“This young lady talked with you a moment and then went back to her room,” said Thelma Grebe. “You can’t pull that stuff on me. You’re dealing with somebody that’s not a greenhorn, you know. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
She suddenly whirled and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her.
“Quick, Miss Koline,” Brokay said, “I think you’d better get back to your room.”
“No,” she said, her lips white. “We’ve got to get out of here. Don’t you understand what’s going to happen?”
“I understand perfectly,” he said, “but I’m on my guard.”
“No, no,” she told him, “let’s go. We can notify the police. Certainly they can trace down the clue of this monkey. I believe that the dealer would be able to identify the people. You could tell your story, and—”
“And it wouldn’t he believed,” he said, interrupting her. “You know your reaction to the story.”
“But it’s different now,” she said. “Please come. We can leave here, and—”
“No,” he said, “you’ve got to go to your room, and keep out of this. Go to your room and promise me that you’ll keep the door locked.” He took her by the arm, gently pushed her across the corridor to her room.
“And you’re going to stay here alone?” she asked.
He nodded. “It’s my only chance,” he said, “to get the thing cleared up. It’s got to be done for your sake, as well as mine.”
“But that doesn’t mean that you should take any risks,” she said.
Brokay gently but firmly pushed her across the corridor and into her room. “Stay there and don’t come out,” he said curtly.
He pulled the door shut with a bang, walked back across the corridor to the room where the dead burglar lay sprawled on the bed, and waited.
After a while, he thought he heard steps on the stairs. He braced himself and watched the handle of the door.
Nothing happened.
He frowned and looked at his watch.
More than fifteen minutes had elapsed since Thelma Grebe had left the room. Brokay couldn’t believe that she would summon the police; neither could he believe that she had intended simply to run away and leave the place. He kept thinking of those steps on the stairs; there had been something furtive about them, something—
Suddenly he gave a convulsive start. He strode to the door, jerked it open, crossed the corridor, twisted the knob of Rhoda Koline’s room and opened the door.
Thelma Grebe was standing just within the doorway. Standing beside her was a heavily built man, with a small star-shaped scar on the left side of his forehead. The man was carrying a cane in his right hand; his left hand held his hat and gloves.
“But surely, my dear young lady,” he was saying, “you can’t—” They turned as the door opened.
“Here he is now,” said Rhoda Koline with a quick catch in her voice.
The man faced Brokay. “Ah!” he said. “I was going to see you in a moment, my friend. I’m on special duty with the police. I am very friendly to Thelma Grebe, but I understand there has been a serious crime committed here.”
“There’s been a murder, if that’s what you mean,” George Brokay said, watching him closely.
“Where?” asked the man.
“In the room across the hall,” Brokay said.
The man bowed. “Kindly lead the way,” he said. “That is what I was trying to find out. Miss Grebe was rather indefinite about the entire affair. She wanted to get the thing hushed up in some way. I explained to her that it was impossible to hush up a murder.” He gestured toward the door.
Brokay turned his back to the man, put his hand on the knob of the door.
Several things happened almost at once. Rhoda Koline screamed. George Brokay flung himself down in a quick duck. Something hissed through the air above his head, and struck the panels of the door with an ominous thunk.
The man behind Brokay had lunged forward with the cane. The covering of the cane, which, apparently, was wood, had slipped back from a long, thin blade of keen steel, and the blade had embedded itself in the door.
Thelma Grebe, realizing what had happened, flung up her arm, and sunlight glinted upon blued steel as she pointed an automatic at Brokay. Brokay, still crouching under the blade which had pushed itself into the doorway, went forward in a long, low tackle, catching the legs of the man with the scarred forehead.
Thelma Grebe fired. The shot crashed through the panels of the door, missing Brokay by not more than an inch. Rhoda Koline flung herself upon Thelma Grebe, struggling for the gun. The man with the scarred forehead crashed down under the impact of Brokay’s rushing tackle. They squirmed about on the floor together. Brokay felt the man’s hand pushing its way under his coat lapel. He grabbed the arm with his left hand. The man lurched and twisted. Brokay caught a brief glimpse of a gun. He flung himself to one side, smashed his right fist over and across.
Another shot rang out, the gun so close to Brokay’s ear that the report was deafening. There was a shower of powdered plaster as the bullet struck the ceiling. The two women were struggling and twisting. Rhoda Koline hanging onto Thelma Grebe’s arm with the grim tenacity of a fighting bulldog.
The man with the scarred forehead gave a lurch, got to his hands and knees, flung up the weapon once more. Brokay pushed the weapon aside, sent everything he had in a terrific right which crashed through, full to the other’s face. As the man staggered backward and rolled inertly to the floor, Brokay grabbed the weapon from the man’s limp fingers. At that moment Rhoda Koline staggered backward. Thelma Grebe raised the gun once mere, this time not at Brokay, but straight at Rhoda Koline’s breast.
Brokay lunged forward. His left hand caught the woman’s arm, pulled it down and to one side as she fired. Then he wrested the gun from her, backed to the door and stood with the guns covering the pair. “Call the police, Rhoda,” he said.
Chapter Six
Brokay Entertains the Law
Grigsby, the butler, coughed apologetically as George Brokay latch-keyed the front door of his residence. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but—”
A gruff voice from the shadows of the corridor interrupted. “Stow that stuff,” said the voice, “we’ll do our own talking.”
Two men stepped toward.
“You’re Brokay?” asked one of the men.
“Yes,” said George Brokay.
“We’ve got some questions to ask you.”
“All right,” said Brokay, “I’ll be glad to answer them.”
“How does it happen that there was a roadster in your garage with a bullet hole in the back of the body? How does it happen that your hat was found in the grounds of the John C. Ordway residence? How does it happen that you were running away from the police last night, when the police radio car tried to stop you? How does it happen that there was a monkey clinging to your neck, and fingerprints that have been developed in the room where Gladys Ordway was murdered show that there had been a monkey sitting on the head of the bed?”
Brokay nodded.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “come in. Sit down and have a drink. It happens that you gentlemen are just a little bit behind the times. I can explain those points very readily, but, before I do so, you might be interested in learning something about the murder of Miss Gladys Ordway.”
“Yes,” said one of the men, “we’d be interested in learning a lot about it.”
They followed Brokay into the library.
“Highballs, Grigsby,” said Brokay.
“Go ahead and talk, guy,” one of the men said.
“It happens,” said Brokay, “that Gladys Ordway had been blackmailed by a man named Charles Giddings. She had been rather indiscreet. Some of the high-powered stuff, that is indulged in at times by the younger set. There were photographs, and, altogether, it would have made a nasty scandal. Giddings had been blackmailing her; she finally decided that she was going to report to the police; she told Giddings that she was finished and that she was going to tell everything.