by Lester Dent
Ahead, a car starter made a loud sawing noise; an engine blared up. The machine screamed away in second gear.
Nace reached the road too late to get even a glimpse of the fleeing vehicle. It had whirled around a curve in the highway.
Nace fanned his flash beam about.
Like a white string, the luminance crawled over what remained of Constable Hasser.
It wasn’t much.
HASSER’S head and torso were nearly intact, as were his legs. These two segments lay a full ten paces apart. The explosion which had demolished the man had been nearly fantastic in its violence.
Nace searched some minutes, seeking something which might tell him the nature of the explosion. He found nothing.
Using the flash, Nace hunted for footprints. The leaves were dry, the ground below arid enough to be solid. There had been no rain recently.
Thunder hooted from the horizon, as though in derisive laughter at his efforts. Lightning winked redly.
Nace kept at his search. Constable Hasser had been murdered so Nace could not get hold of him and pry out information. Hasser had obviously known a lot. And his murderer was the man who had also done in the deputy constable, Fatty Dell.
Nace growled sourly. Fatty Dell had been at the lake to kill him—Nace. Constable Hasser’s mutterings had revealed that much. Nace could think of only one reason for their desiring his own end—to keep him from doing any investigating.
They obviously knew of the telegram he had received, signed by the name Sol Rubinov.
Nace doubled to study an object his flashlight had picked up. It was a mushroom, the type called a puffball because of the brownish powder it contains when mature. This one had been kicked and burst open, the brownish powder strewn about.
Nace went back and examined Hasser’s shoes. They bore no traces of the brown powder.
Next, Nace conducted an intensive hunt for the old shirt. It was nowhere to be found. Hasser’s murderer had taken it.
Voices were to be heard, and running feet. Residents of the vicinity were coming to investigate the noise of the explosion.
Nace cut across the woods, making for Mountain Town. No one saw him. Once on the village sidewalks, he set a course for his hotel.
Chapter III
Deceit Trail
THE sleek hotel clerk was turning a telegram thoughtfully in his hand when he came in.
“Danged if I know what to do with this wire,” he told Nace in a mildly puzzled tone. “The thing came in this morning. It’s addressed care of the Mountain House hotel, but we ain’t got nobody named Lee Nace registered here.”
Nace was holding his pipe. He made a mental note to see that his secretary got a ten per cent wage cut starting next pay day. She was always pulling stunts like this. He had told her distinctly he would be at the Mountain House, Mountain Town’s largest hotel, under the name Jules Leeds.
“I’ll take the wire,” Nace said.
“But your name is Leeds, not—”
Nace proved who he was. Then he opened the telegram. It had been sent from Mountain Town to his New York office, and forwarded back.
WISH YOUR SERVICES IN URGENT MATTER STOP REGISTER AT MOUNTAIN HOUSE THIS CITY AND PHONE ME STOP WILL EXPECT YOU UNLESS YOU WIRE OTHERWISE.
BENNA FRANKS
“So she was on the up and up,” Nace murmured.
The clerk had an ear open. “What say?”
“Sounds like rain,” Nace replied, after a couple of salvos of thunder had chased themselves across the countryside.
The clerk had been thinking. “Say, buddy, are you the Lee Nace the newspapers write about—the private detective? I read a story where it said people had tried to kill you more’n four hundred times. Tell me somethin’, was that a damn lie?”
“Draw your own conclusions.” Nace put his elbows on the desk and grew confidential. “What’s the low-dirty on Constable Hasser and his deputy, Fatty Dell?”
The clerk’s eyes saucered. “Cripes! You tryin’ to get somethin’ on ’em?”
“Just finding out what’s what.”
“You got a case here, Mister Nace?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I guess Hasser and Dell are all right,” said the clerk. “There was some talk of them takin’ money to let beer trucks pass through Mountain Town. Then there was some scandal last winter when a local judge got hell for issuin’ pistol permits to some New York City gangsters. The judge claimed Hasser and Dell recommended the gangsters to him as honest citizens.”
