Chapter XII: Black Light (1)

Black Hood staggered to his feet, his brain still whirling from that blow to his head. He lurched toward the front door of the shop, stopped half way there, clung to a counter for support. Somebody was pounding on the front door. A hoarse voice was calling on him to open in the name of the law.

Black Hood turned, spurred the muscles of his legs to carry on. The brilliant light of a policeman's torch sliced through the semi-darkness and spotted him. He kept going. Glass in the front door shattered beneath a blow from the butt of the copper's revolver. Black Hood ran on leaden feet into the rear of the shop. The back door stood invitingly open. He stepped over the sill, all but fell into the arms of a second cop. He struck just one wild haymaker of a blow that cleared the head of the cop by nearly a foot. And then suddenly there were two cops--one on either side of him.

"It's Black Hood!" one of the coppers shouted triumphantly. "We've got him. We've got the Eye. Wait till Sergeant McGinty hears about this!"

Cold steel jaws of handcuffs closed on Black Hood's right wrist. A second cop frisked him quickly, emptying the pockets of his belt.

"Look at the sparklers, will you!" the policeman gasped.

And Black Hood, his mind still in a daze, stared down at the gems in the copper's hand. No use telling them it was a frame. That was the standard alibi of every crook who ever found his way into police courts. They had him cold, and in his present condition he was utterly unable to fight back.

As long as he lived he was never to forget that ride down to police headquarters. Nor could he ever forget standing there in Sergeant McGinty's office while the sergeant did a bit of triumphant gloating.

"As sure as my name's McGinty, I knew there'd come a day like this, Mr. Black Hood, alias the Eye. I've got you, and I've got you where I want you. You'll burn in the chair, Mr. Hood."

Black Hood stood erect, still handcuffed to the cop who had captured him. He could think a little bit more clearly now and the muscles of his powerful body were much more inclined to obey the dictates of his taut nerves. He looked at the top of the sergeant's desk. There the entire contents of his belt pockets had been spread out--the dozen diamonds which had been used to frame him; that crumpled check which he had taken from the dead fingers of Biggert; the powder box from Vida Gervais' boudoir, most of its contents now gone; all his little tools and weapons which he had found valuable in his valiant fight against crime.

"You know what I've done, Mr. Hood?" McGinty asked. "I've telephoned the members of the citizens' committee who got together to tell the police what to do to catch the Eye. I've asked them and their friends to come down here to headquarters for the unveiling of Black Hood, alias the Eye. When they get here, I'm going to jerk off that mask of yours and we'll all have a little surprise party."

"You might spare me that 'alias, the Eye' business," Black Hood said, some of his old-time banter returning. "The Eye died when Jack Carlson died, and I can prove that. Since Carlson was murdered, another has taken his place. The man who killed Biggert and also killed Jack Carlson, now wears the white rubber mask that identifies the Eye, goes around whispering orders to professional rob and kill men. He's robbed Carlson's safe and robbed Carlson of his life and even robbed Carlson of his identity as the Eye. And given half a chance, I'll prove that to you, McGinty."

McGinty frowned. He could not deny that many times before Black Hood had beaten him to the solution of crimes, much to his embarrassment. And in each case, McGinty had received full credit for the solving of these crimes.

"When the time comes, Mr. Hood," McGinty said, "you'll have your chance to speak your little piece. I wouldn't deny that to any man."

"Then perhaps you'll unlock these handcuffs," Black Hood suggested. "You've robbed my bag of all its tricks and I'm relatively harmless at the present time. Besides," he added, glancing at the cop to whom he was linked, "this man here becomes something of a liability after this length of time."

"Unlock the cuffs, Bricker," McGinty ordered the cop. "Black Hood can't get out of here, and that's a sure thing."

* * * * *

The cuff removed from his right wrist, Black Hood went to a chair beside the desk and calmly sat down.

"I want to appeal to your reason a moment, Sergeant, before this committee arrives for the 'unveiling' as you call it. First of all, is it reasonable to suppose that I would crack open a jewelry store just to get those few diamonds there on the desk? And having broken into the store with intent to rob, as you seem to think, would I be silly enough to fall on my head and knock myself out?"

"Could be those were the only diamonds you found in the store."

"There were one hundred thousand dollars worth of unset diamonds in that store tonight," Black Hood said. "And that's what this man who is posing as the Eye went after and got. The past record shows that none of these crimes have been what you could call petty."

"A fact," McGinty said, "which doesn't prove you haven't hid the diamonds somewhere."

"But kept a few of them on my person just to get myself in jail, huh?" Black Hood laughed. "Listen, McGinty, why do you suppose Biggert, Weedham's secretary, was killed?"

"The shot that killed Biggert was intended for Jack Carlson," McGinty said. "So it was an accident that Biggert was shot."

Black Hood shook his head, "Jack Carlson was nowhere near Biggert when the latter fell. That was no mistake. Biggert was killed because he was about to expose somebody who had forged that check which is lying on your desk. That check is the piece of paper that was in Biggert's hand when he died."

McGinty's eyes narrowed. "How did you get hold of that, Mr. Hood?"

Black Hood saw that he would have to lie in order to protect his prototype, Kip Burland.

"I reached the body of Biggert before Carlson or anyone else did. That's how I know Carlson wasn't near the man when the shot was fired."

McGinty thought that over a moment.

"Go ahead, Mr. Hood. I'm not convinced, but every man has a right to free speech."

