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You Never Know With Women
James Hadley Chase
Veda Rux, a beautiful blonde, known professionally as a stripper, steals a priceless Cellini dagger from the safe in millionaire Lindsay Brett's home. Her agent, Cornelius Gorman, approaches Floyd Jackson, a private investigator and first-rate blackmailer, and asks him to return the dagger before the theft is discovered.Jackson should have known there was something wrong with the whole situation, but, blinded by the beauty of Veda and more money than he had ever seen, he agreed to the proposition.From the moment he fell in love with Veda, his doom was sealed–he was caught up in a relentless intrigue that made him a cat's-paw for murder.



Dear Reader,
Harlequin is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary in 2009 with an entire year’s worth of special programs showcasing the talent and variety that have made us the world’s leading romance publisher.
With this collection of vintage novels, we are thrilled to be able to journey with you to the roots of our success: six books that hark back to the very earliest days of our history, when the fare was decidedly adventurous, often mysterious and full of passion—1950s-style!
It is such fun to be able to present these works with their original text and cover art, which we hope both current readers and collectors of popular fiction will find entertaining.
Thank you for helping us to achieve and celebrate this milestone!
Warmly,


Donna Hayes,
Publisher and CEO

The Harlequin Story
To millions of readers around the world, Harlequin and romance fiction are synonymous. With a publishing record of 120 titles a month in 29 languages in 107 international markets on 6 continents, there is no question of Harlequin’s success.
But like all good stories, Harlequin’s has had some twists and turns.
In 1949, Harlequin was founded in Winnipeg, Canada. In the beginning, the company published a wide range of books—including the likes of Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Hadley Chase and Somerset Maugham—all for the low price of twenty-five cents.
By the mid 1950s, Richard Bonnycastle was in complete control of the company, and at the urging of his wife—and chief editor—began publishing the romances of British firm Mills & Boon. The books sold so well that Harlequin eventually bought Mills & Boon outright in 1971.
In 1970, Harlequin expanded its distribution into the U.S. and contracted its first American author so that it could offer the first truly American romances. By 1980, that concept became a full-fledged series called Harlequin Superromance, the first romance line to originate outside the U.K.
The 1980s saw continued growth into global markets as well as the purchase of American publisher, Silhouette Books. By 1992, Harlequin dominated the genre, and ten years later was publishing more than half of all romances released in North America.
Now in our sixtieth anniversary year, Harlequin remains true to its history of being the romance publisher, while constantly creating innovative ways to deliver variety in what women want to read. And as we forge ahead into other types of fiction and nonfiction, we are always mindful of the hallmark of our success over the past six decades—guaranteed entertainment!

You Never Know with Women
James Hadley Chase


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

JAMES HADLEY CHASE
was a pseudonym for Rene Brabazon Raymond. Born in England on Christmas Eve 1906, Chase left home at the age of eighteen and worked at a number of different jobs before he settled on being a writer. With a map and a slang dictionary, Chase wrote his first book, No Orchids for Miss Blandish, in six weeks. It was published in 1939 and became one of the bestselling books of the decade. It was later made into a stage play in London and then into a film in 1948, which was later remade in 1971 by Robert Aldrich as The Grissom Gang. Chase went on to write more than eighty mysteries before his death on February 6, 1985.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE
THE RAT HOLE THEY RENTED me for an office was on the sixth floor of a dilapidated building in the dead-end section of San Luis Beach. From sunrise to dusk the noise of the out-town traffic and the kids yelling at one another in the low-rent tenement strip across the way came through the open window in a continuous blast. As a place to concentrate in, it ranked lower than the mind of a third-rate hoofer in a tank-town vaudeville act.
That was why I did most of my headwork at night, and for the past five nights I had been alone in the office flexing my brain muscles while I tried to find a way out of the jam. But I was licked and I knew it. There was no way out of this jam. Even at that it took me a couple of brain sessions to reach this conclusion before I decided to cut my losses and quit.
I arrived at the decision at ten minutes after eleven o’clock on a hot July night exactly eighteen months after I had first come to San Luis Beach. The decision, now it was made, called for a drink, and I was holding up the office bottle in the light to convince myself it was as empty as my trouser pockets when I heard footsteps on the stairs.
The other offices on my floor and on the floors below were shut for the night. They closed around six o’clock and stayed that way until nine the following morning. I and the office mice had popped into our holes as the footsteps creaked up the stairs. The only visitors I’d had in the past month were the cops. It didn’t seem likely that Lieutenant of the Police Redfern would call at this hour, but you never knew. Redfern did odd things, and he might have thought up an idea of getting rid of me. He liked me no more than he liked a rattlesnake—perhaps even a little less—and if he could run me out of town even at eleven o’clock at night it would be all right with him.
The footsteps came along the passage. They were in no hurry: slow, measured steps with a lot of weight in them.
I felt in my vest pocket for a butt, struck a match and lit up. It was my last butt, and I had been saving it up for an occasion like this.
There was a light in the passage, and it reflected on the frosted panel of my door. The desk lamp made a pool of light on the blotter, but the rest of the rat hole was dark. The panel of light facing me picked up a shadow as big feet came to rest outside my door. The shadow was immense. The shoulders overflowed the lighted panel; on the pumpkinlike head was the kind of hat the cloak-and-dagger boys used to wear when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
Fingernails tapped on the panel, the doorknob turned, the door swung open as I shifted the desk lamp.
The man who stood in the doorway looked as big as a two-ton truck. He was as thick as he was broad, and had a ball-round face, skin tight with hard, pink fat. A black hairline mustache sat below a nose like the beak of an octopus, and little black eyes peered at me over two ridges of fat, like sloes in sugar icing. He might have been fifty, not more. There was the usual breathlessness about him that goes with fat people. The crown of his wide black hat touched the top of the door, and he had to turn his gross body an inch or so to enter the office. An astrakhan collar set off his long, tight-fitting black coat and his feet were encased in immaculately polished shoes, the welts of which seemed a good inch and a half thick.
“Mr. Jackson?” His voice was hoarse and scratchy and thin. Not the kind of voice you’d expect to come out of the barrel of a body he carried around on legs that must have been as thick as young trees to support it.
I nodded.
“Mr. Floyd Jackson?”
I nodded again.
“Ah!” The exclamation came out on a little puff of breath. He moved farther into the room, pushed the door shut without turning. “My card, Mr. Jackson.” He dropped a card on the blotter. He and I and the desk filled up the office to capacity, and the air in the room began to fight for its breath.
I looked at the card without moving. It didn’t tell me anything but his name. No address, nothing to say who he was. Just two words: Cornelius Gorman.
While I looked at the card, he pulled up the office chair to the desk. It was a good strong chair, built to last, but it flinched as he lowered his bulk onto it. Now he had sat down there seemed a little more space in the room—not much, but enough to let the air circulate again.
He folded his fat hands on the top of his stick. A diamond, a shade smaller than a doorknob, flashed like a beacon from his little finger. Cornelius Gorman might be a phoney, but he had money. I could smell it, and I have a very sensitive nose when it comes to smelling money.
“I’ve been making enquiries about you, Mr. Jackson,” he said, and his small eyes searched my face. “I hear you are quite a character.”
The last time he called, Lieutenant of the Police Redfern had said more or less the same thing, only he had used a coarser expression.
I didn’t say anything, but waited, and wondered just how much he had found out about me.
“They tell me you’re smart and tricky—very, very tricky and smooth,” the fat man went on in his scratchy voice. “You have brains, they say, and you’re not over-honest. You’re a reckless character, Mr. Jackson, but you have courage and nerve and you’re tough.” He looked at me from over the top of his diamond and smiled. For no reason at all the office seemed suddenly very far from the ground and the night seemed still and empty. I found myself thinking of a cobra coiled up in a bush—a fat cobra, sleek but dangerous.
“They tell me you have been in San Luis Beach for eighteen months,” he continued breathlessly. “Before that you worked for the Central Bonding Agency, New York, as one of their detectives. A detective who works for a bonding company, they tell me, has excellent opportunities for blackmail. Perhaps that was why they asked you to resign. No accusations were made, but they found you were living at a scale far beyond the salary you were paid. That made them think, Mr. Jackson. A bonding agency can’t be too careful.”
He paused and his little eyes probed inquisitively at my face, but that didn’t get him anywhere. “You resigned,” he went on after a pause, “and soon after you became an investigator with the Hotel Protection Association. Later, one of the hotel managers complained. It seems you collected dues from certain hotels without giving the company’s receipt. But it was your word against his, and the company reluctantly decided the evidence was too flimsy to prosecute, but you were asked to resign. After that you lived on a young woman with whom you were friendly—one of the many young women, they tell me. But she soon tired of giving you money to spend on other young women, and you parted.
“Some months later you decided to set up on your own as a private investigator. You obtained a licence from the State Attorney on a forged affidavit of character, and you came to San Luis Beach because it was a wealthy town and the competition was negligible. You specialized in divorce work, and for a time you prospered. But there are also opportunities for blackmail, so I understand, even in divorce work. Someone complained to the police, and there was an investigation. But you are very tricky, Mr. Jackson, and you kept out of serious trouble. Now the police want to run you out of town. They are making things difficult for you. They have revoked your licence, and to all intents and purposes they have put you out of business—at least, that’s what they think, but you and I know better.”
I leaned forward to stub out my butt and that brought me close to the diamond. It was worth five grand, probably more. Smarter guys than Fatso Gorman have had their fingers cut off for rocks half that value. I began to get ideas about that diamond.
