Doug Allyn: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

Dalmas said without emotion: “You could have done it, Miss Crayle. They’ll think of that, won’t they? And you might be smart enough to act the way you have afterwards. They’ll think of that, too.”

“That wouldn’t be smart,” she said bitterly. “Just smart-aleck.”

“Smart-aleck kill!” Dalmas laughed grimly. “Not bad.” He ran his fingers through his crisp hair. “No, I don’t think we can pin it on you — and maybe the cops won’t know he was left-handed... until somebody else gets a chance to find things out.”

He leaned over the table a little, put his hands on the edge as if to get up. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her face.

“There’s one man downtown that might give me a break. He’s all cop, but he’s an old guy and don’t give a damn about his publicity. Maybe if you went down with me, let him size you up and hear the story, he’d stall the case a few hours and hold out on the papers.”

He looked at her questioningly. She drew her glove on and said quietly: “Let’s go.”

When the elevator doors at the Merrivale closed, the big man put his newspaper down from in front of his face and yawned. He got up slowly from the settee in the corner and loafed across the small but sedate lobby. He squeezed himself into a booth at the end of a row of house phones. He dropped a coin in the slot and dialed with a thick forefinger, forming the number with his lips.

After a pause he leaned close to the mouthpiece and said: “This is Denny. I’m at the Merrivale. Our man just came in. I lost him outside and came here to wait for him to get back.”

He had a heavy voice with a burr in it. He listened to the voice at the other end, nodded, and hung up without saying anything more. He went out of the booth, crossed to the elevators. On the way he dropped a cigar butt into a glazed jar full of white sand.

In the elevator he said: “Ten,” and took his hat off. He had straight black hair that was damp with perspiration, a wide, flat face, and small eyes. His clothes were unpressed, but not shabby. He was a studio dick and he worked for Eclipse Films.

He got out at the tenth floor and went along a dim corridor, turned a corner, and knocked at a door. There was a sound of steps inside. The door opened. Dalmas opened it.

The big man went in, dropped his hat casually on the bed, sat down in an easy chair by the window without being asked.

He said: “Hi, boy. I hear you need some help.”

Dalmas looked at him for a moment without answering. Then he said slowly, frowningly: “Maybe — for a tail. I asked for Collins. I thought you’d be too easy to spot.”

He turned away and went into the bathroom, came out with two glasses. He mixed the drinks on the bureau, handed one. The big man drank, smacked his lips, and put his glass down on the sill of the open window. He took a short, chubby cigar out of his vest pocket.

“Collins wasn’t around,” he said. “And I was just countin’ my thumbs. So the big cheese give me the job. Is it footwork?”

“I don’t know. Probably not,” Dalmas said indifferently.

“If it’s a tail in a car, I’m okay. I brought my little coupe.”

Dalmas took his glass and sat down on the side of the bed. He stared at the big man with a faint smile. The big man bit the end off his cigar and spit it out.

Then he bent over and picked up the piece, looked at it, tossed it out of the window.

“It’s a swell night. A bit warm for so late in the year,” he said.

Dalmas said slowly: “How well do you know Derek Walden, Denny?”

Denny looked out of the window. There was a sort of haze in the sky and the reflection of a red neon sign behind a nearby building looked like a fire.

He said: “I don’t what you call know him. I’ve seen him around. I know he’s one of the big money guys on the lot.”

“Then you won’t fall over if I tell you he’s dead,” Dalmas said evenly.

Denny turned around slowly. The cigar, still unlighted, moved up and down in his wide mouth. He looked mildly interested.

Dalmas went on: “It’s a funny one. A blackmail gang has been working on him, Denny. Looks like it got his goat. He’s dead — with a hole in his head and a gun in his hand. It happened this afternoon.”

Denny opened his small eyes a little wider. Dalmas sipped his drink and rested the glass on his thigh.

“His girlfriend found him. She had a key to the apartment in the Kilmarnock. The Jap boy was away and that’s all the help he kept. The gal didn’t tell anyone. She beat it and called me up. I went over... I didn’t tell anybody either.”

The big man said very slowly: “For Pete’s sake! The cops’ll stick it into you and break it off, brother. You can’t get away with that stuff.”

Dalmas stared at him, then turned his head away and stared at a picture on the wall. He said coldly: “I’m doing it — and you’re helping me. We’ve got a job, and a damn powerful organization behind us. There’s a lot of sugar at stake.”

“How do you figure?” Denny asked grimly. He didn’t look pleased.

“The girlfriend doesn’t think Walden suicided, Denny. I don’t either, and I’ve got a sort of lead. But it has to be worked fast, because it’s as good a lead for the law as us. I didn’t expect to be able to check it right away, but I got a break.”

Denny said: “Uh-huh. Don’t make it too clever. I’m a slow thinker.”

He struck a match and lit his cigar. His hand shook just a little.

Dalmas said: “It’s not clever. It’s kind of dumb. The gun that killed Walden is a filed gun. But I broke it and the inside number wasn’t filed. And Headquarters has the number, in the special permits.”

“And you just went in and asked for it and they gave it to you,” Denny said grimly. “And when they pick Walden up and trace the gun themselves, they’ll just think it was swell of you to beat them to it.” He made a harsh noise in his throat.

Dalmas said: “Take it easy, boy. The guy that did the checking rates. I don’t have to worry about that.”

“Like hell you don’t! And what would a guy like Walden be doin’ with a filed gun? That’s a felony rap.”

Dalmas finished his drink and carried his empty glass over to the bureau. He held the whiskey bottle out. Denny shook his head. He looked very disgusted.

“If he had the gun, he might not have known about that, Denny. And it could be that it wasn’t his gun at all. If it was a killer’s gun, then the killer was an amateur. A professional wouldn’t have that kind of artillery.”

The big man said slowly: “Okay, what you get on the rod?”

Dalmas sat down on the bed again. He dug a package of cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one, and leaned forward to toss the match through the open window. He said: “The permit was issued about a year ago to a newshawk on the Press-Chronicle, name of Dart Burwand. This Burwand was bumped off last April on the ramp of the Arcade Depot. He was all set to leave town, but he didn’t make it. They never cracked the case, but the hunch is that this Burwand was tied to some racket — like the Lingle killing in Chi — and that he tried to shake one of the big boys. The big boy backfired on the idea. Exit Burwand.”

The big man was breathing deeply. He had let his cigar go out. Dalmas watched him gravely while he talked.

“I got that from Westfalls, on the Press-Chronicle,” Dalmas said. “He’s a friend of mine. There’s more of it. This gun was given back to Burwand’s wife — probably. She still lives here — out on North Kenmore. She might tell me what she did with the gun... and she might be tied to some racket herself, Denny. In that case she wouldn’t tell me, but after I talk to her she might make some contacts we ought to know about. Get the idea?”