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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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True Gangster Stories, April 1942, with "Yellow-Red Sunrise"
He let him have it right between the eyes.
The insignia of the Tao Tong, the Quislings of Chine, specialists in torture. The mere mention or sight of them sent fear coursing through the bodies of everyone ... and I had received SIX of them. But I had no desire to let them use me as a meal for their rats.
I DIDN'T tell lovely Myra Lillis everything, and she knew it. There had been the four midnight-to-three engagements with Rosella Reese, the movie star and... and the platinum hairs she strewed over everything, my shoulders included. I told Myra then, when she asked some sharp questions, that the fair Rosella was moulting. It didn't seem to satisfy Myra.
Then this matter of Evi Ranze. I needed what that international beauty and notorious divorcee could tell me. And because this time I was absolutely in the clear, I sent Myra to get her. My trouble was serious. In fact it meant life or death, I suspected. But just the same I rather hoped there'd be a green flame in Myra's violet eyes... and there was.
"May I interrupt you, Jigger?" she said with sweet venom, clicking into the office on her stilt heels. "I saw your wild woman, Evi Ranze. She'll be here in a few minutes. Insisted on coming in her own car... and let me go back in my taxi."
"Oh-h yes. Thanks, Myra," I said. "So the beautiful Evi is actually coming down here to the agency."
"Yes, she is... and jumped at the chance. Jigger, what do you want of that... creature? She's had about eight divorces, and must be almost forty now... though I'll admit she doesn't look it. Those Chinese women never do."
"Chinese? No, I don't think so, Myra, my dear."
"Your dear? Oh hell," said she, and lit a cigarette. She sat down and crossed her knees. This was new stuff for Myra, who knows her way around, but never has forgotten a Puritan upbringing.
"Our Evi had a French father and a Eurasian mother, I'm told. I'm not interested in her matrimony, past, present or future—"
"Petrimony? Or patrimony then?" asked Myra. "She's rich, and she'll sit in any man's lap on two minutes' notice. Or without notice. You're vulnerable, Jigger Masters, and I know it."
"Why don't you try some your wiles on me then?" I asked with a chuckle. "But seriously, all I want from the fair Evi is an explanation of the lurid little water-color sunrises or sunsets, or whatever. I think she may know their meaning."
"Oh Jigger, you haven't had more than one, have you?"
"Yes. Six in all. One every morning since I was retained by the Javery family to investigate this murder-and-vandalism mystery."
"Oh-h. I don't like that, Jigger," she said, frowning. "I know these criminals who warn victims don't exist outside of lurid fiction. But after all, this is... Oriental. They don't think or act the way we do."
"They certainly don't," I admitted grimly. "They've got Lake City wild with fear. And there were bombings and raids in both New York and Chicago, before they started with us. The reason I want to talk to La Ranze is because she and old Max Minden, the retired brick manufacturer and art collector, have been associated for some years. I happen to know that Max received one of these little water-color sunrises, just the day before his mansion was bombed!"
"Really, Jigger? But Max Minden wasn't killed, and they didn't get his art treasures, did they?"
"No. Their one failure. The bomb killed two old servants in the back of the house. But the cops arrived, and the raid went up in smoke."
"So that was the trap you mentioned... the one...?"
"Yes. I and the cops have a trap there now. Two lookouts. I figure that whatever it is that makes these vandals bomb, murder, and then smash valuable Ming and Han porcelains instead of stealing them, will bring them back again to Max Minden's. Unfinished business. But meanwhile I simply must find out the aims of this strange gang. So far they just don't make sense."
"Why not tackle Max himself?"
"I tried. Max has barricaded himself in the remnant of his mansion, and won't answer any door. But La Ranze probably has a good idea what all the shootin's about. She lived in China for fifteen years."
"Why do you take a case like this, Jigger? It's out of your usual line."
I grinned a little. "Would you, as my lovely and valued assistant, Myra, have me take on routine jobs, and divorce-evidence? Look at the record there. Lake City is rather a center of art collecting. Beside the New York and Chicago bombings, and the death of Malcolm Javery which I am retained to solve, there have been no less than six other similar outrages. The police are helpless. There is no loot to trace, and Chinese aren't good stool pigeons."
"But why would they chance death just to smash porcelains worth thirty or forty thousand a copy?"