“Although you are still trying to operate as a private investigator, you can’t advertise, nor can you put your name on your door. The police are watching you, and if they find you are still taking commissions they’ll prosecute you. Up to now, although you have passed the word around amongst your saloon-keeper friends that you’ll accept a client without asking questions, no one has hired you, and you’re down to your last nickel. For the past five nights you have been trying to make up your mind whether to stay or quit. You have decided to quit. Am I right, Mr. Jackson?”
“Check,” I said, and eased myself farther back in my chair.
I was curious. There was something about Fatso Gorman that got me. Maybe he was a phoney; maybe he was flashing the diamond to impress me, but there was a lot more to him than a cloak-and-dagger hat and a five-grand diamond. His little black eyes warned me he was geared for quick thinking. The shape of his mouth gave him away. Turn a sheet of paper edgeways on and that’ll give you an idea of how thick his lips were. I could picture him sitting in the sun at a bullfight. He’d be happy when the horse took the horn. That was the kind of guy he was. A horse with its belly ripped open would be his idea of fun. Although he was fat, he was immensely strong, and I had a feeling if ever he got his hand around my throat, he could squeeze blood out of my ears.
“Don’t quit, Mr. Jackson,” he was saying. “I have a job for you.”
The night air, coming in through the open window on to the back of my neck, felt chilly. A moth appeared out of the darkness and fluttered aimlessly around the desk lamp. The diamond continued to make bright patterns on the ceiling. We looked at each other. There was a pause long enough for you to walk down the passage and back.
Then I said, “What kind of a job?”
“A tricky job, Mr. Jackson. It should suit you.”
I chewed that over. Well, he knew what he was buying. He had only himself to blame.
“Why pick on me?”
He touched the hairline mustache with a fat thumb.
“Because it’s that kind of a job.”
That seemed to take care of that.
“Go ahead and tell me,” I said. “I’m up for sale.”
Gorman let out a little puff of breath. Probably he thought he was going to have trouble with me, but he should have known I wouldn’t quarrel with a guy who owned a diamond that size.
“Let me tell you a story as I heard it today,” he said, “then I’ll tell you what I want you to do.” He puffed more breath at me, and went on. “I am a theatrical agent.”
He’d have to be something like that. No one would wear a cloak-and-dagger hat and an astrakhan collar in this heat for the fun of it.
“I look after the interests of a number of big stars and a host of little ones,” he told me. “Among the little stars is a young woman who specializes in stag party entertainments. Her name is Veda Rux. She is what is known in the profession as a stripper. She has a good act, otherwise I wouldn’t handle her. It is art in its purest form.” He eyed me over the top of the diamond and I tried to look as if I believed him, but I didn’t think I convinced him. “Last night Miss Rux performed at a dinner given to a party of businessmen by Mr. Lindsay Brett.” The little black eyes suddenly jumped from the diamond to my face. “Perhaps you have heard of him?”
I nodded. I had made it my business to know something about everyone in San Luis Beach who had more than a five-figure income. Brett had a big place a few miles outside the city limits, the last big estate on Ocean Rise where the millionaires hide out. Ocean Rise is a twisting boulevard, lined on either side by palm trees and tropical flowering shrubs, and cut in the foothills that surround the city’s outskirts. The houses up there are set back in their own grounds and screened by twelve-foot walls. You needed money to live on that boulevard—plenty of money. Brett had money all right; as much as he could use. He had a yacht, three cars, five gardeners and a yen for fresh young blondes. When he wasn’t throwing parties, getting drunk or necking blondes, he was making a pile of jack out of two oil companies and a string of chain stores that stretched from San Francisco to New York.
“After Miss Rux had given her performance, Brett invited her to join the party,” Gorman went on. “During the evening, he showed her and his guests some of his valuable antiques. It seems he had recently acquired a Cellini dagger. He opened the wall safe to show it to his guests. Miss Rux was sitting close to the safe, and as he spun the dial operating the lock, she memorized the combination without realizing what she was doing. She has, I may say, a remarkably retentive memory. The dagger made a great impression on her. She tells me it is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.”
So far I wouldn’t figure where I came into any of this. I wanted a drink. I wanted to go to bed. But I was broke and stuck with Fatso and had to make the best of it. I began to think about his diamond again.
“Later, when the guests had retired, Brett showed Miss Rux to her room. It had been arranged for her to stop over at Brett’s place for the night as the party was expected to go on to the small hours of the morning. Alone with her, Brett reverted to type. He probably thought she would be an easy conquest. She repulsed him.”
“Many men think that when a dame entertains in a G-string the writing goes up on the wall.”
He ignored the interruption and went on. “Brett became angry and there was a struggle. He lost his temper, and anything might have happened had not two of his guests come in to see what the noise was about. Brett was viciously angry, and threatened Miss Rux. He told her he would get even with her for making him look a fool before his friends. He was in an ugly mood and he frightened her. There was no doubt he meant what he said.”
I shifted in my chair.
“When she finally fell asleep she had a dream,” Gorman went on, then paused. He pulled out a gold cigarette case, opened it and laid it on the desk. “I see you would like to smoke, Mr. Jackson.”
I thanked him. He certainly had his finger on my pulse. If there was one thing I wanted more than a drink it was a smoke.
“Do her dreams figure in this, too?” I asked, dropping the match on the floor to keep the other matches company.
“She dreamed she went downstairs, opened the safe, took the case containing the dagger, and in its place left her powder compact.”
A tingle ran up my spine into the roots of my hair. I didn’t move. The deadpan expression I had hitched to my face didn’t change, but an alarm bell began to ring in my mind.
“She woke immediately after the dream. It was six o’clock. She decided to leave before Brett was up. She packed hurriedly and left. No one saw her leave. It wasn’t until late this afternoon when she was unpacking that she found at the bottom of her bag the Cellini dagger.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and yearned for a drink. The alarm bell kept ringing in my mind.
“And I bet she couldn’t find her compact,” I said to show him I was right on his heels.
He regarded me gravely.
“That is correct, Mr. Jackson. She realized immediately what had happened. Whenever she is worried or has something on her mind she walks in her sleep. She took the Cellini dagger in her sleep. The dream wasn’t a dream at all. It actually happened.”
He had taken a little time to get around to it, but now the body was on the table. We looked at each other. I could have said a number of things, but none of them would have got me anywhere. It was still his party, so I pulled at my nose and grunted. He could make what he liked of that.
“Why didn’t she turn the dagger over to the police and tell them what had happened?” I asked. “They would have fixed it with Brett.”
“It wasn’t as easy as that. Brett had threatened her. He’s an unpleasant character when he’s angry. Miss Rux felt he might bring a charge against her.”
“Not if she handed it over to the police. That’d kick the bottom out of the charge.”
Gorman puffed out more breath at me. His thin lips drooped.
“Brett’s point might be that after stealing the dagger, Miss Rux had discovered she couldn’t sell it. The obvious thing for her to do then would be to hand it over to the police and invent this story of sleepwalking.”
“But the compact would support the sleepwalking tale. She wouldn’t leave that in his safe unless she was screwy or did walk in her sleep.”
“But suppose Brett denied the compact was left in the safe in order to get even with her?”
I stubbed out the cigarette regretfully. It was the best smoke I’d had in days.
“Why couldn’t she raise money on the dagger if it’s as valuable as you say?”
“For the obvious reason—it is unique. There were only two gold daggers made by Cellini in existence. One of them is in the Uffizi, and the other belongs to Brett. There’s not a dealer in the world who doesn’t know by now that Brett owns the dagger. It would be impossible to sell it unless Brett personally handled the deal.”
“Okay, then let Brett bring a charge. If she flashes her G-string at the jury, she’ll beat the rap. It’s a cinch they’d never convict her.”
He even had an answer for that one.
“Miss Rux can’t afford the publicity. If Brett brought a charge it would be impossible to keep the case out of the papers. It would ruin her career.”
I gave up.
“So what’s happening? Is Brett bringing a charge?”
Gorman smiled.
“Now we come to the point, Mr. Jackson. Brett left for San Francisco early this morning. He returns the day after tomorrow. He thinks the dagger is still in his safe.”
I knew what was coming, but I wanted him to tell me. I said, “So what do we do?”
At least, that produced some action. He fished from his inside pocket a roll of money big enough to choke a horse. He peeled off ten one-hundred-dollar bills and laid them fan-shape on the desk. They were new and crisp, and I could almost smell the ink on them. I had already guessed he was in the chips, but I hadn’t expected him to be as well-heeled as this. I hitched my chair forward and took a closer look at the notes. There was nothing wrong with them except they were on his side of the desk and not on mine.
“I want to hire your services, Mr. Jackson,” he said, lowering his voice. “Would that fee interest you?”
I said it would in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own, and ran an unsteady hand over my hair to make sure I hadn’t lost the top of my head. The sight of those iron men had sent my blood pressure up like a jet-propelled rocket.
From another pocket he produced a red leather case. He opened it and pushed it toward me. I blinked at the glittering gold dagger that lay on a white satin bed. It was about a foot long, covered with complicated engravings of flowers and animals, and there was an emerald the size of a walnut let into the top of the hilt. It was a nice thing if you like pretty toys—I don’t.
“This is the Cellini dagger,” Gorman said, and there was honey in his voice now. “I want you to return it to Brett’s safe and bring away Miss Rux’s compact. I realize it is a little unethical, and you will have to act the role of a burglar, but you won’t be stealing anything, Mr. Jackson, and the fee is, I suggest, appropriate to the risks. The fee, Mr. Jackson, of a thousand dollars.”
