“Danged if I know what to do with this wire,” he told Nace in a mildly puzzled tone. “The thing came in this morning. It’s addressed care of the Mountain House hotel, but we ain’t got nobody named Lee Nace registered here.”
Nace was holding his pipe. He made a mental note to see that his secretary got a ten per cent wage cut starting next pay day. She was always pulling stunts like this. He had told her distinctly he would be at the Mountain House, Mountain Town’s largest hotel, under the name Jules Leeds.
“I’ll take the wire,” Nace said.
“But your name is Leeds, not—”
Nace proved who he was. Then he opened the telegram. It had been sent from Mountain Town to his New York office, and forwarded back.
WISH YOUR SERVICES IN URGENT MATTER STOP REGISTER AT MOUNTAIN HOUSE THIS CITY AND PHONE ME STOP WILL EXPECT YOU UNLESS YOU WIRE OTHERWISE.
BENNA FRANKS
“So she was on the up and up,” Nace murmured.
The clerk had an ear open. “What say?”
“Sounds like rain,” Nace replied, after a couple of salvos of thunder had chased themselves across the countryside.
The clerk had been thinking. “Say, buddy, are you the Lee Nace the newspapers write about — the private detective? I read a story where it said people had tried to kill you more’n four hundred times. Tell me somethin’, was that a damn lie?”
“Draw your own conclusions.” Nace put his elbows on the desk and grew confidential. “What’s the low-dirty on Constable Hasser and his deputy, Fatty Dell?”
The clerk’s eyes saucered. “Cripes! You tryin’ to get somethin’ on ’em?”
“Just finding out what’s what.”
“You got a case here, Mister Nace?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I guess Hasser and Dell are all right,” said the clerk. “There was some talk of them takin’ money to let beer trucks pass through Mountain Town. Then there was some scandal last winter when a local judge got hell for issuin’ pistol permits to some New York City gangsters. The judge claimed Hasser and Dell recommended the gangsters to him as honest citizens.”
“That all?”
“Yeah — except Hasser and Dell knock off a crap game sometimes, and take pay for lettin’ the boys go.”
Nace smiled wryly. “What you mean is that Hasser and Dell are all right, except they’re a pair of cheap crooks. That right?”
“Oh, hell! This is just gossip!”
“Sure.” Nace smiled knowingly.
A car drove up and two tourists, man and woman, came in and registered.
It was sultry in the lobby. Flies buzzed. A loose window somewhere rattled every time it thundered.
Nace waited until the clerk was free again. “Where is Camp Lakeside?”
“Red-headed Benna Franks’ place? It’s up the west side of the lake about two miles.”
Nace spilled smoke from both nostrils. It was up the west side of the lake that Constable Hasser had been killed by the strange explosion.
“Much of a place?”
“The camp — yeah, it’s quite a layout. Of course, it ain’t opened up yet. But Benna Franks takes in plenty of jack later in the summer, when the season opens up.”
“Where can I rent a car?”
“Down the street a block. You goin’ up to Camp Lakeside?”
“Keep it under your hat,” Nace warned with an exaggerated air of mystery.
“I sure will. And if there’s anything else—”
Nace left the sleek youth declaring his willingness to be of assistance. The fellow was a good sort; his type had given detectives tips that had broken many a case.
The car-renting concern was a branch of a nation-wide chain. Nace had a card which the chain issued to reliable customers. It enabled him to rent a machine without the formality of putting up a deposit.
The machine was an eight-cylinder green roadster, the fastest heap in the place, Nace believed. It was a two-year-old model. A carbon knock tinkled under the hood as he drove out.
He glanced at the hotel in passing. What he saw made him stamp the brake until all four wheels slid. He burst out of the car, flung across the street, took the hotel stairs with a single vault.
The hotel clerk was draped like a rag across his desk. Crimson ran in a squirming red cord from his nostrils.
Nace turned the clerk on the desk, hunting wounds. He found none, unless a smashed nose counted. The clerk’s face had banged the desk. There was a knot like half a walnut on his head.
The hotel elevator clanked open. Nace watched it, right hand on the ball-gripped gun in his left sleeve. Only the colored operator was in the cage.
Nace flipped a hand at the clerk. “When did that happen?”
“Lan’ sakes, Mistah, ah don’ know!” gurgled the boy. “Dat hadn’t happened to ’im when ah took de ice watah up a minute ago.”
“Who’d you take the ice water to?”
“Old lady in four-ten. Evah night at dis time, she has me fetch her ice water—!”
Nace shoved the elevator operator for the door. “Run out in the street and yell bloody murder!”
“Lawsy, Mistah, I don’ know what to holler—”
“Yell that there’s a murdered man in here!”
The colored boy must have taken Nace’s words to mean the clerk had been murdered. He ran squawling into the street.
Nace whirled out through the back door. He waited in the darkness, one eye on the fire escape, the other on the exit. Seconds dragged and pulled minutes after them.
The hotel filled with excited citizens.
Nace was disgusted. It had been his guess that someone had visited the hotel bent on taking his life, and that the person would flee when the alarm was given. The guess had been bad somewhere.
He walked around and entered the hotel. Several persons had formed a sort of volunteer bucket brigade to relay ice water from the cooler to douse the unconscious clerk. The fellow stirred finally, sat up. He saw Nace and made a wry grin.
“Did you get a look at whoever hit you?” Nace questioned.
“Nix. I was dozin’ with my face in my hands.”
Nace slid a tenspot across the desk. “Buy yourself some aspirin with that.”
The clerk blinked. “You think they came in here huntin’ you?”
“You’re a good guesser, boy.”
Nace kindled his pipe, listening to the remarks of curious citizens who had been drawn by the colored boy’s yells. If the nearly-destroyed body of Constable Hasser, or that of Fatty Dell, had been found, the news was not yet in town.
Turning away, Nace saw something that nearly made him swallow his pipe.
It was Fred — the thick-necked, jaw-heavy young man who had helped the red-headed Benna Franks.
Fred had been working furtively toward the door. He saw he had been observed. He ducked outside.
Nace ran to the door, popped through, rattled his feet down the steps. Fred was diving into a car. It was the same coupe in which the red-head had driven him away from this spot earlier in the night.
The coupe lunged into movement.
Nace’s gun came out of his sleeve, banged once.
The coupe engine died. Nace knew exactly where to shoot to hit the distributor under the hood.
Not aiming his gun at Fred, Nace ran to the machine.
Fred had an automatic in his hands. His arms were steady, but he made no effort to use the gun. He laid it on the cushions.
“Hell!” he said thickly. “I guess I ain’t got no guts to kill a man.”
Nace reached over Fred’s lap for the gun on the cushions. Fred grabbed at Nace’s head.
Nace chopped his hard hand, edgewise, to the man’s temple. Fred moaned and fell over.
Nace got the gun. Then he reached further and plucked a rag off the coupe floorboards. It was the rag the murderer of Fatty Dell had used to wrap around his shoes.