The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

“Dubitsky asked you then to help him. He told you the officials of the Glickman Company were under suspicion, and asked you to find out which of them had been entrusted with the safe-keeping of the formula. That it?” Smith asked.

“That’s right. And when I did find out that Mr. McKenna kept it at home, he advised me to quit my job. He gave me a thousand dollars and told me to move to a small apartment somewhere and keep very quiet until the thing came to a head.”

“What happened then?” Smith asked.

“Well, at the last minute, just when we were all set to move, he sent for me. He called me on the phone and told me to come to that address on Canal Street. When I got there, those two men, Vick and Max, jumped on me.”

Smith leaned back in his chair, smiling. “You see it now, Angel?” he asked gently.

“There’s one thing,” Angel declared, “that still bothers me.”

“Yes?”

“Look, now. Dubitsky planned this business very nicely, but right smack in the middle of it he ‘died.’ There must have been, at that time, a fear in his mind that he was being watched. In other words, government agents were closing in on him.” She drew a deep breath and stared at the floor, marshaling her thoughts.

“Well,” she continued, “he came to life again and went through with his plans. He got the formula. If Trouble, Incorporated, hadn’t landed right ker-smack on the back of his neck, he and his buddies would have disposed of Mrs. Burdick, to keep her quiet, and then murdered Teddy, making it look like a suicide to give the police an answer to the McKenna kill and steer the investigation away from Dubitsky and his pals. You follow me?”

There was a knock on the door. Smith got up to answer it. “So far, yes,” he said. “Go ahead.”

He opened the door and Plouffe stood there.

“Well,” Angel said, scowling, “what I want to know is why the G-men, after getting close enough to scare Dubitsky into temporary oblivion, didn’t see through his phony death and ultimately get their hands on him.”

Plouffe, blinking his gray eyes at her, said: “So help me, Miss Copeland, you’re clairvoyant. Meet my friend here, Mr. Toomey.”

He stepped aside and a man walked past him. “Mr. Toomey,” Plouffe said, “is a G-man. It seems he’s been keeping an eye on me ever since Mrs. Burdick came to me for advice.”

“On all of you,” Toomey said quietly. He was a tall, gray-haired man with a pleasant smile. “You see, Mr. Smith, we were just warming up to this case when you stepped into it.”

Smith stood up, his face sheepish.

“What Dubitsky was after,” Toomey said, “was the formula for a new explosive being manufactured for the government by the Glickman Company.”

“And thanks to us,” Smith admitted, “he got it.”

“No. He never would have got it. What he took from McKenna was the original formula, long ago proved to be worthless. I doubt if Dubitsky even knew that the original has twice been revised, and that the only existing copy of the approved, final formula has never been out of government hands. What you did do, Mr. Smith, was save the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Burdick and save us a lot of work.”

“Oh,” said Smith.

“He’s really very smart,” Angel cooed.

“Thanks to you, Mr. Smith,” Toomey said, “the dangerous Dubitsky and his two associates are in custody. I’m here simply to offer congratulations.”

He thrust out his hand. Smith took it. Angel beamed.

“You know,” Plouffe said, “he’s really a pretty good guy. Maybe we should ought to tell him the truth, Toomey.”

“Truth?” Smith said.

“You owe me some money,” Plouffe declared, pacing forward to the desk behind which Smith stood. “I’ll match you to see whether I get it or not.”

He took a coin from his pocket and flipped it. Slightly bewildered, Smith did likewise.

“Heads,” Smith said.

Plouffe thrust out his hand with the coin on the back of it. It wasn’t a coin. Not exactly. It was a gold identification disc of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Smith gaped at it.

“A lot of things,” Plouffe said softly, with a smile, “are not what they seem. Believe it or not, when I let you hire me I thought you were after that formula, too. I deliberately let you believe I was impersonating an F.B.I. man so you’d feel you had something on me. That way I might get onto a lot of things. Sorry, pal.” He turned to Toomey. “Well, Toomey,” he said, “let’s go. And you and your wife, Mr. Burdick, if you’ll come along, too, and answer a few questions, you can go home afterward.”

They went out. Smith looked solemnly at Angel. “I,” he declared slowly, “will be damned.”

She said, “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

“I’ve another surprise for you,” Smith told her, smiling.

“Really?”

“I’m going to pay you for all the work you’ve done.”

“No! You don’t mean it!”

“But I do.” He put his arms around her.

“Like this,” he said, and kissed her.