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26
Black Mask
a voice he thought he recognized as Bert Lord's.
Then the front doorbell began to ring. The sound of it revived Tracy's waning strength. Clawing wildly, he managed to trip his antagonist. The two rolled over and over on the floor.
Dimly, Tracy realized that Inspector Fitzgerald was waiting patiently out- side the street entry, unaware that a trapped murderer was fighting desper- ately to get away. He tried to yell at the top of his lungs, but a fist smashed at his stomach and drove the wind out of him.
His feeble hold on his enemy was
broken. He heard a rush of feet toward
the outer room. The overturned chair
helped him to pull himself drunkenly to
his feet. He staggered headlong through
the darkness toward the doorway. The
velvet curtain steadied him while his
blurred eyes swung toward the open window.
He could. see vaguely a tall, racing figure outside the house, vanishing
swiftly toward the rear of the
Tr . groun s.
racy was trying to swing a leg over the windowsill, when a man's voice yelled harshly behind him. He was
ragge v10lently backward.
.Someone began savagely pummeling
hun. Blood trickled from Tr ,
A bl . racy s nose. ow on the cl11nalmost snapped his
head off. Hts knees bent and he would have pitched to the floor except for the clutch the fool who seemed to
ave unw1ttmgy helped Lord to
a clean getaway. make
"Th .d !"J
e in .owJerry gaspedthrough
· The young man cried fiercely: "You dirty little sneak-thief! How did you get in here-and what were you up to?"
A moment later both men recognized each other . The excited young man was Walter Furman, HiHiard's mis sing sec- retary.
"Right now I'm not up to-much of -anything," Tracy gasped, and proved it by slumping into unconsciousness.
HEN Jerry re- covered his senses the first thing he heard was th e an- gry snar l of Insp ec-
tor Fitzgerald.
"I don't care
what you thought! What the hell did you have to beat him up like that for·?" "I didn't. The fellow who went out
the window did most of it. I thought Tracy was a burglar. I didn't realize what had happened until I turned on the lights."
Tracy 's eyes opened. He was on the same sofa where, centuries earlier, he had told Alice Hilliard to lie quietly. She was slumped nearby iu a chair, her dulled eyes staring tragically at the floor.
The room was full of people . There wer e a couple of uniform ed cops. A finger-print expert and a police pho- tographer were standing stolid ly in a corner, watching a bald-headed 11;an who was crouched on his knees beside
o pain. 1 zgera I
t him-window !"
t seem to und t d
Hilliard's secretary was still trying to explain to Fitzgerald what had hap- pened.
"As I told you, no one answered the bell and I let myself in with my key. Naturally I was suspicious of trouble. Wh en I found the light s turn ed out, and caught a man racing toward an opened window, I didn't pull punches."
Th e medical examiner got to his feet. "Impossible to tell which shot killed him, though I suspect he took the one
He dr d Tr
e ragge racy toward
where the light switch was
ers an . th 11
wall
Tl . . ocate. 1ere was a c11c and a sudd fla
brilliance.
Tracy said thickly.
en are of
"Fitz,
you wasn't Fitz at all! H e wa ·
back and a crown of dark, glossy hair.
damned fool, you've„"
Then his voice trailed into silence I .
. s a goo - looking young man with a straight, slim
Bruce Hilliard's corpse. That Grady, the medical examiner.
was .