"Did the police notice the smudge of white powder on the lapel of Carlson's coat when they found his body? Did they notice that the regular light bulbs in his garage had been replaced with ultra-violet bulbs?"

McGinty nodded. "Our lab men don't miss much. That smudge of powder contained some chemical that glows in black light. I figured it spotted Carlson for the killer, made a target out of him in the dark."

"Right, McGinty. But do you know that Carlson was betrayed by a woman named Vida Gervais? She lives in the house next to the Weedham place. That powder box which you took from my pocket and which is now on your desk, is a sample of her face powder, treated with naphthionate of sodium. You can prove that yourself. And if you'll question the lady thoroughly, you'll be able to get at the truth. She'll know that Carlson was the Eye. And she may even admit that she threw Carlson over and helped somebody else dispose of Carlson and step into the lucrative position which Carlson occupied as the Eye."

McGinty looked up at one of his men. "Send out for that Gervais dame." When the man had left the room, he turned to Black Hood. "You haven't cleared yourself yet. You claim Carlson was the Eye. That's the world's oldest alibi--putting the blame on a dead man."

"I can prove Carlson was the Eye," Black Hood persisted. "In the morning I will send you that signal device which the Eye used. It carries Carlson's fingerprints."

"You'll send it from jail, then," McGinty said.

* * * * *

Black Hood shook his head. "I wonder if you'd send to the police lab for an ultra-violet lamp? I think I can conduct an experiment which will prove my points."

McGinty considered this a moment, and finally sent out for an ultra-violet lamp. It was not long after that before the members of the citizens committee began to arrive. The two Weedhams, father and son, were ushered into the room, followed by Major Paxton, Harold Adler, and the rest of the committee. Jeff Weedham's newspaper was represented by Barbara Sutton and her ace cameraman, Joe Strong. And finally the police brought in a coldly furious Vida Gervais.

Black Hood carefully avoided meeting Barbara Sutton's eyes. He knew that her emotions must be strained to the breaking point, and even a glance from him might have caused her to betray herself.

"D-d-don't tell me you've finally caught Black Hood, Sergeant!" Jeff Weedham gasped.

The sergeant smiled. "Sooner or later, McGinty gets 'em all."

McGinty waited until all present were seated. Then he stood up alongside of Black Hood.

"Now, folks," he said, "as you can see, I've got Black Hood just where I want him. And I've wanted him quite a while. I promised you that I'd show you his face, and that's just what I'm going to do."

* * * * *

Harold Adler uttered a hoarse cry of warning that came just a bit too late. With one of those lightning-like movements of his, Black Hood had pulled the revolver out of McGinty's holster, turned it on the sergeant. A copper near the door started to intervene, but Black Hood stopped him with a narrow-eyed glance that held all the threat of a thunderbolt.

"Make a move toward me, and I put a bullet into McGinty's back," he said. "No one will ever see the face of Black Hood and live to talk about it. I've just given McGinty the entire solution to this mystery. I've told him that Jack Carlson was the Eye. I've explained how Jack Carlson was murdered and his powerful position in the underworld was usurped by another man who now poses as the Eye. If there is any doubt in his mind, I am about to dispel it."

Black Hood picked up the ultra-violet lamp with his left hand while his right kept the gun on McGinty. He said, "Mr. Adler, will you kindly turn out the lights."

Adler hesitated.

"Do as you're told," Black Hood insisted, "if you don't want to witness murder. And I want to warn everyone in this room, that when the lights go out if anyone makes any move toward me, McGinty will die. Even if I were to be shot, the reflex action of my fingers would pull the trigger of this revolver and McGinty will die. I am no murderer, but if you interfere with me in this business, you'll make a murderer of me."

Adler switched out the lights. The darkness lay like a smothering blanket upon them all. The air itself had a certain electrical tenseness about it, like the silence before a storm.

"I am now going to switch on the ultra-violet light. If the filter is perfect, you will not be able to see the light, because ultra-violet rays, when unadulterated by other rays, cannot be seen by the human eye. There. The light is on.

"I have offered evidence to Sergeant McGinty in which I intended to prove that Biggert, William Weedham's secretary, was killed because he was about to show to William Weedham a check to which William Weedham's signature had been forged. Not only that, but the forger, in cashing the check, also forged the endorsement of Major Paxton, to whom the check was made out.

"I have further pointed out to McGinty, that this same killer disposed of Jack Carlson, after Carlson had been betrayed by a woman. This woman must have been Carlson's friend. She must have known all his secrets, including the fact that Carlson was the Eye. She gave all this information to another man--the same man who forged the check which I mentioned before. Then she assisted this killer to shoot Carlson. This woman's face powder was treated with naphthionate of sodium. A little of this powder rubbed from her cheek to Carlson's lapel made Carlson a perfect target in pitch darkness, provided that darkness was penetrated by rays of invisible ultra-violet or black light. I have a sample of that woman's face powder here on McGinty's desk."

Black Hood turned the ultra-violet lamp on the desk. The box of powder there became phosphorescent.

"When I was framed for the Tauber jewel robbery tonight, I seized the opportunity to toss some of this face powder onto the jewels in the robbers' bag," Black Hood continued. "The face powder is that of Vida Gervais. Watch, please."

Black Hood turned the ultra-violet lamp out toward his audience. Vida Gervais' frightened face glowed in the black light. Startled gasps could be heard from the others in the room as they stared at that ghostly face.

