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He waited for a few minutes, then said, “I wish I knew whether you were working for her or not.”

Abruptly a light flashed. Channing reached over and tripped a switch. He said to me, “We can hear what goes on in the other room but they can’t hear what’s said in here.”

Almost instantly a voice said, “All right, buddy, let’s have it. What’s your name?”

“My name is Danby, and I didn’t want to come in here. I’m going to make charges against you. You can’t hustle me around like this. That’s kidnaping.”

“Danby, eh? What do you do?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Let’s take a look for a driving license.”

There was the sound of a brief scuffle and another voice said, “Okay, this is it. Frank Danby. Here’s his social security number and—”

“What’s the address on that driving license?”

“A yacht club.”

“Good Lord, I get it now,” Channing said, coming up out of the chair as though the thing had been wired.

He crossed the room, jerked the door open, and was out like a shot.

I got up and crossed over to the desk.

He’d taken the revolver with him.

I gave every drawer in the desk a quick frisking. There wasn’t another gun anywhere in the place. There was a box of .38 shells, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, and a can of tobacco. There were two packages of cigarettes, a box of cigars, some chewing gum, and a bottle of fountain-pen ink.

Aside from that .38-caliber gun it was a desk that the police could have prowled through any day in the week, and welcome.

Abruptly I heard Channing’s voice from the other room. “What’s the trouble?”

Danby’s voice, surly and defiant, said, “I’ve been kidnaped. Who are you?”

“Kidnaped!” Channing exclaimed.

“That’s what I said. This guy made me come in here with him. He had a gun in his pocket.”

Channing said, “What’s all this, Bill?”

Bill’s voice said, “No gun, just a lead pencil. For a gag I pushed the end of this lead pencil against the cloth of the coat pocket.”

“But what was the trouble?” Channing asked.

“No trouble except this guy has been sitting out front getting a line on everyone coming in. I figured he’s a stickup guy, waiting for some dough-heavy customer to come out. Then he’d follow and stick ‘em up.”

“That’s serious,” Channing said. “We’d better turn him in.”

“You’re nuts,” Danby growled, but his voice showed he was frightened. “You’ve got nothing on me. I was hired to come out to point out a guy.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but when I recognized Mr. Catlin, this fellow left me and came on in.”

Channing’s booming laugh was good-natured. “Oh,
shucks, that must have been Donald Lam.”

“That’s the guy,” Danby said. “His name is Lam. He told me if he didn’t get out inside of an hour to call a friend.”

Channing said, laughing, “That’s a shame. He left a message for you and I intended to deliver it, but I had no idea it was — Why, he said you were his chauffeur.”

“What did he say?”

“Lam found the man he wanted to see here and they went out the back way. He thought at first this fellow might make trouble and that’s why he told you about calling the friend. But there wasn’t any trouble and Lam left. Seems he’s a private detective. I didn’t know whether you knew. I’ve known Lam for ten years and he’s all right, straight as a string.”

“What was his trouble with Mr. Catlin?” Danby asked.

“No trouble with Catlin. Catlin was helping Lam. Catlin was to point out the guy Lam wanted. I should have notified you sooner, but I’ve been busy. Lam told me to tell you either to drive the car back to the yacht club, or to telephone for a taxicab, whichever you wanted to do. He left me five dollars to give you to pay for the cab. He’s been gone about twenty minutes.”

“Do I get the five-spot if I drive the car back to the yacht club or only if I take a taxi?” Danby asked.

I knew then I was sunk. There was no use waiting to hear any more. I started prowling, trying to find a way out.

I looked around the desk for buttons I could press that would unlatch the door. I tried to remember just what Channing had been doing before he streaked across the office.

Abruptly the door swung open. I felt certain I’d pressed the right button and was halfway across the office before I realized the door was being opened from the outside.

Bill was coming back in. Apparently Channing had given him a signal.

Bill grinned at me and said, “Sit down, Lam.”

I tried to duck around past him and grab the door before it closed.

Bill snaked out an arm, caught me by the back of the coat, spun me around, clamped his fingers around my sore wrist, and said, “Right in that chair, Lam.”

