One
was just in. A cab had crossed a sidewalk and crashed into a plate-glass
window. Its hydraulic brakes had failed. The trouble was a clean saw-cut
in a pressure-line. Fitzgerald went to find out about it. The cab driver
bitterly refused to answer any questions. He wouldn't even admit that he
was not insured by Big Jake against such accidents. Fitzgerald stormed.
The owner-driver firmly--and gloomily--refused to answer a question
about whether he'd been threatened if he didn't pay protection money.

Fitzgerald raged, on the sidewalk beside the cab in the act of being
extracted from the plate-glass window. An open-mouthed bystander
listened admiringly to his language. Then the detective's eyelid
twitched. It twitched again, violently. Something made him look up. An
employee of the plate-glass company--there were rumors that Big Jake was
interesting himself in plate-glass insurance besides cabs--wrenched
loose a certain spot. Fitzgerald grabbed the bystander and leaped. There
was a musical crash behind him. A tall section of the shattered glass
fell exactly where he had been standing. It could have been pure
accident. On the other hand--

He couldn't prove anything, but he had a queer feeling as he left the
scene of the crash. Back in his own car he felt chilly. Driving away,
presently, he felt his eyelid tentatively. He wasn't a nervous man.
Ordinarily his eyelids didn't twitch.

* * * * *

He went to investigate a second memo. It was a restaurant, and he edged
the police car gingerly into a lane beside the building. In the rear,
the odor of spilled beer filled the air. It would have been attractive
but for an admixture of gasoline fumes and the fact that it was mud. Mud
whose moisture-content is spilled beer has a peculiar smell all its own.

He got out of his car and gloomily asked the questions the memo called
for. He didn't need to. He could have written down all the answers in
advance. The restaurant now reporting vandalism had found big Jake's
brand of beer unpopular. It had twenty cases of a superior brew brought
in by motor-truck. It was stacked in a small building behind the cafe.
For one happy evening, the customers chose their own beer.

Now, next day, there were eighteen cases of smashed beer bottles. The
crime had been committed in the small hours. There were no clues. The
restaurant proprietor unconvincingly declared that he had no idea who'd
caused it. But he'd only