"Vida Gervais," Black Hood continued, "knew a good thing when she saw it. To eventually better her social and financial position, she was willing to sell out Carlson, alias the Eye, to another man who, if he could accumulate, through fair means or foul, quite a tidy sum of money now would get his hands on a great deal more money in the future.

"So Vida Gervais betrayed Carlson, alias the Eye, into the hands of the man who had killed Biggert. The forty thousand dollars which this man had got from the forged check was a small part of the money he needed. But if he could step into the Eye's shoes for a little while, he could rapidly accumulate the rest.

"I mentioned a moment ago that I had tossed some of Vida Gervais' unusual face powder onto the diamonds stolen from Tauber's shop. The naphthionate in that powder would cling to the diamonds and subsequently cling to the hands of the criminal who eventually got hold of them. Watch now for the glowing hands of the killer--the man who has been impersonating the Eye ever since Carlson was killed. But one funny thing about that impersonation which I did not realize until tonight. The impersonator, this man who killed Biggert and Carlson, was most careful to avoid any word or name beginning with the letter 'D.' He would not, for instance, say the name 'Delancy,' nor would he speak the word 'diamonds.' Why? Because every time he says a word or name beginning with that letter, he stutters. He might disguise his voice by whispering, but he could not control this stutter, which would have been a dead give-away."

* * * * *

In the black light, luminous fingers suddenly showed themselves. There was a piercing scream. Men surged forward to close in and blot out the glow from the killer's fingers.

"Watch out!" Black Hood's warning voice rang out. "He is probably armed!"

Men bumped into each other. There was the repeated thud of blows. There were cries, grunts, stammered oaths. And when finally somebody turned on the lights, Jeff Weedham was on the floor, two cops astride him. He had a gun in his hand, but his hand was pinned to the floor.

Sergeant McGinty looked over his shoulder at the Black Hood--or rather looked where he thought the Black Hood would be. McGinty's jaw sagged. He looked down at his own gun which was poking him in the ribs. His revolver had been wedged into the baby-gate extension arm of his own desk telephone. And Black Hood was gone.

It was an hour later that McGinty and his men, by playing Vida Gervais and Jeff Weedham, one against the other, got a full confession which corresponded very closely to Black Hood's reconstruction of the crimes. Jeff Weedham had been placed in rather a desperate position by his father, Jeff explained. William Weedham had bought Jeff the newspaper, insisting that he make a financial success of it and thus prove his worth. If he failed in this as he had in everything else, William Weedham was determined that none of the Weedham fortune should fall into Jeff's hands.

Jeff had run his newspaper into the red. As the time came closer in which William Weedham was to examine the newspaper's ledger, Jeff Weedham tried desperately to make up the lost money, first by forgery, and then by stepping into Carlson's shoes as the Eye.

Ballistics tests proved that it was Jeff's gun which had killed both Biggert and Carlson.

Just as McGinty was about to leave his office for the night, his phone rang. Almost before he picked the instrument up, he knew who his caller was.

"I say, McGinty," the voice of the Black Hood came from the receiver, "I really intended to apologize for making a fool of you there in your office, sticking you up with a gun attached to that telephone arm. But then, as I thought the matter over, it occurred to me that I really wasn't to blame for making a fool of you. You've really got a bone to pick with dear old Mother Nature on that score!"

"Say, will you kindly go to Hell!" McGinty exploded. And as he hung up, a chuckle broke from his thick lips. "What that guy don't know is that I'm beginning to get a kick out of tangling with him!"

CANDIDATE FOR A COFFIN

By T. W. FORD

Wilson Lamb cuddled his automatic to play "Mr. Death" and fingered
little Louis Engel for coffin cargo. But when he pulled the
trigger, Whisper, the gun-cobra from Chi, spilled out of Doom's
deck....

Death stood on the Times Square subway platform, uptown side, waiting for a subject. Death looked at himself in the gum machine mirror, then down at his watch. It was exactly 4:12 P. M., Wednesday, December 10th. When the second hand hit the "30" mark, he would turn around and the person nearest would be It. Death wore a blue pin-stripe suit, well fitting but slightly unpressed. Death's name was Wilson Lamb.

The second hand wiped over the "20" of the smaller dial, jittered on toward the half-minute spot. Inexorable and meaningless. Just as what Wilson Lamb planned. He said "Now" with a little sucking in of breath and a thin anticipant smile and spun on his heel. He was a slim saturnine-faced man with cigaret-ash stain on a coat lapel. Undistinguished from any typical strap-hanger except perhaps by the light-hued eyes. His shoes needed a shine. He lifted the pale eyes from them and looked for the corpse to be. To the left. To the right. Then he came as near recoiling from the thing as he ever would.

It looked as if it might be a woman. Somehow he had always thought of killing a man. Something that could strike back. Not that he would get the chance. It was just the idea of the thing. But she, the woman, was descending the stairs that led up to the shuttle, bearing down toward him, less than twenty feet away. Big and billowy and red-faced, waddling along like a sow. To face a jury, charged with doing away with a hunk of human beef like that and--

He flashed a glance to the left again. Nobody near. It was a fluke of circumstance a score of people weren't buzzing all about him. He whipped his eyes back toward the woman as a local thundered in. And Luck took a hand. A stocky man dodged around from behind the woman and came rapidly down the platform, neat, crisp, briefcase under his arm.