“That all?”
“Yeah—except Hasser and Dell knock off a crap game sometimes, and take pay for lettin’ the boys go.”
Nace smiled wryly. “What you mean is that Hasser and Dell are all right, except they’re a pair of cheap crooks. That right?”
“Oh, hell! This is just gossip!”
“Sure.” Nace smiled knowingly.
A CAR drove up and two tourists, man and woman, came in and registered.
It was sultry in the lobby. Flies buzzed. A loose window somewhere rattled every time it thundered.
Nace waited until the clerk was free again. “Where is Camp Lakeside?”
“Red-headed Benna Franks’ place? It’s up the west side of the lake about two miles.”
Nace spilled smoke from both nostrils. It was up the west side of the lake that Constable Hasser had been killed by the strange explosion.
“Much of a place?”
“The camp—yeah, it’s quite a layout. Of course, it ain’t opened up yet. But Benna Franks takes in plenty of jack later in the summer, when the season opens up.”
“Where can I rent a car?”
“Down the street a block. You goin’ up to Camp Lakeside?”
“Keep it under your hat,” Nace warned with an exaggerated air of mystery.
“I sure will. And if there’s anything else—”
Nace left the sleek youth declaring his willingness to be of assistance. The fellow was a good sort; his type had given detectives tips that had broken many a case.
The car-renting concern was a branch of a nation-wide chain. Nace had a card which the chain issued to reliable customers. It enabled him to rent a machine without the formality of putting up a deposit.
The machine was an eight-cylinder green roadster, the fastest heap in the place, Nace believed. It was a two-year-old model. A carbon knock tinkled under the hood as he drove out.
He glanced at the hotel in passing. What he saw made him stamp the brake until all four wheels slid. He burst out of the car, flung across the street, took the hotel stairs with a single vault.
The hotel clerk was draped like a rag across his desk. Crimson ran in a squirming red cord from his nostrils.
NACE turned the clerk on the desk, hunting wounds. He found none, unless a smashed nose counted. The clerk’s face had banged the desk. There was a knot like half a walnut on his head.
The hotel elevator clanked open. Nace watched it, right hand on the ball-gripped gun in his left sleeve. Only the colored operator was in the cage.
Nace flipped a hand at the clerk. “When did that happen?”
“Lan’ sakes, Mistah, ah don’ know!” gurgled the boy. “Dat hadn’t happened to ’im when ah took de ice watah up a minute ago.”
“Who’d you take the ice water to?”
“Old lady in four-ten. Evah night at dis time, she has me fetch her ice water—!”
Nace shoved the elevator operator for the door. “Run out in the street and yell bloody murder!”
“Lawsy, Mistah, I don’ know what to holler—”
“Yell that there’s a murdered man in here!”
The colored boy must have taken Nace’s words to mean the clerk had been murdered. He ran squawling into the street.
Nace whirled out through the back door. He waited in the darkness, one eye on the fire escape, the other on the exit. Seconds dragged and pulled minutes after them.
The hotel filled with excited citizens.
Nace was disg
usted. It had been his guess that someone had visited the hotel bent on taking his life, and that the person would flee when the alarm was given. The guess had been bad somewhere.
He walked around and entered the hotel. Several persons had formed a sort of volunteer bucket brigade to relay ice water from the cooler to douse the unconscious clerk. The fellow stirred finally, sat up. He saw Nace and made a wry grin.
“Did you get a look at whoever hit you?” Nace questioned.
“Nix. I was dozin’ with my face in my hands.”
Nace slid a tenspot across the desk. “Buy yourself some aspirin with that.”
The clerk blinked. “You think they came in here huntin’ you?”
“You’re a good guesser, boy.”
Nace kindled his pipe, listening to the remarks of curious citizens who had been drawn by the colored boy’s yells. If the nearly-destroyed body of Constable Hasser, or that of Fatty Dell, had been found, the news was not yet in town.
