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yesterday morning. She was probably dead before that. Nobody’s seen him since. Earlier in the morning the people in the next apartment had heard them talking, her groaning. But they had too many fights for the neighbors to pay much attention to that. The landlady told me they had a fight the night before that. The police are hunting for him.”
    â€œDid you tell the police who she was?”
    â€œNo. What do we do on that angle? We can’t tell them about Wales without telling them all.”
    â€œI dare say the whole thing will have to come out,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ll wire New York.”
    I went out of his office. The file clerk gave me a couple of newspaper clippings. The first told me that, fifteen months ago, Joseph Wales, alias Holy Joe, had been arrested on the complaint of a farmer named Toomey that he had been taken for twenty-five hundred dollars on a phoney “Business Opportunity” by Wales and three other men. The second clipping said the case had been dropped when Toomey failed to appear against Wales in court—bought off in the customary manner by the return of part or all of his money. That was all our files held on Wales, and they had nothing on Peggy Carroll.
    V
    MacMan opened the door for me when I returned to Wales’s apartment.
    â€œAnything doing?” I asked him.
    â€œNothing—except they’ve been belly-aching a lot.”
    Wales came forward, asking eagerly:
    â€œSatisfied now?”
    The girl stood by the window, looking at me with anxious eyes.
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œDid you find her?” Wales asked, frowning. “She was where I told you?”
    â€œYeah,” I said.
    â€œWell, then.” Part of his frown went away. “That lets Peggy and me out, doesn’t—” He broke off, ran his tongue over his lower lip, put a hand to his chin, asked sharply: “You didn’t give them the tip-off on me, did you?”
    I shook my head, no.
    He took his hand from his chin and asked irritably:
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you, then? What are you looking like that for?”
    Behind him the girl spoke bitterly.
    â€œI knew damned well it would be like this,” she said. “I knew damned well we weren’t going to get out of it. Oh, what a smart guy you are!”
    â€œTake Peggy into the kitchen, and shut both doors,” I told MacMan. “Holy Joe and I are going to have a real heart-to-heart talk.”
    The girl went out willingly, but when MacMan was closing the door she put her head in again to tell Wales:
    â€œI hope he busts you in the nose if you try to hold out on him.”
    MacMan shut the door.
    â€œYour playmate seems to think you know something,” I said.
    Wales scowled at the door and grumbled: “She’s more help to me than a broken leg.” He turned his face to me, trying to make it look frank and friendly. “What do you want? I came clean with you before. What’s the matter now?”
    â€œWhat do you guess?”
    He pulled his lips in between his teeth.
    â€œWhat do you want to make me guess for?” he demanded. “I’m willing to play ball with you. But what can I do if you won’t tell me what you want? I can’t see inside your head.”
    â€œYou’d get a kick out of it if you could.”
    He shook his head wearily and walked back to the sofa, sitting down bent forward, his hands together between his knees.
    â€œAll right,” he sighed. “Take your time about asking me. I’ll wait for you.”
    I went over and stood in front of him. I took his chin between my left thumb and fingers, raising his head and bending my own down until our noses were almost touching. I said:
    â€œWhere you stumbled, Joe, was in sending the telegram right after the murder.”
    â€œHe’s dead?” It popped out before his eyes had even had time to grow round and wide.
    The question threw me off