect around it. He hadn’t told me he expected to turn back that Jacobean stuff, though.

Nolan nodded. You’d be a fool to admit he had, he observed.

I opened my mouth, and then shut it.

The point is, said Nolan flatly.

You had a dam’ good reason to kill him. You’ in a bad fix financially, huh? If he pulled this trick you’d go bankrupt?

I said evenly, No. It would be embarassing; no more.

You were in the library all the time between when Cantrell came in here an’ the time the folks found him dead, huh?

I was, I said shortly. I was confident there was no proof to the contrary.

But two people looked in there for you an’ didn’t see you, said Nolan. Got any explanation for that?

I was there the whole time, I said doggedly.

It looks kinda bad, said Nolan. He waited.

It did look bad. He didn’t know half how bad it could look if he found out some other things. You mean, I said grimly, that you think I murdered him. All right. I didn’t. What motive could I possibly have, anyhow?

Just think, guy! said Nolan ironically. Just think!

The platters were enough for almost anybody to commit a murder for. But Nolan didn’t know about them!

I’m thinking, I said sardonically, and still I can’t remember either killing Cantrell or having any reason to.

Okay! said Nolan. If you wanna have it that way, that is the way it goes. But remember this! He bent forward and tapped impressively with his finger for emphasis. He was gonna put on a show, Morden. You were gonna be it; you were gonna want to cut your throat. Maybe it was the furniture he was gonna turn back, an’ maybe it was something’ else. But you were gonna be the star of the show he was gonna put on! An’ you wanted to stop it! An’ you did! Then he straightened up. Okay! Stick around. Don’t try to go home. Stay right here. If you wanna talk, I’ll listen. You’ll be better off if you do.

As I went toward the door he added significantly, Hangin’ is kinda messy, Morden. Even life’s better. You got a chance to get pardoned, then. Think it over, Morden; it might mean a lot to you!

CHAPTER 3

TERRY CANTRELL came up to the room Jermyn had assigned me, later; he came in and put a bottle on the bed-table. I thought you might like a drink, he told me sombrely. I would.

He’d brought a glass for himself.

He went into the bathroom and brought one back for me. If this is hospitality, Terry, I told him.

Maybe you don’t know that Nolan has practically accused me of murdering your uncle.

Terry looked at me, and then grunted. The hell with that, he said.

I’m in a fix, too. He doesn’t think I did it, as far as I know, but he acts like he thinks I’m trying to shield the one who did. Maybe he’ll think my coming here is proof.

In that case, I agreed, a drink won’t do any harm.

Terry had a queer, angry expression on his face. Sally told him she sat at her window and watched me strolling about on the lawn, he said seething, all the time the murderer was busy! And he believed her!

Didn’t you?

As a matter of fact, I went out and sat by that ghastly faun that Uncle Tom bought because it once belonged to Cagliostro. I was right there, swearing to myself, when Uncle Tom was murdered. But she could not see me from her window; there’s a thick screen of shrubbery in between! She might have seen me walk there, but once I was hidden I could have gone anywhere! She lied, to shield me from suspicion!

It came into my head that for Sally to claim to have been watching Terry was not only an alibi for him, but for herself also.

Nolan tells me your engagement was to have been announced tonight.

He swore. Uncle Tom was practically knocking our heads together. I told him I hated her guts and he beamed at me; he simply didn’t believe it. I was to marry her. My income kept up as long as we were engaged and would increase when we were married. It stopped if we weren’t engaged tonight, and stayed stopped until we were. And, dammit, he was sort of guardian of hers, and the same thing happened to her! I could take it for myself, but—

Ah! I said. Chivalry!

Nothing of the kind! Have you ever seen a damned fool making an ass of himself, and all the time thinking he was being wise and kindly and doing something benevolent and really rather beautiful? That was the old duffer! He was an awful fool, Sam. He was just about as irritating as a person could be; he messed up all my childhood and was working on the rest of my life. But he meant well, and no matter how mad I got with him I couldn’t hate him or really want to hurt him!

He paused a moment and said wrily, "That’s the devil of an epitaph for anybody! He meant well!"

* * * *

Terry sat on the edge of my bed with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He looked all broken up and bitter.

You think the announcement of your engagement was the show he was going to put on? I demanded.

What else?

