Black Mask (Vol. 33, No. 3 — September 1949)

“Relax,” Rawne told Rawne while he paused for breath on the fourth floor. “These stiffs never rise up.”

Rawne was rigid going into the apartment. Lee Searle was slumped unconscious in a lounge chair, head wobbly, and some one was working over him. There was coal dust on Searle’s shoe point. Rawne’s eyes swept about the room, not focusing on anything. Griffin was watching him. Griffin was looking at Rawne’s big hands.

The body hadn’t been moved. A photographer was still working and Rawne blinked when flash bulbs went off. Fingerprint men were throwing aluminum powder around. A neat little man with a black satchel stood by, waiting for the photographer to finish. Rawne went over and looked at the body, nodding at Griffin.

The homicide man jerked his thumb at Searle. “This guy got knocked hard. Concussion. Maybe a busted noggin. I think he can explain the knife in the wall. Searle’s his name. You said you’d seen him. Now and then he mutters the name Rawne. You know Rawne?”

Griffin was looking at him intently and Rawne gazed at the ceiling, rubbing his chin.

“Rawne. Rawne. The name’s familiar,” Rawne said. “But Greer had a parade going in and out all the time. I never kept track of his friends.”

“Okay, Schmidt.” Griffin grinned at Rawne. “Thanks for helping us. We’ll call you if we need you.”

Rawne went down the stairs heavily, hitting each step hard. He was talking to himself and his brown face was sulky. He had the expression of a child who has been caught in a shameful act. He went into Schmidt’s apartment, slammed the door and cursed loudly.

“Do I like perfume!” he spoke in an outraged tone. “Do I know Rawne!”

Lulie Nolan came out of the bedroom with that walk of hers. Her eyes were dry and she seemed more self-possessed. She held a book or something in a yellow cover. On the divan were strewn other books in colored covers, and the white-enameled box in the corner was empty.

“Griffin! Lieutenant! Homicide!” Rawne exclaimed. “He treated me like a water-brain.”

The ting-a-ling-a-ling of an ambulance came down the street and stopped outside. Rawne scowled and took a bite at his lip. The latch release on the front door buzzed and clicked and tramping steps went up the stairs.

“That Griffin!” Rawne exclaimed. “Cat-and-mouse stuff. Griffin had the effrontery to look at my hands. I don’t shovel coal. I haven’t any janitor’s callouses. The way he acted he must have found those work clothes in the furnace room. Schmidt’s boiler suit wouldn’t fit me. If Griffin likes me as Jim’s killer, why doesn’t he take me in?”

He went to the closet. Lulie Nolan swallowed. The green eyes followed him tensely. Footsteps were coming down the stairs now.

“You could have scrammed,” Rawne said.

“I was going to,” the girl said. “But I couldn’t trust myself. If a cop even looked at me, I would have gone to pieces screaming.”

Rawne walked toward her. “Is that all? You weren’t stopped by some quality you saw in me, a certain, let us say, something?”

The girl clutched the yellow book to her. The cover was wet where her hand had been. She was not at ease.

“Your repulsiveness,” she said, “is the source of deep pride to you, isn’t it?”

Rawne grinned and went back to the closet. “You helped get Griffin interested in me. The next time you use perfume, don’t spill the bottle. Schmidt’s apartment smells like a boudoir.”

He opened the closet door and the girl almost dropped the yellow book.

“Have you seen this?” she asked quickly, ruffling the pages. “It’s a play script.” She motioned to the divan. “Those are play scripts, too. Schmidt — Emil Schmidt — is a playwright.”

“Yeah,” Rawne said. He reached up and took the shoulder harness off the shelf. “I read what’s in the typewriter. Dialog between Lady So-and-So and Lord Something. A Twenty-second Street janitor writing about British nobility.”

Rawne reached for the shelf again. The girl gulped.

“But this play,” she rushed on. Her voice was unsteady. “It was written in nineteen twenty-six. The title is Shady—”

A knock on the door sent her scurrying to a back room. Rawne flung his holster in the closet and when he opened the door Griffin was standing there, grinning. A stretcher was going by with Lee Searle on it, with a man in a stiff-visored cap and white coat on each end. The basket with Greer’s body was ahead of them.

“We’re carting away the debris, Schmidt,” Griffin said.

“I see,” Rawne said. He nodded toward the stretcher. “Does Searle close the case for you?”