I hit him in the stomach with everything I had. Sheer surprise made him recoil. That and the force of the blow gave me freedom for a second. I threw myself against the door which had been slowly swinging shut.

Bill charged, but I had the door open and was out in the reception room, running across it with Bill in hot pursuit.

The door opened.

Bill yelled a warning. I flung myself into the opening just as Channing started in. I hit Channing as though he had been a line of scrimmage.

My momentum plowed him back, but I was slowed up enough for Bill’s long arm to reach out. His fingers grabbed the back of my coat collar.

Something hit me on the side of the head. A wave of blackness came up from my stomach. The bitter of nausea was in my mouth and my knees went limp.

I tried to hang onto the doorknob, turning around, jerking my head back as I did so.

I had a glimpse of Bill, his arm upraised, a blackjack looped around his wrist. There was no expression on his face. He even looked slightly bored.

Then the arm chopped down.

There was a blinding flash inside my brain and the floor smacked my face.

I had no idea what time it was when I regained consciousness. I was sprawled on a bed in a cheap, dingy bedroom equipped with an iron bedstead, a chair, a dresser, a washstand, and a wardrobe closet.

It was the sort of cheap furniture that could have been picked up at a secondhand store, completely different from the sumptuous, synthetic elegance of the gambling house — and yet a subconscious feeling existed that I was still within the confines of the gambling house.

Bill was sitting in a chair reading one of the so-called true detective magazines. The chair was almost directly beneath a single electric light hanging from a twisted green drop cord and covered with a green shade.

I moved my head and the room started rocking around as though it were a cabin on a boat in a heavy sea.

I felt sick.

Bill turned a page in the magazine, then looked over at me as a precautionary measure, saw my eyes were open, pushed a thick forefinger in between the pages of the magazine to mark his place, put the magazine down, and grinned. “How you feelin’, buddy?”

“Rotten.”

“You’ll feel better after a while.”

He got up out of the chair, picked a bottle from the dresser, unscrewed the top, and held it under my nose.

It was a smelling salt that did a great deal to revive me.

“Now, just take it easy,” Bill cautioned sympathetically. “You ain’t hurt bad. Just roughed up a bit. You’ll be all right.”

Gradually the throbbing left my head. The room steadied down and my head settled into a dull, constant
ache with a sore spot above and back of my right ear that felt like a boil.

“What’s the idea?” I asked.

Bill read a couple more interesting paragraphs in the magazine before he looked up to answer the question. “I’m not supposed to talk.”

“What
are
you supposed to do?”

“Keep you right here.”

I said, “That could be pretty serious, you know, in case I wanted to get up and walk out.”

“How come?”

“Kidnapping.”

He grinned. “Save your breath, buddy.”

I swung around to a sitting position on the bed.

Bill watched me with quizzical interest.

I slowly got up.

Bill put down the magazine. “Now, listen, Lam,” he said, “you’re a nice egg but you’ve got yourself poured into the wrong pan. You’ve led with your chin and you should be smart enough to know that that’s going to make trouble.”

“What’s Channing planning to do?” I asked.

“I don’t think he’s made up his mind yet.”

“He’s got to let me go sometime.”

The smile left Bill’s face. “Don’t be too sure about that. You don’t know some of the things I know.”

“What?”

“I told you I’m not talking. Now, shut up. I’m going to read. I won’t talk, and I don’t want to listen.”

“You’re working for Channing, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Like your job?”

“I’m getting by all right.”

“Loyalty is a fine thing,” I said, “but self-preservation is
the first law of nature. You’d better start thinking about yourself.”

He laughed a heavy, mirthless laugh. “Look who’s talking.
You’re
You should have done that before you ever came into the joint.”

I said, “Do you think I’m foolish enough to have gone into this place unless I knew what I was doing?”

I saw interest in his eyes. “You were probably just taking a big chance.”

I said, “Don’t kid yourself. You know what’s been going on in the background. Gabby Garvanza wanted to muscle in on the situation up here. Gabby Garvanza got put on the spot and stopped a lot of lead. The trouble was the fellow who did the job was a little nervous and the bullets weren’t put in the right places to do the job.