Wilson Lamb's pale eyes flickered with amusement. He said softly, "Tag, you're it, John W. Goon." This was his corpse to be. Mr. Death had made his pick-up.

"_Ex_-cuse me." An express rolled in and cutting over for it, the stocky man brushed Lamb. His voice was mild, colorless. He wore a gray snap-brim hat; it was set squarely on his head, precisely level. Lamb had seen hats worn like that by show-window clothing dummies. The man entered the third car, middle door. Wilson Lamb boarded it on his heels.

His victim almost got a seat. A pimply-faced office boy elbowed him out of it and the man turned away meekly. He hooked himself onto a strap, hitched the briefcase up under his free arm, and concentrated on a segment of his folded-open newspaper. It was one of the conservative sheets, comic-less, reactionary Republican to the core. Wilson eased down the aisle, casually pushing a woman out of his way, and glanced over his victim's shoulder. The goon was studying an advertisement for a nine-piece living room suite, overstuffed, at "special reduction this week only." It was at one of the better department stores.

Amusement flickered in Wilson Lamb's pale eyes. He got the picture. A typical George Babbitt in the flesh. To the core.

At Seventy-second Street, the stocky man got a seat. When he faced the light, Lamb saw that he was turning slightly gray over the ears. He had a roundish face, a little fleshy under the chin, a soft-lipped mouth that from habit he held slightly pursed, muddy eyes. He was inclined to plumpness. Somebody had scuffed his right shoe in getting out and now he pulled up the pant leg of his dark grey suit to study it ruefully.

"Typical taxpayer," Lamb said to himself, savoring it. "Always makes his insurance payments on time.... Probably has weak arches.... Is going to buy the Five Foot book-shelf, always next week, and read it.... Would like to get up nerve enough to take that blonde steno at the office out to luncheon...." Wilson Lamb wanted to laugh out loud; it was as good as having a duck flutter down smack in front of your blind.

Past 86th, the Express roared. Lamb's victim had turned his paper, halved back the last page. Automatic pencil poised, he was scanning the crossword puzzle intently. As they lolled through 91st, he bared his teeth in a satisfied smile and rapidly filled in four vertical blanks, then filled out the lower right-hand corner. Lamb saw that his four upper front teeth were a neatly fitted denture. He wondered how they'd look after a bullet had gone through them.

The victim got off at 96th, carefully straightening his muffler inside his black overcoat. He went downstairs, crossed beneath the local platform to the west side, mounted to street level. He had a cigaret in his mouth but waited until he was outside the subway entrance before he put a match to it. Lamb lit one too. He picked up an evening paper from the newsstand--it might come in handy if he got to close quarters with the dope and wanted to mask his face. The newsdealer was looking the other way as he made change so Lamb plucked back his nickel.

* * * * *

The victim started to cross 96th Street, heading north. A traffic officer's whistle shrilled. Broadway was spattered with the ruby red of traffic lights. Vehicles moved crosstown. Dutifully Lamb's goon turned and retraced his steps to the curb, holding his four-square hat carefully. A little trick with skimpy skirts whipped about plump calves crossed on over. Watching her, Lamb's victim shook his head.

Lamb could hear him saying: "Tsk! Tsk! Foolish to take chances like that." Imagine him saying it, anyway.

Lamb kept at a cautious distance as they moved several blocks up Broadway. Walking briskly, the victim turned into a side street. There was something smug about the way he picked up his heels, swung his briefcase.

"Little man who has had a busy day with a job well done," Lamb paraphrased it sarcastically. He pushed his battered felt hat further back on his head in a gesture of disgust. His cheap unbuttoned raglan-style coat fluttered in the wind off the Hudson. Abruptly, the man ahead halted, wheeled.

Lamb calmly turned and opened the rear door of a parked sedan whose driver was at the wheel. Put a foot in. Down the block, his victim headed into a distinctly second-rate apartment hotel. Lamb said to the sedan driver, "I thought this was a hearse" and went down the block.

His victim was getting his mail at the desk when Lamb entered the shabby lobby. Lamb got on the elevator after him. The victim said "nine," immersed in his paper again, studying that living room suite. He had his key ready in his hand, terra cotta-hued tab swinging loose. "914" was lettered on it in black.

"Ten, Bud," Lamb told the operator.

On the tenth floor, he moved quickly down the frayed carpet of a corridor and found the service stairs. Back on the ninth, even when he was yards from the door of 914, he caught the odor of cooking. Rich and greasy. He got his ear against the door.

"Spare-ribs and sauerkraut, huh, Ede?" the victim was calling out inside. Lamb could visualize him putting his coat on a hanger, carefully folding a scarf over it.

From the rear of the apartment came Ede's voice, reedy and with a bit of a whine. Lamb could visualize her too, a dyed blonde who devoured film fan magazines and thought the girdle was the world's greatest invention. "Uh-huh. How'd things go downtown today, Lou?"

Through the thin door, Lamb heard him clear his throat, mutter, "Oh, so-so."

But Ede wasn't to be put off. "Lou, did you tell the boss you had to have a raise, that the job is worth more?"

Lou started to mumble something. Ede's voice, penetrating the door easily, rose to a querulous pitch. "Lou, you're too easygoing! You ain't got the sense to stand up for your rights. You're an expert in your line and you know it. There's never any kick-back or complaint on a job you do."

