Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask by Frederick Nebel

eyes.
    “Listen,” Donahue said, sitting down beside her. “You were worried when you came there tonight. Who are you? How long have you known Crosby?”
    “I’ve known him—quite a while.”
    “Not so long. I happen to know you came over on the boat with him.”
    She caught her breath, trained her eyes on the carpet. “Yes, I did. I knew him in Europe. We met in Europe.”
    “Listen. When you came in tonight, how did you get in?”
    She had her handkerchief pressed against her mouth now. She looked squarely at Donahue with her wide-open eyes. “Why, what do you mean?”
    “I mean, ordinarily you ring the front door bell to get in that house. You didn’t. You came right in. You must have had a key.”
    She swallowed. “Who are you?”
    “I told you my name. That’s not answering my question. Did you have a key?”
    She got up and started walking around the room. Dona-hue got up and trailed her around the room, asking, “Now did you, did you?” She whirled and cried, half in tears. “What if I did have a key?”
    He stopped and spread his hands palmwise, saying, “That’s what I wanted to know. Then you had a key. You must have been a very good friend of Crosby’s.” He smiled crookedly. “Very intimate, eh?”
    She looked confused. “If you want to put it that way.”
    “That’s all right by me,” he grinned. “We’ll forget all about that. But here’s something else. That guy I said was Crosby’s room-mate wasn’t. Why didn’t you tell me no-body lived with Crosby when I made that crack?”
    “I still don’t know what right you have to ask all these questions?”
    “When I mentioned that guy, I remember you kind of tightened up—as if you knew who I meant.” He lowered his voice, hardened it. “Listen to me, little girl, it’s all right if you were playing house with Crosby—that was his privilege and yours. But when a guy gets his throat carved and you act dumb when I shoot questions at you—” He shook his head. “That doesn’t go at all—not with this baby.”
    She was trembling, but she put fire in her voice when she cried, “Who—who are you?”
    “Just a private cop earning his salary…. You knew Crosby well. All right. He sent for a private cop. Now you ought to know why. We don’t know. He called up and said he’d explain when we sent a man down. So I went down. This smooth-faced guy let me in, saying he was Crosby’s room-mate. Then you drift in. Say, who was after Crosby—and why?”
    She blew her nose and shook her head and said beneath her handkerchief in a panicky voice, “I don’t know! He didn’t tell me anything!”
    Fury leaped in Donahue’s dark eyes. His hand shot out, caught the girl’s wrist and he heaved her close up against him.
    He snarled, “I hope to tell you you’re a damned little liar!”
    “Ow… you’re hurting!”
    He released her abruptly and she fled backwards across the room. He chopped off an oath that did not quite get to his lips and scowled darkly at the girl.
    “Don’t pull a song and dance on me!” he rapped out. “We can get along fine as long as you don’t play me for a jack-ass. Come on now, break clean. What kind of a racket are you in on?”
    “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I said don’t song-and-dance!”
    “I tell you—”
    A knock on the corridor door stopped her. She flung a look at the door. She flung a look at Donahue. Donahue made a motion for her to open the door while his right hand went around to his hip-pocket and drew out a Colt’s .38 revolver with an abbreviated two-inch barrel. He took six backward steps into the bath-room, left the door open.
    The girl had her hand on the knob of the corridor door, and all color had drained from her face.
Chapter IV
    She opened the door. Her body stiffened and her hands started towards her breast. She backed up as the small neat young man came in slowly and smiled with his agree-able white teeth. His right hand was significantly in the