another thing in the place.
I didn’t have to ask Hogan where the body had been found, for the chalk outline was still there in front of the bar. When I looked closely, I could see a couple of small spots of dried blood in the center of the outline.
“Things just like they were?” I asked Hogan.
“Yeah. Except for a cigarette butt that was in there.” He pointed to an ash tray on the end of the bar containing nothing but a little ash. “They figure it was one the dead kid smoked while waiting for Joe Brighton, but they took it along for the lab anyway.”
“Only one butt, eh?” I asked.
“Yeah. No kind of evidence whatever that anyone but the dead kid and young Brighton were here all evening. Who you working for, Manny?”
“Joe Brighton,” I said.
“Oh? Well, sorry to disillusion you, but if your fee depends on getting him off, looks like you’re working for nothing.”
“Where’s that hole where they found the heroin rig?”
Hogan went over to the wall and pushed aside a framed drawing of a Petty girl who was, as usual, phoning somebody in the standard garb of nothing. Behind it one brick had been removed from the wall, leaving a small oblong cavity. It didn’t tell me anything.
“I guess that’s all,” I said. “Thanks.”
“See anything the boys missed?” he asked with a touch of indulgence.
“Naturally,” I said. “The killer couldn’t have been Joe Brighton, because he was a short, red-headed man who wore elevator heels, a checked jacket and an Alpine hat with a feather in it. He’s ambidextrous, had just arrived from Australia on a cattle boat and snores when he sleeps on his left side.”
“Amazing,” Hogan said in simulated awe. “How do you do it?”
“Elementary,” I said negligently.
Upstairs again Hogan tried to get me to linger. We’re fairly good friends, but I suspected it wasn’t just my charm which made him want me to stay and pass the time. Sitting hour after hour in a hallway where it’s too dark to read isn’t exactly absorbing work, and I imagine the detective would have welcomed even Count Dracula as a companion to break the monotony.
“What’s Warren Day expect to accomplish by staking out this place?” I asked curiously.
Hogan shrugged. “I guess he figures if we catch some kid in the act of walking in here, it’ll be evidence he belongs to the club and we may have a better chance of getting some information out of him. We tried rounding up all the kids we could find wearing purple jackets, you know, but none of them would even tell us the time. Day would like one of the members’ testimony that young Brighton and Bart Meyers met to fight over leadership of the gang.”
“You’re wasting your time,” I told him. “A dollar will get you ten that every member of the club knows you’re sitting here.”
“No bet,” he said gloomily.
It was not yet four o’clock when I came out of 620 Vernon, so there was still time for a call or two before I started interrupting people’s dinner. Across the street at the corner of Sixth and Vernon there was a drugstore. I checked the phone book for a Quint family on Sixth without success. Apparently they had no phone, for the only Quint family listed was out in the West End. And the drugstore didn’t have a city directory.
“You know a Quint family that lives along here on Sixth someplace?” I asked the druggist.
He was an old man, bent and shriveled and nearsighted and a little hard of hearing. I had to repeat the name.
The second time he said, “Quint? Al Quint, the newspaper guy?”
I was reasonably sure the father of the girl I was looking for wasn’t a reporter, but I said, “I was looking for Stella Quint. I don’t know her father’s name.”
“That’s Al’s kid, mister. High-school girl. Al sells newspapers at Fourth and Center.”
He didn’t know the address, but he told me the flat was in the next block, third building on the right.
This street was practically identical to
I didn’t have to ask Hogan where the body had been found, for the chalk outline was still there in front of the bar. When I looked closely, I could see a couple of small spots of dried blood in the center of the outline.
“Things just like they were?” I asked Hogan.
“Yeah. Except for a cigarette butt that was in there.” He pointed to an ash tray on the end of the bar containing nothing but a little ash. “They figure it was one the dead kid smoked while waiting for Joe Brighton, but they took it along for the lab anyway.”
“Only one butt, eh?” I asked.
“Yeah. No kind of evidence whatever that anyone but the dead kid and young Brighton were here all evening. Who you working for, Manny?”
“Joe Brighton,” I said.
“Oh? Well, sorry to disillusion you, but if your fee depends on getting him off, looks like you’re working for nothing.”
“Where’s that hole where they found the heroin rig?”
Hogan went over to the wall and pushed aside a framed drawing of a Petty girl who was, as usual, phoning somebody in the standard garb of nothing. Behind it one brick had been removed from the wall, leaving a small oblong cavity. It didn’t tell me anything.
“I guess that’s all,” I said. “Thanks.”
“See anything the boys missed?” he asked with a touch of indulgence.
“Naturally,” I said. “The killer couldn’t have been Joe Brighton, because he was a short, red-headed man who wore elevator heels, a checked jacket and an Alpine hat with a feather in it. He’s ambidextrous, had just arrived from Australia on a cattle boat and snores when he sleeps on his left side.”
“Amazing,” Hogan said in simulated awe. “How do you do it?”
“Elementary,” I said negligently.
Upstairs again Hogan tried to get me to linger. We’re fairly good friends, but I suspected it wasn’t just my charm which made him want me to stay and pass the time. Sitting hour after hour in a hallway where it’s too dark to read isn’t exactly absorbing work, and I imagine the detective would have welcomed even Count Dracula as a companion to break the monotony.
“What’s Warren Day expect to accomplish by staking out this place?” I asked curiously.
Hogan shrugged. “I guess he figures if we catch some kid in the act of walking in here, it’ll be evidence he belongs to the club and we may have a better chance of getting some information out of him. We tried rounding up all the kids we could find wearing purple jackets, you know, but none of them would even tell us the time. Day would like one of the members’ testimony that young Brighton and Bart Meyers met to fight over leadership of the gang.”
“You’re wasting your time,” I told him. “A dollar will get you ten that every member of the club knows you’re sitting here.”
“No bet,” he said gloomily.
It was not yet four o’clock when I came out of 620 Vernon, so there was still time for a call or two before I started interrupting people’s dinner. Across the street at the corner of Sixth and Vernon there was a drugstore. I checked the phone book for a Quint family on Sixth without success. Apparently they had no phone, for the only Quint family listed was out in the West End. And the drugstore didn’t have a city directory.
“You know a Quint family that lives along here on Sixth someplace?” I asked the druggist.
He was an old man, bent and shriveled and nearsighted and a little hard of hearing. I had to repeat the name.
The second time he said, “Quint? Al Quint, the newspaper guy?”
I was reasonably sure the father of the girl I was looking for wasn’t a reporter, but I said, “I was looking for Stella Quint. I don’t know her father’s name.”
“That’s Al’s kid, mister. High-school girl. Al sells newspapers at Fourth and Center.”
He didn’t know the address, but he told me the flat was in the next block, third building on the right.
This street was practically identical to
Similar Books