"I know, I know, Ede but--" Wilson Lamb's victim got in.

"You're entitled to more money, Lou! You've never bungled a job yet. I need a new coat. And you said you wanted to put the kid in a private school after the first of the year. How're we gonna do it if you don't--"

Lou said, "Look, Ede! Something came up today and the boss had to leave in a hurry--right in the middle of a conference. I just had time to grab my briefcase myself. Let's get to work on those spare-ribs."

They moved toward the rear of the apartment and Lamb out in the hall could hear no more. He was chuckling as he walked away, loose mouth curled in a sneer. Back on the tenth floor, he boarded the elevator again. Again it was empty except for the operator, a tow-headed kid with a Racing Form tucked in a side pocket.

"Funny thing," Lamb mentioned casually, "I could've sworn I knew that man who rode up with me. Stocky chap. Got off at the ninth. But I can't seem to recall his name."

"Mr. Engel, yuh mean?"

"Engel ... Engel ... Lou Engel? Is he an accountant?"

"Yeah, Louis Engel's the name. But he ain't no accountant. Comes from Chicago. I heard him tell the manager he was an efficiency expert."

Lamb stopped rattling the coins in his pocket suggestively, kept them there, and strolled toward the main entrance. Behind him, a lobby lounger moved over to the elevator boy, jerking his chin in Wilson Lamb's direction as he asked a question.

At the corner, Lamb stopped in and bought a drink. Thin face creased in a smile of self-satisfaction, he glanced at the paper he had bought. Below the latest war communiques was a small column-head about a threatened gang war in the numbers racket. "Police Raid Joe 'The Flasher' Abadirro's Headquarters," it said. Lamb's eyes picked up flashes of it. "... when plainclothes squad walked into luxurious apartment ... mid-town West Side hotel ... several henchmen taken into custody on technical charges ... Abadirro reported out of town ... police acting on tip killers imported from Chicago ... showdown anticipated on who will boss numbers racket in metropolitan area...."

* * * * *

Lamb turned the paper over and winked at himself in the concave mirror of the semi-circle of bar. That was unimportant claptrap to somebody like him. That kind of tripe was for the little Joe Dopes who got their thrills vicariously. There was going to be nothing vicarious about what he was going to do. He was going to rub out Louis Engel. Blast him. Louis the Goon, as he had already christened him in his mind. He had put the finger on him.

"Louis the Goon is going to die," Wilson Lamb said softly. He liked the sound of it.

He wasn't crazy. Long ago he had assured himself of that. It was just that his mind operated on a different, a higher, plane than the norm. He was not one of the little pieces of protoplasm running along with the herd. He was above them. Looking down on them. Studying them. His perspective ranged somewhat further than the end of his nose, the latest double-feature at the neighborhood movie house, and spare-ribs.

That last made him laugh out loud. He picked up his change and headed back for the subway and his two-room apartment in the Village. His gun, a .45 automatic, was there. He would be needing it soon. Louis the Goon practically demanded, invited, the use of a .45 automatic on him.

"Efficiency engineer," Lamb said to himself once.

The guy was the perfect subject. Ripe for murder. The more Lamb thought of it, the more he was convinced he couldn't have dreamed up a better stooge. Engel was a model--for homicide. He himself might die for it.

But that was unimportant. The killing of Louis the Goon was the only thing that counted. The results, materially speaking, meant nothing. This slaying was to be an exposition of the ego. Without other cause. Emotionless. With no hope of gain, financial or otherwise. No female involved. Nothing. Just a killing, a plain open and shut case of homicide for no earthly reason imaginable to the police. It would be amusing to watch those flatfoots sitting around trying to sift a motive out of the thing. Baby, they'd sweat their so-and-so's off trying to cook up a reason for this one.

It was so simple to Lamb himself. Inevitable. A logical step in a sequence. The final step, perhaps. Louis the Goon Engel was a mere walk-on in the piece, a spear-carrier doomed to death. Little better than a papier mache dummy set up to be a target for the custard pie. Only, in this case, the custard pie was to be a cupro steel-nosed bullet.

To Lamb, it boiled down to an ultimate expression of the psyche. The final test of one's ability to project the personal ego over all else in the material world. Because the ego was the alpha and omega of all living the moment one got above the level of animal existence, the mere feeding of the face and satisfaction of the other instinctive physical hungers. As Braunitsch had put it so succinctly, "Even the lowest worm can procreate itself--unfortunately."

Then, of course, there was Nietsche and his superman. And some of Freud. And that treatise of Van de Water, the Belgian, on the sublimation of the sub-conscious by the negation of the self-censor. And the papers of Braulinski of the old University of Warsaw on the fear trauma which he termed a birthmark of civilization. Lamb had gone into them all, deeply. All of them dealing with the ego. The ego and its development and complete consummation. And the killing of Louis the Goon Engel was going to be the consummation of Wilson Lamb's experiments in the total exemplification of that ego.

It was no brash idea, no hare-brained impulse concocted in one's cups, perhaps. Analytically, objectively, he had thought out the whole thing. The axis of life was the psyche. Its two poles were birth and death. And, as Braunitsch had stated, the former was a function, often accidental, of which the lowest animal order was capable. A mono-cell, the amoeba, was able to reproduce itself by the simple stratagem of sub-division. But death--when it became a deliberate action, administered without emotion or hope of material gain--was one step removed from the godhead. Perhaps less than one step. But the step that would raise one above all the little fumbling, blind-spawning, life hugging bipeds who infested the scene.