Something, I said drily, was to make me want to cut my throat; something was to be done to see how much I could take. I was to be part of the show. How do I fit into the announcement of your engagement? Nolan figures I was to be the show, and that I killed your uncle to prevent it. You wouldn’t have murdered him to keep from marrying Sally?

Of course not! Sally’s all right if you happen to like her, he protested. I don’t — though once I thought I did. But when somebody’s rammed down your throat—

I cut in. There were two of us connected with the proposed show Nolan thinks your uncle was killed to stop. But your reason is inadequate, so I must have done it. It’s infernally plausible, only I didn’t.

It isn’t plausible! It’s silly, he protested again. You—

How about the others? Did any of them have reason to kill him? Mrs. Winthrop? Joe? Purcell? Sally? Adele?

I carefully didn’t emphasize Adele’s name, but if he picked it up it would mean he knew about his uncle’s having gotten the platters from her and what they were ... had quite legally done her out of a fortune.

No-o-o, said Terry. None of them could have any motive...

He poured himself another drink then stopped and looked at his glass for a good ten seconds. Then he went and poured it down the sink. After a moment he said, It’s all silly! I’ll talk to Nolan in the morning. Let you know what he says.

Terry went out abruptly, and I looked after him and figured that quite possibly I’d convinced him that I was the person who’d killed his uncle, after all.

I poured myself a drink, then put a cigarette in my mouth and fumbled for my lighter, couldn’t find it. And of course I had no matches.

I sat there with an unlighted cigarette in my mouth and grouched all by myself. My motives throughout had been of the best, and I regretted nothing I’d intended to do. It was my purpose, when I slipped unseen into Cantrell’s study, to blackmail him. I didn’t know what sort of spectacle he planned, but I was going to make him change it to the sort I wanted.

I had plenty to blackmail him with. All I needed was the one fact Adele had told me with no idea of its importance—that those fabulous platinum platters had been bought from her for a hundred and twenty-five dollars. When Cantrell bought them he knew their real worth, all right! I’d told it to him!

Cantrell’s consuming vanity would shrivel at the idea of being exposed as such a particularly shabby sneak; he couldn’t take that! So it had been my intention to present him with the ironic choice of having the whole story told—or of making his dramatic scene one in which he revealed, himself, the actual value of the platters, and presented Adele with a check for their real price.

That had been my plan. But when I went quietly into his study by the back doorway he was dead. Murdered. Those platters were an adequate reason for me or almost anybody else to kill Cantrell. And now they were seemingly gone.

Thinking of all this got me thoroughly wrought up, and made me want a soothing smoke more than ever. So presently I went downstairs to try to find some matches.

I felt a strange sensation when I got down; there ought to be a detective or two around. I moved with a defiant absence of any attempt to be silent, expecting at any instant to be challenged.

I wasn’t. A dim light burning in a hallway shone into the living-room. The furniture cast long shadows across the floor. There was darkness in the corners of the room and the light was cold and dead; I found myself looking behind me much more often than was necessary.

I didn’t find any matches. I went into the dining-room. There shouldn’t be any matches there, but I looked. Then I came back to the big and now creepy larger room. There was the library and the study and the big music-room where Cantrell really-spread himself in displaying his collection-items. I glanced in the door of the library; it was like looking into a cave where anything unpleasant might be hiding.

It was nerves. I had an unlighted cigarette in my mouth and I wanted a smoke and dammit, I was going to have one! I turned on the study light. Quickly. There were matches on Cantrell’s desk—not the new, rococo one, but the one he’d used all along. I struck one and lighted the cigarette I’d carried in my mouth all this while. It was amazingly satisfying.

The study was fully lighted, and it was a relatively small room. No dark corners. But, the platters were positively gone.

That wasn’t news. I stayed in the study, smoking. I told myself that now I was here I might as well take a really good look at that rococo desk. Maybe Cantrell had meant only to show it off. The idea didn’t make sense, but neither did anything else—And I was naggingly aware that Adele had mentioned the platters...