I knew I shouldn’t touch this with a twenty-foot pole. The alarm bell kept ringing in my mind telling me this fat flesh-peddler was stringing me for a sucker. I was sure the whole lousy tale—the Cellini dagger, the stripper who walked in her sleep, the compact in the safe—was a tissue of lies a half-wit paralytic could have seen through. I should have told him to jump in a lake—into two, if one wasn’t big enough to hold him. I wish I had now. It would have saved me a lot of grief and being hunted for murder. But I wanted those ten iron men with a want that tore into my guts, and I thought I was smart enough to play it my way and keep out of trouble. If I hadn’t been broke or in a jam, or if Redfern hadn’t been squeezing me, it might have been different. But why go on?
I said I’d do it.

CHAPTER TWO
NOW THAT HE HAD ME ON THE dotted line, Gorman wasn’t giving me a chance to change my mind. He wanted me out at his place right away. It didn’t matter about going back to my rooms to pick up any overnight stuff. I could borrow anything I wanted. He had a car outside, and it wouldn’t take long to get to his place, where there were drinks and food and quiet in which to talk things over. I could see he wasn’t going to let me out of his sight now or use a telephone or check his story or tell anyone he and I had made a deal. The promise of a drink decided me. I agreed to go along with him.
But before we started we had a little argument over the money. He wanted to pay by results, but I didn’t see it that way. Finally I squeezed two of the Cs out of him and persuaded him to agree to part with two more before I did the actual job. I would receive the balance when I handed over the compact.
Just to show him I didn’t trust him further than I could throw him, I put the two bills in an envelope with a note to my bank manager, and on the way down to the street level I dropped the envelope into the mail chute. At least, if he tried to double-cross me, he wouldn’t get his paws again on those two bills.
An early-vintage Packard Straight Eight cluttered up the street outside the office. The only thing in its favor was its size. I had expected something black and glittering and streamlined to match the diamond, and this old jalopy came as a surprise.
I stood back while Gorman squeezed himself into the backseat. He didn’t get in the car: he put it on. I expected the four tires to burst as he settled himself in, but they held. After making sure there was no room in there with him, I got in beside the driver.
We roared out of town, along Ocean Boulevard, into and over the foothills that surrounded the city in the shape of a horseshoe.
I couldn’t see much of the driver. He sat low behind the steering wheel and had a chauffeur’s cap pulled down over his nose and he stared straight ahead. All the time we drove through the darkness he neither spoke nor looked at me.
We zigzagged through the foothills for a while, then turned off into a canyon and drove along a dirt road, bordered by thick scrub. I hadn’t been out this way before. Every so often we’d pass a house. There were no lights showing.
After a while I gave up trying to memorize the route and let my mind dwell on the two hundred bucks I’d mailed to the bank. At last I would have something to wave at the wolf when next he called at the office.
I wasn’t kidding myself what this job was about. I’d been hired to rob a safe. Never mind the elaborate buildup: the poor little stripper, scared of the big, bad millionaire, or the phoney dagger made by Mr. Cellini. I didn’t believe one word of that tall tale. Gorman wanted something that Brett had in the safe. Maybe it was a powder compact. I didn’t know, but whatever it was, he wanted it badly, and had come to me with this cooked-up yarn so as to have a back door to duck through in case I turned him down. He hadn’t the nerve to tell me he wanted me to rob Brett’s safe. But that’s what he was paying me to do. I had taken the money, but that didn’t mean I was going through with it. He said I was tricky and smooth. Maybe I am. I’d go along with him so far, but I wasn’t going to jump into anything without seeing where I was going to land. Anyway, that’s what I told myself, and at that time I believed it.
We were at the far end of the canyon now. It was damp down there and dark, and a thin white mist hung above the ground. The car headlights bounced off the mist and it wasn’t easy to see what was ahead. Somewhere in the mist and darkness I could hear the frogs croaking. Through the misty windshield the moon looked like a dead man’s face and the stars like paste diamonds.
The car suddenly swung through a narrow gateway, up a steep driveway, screened on either side by a high, thick hedge. A moment later we turned a bend and I saw lighted windows hanging in space. It was too dark even to see the outline of the house and everything around us was quiet and still and breathless—it was as lonely out there as the condemned cell at San Quentin.
A light in a wrought-iron coach lantern sprang up over the front door as the car pulled up with a crunch of tires on gravel. The light shone down on two stone lions crouching one on either side of the porch. The front door was studded with brass-headed nails and looked strong enough to withstand a battering ram.
The chauffeur ran around to the rear door and helped Gorman out. The light from the lantern fell on his face and I looked him over. There was something about his hooked nose and thick lips that struck a chord in my memory. I’d seen him somewhere before, but I couldn’t place him.
“Get the car away,” Gorman growled at him. “And let us have some sandwiches, and remember to wash your hands before you touch the bread.”
“Yes, sir,” the chauffeur said and gave Gorman a look that should have dropped him in his tracks. It wasn’t hard to see he hated Gorman. I was glad to know that. When you’re playing it the way I had it figured out, it’s a sound thing to know who is on whose side.
Gorman opened the front door, edged in his bulk and I followed. We entered a large hall; at the far end was a broad staircase leading to the upper rooms. On the left were double doors to a lounge.
No butler came to greet us. No one seemed interested in us now we had arrived. Gorman took off his hat and struggled out of his coat. He looked just as impressive without the hat, and as dangerous. He had a bald spot on the top of his head, but his hair was clipped so close it didn’t matter. His pink scalp glistened through the white bristles so you scarcely noticed where the hair left off.
I tossed my hat on a hall chair.
“Come in, Mr. Jackson,” he said. “I want you to feel at home.”
I went with him into the lounge. Walking at his side made me feel like a tug bringing in an ocean liner. It was a nice room with a couple of chesterfields in red leather and three or four lounging chairs drawn up before a fireplace big enough to sit in. On the polished boards were Persian rugs that made rich pools of color, and along the wall facing the French windows was a carved sideboard on which displayed a comprehensive collection of bottles and glasses.
A thin, elegantly dressed man pulled himself out of a lounging chair by the window.
“Dominic, this is Mr. Floyd Jackson,” Gorman said; and to me he went on, “Mr. Dominic Parker, my partner.”
My attention was riveted on the bottles, but I gave him a nod to be friendly. Mr. Parker didn’t even nod. He looked me over and his lips curled superciliously and he didn’t look friendly at all.
“Oh, the detective,” he said with a sneer, and glanced at his fingernails the way women do when they’re giving you the brush-off.
I hitched myself up against one of the chesterfields and looked him over. He was tall and slender, and his honey-colored hair was taken straight back and slicked down. He had a long, narrow face, washed-out blue eyes and a soft chin that would have looked a lot better on a woman. From the wrinkles under his eyes and a little sag of flesh at his throat, I guessed he wouldn’t see forty again.
He was a natty dresser, if you care for the effeminate touch. He had on a pearl-gray flannel suit, a pale green silk shirt, a bottle-green tie and reverse calf shoes of the same color. A white carnation decorated his buttonhole and a fat, oval, gold-tipped cigarette hung from his over-red lips.
Gorman had planted himself in front of the fireplace. He stared at me with empty eyes as if he were suddenly bored with me.
“You’d like a drink?” he said, then glanced at Parker. “A drink for Mr. Jackson, don’t you think?”
“Let him get it himself,” Parker said sharply. “I’m not in the habit of waiting on servants.”
“Is that what I am?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t be here unless you were being paid, and that makes you a servant,” he told me in his supercilious voice.
“So it does.” I crossed over to the sideboard and mixed myself a drink big enough to float a canoe. “Like the little guy who was told to wash his hands.”
“It’ll be all right with me if you talk when you’re spoken to,” he said, his face tight with rage.
Gorman said, “Don’t get excited, Dominic.”
The hoarse, scratchy voice had an effect on Parker. He sat down again and frowned at his fingernails. There was a pause. I lifted my glass, waved it at Gorman and drank. The Scotch was as good as the diamond.
“Is he going to do it?” Parker asked suddenly without looking up.
“Tomorrow night,” Gorman said. “Explain it to him. I’m going to bed.” He included me in the conversation by pointing a finger the size of a banana at me. “Mr. Parker will tell you all you want to know. Good night, Mr. Jackson.”
I said good-night.
At the door, he turned to look at me again.
“Please cooperate with Mr. Parker. He has my complete confidence. He understands what has to be done and what he tells you is an order from me.”
“Sure,” I said.
We listened to Gorman’s heavy tread as he climbed the stairs. The room seemed empty without him.
“Go ahead,” I said, dropping into one of the lounging chairs. “You have my complete confidence, too.”
“We won’t have any funny stuff, Jackson.” Parker was sitting up very stiff in his chair. His fists were clenched. “You’re being paid for this job and paid well. I don’t want any impertinence from you. Understand?”
“So far I’ve only received two hundred dollars,” I said, smiling at him. “If you don’t like me the way I am, send me home. The retainer will cover the time I’ve wasted coming out here. Suit yourself.”
A tap on the door saved his dignity. He said to come in, in his cold, spiteful voice, and thrust his clenched fists into his trouser pockets.
The chauffeur came in, carrying a tray. He had changed into a white drill jacket that was a shade too large for him. On the tray was a pile of sandwiches, cut thick.
