In the city room, Jaxon was talking to four policemen. The dressy oil editor glared at Nace. “There’s the bum now!”
The policemen came over, jaws out, eyes wintry. One jingled handcuffs suggestively.
Nace got in the first word. “I’m a private detective—”
“We know all about you, brother!” frowned one cop. “We don’t like your kind! And we don’t like the way you’re getting around this man’s town!”
The adder leered redly at them from Nace’s forehead. “So what?”
“So it’s the can for you.”
Nace put his zipper bag on a reporter’s desk, opened it, and extracted a yellow fold of paper.
“What’s that?” questioned the officer.
“Telegraphic commission from the governor — appointing me a special investigator in this hot-oil business.”
The policeman scowled. “Let’s see that!”
Ten minutes later, Nace was alone in the newspaper morgue. The policemen had gone their disgruntled way. They didn’t like it, but Nace had a special permission from the governor.
Jaxon, after making ugly grimaces to express his personal opinion of Nace, had gone off somewhere — probably to the oil editor’s sanctum.
The morgue was a dingy room, a fly-specked Santy picture of App on the wall. There were great steel filing cabinets. These held drawers, and the drawers were gorged with envelopes. There were pictures, mats, clippings, cuts.
The cabinet bore alphabetic file letters. Nace was looking under the “L” guide.
He found a quart of white mule, a pair of dice and two packs of cards, which some reporter must have hidden.
There were four envelopes on Robin Hood Lloyd, all fat. They traced his life from the cradle, his associates, his family, his boyhood chums — all were named.
The file was a potential fortune. It contained material enough to write a book on Oklahoma’s bad boy who was probably destined to take a place alongside Jesse James.
Nace read the clippings, replaced them, then left the morgue. As he was passing the city room, a copy boy ran out.
“Somebody on the ’phone wantin’ you, Mr. Nace!” he said.
“I’ll take it in the booth,” Nace told him, and entered a little glass enclosure, and picked up an instrument.
Julia’s voice came to him.
Chapter IV
The Oil-Boiled Trail
“What’s eating you?” Nace asked quietly.
Julia said, “I followed them!”
“So it was you in the coupe!” Nace chuckled.
“Sure! I didn’t have anything else to do so I trailed you to the newspaper, then to the morgue, then away. That is, after we left the newspaper, I followed the Robin Hood, who was following the guy who was shagging you. That’s why I didn’t warn you—”
“Don’t get me dizzy!” Nace chuckled. “Where are you now?”
“In a bungalow at the foot of Reservoir Hill. I tagged the Robin Hood to a house at the top of the hill.”
“Describe the house!”
“I’ll do better than that! Here’s the number.” She gave him a street and numerals. “There’s several houses on the hill and this is one of the biggest.”
“O.K.,” said Nace. “What do you make of this jamboree?”
“Search me, boss! I’m fairly certain the Robin Hood is somebody big in the oil ring. But just now he’s sure going around like a chicken with its head cut off!”
“You know there’s a body in the morgue now.”
“Yes?”
“I just identified the corpse by pictures and clippings at the Telegram. It’s the Robin Hood’s kid brother.”
“Hm-m-m!” Julia made a thoughtful humming sound. “That may explain a lot, boss!”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Julia said hastily, “Are you coming out here?”
“What’s the address of this place you’re telephoning from?” Nace demanded.
Again she gave him a street and a number. “I’m going to hang around on the front porch!” she advised. “The lady who owns it is an old dear. So she’ll let me stay.”
Nace drew on his pipe and ran a smoke plume into the upper part of the booth. His forehead, wrinkling, bunched the crimson snake scar. He thought for a minute.
“Hold the wire,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve got to see a man about a dog!”
He planted the instrument on the booth shelf, but did not hang up the receiver. Whipping out of the booth, he dived into a hallway and went up a flight of stairs four at a time.
He knew the newspaper phone P.B.X. operator was in an office on the same floor with the morgue. He had noticed the phone room door.
Rising on tiptoe, he gave a good imitation of floating as he went down the corridor. Nearing the frosted glass panel of the P.B.X. room, he ducked low, so his shadow would not show. He gave the knob a gentle try. It gave; the door swiveled in.
The phone girl looked around, gave him a forced, uneasy smile. Her lids shuttered up when she saw Nace’s peculiar scar. The sight seemed to frighten her.
“Wh-what do you want?”
“A look at your board!” Nace told her.
The girl’s jaw dropped. Her swivel chair squeaked as she spun. She reached both hands for the web of connecting cords on the P.B.X. board.
“None of that!” Lunging, Nace brushed her hands back.
The girl leaped up, mouth agape to scream. Nace plastered a hand over her mouth and forced her back in the chair.
Slotted brass holders under each jack on the phone board bore designation cards. Nace examined these; he followed cords with his fingers. His inspection lasted at least a minute.
He frowned at the P.B.X. operator. The serpent on his forehead seemed to coil and uncoil, as the winkles came and went.
“You’ve got my connection cut in on an outside line,” he pointed out grimly. “What’s the idea?”
The girl shrank down into her chair. “You’re crazy.”
Nace shoved his telegram from the governor under her nose. She seemed reluctant to look at it.
“Read that!” he said harshly.
The girl read. She began to shudder. Her hands opened and shut like the paws of a stretching cat.
“Do you know that a murder accomplice can draw a life sentence?” Nace asked fiercely.
The girl spread her hands over her face and began to sob.
“Cough up,” he commanded. “You’re in a tough spot, kid.”
The girl blubbered, “I didn’t know it was anything very wrong. If I had I w-wouldn’t have done it for fifty dollars a week.”
“Who hired you?”
“A man I met at the dance.”
“His name?”
“Chick Oliver.”
Nace thought of the chicken-headed man who had taken the Robin Hood bullet between the eyes. “Was he a little squatty guy with a long neck and a head like a chicken?”
“T-t-that’s him!” stuttered the frightened operator.
“He was killed about twenty minutes ago!” Nace said ominously, knowing it would do no harm to frighten her a bit more.
She began to rock from side to side and whimper.
“What conversations were you to connect outside?” he asked.
“Anything for Mr. App!” she moaned. “Then, a little while ago, I got a call asking for anything you received.”
“What number did you connect the calls to?”
She gave him a phone number, then quavered, “I h-h-hope I h-h-haven’t done any harm!”
“Oh no!” he jeered. “You haven’t done anything but nearly get me killed and get App kidnapped and probably murdered.”