advise that! Please take my advice about when your eyelid twitches—" Fitzgerald heard the crash of the receiver hung up at some distant place. Brink rubbed his ear. He turned back. "Hm-m-m," he said. "Your pipe's gone out." It was. Sergeant Fitzgerald puffed ineffectually. Brink reached out his finger and tapped the bowl of the detective's pipe. Instantly fragrant 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
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