I recognized him now that he wasn’t wearing the cap. I’d seen him working at the harbor. He was a dark, sad-looking little man with a hooked nose and sad, moist eyes. I wondered what he was doing here. I remembered seeing him painting a boat along the waterfront a few days ago. He must be as new to this job as I was. As he came in, he gave a quick look and a puzzled expression jumped into his eyes.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Parker snapped, pointing to the tray.
“Mr. Gorman ordered sandwiches, sir.”
Parker stood up, took the plate and stared at the sandwiches. He lifted one with a finicky finger and thumb, frowned at it in shocked disgust.
“Who do you think can eat stuff like this?” he demanded angrily. “Can’t you get into your gutter mind sandwiches should be cut thin—thin as paper, you stupid oaf. Cut some more!” With a quick flick of his wrist he shot the contents of the plate into the little guy’s face. Bread and chicken dripped over him, a piece of chicken lodged in his hair. He stood very still and went white.
Parker stalked to the French windows, wrenched back the curtains and stared out into the night. He kept his back turned until the chauffeur had cleared up the mess.
I said, “We don’t want anything to eat, bud. You needn’t come back.”
The chauffeur went out without looking at me. His back was stiff with rage.
Parker said over his shoulder, “I’ll trouble you not to give orders to my servants.”
“If you’re going to act like an hysterical old woman I’m going to bed. If you have anything to tell me, let’s have it. Only make up your mind.”
He came away from the French windows. Rage made him look old and ugly.
“I warned Gorman you’d be difficult,” he said, trying to control his voice. “I told him to leave you alone. A cheap crook like you is no use to anyone.”
I grinned at him.
“I’ve been hired to do a job and I’m going to do it. But I’m doing it my way, and I’m not taking a lot of bull from you. That goes for Fatso, too. If you want this job done, say so and get on with it.”
He struggled with his temper and then, to my surprise, calmed down.
“All right, Jackson,” he said mildly. “There’s no sense in quarrelling.”
I watched him walk stiff-legged to the sideboard, jerk open a drawer and take out a long roll of blue paper. He tossed it on the table.
“That’s the plan of Brett’s house. Look at it.”
I helped myself to another drink and one of his fat cigarettes I found in a box on the sideboard. Then I unrolled the paper and studied the plan. It was an architect’s blueprint. Parker leaned over the table and pointed out the way in, and where the safe was located.
“Two guards patrol the house,” he said. “They’re ex-policemen and quick on the trigger. There’s an elaborate system of burglar alarms, but they are only fixed to the windows and safe. I’ve arranged for you to enter by the back door. That’s it, here.” His long finger pointed on the plan. “You follow this passage, go up the stairs, along here to Brett’s study. The safe’s here, where I’ve marked it in red.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said sharply. “Gorman didn’t say anything about guards and alarms. How is it the Rux dame didn’t touch off the alarm?”
He was expecting that one, for he answered without hesitation. “When Brett returned the dagger to the safe he forgot to reset it.”
“Think it’s still unset?”
“It’s possible, but you mustn’t rely on it.”
“And the guards? How did she miss them?”
“They were in another wing of the house at the time.”
I wasn’t too happy about this. Ex-policemen guards can be tough.
“I have a key that’ll fit the back door,” he said casually. “You needn’t worry about that.”
“You have? You work fast, don’t you?”
He didn’t say anything to that.
I wandered over to the fireplace, leaned against the mantel.
“What happens if I’m caught?”
“We wouldn’t have chosen you for the job if we thought you’d be caught,” he said, and smiled through his teeth.
“That still doesn’t answer my question.”
He lifted his elegant shoulders. “You must tell the truth.”
“You mean about this babe walking in her sleep?”
“Certainly.”
“Persuading Redfern to believe a yarn like that should be fun.”
“If you are careful it won’t come to that.”
“I hope it doesn’t.” I finished my drink, rolled up the blueprint. “I’ll study this in bed. Anything else?”
“Do you carry a gun?”
“Sometimes.”
“You better not carry it tomorrow night.”
We studied each other.
“I won’t.”
“Then that’s all. We’ll go out tomorrow morning and look Brett’s place over. The lay of the land is important.”
“It strikes me it’d be easier to let that stripper do it in her sleep. According to Fatso, if she has anything on her mind she sleepwalks at the drop of a hat. I could give her something for her mind.”
“You’re being impertinent again.”
“So I am.” I collected a bottle of Scotch and a glass from the sideboard. “I’ll finish my supper in bed.”
“We don’t encourage people we hire to drink.” He was very distant and contemptuous again.
“I don’t need any encouragement. Where do I sleep?”
Once more he had to struggle with his temper, and went out of the room with a little flounce that told me how mad he was.
I followed him up the broad stairs, along a passage to a bedroom that smelled as if it had been shut up for a long time. Apart from the stuffy, stale air, there was nothing wrong with the room.
“Good night, Jackson,” he said curtly and went away.
I poured myself out a small Scotch, drank it, made another and walked to the window. I threw it open and leaned out. All I could see were treetops and darkness. The brilliant moonlight didn’t penetrate through the trees or shrubs. Below me I made out a flat roof, a projection over the bay windows that ran the width of the house. For something better to do I climbed out of the window and lowered myself onto the roof. At the far end of the projection I had a clear view of the big stretch of lawn. A lily pond that looked like a sheet of beaten silver in the moonlight held my attention. It was surrounded by a low wall. Someone was sitting on the wall. It looked like a girl, but I was too far away to be sure. I could make out a tiny spark of a burning cigarette. If it hadn’t been for the cigarette, I would have thought the figure was a statue, so still was it sitting. I watched for some time, but nothing happened. I went back the way I had come.
The chauffeur was sitting on my bed waiting for me as I climbed in through the window.
“Just getting some fresh air,” I said as I hooked my leg over the sill. I didn’t show I was startled. “Kind of stuffy in here, isn’t it?”
“Kind of,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’ve seen you somewhere before, ain’t I?”
“Along the waterfront. Jackson’s the name.”
“The dick?”
I grinned. “That was a month ago. I’m not working that racket anymore.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. The cops picked on you, didn’t they?”
“The cops picked on me.” I found another glass, made two stiff drinks. “Want one?”
His hand shot out.
“Can’t stay long. They wouldn’t like me being up here.”
“Did you come for a drink?”
He shook his head. “Couldn’t place you. It sort of worried me. I heard the way you spoke to that heel Parker. I thought you and me might get together.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We might. What’s your name?”
“Max Otis.”
“Been working here long?”
“Started today.” He made it sound as if it was a day too long. “The dough’s all right, but they kick me around. I’m quitting at the end of the week.”
“Told them?”
“Not going to. I’ll just take it on the lam. Parker’s worse than Gorman. He’s always picking on me. You saw the way he behaved….”
“Yeah.” I hadn’t time to listen to his grievances. I wanted information.
“What do you do around here?”
His smile was bitter. “Everything. Cook, clean the house, run the car, look after that heel Parker’s clothes, buy groceries, the drinks. I don’t mind the job—it’s them.”
“How long have they been here?”
“Like I said—a day. I moved them in.”
“Furniture and all?”
“No…they’ve rented the place as it stands.”
“For how long?”
“Search me. I wouldn’t know. They only give me orders. They don’t tell me nothing.”
“Just the two of them?”
“And the girl.”
So there was a girl.
I finished my drink and made two more.
“Seen her?”
He nodded. “Rates high on looks, but keeps to herself. Calls herself Veda Rux. She likes Parker the way I do.”
“That her out in the garden by the pond?”
“Could be. She sits around all day.”
“Who gave you the job?”
“Parker. I ran into him downtown. He knew all about me. He said he’d been making enquiries and would I like to earn some solid money.” He scowled down at his glass. “I wouldn’t have touched it if I’d known the kind of rat he is. If it wasn’t for the gun he carries, I’d take a poke at him.”
“So he carries a gun?”
“Holster job, under his left arm. He carries it as if he could use it.”
“These two guys in business?”
“Don’t seem to be, but your guess is as good as mine. No one’s called or written. No one telephones. They seem to be waiting for something to happen.”
I grinned. Something was going to happen all right.
“Okay, pally, you shoot off to bed. Keep your ears open. We might learn something if we’re smart.”
“Don’t you know anything? What are you here for? What’s cooking? I don’t like any of this. I want to know where I stand.”
“I’ll tell you something. This Rux frail walks in her sleep.”
He looked startled. “You mean that?”
“That’s why I’m here. And another thing, she takes off her clothes at the drop of a hat.”
He chewed this over. He seemed to like it. “I thought there was something different about her,” he said.
“Play safe and take your hat to bed with you,” I said, easing him to the door. “You might be in luck.”

CHAPTER THREE
IT WASN’T UNTIL THE following afternoon that I met Veda Rux.
In the morning, Parker and I drove over in the Packard to Brett’s house. We went around the back of the foothills and up the twisting mountain road to the summit where Ocean Rise has its swaggering terminus.
Parker drove. He took the bends in the mountain road too fast for comfort, and twice the car skidded and the rear wheels came unpleasantly near to the edge of the overhang. I didn’t say anything; if he could stand it, I could. He drove disdainfully, his fingertips resting on the steering wheel as if he were afraid of getting them soiled.
