So the torpedo waits for me there. It fits like a gl— Wait, I’ve got something that proves even better. This—”
As he spoke he was bending over and opening the second drawer of his desk. His hand went into it and came out with a short-barreled Police Positive.
“You will please raise your hands,” he said, hardly changing his voice. “And, Miss Latham, you will please phone for the police.”
“But how,” demanded the blonde, when the police had left, “did you guess that he wasn’t a real detective?”
“I didn’t,” said Peter Kidd, “until I was explaining things to him, and to myself at the same time. Then it occurred to me that the counterfeiting gang wouldn’t simply drop the whole thing because they’d missed me once, and — well, as it happens, I was right. If he’d been a real detective, I’d have been making a fool out of myself, of course, but if he wasn’t, I’d have been making a corpse out of myself, and that would be worse.”
“And me, too,” said the blonde. She shivered a little.
“He’d have had to kill both of us!”
Peter Kidd nodded gravely. “I think the police will find that Henderson is just the printer for the gang and the tall thin fellow is just a minion. The man who came here, I’d judge, was the real entrepreneur.”
“The what?”
“The manager of the business. From the Old French entreprendre, to undertake, which comes from the Latin inter plus pren—”
“You mean the bigshot,” said the blonde. She was opening a brand-new ledger. “Our first case. Credit entry —one hundred dollars counterfeit. Debit — given to police — one hundred dollars counterfeit. And — oh, yes, one shaggy dog. Is that a debit or a credit entry?”
“Debit,” said Peter Kidd.
The blonde wrote and then looked up. “How about the credit entry to balance it off? What’ll I put in the credit column?”
Peter Kidd looked at the dog and grinned. He said, “Just write in ‘Not so damn shaggy!’ ”
Life and Fire
MR. HENRY SMITH rang the doorbell. Then he stood looking at his reflection in the glass pane of the front door. A green shade was drawn down behind the glass and the reflection was quite clear.
It showed him a little man with gold-rimmed spectacles of the pince-nez variety, wearing a conservatively cut suit of banker’s gray.
Mr. Smith smiled genially at the reflection and the reflection smiled back at him. He noticed that the necktie knot of the little man in the glass was a quarter of an inch askew; he straightened his own tie and the reflection in the glass did the same thing.
Mr. Smith rang the bell a second time. Then he decided he would count up to fifty and that if no one answered by then, it would mean that no one was home. He’d counted up to seventeen when he heard footsteps on the porch steps behind him, and turned his head.
A loudly checkered suit was coming up the steps of the porch. The man inside the suit, Mr. Smith decided, must have walked around from beside or behind the house. For the house was out in the open, almost a mile from its nearest neighbor, and there was nowhere else that Checkered Suit could have come from.
Mr. Smith lifted his hat, revealing a bald spot only medium in size but very shiny. “Good afternoon,” he said. “My name is Smith. I—”
“Lift ‘em,” commanded Checkered Suit grimly. He had a hand jammed into his right coat pocket.
“Huh?” There was utter blankness in the little man’s voice. “Lift what? I’m sorry, really, but I don’t—”
“Don’t stall,” said Checkered Suit. “Put up your mitts and then march on into the house.”
The little man with the gold pince-nez glasses smiled. he raised his hands shoulder-high, and gravely replaced his hat.
Checkered Suit had removed his hand halfway from his coat pocket and the heavy automatic it contained looked — from Mr. Smith’s point of view — like a small cannon.
“I’m sure there must be some mistake,” said Mr. Smith brightly, smiling doubtfully this time. “I am not a burglar, nor am I—”
“Shut up,” Checkered Suit said. “Lower one hand enough to turn the knob and go on in. It ain’t locked. But move slow.”
He followed Mr. Smith into the hallway.
A stocky man with unkempt black hair and a greasy face had been waiting just inside. He glowered at the little man and then spoke over the little man’s shoulder to Checkered Suit.
“What’s the idea bringing this guy in here?” he wanted to know.
“I think it’s the shamus we been watching out for, Boss. It says its name’s Smith.”
Greasy Face frowned, staring first at the little man with the pince-nez glasses and then at Checkered Suit.
“Hell,” he said. “That ain’t a dick. Lots of people named Smith. And would he use his right name?”
Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “You gentlemen,” he said, with only the slightest emphasis on the second word, “seem to be laboring under some misapprehension. I am Henry Smith, agent for the Phalanx Life and Fire Insurance Company. I have just been transferred to this territory and am making a routine canvass.
“We sell both major types of insurance, gentlemen, life and fire. And for the owner of the home, we have a combination policy that is a genuine innovation. If you will permit me the use of my hands, so I can take my rate book from my pocket, I should be very pleased to show you what we have to offer.”
Greasy Face’s glance was again wavering between the insurance agent and Checkered Suit. He said “Nuts” quite disgustedly.
Then his gaze fixed on the man with the gun, and his voice got louder. “You half-witted ape,” he said. “Ain’t you got eyes? Does this guy look like—?”
Checkered Suit’s voice was defensive. “How’d I know, Eddie?” he whined, and the insurance agent felt the pressure of the automatic against his back relax. “You told me we were on the lookout for this shamus Smith, and that he was a little guy. And he coulda disguised himself, couldn’t he? And if he did come, he wouldn’t be wearing his badge in sight or anything.”
Greasy Face grunted. “Okay, okay, you done it now.
We’ll have to wait until Joe gets back to be sure. Joe’s seen the Smith we got tipped was coining up here.”
The little man in the gold-rimmed glasses smiled more confidently now. “May I lower my arms?” he asked. “It’s quite uncomfortable to hold them this way.”
The stocky man nodded. He spoke to Checkered Suit,
“Run him over, though, just to make sure.”
Mr. Smith felt a hand reach around and tap his pockets lightly and expertly, first on one side of him and then on the other. He noticed wonderingly that the touch was so light he probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all if the stocky man’s remark had not led him to expect it.
“Okay,” said Checkered Suit’s voice behind him. “He’s clean, Boss. Guess I did pull a boner.”
The little man lowered his hands, and then took a black leather-bound notebook from the inside pocket of his banker’s-gray coat. It was a dog-eared rate book.
He thumbed over a few pages, and then looked up smiling. “I would deduce,” he said, “that the occupation in which you gentlemen engage — whatever it may be — is a hazardous one. I fear our company would not be interested in selling you the life insurance policies for that reason.
“But we sell both kinds of insurance, life and fire. Does one of you gentlemen own this house?”