In short, birth was fortuitous, a product of circumstance plus proximity, its get a biological accident. But death--the taking of life--was a selective process, intentionally executed, the result a foreseen conclusion. In so doing, the taking of life, you broke the greatest law of humanity and so became above it. You unfettered the ego with a single ineradicable stroke. In taking a life, one tasted the essence of living. He tried to remember who had said that. De Maupassant had put it better but Lamb could not quite recall the quotation....

He was still trying to remember it as he lounged down the block from Engel's apartment hotel at 8:10 the next morning. There was a bone-chilling breeze off the Drive that made Lamb belt his coat tighter about him. When, at 9:35, Louis the Goon Engel had not made an appearance, Lamb went down to the corner drugstore and had a cup of coffee. He could not see the entrance of the hotel through the window. But he commanded a clear view of the street and anybody coming up it toward the subway. And if he ever saw one, his corpse-to-be was a methodical little piece of humanity. He would come and go to the subway by the same route.

* * * * *

Wilson Lamb was correct as he had never doubted. But it was 11:07 by his wrist watch before Engel emerged. The gray hat just as squarely set on his head as before, without a glance around, Engel came out of the hotel and turned his steps dutifully in the direction of the subway. Lamb was strolling on the other side of the street at the moment. On sight of him, he turned up the front stairs of a brownstone. But a few seconds later, his long legs were carrying him rapidly toward Broadway. By hustling, he got to the other side of it, entered the subway on the uptown side, crossed underneath and was waiting in the by-pass when Engel came along. Engel trotted up to the downtown express platform. When the next train pulled out, Lamb was in the vestibule, half a car-length away from him.

Taking the trouble to keep at a distance, to make himself inconspicuous, seemed almost wasted effort. Louis the Goon went along, looking neither to right nor left, docilely intent on minding his own business.

"Efficiency expert," Lamb said to himself. "Bet he's a cracker-jack at cutting down on the overhead."

It was like playing a game of cat-and-mouse with him, Wilson Lamb, the cat. Only in this instance, the mouse seemed as good as blind.

Lamb could have given it to him any time, a slug in the back that would terminate his little life the way you would step on a cockroach. On second thought, he would not give it to him in the back. It would be the front so he could see the stricken stupid look of surprise. He'd probably try to get his foolish little briefcase in front of him like a shield. Lamb could just see it. Hear his squeal of futile protest, too.

Yes, he could give it to him whenever he chose. Just walk up to him and squeeze the trigger and savor omnipotence for a moment. Very simple. At his leisure. But Wilson Lamb wasn't going to do it that way. That would have been like a blind stab, in the dark, meaningless, impersonal. Like taking a hack at a piece of meat. Or tossing a bomb into a crowd. Instead, he wanted to know something about his specimen before he exterminated him. Understand his background. Get a fair picture of the little sphere of the life from which he was all unknowingly about to depart.

Lamb didn't figure it to take long in the case of Louis the Goon. What Engel was was pretty patent. A typical little taxpayer, careful to keep his nose clean, asking only to be permitted to tread his narrow path unmolested. Undoubtedly the type who got sick to his stomach at the sight of blood even though it might be no more than a nose-bleed.

At 42nd Street, Louis the Goon got off and trundled over to the shuttle. He passed through the Grand Central Station, stopping off to buy a package of Camels en route. The cigar store had a counter display of a bargain buy of razor blades combined with some unknown brand of shaving cream. Engel hovered over it like a bargain-hunting housewife. The clerk put on his spiel. Engel bought, got stuck for a bottle of after-shave lotion too.

Lamb saw it all from over by the counter of the baggage-checking room. "'A penny saved is a penny earned,'" he paraphrased for him.

They cut through the Graybar Building to come out on Lexington. Engel proceeded north a few blocks, turned into one of the commercial hotels noted for its name band. Halfway across the lobby, a tall swarthy man with one of those deadpan faces rose to greet him. They shook hands.

"You're right on the dot," the tall man said.

Engel's pursed mouth lengthened in a flattered smile. "I always make it a point to be punctual," Lamb dawdling in the background, overheard him say.

Then they headed for the elevator bank. The tall one shot two glances backward as they did so Lamb couldn't make it too obvious. When he rounded the corner of the ell where the elevators were, they were gone. Lamb went back into the main lobby and ensconced himself behind a morning paper. Midway down the page was more about the threatened strife in the numbers racket. It didn't interest Lamb in the slightest.

Engel probably had gone upstairs to try and peddle one of his efficiency schemes to some big shot. The guy he'd met in the lobby was a go-between, doubtlessly. Lamb wondered whether Louis the Goon would get up the nerve to hit his boss for that raise today, as Ede had demanded.

Lamb almost lost him. Half an hour later. Louis the Goon came down and scooted out the side entrance in a hurry. When Lamb got out there, his man was already in a cab, shooting away. There was something wrong about the conservative, penny-saving Engel taking a taxi. Wilson Lamb did not realize it at the time.

They went westward across town. Over near Sixth, Lamb's driver lost the other cab. Lamb was cursing when he spotted Engel on the sidewalk, coming back across town. That was strange because he could have sworn Engel's cab had not stopped. Must have gotten it mixed up with another. Out, he threaded his way recklessly through a welter of vehicles and picked up the tail as his man entered an office building.

