  He knocked the pistol out of his hand, small room was there to strive ‘’Twas only by favor of mine,’ quoth he, ‘ye rode so long alive.’ The game was up. Almost on the instant that the shot was fired Berry struck down Belknap’s hand and twisted the gun from him. There was no flicker of resistance on Belknap’s part. Nor would there have been the chance of any if Stebbins had had his way. For the Sergeant was a prey to impulsive rages and quick on the trigger. If Berry, in tackling Belknap, had not had a strong arm for Stebbins, Belknap would have joined Nadia Mdevani in the dust. “No!” Berry cried sharply. “Not that way. Shooting’s too good for him. And we want the dope.” Stebbins, like copper wire, cooled off as rapidly as he had heated. “I’m sorry,” he growled. “It’s just that it’s rank cold-blooded murder to shoot a lady down like that.” Berry had to laugh. “Not his first one, Sergeant; you should be used to ’em. Come on, lend a hand.” They bound Belknap, securely. No more playing with fire. And a swift body-search from head to foot revealed several damning articles of trade: Whittaker’s Diary in an inner pocket; several varieties of poison in neatly labeled pill-boxes; a pair of suÈde gloves; a very exquisite six-inch dagger with an inlaid handle of silver and lapis; a kit for the designing and manufacture of keys; a veritable armory of revolvers, six; a cunningly contrived combination tool that in its various transformations became a screw-driver, a hammer, an auger and bit, a saw, and God knows what else. “By the way,” Berry shouted suddenly, as he was arranging the articles in an orderly row on the divan table, “where’s Joel Lacey?” “Oh yes, of course,” Belknap murmured quietly, coolly, and as if to reprimand Berry for his raised “To what?” Berry cried desperately from where he already stood beside the great door of Whittaker’s wall-safe. “Quick!” “9031.” Berry fumbled stupidly with the locks. The terrible speed of events during the past few hours, together with the excited, thrilling knowledge of his own scoop (it had been his idea to put Nadia up to her piece of acting, which he had to admit had been beautifully done on her part) had reduced the still ingenuous Berry to a trembling, weakened condition of hand and eye. Stebbins, whose emotional flights limited themselves to rage and suspicion, took the job from him. Under his stolid fingers the blocks fell quickly, expertly into place. And, on the final number, the heavy door sprang. The two men slowly swung it back. Joel was there. She lay in a tumbled, cramped heap among a litter of papers on the safe bottom. There was no least sign of life—and there was an Julian chose this particular moment to appear. He was shouting something about the doors of the wine cellars being locked and no keys to be found— He stopped, looked, and, in another flash, was on his knees beside Joel, his arms around her, calling her name. It took Berry every ounce of extra strength to tear Julian free and fling him away on the floor. “Keep off, you fool. Give the child air. She is dying for lack of air—just that.” Berry, with Stebbins’ clumsy help, rendered such first aid as one gives the drowning. Julian hovered near them muttering a frantic rigmarole of endearments for Joel, and ugly curses for humanity in general, Berry in particular. Two policemen, large and unresponsive, kept a firm guard on Belknap who sat stone-motionless, apparently absorbed in his bound hands lying limply before him on the table. He remained breathlessly still, until at last—it seemed forever—Joel, almost invisibly at “Here, boy, carry her upstairs. Wrap her up good and warm; and give her some hot brandy, if you can find any. She’ll be as right as rain in no time, mark my words for it. And, what’s more, it’s going to be plain sailing for you two from now on. Remember that, and don’t worry.” He tapped the Diary with a meaning forefinger. “It’s a closed book; you know what I mean. Easy there, don’t fall.” He turned to question Belknap. “Now come across, Belknap. Talk. Or shall we run you up to town for that? Room 27 at Headquarters is a fine place to talk. As you should know.” Belknap, examining his folded hands with meticulous interest, spoke sidewise through a lifted corner of his mouth. “Can the rough stuff, Berry. It won’t get you anywhere with me, as you should know. What’s eating you? Curiosity? Yes, I killed ’em. Do I have to say it? Oh, don’t let it worry your poor weak intellect that you haven’t the right man. You have. How many did I murder? I lost count. You add ’em up. And don’t for God’s sake ask me why. Why the Hell! Look in that rotten little Diary there. It’ll tell you why and then some. One of us had to wipe out the litter before it hatched; to make his world safe—for crime. I got in my licks first, that’s all.” Belknap would have made a waving gesture with his right hand but was checked by its anchorage to his left. “Let’s clear out of this,” he cried. “I expect you’re champing at the bit to drag me at your chariot wheels through the streets of Rome. Well, do it and be damned. Only get it over.” Belknap’s eyes, a little sunken in their heavily shadowed sockets, gleamed feverishly. The lines in his face had deepened. He looked his age. “When, may I ask, did you catch the cat out of my bag? I hadn’t a notion I’d let it out. Thought I had it pretty well sewed in. Like the Little Red Hen you must have left a stone in its place. Or Berry came close to Belknap. His face was white. He gripped the sides of the table between them till the knuckles of his hands shone; and in a level, hard voice spoke into Belknap’s eyes and teeth. “Keep quiet, and listen to me for a change! You’ll take a page