t
smoke filled the detective's mouth. He sputtered.

"Now.... where were we?" asked Brink.

"Who was that?" demanded Fitzgerald ferociously. "That was Big Jake
Connors!"

"You may be right." Brink told him. "He's never exactly given me his
name. He just calls up every so often and talks nonsense."

"What sort of nonsense?"

"He wants to be a partner in this business," said Brink without
emotion. "He's been saying that things will happen to it otherwise. I
don't believe it. Anyhow nothing's happened so far."

* * * * *

Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald tried at one and the same time to roar and
to swallow. He accomplished neither. He put his finger in the bowl of
his pipe. He jerked it out, scorched.

"Look!" he said almost hoarsely, "I was tellin' you when the phone rang!
We got a police force here in town! This's what we've been tryin' to
get! You come along with me to Headquarters an' swear to a complaint--"

Brink said interestedly: "Why?"

"That guy Big Jake Connors!" raged the detective. "That's why! Tryin' to
threaten you into givin' him a share in your business! Tryin' to burn it
down or blow it up when you won't! He was just a small-town crook, once.
He went to the big town an' came back with ideas. He's usin' 'em!"

Brink looked at him expectantly.

"He started a beer business," said the detective bitterly. "Simultaneous
other beer dealers started havin' trouble. Empty kegs smashed. Trucks
broke down. Drivers in fights. They hadda go outta business!"

"What did the cops do?" asked Brink.

"They listened to their wives!" snarled Fitzgerald. "They begun to find
little grabbag packages in the mail an' with the milk. Fancy perfume.
Tricky stockin's. Fancy underwear they shoulda been ashamed for anybody
to know they had it on underneath. The cops weren't bribed, but their
wives liked openin' the door of a mornin' an' findin' charmin' little
surprises."

"Ah," said Brink.

"Then there were juke boxes," went on the detective. "He went in that
business--an' trouble started. People'd drive up to a beer joint, go in,
get in a scuffle an'--bingo! The juke box smashed. Always the juke box.
Always a out-of-town customer. Half the juke boxes in town weren't
workin', on an average. But the ones that were workin' were always Big
Jake's. Presently he had the juke-box business to himself."

Brink nodded, somehow appreciatively.

"Then it was cabs," said Fitzgerald. "A lot of cop