"Now you're asking me," I chuckled. That was when my desk buzzer sounded, and the desk announcer system said:
"Madame Evi Ranze to see Mr. Masters."
"Send Madame Ranze right in... no, you stay, Myra. I'm still a bachelor and might need some moral support. I'd hate to become No. 9 for Evi, even if the old gal has a lot of money."
Myra made a face. "Sometimes I think I hate you, Jigger," she said, and got up to do the honors as the door opened and the remarkable Evi Ranze sailed into the office.
No use denying it, the old gal had it. She looked to be about twenty-five, with her spotted gray ounce coat, slinky gray dress underneath, and little fur beret perched on lustrous black hair.
I acknowledged introductions, and seated Madame Ranze, getting her a cigarette and a light. She smiled up at me, and leaned close when she accepted the light. Her perfume was queer but heady. I was conscious of that almost uncontrollable impulse to slide an arm down along the curve of her back, and embrace her. That's just what she did to all men, of course.
"So-o, now I meet the gr-reat Jeeg-Dr Mastaires!" she breathed, starring her lashes as she crossed her beautiful legs and leaned back to look up into my face. I backed away and sat down. No use getting dizzy.
Myra sniffed. "Those aren't nylons, Jigger," she said in a perfectly audible aside. "She's painted them on and even used an eyebrow pencil for the seams!"
"Mmm. Interesting detail. I hadn't noticed...."
"Oh yeah?" Myra is a skeptic about some things.
Madame's laugh was light and silvery. "Eet ees mabbe," she suggested with an amused look at Myra's long, slim legs, "that Mees Leelis need de stoffing in de stocking, for de curve?"
MYRA stood up suddenly. "I'll leave you right here, Jigger
darling!" she said from between set teeth. "This woman...."
"Be your age, Myra," I told her. "I wanted to ask you just one thing, Madame Ranze. You have been associated for some years with old Max Minden, the art collector—perhaps as his agent in buying and selling rare antique porcelains? I realize that some business connection is indicated. Max is over seventy, and with your very great beauty, I wouldn't think...."
She smiled. "Oh-h, bot a man ees on-lee as old as he feels! In your histor-ee, a man name' Metoos-elah....
"Yes, and Solomon with his 800 concubines and 700 wives," I nodded. "But look here, Madame Ranze. You know a lot about the Orient. I have received these six little water-color paintings, one each morning since—"
She took just one look, as I held them out fan-shaped in my hand. Her eyes snapped really wide this time, she gasped, and started to rise.
"Oh-h, bon dieu-u, those!" she cried in a stifled voice. "Oh, let me go queeck! I deed not know! Oh-h, the Tao Tong! You are on-luckee. I am sorr-ee. I mus' go! Oh-h, let me get away from here. You, Mees Leelis...."
Myra had caught her by the shoulders. "No, you don't get away until you tell Jigger, what those mean!" gritted Myra. "Okay, give! I'm no hubby No. 9. Speak... up or else!"
"Oh-h, you bad girl! Let me out!"
"Pot calls kettle dingy. But don't try to wrestle with me, old lady. I could show you a flying mare that'd surprise Pegasus!"
"Take it easy, Myra," I said. "I just want to know what is this Tao Tong you mention. Who are they, and what does this little water-color sunset mean?"
"Oh-h, let me go! Eet ees the rat death! I am scare'."
"The rat death! What is that?"
"Get the rest of it, Chief," said Myra grimly. "I can tell you that. It's a torture.... one of those lovely things like the Death of a Thousand Slices."
"Plis!" pleaded Evi, her voice going hoarse and ugly. "Let me go... queeck! They weel keel me!"
"What did this warning mean to old Max Minden?" I persisted. But I saw she was going to collapse.
Evi moaned. "Oh-h I tol' heem... an' I tell you... eet ees death!" she sobbed and whimpered. "An' now me... I weel die.... the Tao Tong does not forgeeve...!" And down she went.
"Hell," said Myra disgustedly. "She's fainted. Do I lug her out... or do you want to wield the smelling salts, and let her wake up in your strong, manly arms?"
"Call Johnson or Jones, and have her put in a cab. Those youngsters are strong, and may not object to Evi. But then, tell me about this rat death, Myra."
"It's just too awful, Jigger. I heard about it when I was working oh the South Side in Chicago... near 22nd and Archer. A man or woman was stripped, and a live rat put on his or her abdomen. An inverted bowl was put over to hold the rat there. Then a little fire was kindled on top of the bowl... and the rat burrowed down into the quivering flesh...."
