Matthew Thomas was fifty-five, and he was furious. He was mad as hell! The young starlet had just straddled him and inserted his cock into her slit when the butler rapped at the door. And she had a tight, hot, juicy cunt, too! It made him feel half his age, and he was already looking forward to ejaculating in the pretty young thing-his first lay of the week. She was down on him, squirming her ass and taking all he had to give, when the sudden rapping at the door caused her to pause and look at him questioningly.
"Shit!" Matthew exclaimed. "Now what?"
The rapping at the door came again, a little louder this time.
"What is it?" Matthew called, his anger revealing itself in his tone.
"Your son is downstairs, sir," the butler informed him, "and he insists on seeing you."
The girl started to lift herself from him, but Matthew gripped her hips and shook his head. "No, no!" he whispered. "My son can wait." He raised his voice and said, "Finley! Go down and tell my son I'll see him shortly."
"Yes, sir."
"And, Finley-"
"Yes, sir ?
"I am not to be disturbed again-understand."
"Yes, sir."
Matthew waited for a few moments, listening. Sure that the butler had descended the stairs, he smiled weakly up at the young girl and said:
"Now, darling, let's continue. I want to shoot off in your delicious little pussy like a rocket."
Slowly, so very slowly, he was rubbing the nipples of her tits, his fingers relishing the softness of her creamy skin. He felt his prick stirring excitedly as she began to raise and lower herself upon it, and he thrust upward each time she came down. His breath came short and harsh, and he pummeled her breasts roughly. The girl fell forward and lightly crushed his chest with her tits. He felt the wetness of her slippery tongue descend remorselessly into his ear. The delving, slippery sensation of her saliva melted his earlobe, and she rode him furiously. He felt himself starting to spin into space, felt the white, mind shattering chasm of emptiness open to him.
He slid his fingers roughly into the cleft between her buttocks. The small sensitive bump of her asshole writhed against his fingertips and Matthew thrust his cock as far up her cunt as he could force it, as the sperm was triggered from his balls and went spurting furiously into her creamy cunt
She clung tightly to him, urging the final specks of semen out of his cock. Then it was all over and she rolled limply off his damp, panting body.
He lay silent, regaining his composure. He blinked his eyes and grinned appreciatively at her.
"You just stay here," he said. "I will come back as soon as I get rid of that son of mine."
"Whatever you say, big daddy," she said, and smiled sweetly back. "But you hurry, hear? I'm in the mood to fuck you crazy."
He gave her mons veneris a delicate pat and got out of bed. She watched him as he dressed hurriedly and passed through the door. His anger was again upon him before he reached the stairs. He'd have to teach that boy a lesson once and for all! And this was as good a time as any to do it, he told himself.
He entered the library and saw Fred, his only son, waiting for him.
"Well, Fred, what did you want to see me about?"
The young man, barely in his twenties, his face pale but with lines of determination about his smooth, sensitive mouth, stood up and looked at his father. There was a difference of thirty-five years between the two men, but it needed only a glance to see that they were father and son.
"I thought it time to discuss the matter of money," Fred replied, and looked the old man straight in the eye as he said it.
Matthew Thomas, his face suddenly purple with rage, paced up and down the library, and spoke at the top of his voice.
"No sir, not a cent! Do you hear me, Fred-not a cent! I warned you that I'd have nothing to do with you if you disobeyed me. In spite of all I said you have deliberately defied me by marrying that girl. You must take the consequences. I disown you! You will never get a penny of my money!"
As Matthew Thomas raved at his son, growing more excited with every word, the young man simply ignored him and let his eyes survey the room.
It was a picturesque room, tastefully furnished. The walls were all lined with books, the shelves and the rest of the woodwork of black flemish oak, and the chairs of the same wood, upholstered in red leather. In a cozy, well-lighted niche was a magnificently carved teakwood table, with telephone and nouveau art reading lamp. On the opposite side another table was covered with a fabric so exquisite and costly that it might well have graced the collection of some connoisseur. On it was a confused litter of books, newspapers, and cigar boxes. Several large, comfortable arm-chairs were scattered about, and on the floor one trod on a large richly woven silk rug of a shade to harmonize with the general color scheme of the room. Neither father nor son seemed impressed by the richness of their immediate surroundings, and the son, in surveying the room, was not so interested in seeing as in not hearing.
When Matthew had ceased his choleric tirade and relapsed into a sulky silence, interrupted only at intervals by a series of angry snorts that sounded like petty explosions, his son said:
"I don't want your money. I merely asked for what is mine. If I could get some of the money my grandfather left me, I'd be satisfied. I want to go into business. I have an opportunity to buy a small interest in a Detroit automobile plant. They offered me a salaried position if I can furnish a little capital which will be amply secured. I have investigated the thing, and I'm anxious to get into it. I will only be too glad to get the hell away from Beverly Hills."
Matthew had continued pacing the floor like an infuriated lion, apparently paying not the slightest attention to what his son was saying. In fact he was trying to hold onto his anger and his desire for the young woman in his bedroom at the same time, and it wasn't working out too well. His son's closing remark had the unfortunate effect of adding fresh fuel to the already raging fire. Stopping short and turning quickly, he shook his clenched fist in his son's face and thundered:
"What kind of horseshit is this-huh? I raised a prick for a son! How have you repaid all I have done for you? You've taken pleasure-deliberate pleasure!-in fucking up my plans for you at every turn. I only asked one fucking thing-you know goddamn well my heart was set on it. And what did you do? Ran off with a stiff cock in your pants and married a girl you'd already been screwing for a month!"
Fred shrugged his shoulders as he calmly replied: "You asked the impossible. You wanted me to marry Janet, but it was too late. Besides, Janet has never cared enough for me to marry me."
The argument was unanswerable, and Matthew Thomas knew it, but all his life he had been accustomed to make rules for others, never to have them laid down for himself. Unable to find words, he merely spluttered:
"Love my ass! That's all a crock of shit! Marriage is based on something more substantial. Your conduct convinces me that you are not fit for any position of responsibility and trust You're a fool to your own interests, boy, and always will be. I'm done with you. I'll give you a small allowance to keep you from starving, but that's all you get"
"And you call me a prick!" Fred exclaimed, laughing angrily. "You can't stand the idea of me living my life my way-that's all! You fuck every young chick that studio signs, and that's all right But when I marry a girl I love, well-fuck you too!"
"I'm going to telephone my lawyer right now," Matthew said, his eyes flaring. "Hell come over today and draw up a new will. By God, I'll show you! I'm leaving everything to Janet"
While dialing the number he glared at his son, as if expecting him to make some protest; but Fred, although a shade paler, remained unruffled and calm.
"You just do that!" he said, forcing a smile. "You knew best, I suppose. I'm sorry my marriage offended you, but it can't be helped. I didn't do it to annoy you, although you seem to think so. I married Eva because I loved her. Janet never cared for me in that way, and you know it."
"Sentimental rubbish!" grunted the merchant. "Janet is too sensible a girl not to have accepted you, if you'd treated her right."
The telephone buzzed. The old gentleman said: "Hello-is that you, Knapp? This is Thomas-yes-I'm here at the house. I'd like you to come up to see me regarding a little business matter-about drawing a will. Yes-a new one. Oh, any time will suit me-this evening or afternoon. All right; make it this afternoon. I'll wait in for you. Good-bye." Turning again to the young man, he went on testily: "Janet knew my wishes, and she would have respected them. But she saw your infatuation for that girl, and could do nothing-"
The young man shook his head.
"You are mistaken, father. You think you can manage affairs of the heart as you are accustomed to managing affairs of finance. It can't be done, and bigger men that you have failed. I don't blame you for getting angry at me." Bitterly he added: "We never got along any too well-you are never satisfied, always expecting the impossible. I'll be glad to get away."
Thomas, Sr., eyed his son narrowly and distrustfully. They had never been friends. By nature cold and reserved, his attitude to his son had been that of a stern, exacting master who must be obeyed implicitly, no matter how preposterous the command. He had resented his son's independence of spirit, and interpreted it rightly or wrongly as willful defiance of his wishes and orders. His voice was hard and unyielding as ever as he asked:
"Where are you going?"
"I told you-Detroit."
"You have no means."
"No-that's why I came to you."
The older man shook his head.
"No, sir-not a cent! I couldn't if I would. That money is tied up until you reach the age of thirty. You are now only twenty-four. For the next six years you must either be satisfied to live under this roof or earn a living outside."
Fred's face flushed.
"Then I'll go out and earn it I don't know at what, but I'll get along somehow."
For a moment Matthew looked at his son, and there was a look in his face as if he rather admired the young man's guts. He made a gesture as if about to shake his hand. But if he felt any such inclination the mood quickly passed. His son had deliberately disobeyed him. He was hurt in his pride. That he could never forgive. Coldly he replied:
"You must get along the best you can."
Fred turned to go.
"If that's the way you want it, so be it. But you're wrong, and you're unfair, and in your heart you know it"
Matthew bounded. Wrathfully he retorted: "I know nothing of the kind! You are full of shit, as usual. You alone are to blame. You've never done one fucking thing I wanted you to do. And now you've married a girl without position, whose people we know nothing of-a little cheap peace of cunt who married your for my money. Well, she'll never get her hands on a cent of it!"
"Now just a goddamn minute!" Fred roared, enraged. "You can't talk about my wife that way! I won't stand for it, you hear? She's not one of your studio whores, you lecherous old bastard!"
"I never said she was a whore," Matthew retorted. "I simply said that you made a marriage beneath you, with a woman who will never fit in this family."
"That's a lie! Eva's as good as we are! In fact, she's a helluva lot better! Her folks may not have as much money as you have, but at least what they have they came by honestly-which is more than some of us can say."
Matthew's face became purple. The rush of blood to his head made his veins stand out like whipcord. He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. He advanced threateningly on his rebellious offspring. At last, with an effort, he regained his speech. Wrathfully lie exploded:
"Don't stand in my house and call me a liar! Don't dare call me a liar! And don't call me a crook! Or I'll have you booted out of the house! I've had about enough shit from you today. Get out of here-get your ass out of here, I say!"
His face livid, scarcely able to articulate from pent-up ungovernable, unreasoning passion, he advanced toward his son, his hand clenched in threatening gesture, when suddenly the door opened and a young girl appeared on the threshold.
For a moment she stood irresolute, as if uncertain whether to enter the room. She did not seem surprised to find the two men quarreling; but a look of distress came over her face as quick as her glance went from father to son.
Somewhat ashamed that the girl should witness his exhibition of temper, Matthew said, hastily:
"Come in, Janet, come in. Are you looking for me, dear?"
For the time being the tempest was over. Fred gave the newcomer a nod of welcome and shrugged his shoulders significantly while Matthew changed his mood completely. The hard, stern features relaxed; his face broke into a smile.
It had not been an easy task, but Janet Boyington was no ordinary girl.
CHAPTER 2
Fair and slender, Janet Boyington barely looked her twenty years, although the serious, thoughtful expression of her face in repose made her at times appear older. Regular, almost classic features, soulful, innocent-looking eyes, and a sensitive mouth, delicately chiseled, imparted a spiritual quality to her face. Today she appeared quite womanly, and with good reason. She had just returned from a most gratifying sexual experience, and was feeling contented as a fresh-fed kitten.
Her sexual knowledge and experience would have startled Matthew Thomas, who still believed in her innocence and purity. Had he known that her virginity did not exist, the old man would have been more enraged than he was at the moment of her arrival. And if he had been informed that it was the object of his wrath who had robbed her of her sex-treasure, he might possibly have killed his son. But nothing and none of this was known to him. He knew only that his son had married another girl rather than Janet, whom he had determined should be his daughter-in-law.
Of course she had not liked sex that first time; it had been quite painful, and she had been scared to death. But she had endured the pain of his youthful penetration with an almost primitive stoicism, refusing even to cry out as his anxious cock tore through her hymen and blasted-off in her bleeding cunt. She did not allow Fred to touch her for a long time afterwards, though she finally got around to letting him fuck her a second time about a second later. It did not hurt her the second time, but it left her unsatisfied; she felt it should have been better than it was somehow. She enjoyed his cock pumping rapidly inside her cunt, and she enjoyed it when he began to half-sob and half-moan as his youthful hot fluid spurted from him. She had squeezed him between her thighs and thrust her cunt up against him, churning her hips to receive his rod in her depths as far as possible. For a moment she felt as if she, too, were going to empty herself, but the action stopped and the moment passed; and there she was, high, her muscles quivering with excitement, and no way down. Fred had withdrawn almost immediately and flopped beside her, breathing deeply. Then he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and crawled out of bed. She watched silently as he dressed and left her, closing the door softly behind him.
To seek relief from the built-in tension that held her in its grip, Janet masturbated-a form of sexual gratification not entirely new to her. She gently teased her clitoris, slowly at first, and then faster and faster as the orgasm waved over her and tied her abdomen in knots. She writhed and contorted and lay trembling, relaxing at last, but still longing to feel a man's hard shaft pumping her vagina. Thereafter, for a long, long time, she did not allow Fred to screw her, preferring other and somewhat older men, who were sure to have experience. But she liked Fred-as a brother.
She had been an inmate in the Thomas home for so long that it was difficult to remember that she had known another. Only on rare occasions, when her adopted father alluded to the tragedy of her childhood, did Janet realize that she was not really of Thomas blood. Matthew Thomas and her father had been friends from boyhood. In 1918, when war broke out, both were drafted to the same regiment, which saw real fighting in France and Germany. After the war Matthew Thomas married and prospered. Boyington also made a venture in the matrimonial market, but with less success. His wife, after giving birth to a daughter, left him, to run away with another man; and Boyington, deserted, turned to alcohol for solace and comfort and died an embittered, miserable man. On his death-bed he sent for his friend Matthew Thomas, and he confided to him his little daughter. Matthew promised to raise her as his own child. That was how Janet Boyington became a member of the Thomas household.
She stood in the doorway of the library looking at her adopted father, and with the realization that he was having another quarrel with his son. He advanced toward-Janet and, taking her hand in his, patted it caressingly.
"Do you want me, dear?" he asked, no trace of anger discernible in his voice.
"I heard voices in here and thought it might be Fred and you," she said. "There's a man downstairs; he was just about to ring the bell when I arrived. He wouldn't give his name, dad, but he said he knew you were at home and insisted on seeing you."
Matthew frowned. Going quickly through the door, he said: "I'll see what he wants."
When the library doors had closed behind him, Fred and Janet were alone. She turned eagerly to Fred, anxiously asking:
"What's the matter?"
Fred shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, the usual thing. Nothing for you to worry your head about, Janet. The bastard's getting on my nerves, that's all. We can't agree, and never could-you know. So to hell with him! I'm going away-"
"Going away."
"Yes, going away."
"Why? What's happened?"
For a moment Fred made no answer. Finally he blurted out:
"He's furious because of my marriage to Eva, and he's about to make a new will leaving everything to you."
The young girl flushed and then turned pale. It made her happy that her future was assured, yet it pained her to think that another had been robbed of what she was to enjoy. Gently she said:
"I don't want what is rightly yours, Fred, and I shall tell your father so."
The youth shrugged his shoulders.
"It would do no good. Once he has made up his mind, all the forces this side of hell could not persuade him to change it"
"But surely matters are not so bad as that In time he'll forget and you'll both be friends again."
The young man shook his head. Bitterly, he replied: "No, Janet. This is the end. I'm going away, and I sincerely hope I shall never see him again. I'm sorry to leave you, of course, but Eva and I have our own lives to live. I cannot remain here and retain my self-respect. Even if he were willing to acknowledge my wife, it would make no difference in my opinion of him. I can never forget how he has treated me all these years. The very sight of him fills me with repulsion. I hate him! I detest him!"
"You must not talk that way. After all, he is your father. He-"
Fiercely the young man interrupted her:
"No, he's not I deny it It's impossible that such a man as that is responsible for my being. We haven't a single thought, a single impulse in common. I'm heartily ashamed of him, and always have been. Many a time I've wished he were dead. Sometimes I have felt like strangling him myself-"
The young girl raised her hand in quick protest.
"Freddy!"
He gave a hollow laugh.
"Oh, don't be afraid. I've no desire to go to the gas chamber yet."
The young girl was silent. Her mind was all confused by the news of this unexpected windfall. Much as she regretted this rupture between father and son, she could not help realizing what the old man's decision meant to her. It seemed too good to be true that she, the poor, friendless orphan, was to inherit the wealth of Matthew Thomas. Presently she asked:
"Are you sure about his changing his will? I knew I was mentioned for a certain sum, but that I should get all seems incredible."
"The youth nodded. Bitterly he replied:
"It's sure enough. He telephoned Mr. Knapp just now. The lawyer may be here any minute. He said he'd come right up." If ever there was a rascal who deserved the hangman's noose, it's certainly he."
The girl nodded.
"I never liked Mr. Knapp myself. There's something sleek and crafty about him. Do you think he will draw the new will today?"
"Oh, they may draft it today; but then it has to be properly drawn up. I don't suppose it will be ready for signature before tomorrow night, and when my father once signs it that is the end. He is very dogged and obstinate. He'll never change it."
The young girl shook her head protestingly. Starting forward and grasping the young man's hand, she exclaimed, warmly:
"No, Fred, I will not permit it. No matter what your father does I will see to it that your rights are protected. What do you care whether you inherit by will or receive it from me? Do you think for a moment that I could enjoy his money, knowing I had deprived you of it? No matter what your father says, you will get it just the same."
Making a quick bound forward, Fred clasped her in his strong arms, and his voice trembled with emotion as he said:
"I knew you'd say that, Janet. But I refuse-absolutely. I don't want his money. I won't touch a penny of it. I'll make my own money, and I assure you that it will be cleaner than his. It wasn't the money I cared about so much as the unfair way in which he has treated me."
Both were silent, each distrustful of the other, stirred by different emotions, vaguely antagonistic, the one's heart full of hate and bitterness at the cruel injustice done him, the other elated by the unexpected good fortune which had befallen her. Finally Janet broke the silence:
"So you are determined to go away?"
He nodded.
"Yes; as soon as possible. I can't go without funds., He must let me have some of grandfather's money. He refused, but I'll come and see him again tomorrow. He must do that. I'll make him."
Janet hesitated. Finally she said, timidly:
"Won't you let me lend you some? I have a few thousand dollars that I've saved up."
Fred shook his head.
"No, I wouldn't think of it. Grandfather left me that money, and father must advance me some of it. I'll make him-"
"How can you make him if he refuses."
"I'll-"
Before the sentence could be completed, the library door opened, and the butler entered. Fred and Janet turned to look at him. He addressed himself to Janet.
"Mr. Knapp is here, Miss, to see Mr. Thomas. He had an appointment."
Fred gave Janet a significant glance, but she was so busy listening to the servant that she did not notice it.
"Show Mr. Knapp in here, Finley," she said, "and inform Mr. Thomas that he has arrived."
The butler withdrew and Janet turned to Fred.
"You won't go before I see you again?" she murmured.
"No, I won't say goodbye now. I'm coming to see father again," he replied. "I'll see you tomorrow night."
Fred nodded to attorney Knapp as they met near the library door. But neither man spoke. Fred glanced up the stairs as he headed for the front door and stopped; it seemed to him that he had seen someone peering down from the shadows. He decided to investigate. He quickly mounted the stairs and moved silently toward his father's bedroom. He paused at the door, listening. Then he quickly opened the door and stepped inside the room.
"Hello now!" he exclaimed in astonishment. There was a naked girl standing beside his father's bed, and she had an eye-startling body.
The girl smiled. He moved in for a closer view. She was even younger at close range, scarcely in her twenties, he thought. She wore very little make-up, her only concession to fashion being a carefully penciled eye shadow. Her lips pushed forward in a kind of perpetual pout, as if she were begging to be kissed. It gave her a sulky little-girl look that was belied by the far from innocent appraisal in her clear blue eyes.
Her nipples were taut and ripe, thrusting from the center of her breasts with a hard, pearl-like prominence. He had a sudden overwhelming urge to touch them, to squeeze them, to take them in his mouth. His eyes traveled with wonderment over her nudity, over the firm swell of her thighs; over the flat whiteness of her stomach, at the sleek curve of her hips. Her thighs were slightly parted-just enough for the pink and prominent lips of her cunt to be glimpsed. Fred sucked in his breadi and felt his cock expanding inside his trousers.
"Damn!" he muttered to himself. "Father has all the luck!"
The girl merely smiled and stared at him with curious eyes.
"My name's Goldie," she said. "Goldie Watkins. And I've got a funny feeling we've met somewhere before. Hey! You're not in the movies, are you?"
"No," he replied, wondering if she had noticed the bulge thumping away in his trousers. "You're thinking of my father, not me; he's the big movie-money man.
She licked her lips, running her tongue slowly over the Cupid's How and keeping her eyes on his face the whole while.
"Sure, that's it!" she smiled brightly. "You look a lot like him. Where is he, by the way?"
"He's busy for a little while," Fred told her, and moved in closer. He had decided to do a little poaching. Serve the old man right, he thought. For a moment he looked down into her eyes, quietly savoring her upturned face, half-parted lips and her daring expression.
"He's with his lawyer," Fred said, suddenly pulling her into his arms. "He'll be busy for some time. He's changing his will, to cut me out."
"And you figure you will cut yourself in up here, is that it?" Goldie said, with laughter in her voice.
"Do you mind?"
"Too soon to tell."
She strained her body into his, her arms going around his neck, and her fingers tightening about his broad shoulders. Savagely, he crushed her tender, full red lips against his own, feeling Goldie gasp into his open mouth as the girl felt his urgent passion. He tasted the fresh, sweet juices of the girl's mouth, letting their saliva mingle and feeling her body pushing against him-her hard breasts pressing into his chest.
They remained standing for long minutes, kissing wildly and desperately. Then he bent her slowly backwards onto the bed, lowering his fully clothed body on top of her, stretching out at full length across Goldie's softly rounded curves.