Long before you reached it, you could see Brett’s house. Although surrounded by twelve-foot walls, the house itself was built on high ground and you could get a good view of it from the mountain road. But when you reached the gates the screen of trees, flowering shrubs and hedges hid it from sight. Halfway up the road, Parker stopped the car so I could get an idea of the layout. We had brought the blueprint with us, and he showed me where the back door was in relation to the house and the plan. It meant scaling the wall, he told me, but as he hadn’t to do it, he didn’t seem to think that would be anything to worry about. There was a barbed-wire fence on the top of the wall, he added, but that, too, was something that could be taken care of. He was a lot happier than I was about the setup. But that was natural. I was doing the job.
There was a guard standing before the big iron gates. He was nearly fifty, but looked tough, and his hard, alert eyes held us as we pulled up where the road petered out about fifty yards beyond the gates.
Parker said, “I’ll talk to him. Leave him to me.”
The guard strolled toward us as Parker made a U-turn. He was short and thickset, with shoulders on him like a prizefighter’s. He had on a brown shirt, brown corduroy breeches and a peaked cap, and his short thick legs were encased in jackboots.
“I thought this was the road to Santa Medina,” Parker said, poking his slick head out of the car window.
The guard rested one polished boot on the running board. He stared hard at Parker, then at me. If I hadn’t been told he was an ex-cop, I would have known it by the sneering toughness in his eyes.
“This is a private road,” he said with elaborate sarcasm. “It says so a half a mile back. The Santa Medina road branches to the left, and there’s a notice four yards square telling you just that little thing. What do you want up here?”
While he was shooting off his mouth, I had time to study the walls. They were as smooth as glass, and on top was a three-stranded barbed-wire fence. The prickles on the wire looked sharp enough to slice meat—my meat at that.
“I thought the road to the left was the private road,” Parker was saying. He smiled emptily at the guard. “Sorry if we’re trespassing.”
I saw something else, too: a dog sitting by the guard’s lodge—a wolfhound. It was yawning in the sunlight. You could hang a hat on its fangs.
“Beat it,” the guard said. “When you’ve got the time, learn yourself to read. You’re missing a lot.”
Around the guard’s thick waist was a revolver belt. There was no flap to the holster and the butt of the .45 was shiny with use.
“You don’t have to be impertinent,” Parker returned gently. He was still very distant and polite. “We all make mistakes.”
“Yeah, your mother made a beauty,” the guard said and laughed.
Parker flushed pink.
“That’s an objectionable remark,” he said sharply. “I’ll complain to your employer.”
“Scram,” the guard said, growling. “Take this lump of iron the hell out of here or I’ll give you something to complain about.”
We drove away the way we had come. I watched the guard in the rearview mirror. He stood in the middle of the road, his hands on his hips, staring after us: a real twelve-minute egg.
“Nice fella,” I said and grinned.
“There’s another like him. They’re both on duty at night.”
“See the dog?”
“Dog?” He glanced at me. “No. What dog?”
“Just a dog. Nice teeth. If anything he looked a little tougher than the guard and sort of hungry. And the barbed wire. Good stuff. Sharp. I guess I’ll have to ask for a little more dough. I’ve got to get me insured.”
“You’re not going to get any more money from us, if that’s what you mean,” Parker snapped.
“That’s what I do mean. Pity you missed the dog. It should be a lot of fun having that cutie roaming around in the dark. Yeah, I guess you’ll have to dip into your sock again, brother.”
“A thousand or nothing,” Parker said, his face hardening. “Please yourself.”
“You’ll have to revise your ideas. I’m in a buyer’s market. You know, Brett might pay me for information. Don’t tell me to please myself unless you want me to.” I glanced at him, saw his eyes narrow. That hit him where it hurt.
“Don’t try that stuff with me, Jackson.”
“Talk it over with Fatso. I want another five hundred or I don’t go ahead. Fatso didn’t tell me about the guards or the dog or the alarms or the wire. He made out it was a soft job—a job you could do in your sleep.”
“I’m warning you, Jackson,” Parker said between his teeth. “You can’t monkey with us. You made a deal and you’ve accepted part payment. You’re going through with it.”
“That’s right. But the fee’s jacked up to fifteen centuries. My union don’t let me fool around with dogs.”
“You’ll take your thousand or you’ll be sorry,” he said, and his hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “I’m not going to be blackmailed by you, you cheap crook.”
“Don’t blame me. Blame Fatso. I’m not a sucker.”
He began to drive fast and we got back to the house in half the time it took us to leave it.
“We’ll see Gorman,” he said.
We saw Gorman.
Fatso sat in a chair and stroked his hard pink face and listened.
“I told him he couldn’t make a monkey out of us,” Parker said. He was white and his eyes had a feverish look.
Gorman stared at me.
“You’d better not try any tricks, Mr. Jackson.”
“No tricks,” I said, smiling at him. “Just another five hundred to take care of the insurance. You want to see the guard and you want to take a gander at the dog. When you’ve seen them, you’ve seen plenty.”
He brooded for a long minute.
“All right,” he said suddenly. “I didn’t know about the guards or the dog myself. I’ll make it another five hundred, but it’s the last you’ll get.”
Parker let out a little explosion of sound.
“Don’t get excited, Dominic,” Gorman said, frowning at him. “If you knew about the guards you should have told me.”
“He’s blackmailing us!” Parker stormed. “You’re crazy to pay him. Where’s it going to stop?”
“Leave this to me,” Gorman said, cool as a cucumber.
Parker stood glaring at me, then he went out.
“I’ll have the dough now,” I said. “It wouldn’t be much use to me if I run into that dog.”
We argued back and forth. After a while we agreed to split it and Gorman handed over two hundred and fifty.
I borrowed an envelope and a sheet of notepaper and prepared another surprise for my bank manager. There was a mailbox just outside the house. I went down the drive and mailed the letter while Gorman watched me from the window.
Well, I was coming along. I had collected four hundred and fifty iron men for nothing so far, and they were where neither of these guys could reach them.
All the same I didn’t like the easy way Gorman had parted with the money. I knew I wouldn’t have screwed it out of Parker. But Gorman was a lot trickier than Parker. When he had parted with the money, his face had been expressionless. But that didn’t fool me. I began to think it was going to be a lot harder to collect the balance of the money when I had handed over the compact. I was all right now, but the moment I had handed it over I had a feeling Gorman would go into action. I felt it the way you feel a hunch, and it kept growing. I remembered what Max had said about Parker’s gun. Right now they wanted me to do a job Gorman was too fat to do and Parker hadn’t the guts to do. But when I’d done it, I’d be of no further use to them. I’d be a danger to them. That’s when I should have to watch out. And I told myself I’d watch out all right.
Later, Max came to tell me lunch was ready. I was sitting on the terrace overlooking the lawn, and when I was going to speak to him he frowned a warning.
I glanced over my shoulder and there was my pal Parker standing in the French windows watching us. He came over, a little stiff, but controlled.
“I have everything you need for tonight,” he said when Max had gone away. “I’ll come with you as far as the wall and I’ll wait there in the car.”
“Come in with me. You can take care of the dog.”
He ignored this, and we went into the dining room. The lunch was nothing to rave about. While we toyed with the food, Parker told me what he had got together for me.
“You’ll want a knotted rope for the wall. I have that with a hook at one end. I have a good pair of cutters for the wire. You’ll need a flashlight. Anything else?”
“How about the dog?”
“A leaded cane will take care of the dog,” Gorman put in. “I’ll tell Max to get one.”
“And the combination of the safe?”
“I’ve written that down for you,” Parker said. “You’ll find a wire running along the side of the safe. Before you touch the safe, cut the wire. That’ll put the alarm out of action. Don’t touch any of the windows.”
“Sounds simple, doesn’t it?” I said.
“For a man of your experience it is simple,” Gorman said smoothly. “But don’t take any chances, Mr. Jackson. I don’t want any trouble.”
“That makes two of us,” I said.
After lunch I told them I’d take a nap in the garden, and that’s when I met Veda Rux. I went down to the lily pond hoping I’d run into her and that’s where I found her. She was sitting on the low wall surrounding the pond the way she had been sitting the previous night. Her feet in sandals hung a few inches above the water. She wore a pair of canary-colored corduroy slacks and a thin silk shirt of the same color. Her almost black hair hung loose to her shoulders in a kind of Dutch bob, only she had waves in it. She was small and compact and curved, and there was strength in her. It wasn’t that she was muscular; it was something you guessed at rather than saw. You had the impression her wrists had steel in them and the curve of her thighs would be as hard as granite if you touched them.
Her face was pale and small and serious. Her lapis-lazuli eyes were alert and watchful. Plenty of girls have pretty faces and curves you can’t improve upon. You look them over, get ideas about them, and forget them as soon as they’re out of sight. But this girl you wouldn’t forget. Don’t ask me why. She had something. She was as different as gin is to water. And the difference, as you know, is there’s a kick in one of them. Veda Rux carried a kick like a mule.
As soon as I saw her I knew there was going to be trouble. If I’d had any sense I’d have quit there and then. I should have told Gorman I’d changed my mind, given him back his money and got out of this house like a bat out of hell. That would have been the sensible thing to have done. I should have known from the way this girl made me feel that from now on I was going to have only half my mind on my job. And when a guy gets that way he’s leaving himself wide open for a sucker punch. I knew it, and I didn’t even care.
“Hello,” I said. “I’ve heard about you. You walk in your sleep.”
She studied me thoughtfully. No welcome. No smile.
“I’ve heard about you, too,” she said.
That seemed to take care of that. There was a long blank pause while we looked at each other. She didn’t move. It was uncanny how still she could sit: not a blink to show she was alive. You couldn’t even see she was breathing.