"Enough!" I said, and took a deep breath. "See to Evi, as I told you. I'm on my way."
"What are you thinking of doing, Jigger?"
"I'm going to meet this Tao Tong half way—and get those vandal murderers before every place in the country that has a specimen of Ming porcelain is bombed!"
"But Jigger! You can't go alone!"
"I'll get Sergeant Ryan for a bodyguard. This thing has me down... and more than the menace to my own life, it's got me crazy with curiosity. Why would any band of Oriental thugs bomb and raid museums and private collections, and then destroy the valuable pieces instead of stealing them?"
OF course Myra didn't know the answer to that one, but I had a
hunch I could find out. I got Sergeant Ryan from headquarters,
and then with him went around to the John Chinaman who does my
shirts every week. Ryan waited in the doorway, while I went
in.
"Hi John," I greeted him. "You know me. Jigger Masters. You do my laundry every week."
Maybe he did recognize me, but you'd never guess it.
"No tickee, no washee," he said, and puffed his long pipe.
"Huh, such is fame," I grinned. "But I got tickets this time... six of 'em in fact." And I fanned out the lurid little water-colors, and showed him.
The result was astonishing. His eyes positively bugged. He let out one of those quavering, falsetto screams, "ai-eeeeee!" and turned and ran! He went so fast he lost one of his heel-less slippers. And on the way he screeched something about the Tao Tong, and two coolies who had been ironing out in back, dropped their irons on the floor and took to their heels also!
Even more mystified, and not a little impressed, I thought it over. Then I rejoined Ryan, and walked to a corner drugstore phone-booth. There was one man, Lee Wong, head of the department of Oriental languages at State University, who probably could and would tell me what this meant. I dialled the university, and after some waiting, got Wong.
"How are you, my good friend?" he said with courtesy. "This pleasure is all the more savored for being unexpected."
"Lee," I said. "How many Chinese tongs are there?"
"Why," he said in a puzzled tone. "You surely know that, Jigger. There are only two legitimate tongs, and never have been more than the two—the On Leongs and the Hip Sings. But even these are dying out. The war has taken all the young men..."
"Well then, how about a bunch who call themselves the Tao Tong? And who send around lurid little water-colors like sunrises?"
"Ai-eee!" he gasped and almost squealed—for all the world like my John Chinaman. "Even the name is unlucky! My friend, do not go near them! A few years ago, perhaps you recall, the two real tongs expelled all their hatchetmen—killers. They did not use hatchets any more, of course, but bombs and tommy-guns, and automatic rifles. These expelled ones took the name of Tao Tong, and for some time just hired themselves out to do murder. They were bad, but had no brains. Now they are the Quislings of my unfortunate country. The Japanese have taken them, put some members in charge of the puppet government, but that is not important. If they are after you, seek safety. They are terrible. They specialize in tortures. The name Tao Tong is a lie. It means pottery artisans but they merely prey on pottery makers in China... they do not make anything. But my friend, seek safety! I-I have chanced terrible vengeance merely by telling you!"
AND while I was still gasping at this, I heard the crash of
his cradled phone. And Lee Wong was a highly educated man!
Feeling little demons on ice-skates going up and down my spine, I went out of the booth—and found Ryan holding on to an almost hysterical Myra Lillis. Myra had been trying to get to me in a hurry, but Ryan thought I should be undisturbed.
"Something more happened, Myra?" I asked sharply.
"Yes!" she half-sobbed. "Evi Ranze and Bud Johnson are dead! Oh-h, I'm so frightened, Jigger!"
"Here, tell me quick, honey. I'm shocked. What happened, Ryan?"
"She says," began the policeman, but Myra raised her head and told the tragic, almost unbelievable story.
"I sent Bud Johnson with Evi," said Myra, her voice quivering. "They were driven back to Linden Boulevard, Evi's apartment house, by the chauffeur. The chauffeur opened the door. In the back, and got a snifter of the gas... or whatever it was. He passed out too, but the Pulmotor squad brought him around. The... the poor kid, Johnson, and Madame Ranze were... too far gone!"
"Hm," I said grimly. "Find something under the floor rug, maybe? They did ampoules, eh. Probably of cyanogen or oil of mirbane, the volatile kind. The devils! Any sign of the killers?"
