Black Mask (Vol. 7, No. 5 — April 1950), British Edition

The man with her was twisting, coming over the seat. He wasn’t wearing glasses now, and he didn’t act like a clerk. His mouth was a snarling gash. I hit him in the face with the side of the .38, a chopping motion, and he fell back, but rose again.

“You want a bullet in your teeth?” I gritted. “Get back!”

“Monty!” Lyria whispered. “You found me. You — I’ve tried to warn you all day, darling — tried to get to you— Why are you staring at me like that? Monty!”

Her voice was clawing the insides out of me. Her lying, snivelling voice. I felt sick. I went blind, trying to pull that trigger — blast her from my sight forever. Maybe I would have — but a hand reached from nowhere, twisted my wrist, and the gun fell. Pain shot up to my elbow. It was Mace, reaching through the window!

The psuedo-clerk came over the front seat then, stabbing viciously with a knife — a silent, horrible death-thrust that took part of my coat as I squirmed back. He kept coming toward me.

The car starter ground raggedly, gears meshed as Lyria spun the wheel and I heard Mace bellowing above the lurching of the car — but I was struggling desperately with scar-chin, one arm locked around his neck, my other hand gripping his knife wrist.

It was the longest moment I ever lived, feeling the strength of him, like live steel, slipping away from my clutching hands — the car moving, rocking, gaining tremendous speed — then a crash as we went into a brick wall instead of the street. Mace was still on the running board.

Everything seemed to cave in — sluggish, struggling figures like a movie on a blood-red film. The writhing form on top of me jerked. Mace brought a gun butt down on his head a second time, which was enough, hauling the limp body out on the dirt. A crowd started to gather.

The front of the car was pushed in, the front seat hideously compressed beneath a sheet of broken glass, gasoline and oil gurgling onto the ground. Lyria lay crumpled up there, barely stirring. I groped for the .38 on the floor, but Mace leaned in again.

“Cut it out, tough guy. Where you got the bullets for that gat I wouldn’t know, but the way you go for it makes me suspicious.” He picked it up, broke it open, and whistled. “I musta had a hunch when I saw you getting ready to blast your wife. I think the law has a better right to stop her crooked schemes, don’t you?”

I stared at him dazedly. “The law—? But you gave me an empty gun. You didn’t let on when you knew they were following us here!”

He was opening the front door, lifting Lyria up roughly. He shot me a glance. “I didn’t know whether you could handle a gun. But I thought it would help your morale. Then I thought you might go to pieces if you knew they were trailing us — like you almost did back there in the hotel room. As it is — you’re plenty okay, M. Harrison Sprague. By the way, is the guy on the ground your hotel clerk? He’s Tony Mendraza, a gentleman the Florida police have had occasion to chat with more than a few times.”

“The same, minus the glasses,” I nodded, staring out at that still heap on the ground.

Lyria came to life, slapping Mace, twisting and clawing, knocking his hat off; her voice shrilling, not the cultured voice I had known in our one short happy year of marriage. “You dirty copper—”

He would have slapped her back, hard, but I saw him look down, stiffen. He was holding her instead. Her eyes darted to me, filled with hate and loathing and — something almost like disappointment — then she was going limp, drawing a deep, shuddering breath. She lay quietly.

Mace eased her head back, reached down and brought up the tin box from the floor. He snapped the lid up, eyeing those crisp banknotes, nodding. “This is it. We got the dope on the Jacksonville bank job that was pulled last night. All here, girlie?”

She looked at me, her lips quivering-terror in her green eyes. “Monty—?”

Mace turned her face gently with his big hand. “Was your husband here going to return this? Is that one reason you wanted him out of the way? And because you’d gotten tangled up with a rat like Mendraza and thought you might as well own a manufacturing company too?”

Lyria’s lips moved. “Yes.”

My expression must have been haggard.

“Monty?” she whispered. “There wasn’t anyone in the house this morning — except Tony. He’d been there a long time. He mixed me all up. I’m no good, Monty. Sis is no good. You would have known — if you’d met her. You’ve always been blind where I was concerned. She said your voice was nice on the phone. I called her, later. You... you are nice. You—”

I forced myself to look at her. “Why didn’t you just take the money and go?” I asked bitterly. “You got me out of the house — would you really have murdered me, Lyria?”

I never found out. She couldn’t answer.

Mace laid his hand on my arm, squeezed tightly. “Steady, Sprague. Take a walk. And don’t come back if you don’t want to.”

I climbed out slowly, realizing it was the first time I had seen him with his hat off. He was almost bald. I didn’t look back.