Лоуренс Трит: Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938

Stan said. “Rut the ordinary purchaser wouldn’t find that out for a year or so?”

“No. By that time, Randt could have rolled up huge profits. He could undersell Kendall — which was what Kendall kicked about. He would destroy the reputation of the Clarex product. And he would bilk a great many camera buyers.”

“Yes, it sounds like a clever racket,” said Stan. “But how did Kendall get wise to it?”

The blond man explained: “He showed me a collection of Randt cameras in his office. The lenses were inferior, all right. But that proved nothing. Kendall might have switched them himself. You’d be surprised the gags these fellows will think up, in order to persuade the FTC to crack down on a competitor.”

“I can imagine.”

“I don’t have to imagine. I’ve seen it.”

Both men laughed softly.

“So,” continued Worthington, “I realized after my talk with Randt that I wouldn’t get any cooperation out of his crowd. I went back to my hotel, and found a wire from the San Francisco office. They had checked with the Customs along the coast. Randt had never imported any lenses openly. If he used any, they were smuggled into this country.”

“Oh!”

“Oh is right,” said the blond man. “And if that was his game, he’d try to cover up after talking to me. I wanted to get into the plant here. It would be illegal, but I didn’t mind chancing that.”

“Yes, but how did you get in?”

Worthington smiled. “Through the gate. A fellow drove in ahead of me. I slipped through before he parked his car in the yard and came back to lock up again.”

Followed Elmore in, Stan decided.

He said, “You found something, didn’t you?”

“Plenty!” the blond man agreed. “These wooden boxes, Baxter! Each of them holds a gross of those Japanese lenses! You can figure it out for yourself.”

He chuckled: the elation passed quickly, though.

“I wonder,” he said, “what possessed Randt. A man of his wealth and personal standing in such a racket!”

Stan’s lips pressed into a narrow straightness.

“You’ll never know.”

“What—?” he exclaimed.

“He’s dead.”

Worthington flinched a bit. “You mean, he took that way out?”

“He was shot — murdered.”

They looked at each other steadily.

Worthington moistened his lips. “It’s a funny thing. I had a feeling — almost a physical feeling. In here, tonight.”

Stan grunted. “Well?”

“Of course, I don’t believe in spiritualism, or anything like that,” the blond man said hastily. “But I thought I heard — well, a groaning sound. I flashed the light out into the halt just before you came in.”

He broke off, chuckled.

“But I’m talking nonsense. It was you I heard moving around in the building.”

Stan Baxter said, “Not me! Listen! Do you hear that?”

They froze to attention. For a long moment, they heard nothing at all. Then the sound repeated itself — an eerie, muffled, painful groan.

“That’s it!” Worthington breathed. “It wasn’t so loud before. We’d better look into this, Baxter!”

He snatched the electric torch from the packing box and started across the shipping room.

“No! Not that way.”

The blond man halted, looked around in surprise. Stan’s lean face was an enigmatic mask in the shadows back of the flashbeam.

“We won’t be decoyed through that door,” Stan said grimly. “Callum made that mistake. Randt opened a door, too. It’s damned unhealthy.”

“You don’t think—”

“That anyone would take a potshot at us?” Stan finished the other’s thought. “Yes, I do. I’m certain of it.”

As the FTC man stared, the groan wrenched the silence again.

“It’s under us!” Worthington gasped.

“Uh-huh. Throw the light around here once.”

The circular spot of white enlarged as it followed the wall.

Stan said, “There!”

He peered at the large carrier half which traversed the opposite end of the room. The belt entered through an aperture in the side wall, and traveled above a long workbench.

The utility of the device was obvious. The belt came from the assembly department, bringing the completed cameras to the bench where they were packed into individual boxes, replaced on the belt, and then finally stowed into the shipping cartons.

What interested Stan was the fact that the belt disappeared through a panel in the floor. He said:

“That’s big enough for us to go through, isn’t it?”

“It looks that way.”

They had walked to the end of the bench. Stan knelt, and prized up the metal lattice-guard surrounding the belt. He stared through the uncovered gap in the floor.

“It’s easy — only a seven or eight foot drop. I’ll go first.”

He gripped the sides of the opening, slid down into the aperture. The hole wasn’t too large — Stan’s chest and wide shoulders only scraped through. As he straightened out, his toe found the basement floor.

He stepped aside, reaching for the gun and the flashlight he had again stowed in his coat pockets. But there was no need for the flashlight. Ahead of him, the basement was dimly illuminated by the pale yellow glow of an electric bulb over the hulking form of a furnace.

He had dropped into the boiler room of the plant. And now Worthington was at his side again.

“There!” the blond man whispered. “There it is again!”

“Uh-huh, come on.”

They tiptoed past the toothless, fire-reddened gums of the gaping furnace door. Stan, ahead of Worthington, stopped and silently pointed. They had found the source of the groan. _

A man was propped on the bench under the dropcord bulb beyond the furnace. An elderly man, on the fattish side, he had one hand clapped to his forehead. He wore overalls and a denim jacket. A tin, live-pointed star pinned to the jacket’s upper left pocket said Watchman .

The elderly man’s body teetered unhappily on the bench, and as the two men stared, another woeful groan fell from the fellow’s lips.

On the coal-grimed floor some bits of rope and a wet wad of bandana handkerchief told their own story.

Worthington started toward the watchman, found his path barred by Stan’s arm. Stan pointed again.

Back of the watchman’s bench, a flight of wooden steps climbed through the boiler room ceiling. There was visible a pair of trouser legs, standing motionless on the third from the topmost step.

Stan and Worthington exchanged glances. Stan jerked his head, and both men backed around to the other side of the furnace. The watchman, preoccupied with his own troubles, had not noticed them.

Stan pointed at an iron poker propped against the furnace, then pantomimed what Worthington was to do with this poker in case the watchman pulled a gun.

The blondman nodded.

Stan’s hand firmed on the .38. The lacerated palm had swollen rather painfully. He went past the rear of the furnace, tiptoed toward the stairs. He looked up.

The steps climbed to a hallway, having a door which opened onto the right wing corridor of the ground floor. The door stood ajar. The man on the steps was peering out into the corridor. A cocked revolver glinted in his hand.

It would have been just too bad for an intruder in the corridor. Or for anyone coming out of the shipping room! Stan spoke softly:

“What goes on, Judge?”

The big man on the steps started convulsively. He lifted his hands, and then turned slowly. It was Judge Elmore, all right.

He stared at Stan Baxter, and dropped his hands. “You!” he ejaculated. “What are you doing here?” Then, in a theatrical whisper:

“Burglars!” the judge said. “They slugged the watchman — tied and gagged him. They’re up in the shipping department now!”