"One of those water-color sketches, Jigger. It... it must have been the same Tao Tong. Jigger if you ever cared at all even a little bit for me, let's take a plane to Canada or South America, until this is over!"
"Honey," I told her gently, "they had one of those same bomb-and-smash raids in Ottawa! They're going all out to destroy Ming porcelains, and I've got to fight them on their own terms.
"Myra dear, I haven't asked you for a kiss, many times. But I want one now a kiss of honest love and confidence. You and I, I'm afraid, are in danger right now of terrible death. But somehow I'm going to beat those devils. May I?"
"Oh-h yes. Jigger why didn't you ask me long ago?"
And Myra not only kissed me with her lips, but kissed and clung with every inch of her long, lovely body. I don't know what Sergeant Ryan thought, I'm sure. And didn't care.
There wasn't any shaking Myra after that. I wanted her to go somewhere... some place where there would be ample police protection. But she just held on to my arm and shook her head. It was the first time she'd ever been a clinging female, so I made allowances. She was frightened half to death—and this was the Myra Lillis who had stood at my back, a Smith & Wesson .32-20 in each hand, and killed three of the howling mob who called themselves the Mummy-Makers. But of course that was another job, long since closed....
It's the unknown that gets a woman.
With Ryan, and Myra still clinging, I went around to the big brick mansion on Buena Vista, where Max Minden had barricaded himself. The previous time I had come I had been polite about it. When Max refused to answer the doorbell, I just had gone away.
Now Ryan and I were ready to batter down a door, if need arose. Max Minden looked to be about the only person alive who might explain the Tao Tong's queer actions to me. And I felt we simply had to know, in order to meet them on a 50-50 basis.
WE went right to the front door. The bomb had been detonated
in the rear, and none of the damage showed from here. From my
past visit I knew, though, that old Max had erected a temporary
barricade of heavy furniture to close that gap, while he used
bricks and built up a defensive wall inside.
As we came to the door I looked back. From an upstairs window across the wide street, I saw a man watching us interestedly from a second floor window of a house. One of the two police lookouts. Evidently the Tao Tong had not returned... or so I thought. I was to change my mind suddenly and disagreeably.
First, of course, we knocked, hammering on the big bronze lion's head with the heavy copper ring he held in his mouth. And for a space of a minute it seemed that Max was not going to answer this time either.
Then there was the sound of an upstairs window thrown open.
"Jigger! Jigger Masters!" came a high, cracked, excited voice—that of Max Minden, I realized with a thrill.
"Let us in, Max!" I shouted back.
"They've got me, Jigger! Run for your l—!" he screamed,
I swung around. "The Tong is here!" I said tensely. "Evidently got in without the cops seeing them. Ryan, you beat it on the double! Get a cordon of cops around this house! And have a squad break in!"
Ryan never wasted words. "Okay, Jigger!" he said, and swung on his heel. He strode fast toward the street—and never reached it. From above came the sharp crack of a rifle, just one shot. I stared in horror and chilly knowledge of what was coming to Myra and myself, when I saw burly Mike Ryan stop, tip up to his toes, and then fall face forward to the pavement, stone-dead before he hit, with a great red gap under his cap on the back of his head!
"A sniper! No, stay here now, honey!" I yelled. For Myra was tugging at me, wanting me to run, too. But I knew it was late, far far too late. And that second the big door swung silently open, and three yellow-faced men, two with levelled tommy-guns, stood looking at us.
I knew the third one, the fellow with wrinkled, saturnine, smiling face. He was Charlie Mock, an old Chinese who had been accused several times of being the head of a dope ring which had flourished in Lake City until about 1932. He was a graduate, and a PhD. from the University of Chicago. Also a shrewd, uncatchable criminal as the police well knew. Little good it ever had done them. Now Charlie Mock had thrown in with the Chinese Quislings, the terrible but supposedly ignorant Tao Tong!
"Please to enter," said Charlie ceremoniously, hands up the sleeves of his yellow tunic, a smirk on his face, and his long, waxed black mustache swinging as he bowed.
I obeyed, shrugging. With a little moan, Myra followed.
