Gamblers Don't Win Read Online Free PDF Page A

hotel.
    He heard Spellman talking on the phone, then saw him cross the room and confer with the coroner’s man. Finally the detective captain turned around.
    â€œOkey! I guess you can go. Both Nancy Hobbs and the Baker dame say you were with them from ten-thirty until twelve, and Doc tells me that Jarney died around eleven, as near as he can judge, but listen, Bill. Why don’t you help a guy? Why do you always have to play dirty?”
    Lennox shrugged and turned towards the door. “See you in the morning.”
    â€œYou’d better.” Spellman’s voice followed him into the hall.
    Bill rode down in the elevator with the boy who had identified him, conscious of the lad’s curious glances and, crossing the lobby, stepped out to the sidewalk. As he climbed into a cab he looked around and saw Harker loafing just inside the doorway. He smiled grimly as he gave the driver his apartment address. Evidently Spellman wasn’t as satisfied as he had appeared. Lennox debated trying to throw the trailer off the track and decided against it. After all, it was hardly worthwhile.
    He settled back on the seat and stared at the rain-clouded windows. It was raining steadily now, not a pouring deluge, but a steady fall which slanted against the windshield. He closed his eyes and, leaning back, thought it over. The more he thought, the greater the puzzle grew. He decided that the girl had not killed Jarney, but he could not figure out the reason for her actions. He had assumed that she was in love with the rider, but certainly she had given no indication of it on finding his body. Grief, yes, surprise, but certainly not the grief of love. What then? Lennox gave it up as the cab stopped before his apartment hotel. He paid the driver and sprinted across the wet walk to the doorway.
    Here he paused for a moment and stared up the dark street to where another cab had stopped, halfway up the block. Harker would have a wet night for watching, he thought, as he went on to the desk and paused for a moment. “Listen, Tom. Will you do something for me?”
    The clerk said, eagerly, “Sure, Mr. Lennox. Anything.”
    â€œJust forget that phone call and number, will you? I don’t think they’ll bother, but the cops might be asking questions, and it would gum up a swell girl. You can take my word that there’s nothing to that call that—”
    The clerk winked, and Lennox turned towards the elevator. If the clerk wanted to think things, let him, as long as he kept his mouth shut.
6
    B ILL LENNOX was up and dressed, ready to go downtown, when the phone rang. He wondered if it were Betty Donovan, and hoped that it wasn’t. It might be possible that Spellman had got ambitious and put a man on the switchboard below. He crossed the room and picked up the instrument. A man’s voice said, “Is this Lennox, William Lennox?”
    Bill’s brows drew together. The voice sounded familiar. He had a good memory for voices, yet—He said: “Yeah. What is it?”
    The voice said: “This is a friendly tip to stick by your own racket. No one ever got hurt, playing his own game.”
    â€œI don’t get you.” Lennox wanted to keep the man talking, wanted a chance to listen, to place the voice.
    The man laughed shortly. “You’re a wise guy, Lennox. From what I hear, you come damn’ near running this town, but don’t try to run the race track. Someone might not like it. Someone might do something about it.”
    Lennox almost cried out with surprise. His mind had been groping, trying to connect the voice with something, and mention of the race track did it. He almost said, “Claude Custis,” and didn’t. Instead, he said, “I think that you must have made a mistake.”
    â€œNo mistakes,” Custis’s voice told him. “We don’t make mistakes. We bury them.” There was a click at the other end of the wire, and Lennox hung