Fred wore black and white sport shoes.
Nace pocketed gun and rag, then hauled Fred out of the coupe and carried him to the rented roadster.
An excited crowd had poured out of the hotel. A beefy, red-necked man ran at Nace, cursing and brandishing a nickeled revolver. He demanded that Nace throw up his hands. Nace showed his agency card and his license.
“Anybody can steal them things and you look like a damn crook to me,” snarled the nasty-tempered man. He added a string of insults.
Nace caught the smell of alcohol on the man’s breath. Pointing behind the fellow, Nace said, “That man will identify me!”
The drunk turned. Nace knocked him down, grabbed the nickeled revolver, unloaded it and smashed it on the concrete pavement. The cylinder was broken off its pin, ruining the weapon.
“Who is this palooka?” Nace demanded of the crowd.
“A railroad dick,” said the hotel clerk, who had weaved out with the crowd. “He always was too free with that gun.”
“He’s too free with his mouth,” Nace growled, some of his anger departing.
He clambered in the roadster. Fred was awake. He said nothing. Nace drove off.
A lightning flash blazed like blood in the street, and afterward darkness came black and muggy. Nace thumbed the lights on. He glanced sidewise and saw Fred gathering himself in the seat.
“The next time I hit you, they’ll need a doctor to wake you up!” Nace warned grimly.
Fred relaxed. “What are you going to do?”
Nace gave him silence for an answer.
The plunging roadster left Mountain Town behind. It banked around a curve, tires squealing in a slight skid, then straightened out.
The headlights picked up clustered cars and people alongside to the road.
“Know what that is?” Nace asked.
Fred muttered, “I stopped long enough to ask when I came in town.”
Nace slowed up until he was through the jam. On the right side of the pavement, a crowd jostled each other to see the remnants of Constable Hasser’s body.
The roadster increased speed, as though trying to catch its headlights. Thunder clapped and gobbled over the engine moan. A sign, white lettered in black, appeared. It said:
CAMP LAKESIDE
Nace jockeyed the roadster into the grounds. Lighted windows glowed in a rather pretentious two-story log building. Nace braked to a stop before it, looked at Fred.
The jaw-heavy young man was pale, trembling. His fists clenched and unclenched.
“Damn you!” he said thickly. “If you lay a hand on Benna, I’ll break your neck!”
“Boo!” Nace said amiably. “Get out and let’s go in.”
Fred quitted the car as if afflicted with a stiffness of the joints. They put feet on a slab porch.
The door opened. Benna Franks stood there. Nace knew positively he had never seen a girl more beautiful. Standing in the light behind her, she looked like an angel with a halo.
She didn’t see Nace at first.
“Fred!” she cried. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’m all right, sis,” said Fred.
Nace grinned. So these were brother and sister!
Chapter IV
The Third Man-Blast
Nace felt unreasonably good over his discovery for some seconds. It gave him a feeling of elation out of all proportion to its importance in the trend of the case. He was not too dumb to realize why it tickled him, either. It was the red-head, of course. She was getting to him. He’d have to watch his step.
The red-head discovered him. She looked like she’d found a snake.
“What are you doing here?”
“Freddy brought me along,” Nace said, face solemn.
“He’s a liar!” Freddy yelled. “He shot into my car downtown and killed the engine, then knocked me senseless and brought me here.”
Nace’s voice rapped out before anyone else could speak.
“Maybe you’d like to tell what you were doing downtown, Freddy!”
Fred looked like he was been choked. He swallowed twice, made no answer.
“Why did you go downtown, Fred?” the red-head asked.
The jaw-heavy young man swallowed twice more. “To get some cigarettes.”
Nace could see past the girl into the large front room of the log building. It was a small general store, selling everything from groceries to Indian curios.
Cigarettes were prominently displayed.
“Tsk, tsk,” Nace chuckled. But his solemn face showed no levity.
“What was your purpose in coming here?” Benna Franks asked Nace angrily.
Nace, debating his answer, chanced to drop his eyes to her shoes. They were black-and-white sports.
Nace suddenly felt as if the air had frozen around him. It wasn’t so much the shoes — almost all women wore them now. But it was the memory of that shrill voice which had cried out to unlucky Constable Hasser. Nace had taken for granted that it was a man’s.
It could have been a woman’s.
There was something else, too — the red-head’s shoes bore a few brownish smudges that looked powder-like.
Nace thought of the puffball mushroom which had been broken by Constable Hasser’s companion. The puffball had contained a powder this color.
“Where did you get that brown stain on your shoes?” he asked.
“Are you crazy?” the girl snapped.
Nace’s voice turned hard. “Answer the question!”
“It’s cinnamon,” said the girl, startled out of her anger by his tone. “I dropped the cinnamon box in the kitchen.”
“All right,” Nace told her mildly. “Let’s go in and talk.”
“I don’t want you in here.”
“What you want don’t cut much ice.” He gave Fred a shove. “Get inside, you!”
Fred acted for an instant as if he were going to take a swing at Nace. But he reconsidered, felt of his temple, then stumbled inside.
The girl eyed her brother, seemingly surprised at his meekness. Then she followed him in.
Nace stepped across the threshold after them.
He knew instantly that he should have been more careful. But it was too late then.
A gun was shoving a cold round nose to his temple.
“Stand still, shamus!” gritted a harsh voice.
Nace stood still. He rolled his eyes sidewise enough, though, to see the man who held the weapon.
The fellow was blond, slender, snappily dressed. He was very handsome — if one liked features so fine they were almost feminine. In age, he was probably thirty-five.
Nace’s scrutiny took in the blond man’s hands. They were strong, manicured, with the nails so healthily pink as to lend a suspicion of artificial tint. But it was the many small pits in the skin that Nace gave particular attention. Nace didn’t think they were disease pits — they looked more like the result of a spray of hot metal. Yet they weren’t ordinary heat burns.
The blond young man’s gun cocked with a noisy click.
“Spencer!” the red-head shrilled. “Don’t shoot him!”
Her shriek rang out so sharply it startled the blond man. His gun muzzle jiggled, moved upward perhaps three inches. It now rested against the top of Nace’s head, which was protected by the steel helmet-wig.
Nace took a chance. He hit Spencer in the midriff — just about as hard as he could. The blond man made a horrible face and fell to the floor. There, he had convulsions. His first twitch flung his gun skating across the floor.
The girl pounced on the weapon, pointed it at Nace.
Nace shrugged. “All right. Just so somebody’s got it who doesn’t want to shoot me.”