“Now Gabby Garvanza’s well and he’s up here in San Francisco. What do
you
suppose he came up here for?”

Bill closed the magazine.

I said, “The real owner of this joint was George Tustin Bishop. Channing was simply the front who handled the accounts and juggled the figures around.

“Maurine Auburn had been Bishop’s girlfriend. He threw her over when he divorced his wife and married Irene, the strip-tease artist. Bishop was getting rid of both his wife and his mistress at the same time. That’s how wrapped up he was in Irene. Maurine took up with Gabby Garvanza, but she’d always carried a torch for George Bishop.

“Maurine was supposed to be Gabby Garvanza’s girl. Someone tried to rub Gabby out. Maurine saw the whole thing. She wasn’t hurt. No bullets were fired in her direction. She didn’t say anything. Why?”

I could see Bill was thinking.

“The reason,” I said, “could have been because the
gunman was someone she liked very much. That someone liked her so well he wouldn’t want her hurt. He knew she liked him enough so that he knew he could depend on her not to squeal.

“Then Gabby began to get well, and Gabby knew who had shot him. Gabby started planning to go to San Francisco and even scores.

“Maurine wanted to warn her friend. She wanted to make certain that the next attempt on Gabby’s life was going to hit the jackpot. You think back on that story the newspaper tells about how she walked out on the people who were with her — bodyguards that had been provided by Gabby to see that nothing happened to her.

“She pretended to get crocked, to pick up with some fellow whom she met by chance — Well, I did a little checking of my own. That fellow was an aviator. Maurine picked him up, all right, but they didn’t go out making whoopee together. They dashed out to the airport. The fellow she’d picked up cranked up his plane and made a blue streak to a field up north of San Francisco, where the plane let down and Maurine and George Bishop were scheduled to have a secret confab and lay plans so Gabby Garvanza would cuddle up on a nice cold slab in the morgue.

“Somebody was there waiting. Someone who felt that a lot of good could be accomplished by getting George Bishop out of the picture in such a manner that he would seem to have a perfect alibi.”

“Gabby Garvanza?” Bill asked.

I snorted derisively. “Gabby wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. Who was it who profited the most by Bishop’s death?”

Bill thought that over, then stirred restlessly. “I don’t like the chin music you’re making,” he said. “Even listening to it could get me into trouble.”

“
Not
listening to it could get you into a hell of a lot more trouble. How big a damn fool do you think Gabby is? Gabby Garvanza is in San Francisco right this minute. Hartley Channing pulled a pretty slick deal but he committed a murder.”

“John Billings killed Bishop,” Bill said.

I smiled and shook my head. “Bishop’s body was put aboard Billings’s yacht. That was done by someone who knew that once the body was found there people wouldn’t look any farther for the real criminal than young Billings. Billings thought he was smart. He sneaked the body over onto an adjoining yacht. What he didn’t realize was that Bishop had been killed with his gun and that the murderer had dropped the gun overboard from the stern of Billings’s yacht. It never occurred to Billings to think of that or to go down in the drink and take a look. But that was the first thought that occurred to the police. That’s why the diver working with an underwater metal locator found the gun in the first fifteen minutes. Gabby Garvanza knows these things.
Now
what do you think he’s going to do?”

“How do you know Gabby Garvanza knows them?”

I grinned at him and said, “Who the hell do you think hired
me?
”

Bill sat up straight in the chair. He studied me thoughtfully for a few moments, then gave a low whistle.

He tossed the magazine over onto a battered table and said, “What do you want, Lam? If I let you get away from me Channing would kill me before Gabby ever took over.”

I said, “Let me get to a phone.”

“That would be too hard.”

I said, “Lots of things are going to be hard. Don’t think for a minute Gabby Garvanza doesn’t know what’s going on here. You rub me out and the chances that you’ll live to see your next birthday are just about a million to one — and
I don’t give a damn if your next birthday is the day after tomorrow.”

Bill’s forehead knitted into a frown.

I said, “The police will find the aviator who took Maurine up here within—”