After a long succession of bad breaks, a good one makes you suspicious. I chewed a lip, hesitating. I looked both ways along the alley. Empty as a campaign promise. I let the door swing inward a foot or two and peered through. A big room that went all the way to the front of the building, strewn with fire-blackened timbers, wrecked partitions and charred furniture. The acrid odor found after a building burns, no matter how long after, bit into my lungs. I stepped inside and closed the door, breathing lightly, and looked around. A warped metal door in one of the side walls had a floor indicator over it, but I was reasonably sure the elevator would be out of order. Even if it wasn’t, the sound would alarm anybody in the place and I didn’t want to alarm anybody. Not even me.
I picked my way gingerly through the wreckage until I was nearly to the front of the building.
A narrow staircase hugged one wall, its banister sagging. What had once been a strip of carpeting covering treads and risers was now little more than flame-chewed threads.
It looked strong enough. I went up one flight, using the balls of my feet only and staying close to the wall. At the top things looked much better than they had downstairs, although the smell was as strong. There was a line of wooden and glass partitions, with a desk, a filing case and three chairs in each where the salesmen took orders from wholesalers. Or so I figured it out. The glass on several of the partitions was broken, but that was the only damage.
I prowled the entire floor and found no sign of life. I moved quietly, opening doors without a sound and closing them the same way. Nothing.
The third floor was split by a wooden partition that extended clear to the ceiling. The half I was in had been completely cleared out, leaving bare boards and a layer of dust you could write your name in if there was nothing better to do. I stood at the top of the steps and eyed a closed door in that partition. I could see no reason for the door being closed. You have a fire and the boys with the ladders and the gleaming axes come and put out the flames and hack a few holes and go away. Then you haul out what is left and move it down the stairs and away and that’s all there is to it.
Why go around closing doors?
I took out my gun and went over to the door. No sound came through it. I turned the knob slowly and pushed it open carefully. Not very far open. Just far enough to see the broad back of a man playing solitaire at a table under a shaded light globe hanging from a ceiling cord.
Against a side wall was a daybed and on the bed, her back to me, lay a woman fully dressed. I didn’t need to see her face. It was Lodi. Lodi, whose beauty of face and figure was beyond the dreams of man once that initial shock had passed. Lodi, whose secret I had managed to keep from the prying eyes of the civilized world; Lodi, who had given up so much to be with the man she loved.
I slipped into the room and came silently up behind the man at the table. He laid a black seven on a red eight with clumsy care, studied the next card in the pile, then peeled three more from those in his hand.
I said, “You could use the ace of clubs.”
He jumped a foot and started to rise. I hit him on the back of the head with the gun barrel and he fell face down on the table, out cold.
“Karl!”
Lodi was struggling to sit up, her arms tied at her back. I went over and tore away the ropes and gathered her into my arms and kissed her until she was breathless.
“What have they done to you?” I demanded finally.
She shook her head, fighting back both tears and laughter. Her long dark hair needed a comb, but for my money it had never looked lovelier. “Nothing really, Karl. They were stunned, of course, when they saw my face for the first time. I think they were even a little in awe of me. They made me get dressed and brought me directly here.”
“How many of them actually saw you?”
“What does it matter, darling?” She shivered. “Let’s leave this horrible place. They’ll be—”
“No,” I said. “I’ve got to know.”
“Four, Karl. The blonde girl and those two strange men with her and the man you found here.”
“They ask you questions?”
She shrugged. “Something about a machine and they seemed to know about the rays. At least the girl did. I pretended I couldn’t understand her.”
My own gun was back under my arm. I took the late Mr. Nekko’s .32 out of my coat pocket and said, “Wait tor me at the top of the stairs, Lodi. I’ve got a matter to take care of before I leave.”
Her luminous eyes were troubled. “You’re not going to kill him. Karl?”
“He saw you,” I said flatly.
“But people will find out some day, darling. They’re bound to. You can’t go around—”
Her voice faltered and broke. She was staring past me. fear suddenly filling her eyes. A voice said, “Let the gun tall, my friend.”
The .32 dropped from my hand and I turned slowly. It wasn’t the guard after all. Standing in the doorway were the same two men who had accompanied the blonde to my home the night before. Both were holding guns.
I said, “Relax.” and showed them my empty hands The slim one gestured at the man lying half across the table and said, “Wake him up. Stephan.” There was a faintly foreign sound to the words.
The burly one of the pair lowered his gun and started toward the table. The other said in the same bored tone, “Turn around, both of you,” to Lodi and me. and allowed the gun m his hand to sag slightly.
I moved my hand and the .45 was out from under my arm and speaking with authority. The first slug struck Gregory above the nose and tore away half his head; the second one ripped the entire throat out of the guard, who had chosen that second to sit erect; the third caught Stephan as he was pulling the trigger of his own gun. Something made an angry sound past my ear and buried itself in the wall behind me with a dull thunk.
Blood, bodies and the smell of cordite. Lodi was swaying, her face buried in her hands. I picked up her light cape and the hat with the long heavy veil lying on a table next to the bed and said, “Get into these, quick. We’ll have to move fast if we’re going to leave before the cops get here.”
She obeyed me numbly and we went quickly through the door and down the two flights of steps. Faces peered through the broken windows at the front of the building and somebody yelled at us.
We ran swiftly through the mounds of rubble to the rear door. I opened it and looked out. The alley appeared as empty of life as before. The panel truck was still backed up to the loading platform next door. I turned and beckoned to Lodi, and when I turned around again, five calm-faced men with drawn guns stepped from behind the truck to face us.
“Take it kind of easy, Mr. Terris,” one of them said mildly. “We’re government officers.”
IX
The committee meeting was called for 10:00 A.M. at one of the hearing rooms in the Senate Building. Lodi and I got there about fifteen minutes early, escorted by a couple of extra-polite agents from the FBI.
Senator McGill was already in the waiting room outside. His mane of white hair didn’t look quite as neat as usual and his heavy face was more red than florid.
He was upset enough to forget to shake hands. “Karl! My God, man, do you realize what a bad time you’ve given me?” He stared curiously at Lodi, who was heavily veiled, her arms covered with white gloves that ended under the sleeves of a long, high-necked dress. “Good morning, Mrs. Terris,” he said, civilly enough. “I hear you’ve had something of a bad time of it. I do hope you’re fully recovered.”
“Thank you,” Lodi said shortly.
He drew me to one side. “Don’t hold anything back from them, Karl,” he pleaded in an undertone. “They’re sore as hell. Unless you can do some mighty tall explaining, you’re going to be charged with everything from murder to spitting on the sidewalk! The way you were moving around, I’m surprised they even found you.”