She was breathing heavily now, panting and gripping him tightly-her fingers running up and down his back, caressing the nape of his neck and fondling the thick black hair.
He withdrew his mouth at last and worked his lips around Goldie's face until they were poised at the softness of her earlobe. Seductively, he licked the underside of the fleshy lobe, letting his teeth close firmly and securely on Goldie's fragrant smelling ear. She shivered, her body trembling like a child's beneath the weight of his body.
His hand closed tightly over the up-thrust globe of the girl's right breast; fingers clenching and pulling at the large orb with a rapist's fury. The nipple itself grew tauter and harder under his touch. The bud swelled visibly, rising in a provocative thrust from the center of Goldie's breasts.
He pressed his forefinger and thumb more securely around the stem, squeezing with an insistent pressure so that the girl's teat stood out more prominently than ever. He bent his face down over the nipple and pursed his lips. She felt his warm, moist mouth close softly round her breasts and felt his teeth gently biting into the enlarged bloom ol her nipples.
Goldie was stroking his hair, running both her hands through it, hold her face down onto her breasts as if she was fearful that he'd withdraw his mouth too soon. He opened his lips wider, then sucked as much of Goldie's breast-flesh into his mouth as possible. In a slow, unvarying rhythm, he tit-sucked her, and as the minutes passed, Goldie felt herself growing more and more delirious, unable to control her mountain of desire-to be fucked.. .
She could feel, through his trousers, the Stiff poker of his cock-thrusting up against her crotch with wild, angry potency. She pushed her loins up onto it, urging the pointed shaft to press more closely to her aroused cunt.
Fred let his hand pass down Goldie's body until it rested on her thigh. His fingers moved on the soft, delicate skin, marveling at the satin texture. Then lie pressed more firmly into the girl's leg, now stroking round the inside of her thigh.
Goldie helped him by opening her legs a little wider, giving him easy access to the supple flesh of her exquisitely shaped upper thigh. He moved his fingers upward until they crossed over onto the venus mount of luxuriant hair-rubbing and fondling at the entrance to her juicy cunt-She was moaning softly now, turning her head from side to side on the pillow and clenching her hands into tight, white-knuckled fists. Her thighs were tense, her ankles drummed spastically on the turned-back sheets.
Fred toyed with her cunt for several minutes, teasing the knob of her clitoris and finger-fucking her with a skillful circular motion of this thumb. Then, just as he was preparing to unzip his trousers and somehow lever his cock into her, Goldie lifted her head and shoulders up off the bed and threw her arms around his neck.
"Jesus, darling!" she gasped. "I can't stand it any longer! Give it to me. Fuck me!"
He hastily extracted his bulging, throbbing shaft from his trousers, and Goldie reached out anxious fingers toward it. The slender fingertips brushed meaningfully across the rigid length, making it leap more wildly than ever. She stroked it and stroked it, babbling endearments as her fingers petted and caressed the rigid shaft.
With a long sigh and a tinkling shudder, Fred rammed his hardness into her juicy slit His prick, now buried completely inside her cunt, was jerking dangerously-warning him that the climax couldn't be long delayed.
From head to toe, his entire body felt stiff and aching with held back semen. Goldie was churning so hard and pumping so that he couldn't fight against the ecstasy. But she didn't care; she was on the verge of orgasm herself.
"Oh, honey-darling-baby!" she murmured in his ear.
"You're better than your father. I'm coming-fuck me, baby!"
And then, utterly unstoppable, came the first pulse of his climax. The premature cream started to shoot into her cunt, his prick jerking violently. For one brief moment he tired to hold it back; then, realizing that the itch in his cock was too strong to resist, he clenched his buttocks lightly and drove into her furiously, encouraging every last jet to escape.
He crumpled upon her, his energy temporarily spent, and wondered whether his trousers were all stained. While considering what to do about that eventuality, Fred was brought to sharp attention by the sudden sound of a door opening.
"What the--! "
He sat up in the bed, startled. Then he laughed. The enraged face of his father stood glaring down upon him.
"Get out of my house!" he roared. "And take that whore with you!"
CHAPTER 3
Flint Stryker was the most famous private detective on the West Coast. He was also the most successful. He occupied an entire floor on the top ol a Beverly Hills building.
In personal appearance he looked more like a character actor than a private detective. A man still in his early forties, dark-haired and muscular, jovial and good-humored, Flint looked anything but the police type. There was always a good natured expression on his face, and his manner was easy and friendly. He liked to chat and exchange jokes with whoever he met, yet the close observer did not fail to notice something hard and unyielding in those mild, gray eyes, now twinkling with fun. The lines about the mouth were firm and determined, and every now and then there came into his face the expression of a man who never lets up on anything he undertakes to accomplish.
He usually arrived at his offices by nine o'clock every morning, unless he was on a case that kept him from sleep. On this particular morning he was late, having delayed his arrival in order to let Helen Wade give him a blow job.
Helen Wade was his personal secretary, and she knew how to keep her boss happy. She could always ease his tension with a lay or by sucking his cock, which she thoroughly enjoyed doing as much as he enjoyed having her do it.
They arrived at the Beverly Hills offices at ten-thirty. Flint went directly to his private office, and then flung himself down in his swivel chair at the desk. He opened the newspaper and hurriedly read the headlines. Helen stood by and waited. For a moment there was complete silence broken only by the sound of their breathing.
Suddenly, Flint Stryker looked up. "Sweetie," he said, "Get Bill in here."
Bill Cooley was Stryker's assistant, and "a bright young man." He was also a handsome young man, and he did all right among the Beverly Hills wives and secretaries and movie starlets. He came into the office and said, "Good morning, chief."
Stryker handed him the newspaper.
"Bill, have you seen this?"
The young man read the headlines. He looked at his boss questioningly.
"You mean the Thomas thing?" Stryker nodded.
"Yes, that's what I mean. Have you heard anything -anything at all?"
Bill Cooley paused thoughtfully. Was the boss simply curious, or was he being tested? Again, there was the possibility that Stryker would be involved as a detective. He hoped so; it would be his first association with a murder case.
"I know only what everyone else knows," Billy finally said. "Matthew Thomas, financier and millionaire, was found strangled and shot to death in his library. The time of the murder was approximately three o'clock Friday morning. The police have dismissed robbery as a motive, because the room was full of valuables and nothing was missing. The police have made no arrests, thought they suspect the killer was known to the victim and is, perhaps, a member of the immediate family. That's about all I know, chief. But why are you so interested?"
"Because I have been retained by the son to solve the crime," Stryker replied matter-of-factly. Bill gave an expressive whistle.
"That's a corker, boss! When and where do we begin?"
"That's just it. First, find the motive. In this case there appears to be two. We can't expect too much cooperation from the police, but I've found out that two persons gained a distinct advantage in the death of the old man. One was his son, Fred, with whom he recently had a violent quarrel, and whom he disinherited. The other was his adopted daughter, Janet Boyington, recently made sole beneficiary under a new will-"
"You suspect the girl?"
"The old man put up a stiff fight. There is evidence of a hard, desperate struggle. The girl could hardly have done it."
"Then the son-"
"Me is more likely. But," he added, "he hired me to find the killer, which must be taken into account. Of course, he may have taken such a step to throw suspicion away from himself-though I doubt it. Anyhow, here goes!" Rising from his seat, he said: "What are you waiting for, Bill? Come on, let's earn our fee!"
Helen Wade stood by the door, waiting. Now she spoke:
"Shall I cancel all appointments until further notice?"
"All but one, sweetie," he said, patting her buttocks as he went through the door. "And you know the one I mean, so keep the place warm."
Helen laughed, and they were gone. She closed the office door and went to work, promising herself that the place would be warm-it was warm already.. .
The murder had fallen upon the Thomas home with the force and suddenness of a thunderbolt. The servants and other members of the household were still under the first shock of terror and consternation. Without warning, grim tragedy had stalked through the house. The inmates had gone as usual peacefully to bed, only to be confronted the following morning with a scene of horror.
It was Finley Grahm, the butler, who first missed Matthew Thomas, and a slightly retarded young man named Andy, who helped in the kitchen and did odd jobs around the house, who found him lying dead in the library.
Finley Grahm had been in Matthew Thomas's service for over thirty years. He was now nearly sixty, but he carried himself with dignity. He was a trusted retainer even when Fred Thomas was born, and as the years rolled by he had diplomatically made himself so indispensable to his employer that his position was more that of friend than servant. Conscious of his own importance, he had bitterly resented the addition of Matilda Wyatt to the family circle, yet conceded that the adoption of a daughter called for special services, feminine in kind, which he himself was incompetent to perform. He had grown fond of Janet Boyington, who had a way of winning her way in everyone's affections, but his relations with Mrs. Wyatt, the housekeeper, were always painfully strained. Fights occurred almost every day, and if there was a lull in the hostilities the most that could be said was that each side had called a temporary truce. Jealous of all authority save that of his employer, Finley Grahm assumed airs of the greatest importance, and bullied the other servants until they were more afraid of him than of Mr. Thomas.
Andy he treated with some kindness and consideration, not only because the young man was slightly retarded but because he was built like Hercules and had a cock big enough to satisfy Finley Grahm. Almost every night Andy would come to Finley's quarters above the garage, to play "gin rummy," they said; but that was for the benefit of the other servants. In the safety and seclusion of his rooms, Mr. Grahm would don a sheer nightgown and become Mrs. Grahm. Andy would become his lover. And he was equipped to be a most imposing lover, for his cock was nine inches long! Grahm would stroke it erect and then take it into his mouth and suck it until Andy spurted his semen forth in large, hot globs. Sometimes Grahm would only suck Andy's cock for a little while and then have the young man screw him in the ass. On other occasions, he would do both-making the young man come twice, once in his mouth and once in his ass. And Andy, who wasn't likely to ever find a woman to love him, was quite satisfied with the arrangement.
But the discovery of the midnight tragedy came upon Finley Grahm as a crushing, overwhelming blow: first because he had lost a good and liberal employer, secondly because it wounded his vanity that such a dreadful crime should have been possible with him close at hand to prevent it.
Grahm's custom was to knock at his employer's door every morning at eight o'clock. He did so as usual that morning, but got no reply. He decided to enter the room, fearing that Mr. Thomas might be ill. To his surprise, Grahm found the room empty and the bed intact, showing that it had not been slept in. He hurried to Janet's room and informed her of the situation. She suggested that he look through the house.
Not for a moment expecting to find what awaited him, Grahm went downstairs and was suddenly startled by being confronted by Andy, who gasped: "Quick! In there-he's dead!"
Not realizing for the moment what Andy was saying, but with a vague feeling of uneasiness, Grahm groped his way into the darkened library and, more by force of habit than anything else, threw open one of the shutters of the big bay-window. This done, he was stepping back when his foot caught in something lying on the floor, and he nearly stumbled. He glanced down and fell back in fright. There on his back, fully dressed, but his hair disheveled, his clothes in disorder, his face livid, tongue protruding was Matthew Thomas.
The terrified butler did not stop to investigate further, but ran breathlessly back to Janet's room to tell her what he had seen. Never would he forget the expression on the young girl's face. If she herself had committed the deed, she could not have looked more agitated. Her face went white as death. He thought she was going to faint. "In the library!" she exclaimed. How did she know it was the library? He had not said so. He noticed too, that her eyes were red and swollen from weeping, that she was fully dressed, and that her bed, too, was undisturbed. He remembered all these details very clearly afterward, and, realizing they might prove damaging to his young mistress, tried to forget them, but the police have such a way of asking questions that it's very difficult to hide anything.
It was absurd, of course, to think that a young girl had anything to do with it. What motive could she possibly have? Mr. Thomas had always been kind to her, no matter what he had been to his son and his servants. Could it be Andy or that chauffeur they discharged a month ago, when they discovered he had a prison record? Certainly he was a good-for-nothing rascal and capable of anything. Yet it could not be he, for his motive would have been robbery, and apparently nothing had been touched. Even the big the diamond ring on the dead man's finger had not been taken.
Was it young Fred? He did not love his father any too much. Many an angry scene between them had nearly ended in blows. No, for Fred Thomas had an alibi. Had not he himself let the young man out at ten o'clock? Mr. Thomas was still alive long after that.
Meantime, nothing must be touched in the library. Those were the orders given him, and by Fred Thomas himself. But orders or no orders, they must air the room and let a little daylight in. So with a lordly gesture, Finley Grahm summoned Nat Innes, the chauffeur, to assist him.
Making a brave plunge into the room, and closely followed by Innes, he went directly toward the large windows with the object of drawing the drapes. As he reached the windows the door from the hall opened, and Fred Thomas entered.
Fred, glancing uncomfortably around the room, quickly stopped the two men with a gesture.
"Don't touch anything until Mr. Stryker arrives."
"Is that the detective, sir?" Nat Innes asked.
"Yes," Fred replied. "Flint Stryker. You may go, Nat"
"Yessir!" Innes said and hurried from the room.
Having satisfied himself that everything had been left as it should be, Fred Thomas retreated to the door and spoke to someone waiting in the hall.
"Eva, wd! you come in here, please?"
In the doorway appeared an attractive, fashionably dressed young woman. About twenty years old, she was well endowed with feminine curves and bulges, one of those fortunate women who look well no matter what they have on.
"What are you doing in here, Fred?" she asked, halting near the door and peering timorously around the room.
"Making sure nothing is touched," he answered her.
Finley Grahm coughed politely and said:
"What time will the detective be here, sir?"
Fred glanced at his watch.
"Any time now," he replied. "And Finley-"
"Sir?"
"I want everyone to cooperate with Mr. Stryker, and show him every consideration."
Grahm nodded acknowledgment and left the room. Eva, taking courage, advanced further into the library. In a quiet, concerned voice she asked:
"More detectives coming?"
"Yes," he replied. "I have engaged Flint Stryker. He takes charge this morning."
"But the police-"
"Screw the police!" he snapped. "They suspect Janet, or me-" he smiled at her and softened his tone. "I hired Stryker to find out who killed my father."
"Do you think he can do anything at this late hour?"
"If he can't, nobody can."
The young woman shook her head. Dubiously, she said:
"Fred, I don't believe they'll ever find out who killed your father. It-will remain one of those mysteries that are never solved."
Fred made no reply. This horror had come upon them all so suddenly that he had not yet had time to think. He looked at his wife and thought, "Thank God, she doesn't know about the girl in my father's bedroom."
Eva would not have made a fuss even if she had known about his sexual bout with Goldie. After all, there were many things he did not know about her. And she had no intention of ever telling him. She preferred to keep her other self, her lesbian-loving self, to herself.
But while he was fucking his father's starlet visitor, Eva was getting her own kicks with Emmaline Rocher. She had not seen Emmaline since her marriage, till that day, when her lesbian friend arrived' to congratulate her and wish her happiness. Fred had gone to see his father and ask him for enough money to invest in a business in Detroit. Emmaline embraced Eva, by way of welcome, and kissed her. Daringly, she pressed her mouth more and more insistently against Eva's.
Eva was caught up in the old urgency. She did not want the kiss to end. Nor did it, for a long time. Finally Emmaline said, "We still feel a yen for each other, I see."
"I can't deny it," Eva said, "though I admit I'm surprised. I thought I'd never want a woman to make love to me again."
"Does that mean you want me to make love to you?" Emmaline rejoined, her eyes hot.
"Yes," Eva sighed. "Yes, I do."
So they had locked the apartment door and gone into the bedroom, where they hastily undressed and got into the bed. Eva began immediately to explore Emmaline's buttocks. She cupped the girl's flesh orbs, lifting them gently up in her open hands and starting to give them a bold and stimulating massage. They felt wonderfully soft and pliable-more sleek and sexy to her touch than any man's she could recall, including her husband's.
Within seconds Emmaline was doing the same thing to Eva's bottom. Soon they lay with legs locked together and mouths fused in a long burning kiss. Emmaline eased Eva over onto her back and pulled her mouth away; then, squeezing gently Eva's right breast, she lowered her mouth over the left one. Eva whimpered with excitement as Emmaline's tongue worried the hard nipple. Delicious shocks of excitement shivered through her loins as she spread her legs and rubbed her cunt against her partner's thigh. With a gasp, Emmaline slid down and quickly pressed her face into the soft wet hollow between Eva's thighs.
At the first swift thrust of Emmaline's tongue, Eva cried out joyfully and arched her back, every muscle in her abdomen and legs tightening. Emmaline's busy tongue was sending bolts of fire into her hot cunt. Eva wound her legs around Emmaline's head, arched her back and let the orgasm send her soaring, high, high, higher, on a blinding, body contorting journey of almost unendurable pleasure.
And she screamed-a long, loud scream of release-just as she always did when Fred was fucking her and brought her to orgasm. But she knew that she would always return to her secret pleasure; if not with Emmaline, which she doubted, with someone else.
Only Fred must never know; he wouldn't understand her strange longings. She crossed the room and approached him, Touching his shoulder gently, she said:
"Don't worry so, Fred. What does it matter what people think? In a little while it will all be forgotten."
"I hope so," he said, shrugging. "How is Janet this morning?"
Eva hesitated a moment before answering.
"She's so strange, Fred. She hasn't said a thing about your father since I came. She simply won't speak of it."
"Can you blame her? Besides, Janet never talks about the things that are way down deep within her."
"And your father liked her for that, didn't he?"
Fred nodded.
"Yes. He could quarrel with me, but he couldn't ever get a rise out of Janet. She'd just simply keep quiet-and get her own way with him. He never forgave me for not marrying her, but he never quarreled with her for not marrying me."
Eva smiled. Bitterly he added:
"Now that he's dead we're not much better than we were before, Eva. There's no doubt that he executed the new will, cutting me out. Mr. Knapp has told me as much."
"Never mind that," she said, softly. "Personally, I prefer it that way. At least you'll know it isn't your money I care for, but you yourself."
Fred put his arms around her and kissed her. They were so engrossed that they did not notice the door open and someone enter until they heard a discreet cough behind them. Turning quickly, they saw Mrs. Wyatt, the housekeeper.
Mrs. Wyatt tripped lightly toward them. Her manner gushing and fussy, she said, apologetically: "Excuse me. Good morning, Mr. Thomas-Mrs. Thomas. I didn't know you were here. Finley tells me another detective is coming."
Fred smiled and nodded.
"Yes-and I want you to give him all the assistance you can, Mrs. Wyatt. Nothing must be touched in this room until he says so. He has-"
But she did not let him finish. In her explosive fashion she burst out:
"I think you're perfectly right. I mean to say those . police detectives aren't getting anywhere. We don't know any more than we did at first!"
Turning to his wife, he added hastily: "I've got to go now. The lawyers have sent for me, but I'll be right back."
Kissing the young woman lightly on the cheek, he hurried out of the room.
For a few moments after his departure the two women sat and looked at each other without speaking. Eva glad enough to be alone with her thoughts, realizing painfully as she did that it was she who had been the cause of the tragetly. But it was a physical impossibility for Mrs. Wyatt to remain quiet. Chafing under the long silence, she could finally not stand it any longer. Suddenly she burst out:
"This house has been my home for twenty year-sever since Janet was taken into the family-but it never will be again. I mean to say I never could feel at home in a house where they'd been a murder. I suppose I'm peculiar, but it doesn't make any difference whether the room is opened or locked up, I can't go by without feeling it. Do you know what I mean? I suppose Janet will sell the place. Have you heard her say anything about it?"
Not wishing to encourage the housekeeper to discuss family matters, the young woman answered only in monosyllables. Shaking her head she said: "Oh no."
But the voluble Mrs. Wyatt was not to be put off so easily.
"Mr. Thomas certainly was a very strange man. I don't want to say anything disagreeable about the dead, but it's hard to understand how a man could cut his son off without a cent and leave a fortune to a girl who's in no way related to him.
Eva shook her head.
"I don't believe Janet will let that will stand."
The housekeeper shrugged her shoulders. Her lips tightened, and her voice sounded harsh and bitter as she said:
"I'd say that, too, if I didn't know human nature as well as I do. Janet's a dear girl, but money changes people. I mean to say take a perfectly fair-minded person, like Janet, generous to a fault, and you never can tell what money will bring out in them-do you know what I mean?"
Before the young wife could answer there was a knock at the door and the butler entered. With an air of offended dignity, he said, pompously:
"Mrs. Wyatt, that detective has come."
The housekeeper rose, an expression of annoyance on her face. For the last forty-eight hours the house had been overrun with them. Really, they got on a woman's nerves with all their impudent questions. Still, if the family wished it, it must be done. Resignedly she said:
"Mr. Stryker-oh-well-I suppose you'd better bring him right in here, Grahm."
"Very well, ma'am," snapped the butler, viciously.
He retired, and Eva went hastily toward the door.
"Hadn't we better go?" she said.
The housekeeper nodded, and also rose.
The two women hastily left the room, closing the door behind them. A minute later the butler re-entered, followed by Flint Stryker and Bill Cooley.
CHAPTER 4
Flint Stryker's first step was to go to the windows and open the curtains. Then he stood still, in contemplative silence, his eyes going carefully over every detail of the room, noting the position of each piece of furniture and bric-a-brac. Bill Cooley, meantime, approached Finley Grahm, who stood by, an expression of offended dignity on his face, resenting this invasion of the premises and meddling by men who were not even regular policemen, but outsiders who did it only for money.
Bill addressed the butler:
"I suppose the police have mauled everything about? Or is this the way the furniture was found?"
Grahm eyed the speaker scornfully, taking him in from head to foot
"Nothing was disturbed on this side," he haughtily replied. "Everything was as you see it." Pointing to the right, he added: "But on this side everything was helter-skelter, just as it is now."
Billy gave Stryker a questioning glance.
"I wonder how that happened?"
Grahm chuckled, and retorted sarcastically:
"If you knew that and had your supper, you could go to bed."
Bill looked sharply at him, a flush in his cheeks.
