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here.’
    â€˜I hope,’ said Ellery not too hopefully, ‘she gave me a nice reference.’
    â€˜Very nice. You want to play, Mr. Queen? We can give you anything at any stakes – roulette, faro, baccarat, dice, chuck-a-luck, poker –’
    â€˜I’m afraid my quarter-limit stud is too rich for your blood,’ grinned Ellery. ‘I’m really here to find the Royles and the Stuarts. Are they here?’
    â€˜They haven’t turned up yet. But they will. They generally do on Saturday nights.’
    â€˜May I wait inside?’
    â€˜This way, Mr. Queen.’ Alessandro pressed a blank wall and the wall opened, revealing a crowded, smoky, quiet room.
    â€˜Quite a set-up,’ said Ellery, amused. ‘Is all this hocus-pocus necessary?’
    The gambler smiled. ‘My clients expect it. You know – Hollywood? They want a kick for their dough.’
    â€˜Weren’t you located in New York a few years ago?’ asked Ellery, studying his bland, innocent features.
    The little man said: ‘Me?’ and smiled again, nodded to another hard-looking man in the secret passage-way. ‘All right, Joe, let the gentleman through.’
    â€˜My mistake,’ murmured Ellery, and he entered the gaming room.
    But he had not been mistaken. Alessandro’s name was not Alessandro, and he did hail from New York, and in New York he had gathered to his rosy little self a certain fame. The gossip of Police Headquarters had ascribed his sudden disappearance from Broadway to an extraordinary run of luck, during the course of which he had badly dented four bookmakers, two dice rings, and a poker clique composed of Dopey Siciliano, an assistant District Attorney, a Municipal Court Judge, a member of the Board of Estimate, and Solly the Slob.
    And here he was, running a joint in Hollywood. Well, well, thought Ellery, it’s a small world.
    He wandered about the place. He saw at once that Mr. Alessandro had risen in the social scale. At one table in a booth two wooden-faced house men played seven-card stud, deuces wild, with the president of a large film company, one of Hollywood’s most famous directors, and a fabulously-paid radio comedian. The dice tables were monopolized – it was a curious thing, thought Ellery with a grin – by writers and gag men. And along the roulette tables were gathered more stars than Tillie the Toiler had ever dreamed on, registering a variety of emotions that would have delighted the hearts of the directors present had they been in a condition to appreciate their realism.
    Ellery spied the elusive Lew Bascom, in a disreputable tuxedo, in the crowd about one of the wheels. He was clutching a stack of chips with one hand and the neck of a queenly brunette with the other.
    â€˜So here you are,’ said Ellery. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding out here for three days!’
    â€˜Go ’way, pal,’ said Lew, ‘this is my lucky night.’ There was a mountain of chips before the brunette.
    â€˜Yeah,’ said the brunette, glaring at Ellery.
    Ellery seized Lew’s arms. ‘I want to talk to you.’
    â€˜Why can’t I get any peace, for gossakes? Here, toots, hang on to papa’s rent,’ and he dropped his handful of chips down the gaping front of the brunette’s décolletage. ‘Well, well, what’s on your mind?’
    â€˜You,’ said Ellery firmly, ‘are remaining with me until the Royles and the Stuarts arrive. Then you’re going to introduce me. And after that you may vanish in a puff of smoke for all I care.’
    Lew scowled. ‘What day is it?’
    â€˜Saturday.’
    â€˜What the hell happened to Friday? Say, here’s Jack Royle. C’mon, that wheel ain’t gonna wait all night.’
    He dragged Ellery over to a tall, handsome man with iron-grey hair who was laughing at something Alessandro was saying. It was John Royle, all right, in