The door shivered. The knob turned, and out of the darkness came a profane expression of pleased surprise. Feet scuffled. The door clicked shut again.
The lights went on.
Shake and Donald stood side by side on the threshold. Their eyes blinked against the light. Then they ceased to blink, grew wider and wider in their greenish-white faces.
"J-j-j-jjjjj…" said Donald.
Shake's pudding head wobbled helplessly. Oscillating, he sagged back against the door.
Alvarado's icy voice snapped him ludicrously erect.
"Take three steps forward! Now lock your arms behind you! Dolores-" He jerked his head.
The girl went in back of the two men. She searched them with contemptuous efficiency. Donald, of course, was equipped with his long thin-handled knife. From Shake's hip pocket she withdrew a man's sock, weighted and knotted together at the top. She was about to toss it to the floor when Alvarado held out his hand.
"If you please… " He hefted the sock, grinning at the two thugs as he moved slightly away from Toddy. "The chicken claws, eh-the sock loaded with broken glass. To what do I owe this honor, gentlemen?"
"It-that don't really hurt mister," Shake blurted foolishly. "W-we wouldn't-"
"I am familiar with its possibilities. I wonder if you would still maintain it doesn't hurt if I should swing it vigorously against your crotch?"
Shake turned a shade greener.
Donald pointed an angrily indignant finger at Toddy. "He's the guy you ought to do it to, mister! He got us to come here!"
"Did he, indeed?"
"Just ask him if he didn't! Told us they was an old lady livin' here all by herself-an old crippled dame with a pile of jewelry!"
"That's just what he done, sir," Shake chorused righteously. "Got us to give him two hundred dollars for tippin' us off."
Alvarado glanced quizzically at Toddy. Toddy shrugged.
"I see. You,"-nodding at Donald-"is that what you were discussing with him earlier this evening?"
"It ain't all we was discussing." Donald eyed Toddy venomously. "What we was really discussing was murder. We-that's how we happened to make the deal with him. He killed his wife and he needed the money to blow town on."
"Oh, now," Alvarado laughed. "Murder his wife? I find that hard to believe. Doubtless he only told you that as a means of obtaining your money."
"I tell ya, he killed her! Anyways," Donald qualified reluctantly, "she got killed. She was layin' on the bed-right there in his hotel room!"
Alvarado made a sound of disbelief. "He invited you up to pay your respects, I suppose? At what time was this?"
"Right around six-thirty. An', no, he didn't invite me up there! I sneaked up while he was out, see? I was gonna cut him up when he came back."
He babbled on eagerly, anxious to make the evidence against Toddy as damning as possible. Shake tried to interrupt him once; he seemed to sense that there was much more here than met the eye. A cold word from Alvarado, however, and Shake was reduced to flabby quaking silence.
Donald concluded the recital with a vicious leer at Toddy.
Slowly, the chinless man turned to the girl. "Well?"
"I told you what I saw. There is nothing more I can say."
"So," sighed Alvarado, "we are confronted with two contradictory truths. Apparently contradictory, I should say. I wonder… But we must not bother these gentlemen with out petty problems. They are obviously men of large affairs. We must speed them on their way- with, of course, some small memento of their visit."
He moved, smiling, toward the two. "You would like to leave it that way, gentlemen? After all, breaking and entering is a very serious crime."
They nodded vigorously.
Alvarado's smile vanished. "I will do you a favor. Turn around!"
"B-but-"
"I withdraw the favor!" He swung the sock-once, twice. He dropped it and grabbed the dog by the collar. "The blood scent arouses him, gentlemen. I advise you to run very fast."
They stared at him stupidly; dazed, not grasping his meaning. The blows had reddened their faces. There was no other sign of their impact.
Then it came, the blood. It spurted out from ten thousand pinpoint fountains, formed into hideous red-threaded masks. The dog snarled and lunged.
"Quickly!" snapped Alvarado, and there was no doubting the urgency of his voice.
Shake and Donald came alive simultaneously. They hurled themselves at the door and wedged there. Clawing and cursing hysterically, they broke free. They stumbled and fell down the steps. The sound of their frantically pounding footsteps receded and vanished into the night.
Alvarado closed the door and stood with his back to it. He smiled at Toddy as he delivered a firmly admonitory kick in the dog's ribs.
"I seem to owe you an apology, Mr. Kent. I wonder if you will be generous enough to forgive and forget-if, in short, you are still of a mind to accept the offer I made you earlier."
Toddy's brow wrinkled. "Maybe. But what about my wife? Regardless of what's happened to the body, my wife's absence is going to be noticed. It's just a matter of time until the police will be looking for me. I can't show myself. I don't see how you can afford to be tied up with me."
"I am planning, Mr. Kent, to absolve you of the murder. Naturally, you would be of no use to me otherwise."
"You're planning?" Toddy said. "But how-why?"
"How I cannot yet tell you. As to the why, I have a double reason. Not only do I wish to have you associated with me, but I think it highly possible that the murderer may be my enemy as well as yours." Alvarado held up his hand. "Please! For the present, there is little more that I can tell you. And you have not accepted my offer… or have you?"
"All right." Toddy made up his mind. "It's my only chance. You've got yourself a boy."
"Good. Now, who knew that you had the watch?"
"You did."
"Of course. And Dolores. But who else? You told your wife about it, naturally?"
"No. Neither her nor anyone else."
"You are positive of that? Did you say anything to anyone which might, even by a remote chance, lead them to suspect that you had the watch?"
"No, I-" Toddy paused doubtfully.
"Did you or not? This is easily as important to you as it is to me, Mr. Kent."
"I talked to the man I sell gold to." Toddy gave him a brief summary of his conversation with Milt. "It couldn't have meant anything to him. Anyway, my wife was killed at just about the time I was talking to him."
"Then he is of no interest to us. It is as I thought…"
"Yes."
Alvarado nodded absently. "Yes, it must be so… But sit down, Mr. Kent. Would you like some coffee?-fine, so would I. Dolores!"
Toddy sat down and lighted a cigarette. Alvarado waited until the kitchen door had closed before he spoke.
"I will tell you something," he said quietly, "and please do not ask me to elaborate at this time. I place no great confidence in Dolores. Do not trust her too far."