“Or she can run the business indefinitely. In which case Colby gets nothing…. But suppose Arnold Publishing Company owes their printer forty thousand and Arnold dies? What happens then? The insurance is paid to the company and the company pays its creditors.”
Wexler chuckled. “And I am the chief creditor. I get the money and split with Colby — on account of I wouldn’t be such a big creditor if Mr. Colby don’t doctor up the company’s books.”
“A very nice scheme,” said Quade. “But what about the insurance company — weren’t you afraid of them?”
“Naw. What can they suspect? That Mr. Colby killed Mr. Arnold? No, because he owns only thirty per cent of the stock. Arnold’s daughter inherits sixty and already owns ten. She’s the likely suspect, but the insurance company wouldn’t dare say a nice girl would kill her father. Me, why would I kill Arnold? The insurance company don’t even know I exist.”
“But you’re the chief creditor of the firm. Most of the money the insurance company pays the Arnold Publishing Company goes to you.”
“Ah, that’s the sharp point. The insurance company don’t know I am a creditor. Naw, they don’t know that, because Mr. Colby, he don’t say nothing. Not right away. Later on — well, Mr. Wexler liked Mr. Arnold so much he didn’t want to press for payment of his bill right away. So in two-three months, when the cops and the insurance company have forgotten all about things, Arnold Publishing pays its bills…. It’s really all very simple. I’m sure there won’t be another human encyclopedia up in this neck of the woods, then, to figure out this and that.”
“No,” said Quade, “but it so happens I have three friends outside. They’re up the street waiting for me.”
A startled look leaped into Colby’s eyes. “You’re lying!” he said, but there was uncertainty in his tone.
“Am I?” smiled Quade. “You forget I was at The Poplars with a group.”
“To hell with that,” Wexler said.
“You can’t kill him, Wexler!” exclaimed Colby. “Not here. I—”
Wexler looked coldly at Colby. “Ah, you’re afraid of that, Colby. Afraid when there’s the least little chance of getting your toes in it. All right, go outside and see if those friends of his are waiting.”
“They’re in the restaurant across from the hotel,” said Quade.
Colby ran out of the proofroom. Quade heard the door outside slam. He thought Wexler might be scared enough to let him have it now.
“While we’re waiting, Quade,” said Wexler, “I could be more relaxed if you’d raise your hands.”
Quade brought his hands up to shoulder level. Then he sniffed and reached carefully for the white handkerchief in his breast pocket.
“Careful!” cautioned Wexler.
“Yeah, sure!” Quade drew out the handkerchief and showed Wexler the dart inside.
“Remember this?” he asked. “You threw it at the girl in the lunch counter.”
“Drop it!” cried Wexler. “Drop it, or I’ll plug you!”
“You can shoot,” said Quade, “and there’s a possibility the wound won’t be fatal, but a scratch of this, Wexler — well, you put the poison on it yourself. And I can surely hit you with it.”
He gripped the poison dart between thumb and forefinger. A quick flip and it would zip at Wexler. The distance was too short to miss.
Perspiration broke out on Wexler’s forehead. “Drop it, Quade!” he cried hoarsely.
He knew his own poison, but he knew that he had everything to lose and nothing to gain — except a few more months of life. Was it enough?
Surrender meant but a stay of death.
Quade was still casual outwardly, but inwardly he was like a coiled spring. He had to read Wexler’s intentions from his face, and act a fraction of a second before the killer.
“All right,” said Wexler, “you win.”
He lied. He was lowering his gun, but Quade saw it in his eyes. He was going to shoot. He was going to gamble on getting in the surprise, vital shot.
“Fine,” said Quade. He took a step back, smiled — and dropping his hand to the proofreader’s desk, lifted it up and shoved it at Wexler in a tremendous heave. At the same instant, he threw himself frantically sidewards and forward.
Thunder rocked the little room. The bullet from the automatic missed Quade’s face by less than one-sixteenth of an inch. He felt the wind as it zipped past him.
Then Wexler was down under the desk and Quade was swarming over it, slamming at the printer with his fist that was not encumbered by the dart. He put everything he had into the blow and it connected solidly with Wexler’s jaw.
Wexler collapsed.
When he recovered a few seconds later, Quade had the automatic. There were tears in Wexler’s eyes as he looked up at Quade. “The dart…” he muttered. It was sticking in his throat.
“Oh, that,” said Quade. He grinned crookedly and gave it a flip. It stuck in the overturned desk. “Why, you see, Wexler, I didn’t want to carry a thing around in my pocket with poison on it, for fear I might accidentally stick myself with it — so I carefully wiped the poison from it.”
Louis Wexler screamed incoherently.
The outside door slammed open, feet pounded through the office. Quade whirled, the automatic gripped in his fist. But it wasn’t Colby; it was Charlie Boston.
“Ollie!” Boston cried. “I heard a shot and I knew you had something to do with it.”
“I did,” said Quade. “But did you see a man running outside?”
“Yeah. He bumped into me and got tough. The squirt! I knocked him cold with one punch!”
“Good, Charlie! Now go out and collar him before he comes around. The local law ought to come around any minute.”
He came, a burly policeman with a huge revolver. With him came Linda Starr and Mildred Rogers.
Quade waved at the girls. “Be through here in a few minutes.”
“No more history, Mr. Quade?” asked Linda.
“No more history. The lesson’s finished for today.”
Funny Man
Charlie Boston grabbed Oliver Quade’s arm. “Look,” he said, “a movie studio!”
Quade twisted the wheel to the right, stepped on the brakes. The motor of the dilapidated jalopy expired with a wheezing sigh.
Quade looked across the street. “All right, it’s a studio,” he said. “They do have studios in Hollywood, you know.”
“The sign by the gate says Slocum Studios,” Charlie Boston’s voice was eager. “Do you suppose this is the place where Hedy Lamarr works?”
“And if it is, would she want to see you? Come on, we’ve got things to do. We’ve got to get located. After all, we were lucky to make it from San Bernardino on three gallons of gas.” He looked hopefully at Charlie Boston. “I don’t suppose, Charlie, you’ve got a stray quarter — or even a dime, somewhere about you?”
“You know damn well I haven’t. You got my last cent in Arizona.”
“In that case, I guess I’ve got to go to work. Before I’m even a half-hour in Hollywood!”
“Where can you work around here?”
“Right there,” said Quade. “Where all those people are hanging around the studio gate. If I work fast I won’t need a peddler’s license.”
He opened the door of the flivver beside him and it came away in his hand. “If we ever get any money, Charlie, we’ll buy a new car and send this one to China.”
He walked across the street toward the studio gate. Before he quite reached it he turned to the right and stopped with his back against the stucco wall.