I opened the desk to have something else to think about. The piece was, in its way, really magnificent, and professional interest came to the fore in my mind. The work rococo has come to mean all that is shoddy and in bad taste, nowadays. Perhaps that usage is justified. But the workmanship of pieces that are actually of the original rococo period is marvelous. It was a time when craftsmanship had overtaken and passed the artistry which should have directed it. The ornamentation of a rococo lock or a panel may be overdone. It may be shoddy and meretricious in conception. But it is masterly in execution. There has never been marquetry or ormolu to compare in sheer perfection of workmanship with the pieces that were made in the years when French taste was at its worst. The little espagnolettes—the small bronze female busts or figures like misplaced caryatids which are placed at the corners of late Regency and rococo tables and commodes and such—were marvelous. They are merely finish-pieces for the legs, but those on his desk were the most perfectly executed bits of bronze-work I have ever seen.

Oh, the desk was possibly appalling. Maybe it was an atrocity; a lot of rococo stuff is. But even the tragedy of such good work put into such messy design has its charm— and good workmanship isn’t to be despised anywhere you come upon it.

I went over the desk thoroughly. Meticulously. If it had a suitably sanguinary association, it might have been something Cantrell would have unveiled with enormous enthusiasm and boasting. But I knew who it had belonged to, and though Poisson was a dirty scoundrel, he wasn’t unparalleled. The desk, as such, wouldn’t have explained the show idea.

Then something else occured to me. Cantrell owned a fourteenth-century seal ring that had belonged to a disreputable member of the Orsini family. It had been offered as the possession of a Borgia but he knew better. It was possible, by twisting the bezel, to make a tiny fang stick out in such a fashion as to wound anybody you shook hands with while wearing it. And there was a dried-up, gummy mass upon that little fang which Cantrell wouldn’t have had cleaned off for anything.

That would explain everything. Cantrell’s intention to furnish a room around it, scrapping the furniture I’d sold him, which had only an ordinarily disreputable history. His having Purcell’s camera set up in the study to take pictures. His calling me to the house to watch his triumph. But the proof would have to be good and the villainy spectacular.

It was the most plausible guess yet. I began to hunt for secret hiding-places in the desk; such things aren’t hard to find if you know how. The naïveté of our ancestors in some lines is only less remarkable than their bloodthirstiness. I knew how to look. I found one tiny secret drawer. It was empty. But any ordinary hiding place would have been found long ago. I began to search away from the regular, normal locations for hiding-places... And I found it.

One of the little espagnolettes— the bronze figurines I mentioned— yielded the barest suspicion of a hair. I got to work. I found a bit of relief decoration that shifted. The two together...

The espagnolette swung down upon a beautifully contrived hinge. It revealed the bare unstained wood beneath, just as the rougher-in had left it before the ebeniste took over. And in that naked wood there was a neatly chiseled opening perhaps two inches by two by four. It was cut into the massive wood of the desk’s framework. It was empty, yet clinging to the wood-fibres there were threads of unspun wool. Where we would pack something in cotton-wool, nowadays, there was a time when wool itself would have been used. Something had been hidden here...

Then it hit me. It added up perfectly! Why Cantrell had said it would hit me harder than the South American stuff—the platters. Why he’d chosen this night to insist upon announcing the engagement of Terry and Sally. Why he’d had Purcell on hand to take photographs, with his camera ready, and why it would make newspaper headlines, and why he was going to refurnish a whole room around this piece...

The platters had nothing to do with the show he’d have put on, and probably nothing to do with his murder, either. The show itself was something nobody but Cantrell would have thought of. This discovery changed everything. Everything! And Adele was left out. My head fairly swam with relief.

I carefully pushed the little espagnolette back into place. Then, for no reason at all, I jumped as if I’d been shot, and wheeled to gasp at the open door of the study. I hadn’t seen anything. I’d been faced three-quarters away from the door. But I felt as if a shadow had crossed behind me . . .

Then I clenched my hands and stalked into the living-room; it was empty, of course, but somehow I wasn’t satisfied. I poked in the still-dark corners; I had an insistent feeling that there was someone else downstairs.

Somehow I couldn’t go into the library, but I did push open the door that led into the music-room. I saw a man, almost snarled at him. Then I recognized him.

He was a uniformed policeman— one of the two who had come with Nolan. He was seated in the most comfortable chair he could find, his head leaned back, peacefully sleeping with his mouth open.

I looked at him for seconds. Then a grim satisfaction filled me. Tomorrow morning I’d tell Nolan all this,