receiver....

It was well after two in the morning before Martin Kirk reached his apartment. He showered and got into a fresh pair of pajamas and went into the small, sparsely furnished living room. He moved slowly and with no spring in his step, and the set of his features was harsh and strained in the soft light from the floor lamp.

Troy had been even more difficult than he'd feared. What had begun as plain irritability at being disturbed, had passed by successive stages to amused disbelief, open anger and finally reluctant conviction that Paul Cordell was innocent of the crimes for which he had been sentenced to die.

A male stenographer from his staff was called in and Naia North dictated a complete statement which she signed. Troy questioned her for nearly two hours, getting in every possible angle of her private life as well as minute details of her actions on the day of the murders. Kirk had not been present during that part of the night, but he figured it wouldn't be much different from what he'd heard many times before.

He mixed himself a drink, and was surprised to discover that his hands were shaking noticeably. Well, why not? A day like the one he'd just been through would put the shakes in Grant's Tomb. Even as he made the excuse, he knew it wasn't the real reason. There had been cases that had kept him on his feet for as much as forty-eight hours—cases where men had pointed guns at him and pulled the triggers—and the shakes never came.

No, it was the girl. Naia North. Naia—a strange name. But no stranger than the girl herself. Now how about that? Why should he think her strange? Because she'd taken a life or two? Hell, lots of people did that and no one called them strange. Criminal or unmoral or greedy or angry, yes. But not strange. She looked like other women—only a lot better. She dressed like them, walked like them, talked like them. So why strange?

Because she was strange. Nothing you could put your finger on made her that way, but that's the way she was.

He threw his cigar savagely into the fireplace. He went over and made another drink and poured it down fast and another one after it, right on its heels. Then he went to bed. Tomorrow—today, rather—was a work day and work days were tough days and he needed his rest.

He didn't get much of it, though. The phone woke him a few minutes after seven o'clock. It was Arthur Kahler Troy at the other end and the D. A. was too angry to be coherent.

It seemed Naia North had disappeared from her locked cell during the night.

Chapter III

"I don't give a triple-distilled damn what you say!" Troy snarled. "Nobody's got enough money to make that kind of payoff. Five men, Lieutenant—five men and five locked doors stood between that girl and the street. And you sit there and try to tell me somebody bought all five of 'em off!"

"Then," Kirk said heatedly, "what's your explanation?"

It had been going on this way for over an hour. The morning sun came in weakly at the window behind Troy's huge polished mahogany desk, picking up random reflections from the collection of expensive gadgets littering the glass top.

Troy began to wear another path in the moss-colored broadloom carpeting. He was big and broad and getting puffy around the middle, like a one-time halfback going to seed. His round, heavy-featured face was even more florid than usual, and his heavy growth of reddish-blond hair needed a comb.

Martin Kirk pushed himself deeper into the depths of a brown leather chair and watched the D. A. through brooding eyes. He wanted a cigar but it was too early in the morning for that kind of indulgence. You needed a good breakfast and a couple cups of coffee before—

"I don't explain it," Troy said in quieter tones. He was standing by the window now, staring down into the boulevard passing that side of the Criminal Courts Building. "It's one of those things that make me think my sainted mother wasn't so wrong when she used to tell about elves and gnomes and leprechauns and fairies and—"

Kirk made a sound deep in his throat, "Naia North was a hell of a long way from being a leprechaun. Somebody wanted her out of here for some reason—and they got her out. I want to know who took her out, why she was taken, and where she is now. And I'm going to find out the answers to all three if I have to turn this town on its ear."

"Go ahead," Troy said. "Hop right to it and I wish you luck. Only leave me and my people out of it."

"Seems to me you're mighty damned anxious to be left out."

Arthur Kahler Troy turned on his heel and strode toward the Lieutenant until he was towering over him. "Just what," he said between his teeth, "do you mean by that crack?"

"Figure it out for yourself," Kirk snapped. "And I'm sure you can."

Troy reared back as though the police officer had pulled a gun on him. "Why—why you—I'll have you busted for making a dirty insinu—"

"You couldn't bust a daisy chain at the police department," Kirk growled. "The Commissioner hates your guts and you know that as well as I do. Now let's cut out all this hokey-pokey and pick up a few loose ends, The first thing: what about Paul Cordell?"

All the wide-eyed fury seemed to go out of Troy's face like water down the bathtub drain. He turned away and walked slowly back to his desk chair and sat down.

He said, "What about Cordell," in a soft voice.

"The morning paper," Kirk said, "reports he was taken up to Hillcrest last night. The warden out there's probably got him in Death Row already."

"Uh-hunh."

"Well, let's get him out of there. With the evidence we've got, plus Naia North's sworn statement, Judge Reed will have to bring him back down here and release him—at least on bail until we can find the girl. The man's innocent, Mr. D. A.; have you forgotten?"

"Yes."

"'Yes'? Yes, what?"

"I've forgotten he's innocent," Troy said quietly. "Matter of fact, he's guilty as hell."

The Lieutenant half rose from his chair. "Now wait a minute! You heard that girl's story and you've got the evidence I turned over to you right here in this office last night. What more—"

"I'll tell you what more," Troy snapped. "That girl was a fraud, her story was a downright lie and that evidence was faked. Let me tell you something else, Mister: within five minutes after the guard downstairs reported your girl friend missing, I had five squads of my men out running down the personal information she gave me a few hours before. And you know what they found out? Every bit of what she told me was false! Hear that? False! It took my men about one hour to prove as much, for the simple reason that not one lead panned out. Not one! And you know what I think?"

Martin Kirk opened his mouth but nothing came out but a strangled croak.

"I think you and this dame worked out the whole thing between the two of you to save Cordell's neck. Who could do a better job of faking evidence than a crooked cop? What's more, you might have gotten away with it, too—only it suddenly dawned on the girl that she was getting in too deep."

"And so," Kirk cut in hotly, "she calmly walked through five locked sets of iron bars and went back to Mars!"

He stood up and crossed to the desk and leaned down with his palms in the center of the brown blotter. "You won't get away with it, Troy. You didn't want any part of this new development from the minute I called you on the phone last night. You knew it could show you and your whole organization up as a bunch of bunglers and incompetents. So you got rid of the girl, thinking that without her the truth of those murders would never get out to the voters.

"Well, it won't work, Fatso! The evidence I dug up is strong enough to reopen the case without Naia North. All I have to do is put that evidence in front of Judge Reed,