Gamblers Don't Win by W. T. Ballard Page B

voice he knew said, “What the hell’s going on here?” With the back of his left hand Lennox wiped the sweat from his eyes and stared at Spellman. He tried to grin, but his upper lip was puffed, swollen. “I never thought the day would come I’d be glad to see you, Copper.”
    â€œSo you’re glad to see me?” Spellman’s heavy voice held sarcasm, “Well, I’m kinda glad to see you. I’ve been looking for you for only three days.”
    â€œSwell.” Lennox was trying to straighten his coat. “It’s nice to know I’ve been missed. How’d you happen to blow in so opportunely, Floyd?”
    The city detective shrugged. “I saw you hiding behind a post in the betting shed a few minutes ago and thought I’d tail you and see just what the idea was.”
    â€œFor once in your life,” Lennox told him, “you did right. If you’d grabbed me then, this gentleman,” he indicated the silent Custis, who was being held by a couple of barn men, “might have got rough.”
    Spellman looked at Custis. “Who is he? His face is familiar.”
    Lennox said: “Just a gambler. You probably saw a circular on him sometime. Besides that, he’s the killer who got that rider at the hotel the other night.”
    â€œThe hell you say!” Spellman was looking at Custis with renewed interest. “Can you prove it?”
    â€œOf course not.” Custis had regained his self-control. “The idea’s absurd, Captain. I had a little personal trouble with Lennox, and this is his way of paying me back.”
    Spellman looked questioningly at Lennox, who hesitated. After all, he had no proof that Custis had had Jarney killed. But Betty Donovan said, suddenly, “I can prove it. At least I can get six jockeys to swear that he threatened them, that they heard him make threats against Jarney. I can prove that he’s been framing races for a year.”
    Spellman looked at her. He said to Lennox, suddenly, “Is this the girl that was with you at the hotel?”
    She answered before Bill had a chance. “Yes, I’m the one. I was with him when he found Frank Jarney’s body.”
    Spellman scratched his head. “I guess you’d all better come downtown. The D.A. will have to straighten this out.”
12
    I N the police car, riding towards town, Lennox could not talk to Betty because of Spellman’s presence. Custis was in a car ahead in the custody of two of Spellman’s men. Bill watched her set face, thinking how pretty she was. And her gameness. The thought of it made him wince. She had played the game with one of the country’s smartest gamblers, played without asking favors, and won. He wanted to tell her about it, what he thought of her carrying on for Bert, and that he was sorry he had doubted her, but Spellman’s hulking shoulders beside the driver were half turned, and he knew that the detective captain would be listening.
    The District Attorney heard their story and questioned them for almost an hour, then let them go with orders to report to his office in the morning. Lennox gave the address of her hotel to the cab driver and hesitated. “I’d like to come up and talk to you for a little while, if you’re not too tired.”
    She said, “It’s you that should be tired. That wound in your side—”
    He grinned. ‘Forget it, Kid. That wasn’t much more than a burn, and the doc out at the track fixed it up swell.”
    â€œThen come on.” He got in, settling himself on the seat gingerly. “What I can’t understand,” he said, when the cab was in motion, “is why Custis didn’t have me killed when he had me. I don’t get why he kept me alive for three days.”
    Betty Donovan stared at him, her expression changing. “You thought it was Custis that—that held you in that house? It wasn’t, it was