Black Mask (Vol. 22, No. 2 — Mary 1939)

Tony had a glaring red scratch across the left side of his face, and another one down the length of his nose. But he didn’t seem to mind.

“Boy, is she a hell cat, boss! I grabbed her comin’ right in after Gaga and Fatty. She didn’t know there was me in the car, layin’ for her!”

Frenchy’s face was purple with rage. “You sap. So you brought her up here! And through the closet!”

Tony looked bewildered, hurt that his valiant deed should be so unappreciated. “What did I do wrong, boss?”

“Nothing!” Frenchy Peck told him sweetly. “Only now we have to knock her off, so she can’t talk. I put ten grand into this hide-out, and I’m not throwing it away!”

Lawrence Cleverly came up behind Frenchy. “That’s Hastings’ daughter!” he said.

Helen Hastings glared at him, breathing hard. “Yes. And you’re Lawrence Cleverly, and I find you right here in a secret meeting place, with Frenchy Peck and his gang. And with that... that—” she pointed dramatically at Paul Tyler, “murderer!”

Frenchy Peck smiled. “She thinks the dope here killed Groh!”

“Maybe he did,” Cleverly said. “Why haven’t you heard from Matt Squeer?”

“He must be hiding out till the heat dies down on the block.”

Helen’s eyes widened. “Didn’t he kill Groh?” looking at Paul.

Frenchy said, “Hell, he’s only the fall guy. The dope really is a vacuum cleaner salesman, I bet! And will he make a perfect fall guy!”

Helen started to struggle in Tony’s grip. She raised her voice and began to shout. “Help! Murder! Police!”

Frenchy Peck sprang to her side and slapped her hard, sending her back into Tony’s arms, who grinned, and squeezed her, forcing the breath out of her body.

Paul Tyler yelled, “Let her go!” and sprang at Tony.

Fatty hit Paul a glancing blow on the side of the head, and Gaga put out a foot and tripped him. He fell flat on his face on the floor, and Fatty kicked him hard in the ribs twice, then when he still tried to get up, once more in the head.

Paul groaned and lay flat on his face, gasping for breath. He tried to push himself up, and felt a heavy foot on his back, pressing him down against the floor.

“This guy likes to take it!” he heard Fatty say.

And then behind Fatty’s voice he heard Cleverly speaking to Helen.

“I’m sorry, Miss Hastings, but it’s either your skin or mine. There’s no other way but to let Frenchy take care of you and that young fellow. It would be the same as signing my own death warrant if you went free, with what you know now.”

The foot came off of Paul’s back, but he didn’t try to rise for a moment. Frenchy was giving orders to Gaga and Fatty and Tony, telling Tony to go around to the back of the house and get the “Laundry wagon” and bring it to the basement entrance.

But before Frenchy finished his instructions, the buzzer sounded again, and the closet door at the other end of the apartment creaked once more. There were footsteps, and someone came into the room.

Frenchy Peck exclaimed, “Baby Face! Where the hell have you been?”

Paul raised his head, which was swimming in a sea of pain, and saw that the man who had just come in was young, about his size and build, with curly black hair like his own. But there the resemblance ended. Though Baby Face Matt Squeer looked as young as Paul, there was a sort of white hardness about his eyes that branded him a killer. His lips were twitching.

“I got Groh, all right,” he said jauntily. “But some sap of a canvasser gummed up the works. I couldn’t get the old dame. But when she ran out after the canvasser, I went in the kitchen and grabbed the gun off the table where Groh had it all wrapped up. And then I holed up in the apartment in the next house. I went back the way I came, over the fire escapes, and I was just in time, because there’s been cops all over that block ever since. Gawd, do I need a powder!”

He pushed a package into Frenchy Peck’s hands, and rushed across the room to a desk. He opened a drawer and took out a little folded paper similar to the one which Gisling had given to Paul.

Frenchy Peck was carefully unwrapping the package, from which he took a small, pearl-handled gun. He held it up gingerly by the barrel, so as not to disturb the finger-prints on the stock.

“This your gun, Larry?” he demanded of Cleverly.

Cleverly took a step forward, reaching for it. “That’s it!”

Frenchy Peck danced out of his reach. He was laughing. “So this is the little gun that you killed Renee Townlee with! And it has your prints all over it, eh?”

Cleverly looked at him sharply. “I guess so, if Groh didn’t wipe them off.”

“I guess he wouldn’t have wiped them off,” said Frenchy. “Not if he had it wrapped up in waxed paper like this. Yep, I guess your prints are still on it, Larry. I can see them plain, even without a glass.”

“What are you getting at, Frenchy?” Cleverly asked, in suddenly clipped tones.