"Very funny!" he said, then changed his tone to say: "You may wind up in the gas chamber yourself, so I'd be careful if I were you."
Grahm glared at the young man.
"I'll will you my wits, then," he said savagely. "You'll be needin' 'em."
Stryker chuckled and drew his assistant aside.
"I'll take care of him," he whispered. "What's his "Grahm. Finley Grahm."
Stryker leisurely removed his coat, as if about to get busy. Then turning to his assistant, he said:
"Bill, go and bring Mr. Grahm in here. He's the man who can help us."
"That's Mr. Grahm," Bill replied, pointing to the butler.
Stryker turned to the butler as if surprised. "Are you Finley Grahm."
"I am," Grahm answered, drawing himself up. Stryker laughed.
"Well, I'll be-Why didn't you tell us? I am well aware of your confidential relations with the household and your late employer. The family has always spoken in the highest terms of you, Mr. Grahm. I need your help. You're in a position to be of great assistance to us."
Grahm was flattered more by Stryker's manner than by his actual words, but he was not entirely won over. Nevertheless he became almost affable as he said:
"I will naturally help in any way I can. However, I have already told everything I know to the police, and they didn't think it was of much value."
"I would appreciate your help anyway," Stryker said, smiling.
"Well, sir, I'll tell you one thing," Grahm said. "I don't take much stock in detectives." Stryker nodded approval.
"You're quite right, of course. But what have you got against them in particular?"
Grahm frowned. Indignantly he said:
"Men with so little intelligence as to try and put suspicion on such a girl as Miss Janet-as innocent and harmless a young woman as ever lived. I've no patience -with such scoundrels. They'll get no assistance from me in that kind of work, or from any other honest man."
Stryker nodded.
"You're quite right, Mr. Grahm; now tell us the facts as you know them. You found the body?" The butler shook his head.
"Yes-sir-that is, I knocked at his door in the usual way, but he did not answer. I was alarmed and opened the door, thinking he was ill or something. When I saw the bed hadn't been slept in I was still more alarmed. I went to Miss Janet and told her-"
Stryker interrupted him.
"What time was it?"
"About eight o'clock, sir."
"Was Miss Boyington up?"
"Yes-sir. She came to the door fully dressed."
"Fully dressed?"
"Yes, sir."
"What did she say?"
"She was very nervous. Her face was white, and she was all agitated. I thought she was ill."
"Oh, you found her so pale and agitated that you thought she was ill, and she was completely dressed at eight o'clock in the morning?"
"Yes, sir."
"Had her bed been slept in."
"I did not notice, sir."
"What did she say?"
"She didn't know what to say. I went downstairs and was just wondering what to do when suddenly Andy ran into 'me. 'He's dead!' he said. 'Stark dead on the floor in there!' 'Who's dead?' says I. 'Mr. Thomas,' says he-"
"Who's Andy?" demanded Stryker.
"Dan Scully's boy."
"How long has he been here?"
"Time out of mind-nearly as long as myself."
"What does he do?"
"He makes himself useful where I tell him to."
"Did Andy come first to you?" The butler nodded.
"He did, and it was I that told Miss Janet. When we found he was dead she got Mr. Fred here straightaway and the doctors, and then the police, and from that it began-trouble without end. Reporters, photographers-"
Stryker turned abruptly from him and made another careful survey around the room. Then he turned again to the butler:
"Is the furniture as it is now pretty much as you found it?"
"Yes, sir; all wheeled about every which way. Nothin's as it should be. He made a hard fight to defend himself -God help us!-before they put death on him."
"Where was the body?"
The butler pointed to where Bill was standing. "There, where your man is." Indicating another corner, he added: "And the pistol was yonder."
"Was he lying on his back?" The butler nodded.
"On his back, to one side, with the table-cloth clutched in his hand."
Stryker now went to the table, and, taking up one end of the cloth, he said:
"You say this cloth was dragged from the table?"
"About half-way, sir-and some books on top of him."
"When was this cover put back."
"That's hard to say, sir."
"It may be very important."
The butler scratched his head, as if trying to refresh his memory. Hesitatingly he said:
"Well, I remember I was straightening up the room when one of the doctors came in. He stopped me till the coroner should come; but I had already put back the cloth and those three books."
"Has it been touched since?"
"It has not-not so much as dusted."
Stryker nodded approval. Then, consulting a little memo book which he carried in the palm of his hand, he said:
"I want to see the chauffeur, Mr. Grahm." The butler shrugged his shoulders. "Very good, sir."
The butler went out with alacrity and closed the door behind him. Stryker made a quick gesture to his assistant. "Let's see if we've got anything on the table."
Hurrying to the table, they carefully lifted off the cloth.
"Be careful of that cloth!"
Quickly they went to work to secure fingerprints. Still busy at work, Stryker continued examining the furniture at the other end of the room, when suddenly the library door opened and Mrs. Wyatt entered.
Considerably nettled that the detectives should have proceeded with the investigation without even taking the trouble to consult her, the housekeeper was not in the most amiable mood. Surveying the detective from head to foot, she said, haughtily:
"Mr. Stryker, I presume?"
"Yes," he replied laconically.
Tossing up her head, she went on:
"I suppose you know who I am?"
He looked at her inquiringly, but without displaying any great interest.
Piqued, she said, grandly:
"I'm Mrs. Wyatt."
He nodded carelessly.
"Oh, yes. Good morning, Mrs. Wyatt."
She was nonplussed for the moment, not knowing whether to be angry or not. Finally, she said with a forced smile:
"Mr. Fred ought to be here soon. He said he'd come right back and it's almost eleven now. Is there anything you want to ask me?"
"Yes, there is."
He nodded gravely, fixing his eyes on her in a manner that frightened her. Startled, she exclaimed:
"I wasn't here when it happened, you know! I mean to say, I don't know any more about it than you do, but I suppose you do know a great deal."
He smiled, and, coming down to where she was standing, offered her a chair.
"Won't you please be seated, Mrs. Wyatt? When did Mr. Thomas adopt Miss Boyington?"
"Why, I don't know. She was just a little thing. I don't believe she was more than six, but I really don't know much about it. I mean to say, I wasn't there. It was in San Francisco, you know."
"What was Mr. Boyington's first name?"
"I think it was James. Yes, I know it was."
"What became of her mother?"
"Oh, she died there."
"In San Francisco?"
"Yes, I really don't know much about her either."
"What was her maiden name?"
"If I remember correctly, it was Hillyer."
Mrs. Wyatt smiled amiably as she went on gushingly: "That's all I can tell you. I really don't know how I remember that. As I said, I've never heard much about the mother, except that there was some scandal about her."
Stryker looked up quickly. "Scandal? In what way?"
"I really can't say. Mr. Thomas never could be persuaded to talk about her."
The detective was silent for a moment, then abruptly he asked:
"How long have you lived here?"
"Oh, many, many years-"
"As long as that?" he smiled.
Hastily checking herself, she stammered in some confusion:
"I mean to say it must be sixteen-ever since my husband died. I'm a widow-do you know what I mean? I'm a very old friend of the family, and when Mr. Thomas adopted Janet he felt that he must have a woman in the house."
The detective rose and paced the floor. With a shade of impatience in his voice he said:
"Yes, yes, I'd like to see Miss Boyington."
Taking the hint, Mrs. Wyatt moved nervously toward the door. As she reached it she turned and said:
"Oh-well-I don't know-I mean to say-if you want to, I suppose you must. I'll go right to her now.
Flint Stryker rubbed his hands with satisfaction. So far, so good. He had examined several of the servants to whom suspicion might attach, and was thoroughly convinced of their innocence. The process of elimination had begun. He had learned at least two things that might lead to important clues: one was that Miss Boyington did not go to bed on the night of the murder; the other that Mr. Knapp, the lawyer, had an interview with the banker that evening and consulted him about changing his will. Still another find, and perhaps the most important, were the prints of a woman's hands on the table in the room where the murder took place. Who was that woman? If he could only find that woman who was in the room and saw the old man murdered, he would be very close to the murderer.
Going over to his assistant, who was still busy getting the prints from the table, he said hastily:
"Bill, when you've finished, go and get the fingerprints of all the women who were in the house the night of the murder. Don't miss anybody."
As he spoke Grahm re-entered the room, followed by the chauffeur.
"Here is Innes, sir," said the butler, deferentially.
Stryker looked the man quickly over from head to foot. Satisfied with his scrutiny, he turned to his assistant and said quietly:
"Get his prints, Bill." Then, turning suddenly on the chauffeur, he demanded sharply:
"How did you come to be mixed up in this murder?"
The man turned pale. He knew it-they were going to charge him with the murder!
"Me, sir? I'm a man of early hours an' quiet habits. I had read my evening paper an' was in bed by half past ten."
"Did you hear anything in the night?" The man shook his head. "No, I go to bed to sleep."
The detective shrugged his shoulders. Sarcastically he said:
"You're one of those very heavy sleepers, I suppose."
"No, sir. I'm a very light sleeper."
"How did it happen, then, that you slept all through a murder?"
"I didn't say I slept through a murder," was the shrewd answer.
"You say you didn't hear anything. What did you do?"
"I had an uneasy night, and at three in the morning I got up and opened my window."
"Did you notice anything unusual?"
"I can't say that it was unusual," replied the man, cautiously.
"No, what was it?"
The chauffeur hesitated. He was keeping something back. That was very evident. Sharply the detective exclaimed: "Come on, Innes-What was it!? "
But Innes still hesitated. He might only get into trouble if he told what he had seen. Finally, with reluctance, he said:
"I saw a light"
Stryker looked up quickly.
"Where?" he demanded.
The chauffeur made no answer, but turned appealingly to the butler, as if for protection. He got little sympathy in that quarter. Eyeing him sternly Grahm said:
"Go on! Don't be so foolish. Out with it!"
"Well, sir, it was in the room below me."
Quickly the detective turned to the butler. "What room is that, Grahm?"
It was the butler's turn now to hesitate. It was hard that after all these years he should be asked to testify against one who had always been kind to him. Reluctantly he answered:
"Why, sir, that's Miss Janet Boyington's room, but."
"Miss Boyington's room!" exclaimed Stryker, in surprise. Turning quickly to the chauffeur, he went on: "What did you do?"
"I went back to bed, an' I was there when they wakened me."
The detective made a gesture of dismissal. "That's all for the present. You may go." The chauffeur hastily left the room; and Stryker turning to the butler, said, quietly: "Now, get the maid, Ethel."
Grahm went toward the door to summon the girl.
As Ethel entered, frightened and apprehensive like all the other servants, he said, in a tragic undertone which did not tend to reassure her:
"You're wanted by the detective, girl."
"What for?" she asked, with a shiver.
Stryker, who was getting tired of all this cross examination dropped into a chair, and without even glancing in the direction of the maid, he turned to the butler and said curtly:
"Bring the cook in also."
Grahm shrugged his shoulders.
"Very well, sir, I'll bring her-I'll bring her, only don't blame me if she's a bit cantankerous."
He went out, closing the door of the library behind him. Stryker looked at the maid, who smiled bashfully.
She had never seen a detective before, and had no idea they were so good-looking. Modulating his voice, he said, kindly:
"So you're Ethel, are you?"
She advanced shyly toward him.
"Yes, sir."
"Did you hear anything the night of the murder."
"N-no, sir," the girl replied after a moment's hesitation.
"Nothing whatever?" he persisted. "The rain-" she stammered. "What time was it?" he asked abruptly. She gave him a furtive look as if wondering how much she could tell with safety. "A quarter past one."
"You got up and turned on the light to look at the clock?"
The girl stared at him in amazement, frightened that he knew so much. Quickly she answered:
"No sir. I got up because I'd-I'd left a window open downstairs."
"Did you go downstairs to close it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you pass Miss Boyington's room?"
Again she hesitated.
"Yes."
"Was there a light under the door?"
"Yes, sir," she replied, reluctantly, and avoiding the detective's steatly gaze.
"Did you speak to Miss Boyington?"
"Yes, sir. Her maid had gone away for the night, and I thought perhaps I could do something for her."
"Was she dl?"
"She had a headache."
"She said so?"
"Yes, sir. She said she had a headache and couldn't sleep."
"Did you do anything for her?"
The girl hesitated a moment before she answered: "No, sir."
"Didn't you go into her room?" The maid shook her head. "No, sir, she wouldn't let me."
"Why not?"
"She said she'd be all right."
Stryker looked at her keenly. Changing abruptly the line of questioning, he demanded suddenly: "Did you come down to this floor."
"No, I went right back to bed."
Before the detective could ask anything further there was a commotion outside the library door, and a shrill, angry voice was heard exclaiming:
"Gawd sakes! I'd like to see the man, detective or no detective, as thinks he can boss me!"
The next moment there bounced into the room, a burly Negress of the typical Southern-mammy type. She had a fat, kindly face, and her woolly hair was partially gray. Uncorseted, her enormous bust stood forth in vast folds of wobbly fat, and her fat, perspiring face shone like a freshly polished stove. She appeared to be laboring under great mental excitement, for directly she caught sight of Bill and she turned to Grahm, who had followed in a vain attempt to quiet her, and demanded:
"Is this de man?"
The butler shook his head and pointed to the chief. "No, this is Mr. Stryker."
Not in the least awed, the Negress advanced aggressively toward the detective.
Stryker, an amused expression on his face, looked the newcomer over for a moment and then turned to Ethel.
"That's all. You can go."
Overjoyed to get away, the maid beat a hasty retreat, and the detective turned to the cook.
"I don't suppose you would know anything about anything, anyway, would you?"
Incensed that he should take her for an ignoramus, she fell easily into the trap. Wrathfully she replied:
"I-I-I don't know nuffin', eh? I don't know nuffin', eh? I-I know 'nuff to know she didn't done nuffin'! "
The detective quickly altered his tactics. It was time to attend to business. Going closer to the cook and looking her straight in the face, he said, sternly:
"Mr. Thomas had engaged me to find out the truth. If you know anything that will help to clear Miss Boyington, you had better tell it."
The cook shifted uneasily about on her feet and rolled up the whites of her eyes as she replied:
"I know Miss Janet hadn' nuffin' to do wit' that assassination, 'cause she was on d'uppeh flo' all de time."
"How do you know that?" demanded the detective quickly.
"Cause I done see her dere."
"Where were you?"
"I was crawlin' up dem kitchen stairs, an' dare was a light up dare, an' I look up an' I see her."
"What brought you upstairs?"
"Well, suh, I was wakened up by a pow'ful row in de middle o' dat yeah night. 'Peahed like somebody must 'ave fell down dem yeah staihs-I was scared corpsecold, an' I wait dere, an' listen an' scared still I listenan' I don' heah nuffin' mo'. Den I reckon I bettah 'ves-tigate dat commotion. An' I done it."
"Did you speak to Miss Boyington?"
"No, suh, I wan't speak', I was jes' lookin'. Looks like I couldn't get mah breaf in time to speak 'fore Miss Janet went back inteh her room an' shut de do'. Den I calc'late I mus've dreamed some o' dat yehe noise, so I goes back to bed, an' didn't heah nuffin' mo' till mohnin'. An' if you'll excuse me, Mistah Policeman, I'd like to go back to my bakin'. Yo' all 'peahs to fohget dat folks has got to eat."
Stryker laughed and turned on his heel.
"All right, you may go. If I want you again, I'll send for you."
She shook her head defiantly.
"Yo' don' see no mod o' dis here latly. Come roun' askin' me all dese fool questions. I hopes to de Lawd yo' all clear out o' dis yeah house, an' leave dis yeah fambly in peace."
After she had gone, Stryker hastily scribbled a few notes and then turned to see the butler. Quietly he said:
"I want to see Miss Boyington."
The old servant started, and a look of genuine distress came over his face.
"Go at once and tell her that I want to see her."
"Very well, sir," replied the man resignedly. "I will call Miss Boyington."
Without another word the butler left the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
CHAPTER 5
Ethel sat in her room and waited for Nat Innes to come and see her. He said he'd be there in fifteen minutes, and she was beginning to worry. What if the detective arrested him? But that was stupid, she told herself-Nat didn't have anything to do with the old grouch's murder.
As this thought eased her mind, there was the sound of steps in the hall and a moment later a scratching at her door. Nat opened the door and walked in, closing and latching it behind him. He turned around and took Ethel in his arms and kissed her. His mouth felt both familiar and strangely exciting to her, as if she were tasting once more a fount which she had not yet exhausted.. .
Ethel relaxed in his strong arms, nudging her body lightly against him, making sure that her tits pushed firmly into his chest. He kissed her soft lips soundly, feeling them become slowly agitated. They parted breathlessly, and he pushed his tongue gently between her teeth-touching her own and finding it as delicious as he'd remembered. Moving his hands down her body, he drew up her uniform-skirt, forcing it over her buttocks, and began to massage the ripe cheeks through the sexy-feeling material of her panties.
"Hey, now!" she mumbled, with her lips still on his. "We ain't got time for that:"
His answer was to press her buttocks even more tightly, straining her body more intensely against his own, his fingers curling so that they fitted into the twin curves beneath her ass.
Ethel's uniform-skirt rose at the front, too, and Nat could feel the pressure of her mons veneris thrusting urgently into his rising prick.
"We always got time for a little nooky," he muttered, as his cock rapidly reach full erection. Using one hand to free it from his trousers, Nat held her firmly with the other. He got out the huge shaft and planked between her thighs, hard against her slit. She writhed shamelessly against it, and he slid two of his fingers right into the divide between her ass. He rubbed greedily up and down the warm hollow until his fingers felt the giving hole of Ethel's anus.
Breathing heavily, Nat ended their kiss and started to walk the girl backward to her bed. They moved dreamlike for a half-dozen paces, until Ethel's legs bumped softly against the mattress.
"You love it, baby," he said, nibbling her earlobe. "And I gotta have a feel of that beautiful, hot pussy on my cock.. . "
He lowered her, his hands never leaving the hot cheeks of her bottom, until she was lying back on the bed-her feet still resting on the carpet.
She lay quite still for him, though she was unable to keep her legs from twitching with nervous tension as his cock came nearer and nearer to her waiting cunt.
"We ought to wait, honey," she said. "What if somebody wants something-the car maybe."
"They're all too busy with that detective to want anything," he said, hoarsely. "Now shut up and let me get into that juicy pussy of yours."
The mighty red length of his cock was swiftly guided into her slit, expertly pushing her panty-protection to the side. He jabbed his prick into the cunt, missed the vulva and stabbed the crown into the valley where the clitoris nestled.
Ethel winced as her clitoris was buffeted by the fierce cock; then relaxed again as he slid the throbbing shaft further down her slot and found the soaking cloister of her cunt. He released it when the crest was halfway in, allowing his penis to find its own way into the familiar passage. Easily, without meeting the least opposition, his cock penetrated her. His mind leaped into ecstasy as he felt the greasy tightness of her pussy all about his cock.
Nat began to fuck her; entering and withdrawing; pulling out, lunging tightly inwards again. As they fucked, he lifted her haunches from the bed-bearing down on her with his cock and lunging the stiff rod deeper and deeper into her wet, only too eager cunt
The sperm rose in his testicles-and with a smothered roar of maddened fury, he rammed her deep and hard. His chest squashed down on her breasts, his total weight bearing heavily down on her, as his cock spurted a great glob of semen into her sucking, tightly grasping cunt.
Ethel reached her orgasm only moments later, triggered by his driving, shooting prick. Her cunt seemed to tighten round the bulbous staff, and she used her vaginal muscles to grip the spouting flesh while shuddering through her own explosion.
"I'll have to change my uniform," she complained, but not discontentedly. "What were they doing upstairs when you left?"
"Same old shit," he answered, withdrawing his cock from the tunnel of love. "Last I heard that Stryker fellow sent Finley Grahm to fetch Janet Boyington.. . "
Flint Stryker turned to Bill Cooley with a grim smile on his otherwise impassive face.
"Nothing so far, Bill?"
"No, sir. It isn't going to be an easy nut to crack."
Stryker did not answer, but, dropping into a chair, sat staring silently at the carpet as if trying to read in the pattern the solution of the mystery. So far so good, but all he had learned amounted to practically nothing. Obviously none of the servants were implicated. Each had told a straight forward story, and there was no good reason for doubting any one's word. Besides, the police had thoroughly checked all alibis.. .
Jumping up, Stryker went over to the big desk to examine the contents of the drawers. Bill, on the other side of the room, picked up the debris scattered all over the floor and arranged everything systematically on the win-down-seat
Suddenly Stryker stooped down and picked up a discarded cigar band. Examining it closely, he said:
"I wonder what brand the old man smoked?"
Bill pointed to the cigar boxes on the desk. "I think those were his," he said.
Stryker opened one of the boxes. Taking out a cigar, he compared the bands. Shaking his head, he said:
"Not the same. May have been a cigar the old man had in his pocket. May also have been on the cigar of the man who killed him.. . "
Slipping the band into his coat pocket, Stryker went on with the work of ransacking the desk. For several minutes nothing was said, both men working hard, waiting for Janet Boyington to arrive. All at once Stryker uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Well, that's damned funny!"
"What?" said Bill, looking up.
"Here's a new hundred dollar bill in an envelope."
"In the desk?"
"Yes, and the drawer looks as if it has been pretty well searched, too."
Bill nodded. Then he pointed to the debris he had collected.
"I've got all this stuff laid out, Flint."
Stryker nodded approvingly.
"Better start with the fingerprints now, Bill. Get all the servants-both hands."
As he spoke the library door opened and the butler appeared.
Stryker hastily put the one hundred dollar bill in an envelope which he thrust in his pocket. Looking up, he asked, carelessly:
"What is it, Grahm?"
"Mr. Knapp's here, sir."
"Is Miss Boyington coming?"
"I've not had time to see, sir. I'm going to her now." Stryker made an impatient gesture. Sharply he said: "Don't delay any longer. Meantime, ask Mr. Knapp to come in."
