I switched off the hall light and, whistling a little tune to myself, walked back to the room where I had left Ogburn. The door was not quite closed. I walked straight up to it, kicked it open with one foot, and jumped back, hugging the wall.
Two shots—so close together that they were almost one—crashed.
Flat against the wall, I pounded my feet against the floor and wainscot, and let out a medley of shrieks and groans that would have done credit to a carnival wild-man.
A moment later Ogburn appeared in the doorway, a revolver in his hand, his face wolfish. He was determined to kill me. It was my life or his, so—
I slammed my gun down on the sleek, brown top of his head.
When he opened his eyes, two policemen were lifting him into the back of a patrol-wagon.
I found Dean in the detectives’ assembly-room in the Hall of Justice.
“The landlady identifies Mae Landis as Mrs. Quirk,” he said. “Now what?”
“Where is she now?”
“One of the policewomen is holding both of them in the Captain’s office.”
“Ogburn is over in the Pawnshop Detail office,” I told him. “Let’s take the landlady in for a look at him.”
Ogburn sat leaning forward, holding his head in his hands and staring sullenly at the feet of the uniformed man who guarded him, when we took the gaunt landlady in to see him.
“Ever see him before?” I asked her.