Page 26 - Demo

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I
Alice and Betty were almost the same age. Tracy had never thought of fric- tion between them, but he did now. He· had supposed that Alice's switch to a small apartment downtown had been her tactful withdrawal from an oldish foster
father with a young wife.
"You don't like Betty very much, do
you?" Tracy said, his columnist's mind instinctively probing this new angle.
"I admire her." Alice said.
Tracy seemed to remember vaguely a young man named Kenneth Dunlap. Betty Hilliard had seen a lot of him be- fore her marriage to the tobacco king. Tracy could tell nothing from Alice's blue eyes as she opened her evening bag.
She didn't find what she was searching for.
"This is ridiculous. I seem to have lost my key to the house. I distinctly remember putting it in the bag with my own apartment key."
"Did you have dinner tonight with Bert Lord ?"
Alice didn't answer. But one look at her face told Tracy his suspicious guess had scored a bull's-eye.
"Wait here," he said curtly. "Maybe I can find an unlatched window."
He darted around the side of the
house, flitting swiftly through th e dark-
ness. His face was wrinkled with sud-
den apprehension. Why should Bert
Lord want to steal Alice's key? Was it
because Alice had warned him what
Tracy intended to do 011 the radio to-
night? Lord might take any steps to
keep Hilliard from hearing that broad-
cast.
There was sweat on Tracy's forehead as he lifted an unfastened window on the ground floor. .
The main hallway was quiet under the glow of shaded lamps. Tracy un- locked the front door and admitted Alice. There was a dim light burning in the reception room to the left of the hallway. The room was empty. Tracy crossed to an inner door and knocked. When there was no answer, he opened
' the door.
Tracy took one look and stiffened. The rustle of Alice's evening gown seemed enormously loud in the room's stillness. She swayed and Tracy caught her as she fainted, lowered her down gently.
He lowered her gently to the floor and walked toward the dead man. Bruce Hilliard was lying on the study rug where he had fallen from a wide-armed chair. He had been shot twice; through the head and through the chest.
Evidently death . had come to him without warning. His blood-smeared face was placid. He was lying close to a console radio cabinet which stood alongside his desk.
Tracy had seen enough gunshot wounds in his career to recognize lethal bullet holes when he saw them. The slug through Hilliard's skull had pierced his brain · the hole in his chest was directly over his heart. The body was faintly warm to Tracy's touch.
No doctor on earth, Tracy thought grimly , could ever decide which of those
two shots had actually killed Hilliard It puzzled him why the murderer should have risk ed firing twice . The shots must have raised thunderous echoes in the house. Did the killer know the house was empty? Where was Hilliard's pret- ty young wife-and his secretary, and his butler?
All this and more zipped. through Tracy's mind in the few seconds he stared at the corpse. There was no gun near the body and he made no effort to search for it. He wrapped a hand- kerchief around his hand and picked up the phone. He called police headquarters and recognized the voice at the switch- board.
"Jerry Tracy speaking! Is Inspec- tor Fitzgerald around ?"
Inspector Fitzgerald was one of Tracy's oldest friends . Out of their mutual trust had come Tracy 's un- official tie-up with the police depart- ment. Fitz was an honest and fearless
cop. Tracy had his finger on many pulses, The combination had solved
24 Black Mask