had turned the key in the lock just as the shot that killed him rang out. A rush of police foiled an attempt from within to fasten the door again. Sneezing and gurgling, two of the raiders burst into the final stronghold, stumbling over the subsiding lump of flesh that had been Juney Saltz.

Blinded by tears from their own gas, they could not be sure afterward of what the scurrying little thing was that they saw and fired at. Those outside knew that nothing could have won past them, and the den itself had no window that was not bricked up. When the gas had been somewhat blown out, an investigator gave the place a thorough searching. Yes, there was one opening, a stovepipe hole through which a cat might have slipped. That was all. And the place was empty but for the body of Juney Saltz.

"Juney was shot in the back," announced another operative, bending to examine the wound. "I think I see what happened. Squeaky-Voice was at that stovepipe hole, and plugged him from there as he tried to let us in. Then Juney tried to lock up again, just as we pushed the door open."

Upstairs they went, and investigated further. The hole had joined a narrow chimney, with no way out except the upper end, a rectangle eight inches by ten. Even with six corpses to show, the agents returned to their headquarters with a feeling of failure. "In the morning," they promised one another, "we'll give that one Salter we're holding another little question bee."

But in the morning, the jailer with breakfast found that prisoner dead.

He had been caught with a noose of thin, strong cord, tightened around his throat from behind. Suicide? But the cord had been drawn into the little ventilator hole, and tied to a projecting rivet far inside and above.

On the same day, police, federal agents, newspapers and the public generally were exercised by the information that Shannon Cole, popular contralto star of stage, screen and radio, had been kidnapped from her Beverly Hills bedroom. No clues, and so the investigation turned to her acquaintances, among whom was Ben Gascon, recently retired from stage, screen and radio.

Benjamin Franklin Gascon left the office of the Los Angeles chief of detectives, where he had spent a most trying forenoon convincing his interrogators that he had no idea why he should be brought into the case. He knew nothing of the underworld. True, he knew Miss Cole professionally, but—and his face was rueful—had no reason to count himself a 

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