“Is that so?” Hogarth said triumphantly. “Well, we thought of that and we went over the roof with a magnifying lens—”
“Come on up with me for a moment.”
On the roof, Benson pointed to the low parapet in the rear.
“Here are my prints in the dust and soot. No other marks are there.”
“Exactly. So no other person climbed down,” snapped Hogarth.
“But look here,” said Benson, pointing to a space on the flat stone near his handprints. “There is a layer of smooth, seemingly untouched dust. But here and there — in spots about the size of two human hands — the dust is a little thicker than it should be.”
Hogarth stared hard, scowling.
“The killer came down from the roof, as I did. He went out the same way, and while he was up here, obliterated all traces by spraying dust back over the prints. But he sprayed a little too much over them.”
“The girl—” Hogarth said uncertainly.
“Is it likely a girl would kill so acrobatically? And if it were Miss Gray, would she wipe out the traces on the parapet when she knew that in so doing she would incriminate herself? And now let’s see the lipstick.”
Hogarth handed it over. Benson pushed the red stick up from its metal sheath. He tested it on his thumb. Red came off, not evenly, but in little blotches and grains.
“See? It’s old, crumbly. Miss Gray either discarded it or lost it long ago. Or else it was lying in her drawer, in the bedroom next door. In any event, it was dropped beside the body simply to implicate her. There were no prints on this lipstick, were there?”
“Well, no,” admitted Hogarth reluctantly.
“So she dropped it beside the man she had murdered — but first wiped her prints from it!” Benson said. “I think there’s enough here, without going any farther, to break your charge. Certainly there’s enough doubt to justify letting her out on bail.”
“It’ll cost at least twenty-five thousand, if I know the judge,” growled Hogarth, seeing a perfect, fast murder conviction fading from his grasp.
It cost fifty thousand dollars, put up by Benson in the form of a certified check which scarcely made a dent in the balance he carried in just that one bank. He had deposits in a dozen others.
Free and on the street, Nellie Gray looked at Benson with, if anything, increased bitterness and suspicion.
“You’re even more powerful than I thought,” she said. “You must be the head of the gang himself.”
“I think you’re going to get over at least some of your quite natural suspicion of me very shortly,” Benson said. He took her arm and guided her around the corner.
After them, from the sidewalk crowds, three men, walking fairly close together, followed.
Around the corner Nellie Gray, who had walked with Benson this far because her uncertainty was overbalanced by his impelling manner and his hand under her arm, stopped and jerked free.
“Where are you trying to take me? Is this why you got me free — so you could take me away some place and make me answer questions?”
Benson didn’t answer. He didn’t have time to. The three men were on them then.
It was smoothly done. There were people all around. The plan had been for one man to knife Benson efficiently and unobtrusively in the back and for the other two to get the girl to a waiting car before the people around knew what had happened. But that nice plan went overboard.
With machinelike precision, the two men got Nellie by each arm just as the knife in the hand of the third flashed toward Benson’s back. But the back was no longer there. The man found himself blinking in utter amazement into a white, still face from which pale eyes glared like gray flame. A man couldn’t turn that quickly! But Benson had.
Benson’s hand flashed up and caught the wrist behind the descending knife. The knife stopped descending. Benson’s steely forefinger found a spot a little above the wrist and in the center of the forearm. The finger pressed, and the man shrieked wildly and dropped the knife.
A crowd was already pressing around.
Benson laced out with his right to the man’s jaw, and then turned his back on him, serenely confident that he’d have no more trouble from that source.
He saw a curious thing when he faced the girl.
One of the two men who had grabbed her arms was on the sidewalk, staring at her with pop eyes. The other man executed a back flip over her extended leg as Benson took a step toward her, and crashed beside the first on the sidewalk. Nellie Gray didn’t need help.
Benson steered her forward.
“Into my car,” he said.
It was an odd-looking car for a rich man to have. It was a big, dull sedan at least four years old and of a not very expensive make. That was the story the outside told. But under the exterior there was a motor capable of a hundred and thirty miles an hour. The shabby sides of the car were bulletproofed, and the tires were filled with petroleum jelly instead of air.
Nellie got into the car in order to get away from the gaping crowd in a hurry, regardless of whether or not she was still suspicious of Benson. And that she still was, came out in a moment.
“You knew those men were following us!” she said. “It was all a play, to make me think you were on the level.”
“What makes you think I knew?” said Benson.
“You were walking on the balls of your feet, like a tiger ready to leap,” she said. “You were just waiting for that attack.”
Benson nodded.
“I knew. But I thought if I let it come off, you’d be convinced I’m not in with the gang that killed your father. That failed. So it’s useless now to suggest what I’d intended to.”
“What was that?” said Nellie.
“It is obvious that you’re in danger almost as great as your father was. So I was going to suggest that you stay with me for a time.”
Nellie stared silently ahead at the street.
Benson said: “How in the world could a girl as slim and harmless-looking as you pitch two grown men on their backs?”
“They weren’t expecting anything,” said Nellie, abstractedly. “People look at me and don’t expect any fast moves.”
“There must be more to it than that.”
“Well, there is, a little. At Vassar, instead of going out for tennis and basketball, I studied jujitsu, boxing and wrestling. When I got out, I kept on with more advanced studies. I go — went — with dad on his expeditions, so I wanted to keep fit. Also, I happen to like the art of self-defense.”
“You’re a very unusual, and very fine, person,” Benson said. “Now, where would you like me to drive you?”
“As if I had any choice!” said Nellie bleakly.
“But of course you have a free choice.”
She looked somberly at him.
“You’re very clever, Mr. Benson. So I’ll go with you as you suggested.”
Benson’s pale eyes probed into hers.
“But if you still won’t trust me—”
“It’s because I don’t, that I’ll go to your quarters, whatever and wherever they are. If I didn’t, you and your gang would get me anyhow, sooner or later. If I do, I may be able to match wits with you, smart as you are. And I can certainly keep an eye on you.”
Benson turned the car toward Bleek Street, the little block-long section that, to all intents and purposes, he owned.
“You’re splendid,” he said quietly. “I’m more glad than ever that Justice & Co. was led to your help.”
That shook her a little. She kept glancing sideways at him. But the suspicion would not down.
“Who got you started on this?” she said. “Michael Bower, Basil Doolen — who?”