“You know why I’m here?” I asked. “You know what I’m going to do?”
“Yes, I know that, too,” she said.
Well, that also took care of that. There didn’t seem much else to say. I looked down into the lily pond. I could see her reflection in the water. She looked good that way, too.
I had the idea I was having the same effect on her as she was having on me. I wasn’t sure, but I had a hunch I had touched off a spark in her, and it wouldn’t need a lot of work to fan it into a flame.
I’ve been around and I’ve known a lot of women in my time. They’ve given me a lot of fun and a lot of grief. Now women are funny animals. You never know where you are with them—they don’t often know where they are with themselves. It’s no good trying to find out what makes them tick. It just can’t be done. They have more moods than an army of cats have lives, and all you can hope for is to spot the mood you’re after when it turns up and step in quick. Hesitate, and you’re a dead duck, unless you’re one of those guys who likes a slow approach that might get you somewhere in a week or a month or even a year. But that’s not the way I like it. I like it quick and sudden: like a shot in the back.
I had come around the pool and was close to her now. She sat like a statue, her hands folded in her lap, and I could smell her perfume; nothing you could put a name to, but nice—heady and elusive.
And all of a sudden my heart was slamming against my ribs and my mouth was dry. I stood close behind her and waited. It was as if I’d got hold of a live wire in my hands and it was pulling me to pieces and I couldn’t let go. Then she turned her head slowly and raised her face. I caught her in my arms and my mouth covered hers. She was in the mood all right. Her mouth was half-open and hard against mine. I felt her breath at the back of my throat. Five seconds—long enough to find out how good she was, with her firm young other hand gripping my arm; then she pushed me away. She had steel in her wrists all right.
We looked at each other. The lapis-lazuli eyes were as unruffled and as impersonal as the lily pond.
“Do you usually work as fast as that?” she asked and touched her mouth gently with slim fingers.
There was a weight on my chest that made me breathless. When I spoke I had a croak in my voice a frog would have envied.
“It seemed the thing to do,” I said. “We might do it again sometime.”
She swung her legs over the wall and stood up. The top of her sleek dark head was a little above my shoulder. She stood very still and straight.
“We might,” she said and walked away. I watched her go. Her slim body was upright and graceful and she didn’t look back. I watched her until she had disappeared into the house, then I sat on the wall and lit a cigarette. My hands were as steady as an aspen leaf.
For the rest of the afternoon I stayed right there by the lily pond. Nothing happened. No one came near me. No one peeped at me from the windows. I had all the time in the world to think out what I was going to do that night, how I was going to evade the guards and the dog, how I was going to climb that wall without being seen, and how I was going to open the safe. But I didn’t think about any of that stuff. I thought about Veda Rux. I was still thinking about her when the sun dropped behind the tall pine trees and the shadows lengthened on the lawn. I was still thinking about her when Parker came out of the house and down to the pond.
I looked at him blankly because he had gone right out of my mind. It was as if he had never existed. That was the effect she had on me.
“You’d better come in now,” he said abruptly. “We’ll run through the final arrangements before we have supper. We want to get off about nine o’clock when the moon’s right.”
We went back into the house. There was no sign of her in the hall or the lounge where Gorman was waiting. I kept listening for sounds of her, but the house was as still and as quiet as a morgue.
“Dominic will carry the dagger,” Gorman said. “When you’re up on the wall he’ll hand it to you. Be careful with it. I don’t want the case scratched.”
Parker gave me a key which he said unlocked the back door. We went over the architect’s plan once more.
“I have another two hundred bucks coming to me before I go in there,” I reminded Gorman. “You can give it to me now if that’s okay with you.”
“Dominic will give it to you at the same time as he gives you the dagger,” Gorman said. “You’ve had too much of my money without working for it, Mr. Jackson. I want some action from you before I part with any more.”
I grinned. “Right, only I don’t go over the wall without it.”
I expected to see her at supper, but she wasn’t there. Halfway through the meal I found I just had to know where she was. I said casually I’d seen a girl in the garden and was that Miss Rux and wasn’t she coming in for a bite of food?
Parker turned a greenish white. His fists clenched until the knuckles seemed to be bursting out of his skin. He started to say something in a voice that was drowned in rage, but Gorman put in quickly, “Don’t excite yourself, Dominic.”
I didn’t like the look of Parker, and I pushed back my chair. He looked mad enough to take a sock at me. I don’t like a guy to sock me when I’m sitting down—even a clown like Parker.
“You’re hired to do a job, Jackson,” Parker said, leaning across the table and glaring at me. “Keep your damned nose out of what doesn’t concern you! Miss Rux doesn’t want anything to do with a cheap crook like you, and I’ll see her wishes are carried out. Don’t bring her name into this conversation!”
Because of what had happened out there by the pond, I didn’t play it the way I should.
“Don’t tell me that number I saw in the fancy pants could fall for a stooge like you,” I said and laughed at him. I had my heel against the rung of the chair and I was about to kick it away and land him a poke in his snout when I found myself looking down the barrel of a .38 police special that had jumped into his hand. Max had said he carried a gun as if he could use it. That draw was the quickest thing outside the movies I’d ever seen.
“Dominic!” Gorman said quietly.
I didn’t move. There was a blank, sightless look in Parker’s washed-out blue eyes that told me he was going to shoot. It was a nasty moment. The gun barrel looked as big as the Brooklyn Battery tunnel and twice as steady. I could see the thin finger taking in the slack on the trigger.
“Dominic!” Gorman shouted and brought his great fist crashing down on the table.
The gun barrel dropped and Parker blinked at me as if he couldn’t understand what had happened. His vacant, bewildered look sent a chill up my spine. This guy was slaphappy. I’d seen that dazed, vacant expression duplicated on a row of faces in the psychopathic ward in the county jail. You couldn’t mistake it once you’d seen it: the face of a paranoiac killer.
“Don’t get excited, Dominic,” Gorman said in his thin, scratchy voice. He hadn’t turned a hair, and I began to understand why he kept telling Parker to take it easy. It was his way of controlling him when he was getting out of hand.
Parker got slowly to his feet, stared at the gun as if he couldn’t understand what it was doing in his hand and walked quietly out of the room.
I took out my handkerchief and touched my forehead with it. I was sweating: not much, but I was sweating.
“You want to watch that guy,” I said evenly. “One of these days they’ll take him away, strapped to a stretcher.”
“You have only yourself to blame, Mr. Jackson,” Gorman said, his eyes cold. “He’s all right if you handle him right. You happen to be the quarrelsome type. Have some more coffee?”
I grinned. “I’m going to have a drink. He was going to shoot. Don’t kid me. You want to take that gun away from him before there’s an accident.”
Gorman watched me pour the drink. There was an empty expression on his fat face.
“You mustn’t take him too seriously, Mr. Jackson. He’s become attached to Miss Rux. I shouldn’t mention her again in your conversation.”
“That guy? And what does she think of him?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with you.”
I took a drink and came back to the table.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
At nine o’clock Parker brought the car around to the front door. He was distant and calm and seemed to have got over his little spell.
Gorman came down the steps to see us off.
“Good luck, Mr. Jackson. Parker will give you last-minute instructions. I’ll have your money for you when you return.”
I was looking up at the dark windows hoping to see her and I didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying. She wasn’t there.
“We should be back in a couple of hours,” Parker said to Gorman. I could tell his nerves were jangling by the shake in his voice. “If we’re not, you know what to do.”
“You’ll be back,” Gorman returned. His nerves were in better shape. “Mr. Jackson won’t make a mistake.”
I hoped I wouldn’t. As we drove away into the darkness, I leaned out of the window and looked back at the house. I still couldn’t see her.

CHAPTER FOUR
WE SAT IN THE CAR close to the twelve-foot wall that skirted the back of Brett’s house. It was cold and quiet up there on the mountain, and dark. We couldn’t see the wall or the car or each other. It was as if we were suspended in black space.
“All right,” Parker said softly. “You know what to do. Take your time. Give me a whistle when you’re coming back. I’ll flash a light so you’ll find the rope again.”
I breathed gently into the darkness. Even now I hadn’t decided what to do. I didn’t want to go in there. I knew once I was over the wall, I would have put myself out on a limb, and if I slipped up, the least I could hope for was a stretch in jail. Redfern would fall over himself to put me away. He was only waiting for me to step out of line.
Parker turned on the shaded dashboard lamp. I could see his hands and the shadowy outline of his head and shoulders.
“Here’s the combination of the safe,” he said. “It’s easy to remember. I’ve put it on a card. One full turn to the right, half a turn back, another full turn to the right, and a half turn to the right again. Stop between each turn to give the tumblers a chance to drop into place. Don’t rush it. The only way to open the safe is to wait between each turn.”
He gave me the card.
“How about my dough?” I asked.
“That’s all you think about,” he said with a snarl in his voice. He was wrong there, but it wasn’t the time or the place to tell him about Veda Rux. “Here, take it, and keep your mind on what you’re to do.”
He handed over two one-hundred-dollar bills. I folded them small and put them in my cigarette case. I should have clipped him on the jaw then, shoved him out of the car and driven away, but I wanted to see Veda again. I could still feel her mouth against mine.
“When you’ve opened the safe, you’ll find the compact on the second shelf. You can’t miss it. It’s a small gold case, about half an inch thick. You know the kind—hundreds of women have them. Put the dagger in its place.”
“It would have saved a lot of trouble if that babe had slept with a chain on her ankle,” I said. “You might pass the idea on.”
