head, through the outer office and into the working area he
had not visited before. He burst through swinging doors into a
two-story, machinery-filled cleaning-and-dyeing plant. Tables and
garment racks and five separate people appeared as proper occupants of
the place. But something had happened. There was a flood of
liquid--detergent solution--flowing toward the open back doors of the
big room. It obviously came from a large carboy which had been smashed
as if to draw attention to some urgent matter.

The people in the room seemed to have frozen at their work, except that
Brink had apparently been interrupted in some supervisory task. He was
not working at any machine to clean, dye, dry, or press clothing. He
looked at the two individuals whom Fitzgerald had seen enter only
fractions of a minute earlier. His jaw clenched, and Fitzgerald was
close enough behind the bottle-breakers to see him take an angry,
purposeful step toward them. Then he checked himself very deliberately,
and put his hands in his pockets, and watched. After an instant he even
grinned at the two figures who had preceded the detective.

They were an impressive pair. They were dressed in well-pressed garments
of extravagantly fashionable cut. They wore expensive soft hats, tilted
to jaunty angles. Even from the rear, Fitzgerald knew that handkerchiefs
would show tastefully in the breast pockets of their coats. Their shoes
had been polished until they not only shone, but glittered. But by
professional instinct Fitzgerald noted one cauliflower ear, and the
barest fraction of a second later he saw a squat revolver being waved
negligently at the screaming women.

He reached for his service revolver. And things happened.

* * * * *

The situation was crystal-clear. Big Jake Connors was displeased with
Brink. In all the city whose rackets he was developing and
consolidating, Brink was the only man who resisted Big Jake's civic
enterprise--and got away with it! And nobody who runs rackets can permit
resistance. It is contagious. So Big Jake had ordered that Brink be
brought into line or else. The or else alternative had run into snags,
before, but it was being given a big new try.

There was the shrill high clamor of two women screaming at the tops of
their voices because revolvers were waved at them. One Elite employee,
at the pressing machine, took his foot off the treadle and steam
billowed wildly. Another man, at a g