The butler went out, and directly his back was turned, Stryker hurried over to where Bill was still at work.
"Bill, go and phone our office in San Francisco. Tell them to look up Mrs. James Boyington-maiden name Thelma Hillyer. Died in San Francisco about twenty years ago."
"Yes, sir," Bill said, writing the order down. Before he finished -the door opened and Mr. Knapp appeared.
The lawyer was a carefully dressed man, with a flower in the buttonhole of his coat, a conservative tie with an expensive pin, and Italian shoes. No one could mistake his profession. He had about him that self-confident, aggressive manner usually associated with attorneys. He did not wait for introductions, but advanced with his hand outstretched, with great cordiality.
"Good morning, Mr. Stryker, I'm Floyd Knapp, the Thomas's lawyer. I'm mighty glad that you've come in on the case. I don't doubt you'll clear the mystery up for us."
He spoke with deliberation and affection, as if always endeavoring to impress the world with his importance. "Well, I hope so, Mr. Knapp," replied Stryker, dryly. The lawyer shook his head.
"It means time and a good deal of work, though. There are so many ways the thing might have occurred."
"As, for instance-pardon me!"
Bill, his work finished, had started to leave the room quietly. He went out, leaving the two men together. Stryker apologized for the interruption.
"You were saying, Mr. Knapp-"
"I was saying there are so many ways the thing might have possibly occurred." Drawing a cigar case from his pocket, he held it out. "Smoke?"
"No, thank you."
The lawyer turned his back a moment to get a match from the table, and like a flash, Stryker stooped and picked up the cigar band which Knapp had discarded from his own cigar. Then, taking from his pocket the one he found on his entrance, he quickly compared the two. But the clue, if it was one, seemed valueless. There was not the slightest similarity. Evidently, the murdered man did not smoke the same cigar as Mr. Knapp.
Languidly, the lawyer dropped into an arm chair and, leisurely crossing his knees, puffed away. His elbow resting on the arm of the chair, and a hand supporting his bulging brow, the attorney proceeded to theorize on the subject of the murder.
"For instance, let us suppose that the murderer obtained entry by the connivance of one of the servants. Possibly one of them carelessly lost a key, or perhaps he gained an entrance in some way that the investigation hasn't yet disclosed. The intruder is discovered by Mr. Thomas, who threatens him with a revolver, and a fatal struggle ensues."
From his chair facing the attorney Stryker listened attentively. When Knapp stopped speaking, he asked, quietly:
"How does your theory account for the fact that throughout this struggle-a struggle in which several blows were struck, judging by the marks on the face and chest of the dead man-how does your theory account for the fact that Mr. Thomas made no outcry?"
"His cries may not have been heard?"
"Very true."
"Of course, the strong argument against the burglar theory is that nothing was stolen, although, as a matter-of-fact, that is a poor argument. The burglar might have been frightened away."
"You're convinced, then, that it was a burglar, and not some intimate who killed him?" said Stryker quickly.
For a moment the lawyer seemed nonplussed. He hesitated in an embarrassed kind of way, but laughed it off boisterously as he replied:
"Well-er-er-no, I was simply airing that idea. As to the suggestion that it might have been some one of his household, some member of his family, that is, of course, absurd. There is an entire lack of motive, or, rather, a large discrepancy between the nature of the crime and the character of the only person who might have a motive."
The detective rose and paced the floor.
"Miss Boyington, for instance?" he said, quietly.
"Oh, it couldn't be Miss Boyington!" replied the lawyer, also rising. "It's quite preposterous to imagine for a moment that a girl like Miss Boyington could be involved in such an affair. Besides, how was she to know that if he died at that particular moment she would be sole heir under the will?"
"Was the fact that he was about to make a new will secret?"
The lawyer did not answer for a moment, but looked closely at the detective's face, trying to penetrate his inscrutable mask. Dropping again into a seat, he said, in his exasperating, self-important way:
"Well, now, Mr. Stryker, I'll tell you about that. My client had an idea that is not uncommon among millionaires. He had an almost morbid apprehension of having his heirs waiting to inherit his estate. In the last few days of his life, when he contemplated reinstating his son in his favor, he was particularly insistent on secrecy."
"Did the son know that he had been disinherited?"
"I doubt it. When I mentioned to a reporter yesterday that Mr. Thomas had made a new will at the time of his death it never for a moment occurred to me that it might harm Miss Boyington. But when newspapers come to construe motives-"
Stryker interrupted him. Abruptly he asked:
"You drew up the new will?"
"Well, now, Mr. Stryker, I'll tell you about that. The old man was greatly incensed against his son because of the latter's marriage, and he sent for me to draw a new will."
"Did you draw up the old one?"
"No, that was before my time. That was drawn up by Frick & Tyler."
Before the questioning could go any further, the library door opened, and Fred entered quickly, a newspaper in his hand. His face was flushed with anger and his manner greatly excited. Nodding to the detective, he said:
"Good morning, Mr. Stryker."
"Good morning, Mr. Thomas."
"I'm awfully sorry I'm late."
Stryker smiled amicably.
"Oh, that's all right."
Not stopping to say more, the young man went straight up to his father's lawyer. Wrathfully he burst out:
"Look here, Floyd, why did you go and give out that stuff to the newspapers, about father's changing his will and starting them up with all this rot about Janet? Why, the papers this morning are full of the damnedest libels."
The attorney shrugged his shoulders. Loftily he replied:
"Why pay any attention to that sort of thing? You ought to be used to the methods of sensational journalism by this time."
"That's nothing to do with it. The information came from you, and a lawyer should keep such things from scandal-mongers, not furnish them with ammunition. It was bad enough when they insinuated that some of father's stock market victims came and killed him, or maybe some fellow wanted to marry Janet for her money and had to get him out of the way, but, Floyd, you've given them just what they wanted to build on!"
The lawyer bit his lip.
"I'm very sorry, but I didn't think we had anything to conceal. You can't hide much from the newspapers.
If we are going to get at the truth of this matter we need to be open and honest. Isn't that so, Mr. Stryker?"
Stryker smiled politely.
"Why, of course, Mr. Knapp."
The lawyer resumed his seat and went on with his cigar while the detective turned to the dead man's son.
"You understand, Mr. Thomas, that you are now the head of the family, and the responsibility for the success or failure of this investigation will rest largely with you. I'll have to ask for your cooperation in everything, and I'll expect that you'll consult with me before you make any more or express any opinion or do anything that has a bearing on this case."
Fred nodded.
"Certainly, I understand that, Mr. Stryker."
"Mr. Thomas, you were the last person known to be with your father the night of the murder."
"Yes, that's true-I was. I had dinner here with Janet and him."
"Was that unusual?"
"Well, you know, I suppose, that father and I didn't get along any too well together. I broke away about a year ago when he objected to my marrying. My foster-sister, Miss Boyington, has been trying ever since to bring us together. That night my father was more amiable, and we three had a splendid time. She was as happy as could be about it-because father and I were on good terms again. She went to her room early and left us here to have a talk."
"Did you father seem worried about anything?"
"He had a telephone call that disturbed him a good deal while I was here."
"What time was that?"
"Why, about nine o'clock."
"Did he receive it himself?"
"Yes; he was called on his private wire-right there."
"What did he say?"
"I don't remember, except that he kept saying 'No' very emphatically. I concluded that it was something connected with his business affairs. Afterward he seemed preoccupied and worried. I thought he wanted to be alone so he could think it over, so I left soon after."
Changing abruptly the line of questions, the detective asked, "Where did you sleep that night?"
"In my studio, where I live."
"How did you get there? A taxi?"
"No, I walked."
"Walked, eh? Were you caught in the rain."
"I didn't know it rained."
"Nobody saw you-think-nobody saw you leave here?" Fred hesitated for a moment. Stryker noticed it, and quickly repeated the question: "Nobody saw you leave here."
"No."
"You didn't see Grahm, the butler."
"No," Fred replied quickly, "I told you I saw no one."
Stryker smiled encouragingly. "Listen, Mr. Thomas, if you are not going to give me your confidence it would be better for me to drop the case right here."
"Well-I-"
"Now-who was it that you thought you saw?"
Fred looked harassed, worried. Wiping the perspiration from his forehead and clearing his throat, he stammered:
"Well, I saw.. .that is, I thought, as I was going out.. . I thought I saw somebody looking over the banister rail.. . "
"Was it Miss Boyington?"
"I-I'm not sure; it might have been one of the maids."
Going to the mantelpiece, Fred stood for a moment glaring at the newspaper which, in its frantic efforts to secure circulation, did not hesitate to try and fasten the crime on Janet. Crushing the paper up in his hands, he threw it on the floor. Stryker, who had watched him in silence, crossed to him.
"That's nothing-don't mind what they say. The truth will come out, you know. It always does in a case of this type. The thing that strikes me as most significant in all this is the telephone message."
Mr. Knapp looked up quickly.
"What do you see significant in that?" he demanded.
"It is very simple," said the detective. "The person who called him up must have known his private telephone number. That would indicate someone who was familiar with the house. And the fact that he was disturbed by the message but said nothing of it might argue that it was someone known to him who was in a position to annoy him-possibly some old servant with whom he had confidential relations." Turning to the lawyer, he asked:
"Had he any business enemies that you knew of Mr. Knapp?"
The lawyer shifted uneasily about in his chair. Puffing at his cigar furiously, he said:
"Well, I'll tell you about that you understand, of course, that I've only recently been associated with Mr. Thomas, and he didn't consult me about everything, but naturally a man of his many interests must have enemies."
Fred turned to Stryker and held out his hand. Cordially he said:
"I leave everything to you. You may not be able to find out who did this. We'll be satisfied if you only prove that Janet did not."
Stryker smiled, and there was a kindly expression about his mouth as he replied:
"The best way to prove who didn't kill your father is to prove who did kill him."
CHAPTER 6
As Flint Stryker was making his remarks, the door opened and Janet Boyington stood there. Stryker stared at her curiously, a longing gleam in his eye. In her simple, white negligee Janet looked extremely girlish and attractive.. .Certainly she did not look very dangerous.
"Miss Boyington," Stryker said, "I shall try not to inconvenience you more than is absolutely necessary."
She nodded without looking up or taking the trouble to see what kind of person the detective might be. Janet did not care who he was. All she knew was that she must undergo another ordeal of painful questioning.
"I am Flint Stryker," explained the detective. "I am here to try to clear up the murder."
"Yes-I know," she said without looking up.
Stryker addressed himself to the others: "I wish to speak with Miss Boyington alone, if you don't mind.. . "
When they were alone, Stryker pointed to a chair.
"Please be seated, Miss Boyington," he said politely.
Janet sat down, and Stryker went to the door to see that it was securely closed. Satisfied that no one could interrupt them, he returned and took a seat near her. After a pause, he said:
"Miss Boyington, I can understand that this affair has been a great shock to you. I needn't tell you I sympathize with you thoroughly, and I don't want to do or ask anything that will distress you. But a murder has been committed, and if I am going to clear up everything and remove the suspicions that have been aroused, I must have the cooperation of everybody In the house-and especially you."
Janet nodded, and she looked at him for the first time.
"Yes, yes," she faltered. "I want to do anything I can."
"Thank you. Where were you born."
"In San Francisco."
"Do you remember your mother at all?"
"No. I don't remember either my father or my mother very well. I was too young when they died."
"There is no one who would inherit this money from your, or have any other reason for wishing you to get it?"
"Oh-no-"
"Are you now engaged to be married?"
"No. Mr. Thomas wanted Fred to marry me; but we couldn't-we, we were like brother and sister.. . . "
"Then you have no reasons for suspecting any one?"
"Oh no-no!" And her voice broke. She struggled to control her emotion, but only partially succeeded. Stryker saw the rise and fall of her tits and wanted to reach out and fondle them. A voice deep inside whispered, "This one is good fucking," and he agreed wholeheartedly. I must get into that cunt, he thought, and was already imagining how it would feel to thrust his cock into her.
"Sorry," she said, somewhat calmer. "I haven't been like this before. I haven't talked about it to anyone-I couldn't. I've tried to keep from reading the papers-but I had to. I read them all, and they've been getting worse about me every day, until it seems as if the whole city-How is it possible that they can intimate such horrible things?" Looking up at him fearfully, she asked: "Shall I have to go through a trial?"
He smiled reassuringly. "Not if we can prevent it"
She smiled gratefully, and from that moment it seemed to her that a bond of sympathy and friendship had been established between them. This man, this stranger, spoke kindly and promised to protect her. Her fear of her interrogator vanished; she wondered if all detectives were so good-looking and had such an amiable smile. She drew her thighs close together, responding to a glow of warmth rising in her crotch. She caught herself wondering what it would be like to fuck him, and how big his prick was.. .
"Tell me," he said, "you went to your room early that night-about nine-thirty?"
"Yes." (I wonder how long his shaft is?)
"You heard Fred Thomas leave the house?"
"Yes." (What if I told him he turned me on? Would he do anything?)
"You saw him go?"
Janet reached for the question, hesitated, then said: "Yes, I saw him go."(Better pay attention.) "You were looking down from the upper hall?" Janet started violently and looked at him in blank astonishment.
"Yes," she stammered.
Stryker was silent for a few moments. Then, suddenly, he demanded:
"Why couldn't Fred have stayed there that night instead of going away in bad weather like that?"
"Why, it didn't begin to rain until long after midnight," she replied, involuntarily, not realizing the importance of her answer.
"Then you heard it rain?" he asked quickly.
"Oh-yes-yes," she stammered, with some confusion.
Stryker stood looking at her in silence. All at once she turned, and her eyes encountered his steady gaze.
"Miss Boyington," he said, "I can't help you unless you trust me. What woke you up?"
Janet did not answer for a moment. Finally, with reluctance, she faltered: "I heard a door close."
"Yes?"
"It seemed later than it really was, and I was a little alarmed. I got up and opened my door."
"You heard voices."
"Yes."
"Mr. Thomas's."
"Yes."
"Did you know who was with -him?. . .Answer me!" Again she was silent. Then, as he repeated the question, she cried:
"No-no-I don't know!"
Rising quickly, Janet went over to the window and stood gazing into the street, her face averted. He followed her. He looked steadily at her, trying to read in her face what was passing in her mind.
"You thought Fred and his father were quarreling-is that it?"
She turned round to face him, apprehension showing in her eyes.
"I may have thought so, but afterward-when I knew what had happened-I knew it couldn't have been Fred."
"Did you hear anyone go away."
"I heard the door bang. But I didn't go down.. . "
"You heard nothing more?"
She shook her head and answered sadly: "The rain kept me awake for a long time."
Stryker was about to ask another question when suddenly Bill entered the room with several papers in his hands. Closing the door carefully behind him, Bill advanced toward Stryker.
"I got them all," Bill said, handing over the prints. Then he looked at Janet and said, "All but.. . "
"Yes, I know," Stryker said quickly. "I'll take care of that in a moment." He turned again to Janet. "Miss Boyington, did you know that you were to be Mr. Thomas's sole heir under the will?"
Janet started as she heard the question, and a faint flush spread over her face. But she turned boldly to him and replied:
"Yes."
"Did you know that Mr. Thomas contemplated re-changing his will a few hours before his death?"
Again she met his steady gaze as she replied, firmly:
"Yes-I had been urging him to do it."
"Thank you," he said, smiling. "That will be all, I think." Then, as if changing the subject, he took up the fingerprint impressions and added, carelessly: "We have here the fingerprints of all the women who were in the house that night except yours, and we'd like yours."
"What do I do?" she asked, with a timid smile.
He explained the process as Bill prepared a card and the ink-pad. Janet made the prints as directed and when it was finished, Stryker showed the prints to her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, rather apprehensively. "It's so gruesome! Can I go now?"
"Yes. That's all for the present. Thank you."
He bowed politely as she left the room. Then he and Bill quickly compared the table fingerprints with Janet's.
"No, not hers," Stryker said, with obvious relief.
Bill stared. Here they were breaking their heads trying to match prints to the table impression, and Stryker actually seemed pleased when they didn't match.
None of the women they had in view had made the finger impressions lifted from the table.
Stryker said: "Bill, the woman who was in the room that night came from the outside. We've got to find her, wherever she is."
Bill threw up his hands in despair.
"Maybe the police can find her."
They exchanged looks as the sound of voices was heard outside. Footsteps were approaching. Stryker went quickly to the door. As he passed, he said to Bill:
"When I leave the room, come with me. I want to get Knapp out of the way."
Opening the door and thrusting his head into the hall, Stryker called out "You may all come in now."
Floyd Knapp tried to impress people with a manly bearing, and to some degree, as a lawyer, he succeeded. But when the world crowded in upon him, which frequently happened, his nature being what it was, he sought solace from the strength of Cleo Burgess-a woman who knew exactly what he needed and how to give it to him.
When Floyd learned that Flint Stryker had been hired to investigate the Thomas murder, he lost some of his manly confidence and hurried over to the East River, on 81st street, where Cleo Burgess lived in a two-story stone building she had purchased with her earnings as a prostitute.
But she was no longer a prostitute. Actually, Cleo despised men. She had always despised men, even when they were paying high prices for her sexual favors.
They still paid high prices for her favors, but they no longer stuck their cocks in her cunt And she liked her new profession much better.. .it gave her kick, and at last she could enjoy an orgasm and find relief from her tensions of hatred. Floyd Knapp was one of many customers that came to her, though perhaps she got a larger thrill administering to his needs-She was not surprised to see him, even though he was not expected that day and had come without making a previous appointment When he arrived, Cleo ushered him directly to the basement of the building, which she had converted in a play room.
But it was not an ordinary play room, this basement of Cleo's. In it were all the instruments of torture devised by the mind of perverted man. For this reason the walls had been soundproofed, and a double-thick carpet spread upon the floor, reaching from wall to wall.
Floyd was surprised to find another woman in the play room. He had not counted on anyone else being there. He eyed the woman apprehensively and with suspicion. Then he looked at Cleo and said:
"Oh, look here now.. .I didn't know anyone else would be here. You didn't tell me.. . "
Cleo glared at him. He seemed to cower beneath her sharp gaze, as if he expected a blow of some kind.
"I was not aware that I was obliged to inform you of anything," Cleo said, a rough edge to her voice. "This is Mildred Collins, a very dear friend of mine. I invited my friend to witness our little party today, so she could see the sort of low-down cur you are, Floyd. You are a low-down cur, aren't you, Floyd?"
"Yes-yes" Floyd answered, as if anxious to confirm her statement
Cleo turned to Mildred and smiled.
"Mildred darling, you make yourself comfortable in that chair in the corner. I will put this worm quickly through his paces and send him along his slimey way.. . "
Mildred crossed the room to the indicated chair and seated herself. Her lips curled slightly as she looked at Floyd Knapp, but there was a shine to her eyes.
Cleo ordered Floyd to strip himself naked. When he hesitated, she struck him a blow across the face with the back of her hand.
"Do as you're told, you lousy shit-ass!"
Floyd cowered and wet his lips with his tongue. But he began to quickly remove his garments.
"That's better!" Cleo snapped at him. Then she walked to a dresser and opened the top drawer. She withdrew one single, large size, silk nightgown. This she tossed to the floor in front of Floyd Knapp, who stared at it with fear in his eyes.
Cleo removed the robe she was wearing and let it drop to the floor. Naked now, she reached up and took a long, black instrument from its place on the wall; it resembled a riding quirt, though it was much longer. Then she crossed to a hard, leather covered bench and sat down. Placing the leather whip beside her, she proceeded to put on a pair of knee-high, black patent-leather boots. When the boots were on, she again took up the whip and crossed to where Floyd Knapp stood waiting, his naked body shivering. She stood in front of him, whip firmly in hand, gazing on his pudgy frame with fierce eyes.
Floyd Knapp stared at her tall, supple body through eyes that glistened with passion and joy. He looked at Cleo, devoured her voraciously, his hands twitching and grappling with his underwear. Then his eyes lowered to the crumpled gown that lay on the floor between them.
"Oh, my-my-"he stammered. "Is that-that-mine?"
Cleo placed one hand on her naked hip arrogantly and threw her shoulders back. This movement caused her tits to jut out and her hips to swing forward. Thus the silken-like clump of trimmed pubis stood prominently forth in the lawyer's field of vision.
"Don't be such a sniffling swine," she snarled at him. "I haven't all day to waste on garbage like you. Put it on and be damn quick about it!"
Floyd scrambled to the floor and swooped up the gown.
"Oh, dear, dear, you sound so firm, so-so commanding," he stuttered, picking up the gown and slipping it over his head.
Cleo watched scornfully as his hands nervously slipped the light fabric over his body and pull it tight. When he had finished, the hem hung barely below his knees. Cleo's features had become a feline, spitting mask of contempt. Her eyes radiated hatred for the creature before her, and more. The look had in it a hatred for all men.
"I'll show you how firm I am, you contemptible pig," she said, swacking the whip loudly against her leather boot. Floyd shivered and trembled in what seemed to be great fear.
"I know you are firm," he said, voice shaking. "You're so strong and firm I'll bet men come running and begging to lick the juices right out of your gorgeous.. . "
"Shut your filthy mouth, pig!" Cleo shouted in a rage. She raised the whip as if to strike him across the face.
Floyd cried out and dropped to his knees before her and began immediately to blubber:
"Yes, I'm a pig-a dirty swine. I'm a filthy little man, I know it. I'm dirt-a low-down degenerate, a filthy beast! I deserve to be punished, beaten.. .Beat me, beat me!"
"Lick my boots, pig!"
Floyd went down on his hands and knees and then, fawning and doglike, he lapped at the shiny, pointed toes of the boots.. .
"Higher, pig!" she commanded. "Lick my knees!"
Floyd journeyed upward, running his tongue along the sides of the boots, till he reached her knees. He lapped them hungrily, moving from one to the other.
Without warning, Cleo brought the whip down on his back. Thwant! Floyd's eyes closed and he shuddered.
"Oh dear, oh yes!" he moaned.
