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done?”
    Kelsey shrugged his shoulders. “There were no charges against him, Chief. You get me wrong. They only wanted to subpoena him as a witness.”
    “Then why all the hiding out?”
    “Some pretty important people didn’t want his testimony brought forward—and besides, Forrest was no squealer.”
    “Still sounds funny to me,” objected Chief Britt. “If there were no criminal charges against Forrest, all he had to do was to stay out of the jurisdiction of the state of New York. They could serve subpoenas on him till the cows came home, and it wouldn’t mean a thing.”
    “Wouldn’t it! If they stuck a writ on him, he could be cited for contempt of court and fined.”
    “Go on,” said the chief.
    “We’ve been in Los Angeles about two weeks,” continued Kelsey. “Adjoining rooms at the Senator. We’ve been laying pretty low, and Forrest kept in communication with New York only through his first name, under which he was registered. But nothing happened and nobody seemed to be on our trail, so lately we’ve been moving around a little more freely. We decided to take this little outing together, partly to keep his mind off other things. Forrest went out alone Thursday—yesterday afternoon—and stayed out. Phoned me he would meet me at the boat this morning, because I had the tickets. But he didn’t show up.”
    “Know where he spent the night?” In spite of himself, the chief was growing interested. Dr. O’Rourke was puffing impatiently at a cigarette, and Miss Withers seemed engrossed in a cameo brooch which she wore.
    Kelsey hesitated at the question. “He visited a friend—a Miss Frances Lee, out on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. He phoned me from there.”
    The chief rubbed his chin. “Frances Lee? Frances Lee …”
    Here Dr. O’Rourke interrupted. “You wouldn’t know, Britt. The madame runs a deluxe—er—bagnio.”
    “A what?” Miss Withers was bewildered.
    “A home for falling women,” O’Rourke enlightened her, wickedly.
    Chief Britt nodded and turned again toward Kelsey. “D’you know anybody who might have a reason to kill Forrest?”
    Kelsey didn’t.
    “Know if Forrest had any relations?”
    “He had a wife in Yonkers,” was the reply. “If you call that a relation. I can give you the address.”
    The chief laboriously made a note of it. Then he turned toward O’Rourke.
    “Well, Doc, what d’you think we better do?”
    O’Rourke surveyed the corpse with disfavor. “Do? Get him off our hands quick as we can. Send him over to the coroner at Long Beach. I still think it was a natural death. There’s not a sign of violence—no wounds, no bullet holes. Why make a big stink about it?”
    Hildegarde Withers faced him belligerently. “Young man, no matter what you try to say or do, there’s going to be a big—er, smell. Hushing it up won’t help.”
    The chief, torn between opposing forces, scratched his head.
    “But I’ve never had a murder case yet, in all my ten years in office!” he protested dubiously.
    “There has always to be a first time for everything,” Miss Withers told him. “Dr. O’Rourke reminded me of that but a moment ago.”
    Barney Kelsey stole a furtive glance at the corpse and then looked quickly away.
    The chief was tramping up and down the room. “Things like this don’t happen here,” he argued with himself. Then he stopped short, facing Miss Withers. “Listen,” he offered. “I’ll have them bring the passengers off that plane down to my office and see if they noticed anything that wasn’t as it should have been. Now that ought to take care of your objections, Miss—what’s your name?”
    “Hildegarde Martha Withers,” that lady reminded him tartly. “Obviously you will have to question the passengers of that plane before they get separated and scattered. You mustn’t let this body go over to the mainland, either, until—”
    “Easy there, ma’am.” The chief was drawing near the end of his patience. “Now I