from my book now. I’m not a proud man, or a boastful one, Ordway Belknap, one-time Judge, and one-time detective, but this here is a haul of mine, and you know it. For once in a lifetime I had a hunch. From the crack of the whip this morning I had you on the list. As a guest in this house last night. Don’t you see what a difference that makes in the point of view? “Bit off there,” Belknap hissed, his face dark and threatening, close to Berry’s. “I can’t have you “Aha! That’s the way the wind blew, is it? And after that you strangled the baby doll—” “Before, as it happens.” “Well, before. A Hell of a lot of difference it makes when you did it. Too bad I had to come barging in just about then, before you’d finished off your Damon and Pythias friend. Guess Whittaker threw his dice so you’d play the villain’s part all along. He had it in for you, to my way of thinking. Clever idea your wall-hole and the planted gun. But a bit out of the reckoning that your first shot missed. However, I’d have got you anyway, one shot or two. The holes, by the way, reminded your girl-friend that she’d once interrupted your investigation in this room at an embarrassing moment. She lit the Murad, I understand. Miss Lacey was also reminded that you mysteriously emerged from no man’s land when she was here in the night. Whereupon it ceased to be no man’s land. And don’t think I missed the little by-play when you tried to convince Miss Mdevani she hadn’t done what she knew she did—put that “Defend himself!” Belknap laughed ferociously, And Milton Dorn came back. Above the strained, ugly, mounting voices of the two men pitched against each other came the crash of the window-doors to the terrace, burst forcefully open. On the sill, exaggerated and unattached against the swirling mist, stood two of Stebbins’ uniformed guards with a sagging body slung between them from the knees and armpits: like some strange inhabitants of Davy Jones’ locker bringing back to earth a victim too horrible for even the sea to swallow. “Sorry,” growled one of them apologetically, dimly conscious of the startled horror in the silenced room, “we found this in the old well down back. Thought you might need it, Sergeant. So we brought it along up.” The man’s recourse to the neuter in referring to his burden all too vividly indicated its lifelessness. Not that it could have possibly been otherwise. Its face was crushed out of human shape. The head fell back and off to the side, loosely, as though the neck were broken. The covering of “Speak of the Devil!” Belknap whispered. “Dorn, I take it,” Berry said with super-gentleness. He forced an odd laugh. “Say, you boys, next time you make a visit with that kind of visiting card, come to the front door—and ring. I don’t like stage entrances. Another of yours?” he asked, turning to look at Belknap, through narrowed eyes, as no man looks at a man. Belknap smiled. “How did you guess it, Lieutenant? Yes, number one. I had to scotch him on the spot last night when he was trying to slip from under. Couldn’t take any chances on how much he knew. Talk about your blind witnesses! None of ’em even saw me take my little trip to fetch something from my car last night. Went out on Dorn’s heels, too.” “That’ll do from you,” Berry said. “Not another word. We’ve had enough. Take him to Glory for me, men. Sergeant,” he added to the stupefied Stebbins, “will you give them a ring in town and say we’re on our way—with the goods. But Belknap, with a quick, vicious movement of his bear-like shoulders, thrust his jailors aside, and bent over the motionless, shrunken form of Nadia Mdevani. Even, bending down and using his two hands as one, he turned her face uppermost. It was an exquisite and clear-cut face, very quiet, very perfect, like a medallion or cameo face. And as devoid of expression. Suddenly Belknap straightened, threw back his head, and laughed wildly, breaking into a snatch of song: “‘She was my woman, But she done me wrong.’” “Shut up, Belknap,” Berry shouted. “Don’t go playing the sentimental fool so late in the day. I guess she could have sung that song as it should be sung. And meant it.” Pushing Belknap roughly toward the hall door, Berry turned “You are most thoughtful, Lieutenant Berry.” Sydney Crawford, in hat and cloak, descended the stairs toward them. “But don’t have me on your mind. I’m just leaving—and I have my car.” She was about to pass them, and paused. “Thank you, Mr. Belknap,” she said, stiffly, her glazed eyes rigidly avoiding him, “for a thrilling week-end. And for my precious life which it is a joy to be able to dispose of as I please. Goodnight.” Berry forever after wished he had obeyed his immediate impulse to detain her. It might have made the difference between another life and death. For, three days later, her body came ashore above Greenwich. It was the only death directly connected with that memorable week-end at Thorngate that was entered on the records as suicide. But Berry, although it was with a strong feeling of apprehension and pity that he watched her go toward the garage, escorted by a kindly and gallant policeman, was more than anxious to reach town and deliver up his capture. He drew on his gauntlet driving gloves, accepted a light for his fag from the respectful hand of Sergeant Stebbins, slipped behind the wheel of his old Stutz, and circled out of the Thorngate drive cold on the stroke of midnight. The following entry from the Diary of Judge Bertrand Whittaker, was incorporated verbatim in Berry’s written report of the preceding case given next day to Berry’s friend and chief, Inspector Thomas O’Donnell, of the New York Detective Bureau:
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