Thwank! Thwank! Thwank! sang the whip, as Cleo brought it down upon his back in rapid strokes.
Floyd moaned louder-eyes closed, face revealing an expression of utter ecstasy. One of his hands suddenly buried itself in the grotto of his crotch. "Oh, oh, oh!" he whimpered.
Cleo moved away from him and sat down on the hard bench. She leaned back, supporting herself on forearms and elbows; she spread her legs wide, the firm white flesh rising smoothly out of the boot tops and ending in the soft clump of silken hair that covered her cunt, the lips of which were now plainly visible.
"Crawl over here and lick my legs, pig!" Cleo hissed at Knapp.
With a series of grunts Floyd crawled toward her. His tongue dabbled and lapped at the delicate pale skin of her inner thighs, moving dramatically up until it found the dimpled recesses on either side of the cunt. Here he paused, waiting, and Cleo again raised the whip. She lashed down hard, several times in quick succession.
Thin red welts showed up, crosshatched, on Floyd's buttocks and back. He almost collapsed, but Cleo cursed him mercilessly.
"Swine! Filthy dog! You're lower than a bucket of cow shit. Eat my cunt, you mangy cur!"
She threw her shoulders back again, thrusting her tits up; the nipples were hard and erect. Down below Floyd buried his face between her thighs, and she was grinding her cunt onto his mouth.
Mildred, across the room, watching, hardly aware of what she was doing, had been masturbating for several minutes. She swooned into a sudden self-produced orgasm as she heard Cleo command Floyd to, "Make me come, you dirty bastard!"
As her spasms subsided, Mildred heard loud gasps and curses coming from across the room. She gazed hazily across the distance. Cleo was flat on her back, rolling her head from side to side; her mouth was open, her eyes closed, and she was undulating her hips and grinding her cunt furiously onto Floyd's mouth. Her body was contorting from head to feet, rocking and twitching in the throes of orgasmic joy. Floyd was lapping and burling in her cunt and jerking himself off at the same time. He suddenly slumped and Mildred knew he had emptied himself on the floor.
Cleo lay perfectly still except the rise and fall of her breathing. She opened her eyes and stared vacantly at the ceiling for a moment. Then, bringing her eyes into focus, she looked across at Mildred and smiled.
"The filthy swine isn't too bad, once he gets going," she said.
"Apparently," Mildred replied, face still flushed and warm from her own orgasm.
Floyd Knapp got to his feet and grinned, his lips all wet and shiny.
"Thanks, Cleo," he said. "I'll see you again, and soon."
"Phone first, pig," she said, dismissing him with a wave. "Now take your piggish ass out of here. Mildred and I have things to talk over. You know the way out."
Floyd scooped up his clothes and made for the door. He would dress in one of the rooms upstairs. As he was going up the stairs, he heard Cleo saying to her friend:
"I'm glad you came over today, Mildred. I've got a brand new dildo, and it's a dilly. I've been wanting to try it out.. . "
Floyd was tempted to stay and watch, and he would have done so were it not for Flint Stryker: he couldn't afford to not be on hand in case the detective turned up some evidence that might identify the murderer. After all, Matthew Thomas had been his wealthiest client.. . .
CHAPTER 7
Floyd Knapp determined to remain at the Thomas house, now that he had had his session with Cleo. He wasn't as nervous as he might have been, considering everything that was at stake. He might even be replaced as the family lawyer.
He heard Flint Stryker call out and tell them all to come into the murder room, and he turned to go in with the others.
Stryker and Bill Cooley were waiting for them. Fred entered, followed by Janet and Floyd. Stryker spoke to Floyd first. With apparent cordiality he said:
"Mr. Knapp, I'd like to have a little chat with you if you don't object. Do you mind going up to the billiard-room? I'll join you there immediately."
The lawyer bowed and went toward the door. "By all means, I'll go right up."
"Yes-go up. I'm coming."
The lawyer went out, and Stryker, making a movement as if he intended following him, partially closed the door behind him. But, unseen either by Fred or Janet, he suddenly retraced his steps and, concealing himself behind a screen, stood listening.
Utterly unconscious of the fact that they were overheard, Janet went quickly to the young man. Her arms outstretched, she cried in distress:
"Oh, Fred, I've wanted to speak to you ever since-"
The young man looked at her in surprise.
"Why, what is it, Janet?"
Her bosom heaving, almost breathless from fear and anxiety, the young girl faltered: "The detective made me tell-"
Fred stared at her in amazement
"Made you tell-made you tell what?"
For a moment she said nothing, but looked at him in silence, hardly daring to give expression to the dreadful thoughts that were on her mind. Suddenly she burst out
"Oh, Fred! Can't you prove that you didn't come back here that night! Can't you establish an alibi?"
He still stared at her, not understanding.
"Janet, I don't know what you mean."
Almost hysterical, she went on:
"I was awake-I heard your father go to the door. Oh! I never meant to tell anyone; but he made me-I don't know how! Can't you prove that it wasn't you?"
The blood rushed to the young man's face, then receded, leaving him deathly pale. Ah! Now he understood. Seizing hold of her arm almost roughly, his voice tense and broken, he exclaimed:
"Janet, what are you saying? That you heard father let me in?"
"Oh, Fred, I thought I heard your voice-I thought I heard you quarreling."
He looked at her in silence for a few moments. His lips worked spasmodically, as if he were trying to control himself, before speaking. Finally he said, bitterly:
"What have you been thinking? That I came back here and quarreled with my father and-and-How could you think such a thing?"
She extended her arms appealingly.
"Oh, I didn't think it was on purpose, Fred! Indeed I didn't!"
"What did you think?" he demanded.
"He was always so-so violent when he got angry at you-I thought he did something-made an attack on you, and you had to defend yourself. Of course, I knew it was an accident, Fred-don't look like that, Fred!"
His face grew whiter, his mouth quivered with the emotion he could not control. The sense of wrong done him was overwhelming, and aroused within him such intensity of indignation that he could not trust himself to speak. At last, with an effort, he demanded, hoarsely:
"Have you believed all this time that I killed my fattier?"
"I tell you, Fred, I thought it was an accident I didn't blame you."
"An accident! Why, if such a thing had happened, wouldn't I have called you-roused the house-got help? How could you think such a thing? Janet, do you think so now?"
She held out her arms to him.
"No-no-not you, Fred! You couldn't have done mat!"
Stryker had heard enough. Emerging from behind the screen and slamming the door as if he had re-entered the room, he came toward them. Fred motioned to him to approach. Bitterly he said:
"Just in time! At last we've got hold of something worth while giving to the papers. Janet heard me come back.. . That ought to satisfy the yellow press. That ought to clear her! I did not come back, but give it out just the same-I can stand it! Give it out!"
He made for the door. Janet tried to stop him, but before she could reach him, he rushed out of the room.
"Fred, Fred!" she cried after him, in great distress.
She looked toward Stryker.
"Help us, help us!" she cried, imploringly. "Don't you say he came back here! I was wrong-I'm sure I was. He says he didn't come-please don't tell anyone! What have I done? Oh, what have I done?"
The detective placed his hands firmly on the young girl's shoulders. Quietly but kindly he said:
"You've done just the right thing. All will be well. I begin to see daylight. I want you to pull yourself together. I'm going to need you. I'm counting on you. We need you. Will you help me?"
"Oh-I can't-I can't-"
"Yes, you can! You want to clear him, don't you? As much as he wants to clear you."
"Yes-oh yes-I-"
He patted her on the back reassuringly.
"Well, then, it's all right. You go to your room and pull yourself together, and I'll let you know when I need you."
He turned from her as if the matter were closed. She drew a half-sobbing breath, looked at him from under her drooping, swollen eyelids, then turned and went slowly in the direction for a moment, then he called after her: "Miss Boyington!"
She stopped and slowly turned round. He approached her, and for a few moments they looked into each other's eyes in silence. Finally, he broke the spell. Kindly, he said:
"Just a moment. I want to have your promise that you won't worry any more. I can't say yet who's responsible for all this, but I do know that neither you nor Fred had anything to do with it."
Her face flushed with pleasure. Quickly she exclaimed:
"You do! Oh-thank you!"
"Yes, I am convinced of it. I want you to believe that. Do you think you can trust me?"
She looked at him earnestly. Frankness and sincerity were reflected in every line of her pale, earnest-looking face.
"I know I can trust you," she said. And she suddenly kissed him and rushed from the room.
Stryker stood there, staring at the closed door, surprised, and lost in thought.
Of one thing he was certain: both Janet and Fred were innocent. And he was convinced that no one living in the house had committed the murder, that the assassin was not a burglar or any ordinary criminal. Yet it had to be some one with whom the victim had been well acquainted, some one he knew well enough to invite to his house at one o'clock in the morning.. .
All at once another idea flashed across Stryker's mind.
Was the brand new one-hundred-do liar bill a clue? He took the bill from his pocket and examined it closely. Was it genuine, or--? No, it couldn't be counterfeit! Still.. .
"Bill!" he said, turning quickly. "Give Flynn a call, and tell him I'd like to speak with him."
"What's up, boss?" Bill asked, sensing that he had missed something.
Stryker held up the hundred dollar bill. "I'm playing a hunch, that's all. I think there's something strange about this money."
Flynn sent one of his agents to see Flint Stryker. His name was Colt. He was a big, thick-set man with a breezy manner, and he had worked with Stryker before. The two men got along well together, primarily because they respected one another as professionals. Stryker looked up eagerly as Colt entered his office.
"Well, is it phony?"
The Secret Service officer drew the bill from his pocket and nodded.
"Yep, and it's a dandy! Difficult to tell from the real article. Whoever did this knew his business."
"Have any others turned up?" Stryker asked.
"No, but the country may soon be crawling with them," Colt answered laconically. "And you mean to tell me you found that bill in a millionaire's desk?"
"It seems impossible, I know, but that's where I found it," Stryker said.
Colt shook his head. "It seems incredible that man in Thomas's position should mix himself up with criminals who'd be set-up to blackmail him for the rest of his life."
"Couldn't any of your experts give a wild guess whose work this is," Stryker asked, waving the bill.
Colt shook his head thoughtfully.
"No. There isn't a counterfeiter on the books could do it. The man who got that up has been quietly experimenting for years."
Stryker picked up a list of names and glanced over it. Laying the list down, he said:
"I got a hunch it's one of that 'Frisco gang that was rounded up about fifteen years ago."
Colt stared at him in surprise. "What do you mean?"
Stryker picked up a telegram and said: "There's a 'Frisco woman connected with the Thomas case. She was supposed to be dead. I wired for information and found she'd been sent to prison with a gang of counterfeiters." Holding up the telegram, he read: "Thelma Hillyer sentenced to penitentiary about time of reported death. Implicated with Baxter gang counterfeiters. " Holding up a second telegram, he again read: "Thelma Hillyer left state, expiration of sentence. No further record here. "
Looking up, Stryker went on: "Now you remember, Colt, that the man who made the plate for that Baxter gang was Bruker-Karl Bruker. He did some pretty crafty work, and he hasn't been heard from since."
Colt started bolt upright in his chair.
"That's so!" he exclaimed. "Well, old fellow, I'll be seeing you. Gotta report this to the office.. . "
Colt passed Bill Cooley coming in the door.
"Hi, Bill. Been gettin' any lately?"
"Only your sister," Bill said, laughing and ducking. He crossed to Stryker and said: "Janet Boyington's here, boss."
"All right," Stryker answered, closing his desk drawer. "Now see that I'm not disturbed while she is in here, you understand?"
"Sure do," Bill said, grinning.
Hurrying to the door, Stryker opened it and called out:
"Come in, Miss Boyington. I'm delighted seeing you. How are you today.. . ? "
"Very well, thank you," she answered in a low voice. She smiled wearily. "The reporters were in front of the house again," she went on, "so I used the servants' entrance." Changing her tone abruptly, she added quickly: "Mr. Stryker, didn't you promise me that you wouldn't make what I told you about Fred coming back that night known to the public?"
He smiled. "No, I didn't promise you, but I didn't make it public."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I'm glad-because I trusted you! Then it must have been Fred."
She sank into the chair close to the desk and looked up at him with measuring eyes. He looked at her in silent admiration, feeling his cock swell in his trousers.
"You're a very desirable woman, Janet," he said.
"Then why don't you ask me out?" she said, and smiled her willingness. "I think you're desirable, too."
He stood up and took her hands and drew her up from the chair, hugging her close. He could feel his bulging cock pressing into the softness of her crotch, and he cupped her buttocks with his hands. She clung to him, like liquid wax, while their tongues fought a little duel, first in her mouth and then in his.
"Could we make it tonight?" he asked, his voice hoarse with passion. "I've wanted to make love to you since the first minute.. . "
One hand slid round her thigh and came to rest on her pubis. He felt her shiver a little as his fingers probed the softness of her outer slit She squirmed and sighed as he continued rubbing her cunt through her clothing.
"You will make me have an orgasm standing right here in your office," she told him, breathing hard.
She sank slowly to her knees and loosed the zipper on his fly. He stood and watched as she extracted his cock and skinned it back, rubbing the crown gently with the tips of her fingers. Then she kissed it, teased it with her lips, and, finally, covered it with the deep, warm wetness of her mouth. Stryker reached a climax almost immediately, shooting his fluid into her lovely mouth and down her lovely throat. She sucked him dry and then put his limp shaft back inside his trousers.
Looking at him with a new interest, she said:
"Oh, I shall never forget you!"
Again he leaned forward. In a low tone he murmured: "I wish-" But what he was about to say remained unfinished, for at that moment his phone rang. He picked up the receiver in an agitated state.
"Well?" he snapped.
"That woman from Frick & Tyler is here," Bill Cooley told him.
Stryker started. His manner underwent a quick change. Once more he was the detective, eager to seize and follow every possible clue in pursuit of his quarry. This new caller was too important to be allowed to get away. Hastily, he whispered:
"Just a minute, Bill. Take Miss Boyington into Helen's office and have her wait there while I see the woman." Turning to the young girl, he added: "Miss Boyington, this may be very important. Please don't go until I see you again."
She rose docilely and, following the assistant, passed out into the office at the back. Stryker watched her until she disappeared, and then with a sigh he closed the door and went back to his desk. He wondered vaguely why he was so reluctant to have her leave the office, if only for a few minutes. He felt singularly happy when talking to her and looking into her eyes. He was asking himself why he had never married, and if such a girl, had he met her sooner, might have tempted him. Then suddenly he pulled himself up with a jerk. When there was serious business to be done he never allowed his mind to dwell on sentiment. Quickly he plunged again into the midst of the work on hand, and when Bill reentered he found his employer busy preparing the state-setting for the little comedy he was about to enact with the lately from Frick & Tyler's.
"Where are the prepared blotters?" he whispered.
"Second drawer, I think."
Stryker opened the drawer and found some.
"Here we are!" he chuckled. Placing them on the desk, he added:
"All ready, Bill!"
The young man started to leave the room. Stryker halted him.
"See that we're not disturbed. Don't let anyone come in until I buzz. Then answer yourself."
Seating himself at the desk, Stryker assumed the appearance of being very preoccupied signing letters. A moment later Bill re-entered ushering in a visitor.
"This way, please."
A woman of about forty entered and, after one quick, searching glance at the detective, stood still, looking curiously about her. She was plainly, even shabbily dressed, but she had a grand air, and her dignified bearing and the sad, melancholy expression on her wan face suggested that she had known better days.
Seeing that the detective did not look up or pay any attention to her, she advanced timidly toward the desk. Bill pointed to a chair.
"Take a seat, madam. Mr. Stryker will be with you in just a moment"
"Thank you."
She sat down, and Bill went out, closing the door.
For a few moments there was deep silence, broken only by the ticking of the office clock and the scratching of the detective's pen as he went on with the signing of his letters. The visitor moved about uneasily on her chair. Presently, without looking up Stryker said:
"You've been referred to me by-" He paused a moment to again sign his name and added: "Frick & Tyler?"
The visitor turned slightly toward him. Quietly she said:
"Yes-I answered their advertisement."
Still pretending to be busy, the detective went on: "You have some information concerning the person advertised for."
"Yes."
He looked up for the first time since she entered, and for a moment he was startled: her likeness to Janet was extraordinary. Fixing her with a steady gaze, he said, quickly:
"Then you must know the name those initials, T. H., stand for. We took that means of avoiding publicity. You're not a newspaper woman?"
She shook her head as she answered quietly:
"No-I am Thelma Hillyer."
He bowed politely.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. Then, resuming work on his correspondence as if not greatly surprised or impressed, he went on: "I suppose you have some proof of your identity besides your mere knowledge of the name?"
She took out a card and, rising, went over to the desk and handed it to him.
"My present name is Martin-Mrs. Martin."
Stryker took the bit of pasteboard and read it Dubiously he asked:
"North Spring Street? Not a very desirable neighborhood. Is that your present address?"
She nodded.
"Yes, I rent furnished rooms. It is very quiet there and cheap."
Again he looked at her keenly. "Furnished rooms."
"Yes."
"Well, Mrs. Martin," he said, carelessly, "Mr. Thomas has left a considerable sum of money to Thelma
Hillyer for reasons that you doubtless know; so we have taken this rather unusual way of getting in touch with you. Did you expect to be a beneficiary under the will?"
She hesitated a moment before replying. Then quietly she said:
"The legacy has been left to me because of an obligation of Mr. Thomas's part to my dead husband, who assisted him at a time when he greatly needed money. There are personal reasons why I don't care to make myself known to the family, and I hope I can receive this money without any inconvenient curiosity, and publicity."
He nodded.
"That can be arranged. All we need is proof of identity. Have you received money from Mr. Thomas before."
"Yes-for a good many years."
"Did you sign receipts."
"No.. . "
"Did you ever write to Mr. Thomas?" Again she hesitated before answering: "Not recently."
"I ask because it may save a great deal of red tape if we could establish the identity by signature. Otherwise, I suppose you will have to obtain a copy of your birth certificate, make affidavits, and procure witnesses to satisfy the executors and the Probate Court"
The visitor shifted uneasily about on her chair.
"Wouldn't that involve a good deal of expense?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose it would-yes. Do you think your signature might be found among his papers?"
"Why, yes; my endorsement of checks-if he kept them."
In a manner quite cool and unconcerned, Stryker rose from his seat and politely invited her to come behind the desk and take his place. With assumed carelessness, he said:
"Well, then, if you'll leave your signature with me I'll turn it over to the lawyers."
"Thank you," she smiled.
Not suspecting the trap, the visitor removed her glove and going behind the desk, took the detective's seat, while Stryker stood by, apparently with great politeness, and placed a piece of paper for her to write on. He gave her a pen, previously prepared with ink overflowing. She took the pen without looking, and, finding it was wet and had inked her hand, dropped it with a little exclamation of dismay, holding up her blackened hand with consternation. Instantly Stryker bent over her shoulder, and carefully dried her hand on the specially prepared blotter, securing a good impression.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed. "Don't get it on your glove. Let me. Try this pen."
Handing her another pen, he passed behind her and threw the inked paper into the waste-paper basket, after which he resumed his first position near her. She wrote out her name. Again he bowed politely.
"Thank you. That'll be all."
Rising from the chair, the visitor turned to go.
"You have my address. I'll hear from you?"
Meantime Stryker had picked up the caller's visiting card and stood reading it.
"Yes," he replied. Then, as if an idea had suddenly struck him, he added: "Just a moment, Mrs. Martin." She stopped short and he went on: "I'm in a very peculiar position, and it has just occurred to me here you might help me."
"I?"
"I suppose you've followed the newspaper reports of Mr. Thomas's death and our investigation."
"Yes-closely."
It did not escape his well-trained eye that she gave an almost imperceptible start at the mention of the murder. Not letting her see that he noticed it, he continued.
"Then you have seen that suspicion has been directed against his adopted daughter?"
Moving farther toward the door, her head averted so he could not see her face, she replied:
"Yes-it seemed to me very cruel."
He nodded as he went on emphatically:
"Exactly. Miss Boyington must be protected from the daily annoyance of reporters and photographers. The poor girl's on the point of breaking down. You know, an innocent woman will do and say things to implicate herself if she's tried beyond the limit of her strength."
The visitor gave a little gasp and staggered to a seat
"Yes-yes-of course," she said, sympathetically. Watching her closely, Stryker continued: "She is so watched that it is impossible for us to get her away anywhere without its being known, and yet it is necessary for our purposes to make the real criminal confident that we are off the trail. To be frank with you, we suspect a former member of the household."
"Indeed?" she said, guardedly, but in a tone that suggested she was anxious to learn more.
Stryker was silent for a moment. Then he went on: "We want Miss Boyington to disappear, and to disappear so completely that not even a member of her own household will suspect that we have anything to do with it. Any flight by train or plane would be instantly found out. It must be secret and sensational. Her closest friends must be in a state of the greatest alarm. Do you follow me?"
"Yes-yes-but"
Without waiting to hear her objections, he went on:
"Well, then you must see yourself, Mrs. Martin, that you are in just the right position to help us. Your relations with the family are absolutely unknown. I am sure I could trust to your discretion. No one connected with her would ever connect her with you, and you can receive her without explanation to anyone as a total stranger into one of your furnished rooms."
She shook her head as, with averted face, she replied:
"Mr. Stryker, that's something I wouldn't like to undertake. You want secrecy, you say. The responsibility would be so-besides, as I told you, I am not known to any members of the family, and I don't wish to be.. . "
"That doesn't matter," he assured her, pressing on. "I will simply introduce you to Miss Boyington as someone connected with this office whom I have chosen for this purpose."
"But Mr. Stryker," she protested.
He interrupted her. "Even if you hadn't this sense of gratitude to Mr. Thomas, which I'm sure you must feel, I know I can rely on your sympathy as a woman for a poor girl in very desperate trouble."
