“We didn’t find the door locked,” the sergeant remarked. “Eddie had shed his coat and gun. The punk didn’t take any chances.”
“Didn’t give Eddie one either,” Neale returned. “A wonder he didn’t shoot him in the back. We’ll head for Moony’s first.”
The car deposited them half a block from their destination. The Moony establishment was a pool hall, with an alleged soft drink stand in front and rooms in the back for card playing; a hangout for the undesirables of the neighborhood.
As the two alighted, the patrolman who had talked with them some time before at the apartment, approached.
“I been looking over the premises below,” he announced. “You’ll find the bunch I mentioned in a back room playing pinochle. Brant’s among ’em,” he added.
“Better stick around,” Neale directed.
“I’ll do it,” the other answered. “And listen,” he went on, “I don’t know what you’ve found, inspector, but after you’d brought up Brant’s name a while ago, I remembered something Eddie Corbin dropped yesterday. I run across him on the street, got talking with him about Moony’s dump and the bunch that hangs out there. When I mentioned Brant he as much as told me the man was stooling for him.”
“Brant stooling for Eddie?” Neale repeated.
“I took it that way,” the patrolman answered.
The inspector and Wallace exchanged pertinent glances at that bit of news, but Neale reserved comment until they had walked beyond earshot of the talkative copper.
“That hooks up with what we’ve found,” he declared jubilantly. “The mob got wise to the game. That accounts for Brant’s name being engraved on the table. We already got the motive for the murder, and now we’re tipped off about the message. It’s as plain as rain.”
Neale stopped to relight his cigar. “I’m going to pull something when I get inside,” he announced. “Maybe it’ll jar some of the punks. One of ’em anyway. Have ’em guessing. Don’t be surprised by what I say or do.”
“I’m past being surprised,” Wallace returned, grinning. “You putting on another sideshow?”
“You might label it that.”
IV
The men strolled through the open doorway of the Moony establishment. The place was empty, except for a girl who sat at the soda counter and the youth who waited on her. They paid no attention to the newcomers. Moony was not in evidence.
Neale headed for the rear of the long room and pushed open the first door he came to. The room he disclosed was small and blue with smoke. The four men, playing cards at a table, looked up and stiffened perceptibly at sight of the two visitors. The men were young, sleek-haired, well groomed, with pale, hard faces.
Neale recognized Joe Dillon, Bert Halsey and Brant. The fourth man he judged to be Evans. The inspector closed the door behind him and eyed the stranger.
“Are you Evans?” he demanded.
“That’s me,” the man responded.
“Stand up!” Neale ordered.
The man hesitated. Halsey, sitting beside him, whispered something from the corner of his mouth. Evans scowled, put his cards down on the table and got sullenly upon his feet.
“You’re under arrest for the murder of Detective Edward Corbin,” Neale charged. “Fan him, sergeant!”
Too well schooled to betray surprise at the inspector’s tactics, Wallace obeyed. A deliberate and thorough search of the prisoner produced no gun, no knife.
“What in hell’s this foolishness?” Evans growled, as the sergeant stepped back.
Neale’s bleak eyes swept the four countenances. He had hoped to learn something, to catch some involuntary flicker of surprise from one of the men when he launched his phony charge. He was disappointed. Except for Evans, who glowered resentfully, the others presented blank, stony faces.
“You say Corbin was bumped off?” Halsey asked. “You mean that kid dick of yours?”
“I said it!” Neale retorted. “In his room — an hour ago. I suppose that’s news to the lot of you.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Dillon countered. “We’ve been parked here all afternoon.”
“The four of us,” Brant supplemented.
“Right at this table,” Halsey testified.
“Quit the stalling,” Neale said.
“Ask Moony,” Dillon spoke again. “He’ll tell you as much.”
“Why pick on me?” Evans demanded. “I never heard of Corbin.”
“We’ve got you cold,” Neale said quietly. “You used a muffler on your rod. Corbin was unarmed. You didn’t give him a chance. But he lived long enough to write a message — leave it for us to find.”
Evans started a laugh, but checked it. “Oh, yeah? What sort of a message?” he asked.
“It named the killer.”
“Me? There’s more than one Evans in this town.”
“Only one right one,” Neale bluffed.
He wondered if, in shooting in the dark, charging Evans with the crime, he had made a bull’s-eye.
“You may as well come clean,” he advised. “We’ll riddle your alibi. You’re sunk.”
Halsey laughed. “Don’t let him kid you, Evans. You don’t know Porky. He’s full of tricks.”
The inspector turned upon the speaker. “Stand up! Go through him, sergeant!”
Wallace went to his task with undisguised eagerness. Halsey’s pockets were speedily emptied, dumped upon the table. No knife rewarded the search. Neale motioned for Brant and Dillon to stand. The men submitted placidly to the sergeant’s exploring fingers. A knife was found in Brant’s pocket.
The instant Wallace came upon it, he stopped, opened it. Neale leaned forward expectantly. The knife had two blades. Both of them were whole, undamaged.
The men watched the proceedings with marked interest. When their belongings had been restored to their pockets, Dillon spoke.
“Where’s a knife figure in this?” he twitted. “I thought you said your dick had been smoked.”
Neale did not answer. He cast a glum look at Wallace, and was answered in kind. They were getting nowhere. With three likely suspects before them — Brant being eliminated — they had failed to uncover a scrap of evidence. If the guilty man was in the room, he had got rid of the knife.
Some one knocked on the door. Neale stepped forward, opened it a few inches. A girl stood outside, a plump, over-dressed blonde.
“I want to see—” she began.
“You’ll have to wait,” Neale interrupted. “We’re busy.” He closed the door and this time bolted it.
The tension in the room seemed to have lessened now. The suspects relaxed. Apparently they had been quick to detect the uncertainty in Neale’s troubled eyes.
“We may as well lock the bunch of ’em up,” Wallace said, obviously aware of his superior’s dilemma.
“How do the rest of us figure in this?” Dillon asked. “You’re pinning a job on Evans — trying to — and now—”
“Go ahead and call his bluff,” Halsey broke in, grinning. “Lock us up, Porky. What’ll it get you? We’ll be out in an hour.”
But Neale was not listening. His eyes dropped to the table, to the scattered cards that had been pitched there. They jumped suddenly to the pad upon which one of the men had been keeping score. It contained the names of the four players. The names were printed in capital letters.
That wasn’t all. The “N” in Dillon’s name, in Brant’s and Evans’s were reversed — precisely as the letter had been in the message found on Corbin’s table. The score-pad was directly in front of Halsey. No need to ask questions.
Although outwardly calm and betraying none of the thrill that raced through him, Neale’s mind was churning. Here was a lead. The reversed letter furnished a clew, but it wasn’t indisputable evidence. It would take more than that to convict the man.