THE instant we were inside, four Chinese whom we had not seen,
seized Myra and me from behind. We were still covered by the
snouts of those ugly tommy-guns, so there was no use trying to
resist. Myra screamed, and then hissed out an epithet. I knew
what was wrong. They were searching us for weapons... and if
there's anyone less concerned about a young woman's modesty than
a Chinese hatchetman, I haven't met him.
When they let us go again—taking my magnum pistol and bulldog derringer—I saw Myra's face was flaming red. I took it she had been given a complete once-over.
Then we were shoved along a hallway, and into a narrow, tall door of steel. The room we entered was windowless. There was not one scrap of furniture. Just a big Bokhara rug on the floor, and this was all sprinkled with some sort of white powder.
Max Minden, looking shrunken, very old and helpless, stood there, leaning against the far wail, quite as if he would fall if he tried to walk. He made a futile gesture.
"I tried to warn you, Jigger," he said hopelessly, in that cracked falsetto of age. "They came through the main sewer from somewhere down the street, and tunnelled into the basement."
"Thanks for trying, Max," I said, with what cheerfulness I could muster. I knew that the police lookouts must have seen Sergeant Ryan die, and that right now an alarm would be in. Cops would come in due course but not too fast as they'd have to gather sufficient for a cordon about the grounds. From what I guessed, our time would be far too short. Charlie Mock was no man's fool.
The door clanged shut behind us, and there was sound of a lock being turned. But almost at once a slide slot opened in the side wall, and I saw the dark, slanted, sardonically amused eyes of Charlie Mock.
"Pardon if I leave you for a moment," he said to us. "There is the small matter of the policeman's body. I must see that it disappears before someone asks embarrassing questions. I shall be back almost at once. Take your ease, my friends."
I took a deep breath. Maybe that would give us time enough. If not then I'd have to try to keep Mock talking. It's really strange what exhibitionists even the cleverest criminals sometimes are. I suppose they're hungry for applause from somewhere.
"What is this room, Max?" I asked the shrunken old man who lived in this brick mansion—made of bricks he himself had manufactured.
"It is not a room, really, not a room for—people," he answered apathetically. "Here it was I kept the antiques of my collection, and those I made—for sale. These devils smashed to dust and shards every single piece!"
"Well," I said grimly, "that's what I came to see you about. Just why do these Chinese bomb museums, raid them and private homes, and then smash instead of stealing? You'd think the loot would be well worth while, with Ming burial urns selling at $140,000 each, and—"
"But not selling now. That is the point, Jigger. I may as well explain, as I never have explained to anyone. You see, Jigger, the great secret of Ming porcelain lies in the bluish crackle glaze. Without it—well, it would not be Ming. And the secret of making that crackle glaze was lost for centuries until I—rediscovered it! So the past few years I have been making Mings which the curators of museums, and so-called experts in private life have pronounced genuine.
"I have sold over 150 such pieces for great sums... all the antique porcelain the market could absorb. And besides those vases and urns sold, I had here in this room over 200 more waiting for a possible market. You understand, there was nobody willing to pay the usual price in the whole of North America, who had not had a chance to buy from me a supposedly genuine Ming vase or urn!"
"Good grief!" spoke up Myra. "You mean Evi Ranze unloaded these fakes for you—and stuck the New York museums as well as those in Lake City?"
"I mean that precisely," said old Max, with the ghost of a chuckle. "I... thought it amusing. And it has made me rich. Not that money will do me any good now. These terrible men came...."
RIGHT then the eyes of Charlie Mock reappeared at the slot.
"So... Mr. Minden has been explaining his duplicity," said Charlie Mock. "Well, I am glad that much of the rubbish is cleared away. I always like my victims to know why they die. And you can see now why we of the new Chinese Government are furious with this faker, this supplier of spurious goods, and why we have gone about smashing the fakes he planted in the museums and collections on this continent."
"Sorry," I broke in with a sneer. "It's not at all clear. You say you are the Chinese Quislings, eh? The traitors who are taking the orders of the enemy of China, and setting up a puppet government? Well, even then—"
"I do not care for your words, Mr. Masters," snapped Charlie Mock, his face darkening. "Your ability to judge Oriental politics unfortunately is not on a par with your other mental endowments. We feel ourselves patriots, not traitors!"
"Japanese patriots, of course," I nodded, as though that had been what he intended.
"No! Chinese patriots of the new co-prosperity order!" he denied sharply. "We despised the old, effete, languid arts of ancient China. So we were willing to take $20,000,000 worth of Ming porcelains from Peiping, Shanghai and elsewhere, for sale in America—the proceeds to help finance our new government."