A silence followed, during which Stryker and his visitor looked fixedly at each other, each trying to read the other's thoughts. Growing impatient at the delay, Stryker asked, coldly:
"Well, what is your decision?"
All at once, as if she had made up her mind that it would be unwise to refuse, she asked, suddenly:
"When do you want her to come?"
"Now," he replied firmly.
"Now-right away?" she echoed in dismay.
Stryker rose from his desk and pressed the intercom buzzer.
"She is here, waiting to see me."
"Here-she's here?" exclaimed Mrs. Martin, with emotion. Rising quickly, she asked: "I am to see her?"
He pretended not to notice her agitation, and his face was turned from her as he answered carelessly:
"Yes, I would like her to go home with you now. I'll see her first and explain everything."
Bill appeared in answer to the buzzer, having recognized the signal. Stryker pointed to his visitor.
"Bill, give Mrs. Martin a chair in the inner office, make her very comfortable, and see that she is not disturbed."
Mrs. Martin followed Bill out, and the door closed behind them. Stryker immediately opened a drawer in his desk and took out the photographic print of the finger-impressions on the Thomas table. Then, picking from the waste basket, where he had thrown it, the blotter marked with the impressions of Mrs. Martin, he hastily compared the two. He was thus engaged when Bill Cooley returned. Advancing to the desk, Bill inquired: "Did you get her prints?"
"Did I?" laughed Stryker, studying the prints with a magnifying glass. Suddenly he gave a joyful cry. "Good God! Look!"
BUI gave one look, and then uttered a stifled whoop of triumph. "Hey!"
Stryker, much amused, handed Bill Mrs. Martin's card. "Take this, and tell Nash to start his men on the house on North Spring right away. Get a room next door. Have them shadow the place and report to me.. . Tell them to go slow and keep under cover." He flicked the intercom, at the same time sending Bill on his way with a wave of his hand. "Get Miss Boyington in here," he said.
In the next two or three minutes Janet slowly advanced into the office. Stryker, seated at his desk, beckoned to Janet.
"I have news," he said. "Good news. I have found the woman who was in the room when Mr. Thomas was killed."
Janet started and turned pale.
"A woman!" she exclaimed.
Stryker nodded. "I have absolute proof of it here in her fingerprints."
She turned quickly, as if about to leave the office. "Does Fred know?"
"I haven't told anyone-except you, that is. I hardly think the woman committed murder. She may be innocent But she knows who did it, and we can find it out through her."
"How?"
"The people who are responsible for the murder are all, as we say, under cover-they're keeping away from each other. We must take them off guard. We must do something at once to confirm all the suspicions against you. We must make it seem that you have practically admitted your guilt"
"How?" she asked, eyes wide open.
"I want you to disappear-to move in with a Mrs. Martin. You'll have nothing to fear. You'll be protected every moment You'll have two-way communication in your room.. . "
"What-I mean-"
He saw that she hesitated, and he hastened to reassure her.
"I would never let you do this unless I were absolutely sure that you will be safe, and that I can clear you later."
"Don't think about that," she said. "I'll do anything you say."
As he pressed the buzzer again, he said:
"You understand that if you do the slightest thing to betray yourself, everything fads."
"I won't fad you," she replied firmly.
As she spoke, Helen entered. Stryker looked up.
"Bring in Mrs. Martin.. . "
Helen went out, and the detective turned to Janet
"I must ask you to show no feeling of repulsion for this woman."
"I won't," she gasped.
The door opened again, and Mrs. Martin came in. She stopped and stood stock still, her eyes fixed on Janet Stryker, at his desk, pretended to notice nothing. In a businesslike manner, he said:
"Mrs. Martin, this is Miss Boyington."
Mrs. Martin came forward and offered her hand. Janet accepted it
"I am going to let you live at my house for a while," Mrs. Martin said. "Will you come with me now, please?"
In the 2200 hundred block of North Spring Street stood the house, always locked. Its residents were seldom if ever seen out. Mrs. Martin glanced anxiously at the battered timepiece which ticked noiselessly on the mantle. Seven o'clock. It was time Karl returned. Could anything have happened? Was it possible that the police had discovered their hiding place and arrested him before he had finished the new ten-dollar counterfeit which was to make them rich enough to give up this dangerous game for good and go away to some distant country where they might both enjoy the few years still left to them?
Again she glanced at the clock. Half past seven! Now she was really alarmed. Something must have happened. Suddenly a noise made her sit up with a start. An electric buzzer, carefully concealed over the transom of the door, was emitting a loud crackling sound, giving warning of someone's approach. Who was it? Her heart in her mouth, she ran out on the landing and, looking over the shaky banisters, gave an exclamation of joy. It was Karl. A moment later the counterfeiter entered the room.
A man in his early fifties, tall, thin, and rather gaunt, Karl Bruker would have attracted immediate attention anywhere. A leonine head was crowned by a mass of iron-gray hair, not long, but picturesquely disheveled. His eyes were intense, and flashed like living coals under heavy dark brows. Distinguished in appearance, with a smooth, intellectual-looking face, few could have guessed that the great part of this man's life had been spent in prison, and that he was one of the most expert and slippery counterfeiters that ever gave trouble to the United States government.
He smiled wearily as he came in and saw who was there to greet him. His face was pale, his features drawn.
He stooped slightly, and had a harassing cough.
"I was so anxious, dear," she faltered. "I was afraid they'd gotten you."
Again he smiled. He kissed her in silence and stroked her hair tenderly.
"You are very tired," he murmured.
She looked beseechingly up into his face.
"Karl, I want you to give it all up. Let's go away!"
Drawing slightly away, he looked down at her with surprise. Almost reproachfully he said:
"Where is your courage, my dear? Where is your courage?"
She averted her face so he should not see her tears, and sank down in a chair near the table.
"I don't know, Karl, but I'm terribly afraid. I'm panic-stricken. There's been too much-too much-Matthew's death-"
He held up his hand warningly.
"Ssh!"
Tearfully she went on:
"And yesterday with that detective! Oh, I shouldn't have gone there!"
Hanging up his coat and changing it for a lighter one, Karl made an exclamation of impatience.
"That was Knapp's advice! Always greedy for money!"
She shook her head.
"No. I risked it myself-for the money-honest money. I wanted to be able to say to you: 'Here, now we have enough. Let us cut loose from this life-from all these people.' Karl, I want to be safe!"
He laughed carelessly as he unlocked a secret drawer in the table and lifted out a tin box which he. also leisurely unlocked.
"Foolish fear," he said. "We are safe enough here. Think of all the years that I've spent to make us safe." Raising the lid of the box and taking out a new ten-dollar bill, he held it up exultingly:
"Look at it-isn't it perfect! I could pass that even to the experts of the Treasury. It will be the first time in the history of the world, and it is I who shall do it! In a few weeks the whole country will be flooded with them -Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Detroit, New Orleans, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York-all on the same day! Then we can go out with the whole world for our playground."
She shook her head as she replied bitterly:
"Yes! Yes! But we shall always be hunted-hunted wherever we go. We can never get away from it. It's too big, Karl-it's too big. They'd never let a man who could make a bill like that escape. You know that if one of these men were caught he'd betray you to save himself. The government would pardon him-would pardon them all-to get you. Safe! Every prison in the world would be yawning for you."
He listened in silence while he put the counterfeit note away again and carefully relocked the box. When she mentioned the word "prison" the lines about his mouth tightened. Calmly yet determinedly he said:
"I shall never go to prison again! If I'm caught I'll kill myself."
She shook her head. Sadly she said:
"I'm growing too old to play the game any longer."
He smiled kindly at her, and his hand caressed her hair as he answered:
"That will never be. It is not we who grow old. It is the little fat life that gathers gray mold like a cheese. You and I, mein herr, we keep young with living-loving! Fear, trouble, disgrace, prison, separation, poverty, love, happiness, hope, wealth-that is to live."
She rose and, going over to the window, stood looking out into the street.
"How shall a man change himself? It's the adventure in me you love," he went on.
"No, no, it isn't that. I would go through anything with you or for you, but this means that I'm risking you! I know you would kill yourself without a thought that you would be leaving me."
He rose and approached her. Earnestly he said:
"I tell you I can never go to prison again. I came out after those ten years of torture, all the color gone out of my skin, all the life gone out of my legs! I came out after those ten years to get even with the world, and they shall never put their dirty hands on me again while I am alive!"
She make an exclamation of terror and staggered a step toward him, unable to speak, holding out her hand in silent protest. Already regretting the selfish brutality of his speech, he made a quick step forward and seized her in his arms. Soothingly he exclaimed:
"Mein Liebschen, what difference would it make? If they catch me now they would never let me free to be with you again. I would the then by inches."
She threw her arms around his neck.
"Oh, if you'd only listen to me, if you'd only come away.. . ! "
Karl locked his arms around her back and slowly fell forward on top of her, making her fall backwards on the bed. His legs pushed their way between Thelma's thighs, forcing them open.
His hands roughly sought the panties that covered her bottom, and pushed the narrow part aside, uncovering her cunt.
"Yes-me, I think," he said, grappling his cock free of its prison and shoving it quickly onto the lips of her slit
She knew it was useless to protest now. The crown of his thick cock was already sinking between her cunt-lips-driving thickly into her sex and making the hole stretch elastically open. Thelma could feel the massive arrowhead starting to pulse.. .its foreskin drawn sharply back as Karl fucked his prick urgently into her heating pussy.
Thelma clutched at his strong shoulders, her finger-nails pressing painfully into the muscular flesh. Karl grew even more passionate as her nails scored his skin and raked frenziedly down his back, cutting through his shirt. Violently he pushed the rest of prick into her cunt -cramming her, thrusting his fiery weapon into her rapidly moistening softness, until his pelvis rubbed against hers; their pubic hairs mingled together.
Karl slipped his hands up the sides of Thelma's body, glorying in the soft fleshiness of her skin. His elbows helped him to prop his chest away from her breasts, and he stared down into her twisting face and glazing eyes as he rammed her furiously, again and again.
He was screwing her viciously now; his prick coursing in and out of her juicy cunt with hard, manic strokes.
"Oh darting, my darling," she cried, the words muffled by her constant gasping for breath and he drove her up the roller coaster. "You have always been able to make me crazy with desire.. .Oh, darling, fuck me.. .fuck.. .me.. . Ooooooh.. . . "
"I'll fuck you," he said, ramming faster and harder into her fiery hole. "Let me know when you're coming, and I'll fill you full of cream.. . "
Thelma suddenly became a frothy animal, contorting, twisting, churning her ass and sobbing with bodily delight as she raced down the roller coaster at tremendous speed, her orgasm shaking her body to pieces. With one long, powerful lunge he ejaculated, spurting his hot globs of creamy fluid deep into her womb.. .
"You are still a young, beautiful fuck, Thelma," he panted, as he crumpled upon her in exhaustion.
As he spoke the electric buzzer gave out its warning again. Someone had entered the house and was coming up the stairs.. . Quickly Karl got to his feet, zipped his trousers, put the box inside the table and slipped a revolver in his pocket.. .
Thelma stood up, feeling bruised and wobbly, and hastily straightened her clothes.. .
Flint Stryker was satisfied with the way things were going. At last he had hit the right trail. Karl Bruker and his associates were as good as behind bars. So much for that part of the Thomas case.. .
There still remained the murder, the most important phase of the problem. The question as to who actually killed Matthew Thomas was still as deep a mystery as on the morning the body was discovered, but the scent was getting hotter every hour, and the detective was convinced that the capture of the counterfeiters would lead right to the murderer. He was confident that the dead banker was in some way mixed up with the gang, and that they knew more about his death than they cared to admit.
Nothing must be left to chance. Miss Boyington was already installed as a board at 2222 North Spring Street, and through her enough had already been gleaned to know that the house was the headquarters of a desperate gang of crooks.
Under pretense of calling on the young girl, and not sorry for the opportunity thus afforded of seeing her again, Stryker himself had been able to see and get the lay of the premises, and during these visits he contrived, with Bill's assistance, to make elaborate preparations preliminary to a raid. The greatest secrecy had to be observed. Constantly on the watch, guarded by their lookouts, Karl and his associates considered themselves immune. They suspected nothing and continued working with a sense of full security.
The preparations took time, but they were imperative. It would have been simple enough to surround the house and make arrests wholesale, but Stryker would not then have learned what he wanted to know. He had conceived the idea, and it was one that grew stronger each minute, that if he could only listen and overhear the members of the gang talking he would have something that would lead right to the man who killed Thomas. Feeling quite secure and secluded in their attic, so far from prying ears, the counterfeiters talked freely. This conversation they must listen to, and there was only one way to do it. They must install a microphone, and once the idea was conceived, he quickly carried it out. By its use his operator at the receiving end was able to tape record every audible sound made in the room where the transmitter was concealed. Conversation carried on in under-Keeping themselves well hidden, Stryker and his men had for days watched the coming and going of the gang. With the faces of several of them Stryker was already familiar. Karl Bruker, the leader of the gang, he had never seen before, but directly he caught sight of that square, determined jaw, those coarse features-which included a stern face and intense deep-set eyes-he realized that he had to deal with a desperate customer.
It was a tedious task, watching and listening, and the kind of work that got on the nerves. Bill urged an immediate raid, but Stryker's prudence and longer experience prompted him to wait. The moment had not yet come.
One day their watching was rewarded beyond all expectation. Stryker was at the tape recorder, listening to scraps of conversation, when suddenly someone laughed. Instantly he pricked up his ears. He knew only one man who could laugh like that-a boisterous, coarse laugh which reminded one of a horse neighing. There could be no mistake. It was Floyd Knapp, the murdered man's attorney!
Stryker strained every nerve to listen, in the hope that he would hear something that would confirm his suspicions, but the conversation was general and punctuated from time to time with Knapp's laugh.. . The only definite thing he could overhear was that they were all to meet again the following evening. That was enough. The moment for the raid had arrived.
"It's tomorrow night, Bill," he whispered to his assistant. "Get the men ready to move."
CHAPTER 9
For the next twenty-four hours the watchers, though tired, were still at their posts. During the day not a sound came from the Bruker house. Everything was as quiet as if the place had been abandoned. Either the inmates were all asleep or had gone out. Not an instant, however, did the watchers relax their vigilance.
Final preparations had been made to raid the place at nine o'clock that evening, when it was reasonably certain that most of the gang, including Floyd Knapp, would be present. Everything had been carefully planned, not a detail overlooked.
In addition to the three operatives taking down on the tape recorder, every word uttered and who at the critical moment would take a hand in the final rush, Stryker had twelve plain clothes men downstairs in the street and backyard and half a dozen more on the roof. In face, the place was completely surrounded by armed officers!
Everything was quiet as the grave in the Bruker attic. As usual at this time, the house had been deserted all day. Only in the evening, when darkness favored their movement being unobserved, did the members of the gang emerge, and come to see their leader. Mrs. Martin was out getting food and beer for the evening meal. Bruker himself had not yet arrived. But it would not be long before they came. It was already growing dark. There was no time to be lost.
The clock was already on the stroke of seven when there was the sound of a key being cautiously inserted in the door. The next instant BUI poked his head in. Seeing that the room was empty, he made a gesture behind him, and Stryker appeared, followed closely by Janet. Both men carried small flashlights which enabled them to see.
Stryker advanced boldly and flashed his light here and there. Turning to Janet, he whispered:
"You're sure they all went out?"
She nodded.
"Yes, I saw them go."
He pointed to the landing and whispered:
"Just watch the stairs for us. They may return any minute."
She went as directed and stood on guard at the door through which they had entered.
Opening one of the cupboards, Stryker threw his flashlight all round.
"I'd like to search this rat-hole thoroughly."
"Guess you've got time enough."
Suddenly Janet, at the door, made a slight exclamation of warning: "Hush!"
"What is it?" asked Stryker, in a tense whisper and ready for any emergency.
"It's all right," she whispered. "I thought I heard someone."
The detective turned again to his assistant.
"Bill, you're getting to be a great plumber."
The young man chuckled. As he concealed the wires out on the fire-escape, he said:
"Well, we're going to get great results, all right."
When the job was completed to his satisfaction, Bill looked up and said:
"All right, boss."
Stryker turned to the dead wall behind which, in the next house, his operatives were waiting. In a low, perfectly natural tone he said:
"Boys, if the wires are working, and you hear me speaking, wave a handkerchief from your window."
Opening the window at the back, Bill thrust his head out to look for the expected signal. After a moment's wait he drew in his head and cried, exultantly:
"All right, they get it!"
Still on guard at the door, Janet began to grow uneasy.
"Don't you think you ought to come now?" she whispered anxiously.
Stryker held his hand out to his assistant.
"Give me that other mike, Bill." Then, going toward the young girl, he said: "Miss Boyington, here is the microphone. Conceal it in your room, as I explained to you, and my men will connect with it."
She nodded.
"I understand."
At that instant a whistle was heard in the street below. Quickly Bill turned to his chief. "There's our signal." Stryker made a quick gesture.
"You go back to the other house by the roof and wait. Don't leave the recorder-you stick to it until you hear from me-and then obey it instantly."
Janet turned to the detective in surprise.
"Aren't you going with him?"
"No," he answered, quickly; "I'm going to stay here with you."
"Oh, don't! They'll kill you!" He smiled, grimly.
On top of the transom over the door the electric buzzer flashed and spit ominously. Not an instant was to be lost. Another moment and they would be discovered.
"What shall we do?" she asked, her large eyes opening wide with terror.
"We'll go right back to your room," he said, quickly.
"But they'll see us!"
"No-we've time to get there."
Hurriedly they left the room, closing the door noiselessly behind them.
Next door the waiting operatives listened, but all was quiet again in the Bruker flat. Bill sat down. In a tense whisper he said:
"Now, boys, you want to sit tight."
As he spoke there was a sound of a door shutting next door. Bill held up a warning hand.
"Hush! They're here!"
There followed a dead silence, broken only by the soft purring of the tape recorder.
Mrs. Martin entered carrying a number of paper bundles. Karl Bruker looked up and smiled.
"Hello, mama! Been out getting us something good to eat, eh?"
Mrs. Martin laughed. Checking her merriment, she laid down her bundles with a sigh, and, taking off her hat, proceeded to get ready for the evening meal. Beyond the brief greeting, the counterfeiter did not interrupt his work.
Mrs. Martin watched him for a few moments in silence. Then, approaching the table, she put her arm round her husband's neck and lovingly rubbed her cheek against his.
"Always working-always working, aren't you, dear?" Stopping for a moment, he tenderly patted her cheek with his left hand as he answered:
"We must work, dear."
She drew back and looked at him anxiously.
"Oh, Karl, do you think there is any danger of our being discovered?"
He shrugged his shoulders. Then he turned and patted her affectionately on the cheek.
"Don't worry, dear. They haven't got Karl Bruker yet. I'll give a good account of myself, I promise you."
Reassured, she smiled again. Lightly she said:
"Perhaps we exaggerate the danger. How should they find us out here?"
"You never know when you give them a clue. I don't think it was wise to bring that girl here. I know I gave my consent, but it was a mistake."
"I couldn't help it," she replied hurriedly. "It would have aroused Stryker's suspicion if I had refused."
Karl nodded.
"You are right, dear. There was no way out of it"
As he spoke the electric buzzer spluttered and crackled. Someone had opened the street door and was coming upstairs. Quickly Karl jumped up.
"That must be Skidd!" he exclaimed.
Going to the top of the stairs, he peered over a moment, while she watched him anxiously. After a few moments he returned into the room and said:
"No, it's Knapp."
Mrs. Martin made a gesture of disapproval. "He ought to know better than this. He oughtn't-to come here now."
"It's because Gage telephoned him about that girl."
"Oh yes."
Karl laughed. Cynically he said:
"He is always finding fault with the things we do, and it is he who makes the mistakes."
The door opened, and Floyd Knapp appeared. Mrs. Martin advanced to meet him. Severely she said:
"You are wrong to come here!"
He paid no attention to her. Arrogant and aggressive, he advanced into the room with an air of authority. Slamming his hat down on the table and throwing his coat on a chair, he demanded:
"What's all this I hear about your bringing a strange woman here?"
"That's all right," exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "You needn't worry about that. I know what I'm doing."
The lawyer took a seat near the table. Insolently he demanded:
"What are you doing?"
Karl, who had been going on with his work in silence, now looked up. Quietly he said:
"Don't be so rough. She can explain to you."
The counterfeiter rose, put the bogus money in the money box, and locked it. Still seated and aggressive, Knapp asked:
"Who is it?"
"Miss Boyington."
The attorney bounded on his chair. This was even worse than he had imagined. "What? Here?" Mrs. Martin nodded.
"Stryker asked me to take charge of her."
Their visitor stared at her as if he thought she had taken leave of her senses. Throwing up his arms in indignant astonishment, he cried:
"My God! Are you crazy?"
She shook her head as she replied, quietly: "It would have been crazy to refuse." For a moment the attorney was too much overcome to speak. Finally he spluttered: "This is a plant."
"Listen," she began.
But he refused to listen. He saw only the danger to them all by this girl's presence in the house. No doubt everything that had occurred had already been reported to Stryker. Throwing up his hands in discouragement, he cried:
"The one person in the world that you should have kept farthest away from!"
Karl looked up. With some impatience he exclaimed:
"Don't talk so much, Knapp! Listen! Listen!"
Mrs. Martin drew up a chair. Bending forward, she said, earnestly:
"When I went in yesterday-about the legacy-he was planning to have the girl disappear. He wanted to protect her from reporters. And besides, he suspected someone in the Thomas house, and he wanted to throw suspicion on her and put them off their guard. It was my telling him I had furnished rooms that put the idea in his head. He thought, of course, that I must be under obligations to Mr. Thomas. I couldn't refuse to take her without arousing his suspicions. How could I? What excuse could I give? I couldn't tell him why we didn't want her here."
Karl had risen, and in deep thought paced slowly up and down the room. Turning round, he said:
"It would have been better to let that legacy go!"