Turning away, Nace saw something that nearly made him swallow his pipe.
It was Fred—the thick-necked, jaw-heavy young man who had helped the red-headed Benna Franks.
Fred had been working furtively toward the door. He saw he had been observed. He ducked outside.
Nace ran to the door, popped through, rattled his feet down the steps. Fred was diving into a car. It was the same coupe in which the red-head had driven him away from this spot earlier in the night.
The coupe lunged into movement.
Nace’s gun came out of his sleeve, banged once.
The coupe engine died. Nace knew exactly where to shoot to hit the distributor under the hood.
Not aiming his gun at Fred, Nace ran to the machine.
Fred had an automatic in his hands. His arms were steady, but he made no effort to use the gun. He laid it on the cushions.
“Hell!” he said thickly. “I guess I ain’t got no guts to kill a man.”
Nace reached over Fred’s lap for the gun on the cushions. Fred grabbed at Nace’s head.
Nace chopped his hard hand, edgewise, to the man’s temple. Fred moaned and fell over.
Nace got the gun. Then he reached further and plucked a rag off the coupe floorboards. It was the rag the murderer of Fatty Dell had used to wrap around his shoes.
Fred wore black and white sport shoes.
NACE pocketed gun and rag, then hauled Fred out of the coupe and carried him to the rented roadster.
An excited crowd had poured out of the hotel. A beefy, red-necked man ran at Nace, cursing and brandishing a nickeled revolver. He demanded that Nace throw up his hands. Nace showed his agency card and his license.
“Anybody can steal them things and you look like a damn crook to me,” snarled the nasty-tempered man. He added a string of insults.
Nace caught the smell of alcohol on the man’s breath. Pointing behind the fellow, Nace said, “That man will identify me!”
The drunk turned. Nace knocked him down, grabbed the nickeled revolver, unloaded it and smashed it on the concrete pavement. The cylinder was broken off its pin, ruining the weapon.
“Who is this palooka?” Nace demanded of the crowd.
“A railroad dick,” said the hotel clerk, who had weaved out with the crowd. “He always was too free with that gun.”
“He’s too free with his mouth,” Nace growled, some of his anger departing.
He clambered in the roadster. Fred was awake. He said nothing. Nace drove off.
A lightning flash blazed like blood in the street, and afterward darkness came black and muggy. Nace thumbed the lights on. He glanced sidewise and saw Fred gathering himself in the seat.
“The next time I hit you, they’ll need a doctor to wake you up!” Nace warned grimly.
Fred relaxed. “What are you going to do?”
Nace gave him silence for an answer.
The plunging roadster left Mountain Town behind. It banked around a curve, tires squealing in a slight skid, then straightened out.
The headlights picked up clustered cars and people alongside to the road.
“Know what that is?” Nace asked.
Fred muttered, “I stopped long enough to ask when I came in town.”
Nace slowed up until he was through the jam. On the right side of the pavement, a crowd jostled each other to see the remnants of Constable Hasser’s body.
The roadster increased speed, as though trying to catch its headlights. Thunder clapped and gobbled over the engine moan. A sign, white lettered in black, appeared. It said:
CAMP LAKESIDE
Nace jockeyed the roadster into the grounds. Lighted windows glowed in a rather pretentious two-story log building. Nace braked to a stop before it, looked at Fred.
The jaw-heavy young man was pale, trembling. His fists clenched and unclenched.
“Damn you!” he said thickly. “If you lay a hand on Benna, I’ll break your neck!”
“Boo!” Nace said amiably. “Get out and let’s go in.”
Fred quitted the car as if afflicted with a stiffness of the joints. They put feet on a slab porch.
The door opened. Benna Franks stood there. Nace knew positively he had never seen a girl more beautiful. Standing in the light behind her, she looked like an angel with a halo.
She didn’t see Nace at first.
“Fred!” she cried. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’m all right, sis,” said Fred.
Nace grinned. So these were brother and sister!
