Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

“I only told Mr. Hendrixson that so he would not worry,” she explained. “You do not think I am not going down to see the sights.”

She was tall. I am short and thick. I had to look up to see her face — to see as much of it as the rain-grey night would let me see.

“You’ll be soaked to the hide, running around in this rain,” I objected.

“What of that? I am dressed for it.”

She raised a foot to show me a heavy waterproof boot and a woolen-stockinged leg.

“There’s no telling what we’ll run into down there, and I’ve got work to do,” I insisted. “I can’t be looking out for you.”

“I can look out for myself.”

She pushed her cape aside to show me a square automatic pistol in one hand.

“You’ll be in my way.”

“I will not,” she retorted. “You’ll probably find I can help you. I’m as strong as you, and quicker, and I can shoot.”

The reports of scattered shooting had punctuated our argument, but now the sound of heavier firing silenced the dozen objections to her company that I could still think of. After all, I could slip away from her in the dark if she became too much of a nuisance.

“Have it your own way,” I growled, “but don’t expect anything from me.”

“You’re so kind,” she murmured as we got under way again, hurrying now, with the wind at our backs speeding us along.

Occasionally dark figures moved on the road ahead of us, but too far away to be recognizable. Presently a man passed us, running uphill — a tall man whose nightshirt hung out of his trousers, down below his coat, identifying him as a resident.

“They’ve finished the bank and are at Medcraft’s!” he yelled as he went by.

“Medcraft is the jeweler,” the girl informed me.

The sloping under our feet grew less sharp. The houses — dark but with faces vaguely visible here and there at windows — came closer together. Below, the flash of a gun could be seen now and then.

Our road put us into the lower end of the main street just as a staccato rat-ta-tat broke out.

I pushed the girl into the nearest doorway, and jumped in after her.

Bullets ripped through walls with the sound of hail tapping on leaves.

That was the thing I had taken for an exceptionally heavy rifle — a machine gun.

The girl had fallen back in a corner, all tangled up with something. I helped her up. The something was a boy of seventeen or so, with one leg and a crutch.

“It’s the boy who delivers papers,” Princess Zhukovski said, “and you’ve hurt him with your clumsiness.”

The boy shook his head, grinning as he got up.

“No’m, I ain’t hurt none, but you kind of scared me, jumping on me.”

She had to stop and explain that she hadn’t jumped on him, that she had been pushed into him by me, and that she was sorry and so was I.

“What’s happening?” I asked the newsboy when I could get a word in.

“Everything,” he boasted, as if some of the credit were his. “There must be a hundred of them, and they’ve blowed the bank wide open, and now some of ’em is in Medcraft’s, and I guess they’ll blow that up, too. And they killed Tom Weegan. They got a machine gun on a car in the middle of the street.”

“Where’s everybody — all the merry villagers?”

“Most of ’em are up behind the Hall. They can’t do nothing, though, because the machine gun won’t let ’em get near enough to see what they’re shooting at, and that smart Bill Vincent told me to clear out, ’cause I’ve only got one leg, as if I couldn’t shoot as good as the next one, if I only had something to shoot with!”

“That wasn’t right of them,” I sympathized. “But you can do something for me. You can stick here and keep your eye on this end of the street, so I’ll know if they leave in this direction.”

“You’re not just saying that so I’ll stay here out of the way, are you?”

“No,” I lied. “I need somebody to watch. I was going to leave the princess here, but you’ll do better.”

“Yes,” she backed me up, catching the idea. “This gentleman is a detective, and if you do what he asks you’ll be helping more than if you were up with the others.”

The machine gun was still firing, but not in our direction now.

“I’m going across the street,” I told the girl. “If you—”

“Aren’t you going to join the others?”

“No. If I can get around behind the bandits while they’re busy with the others, maybe I can turn a trick.”

“Watch sharp now!” I ordered the boy, and the princess and I made a dash for the opposite sidewalk.

We reached it without drawing lead, sidled along a building for a few yards, and turned into an alley. From the alley’s other end came the smell and wash and the dull blackness of the bay.

While we moved down this alley I composed a scheme by which I hoped to get rid of my companion, sending her off on a safe wild-goose chase. But I didn’t get a chance to try it out.

The big figure of a man loomed ahead of us.

Stepping in front of the girl, I went on toward him. Under my slicker I held my gun on the middle of him.