Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

“Too bad you had that row with Baa-Baa last night, Lamont. Might have averted the murder, if you hadn’t. It came at a devilish awkward time for me. I was having some tennis with Haggerty when we were called, and I needed only another point to beat him. It isn’t often I beat my young assistant, either,” he ended ruefully.

“I’m not a tennis shark, inspector, but I sure do like my sleep,” grinned the tout. “Make believe I couldn’t use some now.”

“Oh, you’ll get enough sleep in, Lamont,” he smiled. “It’s infinitely harder for me to get in enough tennis.”

He stretched again, as he finished, and strolled out into the hallway a bit impatiently.

V

Don must have stepped on the gas, for Frayne’s wrist watch told him that his protégé had been gone a few seconds less than twelve minutes.

Blondy Baker was with him.

Not so vicious when it came to looks, Blondy. A foppish little fellow with pretty curls, wearing a gorgeously striped silk shirt that tried to vie with an amazingly hued cravat.

Frayne wasted no time. He did not speak harshly; he spoke in a coldly matter-of-fact tone.

“Baker, did you kill Baa-Baa Jack-son this morning?”

“Did I kill — did I kill Baa—”

It looked like legitimate surprise, beyond question, as the night clerk gasped out his words. His face went white.

“Precisely,” said Frayne. “Did you stick a kitchen knife into Baa-Baa Jackson’s heart this morning?”

Whatever Broadway veneer Baker had attained now left him, and he showed up for the frightened young lad that he was.

“Oh, my God, inspector,” he cried, “what do you — what do you think I am?”

“I told you so, inspector. Not him.”

It was Vince Lamont speaking, and every officer there looked to see the tout raked by Frayne for the interruption.

Frayne didn’t rake him, however. He merely turned on him, with a grave nod.

“That’s right, Lamont, you did,” he said.

The manhunter faced Blondy, then, and spoke in an exceedingly kindly voice.

“Yes, you seem to have a champion in Lamont, Baker.”

Blondy was blinking. Blondy was looking as if he didn’t quite get what it was all about. Blondy looked, all at once, as if it had just come to him what the trouble was.

“You... you mean Baa-Baa’s been murdered, Inspector Frayne?” he asked hoarsely.

“With a kitchen knife,” said Frayne.

“That... that’s awful, isn’t it?” breathed the night clerk, after a moment or two.

“Better than the chair, perhaps,” said Frayne. “Some one’s going to get the chair for this, remember. That’s why you’re here. You’ve got to clear yourself. You—”

“Clear myself?”

“You had a key to her apartment, didn’t you?”

“No, sir. I have not, sir. I did not have... Well, I mean I haven’t had one in — oh, in two months, Inspector Frayne. I swear to God I haven’t, sir,” he ended with a sobbing gulp.

“You might have had an impression made, when you did have one,” Frayne reminded him.

A whistle came, at that. It came from Vince.

“I’m... I’m not a murderer, sir,” Blondy Baker was saying, his voice quavering.

“Take it easy; take it easy,” suggested Frayne. Then he asked, briskly:

“When did you last see Baa-Baa?”

“See her?”

“See her. Speak to her,” said Frayne.

“I... oh, I haven’t spoken to her for a month or more, except when I’d see her at some club on my night off. I... you see, we didn’t play around for very long together, me and Baa-Baa. She just took a fancy to me for a few days — a pretty strong one, if I do say it myself — and I guess she wasn’t hard for me to fall for. She... well, she dropped me as quick as she took up with me,” he ended, flushing and hanging his head as if ashamed to admit his inability to hold the affections of the little girl who had wanted to be somebody’s Baa-Baa lamb.

Very suddenly, however, Blondy Baker jerked up his head. His eyes were very wide, and understanding had come to his entire face. He spoke in a rush.

“Oh — o-o-oh, now I see why yon suspect me,” he cried. “Somebody saw me come here this morning. Somebody—”

“You were here this morning?” asked Frayne quietly.

“Well, I was here at the door, I mean. I rang the bell but Baa-Baa didn’t open. I rattled the knob, too, and knocked on the door. I wanted to see her badly.”

“What time was that, Baker?”

“I leave the job at seven, sir. I brushed up and walked right over, so I guess” — he thought for a moment — “oh, I guess it was before half past seven, anyway.”

“Why did you want to see her?” pressed the manhunter.

The night clerk of the Piccadilly Circle did some more flushing. Then he spoke out.

“Well, she was always a damn good fellow, inspector, and I was in a hole — I mean I still am in a hole, God knows,” he laughed bitterly. “I been playing the ponies, and they’ve been taking me for all I’ve got. I owe everybody, and I don’t know where to turn. I got to get some jack by to-night, and I thought of Baa-Baa. I heard she’d grabbed ten grand, and I thought she might maybe let me have just three hundred. Just three hundred would—”

He paused and licked at his lips, and his eyes, naturally pale, became strangely darker: