Page 30 - Demo

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28
Black Mask
"I'd like to get a quick check on these "What you got?" prints from London. Can you make a
"Two middle fingers of the right classification index for me right away?"
hand. Thumb blurred, but who cares?
Maybe- "
He stopped talking as a woman's
scream echoed with star tling abruptness from the front hallway of the house.
Sergeant Killan, who was nearest to the door, bounced forward with a swift- ly drawn gun in his beefy hand. He
· the hall, d t, peeredmtote a,gape amomen,
"Yeah." He took out of his bag a
classification sheet printed in squared Sl 1 he d
columns. ow y 1e began to rrecor with digits and letters the md1ces of
the specimen print .
"How long were you away from
home Mrs. Hilliard?" Fitz asked the dead man's wife.
"Quite a while. I left shortly after Mr. Furman depart ed."
"Where did you go?"
Betty Hilliard took a long time ·re- plying. "I left to attend to some ppe_rsonal business which I have no mtentton of discussing with you or anyone else."
"Was your husband alive when you left?"
"Yes. He was in this room waiting to hear the Tracy program. I left with his permission."
Alice Hilliard's faint laughter had a sting in it, but the other woman ignored the implication.
"O. K. on that index synopsis," the finger-print man said.
then holstered his weapon. "All right , Halligan. Bring
her
in
here."
Halligan was the cop who had been
left on duty inside the front entry. He clumped stolidly into the room, his hand tightly gripping the arm of a dark- haired and exceedingly pretty woman.
"I caught her sneaking in the front door," Halligan said. "She had a key. She closed the door quietly and started to tiptoe down the hall toward the stairs. When I grabbed her she started to fight, till she saw my uniform, then she cooled down."
Tracy said dryly: "Better let go of her, officer. This is Mrs. Hilliard."
Betty. Hilliard stood alone, very stiff
and straight, seemingly aware of nothing
except the murdered body of her hus-
band. Her dark hair and eyes empha- ed. It didn't take long to put through
sized the pallor of her skin. She was like marble until she turned and saw Alice staring steadily at her. Then her face flooded with crimson.
the trans-Atlantic call. Fitzgerald talked briefly to Scotland Yard and then handed the phone to the finger-print man. It was not a very good connec-
Fitzgerald went to the phone and called the exchange manager. He identi- fied himself and explained what be want-
"How did this happen, Alice?" she tion. Hanley had to talk loudly and re-
asked with an obvious effort at control "I wouldn't know, Betty."
peat his jjar gon of figures and letters over
and over.
Fitz and Killan, who
at the sneer in Betty's voice. She turned was cocked in an entire ly different di- swiftly toward Inspector Fitzgerald. rection. Alice had drifted closer to "Y ou might as well know , Inspector, Betty H illiard . Her lips mov ed in a
that it wasn't Bert Lord who tried to swift undertone .
perhaps?" between these two women. Alice's jaw tightened
"Y ou could' guess though,
knew what it eager ly . But Tracy only pretended interest. His ear
There was pent-up hatred
was all about, listened
steal that gun. It was not his voice." Fitzgera ld didn't answer that. H e walked across to Hilliard's desk and ex- amined the two finger-prints that the headquarters expert had brought out on
the butt of the Webley revolver,
"You're not kidding me. Who was the boy friend - Ken Dunlap?"
"It certa inly wasn't Bert Lord I If you try to drag me into a scandal-"
"All I'm after is the truth. If those gun-prints belong to Bert, I want him
.
.