It was fairly crowded in that foyer and it was simple to step onto the elevator right at Louis the Goon Engel's back, then wheel behind him out of sight as he turned. Engel called "Fourteen" and got out there, briefcase tightly clutched up under his arm, its flap unbuckled.

* * * * *

"Going in to high-pressure somebody on a sale," Lamb figured.

Another passenger had called fifteenth, the next floor. Lamb got out there, found the built-in fire escape, and got down to fourteen. This was a little foolish, he realized. There was no way of finding what office Louis the Goon had visited. Still, he might see him when he came out. Maybe he had gone to see the boss about that raise Ede was demanding. Maybe he'd come out bouncing on his tail-feathers. It was fun following and watching Louis the Goon. Like watching an ant on a sidewalk flagstone puttering about its puny business, knowing you were going to stamp out its life when it so pleased you.

Lamb was just lighting a cigaret, gazing down the hallway of the fourteenth floor, when the muffled report came up the staircase. It didn't seem possible, a gun seemed so out of place in such surroundings.... Then there were two more shots, a scream intermixed. The shattering of plate glass. Lamb was down the stairs and pulling open the firedoor onto the floor below. Immediately he sniffed the acrid fumes of gunpowder.

He was looking out onto an ell of that floor. Onto a tableau of violence. There was just a single office suite on that ell, directly opposite him. On one of its double doors was lettered "Continental Exhibition Corp." The frosted glass of the other door was almost completely broken out, leaving a jagged-fringed aperture through which to view the scene within.

Wilson Lamb flattered himself on being pretty cool headed under all circumstances. But he blinked three times rapidly now. Inside the Continental Exhibition Corporation one man was slumped over a desk, an automatic half-gripped in his inert hand. He was very dead. Half his head was shot off. Another man was sprawled on the gray broadloom of the reception room, a brownish puddle beneath his side. He wasn't going to be going any place in a hurry, either.

Even as Lamb stared at the carnage, a third figure appeared, wobbling drunkenly from an inner office. He came stooped over, holding his side. Crimson-speckled froth at his lips. He got to the shattered glass panel and moved the lips at Wilson Lamb.

"Tell 'em--the police--it was--was Whisper Ross from--from Chi--" He coughed twice on the "Chicago," then caved in on himself and went flat in the hallway.

Lamb saw an ashen-face bespectacled man peering around the corner of an ell. From further back, through an open doorway, a girl's voice was shrieking for the police over the phone. Lamb remembered the fact that he had a gun on his person. It might be extremely embarrassing if the police picked him up for questioning. Ducking back through the firedoor, he ran quickly up to the sixteenth floor, up past the fifteenth. Nothing had been heard up there yet. He caught a down car and got out just as the first prowl car came sirening its way into the side street curb.

Afterward, outside the police cordon thrown around the building, somebody jostled against him, peered under his hat brim. Later, Lamb recalled the bluish scar crescent on his left cheek.

"Hey, aren't you Reynolds of the Dispatch, pal?"

"Nope," Lamb said.

"You're a reporter with one of the local sheets, aren't you?" the other persisted. "I know I've seen you around before."

"You must have been wearing your other glasses, Bud," Lamb said and turned away.

Maybe it was the effect of seeing the handiwork of that other unknown killer. For the police had nabbed nobody yet in that mid-town mid-day shooting. Anyway, Lamb had the itch to strike. It was like a thirst building in a guy. You've seen somebody else dip into a tall cool one and after a while you feel like you got to have one yourself. Those three dead men on the thirteenth floor of that office building had acted like an aphrodisiac on Wilson Lamb. He wanted to get him his corpse. But soon.

He knew it when he picked up his victim again. It was almost 4 P.M., shreds of snow drifting down through New York's early darkness. He was hanging around by the cab stand above 96th on the west side of Broadway, waiting hopefully. He had got so that he felt a little lonely when he didn't have Louis the Goon right handy. He felt on familiar terms with the guy. Of course, Louis the Goon didn't know him. And when he introduced himself, Louis was going to get one hell of a big surprise. Like a kick in the teeth only a lot more permanent.

One of the hackies turned up his radio. A news commentator was on. He came to the topic of the mid-town shooting. Three dead, gunned in the office of the Continental Exhibition Corporation. Lamb edged over nearer. The Continental outfit, the announcer said, was the business front of one Big John Girra, well known local racketeer. Girra was a powerful figure in the metropolitan pin-ball game syndicate and had a piece of the number policy racket too.

"Police, promising an arrest within twenty-four hours, claim the triple killing a step in the fight for control of the numbers game business in this city. They are still seeking the missing Joe The Flasher Abadirro, also reputed to have boasted he would take over the numbers game. Two of the slain men have been identified as close associates of Big John Girra. A building employee stated earlier today that Girra left the premises less than five minutes before the killing. A prominent police official who refused to be quoted asserted the killer was a Chicago torpedo imported for the job, a killer who would not be recognized by members of the New York mobs. 'We are closing in on him at this very instant,' the official concluded."

* * * * *

The news broadcaster went on to another item of the day's reports. Lamb turned around. And there was Louis the Goon Engel, not four feet away. En route home from the subway, he had paused to listen to the report too. He stood now with a calculating look, almost as if he were checking the verity of the report. Lamb wanted to laugh in his face.

