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“Either of the women could have killed Gilmore, but hardly both; and I doubted that either could have shot him and got away without running into Kelly or the other. Suppose both of them were telling the truth — what then? Kelly must have been lying! He was the logical suspect anyway — the nearest known person to the murdered man when the shot was fired.

“To back all this up, he had let Miss Kenbrook go into the apartment building at three in the morning, in front of which a man had just been killed, without questioning her or mentioning her in his report. That looked as if he knew who had done the killing. So I took a chance with the empty-shell trick, it being a good bet that he would have thrown his away, and would think that —”

McTighe’s heavy voice interrupted my explanation.

“How about this assault charge?” he asked, and had the decency to avoid my eye when I turned toward him with the others.

Tennant cleared his throat.

“Er—ah — in view of the way things have turned out, and knowing that Miss Kenbrook doesn’t want the disagreeable publicity that would accompany an affair of this sort, why, I’d suggest that we drop the whole thing.” He smiled brightly from McTighe to me. “You know nothing has gone on the records yet.”

“Make the big heap play his hand out,” O’Gar growled in my ear. “Don’t let him drop it.”

“Of course if Miss Kenbrook doesn’t want to press the charge,” McTighe was saying, watching me out of the tail of his eye, “I suppose —”

“If everybody understands that the whole thing was a plant,” I said, “and if the policemen who heard the story are brought in here now and told by Tennant and Miss Kenbrook that it was all a lie — then I’m willing to let it go at that. Otherwise, I won’t stand for a hush-up.”

“You’re a damned fool!” O’Gar whispered. “Put the screws on them!”

But I shook my head. I didn’t see any sense in making a lot of trouble for myself just to make some for somebody else — and suppose Tennant proved his story…

So the policemen were found, and brought into the office again, and told the truth.

And presently Tennant, the girl, and I were walking together like three old friends through the corridors toward the door, Tennant still asking me to let him make amends for the evening’s work.

“You’ve got to let me do something!” he insisted. “It’s only right!”

His hand dipped into his coat, and came out with a thick billfold.

“Here,” he said, “let me —”

We were going, at that happy moment, down the stone vestibule steps that lead to Kearny Street — six or seven steps there are.

“No,” I said, “let me —”

He was on the next to the top step, when I reached up and let go.

He settled in a rather limp pile at the bottom.

Leaving his empty-faced lady love to watch over him, I strolled up through Portsmouth Square toward a restaurant where the steaks come thick.