Chapter IV
The Third Man-Blast
NACE felt unreasonably good over his discovery for some seconds. It gave him a feeling of elation out of all proportion to its importance in the trend of the case. He was not too dumb to realize why it tickled him, either. It was the red-head, of course. She was getting to him. He’d have to watch his step.
The red-head discovered him. She looked like she’d found a snake.
“What are you doing here?”
“Freddy brought me along,” Nace said, face solemn.
“He’s a liar!” Freddy yelled. “He shot into my car downtown and killed the engine, then knocked me senseless and brought me here.”
Nace’s voice rapped out before anyone else could speak.
“Maybe you’d like to tell what you were doing downtown, Freddy!”
Fred looked like he was been choked. He swallowed twice, made no answer.
“Why did you go downtown, Fred?” the red-head asked.
The jaw-heavy young man swallowed twice more. “To get some cigarettes.”
Nace could see past the girl into the large front room of the log building. It was a small general store, selling everything from groceries to Indian curios.
Cigarettes were prominently displayed.
“Tsk, tsk,” Nace chuckled. But his solemn face showed no levity.
“What was your purpose in coming here?” Benna Franks asked Nace angrily.
Nace, debating his answer, chanced to drop his eyes to her shoes. They were black-and-white sports.
Nace suddenly felt as if the air had frozen around him. It wasn’t so much the shoes—almost all women wore them now. But it was the memory of that shrill voice which had cried out to unlucky Constable Hasser. Nace had taken for granted that it was a man’s.
It could have been a woman’s.
There was something else, too—the red-head’s shoes bore a few brownish smudges that looked powder-like.
Nace thought of the puffball mushroom which had been broken by Constable Hasser’s companion. The puffball had contained a powder this color.
“Where did you get that brown stain on your shoes?” he asked.
“Are you crazy?” the girl snapped.
Nace’s voice turned hard. “Answer the question!”
“It’s cinnamon,” said the girl, startled out of her anger by his tone. “I dropped the cinnamon box in the kitchen.”
“All right,” Nace told her mildly. “Let’s go in and talk.”
&
nbsp; “I don’t want you in here.”
“What you want don’t cut much ice.” He gave Fred a shove. “Get inside, you!”
Fred acted for an instant as if he were going to take a swing at Nace. But he reconsidered, felt of his temple, then stumbled inside.
The girl eyed her brother, seemingly surprised at his meekness. Then she followed him in.
Nace stepped across the threshold after them.
He knew instantly that he should have been more careful. But it was too late then.
A gun was shoving a cold round nose to his temple.
“Stand still, shamus!” gritted a harsh voice.
NACE stood still. He rolled his eyes sidewise enough, though, to see the man who held the weapon.
The fellow was blond, slender, snappily dressed. He was very handsome—if one liked features so fine they were almost feminine. In age, he was probably thirty-five.
Nace’s scrutiny took in the blond man’s hands. They were strong, manicured, with the nails so healthily pink as to lend a suspicion of artificial tint. But it was the many small pits in the skin that Nace gave particular attention. Nace didn’t think they were disease pits—they looked more like the result of a spray of hot metal. Yet they weren’t ordinary heat burns.
The blond young man’s gun cocked with a noisy click.
“Spencer!” the red-head shrilled. “Don’t shoot him!”
Her shriek rang out so sharply it startled the blond man. His gun muzzle jiggled, moved upward perhaps three inches. It now rested against the top of Nace’s head, which was protected by the steel helmet-wig.
Nace took a chance. He hit Spencer in the midriff—just about as hard as he could. The blond man made a horrible face and fell to the floor. There, he had convulsions. His first twitch flung his gun skating across the floor.
The girl pounced on the weapon, pointed it at Nace.
Nace shrugged. “All right. Just so somebody’s got it who doesn’t want to shoot me.”
Then he remembered the brown smudge on her shoes and nearly shuddered.
Fred growled, “Gimme that gun, sis!”
“You do, and somebody is liable to get killed!” Nace warned her.