Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

O’Hanna said meaningfully: “I’m a periodic fireball myself. I keep making my rounds. I’ll be seeing you some more — next round.”

Downstairs, Manager Endicott’s teak-paneled office was deserted. The house dick snatched the almanac from the mahogany desk, flapped through its pages, ran his forefinger down the Star Tables, 1946, until he reached A Cygni.

He read aloud: “Declination, forty-five degrees and five seconds.” Then he said, softly: “I’ll be damned!”

Orchestra music still flooded the Palomar Room, couples still circled on the glass floor, unaware of violent death on the premises. O’Hanna beckoned to the head-waiter, to the waiter who’d called him earlier in the evening. He asked: “Just what happened when the Zanes walked in here tonight?”

They told him.

O’Hanna’s lips were thinned as he started across the San Alpa grounds. Overhead, the stars were as gorgeously bright as before, and a little higher in the heavens. O’Hanna headed downslope toward the chalets. Whispering, rustled sound under the trees stopped him short. His eyes strained. A blurred, ghost-shape moved. The house dick’s hand fanned in fast between his coat lapels.

He snapped: “Hands up! Who’s there?”

“Don’t shoot. It’s me.” The ghost shape materialized into slim, blond femininity as Spica Zane emerged from under the trees. She said shakily: “I was coming to the hotel to find you! The others don’t know. I pretended I had to lie down. I slipped out of the back window secretly. There’s something important I have to tell you!”

“I’m listening with both ears.”

The blond girl drew a deep breath. “I think Uncle Joe killed Uncle Charley!”

This was probably expected to startle the hell out of O’Hanna. It didn’t. He murmured: “So the Zanes and the McGuffeys are blood relatives?”

Spica Zane said: “My mother was a McGuffey. My father was Uncle Charley’s brother. The two families were in business together years ago. Some money became missing, and Joe McGuffey managed the evidence so my father was sent to prison. He died there. Uncle Charley never forgave McGuffey after that.” The girl’s voice sharpened. “Joe McGuffey’s a hateful old man! He’s done everything he could to ruin our lives. This comet trick is merely the last of a long string of episodes.”

O’Hanna said: “Family feuds can be furious, I’ll grant that. But if your two uncles hated each other so, how come they remained next door neighbors?”

“Uncle Charley was too proud to move out of the neighborhood. It’d look like running away. It’d be like admitting my father was guilty. Don’t you see, we had to face the scandal with our heads high—”

A gun talked out loud, right in the middle of what she was saying.

Spica Zane wailed, flung herself against the Irishman’s chest. She moaned: “No! Don’t go! I’m afraid he’ll kill me next!”

O’Hanna thrust free of her arms. He started running toward the chalet. He damned near stepped on the body, before he glimpsed the spectral whiteness of the face and of the shirt-front.

The house dick skidded to a stop, fumbled for a match. From his cupped hand, the yellow light flooded out over the narrow, knobby face. Frank Kigel’s rest cure had become permanent. He was dead of a hole through his heart without benefit of any powder burns.

Chapter Three

Murder, My Stars!

County sheriff Ed Gleeson came into the chalet, peered at the company. Relief softened his features as he counted out O’Hanna, Endicott, and little Doc Raymond. That left only Spica Zane, Professor Inez Martin, and Joseph J. McGuffey.

Gleeson hiked up the belt which supported his hip-holstered Frontier six-shooter, and said to O’Hanna: “Good going, Mike. I see you’ve got it trimmed down to three possible suspects already.”

Joe McGuffey waved a fat hand. “You can count me out, Sheriff. Lucky for me, the house dick here tabbed me for a suspicious character early in the game. He left me right here in Dr. Raymond’s custody.”

The lardy man appealed to Endicott and Doc Raymond.

“I’ll just leave it to you guys. I was right here in this room, wasn’t I, when somebody killed Kigel outdoors. So consequently I guess that leaves it up to the ladies.”

Professor Inez Martin said: “Thanks for the compliment! But it happens I was right here in this room with an eye-witness when somebody killed Charley Zane.”

Ed Gleeson peered at the blond girl.

O’Hanna said: “She was the eye-witness with the other lady the first time. At the time of the second shot, she was talking to me about her family.”

Sheriff Gleeson absorbed this and said: “Well, hell, what are we waiting for, then? If they’ve all got alibis, you haven’t rounded up any suspect at all. Let’s get busy tearing the joint apart until we come onto the killer. What d’ya say, Mike?”