He opened the car door and slid out into the darkness. I followed. Out in the open I could just make out the top of the wall. We stood listening for a moment or so. There wasn’t a sound. I wondered if the dog was loose on the grounds—just thinking about that dog gave me the shakes.
“Ready?” Parker said impatiently. “We want to get this over before the moon is up.”
“Yeah,” I said and swung the leaded cane. I wished now I carried a gun.
He uncoiled the length of rope, and I took the hook in my hand. At the third throw the hook caught on the wire and held.
“Well, so long,” I said. “Keep your ears open. I may be coming out a damn sight faster than I go in.”
“Don’t make any mistakes, Jackson,” he said. I couldn’t see his face but by the way his voice sounded he was talking through locked teeth. “You won’t get any more money out of us if you don’t bring out that compact.”
“As if I didn’t know,” I said and took hold of the rope. “Got the dagger?”
“I’ll hand it up to you. Be careful with it. Don’t knock it against anything. There mustn’t be a mark on it.”
I climbed up the rope until I reached the wire. My feet gripped one of the knots in the rope and I went to work on the wire with the cutters. The wire was strung tight and I had to watch out it didn’t snap back and slash me. I got it cut after a while.
“Okay,” I said into the darkness and drew myself up until I was sitting astride the wall. I looked toward the house, but it was like looking into a pit a mile deep.
“Here’s the case,” Parker whispered. “Handle it carefully.”
I leaned down, fumbled about until my fingers closed around it.
“I have it,” I said and took it from him. While I was shoving it into my coat pocket, I went on. “It’s as black as a hat down there. It’ll take me some time to locate the way in.”
“No, it won’t,” Parker said impatiently. “There’s a path a few yards from the wall. It’ll take you to the back door. Keep to your right. You can’t go wrong.”
“You’ve really made a study of this thing, haven’t you?” I said, pulling up the rope, and sliding down the other side of the wall into the garden.
I stood in the darkness, my hand against the wall, my feet on the grass verge, and listened. All I could hear was my own breathing and the thump of my heart against my ribs. I had left it late to make up my mind what I was going to do. I had to make a decision now. I could either stay right where I was for a while and then climb back over the wall and tell Parker I couldn’t open the safe or it was too well guarded or something, or I could go ahead and do the job and take a chance of running into the dog and the guards.
Once I had the compact, and if the guards caught me, nothing could save me from Redfern. But I was curious. I was sure the whole setup was phoney. A guy as smart as Gorman wouldn’t be gambling away fifteen hundred bucks to help a woman out of a mess. He wasn’t the type. The compact or whatever it was he wanted out of Brett’s safe was worth a pile of jack. There could be no other explanation. If it was worth money to him, it might be worth money to me. I was sick of San Luis Beach, sick of being pushed around, sick of having no money. If I used my head I might make a killing with this job. I might collect enough dough to take it easy for years. It was worth the gamble. I decided to go ahead.
All this took about five seconds to go through my mind; a second later I was on the path and heading toward the house. I had on rubber-soled shoes and I made less noise than a ghost, and I was listening all the time. I didn’t hurry and I crouched as I moved, the flashlight in one hand and the leaded cane ready for business in the other. After a while I came out of the trees. Away to my left I could make out the shape of the house: a vast black bulk of stone against the sky. No lights showed.
I kept moving, following the path that circled the lawn, and I kept thinking about the wolfhound. It was nervy work walking into that thick darkness—a police dog doesn’t bark. It moves along almost on its belly, very fast and quiet, and the first and last time you know it’s there is when its fangs are tearing your throat out. My shirt stuck to my back, and my nerves were poking out of my skin by the time I reached the end of the path. I was close to the house now. The path led to the terrace steps. I knew from the plan that to reach the back entrance you had to walk along the terrace, up some more steps, along another terrace, pass a row of French windows, around the corner and there you were. Once on the terrace you had as much cover to duck behind as a bubble dancer has when her bubble bursts.
I stood near the last tree of the path and probed the terrace and the steps until my eyes hurt. At first I couldn’t see a thing, then I began to make out the broad white steps and the balustrade of the terrace. I kept on looking and listening and straining into the darkness because I knew once I moved out into the open there was no turning back. I had to be sure no one was there. I had to be doubly sure the dog wasn’t up there waiting for me.
Now that I was close to the house, I could see chinks of light from one of the downstairs curtained windows. I could hear the whisper of dance music. The sound of that music made me feel lonely.
I still couldn’t make up my mind to leave the shelter of the tree. I had a hunch it wasn’t as safe up there as it looked. I kept staring and waiting, and then I saw the guard. By now my eyes had become used to the dark—and besides, the moon was coming up behind the house. He had been standing close to what looked like a big stone bird on a pedestal at the top of the steps. He had been merged into the design of the bird and I hadn’t seen him, although he had been there all the time. Now that he had moved away from the bird I could see the outline of his cap against the white background of the terrace. I sucked in a lungful of air. He stood looking into the garden for a while, and then walked leisurely along the terrace, away from the back entrance.
I had to take a chance. He might turn and come back, but I didn’t think he would. I sprinted for the steps. I ran on tiptoe and I gained the terrace without him having the slightest idea he wasn’t up there alone anymore. I could still see him as I crouched by the balustrade. He had reached the far end of the terrace and was standing with his back turned to me, looking into the garden like a ship’s captain on his bridge. I didn’t wait; keeping low, I ran up more steps and reached the terrace above him.
I could hear the radio distinctly now. Ernie Caceres was tearing a hole in “Persian Rug” on an alto sax. But I had other things to do than to listen to Ernie, and I went past the French windows, round the corner of the house the way I had seen it on the blueprint.
I was a few yards from the back entrance when I heard footsteps. My heart flopped around inside my hat and I stood against the wall. I heard more footsteps—coming toward me.
“You down there, Harry?” a voice called out of the darkness. I thought I recognized it. It belonged to the guard we had run into outside the gates. He couldn’t have been ten yards from me.
“Yeah,” a voice called back.
I could see the guard now. He was leaning over the balustrade, looking down at the other guard on the lower terrace. The other guard had turned on a flashlight.
“All quiet?”
“Quiet enough. Dark as pitch down here.”
“Keep your ears open, Harry. I don’t want trouble tonight.”
“What’s biting you, Ned?” The other guard’s voice sounded impatient. “Got the shakes or something?”
“You keep your damned eyes open like I say. Those two guys are on my mind.”
“Aw, forget them. They lost their way, didn’t they? Every time a guy loses his way and gets up here you have to act nervy. Take it easy, can’t you?”
“I didn’t like the look of them,” Ned said. “While the blockhead was sounding off, the other guy was using his eyes. He looked tough to me.”
“Okay, okay. I’m on my way around the grounds now. If I run into your tough guy I’ll fertilize the soil with him.”
“Take the dog,” Ned said. “Where is he, anyway?”
“Chained up, but I’ll take him. See you here in half an hour.”
“Right.”
I listened to all this as I stood like a statue in the dark. Ned stayed where he was, his back to me, his hands on his hips, looking out across the vast stretch of lawn.
Slowly I began to edge along the wall, away from him. I kept going, making no sound, until I lost sight of him in the darkness. After a few more steps I came to a door. I fumbled about until I found the iron ring that lifted the latch, turned it and pushed, but the door was locked. I transferred the leaded cane from one hand to the other, felt in my pocket and drew out the key Parker had given me. I daren’t show a light. I began to feel up and down the door for the keyhole, and all the time I kept my ears cocked in case Ned took it into his head to come back. I found the keyhole, slid in the key, turned it gently. The lock eased back with a faint click. To me it sounded like a gun going off. I waited, listened, heard nothing, turned the ring again and pushed. The door opened. I edged my way into more darkness. Then I removed the key, shut the door, locked it from the inside and pocketed the key.
Now that I was inside the house, I was suddenly as cool and as calm as a tray of ice cubes. I was out of reach of that dog and that took a weight off my mind.
I knew exactly where to go. I had facing me, although I couldn’t see them, five steps and a long passage. At the end of the passage there were more steps, and then a sharp right would bring me to Brett’s study and the safe.
I listened for a moment or so. Ernie Caceres was showing his versatility by playing the clarinet solo in the “Anvil Chorus.” I reckoned any noise I might make would be cancelled out by his high notes. I turned on the flash, got my bearings, went up the stairs and along the passage as fast as I could lick. There was a light at the head of the second flight of stairs. I shot up them, turned a sharp right into a little lobby that was glassed in on the garden side. A door faced me. It led to Brett’s study. On my right was a broad flight of stairs to the upper rooms.
There was a sudden giggle at the head of the stairs. I didn’t jump more than a foot.
A girl said, “Don’t you dare! Oh!”
Fun and games among the staff, I thought, and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. The girl yelped again. Feet pounded overhead. There was another yelp and then a door slammed.
I waited some more but it got quiet then: no screams, no yelps. I thought it was time Brett got back. His staff was having too good a time. I didn’t wait any longer, beetled over to the study door, turned the handle and peered in. No one yelled for help—no one was there. I went in and closed the door. The beam of the flashlight took me to the safe. It was right where the plan had said it was; so was the wire running down its side. If I hadn’t been looking for the wire I wouldn’t have seen it. It was what they call artfully concealed.
I cut the wire, expecting a peal of bells to start up all over the house, but nothing happened. It looked as if Parker had either cased the joint with expert thoroughness or else the alarm was still unset. I didn’t know and didn’t care.