"If you'd seen those three carcasses leaking blood all over the place, you'd probably have swooned in your britches, my little dope," Lamb addressed him mentally. And the funny part was that the little dope had been so close to it. Just a floor away, in fact.

As he followed him on uptown, down his side-street, Lamb had a curious sense of elation. He was in on the ground-floor of Death, Inc. Even before voting at a stock-holders' meeting himself. For he knew who had triggered those three today, who the Chi torpedo the cops wanted was. One Whisper Ross. Of course, he might have tipped off the police say, by a phone call. But he wasn't going to.

"We killers must stick together." The thought tickled his sense of humor.

They were almost at Louis the Goon's roost when Lamb saw how he was going to do it. A boy with a carton of groceries almost ran down Louis, then ducked down into the delivery entrance of the apartment-hotel. And Wilson Lamb had his cue.

Some ten minutes later, after due investigation, he knew how he was going to put Louis the Goon on the spot. And how he was going to get away with it, get clear afterward. The taking of life was the important thing, the major premise. Whether he was caught or not had never seemed important before. But after reviewing the handiwork of Whisper Ross--who had ambled off unimpeded--Lamb saw no reason why he should not do the same. It would be the nth degree in the epitomization of the ego to kill and get away with it.

The building's delivery entrance was a perfect avenue of escape. Actually it did not enter the hotel at first. Down a few steps and then it ran rearward between the side of the building and the retaining wall next door, an open-topped alleyway. The delivery doorway was in the rear. A few feet further on was the backyard laid out in a garden with a waterless age-browned concrete fountain in the center. A low concrete wall separated it from the property that backed onto it. And there was the payoff.

Ambling casually through in the darkness, Lamb had discovered that the property in the rear, facing on the next street downtown, was several feet lower. It would be simple to drop over the wall to its paved courtyard. And from that ran a concrete passage beside the apartment house out to the street one block below.

Emerging on it, Lamb lit a cigaret and went back around the block to Engel's place. He appraised it like a surveyor. First off, it was one of those second-rate places that boasted no doorman. Across the street were those brownstones for a nice dim background. The nearest street lamp was down about ten feet from the entrance of Engel's place. Engel would come walking along primly, right into its light. A man crossing the street from the brownstones, a little behind Engel, calling out, "Hey, Mr. Engel," and--

It was a very nice set-up. The property line of the building where Engel lived was set back several feet further than that of the old-fashioned private homes between it and Broadway. They would serve as a screen for his movements from one direction when he hit into that delivery alleyway after fixing Louis the Goon's wagon once and for all, Lamb realized. It was almost ridiculously simple.

Why he could almost have chalked an "X" right there and then on the sidewalk where little Louis would lie down and forget it all. Wilson Lamb hummed as he headed up toward Broadway and decided to have dinner. He had a swell appetite. He was humming snatches from something. Minor key, descending scale. It went "Come to Papa, come to Papa, come to Papa." He didn't know whether it was from a song or a crap game. Anyway, the dice were sure loaded against a certain party he knew.

Down the block, a taxi that had been parked with meter ticking across from Engel's apartment-hotel drew away slowly.

He went to the movies with Louis the Goon that evening. Louis didn't know anything about it and Lamb bought his own ticket. That too had been extremely simple. After dinner, he had phoned Engel. When Louis himself answered, Lamb had asked for Toots. Louis said they had no Toots there and Lamb said he was very sorry, that he must have got the wrong number. And Louis said that was all right, no harm done. And Lamb said he was sorry he had disturbed him and Louis said to think nothing of it, no trouble at all. And Lamb said a four-letter word after he had hung up and laughed out loud in the phone booth.

Then he hung around and saw Louis come out after dinner. Ede was with him this time. Ede was the type after which some department store advertising-department diplomat had coined the term "stylish stout." Ede toddled and she was pretty hefty. If there was a family argument, Lamb would have laid two to one she would have come home in front by a t.k.o. before the fifth round.

* * * * *

They went into the movies on the north-west corner of 96th. The closest Lamb could get was some three rows back. He was disappointed because he could not watch Engel's face. It was a double feature. _Pampas Nights_ was one of those alleged South American musicals whipped up by a couple of submorons with the intent purpose of sabotaging the Good Neighbor policy. The other picture was some ghoulish thing about a mad surgeon, described in the script as an "ego-maniac," who had a pleasant pastime of revivifying electrocuted felons. That one gave Lamb a pain in the pants too. He had really made a study of ego-maniacs.

He got out in the foyer right behind the Engels. He heard Ede say she thought the one about that "nutty doc" was so thrilling. Louis the Goon did not agree. He liked those musicals.

"They take my mind off business," he said.

Lamb left them and went in and had a drink. He had two drinks. Now that everything was settled, he felt no impatience. It was all lined up right down to the final curtain. Louis' final curtain. Lamb had already decided he would give it to him as he came plodding his smug little way home some evening. Any evening. Maybe tomorrow evening. Now that the details were ironed out, it was fun to leave the closing date open. He could play the fly-on-the-wall in Louis the Goon's life as long as he wanted. And when he got bored with Louis's act--bop! he would deliver his compact little package to Louis....

He started to get bored fast the next day. He rode downtown with Louis and they went over to that same East side hotel and Louis went upstairs. He was gone a long time. Lamb said to himself, "That dope goes around in a rut and I'll get in one too just following him and then I will get sore." Eventually Louis the Goon came back down into the lobby. The tall, swarthy man he had met there the day before was with him.