Suddenly Mr. Knapp bent forward. Something in her recital had tickled his sense of humor.
"Hold on! Wait! Wait a minute! What was that? Do you mean to tell me that he's using us to throw the real criminals off their guard?"
"Yes. Because he wanted her to disappear. Don't you understand? He put the whole plan right in my hands. He was puzzling about it when I came in. She was there, and he was trying to make some arrangement."
"Well, by God!"
Springing to his feet, the lawyer burst into one of his fits of boisterous, convulsive laughter.
Karl glanced at Mrs. Martin and looked anxiously at the door and window. Such laughter as that might be heard in the street and attract attention. Approaching the lawyer, he said, warningly:
"Hush, man, hush!"
But Mr. Knapp, once started, was not easy to control. To him the notion of using them to throw the real criminals off their guard was inexpressibly droll, and could only have originated in the brain of an ass like Stryker. Hilariously he burst out again:
"Oh, it's all advertising! He's a pinhead!"
Again the counterfeiter held up his hand warningly.
"Hush! Not so loud!"
More calmly, the attorney went on:
"Have you seen the papers? They're full of her flight. Everybody is sure of her guilt now."
Mrs. Martin looked up anxiously.
"How terrible! Who is it that Stryker suspects?"
The lawyer smiled. With self-satisfaction he said:
"How could you guess? A man with a mind like that! I suppose he thinks it's Fred-because he hasn't taken him into his confidence. The boy's distracted; he's got the whole city searching for her."
Mrs. Martin turned to Karl. Anxiously she said:.
"Karl, if they never find out the truth, they'll never clear her. And if they do find out-"
Mr. Knapp interrupted her with a gesture. Scornfully he explained:
"Oh, they'll never find out! Stryker will cook up some story to vindicate the girl and cover his failure."
Rising from his seat, he went toward the door. Turning, he asked:
"Has he been here?"
"Yes."
Stopping and coming back to the table, he exclaimed: "You should have told me. Suppose I'd met him here."
"I never dreamed you'd come and how could I explain all this over a telephone."
"What did he say?"
"That his plan were working out satisfactorily-and he thought he'd get the murderer-through an old servant he'd found."
Again the lawyer burst into a noisy fit of laughter. "Really! Why, I put that notion into his head."
Anxious to get rid of their unwelcome visitor, Mrs. Martin looked pointedly at the clock.
"Do you think it wise for you to come here?" she asked.
Mr. Knapp picked up his hat. Hastily he answered: "No. Most assuredly not, and I'm going right away."
As Karl went to unlock the door, the lawyer added, with mock politeness:
"Mrs. Martin, I have to thank you for a most enjoyable visit. I'm afraid I sha'nt have the pleasure again for some time. Doctor, if I were you, I would interrupt the practice of my profession while the girl is in the house. If Stryker should call and get on the wrong floor he might have a shock."
Karl looked grave. Quietly he said:
"I think, Mr. Knapp, that if I were you I should leave town."
"Leave town? And miss these consultations with Stryker? Oh, no. I've too much sense of humor for that!"
Again he laughed hilariously. Karl held up a warning hand and he stopped abruptly. Turning quickly on his heel, he stammered a hasty goodnight, and disappeared.
CHAPTER 10
"He should have kept away from that fucking detective," Karl said to Thelma Martin, as he locked the door behind Floyd Knapp. "It's a bad, bad thing when apprehension make a man bold. He should not sniff around traps."
He sank into a chair and sat staring moodily into space, while his companion set and watched him in silence. Thelma was heavy of heart and troubled in mind.
At last, as if giving expression to thoughts that had been worrying her, she exclaimed:
"Karl, what have I done to Janet? I've tried to keep our lives as far apart as I could, but it seems as if the devil had drawn us together to ruin her."
Karl shook his head.
"It is not so. It's the luck of the game-just a little bad luck. I will pass.. . "
Again the buzzer sounded its crackling note of warning. Once more Thelma Martin sprang to her feet, Karl following more leisurely. Going to the door, he said:
"That must be Skidd. He's been gone a long time. Something must have detained him."
Karl opened the door and an angry voice was speaking on the staircase.
"You're full of shit!"
"The hell you say! You can't call me no liar. Listen, goddammit! I know what I'm talking about."
"Oh, shut up!" retorted the voice of Simon Gage.
Karl looked back into the room where Mrs. Martin was waiting apprehensively. With a reassuring nod he said:
"Yes, it is Skidd. Gage is with him."
"I tell you I saw him on the corner," said the first voice again.
"I tell you to shut up!" retorted Gage. Karl smiled.
"I'm afraid Skidd has been drinking," he said.
He came back into the room, followed by a burly, pugnacious-looking individual whose watery eyes and ruddy nose suggested a more than passing acquaintance with the whiskey-bottle. As the newcomer entered he turned to Gage, who followed close at his heels, and spluttered:
"I tell you I know what I'm talking about."
The pickpocket entered excitedly and ran at once to the window. Breathlessly he exclaimed:
"Shut that door! This house is watched!"
Mrs. Martin, in alarm, rushed instinctively to Karl.
The counterfeiter turned a shade paler as he put his arm protectingly about her. Shaking his head disdainfully, he said:
"Nonsense! I don't believe it."
Skidd staggered to his feet and looked at his companions as if asking them to offer some explanation. But no one spoke, and he went on:
"What I want to know is, are they after us, or are they after the new skirt you've got in here? Who is she? What's she wanted for? What are we running here, anyway-a white-slave annex?"
Mrs. Martin shook her head.
"She's all right, Skidd. She's not wanted for anything. I know all about her."
Gage pointed to the door. Warningly he said:
"Well, Bill, you'd better hit the hay. You've got a ticket for a long dream."
Skidd grinned.
"Come on down, Simmie, and tuck me in." As Karl unlocked the door the pickpocket shook his head.
"I've got too much tuckin' in to do right here, Bill. You go along now-get sobered up. We may need you."
The fellow started toward the door. When he reached it he turned round, and in a maudlin manner he stammered: "Good night, Mrs. Mardn. I apologize-I simply 'pologize."
Throwing the door open, he staggered back a step or two and then lurched forward and out.
Karl with an exclamation of disgust, closed the door and went back to the table.
"All this trouble for nothing," he grumbled.
Gage shook his head distrustfully. Going toward the door he said:
"Well, I fly this coop in the morning-early mornin'. " Mrs. Martin turned to Karl. Anxiously she asked: "Is everything safe?" He nodded. "Yes."
Gage grinned.
"Nobody could find that stuff but the rats."
As he spoke there was a loud knocking at the door. Outside Skidd's voice was heard saying:
"Mrs. Mardn! Mrs. Mardn! Open the door!"
Gage ran quickly to open the door and then came back into the room. As the door opened Skidd rushed in, his face scarlet, his eyes protruding with fear and rage.
"Hey-what's all the excitement, Skidd?"
Skidd looked at each of them, his lips trembling.
"You better do something," he said excitedly. "There's a man-there's a man down there!"
Skidd was speaking the truth. The man he saw was Flint Stryker, and he was in Janet's room. He had come in earlier and they had screwed, but Janet failed to achieve an orgasm.
Flint lay quietly beside her, feeling quite pleasant, with one hand resting peacefully on her cunt. He had fucked her with all the fury of impatient desire, shooting off almost immediately. He had looked forward to fucking her for so long that he could not hold back under the stress of reality. She was much better than his imagination had allowed for, and that's what did him in. Taking his cock with a slight sigh of pleasure, Janet inserted it in her slit and began churning her ass with such passionate precision that he was spurting out his load within a few minutes.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, "but I just couldn't hold back. Just let me get my breath," he said, rotating his fingers on her clitoris, "and I'll see what I can do."
"Let me help you recover," Janet said, turning her body so that her face was over his cock.
She took his tool between her lips and teased it with her tongue. Instantly a feeling of desire surged through him, generating life into his relaxed shaft.
"Yeah, honey-that'll do it all right," he sighed, sinking a digit into her juicy cunt.
As his cock enlarged beneath her constant teasing, he buried his fingers in the hairy moisture, then plunged them deep into her channel of joy. She gave her lips a slight twist and moaned, to tell him what he was doing was enjoyable, and then, as the moan died away, she took his erect prick all the way into her warm mouth. He was soon throbbing with readiness.. .
Janet got up and straddled him.
"Now I'll get my earthquake," she said, inserting his prick into the folds of her vagina and lowering herself upon its length. She sighed low and long as the shaft penetrated to its furthest point. Then she fell forward, crushing her tits upon his chest. Flint gripped a fleshy mound of buttock in either hand and sought her asshole with his index finger.
She held still for a moment, waiting to see what he was going to do. She felt the finger insert itself in her ass and slowly push its way up her anus. It felt good, very good indeed, working, as it did, in opposite direction to his cock. Tingly waves of hot flashes swept over her and centered in one big ball of heat inside her cunt. They were both on their way to a rampant climax, and she knew nothing could stop it this time. She churned and pumped, riding him furiously until the ball of fire in her cunt exploded and consumed her whole body. At the same time he thrust upward and shot his steaming cream into her, so that their juices mingled.
They had finished and were barely in decent shape when a man stealthily opened the door and came into the room. It was Skidd, and when he saw a man as well as a woman in the room he ran out yelling.
Stryker decided to bluff his way through the impossible situation. He followed Skidd up the stairs and into the room where Karl, Thelma and Gage were waiting. As he entered the room, followed by Janet, Stryker heard Skidd say:
"There's a man-there's a man down there!"
Stryker came boldly in, making a great fuss of virtuous indignation and concealing only with difficulty the satisfaction he felt at the excellent opportunity which
Skidd's drunken familiarity had afforded to meet the crooks at close range.
Janet, realizing that the long-dreaded crisis was now at hand, but determined to help to the extent of her power the man she now loved, stood in the background pale and almost trembling.
Advancing threateningly on the retreating and now thoroughly sobered Skidd, Stryker thundered:
"What the hell do you mean by trying to force yourself into this young lady's room?"
Turning to Mrs. Martin, he added: "Mrs. Martin, is this the sort of protection she's to have in your house?"
Thelma Martin did not answer him. Instead, she turned to Skidd and pointed to the door.
"Mr. Skidd, you go to your room," she said, her tone sharp. Then to Stryker, she added, apologetically: "He's been drinking."
"Drinking my ass!" Skidd roared. "I ain't drunk, not by a long shot"
Prodded by Gage, the baffled and befuddled Skidd finally went protestingly to the door, still unable to understand what the stranger was doing there or why his associates seemed to be disposed to take his part.
Stryker stepped forward and, addressing Bruker who stood by, a silent spectator of the scene, said more amiably:
"Of course, if he's been drinking, he probably made a mistake in the room. I'm sorry if we disturbed you; but won't you see that Miss Boyington is not further annoyed?"
The counterfeiter eyed the detective narrowly, but there was no sign of fear on his face. A little diplomacy might save the situation. Skidd was a damned fool. Cordially he replied:
"I will see that the young lady is not molested in the future."
"Thank you."
"Pardon me," said Karl politely, as he passed in front of the detective to go to the door.
"Certainly," replied Stryker, in the same tone, not to be outdone in courtesy.
Karl went out, closing the door behind him. When he had disappeared, Stryker made a quick step forward to where Mrs. Martin was standing.
For a moment she looked at him and then with an effort she said:
"Mr. Stryker, I think it would be much better if you would take Miss Boyington away. You can see for yourself that I can't protect her in a house of this sort I can't have the responsibility."
Stryker shrugged his shoulders. With studied carelessness he replied:
"I can't take her away now. This house is being watched."
The woman started violently.
"What do you mean?" she exclaimed.
The detective hastened to explain:
"It has evidently leaked out that she is here. They may be reporters. They may be police detectives. I can't take her away without showing my hand, and she can't go alone. Isn't there a back way so you could escape with her to a hotel?"
Mrs. Martin shook her head.
"It's impossible," she murmured.
Janet now stepped forward.
"Let me go alone," she said.
"No-no!"
Cautiously Stryker went to the door and opened it with a quick jerk, as if expecting to surprise an eavesdropper. Finding no one, he closed it again and came to where the woman stood. Addressing Mrs. Martin, he said, firmly:
"You've got to go!"
She shook her head. Firmly she said:
"I shall not leave this house."
He looked at her in silence for a moment. Evidently, nothing he could say or do would influence this woman. She had a stronger character than he gave her credit for. There was no use beating about the bush any longer. Dropping the mask, he said frankly:
"Mrs. Martin, the men who are watching this house are operatives of the government's Secret Service."
"My God!" she cried, instinctively starting for the door.
Quickly stepping forward, he intercepted her.
"Wait! I cannot permit you to speak to anyone in this house or do anything to defeat the law in this matter."
Stepping back and trying to control herself, she asked: "Who is it."
"I'll not tell you."
"What does it all mean?" He made no reply, but pointed to the door. "I advise you to go with Miss Boyington now. Will you."
"No."
She sat down on a chair, an expression of determined resolution on her face. "Very well, then."
Involuntarily, Janet made an exclamation of distress. "What is it?" asked Stryker, going up to her. "Nothing! Nothing!"
The detective returned to where Mrs. Martin was sitting. Standing before her with folded arms, he said, deliberately:
"Mrs. Martin, my men are watching this house. The 'Personal' you answered was a plant." His listener started up in terror and then sank back with a groan as he went on: "There was no such legacy. I discovered that you and your husband are engaged with others in a gigantic counterfeiting scheme. I cannot promise you immunity from prosecution, but if you will do what is right by assisting the law, that fact will be taken into consideration by the prosecuting officers. I may be able to assist you there; but in turn you must do something for me."
"What?" she asked, almost inarticulately.
"Who killed Matthew Thomas?"
Rising to her feet, she staggered to the door.
"Why do you ask me? I don't know! I don't know!"
"You're the one person who does know!"
"I don't know anything about it."
"You do, and you can save yourself by telling."
She halted, her face deathly pale, and supported herself on the back of a chair. Tremulously she said:
"I don't care for myself! I don't care but for one thing in the world! What are you going to do with Karl Bruker?"
Stryker shook his head.
"I can't do anything for Karl Bruker."
She gave a shriek like an infuriated tigress.
"You must! You shall!" she screamed, at the top of her voice.
The commotion was heard outside, for Bruker reentered the room hurriedly. His quick, keen glance flashed inquiringly over the group.
"What's this? What's the matter?" he demanded, sternly.
Mrs. Martin rushed over to him. Regardless of the consequences, her first instinct was to give the alarm to the man she loved. Breathlessly she cried:
"This man has trapped us!"
The counterfeiter's lips tightened, and, drawing a few steps back, he closed the door and locked it. Calmly, he replied:
"Quietly, my dear, quietly. He, too, is in the trap! Now what is it?"
Stryker stepped forward.
"Bruker, the game's up. You are under arrest! Your wife is implicated with you and others in this counterfeiting. I have offered her a chance to save herself if she will tell me who killed Matthew Thomas."
The counterfeiter shook his head.
"She knows nothing about it."
"She knows everything about it," retorted the detective, decidedly.
Mrs. Martin laid her hand on her husband's arm. Despairingly she cried:
"Karl, can't you do something?"
The counterfeiter fell back, and, drawing a revolver, he said grimly:
"I'll kill him!"
Before he could pull the trigger, Mrs. Martin sprang at the hand holding the weapon. "No, no, don't!" she cried.
While Karl hesitated, Stryker turned quickly in the direction of the hidden microphone. Loudly he exclaimed:
"I'm trapped, boys! Come and get me!"
Janet, in an agony of suspense retreated to the end of the room, covering her face with her hands. The excitement was too much for her nerves. As she saw Stryker threatened with instant death, she fainted, falling heavily on the sofa. Seeing her fall, Stryker turned to Mrs. Martin and pointed to the prostate girl.
"Your daughter-she's fainted!"
The woman stared at him in astonishment.
"What-" she stammered. "You know-you know-she's my daughter?"
Kneeling at the couch, Stryker took Janet's hands in his and patted them; then, taking a brandy-flask from his pocket, he put a few drops on her mouth. Contemptuously he cried:
"Do you think I'd have sent her here if I hadn't known you were her mother? I wouldn't have her hurt or even frightened for all the damned counterfeiters in the world! Good God, haven't you any feeling for her at all? I might have known I couldn't trust her to a woman who left her when she was a baby for a crook like Bruker!"
Mrs. Martin staggered forward and gave a little exclamation of triumph. Turning to Karl, she cried: "Karl, we've got him!" The counterfeiter stared, not understanding. "What do you mean?"
She pointed to the detective, still on his knees at the side of the prostrate girl. "He's in love with her!" Stryker rose to his feet.
"And if I am--? "
Advancing toward him, she said, defiantly: "Whatever you do to me, you do to her! She's my daughter, and I'll claim her."
He shrugged his shoulders as he exclaimed: "You're a rotten pair!" She returned to the attack.
"I've kept out of her life until now, but from now on she'll get what I get!"
Incensed beyond his customary self-control, Stryker shook his fist in the woman's face. Furiously, he cried: "You can't drag her down so low that I won't drag her up again. She's accused of this murder, and the only way I can clear her is by showing you up."
Infuriated, Karl once more drew his revolver and covered the detective.
"Damn you!" he exclaimed, his finger on the trigger. Stryker did not flinch. Advancing boldly he said, defiantly:
"Go on-shoot, and your wife goes to the chair for it!" Overawed, realizing that it was no use adding the crime of murder to the other charges against him, Karl lowered his pistol, and Stryker went on: "This house is surrounded! My men hear every word we say! I've only to whisper an order to have it obeyed. The moment you threatened to kill me they started to raid the house." As he spoke the electric buzzer sounded violently. Stryker said: "There they are!"
Outside there was the sound of crashing glass and wood, followed by loud voices. The raiding party had effected an entrance and were already on the way upstairs. Quickly, Karl rushed to the door and looked out. What he saw convinced him that the game was up. Returning quickly into the room, he put his revolver to his head. Mrs. Martin with a terrible cry rushed forward to stop him, but too late.
He pulled the trigger. There was a loud report, the sound of a body falling heavily; and when the smoke cleared away the leader of the counterfeiters was seen lying on the floor, blood trickling from a small wound in the side of his head. With a despairing cry, her arms outstretched, Mrs. Martin threw herself over the dead body.
"Karl! Oh, Karl!"
Stryker, at the couch, held Janet in his arms, reviving her with brandy. The voices outside came nearer. All at once, the detectives headed by Bill, burst in. While the others halted to stoop over the dead counterfeiter, the assistant rushed over to the place where his chief stood.
"Did we get here in time, sir?"
Stryker smiled grimly as he pointed to Bruker.
"He has saved the government the expense of a trial. Now all we've got to do is to find the man who killed Thomas. Call a cab, and we'll take Miss Boyington home."
CHAPTER ll
Dressed in somber black, her drawn, pinched features partly concealed by a veil which only served to intensify her extreme pallor, her eyes swollen from weeping, Thelma Martin advanced slowly into the room, a grim figure of stalking tragedy.
Flint Stryker watched her with pitying eyes. She made no sign of recognition, but, going up to his desk, stood there motionless, waiting for him to speak. To her this man, who had robbed her of everything she loved, represented the enemy. There was a feeling for murder in her heart as she stood near him. If she only had a weapon in her hand! Quickly she would use it, reckless of the consequences.. .
They stared steadily at each other, one with hatred, the other with pity. Finally, unable to control herself any longer, Thelma Martin burst out:
"God, but I wish I'd let him kill you!"
Stryker shrugged his shoulders. Carelessly glancing over the papers on his desk, he replied, calmly:
"What good would that have done? If I hadn't caught him, someone else would. You were both playing a game that you couldn't win. You knew it. You said so. You told him yourself that every prison in the world was waiting for him."
"He's dead! He's dead!" she cried, sinking into a chair near the desk.
He watched her in silence, allowing her time to calm herself and organize her thoughts. He could not forget that this was the mother of the woman he loved, and he wanted to help her if he could.
"You killed him," she accused him, her voice cold and lifeless.
"He killed himself when he went into this. The government would never have let him out. He'd have been buried alive."
Almost beside herself, hardly conscious of what she was doing, she made wide, extravagant gestures with her arms. Distractedly, she cried:
"Oh, let me alone-let me alone!"
"I would if I could," he replied. "I've had to make you a good deal of trouble; now I'd like to give you a little help if I can. You haven't anyone to advise you, have you?"
She looked up at him, her face plainly showing her distrust Cautiously she said: "You fooled me once"
"I'd fool you again, if I had to-and could. But as far as I'm concerned this case closed with the arrests. I want to help you."
She shook her head despondently.
"I don't want any help."
"I want to do what I can," he went on. "It's not necessary for you to go to prison. You have something to offer the government in exchange for clemency. If your husband left any plates, or any formula, or any record of his method, it will save you, if you can turn them up."
"I won't tell you a thing!" she said, determinedly. He looked at her fixedly. If that was her attitude, he must try different tactics. Changing his manner, he said firmly:
"I'm not asking you-I'm telling you. If you refuse to give up those plates, the government will put you where you can't use them."
"I don't care. I don't care what you do!" she cried, defiantly.
"If there aren't any plates, haven't you any records of his process that you could give up to save yourself?"
"I don't know anything about his process, and I wish to God he'd never known anything about it!"
"If that's true, there's no need of your going to prison as a counterfeiter. You're practically innocent. You can go on the stand as State's witness, and by your testimony that these other men know nothing of your husband's process you can save them from long terms."
She nodded wearily.
"Yes, yes, I can do that"
Having turned the conversation round to the point where he wanted it, he said quickly:
"You can do exactly the same thing in the Thomas case."
Sensing a trap, she rose to her feet and clutched wildly at the table with her two hands. Excitedly she cried:
"Why do you say that? Why do you pretend I know anything about that?"