I took the card from my pocket, checked the combination and then started on the dial. I held the flashlight on the dial and turned carefully: one full turn to the right, a two-second wait, one half turn back, another wait, a full turn to the right, another wait and a half turn to the right again. Just the way Parker had said. Then I took hold of the knob and pulled gently. I didn’t expect anything to happen, but it did. The safe opened.
I whistled through my teeth, shone the beam of the flashlight into the steel-lined cabinet. On the second shelf in the corner was a small gold box, about three inches square—very neat and modern and expensive looking. I picked it up, balanced it in my hand. It was weighty for its size. There was no button or catch to open it. I fiddled with it for a second or so then dropped it into my pocket. There was no time to waste. I could examine it when I was out of the house.
I took the dagger case from my pocket. Up to now I had been too busy avoiding the guards and thinking about the dog to give the case any attention, but now I had it in my hand my brain began to function.
The dagger was the only thing about Gorman’s story that didn’t click. I was as sure as Parker was loony that the girl hadn’t taken the dagger from Brett’s safe, and that the compact wasn’t her property. I had seen the dagger. It looked genuine enough. I didn’t know anything about antiques, but I did know gold when I saw it, and the dagger was gold—that made it expensive. Then why was Gorman getting me to put a valuable antique in Brett’s safe—an antique that I was certain didn’t belong to Brett? Why? A thing like that could be easily traced. Why hire me to steal the compact and leave something in its place of equal value and which would give the police a clue that might take them to Gorman? There was something wrong here, something out of tune.
I looked at the case in the light of the flash. Maybe they had fooled me and the dagger wasn’t in it. I tried to open the case, but it wouldn’t budge. It was too heavy for an empty case. I continued to examine it, and suddenly it occurred to me that it was thicker and a shade longer than the case Gorman had shown me. I wasn’t sure, but it looked that way to me. Then I heard something that brought me out in a rush of cold sweat. There was a faint but distant ticking coming from the case. I nearly dropped it.
No wonder those two smart punks had told me to handle it carefully. I knew what it was now. It was a bomb! They had made up the bomb to look like the dagger case, figuring I would be in such a hurry to get rid of it I wouldn’t spot the exchange. I put it in the safe as fast as you’d have got rid of a tarantula dropped in your lap.
I had no idea, of course, when the bomb was timed to explode, but when it did, I knew it would blow everything in the safe to atoms. That’s the way they had it figured. Brett wouldn’t know whether or not the compact had been stolen. For all he could tell, an attempt had been made to blow open the safe, but too much T.N.T. had been used and the contents of the safe had been liquidated. It was a bright idea—an idea worthy of Gorman. But when I thought of climbing that wall, coming up here, wasting time dodging the guards with a bomb ticking in my pocket, I came out in another rush of cold sweat. I shut the safe and spun the dial. My one thought was to get as far away from the safe as I could before the bomb went off. Maybe I was a little panicky. You would have felt the same. Bombs are tricky things, and a homemade bomb is the trickiest of them all. I didn’t doubt that Parker—if Parker was responsible for the thing—had timed it to go off sometime after we were well clear of the house; but I wouldn’t trust anyone to be accurate when it comes to bomb mechanism. So far as I was concerned that bomb was likely to go off right now.
I shot to the door, jerked it open and walked out just as Ned, the guard, walked in.
I have a reputation for fast action when it comes to a fight. I don’t have to think what to do when I step into that kind of trouble. My reflexes take care of the work long before my brain goes into action. I had Ned by his thick throat, throttling his yell, before I had gotten over the shock of running into him.
His reflexes were a mile behind mine. He just stood there for a split second, unable to move, letting me throttle him. I’ll say this for him: he made a remarkable recovery. As soon as he realized what was happening, he caught hold of my wrists and I knew by his grip I wouldn’t be able to hold him. He was as strong as a bear.
Only one thing mattered to me. I had to stop this guy from yelling. He tore one of my hands off his throat and swung a fist that felt like a lump of pig iron into the side of my neck. It hurt and got me mad. I socked him twice about the body. His ribs weren’t made of concrete but they felt like it. He grunted, drew in a breath and I socked him again before he could yell. He sagged a bit at the knees, ducked under another smack I let fly at him and grabbed me around the body. We went to the floor, in slow motion, and settled on the carpet with scarcely a bump. We fought like a couple of animals then. He was as tough and as dirty as an all-in wrestler, and as savage. But I kept socking them into his body and I knew he wasn’t built to take much of that stuff. I grabbed hold of his head and slammed it on the floor. He twisted away, gave me a kick in the chest that flattened me and let out a yell like a foghorn.
I jumped him and we sent a table crashing to the floor. I was rattled now. If the other guard came in with the dog, it wouldn’t be so good. I hit Ned in the face with two punches that nearly bust my fists. He flopped to his side, groaning. I didn’t blame him. Those smacks even hurt me.
Then the light went on and the other guard came in and that seemed to be that.
I kicked Ned away, half rose on my knee, paused. The .45 pointing at me looked a lot larger than a 240 millimeter howitzer and twice as deadly.
“Hold it!” Harry said, his voice squeaky with fright.
I held it while Ned got unsteadily to his feet.
“What the hell is going on?” Harry demanded. He was a fat-faced, dumb-looking hick, but built like a bullock.
All I could think of was the bomb.
“Watch him, Harry,” Ned croaked. “Just let me get my breath. I told you, didn’t I? It’s the same guy.”
Harry gaped at me. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“We’d better call the cops,” he said. “You all right, Ned?”
Ned cursed him and cursed me. Then he kicked me in my ribs before I could block his boot. I went sprawling across the room and I guess that saved me.
The bomb went off.
I was vaguely aware of a lot of noise, a flash of blinding light and a rush of air that flung me up against the wall. Then plaster crashed down on me, windows fell out, the room swayed and shook.
I found I was clutching the flashlight I’d dropped when I had grabbed Ned. I knew I had to get out of there fast, but I had to see what had happened to the guards. I needn’t have worried. They had been in a direct line of the safe door as it was blown off its hinges. I recognized Ned by his boots, but I didn’t recognize Harry at all.
I stumbled through the broken French windows out onto the terrace. I was punch-drunk, slaphappy and scared witless, but my brain still functioned.
I was going to double-cross Gorman before he double-crossed me. The exploding bomb had made it easy for me.
I staggered over to the stone bird that guarded the top of the terrace steps. I don’t know how I managed to climb up to the place where its wings joined its body, but I did. I put the compact in the little hollow between the wings, scrambled down, and began to run toward where I hoped I’d find Parker.
My legs felt as if the bones had been taken out of them and my ears sang. It looked a long way across that lawn to the wall and I wasn’t sure if I could make it.
The moon had climbed above the house now and the garden was full of silvery light. You could see every blade of grass, every flower, every stone in the gravel paths. There was nothing you couldn’t see. But I saw only one thing: the wolfhound coming straight at me like an express train.
I let out a yell you could have heard in San Francisco, turned to run, changed my mind, spun around to face the brute. He came over the lawn, low to the ground, his eyes like red-hot embers, his teeth as white as orange pith in the moonlight. I still dream about that dog, and I still wake up, sweating, thinking he’s coming at me, feeling his teeth in my throat. He stopped dead within ten yards of me, dropped flat, turned to stone. I stood there, sweat dripping off me, my knees buckling, too scared even to breathe. I knew one flicker out of me and he’d come.
We stared at each other for maybe ten seconds. It seemed like a hundred years to me. I could see his tail stiffening and his back legs tightening for his spring, then there was a sharp crack of an automatic. I heard the slug whine past my head. The dog rolled over on its side, snarling and biting, its teeth snapping horribly at empty air.
I didn’t wait to assess the damage. I ran toward the beam of the flashlight that flashed from the top of the wall. I got there, pulled myself up and fell with a thud on the far side.
Parker grabbed me around the waist, half dragged, half carried me to the car. I rolled in, slammed the door as he let in the clutch.
“Keep going!” I yelled at him. “They’re right behind. They’ve got a car and they’ll be after us.”
I wanted to get him rattled so he wouldn’t ask questions until we had gone too far to go back. I got him rattled.
He drove down the hills like he was crazy. That guy certainly could drive. Why we didn’t go over the mountain road beats me. We tore down the road, took hairpin bends at eighty, our wheels inches from the overhang.
At the end of the mountain road he suddenly slammed on his brakes, skidded across the road, straightened up and turned on me as if he were out of his mind.
“Did you get it?” he screamed at me, grabbing my coat lapels and shaking me. “Where is it, damn you! Did you get it?”
I put my hand in the middle of his chest and gave him a shove that nearly sent him out of the car.
“You and your damned bomb!” I yelled back at him. “You crazy dumb cluck! You nearly killed me!”
“Did you get it?” he bawled, beating on the steering wheel with his clenched fists.
“The bomb blew it to hell,” I told him. “That’s what your bomb did. It blew the whole safe and everything in it to hell,” and I hit him flush on the button as he came at me.

CHAPTER FIVE
I CAUGHT A GLIMPSE of myself in the mirror over the mantel as I came into the lounge. I was smothered in white plaster dust, my hair hung over my eyes, the sleeve of my coat was ripped, one knee showed through my trouser leg. If that wasn’t enough, blood ran down my face from a cut above my eye and the side of my neck where Ned had socked me was turning a nice shade of purple. With the elegant Parker draped over my shoulder, it wasn’t hard to see we had run into trouble, and plenty of it.

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