"Then you found the market satiated with fakes!" I chuckled. "So then you set about it to smash all those fakes which Mr. Minden had made and sold. Lastly you were going to smash all those he had here ready to sell."
"Yes," snarled Charlie Mock, his mask of suavity slipping, "and you may as well know it all—since you will know nothing so soon now. We had to kill this old faker, Minden, lest he make more Mings! He is the only man in six hundred years who knows or knew the secret of making that china. Until now that we have broken into his laboratory in the basement here, and learned it!"
"The spores!" whispered old Max.
"Yes, the spores of yellow algae!" chuckled Charlie Mock. "We learned how you blew those spores from a bellows, all over the porcelain. The porcelain had been prepared with a coating of agar-agar. The spores immediately started to develop. Then you put on the glaze coat, and fired the porcelain in your kiln—and the result was the famous Ming crackle glaze!"
"Be careful with the spores," cackled old Max warningly. I stared... and realized that his mind was slipping.
"Oh yes, we'll use them with care," agreed Charlie Mock with a sort of repressed ferocity. "I may tell you, Mr. Masters and Miss Lillis, that the Tao Tong long has specialized in death entertainment for its enemies. Years ago this was crude torture... such as the rat death signature suggests. We still keep the signature, but we have progressed far from those barbaric days and customs."
"Ah, quite so," he chuckled with ferocious geniality. "I am a research chemist, though my doctor's degree is in philosophy. I have with me Feng Sooy, the renowned botanist. Between us we have managed to concoct many entertainments for our guests.
"Do you see this?"
AND suddenly be poked both arms through the slot. In his hands
was a smallish leather bellows, about twelve inches long by six
inches wide.
"Oh-h!" suddenly screamed Max in hair-raising fashion. "The death spores! Look out!"
"He means," chuckled the Chinese Quisling chief, "that if these spores which made the crackle glaze, are breathed into the human lungs, they start to grow immediately—the warm medium of human blood being better even than agar-agar!"
"Oh, that would mean—" faltered Myra with horror.
"It would mean that quickly the lungs would fill... and you can guess the rest. In time, of course, the algae would develop and fill all the veins and arteries. The patient then would bloat tremendously, and look as though he or she was stuffed. But of course death will supervene long before that. So don't worry."
Just as I opened my mouth to say something more, to try desperately to keep the yellow devil talking, there came the first awful chuff-chuff of the bellows! The snout had been drawn back, so it just showed there in the 9xl2-inch wall slot. But out of it now were spilling breaths of impalpable yellow vapor—the death spores!
"Quick!" I yelled to Myra. "Throw your skirt over your face. Press the cloth to your nose and mouth."
I also yelled the same sort of instruction to old Max, who had fallen to his knees and was praying, I think. And I yanked out two handkerchiefs and pressed them to my own nose and mouth, holding them tightly with my left hand.
That instant there came the flat sound of shots somewhere in the building, and heavy thumping. A dull crash. The police were breaking in—but would they be in time to save us from breaths of those deadly spores?
At the slot the snout of the bellows was momentarily lifted away—
I saw my chance. I leapt for the slot still holding the cotton hankies to my mouth and nose, but with my right hand and arm free. I saw Charlie there, gibbering Chinese to another of the tong-men. I thrust my arm through suddenly, and grabbed Charlie Mock by his long, black hair.
He yelled and screamed and kicked then, but too late. I threw my whole weight backward—and though it probably took off an ear, and a lot of scalp, his head came through that wall slot!
There I had him, his eyes boggling, his head and neck filling the entire slot so no more spores could come through. And he was unable to get his hands in to break my hold on his hair.
I took real, honest satisfaction in breaking his neck.
There is little more to tell. Six minutes later the police came in. Myra still had her head covered. Max Minden had slumped against the wall, still on his knees. He was dead when they carried him out—but from heart failure, not from the spores of the death algae.
Neither Myra nor I suffered any real ill effects. The only thing I noted was a tendency to sneeze—and I used antiseptic plentifully on my long nose. The sneezing ceased.
Myra said little. But she clung close to my arm when we left. In fact, she has scarcely left my side since. A detective should not marry. But I'm going to have to do something about lovely Myra Lillis. I can see that plainly.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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