The detective also rose. Bending forward and fixing her with his steady gaze, he said, slowly and emphatically: "Because, after Mr. Thomas fell, dragging off the tablecloth, you were leaning forward-holding on to the table with both hands, as you are doing now."
Realizing the full significance of his words, she drew back in terror.
"What!" she exclaimed.
Quickly he drew the hand-prints from the drawer.
"These are the finger-marks you left on the table that night These are identical with the ones you left here on my blotter. This is jury proof of complicity-"
Overcome at this revelation, she fell back gasping. Hoarsely she exclaimed:
"I had nothing to do with it-nothing!"
He shrugged his shoulders as he retorted:
"To prove that you will have to confess who did."
Bounding forward like some infuriated animal trapped into an admission, she cried, wildly:
"You can do what you like! I don't care! I don't care! It doesn't matter!"
"It matters to an innocent girl," he replied quietly. "Your daughter's life is ruined unless we can clear her now from this charge of murder."
Leaning forward over his desk, she cried in a hysterical manner:
"Her life's ruined if you drag me into this case! You can't-you can't do it without uncovering everything-everything! You won't do it! If you love her you can't do it!"
For a moment he hesitated, but only for a moment. Raising his head, he replied, emphatically: "I must do it!"
Almost hysterical, Mrs. Martin sobbed:
"I don't want her to know me; I don't want to know her. I'm dead as far as she is concerned."
"If you go on the stand as State's witness, your past can be absolutely protected. Your daughter need never know."
"You don't need me to clear her! You know she didn't do it You know it was someone else. Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Find him yourself!"
"Who? Knapp?" asked the detective, quietly.
He watched her narrowly to judge the effect of the name, but she remained impassive. Shaking her head, she said:
"I didn't do it I didn't say who did do it. I haven't said, or told, you a thing."
At that moment Bill entered from the outer office. Stryker looked up quickly:
Ts she here?' 'Yes."
"Bring her in."
The assistant went out, and Mrs. Martin turned to the detective. Supplicatingly she cried:
"Who is it? Janet? Oh, let me out of here! I don't want to see her! I won't stay here!"
Before he could reply the door opened and Janet appeared. She had heard Mrs. Martin's appeal, and the grieved accents of the woman's voice had gone right to the young girl's heart. Sympathetically she said:
"Please don't go yet. I wanted to see you again. I'm so sorry."
Mrs. Martin turned away. Shaking her head, she said, bitterly:
"No, no! I don't want any sympathy. I-" Stryker spoke up.
"Miss Boyington, I'm trying to persuade Mrs. Martin to tell me who killed Mr. Thomas to clear you."
"He knows-he knows!" cried Mrs. Martin wildly.
"Yes, I know. But I can't prove it. I can't clear her, and you can."
The young girl took the older woman's hand.
"Why won't you? To help us?"
Shrinking from the contact, Mrs. Martin cried, hysterically: "No, no! He trapped me into betraying them all-through you! I've lost everything through you-all I had! I hadn't anything but him. They've killed him-they've killed me! I don't care what happens now. I won't do anything for any of you-I won't-I won't...I won't!"
Looking back and making a last gesture of defiance, she turned and left the office.
Janet sighed as he laid down the receiver. "Oh, poor woman! I wish I could do something for her!"
Stryker smiled.
"Don't worry. She'll be all right."
"You won't send her to prison?"
"No, no; I'm only trying to get a statement from her to clear the case up. We must have it to prove her innocence and yours."
"I wish I could help her."
The telephone rang. Stryker picked up the receiver. After listening he said: "Oh, tell him to come right in." Turning to Janet, he smiled and said: "It's Fred."
The office door was pushed open, and Fred Thomas entered hurriedly. The news of the morning's papers had at last given him a clue to Janet's whereabouts. Her sudden disappearance and the air of mystery surrounding it had worried him to distraction and given rise to all kinds of rumors. But his own confidence had never failed. He and Eva were sure that it was for the best, whatever she had done. Coming forward, arms extended, he cried:
"Oh, Janet!"
She fell into his arms, tears threatening to fall, and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled, and said: "I'll take you home now."
Stryker opened the door for them himself. Janet paused and smiled at him.
"Will you phone me later?" she asked.
Would he phone her later! And much, much more he would do! There were delectable orgasms yet to be enjoyed, and each time he looked at her Stryker was ready to fuck again.
"Yes," he said. "I'll phone you later in the day." He watched them go, and then returned to his desk with a silent sigh. What a woman! Every day he liked her better. His thoughts were more full of her than of his work when suddenly Helen Wade entered the office.
She leaned over and whispered, "I suppose I'll have to take on Billy now."
Stryker grinned, appreciative of her attitude.
"Don't throw me away just yet," he said. "I can't let Bill take you on all by himself the first time, you know. That wouldn't be fair to him. As soon as we wind up this case, the three of us will have a jamming party."
"That may be sooner than you think," she said, smiling. "Knapp is here."
Stryker came upright with a start. The critical moment had arrived. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and said:
"Have you got that confession rigged up?"
Helen held out a legal paper. "Right here."
Stryker glanced it over and smiled. "Looks damn convincing," he said. "This is where we pull a woman out of the water in which she's determined to drown.. . send him in, Helen, and the minute I touch this button send in Mrs. Martin."
"I understand," she said.
Helen Wade walked to the door and opened it. She looked down at Floyd Knapp, who was sitting there-waiting.
"Come in, Mr. Knapp."
Floyd Knapp received a call from Flint Stryker earlier in the day. Helen Wade spoke to him.
"Mr. Stryker wondered if you could find time to come over and see him today, Mr. Knapp," she had said. "He said to tell you it was a matter of some urgency."
"Why-well-let me see," he stalled, requiring time to think. What could Stryker possibly want to discuss with him? Surely he was in the clear-no one could put him with the counterfeiters. Or could they? Thelma Martin! She could involve him. No. Thelma hated the police, and she hated Flint Stryker most of all; she blamed him for Karl's death. No. Thelma wouldn't talk. She was an old pro, and old pros never talked.
"Why, yes," he said, "I'll change my schedule around and come over sometime today."
But after he had hung up the nervousness swept over him again. He gulped a shot of whiskey and sat down, his hands perspiring and shaking. He was afraid, and he didn't know of what. He needed courage and had none.
Then he thought of Cleo Burgess. Yes, Cleo! He'd go have a session with Cleo and get rid of his nervousness.. .
Cleo Burgess led him to the basement playroom. She charged him an extra fifty dollars, because he had said it was vital that he see her and she had cancelled another important client to accommodate him.
He stripped down while she removed her clothes and put on her black leather boots.
"I'll put you in the stocks this time," she said, as he stood trembling before her. She looked at him with disgust; her lip curled. "You are in a bad way, aren't you, pig?"
She directed him to the center of the room, to an instrument that was an exact copy of an early American device used to punish mild infractions of the law. The stocks. A large plank-like construction with one large hole for the neck and smaller holes for the arms.
Cleo lifted the top plank, and Floyd Knapp placed his neck and wrists in the holes. She lowered the plank into position and locked it Knapp was now her prisoner, and she could do anything she desired to him. He was helpless.
Floyd Knapp stood, his legs straight, but his torso bent forward at the waist, so his body formed a living L toppled and askew.
Cleo went across the room and returned with a thick, wide, leather belt She stood behind Knapp's exposed buttocks, caressing the skin with her palm.
"Just a minute, you dirty swine," she said, with a fiendish laugh. "I have something special for you."
She crossed the room again and returned with a dildo, which she expertly strapped on herself. She greased the long, flesh-like hard rubber prick with vaseline, and smiled at its length and circumference.
"Now I've got you where you belong, pig!"
Cleo stepped back and brought the belt down on the mounds of flesh. Whack! Knapp shuddered and moaned as the belt fell again and again on his buttocks, raising welts and bruising the flesh.
Knapp's prick leaped into an erection, and he cried out to her:
"More, more-I'm no good! Punish me for the pig
I am!"
Cleo tossed the belt aside, and, placing her hands on his hips, she guided the greased dildo between the quivering buttocks and snugged it against the tight orifice.
"No, no, no," he cried. "Please, not that!"
"Shut your filthy pig mouth!" she commanded. "You're my prisoner, and I'll treat you the way you deserve to be treated."
Cleo braced her feet and gripped his hips. Then she lunged, driving the dildo into his anus with one strong thrust. Knapp screamed in agony. But the more he cried out, the more Cleo enjoyed his suffering. She pumped the dildo in and out of his ass, feeling her own juices start their flow.
The screaming stopped, but not before Cleo had reached a furious climax.
Now she wanted to stop, to withdraw and remove the dildo and return to the belt, but Knapp wouldn't let her.
"I deserve it," he cried. "Don't stop. It hurts so good!"
He gasped and began to rotate his buttocks, twitching and trembling; low, animal-like groans escaped his throat Suddenly his prick spouted its fluid, shooting it against the planks of the stocks, and his body grew limp and almost lifeless.
Cleo released him. He dressed with renewed confidence, his fear all gone.
"Thank you, thank you," he said, shoving a handful of bills into her hand. "I needed that, Cleo-you'll never know how much I needed that."
And he had gone to Stryker's office full of confidence and swagger. He was the king of the world, capable of handling any situation.
He smiled at Helen Wade and entered the office hurriedly, his furtive, uneasy glance quickly returning; and with it he scanned Stryker's face, as if trying to read his mind.
"Good afternoon," he smiled, with cheerfulness that was obviously unfelt Stryker lit a cigarette. "Good afternoon, Mr. Knapp."
CHAPTER 12
In spite of the fact that the recent turn which events had taken were calculated to cause him considerable anxiety, the attorney's manner was outwardly calm and as full of self-assurance as ever; but it did not escape the detective's close scrutiny that his mouth twitched nervously. Appearing to notice nothing, he said, lightly:
"How are you?"
Reluctantly the attorney advanced toward the desk.
"Well, I'm very busy this morning, Mr. Stryker, but I want to oblige you. What did you want?"
Pretending to be busy with his papers, Stryker did not answer the question at once. The longer he could keep his caller in suspense, the more nervous he would get, the better he could keep him under observation. All at once, when he judged the moment right, the detective looked up and said, quickly:
"I think we've got the man who killed Thomas."
Involuntarily the lawyer fell back a few steps.
"Well-well-" he stammered.
Coolly, Stryker extended to him a box of cigars.
"Have a cigar?" he said, amiably.
With trembling fingers the lawyer took one.
"Thanks!" he mumbled.
Stryker waved him to a seat.
"Sit down," he said.
But his visitor was too much perturbed to heed the invitation. Nervously he said: "Who is it? Who is it?"
Again the detective waved him to a seat. Imitating the lawyer's mannerism of speech, he said:
"I'll tell you about that in a moment. Please sit down."
Knapp took the chair, paler now, and uneasy. There was a slight pause, and then Stryker, in the most matter-of-fact way, said:
"Mr. Knapp, when did it first occur to you that Matthew Thomas's mind was affected?"
Floyd Knapp started violently.
"What-what do you mean?"
Stryker opened a drawer and took out a recording device; he held it up for inspection.
"Mr. Knapp, did you ever see a tape recorder?"
Floyd Knapp's eyes opened wide, and he made a light coughing sound in his throat.
"A tape recorder," Stryker said, holding it up. "Don't be afraid; it won't bite you. I t doesn't do anything but listen-and it's got the longest ears.. . " he paused before going on. "As you saw the morning papers before you packed your bag, you know we arrested a gang of counterfeiters last night-" he waved the tape recorder around for emphasis "-after we had been listening to them for some time. Interesting conversations, too, Knapp. Let me play you what you said about me."
Knapp muttered a curse and sprang to his feet.
"Do you think you can bluff me with a framed-up thing like that?" he exclaimed angrily.
"Let me finish!" Stryker snapped. "I have advised Mrs. Martin to do what she could for herself by making, a complete statement, and in her confession here-" he held up the paper Helen Wade had rigged, "-she not only implicates you with the counterfeiters, but she also charges you with the murder of Matthew Thomas!"
His face livid, Knapp turned to leave the room. Stryker stopped him with a bark-like order to remain. Holding out the document, Stryker asked: "Do you know the signature?"
Knapp glanced at it hastily and shook his head.
"It's a fake! A fake to protect herself."
Stryker touched the button on the intercom.
"Then you mean to say that Mrs. Martin is responsible for the death of Thomas?"
As he spoke the door opened and Thelma Martin entered. Stryker turned to her: "Mrs. Martin, Mr. Knapp has just stated that it was you who killed Matthew Thomas."
The woman's pale face flushed with indignation. Advancing on the lawyer, brandishing her fists, she exclaimed, hotly:
"What! You! You! You!" Turning to Stryker, she almost screamed: "It's a lie! He killed him!"
Deathly white, his features haggard, his eyes starting with dl-concealed terror, the lawyer faltered:
"I've been trying to protect her. That's the way I've got involved in this. She killed him! I'll sign a statement."
Turning away with a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders, Mrs. Martin made no further attempt to protect herself. Sure that the detective was convinced of her innocence and knew who the assassin was, she dropped into a chair and sat motionless, her head bowed.
Stryker, his arms folded, stood gazing sternly at the man, who was trying desperately to save himself by fixing guilt on a woman. Contemptuously, he exclaimed:
"Knapp, you can go to hell your own way. If you haven't sense enough to see that it's better to make a clean breasts of it and stand for a charge of manslaughter, you can go to the chair as a counterfeiter-a crook that tried to blackmail an old man and murdered him when he rounded on you. You gave stuff to the papers to throw suspicion on the girl and the boy. You came nosing around here trying to tip off my ,hand, and the minute you saw yourself caught you turned on a woman and tried to sell her out. You're under arrest and the
Bounding forward, his pallid face distorted with terror, his hands clutching convulsively the top of the desk, the lawyer cried:
"Just a minute, Mr. Stryker!"
Quick as a flash the detective produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them on his wrists. "You're just a minute too late!"
Realizing that the end had come, and that nothing further was to be gained by lying, the lawyer cried: "Before God, Stryker, I tell you it was an accident! He'd gone into this counterfeiting. Then suddenly he shifted and threatened to show me up; I took her there to try and use her influence to fix it. As soon as he saw her he pulled a gun and tried to shoot her. I knocked it out of his hands. He sprang on me and tried to strangle me. I didn't want to hurt him; I just beat him off, trying to defend myself, and the first thing we knew he was dead on our hands."
The detective shrugged his shoulders. Coldly he said:
"I don't want to hear your troubles. Tell them to the district attorney."
He pressed the buzzer and two detectives entered. He nodded toward Knapp, and said: "He's all yours. Take him down and book him."
The two detectives led Knapp from the office, closing the door behind them.
Stryker rose and approached Mrs. Martin. Kindly he said: charge is murder in the first degree!"
"Mrs. Martin, would you like to go and take care of Karl Bruker?"
The woman lifted her pale, tear-stained face and gazed at the detective in open-eyed astonishment
"Oh yes, yes-if I only could!" she cried, clasping her hands.
He waved his hand in the direction of the door. "You may-go."
"You're not joking with me, are you?" she cried.
Stryker nodded. "Not at all. However, there is one condition. You must be here in my office tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."
"I'll be here," she said, simply. , "You'll be detained only as a witness, Mrs. Martin," he explained. "I know you think I've treated you harshly, and I have-but it was the only way to save you."
Mrs. Martin wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned to go. She hesitated, looking down at him.
"If I could feel anything at all I'd thank you," she said. "But I'm dead here-dead-dead."
Helplessly she beat her bosom, as if trying to express all she felt. Then she turned and went out, walking with slow, dragging steps.. .
The victory party was held at the office, and the celebrants were Bill Cooley, Helen Wade, and Flint Stryker. It was a sex party for the purpose of introducing Bill Cooley to the hot, swinging pussy of Helen Wade.
The rules were simple and easy to follow. Each guest swallowed three shots of bourbon in rapid succession. Then they raced toward nakedness. The first man to get undressed had his choice of fucking Helen Wade or having her suck his cock. Stryker held back and deliberately allowed Bill to beat him.
"You go first, Bill," Stryker said. "There is Helen, and the choice is yours. After your first orgasm we all join the action. Now what will it be?"
Bill was already under the influence of the bourbon, and he gazed upon Helen's long, shapely legs through watered eyes. His gaze locked on her tits, with their cherry-red nipples, and his mouth fairly dribbled. She stood with legs slightly apart, revealing her snatch, the lips of which were pinkishly visible through the mass of hair that covered her pubis. Bill's cock was hard and burning, and he felt as if he could come just by looking.
Helen walked over to him, swaying her hips and cupping her tits. She took hold of his cock and sighed:
"Not bad, big. Not bad! Shall I decide for you?"
"Yeah," BUI said. "You do what you wanna do. I can't make up my mind what I wanna do first."
"I think I should give you a blow job, Bill," she said, gently stroking his cock back and forth. "Then when you fuck, you won't come so quick."
Without waiting for him to agree, Helen sank to her knees and began kissing his lubricated crest. She slipped it into her mouth and out again, delicately licking over it with her supple, educated tongue.
Bill's knees quivered, and his balls itched. He instinctively pushed his fingers into her hair and massaged her scalp, tempted to pull her closer and thrust his throbbing cock all the way in. But he restrained this desire and let her handle it
Helen cupped his balls in one hand and fondled them, all the while working over his cock-taking it in and out of her mouth, gradually increasing the speed as she sucked.
Bill tensed his muscles; he wanted to hold back the swelling climax. But Helen would not let him. She sucked feverishly, demanding that he let go. With a sudden moan Bill released the thundering fluid and felt it spurt into Helen's devouring mouth. She gobbled his prick when she felt the first spurt, taking the full length of it into her throat. Bill sagged at the knees and bent over her, gasping for breath.
"Keep it hard, Billy Boy," Stryker laughed. "Now we're going to do some tall fucking."
Helen lay on her stomach and invited Bill to fuck her from the rear. She pushed her cunt up to him and made it easy for his cock to slide between her juicy lips. Then Stryker sat down near her head and eased himself under her face. She took his cock in her mouth and began sucking him off.
Stryker deliberately climaxed so he could get into her ass, and his semen nearly choked her, coming so profusely, as it did.
"O.K., Bill, we change positions now. You lie on your back and Helen will ride you for a while. That way I can get my rod in her sweet asshole."
Helen straddled Bill and came down on his cock, forcing it to the hilt, and he squirmed and moaned with joy. Then she leaned over, bring her chest down to his, thus making her asshole available to Flint Stryker.
Flint got on his knees and moved in over Bill's legs, grinding his cock into contact with Helen's buttocks. He parted the mounds of silken flesh with his hands and directed his prick into her anus, forcing it bit by bit, until he had most of it in. Then he brought himself forward, driving all the way in. His balls bounced against the underside of Bill's cock as he pumped in and out.
Helen was creaming now, and they could hear her moaning and muttering sexy words. It so excited Bill that he thrust upwards with great force and speed, feeling his prick rubbing its way against Stryker's as the older man pumped into her rectum.
"Ready?" Stryker asked, his voice hoarse. "Let's make it together.. . "
"I'm ready," Helen squealed. "Come on, fellows-let's blow!"
Bill was in such a state of ecstasy that he couldn't speak; he just grunted and moaned and kept fucking until the orgasm gripped him.
"There I go!" he yelled in high excitement.
Helen screamed and shuddered from head to toe, recklessly contorting her torso under the influence of an extra strong climax. This, in turn, caused Stryker to ejaculate. He lunged into her with great force and emptied himself. Helen screamed again, with sheer joy-she could feel both pricks throbbing and spurting their juices into her.
Flint Stryker withdrew his shaft from Helen's ass and sprang to his feet.
"Well, you two are well enough acquainted for me to leave you alone," he said. "See you in the office tomorrow morning. I got a date with a lovely piece of kootch."
He took a shower, dressed and left Helen and Bill ere still fucking when he went out the door.
Let them-let everybody, he thought In another hour, if all goes well, I'll be screwing the woman I love.. . "
Thelma Martin was in the office waiting when the clock struck ten. Helen Wade announced her and Flint Stryker himself came out to invite her in.
"You've had an awful life, Mrs. Martin," he said.
"Maybe now you'll have a better one."
"My man's dead," she said, sadly. "I know he wasn't much of a man in the eyes of the world, but he was all man to me. I don't think I'll find another one-at least not like him."
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled a smile of sorrow. Then she looked straight into Stryker's eyes and asked:
"You in love with my daughter?" Stryker nodded.
"Yes. I love her very much. I intend to marry her if she'll have me."
"Don't ever tell her about me, please."
"No. I won't," he assured her.
Thelma moved her lips as if she wished to tell him something, but before she could speak the office door opened, and Janet entered. Stryker sprang to his feet and went to welcome her.
"I thought perhaps you'd like to say goodbye to Mrs. Martin," he said.
Janet looked sympathetically at the sad, bowed figure standing at the other side of the room. Advancing quickly and taking the visitor's hand, she said:
"Oh, sha'nt I see you again?"
Mrs. Martin shook her head sadly. Moving slightly away from the girl's embrace and averting her face, she murmured:
"No."
"Goodbye," said Janet, holding out her hand.
Turning quickly round, Mrs. Martin eagerly grasped it. Her body shaken by sobs, she said, with much emotion:
"Goodbye!" Drawing-the young girl closer, she went on, her voice broken by weeping: "You're where I was twenty years ago. You have just the same possibilities for love." Pointing to Stryker, she went on: "This man loves you. Like me, you'll give everything."
She said no more, but clasped her daughter's hand tightly in both of hers. Reluctantly releasing the young girl, she turned away and slowly left the office.
Janet turned to Stryker, who sprang forward eagerly. Before he could reach her the telephone rang. Impatiently taking up the receiver, he said:
"Well, what is it? No, I'm not going to Chicago. I've got an urgent case here."
Janet looked up anxiously.
"An urgent case?" she asked.
"Yes, ours," he smiled.
"Yes," she murmured. "Yes. It is rather urgent, isn't it?"
